The Marriage Machine Read online

Chapter Six

  Elspeth sat on the hard bench of her cell, a piece of paper in her hand, and her stomach churning with anger. After being pursued through Londo City like a dog, she had been captured two days later and thrown into the detention center near her aunt’s house. Wet, cold, and exhausted, she had been dragged into the same cell as before. They hadn’t given her dry clothing or shoes and had left her to suffer the cold and to reflect on her transgressions. Hours later, an agent of the Overseers had delivered their decision.

  The document in her hand ordered her—on the pain of death—to attend her wedding ceremony. She would be transported there by two guards, who would make sure she did not run away. Her aunt would be allowed to bring her a dress for the occasion, but that is all the contact she would have with her family until after the ceremony. They deemed the marriage punishment enough for her rebellious behavior—and they were right. Tying her to a man was the worst prison sentence she could imagine.

  Elspeth’s dinner sat untouched on a tray on the small table near the wall. She had no appetite, both for the food and for the day to come. She would be married at Boswellian Bower tomorrow afternoon at 4:00.

  She sat there, tired, angry and frustrated, and barely took notice when two people approached her cell. If more agents had come to preach to her, she would cover her ears, curl up against the wall, and refuse to recognize their presence.

  “Shutterhouse,” a familiar voice called.

  Shivering, Elspeth raised her head, shocked to see Mark Ramsay approach the other side of the bars. Words fled. She couldn’t even utter a greeting. He was dressed in his usual black traveling coat, unbuttoned now, and displaying black and white eveningwear, set off by a white cravat tied at his throat. His family must be celebrating his brother’s wedding by going out for the evening—a rare occasion for anyone these days. He must have come to mock her or upbraid her for disturbing his great-grandfather. Why else the thunder in his expression?

  “Why hasn’t this woman been given dry clothes?” Ramsay bellowed, glaring down at the guard.

  “It was what the warden ordered.”

  “Get her clean things at once!” Ramsay pointed at the corridor behind him. “A blanket as well. And make it quick.”

  “I can’t leave you here alone with her.”

  “You’ve searched me. I pose no threat. I’m only here to speak to her. Now off with you, before I report such inhumane treatment to the detention commissioner.”

  The guard scurried away as Elspeth rose, grateful for Mark’s intercession but surprised to see him all the same.

  “Good Lloyd,” he grasped the bars and stared down at her. “Look what you’ve got yourself into, Shutterhouse.”

  “The worst is yet to come.”

  “You should have let me handle it.”

  “Why?” she retorted. “You have only one thought, to protect that infernal Marriage Machine.”

  “You should never have told my great-grandfather the truth.”

  “Someone needed to.” She clutched the bars. “Someone has to speak out. If your great-grandfather is the custodian of that machine, maybe the Overseers will listen to him.”

  “It doesn’t necessarily work that way.” Mark wrapped his warm fingers around her cold ones. She tried to snatch her hands away, but he held her fast.

  “How does it work then?” she retorted. She had nothing more to lose. She might as well speak her mind. “Who does have the ear of the bloody all-powerful Overseers?”

  “No one.” His voice held no reproach. Only gentleness. She had to force herself not to break down in tears. “Unfortunately.”

  He stared down at her and did not chide her for being a fool, as everyone else had. She paused, suddenly wondering why he had actually visited, if not to berate her.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you had received a silver envelope?” he asked.

  “You know the rules—no talk of envelopes outside the family.”

  “So you follow some rules and not others?”

  She glared at him, still trying to get away, but fighting an entirely different battle on an internal level. Though it made no sense, she was glad to see Mark Ramsay. His outrage at her predicament had warmed her on the inside, just as his hands were warming her frozen fingers. His looming bulk was a like a bastion of strength between her and a world that had spun out of control. But worse, when he touched her and looked down at her with concern darkening his unusual eyes, her heart pattered in erratic leaps of elation.

  Her breath caught in her throat. He seemed to notice, and for a moment he stared down at her lips. She thought he was going to kiss her. She ached to be kissed by him. She had never felt such a compulsion in her life. As she stood there, her hands surrounded by his big paws, she realized that she felt closer to Mark Ramsay than she had to anyone in her entire life.

  But with the revelation came a bittersweet irony. This was one man she might be able to live with and not chafe at the bindings of matrimony—even without the Marriage Machine. But Mark was not destined to be part of her future.

  “I’m told you are to be married tomorrow in fact,” he continued.

  “It hasn’t escaped my notice,” she replied. “Or anyone else’s, it seems.”

