Gossamer Wing Read Online Free PDF Page A

she had adored it as a child. The brass gleamed as bright now as it had then, a polish no mechanical means could ever accomplish quite as well as human hands wielding a soft rag and a simple compound of diatomaceous earth and naphtha. The gentle metallic clanking as the machine eased to a halt by her armchair was a sweet, soothing moment of auditory nostalgia.
    She poured, but left her own tea cooling in the cup as she waited for her father to speak again.
    “Political marriages are hardly uncommon even in these modern times,” he offered at last, only the taut whiteness about his mouth revealing the extent of his dissatisfaction. “I suppose I shouldn’t be too shocked that you’ve outdone me at my own game. You have grown cold, Charlotte, these past five years. Perhaps pretending to like the French will be easy compared to pretending to be a happy young bride.”
    She ignored the insult. “I will do both, difficult or not. Will you be the one talking to him, then?”
    She didn’t pretend not to know the target of the Agency’s plan. Her father’s plan. It would have insulted them both. She was far too much like her father, Charlotte often thought, for all she was a physical copy of her mother, Lavinia.
    “Yes. With your permission, I’ll visit his workshop tomorrow and speak with him.”
    “My permission?” Her gaze flew around the room, landing on the frescoed ceiling, on the bookshelf, on the tea cart—anywhere but her father’s face. She had no reasonable explanation for the embarrassment she could feel staining her face. “Isn’t this a fine mess? The father asks his daughter’s permission to go propose to a man she’s never met?”
    An interesting man. A man she had corresponded with for years, but with whom she had never truly
communicated
until that recent brief missive, jotted in a moment of frustration. Not another agent ordered on a mission, someone she could be polite and collegial with, but a person who would have his own unknowable motives for accepting such a dangerous charge from the Crown . . . if he did accept.
    “Would you like to accompany me?” her father asked, as if the thought genuinely hadn’t occurred to him until that moment. Perhaps it hadn’t, as he’d so obviously expected her to reject the mission once the new condition was revealed. He’d been right to expect that. Any sane woman would have rejected it. “Or even go in my stead?”
    “No.” She hoped she didn’t sound as abrupt as she felt. She wished she knew why her heart was racing. Charlotte lifted her teacup to her lips, finally taking a sip. “Tell him that the helmet is perfect.”
    “The new blue thingum with the outlandish eyepiece?”
    She nodded, and then thought a moment before adding, “Remember not to use his title. Apparently he doesn’t like it.”
    * * *
    DEXTER BELIEVED IN serendipity, believed in the importance and necessity of luck in his work. It was key to his sense of humility; he never took a moment of insight or an accidental discovery for granted. He worked hard, he reasoned through problems, he persevered, but sometimes it all came down to a combination of circumstances no one could control.
    At times his delight in the serendipitous was tested, however, and his ability to accept the guiding role of Fate severely strained.
    All Dexter could think of as he listened to Lord Darmont’s proposal with dawning comprehension and disbelief, was that it was a short step from embracing one’s fate to being Fortune’s fool. If he wasn’t careful, Fortune was just as apt to bugger him senseless and leave him for dead as she was to favor him. He wasn’t stupid. He knew what a fickle bitch Fortune could be.
    He wondered if Lady Moncrieffe might be an even worse one.
    “I can’t have understood you correctly, Lord Darmont,” he said after hearing the man through the first time. “I mean to say, I do want to provide any service I can to the Crown and the Commonwealth, and I’ve no great