The Marriage Machine Page 5

  Chapter Five

  Elspeth padded after Ramsay as he strode into the house. She assumed he would take her up to the huge bedchamber on the first floor, but he turned left before mounting the grand staircase.

  “Drink?” he asked. “I confess I need to transition before I can sleep.”

  “Thank you, I would like one.”

  He nodded and ushered her into what had once been the library off the main hall. The books had been confiscated long ago during the cleansing, leaving a bank of polished walnut shelves. Instead of books, the shelves displayed stuffed animals, trophies, and cut and polished stones.

  Ramsay headed toward a cabinet at the end of the library as Elspeth wandered to the center of the large and unnecessary room, taking in yet another aspect of the wealth of the Ramsay family. But her survey was cut short by a sharp rap behind her.

  She whirled around, shocked to see an ancient man in a wheelchair in the doorway. He looked like a skeleton dressed in a suit. His face was dotted with age spots, his ears were enormous in comparison to his waspish neck. But he still had an amazing head of white hair that floated in the air around his skull. This had to be Mark’s beloved great-grandfather. Before Elspeth could utter a greeting, he rapped the floor again with his cane and glowered.

  “Where the devil have you been?” he shouted. His wrinkled lips showed a surprising number of teeth in such an old human being.

  “Out wenching,” Mark replied. He strolled up beside Elspeth and offered her a glass of cut crystal. Then he leaned over and patted his great-grandfather on the shoulder. “Nothing to worry about, Gramps. Don’t overtax yourself.”

  “Overtax? Overtax?” the old man’s icy eyes blazed. “Your mother has been beside herself wondering where you are. I doubt she slept a wink. And who the devil is this?” He jabbed his cane at Elspeth.

  She had to steel herself to keep from stepping backward.

  “The wench I was wenching with.”

  Elspeth blushed scarlet. She was not accustomed to such confrontation or such language, especially with a member of the older generation. The ancient man’s blue regard raced over her. He snorted in contempt.

  “Don’t look like the wenching sort.”

  “I’m not,” Elspeth shot back, insulted by the old man’s rude behavior--and the young man’s as well. Had they lost their manners? No one had even introduced her.

  “I’m Elspeth Shutterhouse, mechanic.”

  “You don’t say,” the old man retorted. He cocked one brow and glared at her hands. “And what brings a mechanic to my house at the ungodly hour of six a.m.?”

  Elspeth noticed Mark taking a swig of his whisky, as if playing for time. Of course, he couldn’t divulge what they’d been doing for the past ten hours. Maybe he was having trouble coming up with an alibi.

  “Actually, your great-grandson came to my assistance.”

  “Oh?” the blue stare shifted to Ramsay. “In what way?”

  “He helped me escape from my indenture. I was apprenticed to a man who was very cruel to me. In fact he used me as a slave. I would never have got away, had it not been for Citizen Ramsay.”

  “Heroics? Mark?”

  Mark nodded and took another drink.

  “He found me on the road last night, running for my life. My master actually caught up with me, however, and dragged me back. It took Citizen Ramsay a good deal of time and trouble, but he freed me early this morning. And here I am.”

  The intense stare landed on her again. “And what does my great-grandson propose to do with you?”

  “Shutterhouse would make a good addition to the compound.”

  “Or anywhere else on the Outer Islands,” she put in, certain she would rather be free of the Ramsays if they were all as rude as this.

  “She’s a hard worker, Gramps. She’s careful.”

  “And how do you know such things?”

  “My boss told him.” Elspeth clutched her drink, hoping the old man would believe her tall tale. “That’s why he wanted me back so badly.”

  “How old are you, young lady?”

  She threw back her shoulders. “Twenty-five. And I have a good fifty-five years of work in me, at least.”

  “Hmph.” The bushy white brows lowered as the older Ramsay inspected her.

  “I don’t believe you’re a wench, but I don’t believe your story, either.”

  Elspeth paled, fearful that she might be thrown out on the street without a pass to the north.

  “That coat you’re wearing.” He pointed the tip of the cane at the long wool garment Elspeth still had on. “People think I’m deaf, blind and doddering in the bargain. But I recognize my granddaughter’s town coat when I see it.”

  “It was in the Flying Horse,” Ramsay put in. “Elspeth was cold. Frozen to the bone in fact.”

  “A likely tale, boy.”

  “I told Shutterhouse she could have safe passage north,” Mark put in. “We could use more citizens like her in the Outer Islands.”

  “And how do you expect that to occur?” the old man turned to stare up at his great-grandson. “Does she have papers?”

  “No. But surely you can get her through.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Because I made a promise to her.”

  Elspeth was highly conscious that Mark remained standing shoulder to shoulder with her, lending his support in the face of the older Ramsay’s censure. Still, Elspeth found herself holding her breath.

  Alexander Ramsay wrapped his gnarled fingers around the handle of his cane and scowled. “I don’t know what you two have been up to. But it’s high time you made your presence known to your mother, boy. Off with you.”

  Mark cupped Elspeth’s elbow. “Shutterhouse?” He urged her toward the door.

  “Not her,” Ramsay barked. “She stays. Let her finish her drink.”

  Elspeth knew she was doomed.

  Elspeth watched Mark leave the library. She sipped her drink, uncomfortable and worried. She could feel Alexander Ramsay staring at her.

  “The truth, young lady.” He squinted one of his eyes as he peered up at her. “I will have it. Now.”

  Something told Elspeth she would never leave this library and likely never leave Londo, unless she told the truth to the gentleman in the wheelchair—or at least a teeny, weenie version of the truth. She put her glass on a side table and slipped out of the luxurious wool coat.

  “I work for the SteamWizards.” She stepped closer so the old man could see her uniform.