  “A damnable situation.” His voice rumbled with repressed emotion, and she glanced up at him, shocked. His grip tightened.

  “Elspeth, it can make little difference if I speak my mind, but I—” He studied her face, and then seemed to think better of what he was about to say. He let his words fall to nothing and sighed.

  “Why the sudden holding back?” She studied his face, wondering at his odd behavior. “You’ve been frank with me up until now. What are you hiding?”

  “Some things are better left unspoken.” He clamped his jaw tightly. She could see a muscle work on the left side of his face. “Forgive me. I forget myself.”

  “Mark,” she jiggled her hands under his, trying to make her point, and trying to rattle him to his senses. “I’m to be married tomorrow. I’ll never be the same. I’ll never desire the things that I want so badly today. I’ll be just a shadow of myself. Tell me what’s on your mind.”

  He looked down and shook his head.

  “It’s not for the best,” she continued earnestly. “Getting married in that machine. Maybe at one time it was. But it’s no longer right or necessary that a woman lose herself for the greater good.” She pressed her face to the bars until her nose nearly touched the cravat at his throat. “Please, Mark, can’t you get me out of here? Just let me run?”

  “You can’t live outside society, El.”

  “I could!”

  “It will be just another prison sentence. It’s not the solution.”

  Elspeth leaned her forehead against the cold bars and fought back tears.

  Ramsay’s coat rustled as he stepped closer. “Perhaps it will be best if the fire in you is doused, El. You could burn for the rest of your days, if life is not what you want it to be—if you aren’t with the right man.”

  “I would rather burn than bow.”

  “Don’t say that.” He glanced sharply at her. “Don’t do anything drastic, Elspeth. Don’t make a martyr of yourself.”

  “Better a martyr than a matron.”

  “You might get part of what you desire in life. But not everything. That’s the way life is.” He squeezed her hands. “Promise me you won’t try to escape. That you won’t do anything rash.”

  “Why?” she asked, puzzled by his cryptic words.

  A door slammed behind him. She could hear the clump, clump of the guard as he walked toward her cell.

  “Listen to me.” Ramsay reached through the bars and cupped her cheek with one of his callused hands. “Don’t fight this, Elspeth. You cannot win like this. Trust me.”

  “Trust you?” she repeated, accustomed to using sarcasm when speaking to him. She began to retort that she trusted no one, least of all him. But the words died on her lips. She did trust Mark Ramsay. Deep in her heart
, she trusted him implicitly.

  His eyes locked with hers, and for a long moment, she experienced a communion with him that she had never shared with another human being. The gaze was much deeper than a kiss and far more intimate.

  “Citizen Ramsay,” the guard barked. “Please step aside.”

  “Don’t despair,” Mark urged, his voice raspy. His thumb caressed her cheek as he drew his hand away and stepped back. “Don’t fight it.”

  “Visitation hours are over,” the guard said, pulling out his key. “You’ve had all the time you’re going to get, citizen.”

  “Very well, I’m going,” Ramsay growled. He glanced over the head of the guard. “I shall see you tomorrow, Shutterhouse, at the bower. Try to rest.”

  Elspeth tried not to despair. She did her best to keep her fighting spirit alive. Even so, by two in the afternoon on the day of her wedding, she felt as if she were headed for the guillotine. They had allowed her to keep her pocket watch this time, and she had monitored the minutes as they raced past noon. Soon she could no longer put off the inevitable. She had to get ready for the ceremony. They were coming for her at three.

  Although Elspeth didn’t care what she might look like at the bower, she didn’t want to embarrass her aunt and cousin by showing up in her SteamWizards uniform with her hair wrapped in its workaday bun. Her relatives would never hear the end of it.

  The guard had given her a basin of cold water and a cloth with which to wash herself, a coarse towel, and a brush for her hair. Aunt Fi had delivered her gown and slippers, but had been prohibited from visiting her. Her aunt had probably never imagined she would spend the wedding day apart from her niece, and was most likely weeping inconsolably. Elspeth felt like weeping too, but she would never let a single teardrop fall. The Overseers would love to see her cry, and she would never give them the pleasure.

  Elspeth lathered her grease-stained hands, careful not to brush her tender knuckles. As she scrubbed her nails, she thought of the hours she had worked with Mark Ramsay, and the silent camaraderie they had shared. She thought of him standing beside her while his great-grandfather quizzed them and never once betraying her. She had known plenty of men as colleagues, but she had never allowed a male to get close enough to truly get to know her. Only Mark Ramsay had been privy to her thoughts and schemes. It was such a waste to lose that closeness.

