She was finally forced to look at him, and he gazed at her as if in pain.
“Imogen,” he said, voice ragged as he stepped closer to her, his feet brushing the wide swing of her skirts. “Are you aware that I haven’t seen a woman this close in more than six years?”
“That seems excessive,” she murmured. “Are we such fierce creatures?”
He took another step, his knees denting her skirt. “Machines are so much easier to understand,” he said. “I can puzzle out whatever ails them. But people. So many intricacies, so many signals. It has been a long time since I’ve spoken with anyone but Vil or communicated with anything but a pen. You’re going to have to forgive me if I muck it up. I’ve lost the ways of niceties.”
She fumbled with her gloves, forced into confession by his pressing nearness. “I don’t know that I ever knew them. I was barely raised by my father, who seemed to think women were less interesting than spent egg sacks. I went to university just to spite him. I was the only woman there and, as such, had no time for anything but scholarship if I was to keep up with men who longed to watch me fail and professors who thought me a joke. I can’t even keep up with Emerlie’s chatter.”
He chuckled. “From what I can tell, no one can keep up with Emerlie.”
“And how would you know?”
He ran a hand through his hair and smoothed down his beard, but he wouldn’t quite meet her eyes. “I hear things from Vil, of course.”
“And?”
“And I devised a system for watching the caravan. It does get a bit boring in here, especially when I’ve burned a finger or otherwise injured myself and can’t work.”
“You simply must show me,” she said, as solemn as an owl.
The awkwardness fled, replaced by his mischievous smile as he led her to the workshop. There were two closed doors in the inner room, which she had assumed held a closet and a bathroom, much like her own chamber. He opened the one on the right, and it was indeed an emptied-out closet. The only thing within was a strange apparatus of pipes hanging from the ceiling and ending in a rigid set of brass goggles with well-worn leather cups.
“After hearing Criminy mention how handy the periscope was during a submarine adventure a few years ago, I decided to make my own.” He turned the goggles toward her with the vestige of a bow. “Have a look.”
Imogen moved past him with the fervor of a scientist approaching a new specimen, her skirts whispering against his trousers. He should have moved away to give her room, but instead, he leaned close as she set her eyes to the eyepieces.
“There are four different lenses, one pointing in each direction. The device also functions as a megaphone, so the carnivalleros don’t know they’re being watched.”
“Mesmerizing,” she murmured.
The drizzle had slowed, and just the smallest slice of sun peeked out through the clouds. She could see Emerlie trying to talk to the acrobats and failing, thanks to the language barrier or the twin girls’ particular cleverness in feigning one. The two-headed Bludman was sneaking around the wagon labeled Bolted Burlesque with a sack of something Imogen didn’t care to contemplate. In the circle behind the wagons, her view was blocked by a strange patchwork tent. And Criminy and Letitia stood together, arm-in-arm and whispering as they looked far off over the hills. She could see the faintest smudge moving through the high grasses but couldn’t discern the shape.
“Can I see more to the right, please? And magnified?”
“At your service, Madam.”
His arm brushed hers as he leaned forward to flick a switch and rotate a dial. The image jumped to a different view, then focused in. She gasped and pressed closer, straining against the leather.
“Coppers! On bludmares. Criminy and Letitia look worried.”
“Probably not half as worried as you look.”
She was shaking as she pulled back from the goggles. “Oh, heavens. What do we do?”
He nodded, looking determined. “The smart thing. We hide. Did you see dogs?”
“No. Just two men on horseback.”
“Then there’s a good chance we’ll muddle through.”
“But my trunk! The butterflies! They’ll be found.”
He set his hands on her shoulders, pinning her to the ground in a way that was strangely comforting. In the city, things were so big and busy and bustling, but she had known her place. Out in the country for the first time, she was dogged by a sense of her own small stature in the vast world. With no family, no money, and no husband, she was simply a misfortune waiting to happen. No matter how many times she forced herself to put her chin up and push through, she felt in that moment as tiny and hapless as a leaf on the wind.
“Trust me,” he said with a gentle smile.
She glanced at her trunk, which was pushed against the wall. He had stacked the pasteboard trunks of supplies from London on top of it, along with several piles of his own books. Imogen felt a brief moment of annoyance at his presumption, but it was quickly replaced with relief at the canny fortune afforded by his random mess. Perhaps the Coppers wouldn’t search his wagon at all, and if they did, there was a chance they would prefer to let the trunk go unopened rather than move hundreds of precariously teetering books.
