Magnificent Devices 07 - A Lady of Integrity Read Online Free PDF Page A

side that my entire inner circle and I had left Carrick House defenseless. What then?”
    He was silent, the truth of the matter doing full battle with his need to help his brother.
    She pressed on. “Jake has myself, Alice, and Andrew to help him, and if Her Majesty responds to our plea, the resources of the government will be brought to bear as well. But what will the inhabitants of Carrick House have if you come with us?”
    Claire saw color flood into his face as he realized the truth of the situation. “But he’s my brother,” he said at last. “It’s my place.”
    “Your friends may stand in your place for you,” she said. “But no one can replace you here. You have been my second for four years while the girls and I were at school. Would Jake wish you to abandon your post to come to his aid if it meant endangering the defenseless in your own home?”
    Slowly, Snouts shook his head, and Claire took heart. “I give you my word, Stephen, that I will not come home without him, though it means I die in the attempt.”
    “Don’t say that, Lady.” His lips barely moved, he was struggling so hard not to reveal his emotion to her.
    “I mean every word. You protect and keep the ones I love, and I will do the same for your brother. Are we agreed? Is it a fair exchange?”
    After a moment, he nodded, and then did something so out of character she was left speechless with surprise. He reached out and hugged her. For a moment she felt his cheek against her own, burning hot with his emotion, before he pulled away and fled the room.
    Outside, she heard a murmur and realized that he had met Andrew at the top of the stairs.
    She braced herself. For she knew perfectly well that all the carefully reasoned arguments she had just given Snouts were about to be used on her.
     
    *
     
    Andrew rapped lightly on the door and when he heard Claire’s voice, stepped into her inner sanctum. From this room she ran what Andrew jokingly referred to as her empire—the airfield in Vauxhall Gardens, her investments in steam transportation, her patent registrations—and from which she maintained a lively correspondence with Lady Dunsmuir, Dr. Rosemary Craig, Dr. Frieda Schmetterling of the University of Bavaria, and a number of other women of singular intelligence and vision.
    The room, he understood, had once been her parents’ bedchamber, but now it was tastefully furnished with a mahogany desk and a smaller desk of teak, where Snouts and Lewis might work on matters concerning the Morton Glass Works and the Gaius Club and consult with Claire as often as needed. A few good landscapes by Cornish artists hung on walls painted a soothing pale yellow, with white wainscoting, and the windows overlooked the garden where Lewis’s hens pecked and hunted.
    Two of those happy individuals, Holly and Ivy, were usually to be found somewhere in Claire’s vicinity, but he supposed that with the lateness of the hour, they had gone to the walking coop that stood under the beech trees below.
    Andrew took his seat next to Claire on the sofa and searched her downcast face. “Having second thoughts, dearest?” he asked gently.
    “Second … and third … and probably fourth by morning.” She raised her gaze to meet his own. “But they all circle back to the most dreadful one. I cannot bear to think of Jake in prison. He is not the sort who will survive in such circumstances. His own temper at being unjustly accused will precipitate him into even greater peril—perhaps even mortal peril. I am afraid, Andrew, that if we do not act soon, we will have no reason to act at all.”
    He took her hand in both of his. “Her Majesty will not allow an English subject to be treated in such a fashion. Even the most humble of her subjects deserves the process of law to prove his innocence.”
    “But this was not a legal matter. It was a shanghai, and I cannot see Her Majesty bringing the force of our government to bear on criminals such as these. They will simply