Margaret leaned against Charles’ chest, her tears wetting his waistcoat. As Charles smoothed loose hair away from her face, she took stock of her spoons and found she had none. Not a one. She was utterly spent and woefully depleted. Pain wreaked havoc on her every muscle, bone, tendon, and nerve ending. Even the feel of her clothing against her skin hurt, the fabric’s weight unnaturally heavy and suffocating. In this state, there was no way she could manage to make it back up the two flights of stairs to her Wheelicopter. At least ... not alone.
“Charles, my chair is in the belfry, but I don’t think I canwalk. Would you mind carrying me up the stairs?” Margaret bit her lip, awaiting his response and refusing to fill the silence with an apology for requiring help.
A smile softened the corners of his mouth with affection, sincere and intense. “I wouldn’t mind carrying you for the rest of my life, if you’ll let me, Reverie. Whenever yours are too weak, I’ll gladly be your wings.”
For the second time that day, Margaret was flying.
Held in loving arms, she soared higher than ever before.
Chapter
40
When Margaret reached the bottom of the clock tower, Charles was there. Scooping her out of the wheelchair. Carrying her weary frame outside into the cool night air and placing her within an awaiting carriage, where she was gently transferred into a second pair of arms, strong and safe.
“Papa!” The word broke through on a sob even as a smile lifted Margaret’s lips.
“Right-oh, my girl. I’m here.” Papa kissed the crown of her head, holding her aching body against his chest securely.
Another pair of arms latched onto Margaret’s legs, squeezing them three times. “Mama?”
“Yes, dear one, we’re both here.” The glow of streetlamps illumined Mama’s eyes as tears streamed down her face. “Praise God, every blessed one of us is here.”
“And somehow we all fit snuggly on the same cab seat.” Papa laughed.
Margaret grinned. “Mrs. Hackney’s carriage is rather spacious. And extremely comfortable.”
The door was closed, shutting out the streetlights, and Charles’ voice beckoned Mrs. Hackney to ride on to the Kingsley residence. With the clip-clop of hooves, the carriage set off, leaving Charles behind to mitigate the chaotic ruins of the anniversary gala while the Daughters of Genius Society attended to wrapping up Margaret’s first and hopefully final case as lead lady inspector. She’d rather had her fill of the strain and unpredictability of fieldwork. She was quite ready to retire to her beloved workshop and beyond ready to go home.
Papa placed another kiss on her cheek. “I’d hoped to arrive in time to warn you, but it took longer than I’d hoped to break my bonds after Harrison finally departed for the gala. Then it took me longer still to find my way out of that wretched tunnel system.”
“Did that man hurt you, Theodore?” Mama’s voice quavered.
“No, love. Harrison knew all he need do to coerce my cooperation was make threats against my girls. I’m fairly certain the threats were idle ones, but I wasn’t going to take any chances with your lives. Besides, once Harrison told me about the automaton soldier he was constructing, I realized how disastrous such a machine would be in the wrong hands. That it would very likely take more lives than it saved. I couldn’t risk him getting someone else with fewer scruples to do the work. Not when I could use the opportunity to alert my favorite lady inspector to his plans.”
Though Mrs. Hackney drove smoothly, every tiny jostle of the cab sparked blinding pain in Margaret’s body. She needed her parents to keep talking, to distract her with the comfort of their voices. She wet her lips. “Where did the secret passageway lead, Papa? We ... we searched all over and ... n-never could find the entrance.”
Papa chuckled. “You’re never going to believe this, Maggiegirl. I still don’t, and I’m the one who climbed the ladder of metal rungs bolted to one of the tunnel’s stone walls. As I ascended, the stone gave way to metal, and next thing I knew, I was in a cabinet of some sort with a latch on the inside. When I opened the door, I found myself facing a row of commodes!”
“No, not the gentlemen’s necessary!” Margaret couldn’t restrain her laughter even though her body protested vehemently. “That had to have been the one room—in the whole of the Invention Factory and Innovation Park grounds combined—that we didn’t search. I can’t believe, of all the lady inspectors, it didn’t cross a single one of our allegedly genius minds.”
“Well, in all fairness, Maggie girl, the sign on the door did sayGentlemen.”
Charles was rather anxious as he walked into the stark room, but come to think of it, this was his first time in a prison cell. Iron bars clanged shut, rattling his already frayed nerves. It had been a long, long night. Part of him had wanted to accept the chief’s offer of retiring to his bed, allowing her to handle this task, but the other part of him knew he’d regret not seeing his former employer one last time. He needed the closure of looking Mr. Harrison in the eye once more. And he wanted to be the one to offer the famous inventor, who’d never invented a thing in all his life, this unconventional opportunity to reinvent himself.
On a stone bench, Mr. Harrison was slumped over, head clasped in crepey hands.
Charles cleared his throat, and the sound echoed in the dank cell.
Mr. Harrison sat up with a start, remorse etched into every wrinkle on his face, which seemed to have aged another decade. His throat bobbed. “Did I hurt you and the girl badly,Noble? That night at the factory? I—I never meant for anyone to get hurt. When her chair crashed into my legs, I lost my balance. I was trying to steady myself at first. But, but then I panicked. I ... I panicked.”
While glad Mr. Harrison regretted his actions, Charles wasn’t going to shield the man from the consequence. “You did hurt us, Harrison. Not irrevocably, but badly enough.”
A tremor unsettled the elderly man’s jaw. “I am sorry for it. For hurting you, and for so many other things. This wasn’t how it was supposed to turn out.” Mr. Harrison folded back upon himself, shaking the head once again held in his hands. “It was supposed to help people. Help inventors the system would never approve. Back then ... when I returned to London and secured a position in the patent office’s applications department ... it was common practice to reject patents filed by women. It was assumed that the female mind was incapable of invention. But I knew they were being unfairly underestimated. Looked down upon and denied advantages. Like my ragtag gang of newsie mates and me. Poor orphans were assumed without minds at all.”
Charles ground his teeth. “Being wronged doesn’t excuse wronging others, Harrison. It doesn’t excuse theft.”
“It wasn’t theft. Not really. It was more like ... when the Dodgers formed a pyramid to access the baker’s window and reach the basket of stale loaves unsold at day’s end. The lad on top of the pyramid had every right to climb up his mates’ backs, so long as he shared the bread with those on the bottom. ‘Though I climb, we all rise.’ That was our motto.” Mr. Harrison straightened. “Don’t you see, Noble? In rescuing the stale bread destined for the bin, we put it to its intended purpose of feeding the hungry. In borrowing the inventors’ devices destined for the rejection pile, I put those gadgets to their intended purpose of improving peoples’ lives. Providing the inventors with an income.”