  Still, she’d only known him a matter of days. It wasn’t as if a huge portion of her life were going to fall away—even though it felt like it today.

  She decided to stop tormenting herself with thoughts of Mark Ramsay and concentrate on her toilette. Hiding her nakedness as best she could, Elspeth bathed portions of herself at a time. She wished she had been given a razor to shave her legs and underarms. She didn’t know much about what went on after a marriage ceremony, but she had heard that most women shaved their entire bodies in preparation for the wedding night. Her spouse would be forced to deal with her natural body. Too bad for him.

  The thought that the man might have to suffer a little in return cheered her a bit. But she still felt the looming guillotine blade poised above her maidenhood. She knew most women would laugh at her for feeling such desperation, especially since she was to be married on the holiday and to a man that was probably in a lofty position. Who knows, she could even be marrying Mark Ramsay’s brother, Thomas. But that thought plunged her even deeper into despair. How would she ever endure a life married to one brother while she longed for the company of the other? Perhaps the Marriage Machine would wipe her memory clean of her feelings for Mark. She could only hope it would.

  The future is for times ahead, not for the present hours’ dread.

  Elspeth smiled grimly as she splashed cold water over her face.

  Finally, a shred of dogma that proved useful. Or maybe it was the harbinger of her downward spiral. Dogma was starting to make sense.

  After she finished washing herself, she dragged on her underclothes and dropped her only good dress over her shoulders. She felt her spirits sink as the black silk settled around her ankles. It was really going to happen. She was going to step inside the Marriage Machine. She was going to become some man’s wife.

  At three, the guards came for her. They took her elbows and guided her down the dark corridor to the wagon just outside the back door of the detention center. She tried to get a glimpse of the outdoors, but they forced her head down and shackled her in the windowless cab in back. One of the guards sat across from her, tapping his enforcement stick on his knees and glaring at her, as if he expected her to lunge forward and attack him. He didn’t say a single word to her on the ride to Boswellian Bower.

  Because she was a criminal, she was ushered into a side door of the building and dragged through the dark to the left wing of the stage. When her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she discovered that she stood with four other young ladies, all dressed in long gowns. One had gloves on. One had pulled her hair back with simple combs. Another wore a small gold bracelet around her wrist. One had even stained her lips and cheeks with cosmetics. Such luxuries were allowed once in a lifetime. Only Elspeth stood unadorned, with her ash-colored hair hanging to her waist.

  “Happy C-Day,” the gloved young woman whispered to her.

  “And to you,” Elspeth replied. “What is going on?”

  “The last group just finished. We’re next.”

  “Is there any kind of order?”

  “There was a number on your card. Didn’t you notice?”

  Elspeth had only looked at the address and time of day. “I confess I didn’t.”

  “Well, I’m number twenty,” the girl said, peering past the curtain into the crowd. “And I’m on pins and needles. Someone said the Ramsay family is here.”

  “I believe they are.” Elspeth strained to look over the other woman’s shoulder. The auditorium was dark. All she could see was a room full of white faces in a sea of black staring up at the stage. “I’ve heard Thomas Ramsay is to be married today.”

  “One of us may be marrying a Ramsay?” whispered the young lady with the combs. She crowded in to look. Even in the dim light, Elspeth could see her eyes sparkling with eagerness. “Where are they? I’ve never seen any of the Ramsays.”

  Elspeth scanned the crowd, and caught sight of a wheelchair rolled against the left wall of the auditorium. Surely the Ramsay family would have the best seats. She surveyed the front row until she spotted ancient Alexander Ramsay. Sitting beside him was a tall black-haired woman with a regal air about her. That had to be Mark’s mother. And there he was, just getting up from his seat in the center of the first row. Mark Ramsay was attired in a crisp black suit with tails and slender trousers. The tight-fitting cut of the jacket accentuated his wide shoulders and slender waist. His great-grandfather was issuing some kind of command—probably to order Mark to make sure all went well behind the scenes.

  A chill washed over Elspeth. She had better get behind the scenes herself and quick. Her escape window was closing with every passing minute. She swallowed and glanced at the guard. He stood between the Marriage Machine and the far wall. The other guard stood directly behind her, within arm’s reach. To escape, she would either have to run into full view of the crowd or push the guard behind her out of the way. Manhandling the guard seemed an unlikely choice.

