Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices, #3)(25)

Then she moved closer to him, and the heel of her shoe caught on the carpet, and she was slipping to the floor, Gideon catching at her. They tumbled to the ground together, Sophie’s face flaming in embarrassment—dear God, he would think she had pulled him down on purpose, that she was some sort of wanton madwoman intent on passion. Her cap had fallen off, and her dark curls fell over her face. The rug was soft beneath her, and Gideon, above her, was whispering her name with concern. She turned her head aside, her cheeks still burning, and found herself gazing beneath his four-poster bed.

“Mr. Lightwood,” she said, raising herself up on her elbows. “Are those scones under your bed?”

Gideon froze, blinking, a rabbit cornered by hounds. “What?”

“There.” She pointed to the mounded dark shapes piled beneath the four-poster. “There is a veritable mountain of scones beneath your bed. What on earth?”

Gideon sat up, raking his hands through his tumbled hair as Sophie scrambled back away from him, her skirts rustling around her. “I …”

“You called for those scones. Nearly every day. You asked for them, Mr. Lightwood. Why would you do that if you didn’t want them?”

His cheeks darkened. “It was the only way I could think of to see you. You wouldn’t speak to me, wouldn’t listen when I tried to talk to you—”

“So you lied?” Seizing up her fallen cap, Sophie rose to her feet. “Do you have any idea how much work I have to do, Mr. Lightwood? Carrying coal and hot water, dusting, polishing, cleaning up after you and the others—and I don’t mind or complain, but how dare you make extra work for me, make me drag heavy trays up and down the stairs, just to bring you something you didn’t even want?”

Gideon scrambled to his feet, his clothes even more wrinkled now. “Forgive me,” he said. “I did not think.”

“No,” Sophie said, furiously tucking her hair up under her cap. “You lot never do, do you?”

And with that, she stalked from the room, leaving Gideon staring hopelessly after her.

“Nicely done, brother,” said Gabriel from the bed, blinking sleepy green eyes at Gideon.

Gideon threw a scone at him.

“Henry.” Charlotte moved across the floor of the crypt. The witchlight torches were burning so brightly it looked almost as if it were day, though she knew it was closer to midnight. Henry was hunched over the largest of the great wooden tables scattered about the center of the room. Something or other odious was burning in a beaker on another table, giving off great puffs of lavender smoke. A massive piece of paper, the sort butchers used to wrap their wares in, was spread across Henry’s table, and he was covering it with all sorts of mysterious ciphers and calculations, muttering to himself under his breath as he scribbled. “Henry, darling, aren’t you exhausted? You’ve been down here for hours.”

Henry started and looked up, pushing the spectacles he wore when he worked up into his gingery hair. “Charlotte!” He seemed astonished, if thrilled, to see her; only Henry, Charlotte thought dryly, would be astonished to see his own wife in their own home. “My angel. What are you doing down here? It’s freezing cold. It can’t be good for the baby.”

Charlotte laughed, but she didn’t object when Henry hurried over to her and gave her a gentle hug. Ever since he had found out they were going to have a child, he had been treating her like fine china. He pressed a kiss into the top of her hair now and drew back to study her face. “In fact, you look a little peaked. Perhaps rather than supper you should have Sophie bring you some strengthening beef tea in your room? I shall go and—”

“Henry. We decided not to have supper hours ago—everyone was brought sandwiches in their rooms. Jem is still too ill to eat, and the Lightwood boys too shaken up. And you know how Will is when Jem is unwell. And Tessa, too, of course. Really, the whole house is going all to pieces.”

“Sandwiches?” said Henry, who seemed to have seized on this as the substantive part of Charlotte’s speech, and was looking wistful.

Charlotte smiled. “There are some for you upstairs, Henry, if you can tear yourself away. I suppose I shouldn’t scold you—I’ve been going through Benedict’s journals, and quite fascinating they are—but what are you working on?”

“A portal,” said Henry eagerly. “A form of transport. Something that might conceivably whisk a Shadowhunter from one point of the globe to another in a matter of seconds. It was Mortmain’s rings that gave me the idea.”

Charlotte’s eyes were wide. “But Mortmain’s rings are assuredly dark magic… .”

“But this is not. Oh, and there is something else. Come. It is for Buford.”

Charlotte allowed her husband to take her wrist and draw her across the room. “I have told you a hundred times, Henry, no son of mine will ever be named Buford— By the Angel, is that a cradle?”

Henry beamed. “It is better than a cradle!” he announced, flinging his arm out to indicate the sturdy-looking wooden baby’s bed, hung between two poles that it might rock from side to side. Charlotte had to admit to herself it was quite a nice-looking piece of furniture. “It is a self-rocking cradle!”

“A what?” Charlotte asked faintly.

“Watch.” Proudly Henry stepped forward and pressed some sort of invisible button. The cradle began to rock gently from side to side.