The Watchmaker's Daughter (Glass and Steele #1)(4)

Rage surged through my body. I felt like I was burning with it, from the inside out. "What I am is the daughter and assistant of Elliot Steele, watchmaker."

"No, that is what you were. Now you're just…pathetic. Go away, India. Nobody wants you here."

I gritted my teeth and pulled myself free from the man holding me. To my surprise, he let go. I barged up to Eddie and slapped him across the cheek before he saw my hand coming.

Eddie reeled back, clutching the side of his face. He stared open-mouthed at me, his expression caught between fear and shock, as if I were a ghastly and strange creature. I suppose, in some ways, I was. I certainly didn't feel like myself at that moment. I felt…lighter, liberated, and yes, very strange indeed.

Mr. Glass cleared his throat. "Miss Steele?"

I smiled at him and his one-eyed servant. The coachman grinned back. "Yes, Mr. Glass?" I said.

"Would you mind joining me this afternoon in the tea room at Brown's Hotel?"

"Me?" My smile slipped off. I stared at him. "But…why?"

"Yes," Eddie muttered. "Why her?"

Mr. Glass ignored him. "To discuss your father."

I was trying to decide if it was unseemly to drink tea alone with a strange gentleman in a salubrious hotel, and if I cared about that sort of thing anymore, when Eddie took advantage of my silence. "I can tell you everything you wish to know about Elliot Steele. I knew him well."

"Oh, do shut up, Eddie." It seemed I'd thought of something to say after all. "I will join you for tea, Mr. Glass. Thank you."

The brown eyes briefly flared and a small smile touched his lips. It quickly vanished, however, and his jaw went rigid. The muscle bunched and did not release. It was as if he were bearing down against a pain. Unease ate at my gut. I didn't know this man, and he had a rather frightening looking servant, yet I'd agreed to drink tea with him. It would seem today was a day to do things that were out of character for me. I pushed my unease aside.

"We can discuss watches," I said to Mr. Glass, simply to see Eddie's face turn red with anger again. "If it's a hunter minute repeater you're after then there are many fine examples in the city. Much finer than here."

"They were your father's timepieces!" Eddie cried. "That watch is exquisite."

"The regulator pins stick and it loses five seconds every twelve hours. I was never able to fix it."

"You mean your father couldn't," Eddie said smugly.

"No, I mean I couldn't. I've been doing all the repair work for three years, ever since Father's sight deteriorated."

"Well then, now it's my turn to repair them. Elliot left me all his notes."

"They're three years out of date. My notes were not part of the inheritance." I spun on my heel, gave a nod to Mr. Glass and another to his servant, and said, "Shall we say three o'clock?"

"Perfect," Mr. Glass said with a smile that momentarily banished the tiredness from his eyes. "See you then."

I walked up the street, feeling as if the entire city watched me. I turned the corner and doubled back, just in time to see Mr. Glass being driven away. He removed his gloves and studied something in his hand. He closed his fingers around it, tipped his head back, and breathed deeply, as if he were finally getting the rest he craved.

It wasn't this behavior that set my pulse racing, however. It was the object in his fisted hand, and the bright purplish glow it emitted. A glow that infused his skin and disappeared up his sleeve.





Chapter 2





"You told me yesterday that you would pay me," Mrs. Bray, my landlady, said as she stood in the doorway to my room. "And the day before, and the day before that." She folded her arms beneath her large bosom, pushing them up so that they were in danger of choking her, and peered down the length of her narrow nose at me. "I'm not a charity, Miss Steele."

She certainly wasn't. She wanted the rent for the tiny attic room in advance and reminded me every day, when I failed to pay her, that I would have to vacate if I didn't come up with the money. I'd managed to keep the room through a combination of charm and pleading, but I didn't think that tactic would work much longer. Going by the unsympathetic scowl on her pinched face, her patience had worn out.

The truth was, I hadn't anticipated staying in her lodging house long after Eddie threw me out of my home above the shop the day my father was buried—the very day. I thought I would have secured myself employment as a shop assistant with either a watch or clockmaker by now. But I'd applied in person to every single one in the vicinity, and none had any positions available, although some expressed their sympathies for my plight. Unfortunately I couldn't eat sympathy or sleep on it. I needed to work. Hence my applications to other shopkeepers. So far, three haberdashers, two drapers, four greengrocers, and a chemist refused to employ me without references. I was utterly weary of hearing the word no.

"I understand, Mrs. Bray," I said, mustering some sweetness from God knew where, "but I just need one more day. I'm going to apply to be a governess."

She snorted. "That's a laugh."

"Pardon?"

She hiked up her bosom with her folded arms. "Toffs employ other toffs as governesses. You're only a shopkeeper's assistant."