A coded knock sounded at the door, making Imogen jump.
“Don’t worry yet. That’ll be Vil.” Mr. Murdoch ran to the door to whisper with Vil before returning to her side. “You’re right. They’re looking for you. We’re going to hide in a secret compartment. I’m going to go up first, and then I’ll help you ascend. How are you with small spaces?”
“Tolerable. I sometimes hid in the dumbwaiter as a child.”
“Fair enough.”
He squeezed sideways into the closet, past the goggles and into the darkness. “There aren’t any rungs, sadly. Too conspicuous. But I’ll do most of the work. Ready?”
His voice was muffled and yet echoing, and she tucked her skirts close as she slipped into the closet. It smelled of old wood and pipe smoke and just the faintest hint of the warm metal and oil musk she associated with his wagon.
“Up here.” She could barely see his hand hovering above her, bare and waiting for her own.
Imogen had never climbed a tree, never ridden a horse, never even enjoyed London’s notorious carousel. Her father had considered all such activities vexing to his schedule and unnecessary for the likes of a useless female. In fact, the only thing she had any history at all with climbing was the ladder in the library, and so she flicked back her skirts and set her foot onto a crosspiece. She reached up, and he caught her hand. She found another foothold, and bit by bit, they managed to wedge her and her voluminous skirts onto a narrow ledge hidden by the wagon’s apparently false ceiling. Imogen maneuvered until she was on her belly, pleased to find that although the space wasn’t tall, it seemed to cover the entire top of the wagon and therefore afforded considerable horizontal room to scoot away from Mr. Murdoch’s body.
Until the persistent man slid closer to whisper in her ear, that is.
“We must be completely silent, should they enter the wagon. There is but a thin layer of board between us and detection.”
Metal scraped on wood with a rustle of fabric below their perch, the sound of clothes on hangers shifting along the rail. The little sliver of light that had been shining in from the closet door was abruptly snuffed out as the door closed, and Imogen heard Vil’s footsteps tapping around the wagon.
“Will we be able to hear them, too?” she asked.
He leaned closer, his whisper ruffling the loose wisps of hair over her ear.
“Every word.”
She shifted, finding the position awkward. A woman’s required corset and skirts were ridiculous enough when one was reading or writing or dusting specimens in a museum. But climbing and grubbing about on one’s belly were both uncomfortable and rather awkward. At least her hat fit under the low roof . . .
But no. She gasped. Her hat, coat, and precious brooch were hanging on the coatrack below, in plain sight of the Coppers.
“My hat,” she squeaked, and he let out a low growl of frustration.
“Men don’t notice such things, and worrying won’t change it. Don’t dwell on it.”
Imogen sighed in resignation and tugged at her collar, feeling as if she were being choked with a man’s heavy hands and a lifetime’s worth of library dust.
He must have misinterpreted her distress, as he urgently whispered, “I’m sorry I can’t offer more comfortable accommodations. I hate to think of what the dust will do to your lovely dress.”
“It’s better than being caught.” She gulped, barely able to breathe. “You know as well as I do that I would be hanged for what I’ve done.”
He scooted even closer, his forearm lying on the wood boards alongside hers.
“You didn’t leave just for the chance to join the caravan. What are you really running from?”
Imogen didn’t know if it was the anonymity of the darkness or the forced physical intimacy or the warmth he radiated, but the words seemed to form themselves before she had even considered the question.
“My mother died when I was very young, and my father prized me somewhere between the aged parrot in the parlor and the stuffed bear in the front hall. Aside from one hour a day of rigid lessons, he rarely acknowledged me, offering no warmth or love. I think he actually considered me an experiment. If he came across a talking bludrat, he would have treated it no differently. I longed to impress him or, at the very least, to prove to him that I was worthwhile. I studied in secret after I had finished his assignments, won several certificates through correspondence school, and received an invitation to study at King’s College under the name John Bumble.”
“So Imogen Morpho isn’t your real name?”
She snorted. “You must be joking. Of course not. I was born Jane Bumble, the plainest, most solid of old London names. But in my most secret thoughts, I dreamed my name was Imogen and that I was destined for great things.”