  Sweat broke out at her hairline as Citizen Davies, the master of ceremonies, padded across to the ladies and softly called out a number. The woman with the bracelet sucked in her breath and flashed a smile at her comrades before she swept out on stage. Applause heralded her appearance as a young man joined her from the other side. Citizen Davies ushered them up the step and through the door of the machine. Their vows were spoken privately inside the bower as a string quartet played for the crowd and the ruby worked its magic.

  Elspeth’s heart pounded so hard, she thought it might burst from her chest. Time was running out. Soon, she would have to make her choice to stay or escape. There really was no choice. Even though Mark Ramsay had told
her not to do anything rash, she had to run.

  After the couple had spoken their vows, they were taken to the edge of the stage and announced as man and wife. They shared a brief kiss while everyone cheered. Then together, they walked down the steps to the waiting arms of their newly conjoined families. Davies turned to his podium and looked down at his roster. He walked to the gentlemen in the wings and then approached the women. Elspeth could hear the floorboards creak with each step he took.

  “Number 16,” he called.

  “That’s me,” the woman with the painted lips squealed. She minced into the light, blinking and touching her hair.

  Elspeth moved forward to the edge of the curtain and tried to calculate the steps it would take to dash across the stage and get to the exit sign on the other side. Surely no more guards were stationed where the men stood in the shadows. She gathered up her skirts in her sweating hands.

  But then she saw him.

  Mark Ramsay walked onto the stage, holding out his hand to the woman with the painted lips. The instant Elspeth spotted him, all thoughts of running vanished from her mind. All she could see was handsome Mark Ramsay’s fingers entwining with the young lady in front of him. He was going to marry the painted woman. In a matter of minutes, those red lips were going to press into the wide, masculine mouth she wanted for herself.

  It was that moment that Elspeth realized a bone-shattering truth. She had fallen in love with Mark Ramsay.

  “No!” Elspeth groaned, waylaid by anguish. The wads of fabric slipped from her hands. She could not believe how her heart was breaking at the prospect of Mark being joined to someone else. How could he have kept his upcoming nuptials a secret like this? He had been scheduled for marriage on the same day as she, and he had never mentioned it. Perhaps that was what he had begun to tell her yesterday at the detention center. Perhaps he had wanted to warn her, but had guessed the news might cause her distress.

  “No!” she breathed again, bringing her injured knuckles to her lips. “Mark, no!”

  The tears she had vowed not to spill welled in her eyes. Mark’s tall figure, so commanding in his dark suit, wavered before her as he turned for the steps of the Marriage Machine. In moments he would belong to someone else for the rest of his life. She had thought her own marriage would be the worst thing imaginable. But it paled to nothingness in comparison to what she felt about Mark Ramsay’s.

  The door closed behind the couple.

  “Wait!” Elspeth cried. She dashed headlong onto the stage, her arms wide, her head reeling. “Stop the ceremony! Stop it. You have to stop it!”

  “Citizen!” Davies turned toward her, his face contorted with shock.

  She grabbed the handle of the Marriage Machine door and rattled it. “Mark!” she cried.

  “Contain that woman at once!” a voice yelled from the audience.

  “Young lady.” The master of ceremonies grabbed her arm. Wildly, she turned to face him. “Oh, it’s you, Shutterhouse.”

  “Stop this ceremony, Davies,” she exclaimed. “You have to stop it.”

  The crowd jumped to its feet.

  “Come away,” he urged. “Before you cause a scene.”

  “No!” Elspeth shrieked. Something had cracked inside her. She had lost control. The sight of Mark Ramsay touching another woman had completely undone her.

  She yanked open the door of the Marriage Machine.

  “Contain that citizen!” someone shouted. From the sides of the stage, the guards came running, their clubs held high. For a moment, she thought they were going to beat her into submission. They grabbed her and pulled her back from the bower. Men surged onto the stage, jostling her to the side. Women were gasping and chattering as Elspeth was dragged to the wings of the stage where the grooms had awaited their brides. People pressed all around her. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. All she knew was she had to get away.

  Then she heard a familiar voice bellow. “Gramps!” Someone rushed by her and vaulted off the stage.

  Elspeth wiped her eyes and peered at the crowd as she saw Mark kneel down in front of his great-grandfather. All Elspeth could glimpse through the melee was the old man’s hands hanging over the sides of his chair, as if he had collapsed.

  “Someone call a doctor!” a woman shrieked.

  Elspeth felt the blood drain from her face.

  In that moment, she saw the events of her life turning back on her in a black wave. Seemingly compatible marriages had never killed anyone. But her refusal to comply with the rules had possibly killed old Alexander Ramsay, and most likely alienated Mark from her forever.