Moonlight & Mechanicals Read Free Page A

Londoners too poor to employ air filters in their homes died of black lung, and other respiratory illnesses as if they were coal miners. Couldn’t the blighters in the Royal Society see the urgency of the problem or the elegance of the solution? Electrical power was the stuff of the future. Wink would stake her favorite wrench on it.
    Was their disinterest based upon not caring about the poor, or the other living things in the city? Or was it simply because the paper had been presented by a woman? Her gender had made great strides since Ada, Lady Lovelace, had turned the world on end by writing the code to operate Lord Babbage’s miraculous analytical engines, but most men still looked upon professional females as suspect and considered them lacking in intellect compared to their male counterparts.
    Bother.
    “At any rate, you’ve done what you can for today, planting some seeds if nothing else.” Tom shouted over the hiss and roar of the engine and other traffic. “Tomorrow, you can get back to working on what you’re actually being paid for.”
    Wink managed a grin. “You’re just saying that because you want me to install an analytical engine terminal in your office.” Despite society’s horror that a well-heeled lady would actually hold a paid position, Wink was employed as a technical consultant to the Order, and her current task was improving the system the Knights used to keep track of vampyres, magick wielders and other potential threats to the Empire. When she was done, all the desks in the building would be connected to one another and the enormous computing machine in the basement, forming a virtual network of information. Some day, she hoped to connect the Knights’ home machines as well—at least those in the Greater London area, possibly using the newly installed telephonic speaking wires that had begun to lace city streets as well as the countryside.
    At least the Order took her seriously. While they’d yet to admit a female Knight, the oldest and most hidebound institution in Britain now accepted female employees. It’s a start. The refrain was a familiar one in the Hadrian household. Move on from here. This afternoon, she had work to accomplish. Tonight she had to attend the Duchess of Trowbridge’s ball, which meant even larger hoops and a tighter corset.
    She stroked George’s shiny brass head and briefly wished she could return to Northumberland tonight with her parents. Her youngest siblings, Merrick’s and Caroline’s natural children, hadn’t come down from the country for her talk. She missed them. By morning she could be reading stories to her little sisters, Sylvia and Rose, who were seven and three, holding Vivienne, the newest baby, or playing soldiers with five-year-old Will. After that, she could hole up in the workshop her father had built her, tinkering with her latest designs. Either way, she could hide from the embarrassment of today’s debacle.
    Unfortunately, she had work to do here in London. She’d chosen to take a paid position, and now she had to cope with it. Bother. Sometimes being an adult wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
    * * *
    Inspector Liam McCullough stood in his superior’s office at Scotland Yard, frowning. “With all due respect, Superintendent, I don’t believe I’m the right officer for that particular task.” It had already been a long, annoying day, and he had work to catch up on after taking time off for Wink’s speech. He still regretted not being able to shove Eustace’s teeth down his throat.
    “Knew you’d say that.” Superintendent Jack Dugan, the man in charge of a small, select unit within the Yard, stroked his bushy mutton-chop whiskers and exchanged glances with the Duke of Trowbridge, another fifty-something gentleman with iron-gray hair and a tidy Van Dyke beard. “You owe me a bottle of French brandy, your grace.”
    “Hmmph. Not yet.” The duke’s eyes twinkled at Liam even while his face remained impassive. As head of