  Ramsay shot a glance at the badge above her right breast.

  “I’m one of their top mechanics.”

  “You don’t say.”

  His scrutiny brought back the dogma from her childhood.

  Women are wrong if they think they are strong.

  Elspeth held herself as straight as possible.

  He sat back. “I could tell by your knuckles that you work with your hands.”

  She nodded. “I was called to make a repair, and that’s how I met your great-grandson.”

  “So your apprenticeship story was claptrap.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why the lie?”

  “Because Mark believes you are too fragile to handle the truth.”

  “The devil!” He stamped his cane on the ground. “What truth?”

  “He thinks you would not survive the shock should you discover the Marriage Machine needed to be repaired.”

  Ramsay’s jaw fell open, but that was the extent of any physical reaction on his part. He quickly recovered his composure. “Something went wrong with the machine?” he demanded.

  “Technically, no.” Elspeth took another step closer, warming to the crusty old man as she had warmed to his great-grandson. “It’s my opinion that the machine had been tampered with.”

  “Tampered with?” Ramsay bellowed. “No one would dare!”

  “But I fixed it. It was a simple repair. Probably caused during transport.”

  “I’ll have Davies’ he
ad!”

  “Sir, it was a simple puncture. It could have happened to anyone. Anytime.” She crossed her arms. “But the Marriage Machine is as good as new—unfortunately.”

  “What do you mean by that, young lady?”

  “I mean no disrespect, Citizen Ramsay. Your family’s invention may have saved the human race—”

  “There is no doubt that it did.”

  “And again, no disrespect.” She paused, hoping her words would not over excite the man and cause him to have a heart attack. But she didn’t think he was as frail as Mark had led her to believe. She sensed in him an indomitable physical being and an even more indomitable spirit—much like she hoped someone would see in her someday.

  She raised her chin. “I believe the Marriage Machine has seen its day.”

  “What?” he sputtered. “You have no idea what you are talking about.” Spittle flew from his wrinkled lips “What’s your name again?”

  “It’s Shutterhouse, sir.”

  “Shutterhouse, before my great-grandfather invented that machine, we were lucky to have a handful of births a year in Londo City. The damned radiation cloud had made everyone sterile.”

  “I am aware of that. But that was long ago. The world is changing.”

  “People’s reproductive organs were malfunctioning.”

  “I know. My great aunt told me all about it.”

  “You stand here today, Shutterhouse, because of the Marriage Machine. Without the machine, your own mother would never have realized the full bloom of womanhood.”

  “But as I have said, times are changing.” Elspeth pressed forward, wanting to be heard for once by someone who might be able to make a change, even though she suspected her philosophy would not only ostracize her from Londo society but from the Ramsay clan as well. “Women’s bodies are changing, citizen. But no one has the courage to speak out.”

  The wrinkles on his brow deepened. “What do you mean, women’s bodies are changing?”

  “Young women are reaching menarche on their own, without mechanical assistance. We are overcoming what the Grave Mistake did to us.”

  For a moment the old man gawked at her, as if he couldn’t make sense of her words. Then he shook off his shocked expressions.

  “You’re speaking nonsense.” Ramsay shook his cane in the air. “Whoever heard of such a thing?”

  “My cousin began bleeding at the age of twenty. My best friend at nineteen. And I myself have menstruated since I was twenty-two. But no one will come forward. They are too afraid of being labeled as freaks. They want to be selected for the Marriage Machine.”

  “And you don’t?” he stared at her.

  “No. Not when there are such side effects.”

  “Couldn’t be helped.” He cackled to himself. “And who wouldn’t want a woman that’s always happy to see you—is never upset by anything?”

  “Weren’t dogs bred for that?” Elspeth retorted, her voice cold. “And look what happened to them.”

  Ramsay stared up at her from under his bushy white brows.

  “I doubt your wife was a drone,” Elspeth remarked. “I bet she wasn’t a little brown mouse from Londo City, dumbed down and silly.”

  Ramsay’s watery eyes slanted away. For a moment he gazed at the wall of blank shelves as if looking back to earlier days, to the days the library had been full of books and perhaps a beautiful young woman who had loved him and at the same time challenged him. For a moment, he lapsed deep into thought.

  “I’m tired,” he snapped, without looking back at her. His shoulders seemed to have disappeared beneath the shell of his suit. “All this talk is wearisome.”

  “I’m sorry, but the truth is hard to take,” she said. “And change is even harder.”

  He glanced at her, and their eyes locked. For a moment she thought she had gotten through to him, and that he was going to say something. But then he broke off the stare and rapped his cane on the floor.

  “Mark!” he shouted. “Mark!” He scowled at her, as if he’d come to a decision. “I don’t know where you belong, young lady,” he exclaimed. “In a detention center or an insane asylum.”

  Elspeth sucked in a breath, damning her faulty judgment in having said too much to the wrong person.

  “But I can assure you, Shutterhouse, that you will not leave this house until the Overseers have been notified.”

  “Please do not betray me,” she begged.

  He frowned, pursing his lips over his prominent teeth as he regarded her with his watery but sharp regard. “I have no choice. It was high-handed know-it-alls like you who caused all the trouble in the first place. It appears that you have learned nothing from history.”

  She had, but not from the history the Overseers had fed them.

  Elspeth swallowed and glanced around the room. She was trapped for certain if she didn’t take a move before Mark returned.

  She dashed around the old man in his wheelchair.

  “Where are you going, young lady?” Ramsay shouted. “Come back here!”

  Elspeth sprinted down the hall, ran past the stairs and yanked open the front door of the townhouse. She fled across the street to Scotland Yard and plunged into a grove of yews, just as the first flakes of snow began to fall.