The Steampunk Trilogy Read Online Free PDF Page B

Chuting-Payne possessed the athletic build of a Olympian. Impeccably attired, the master of vast ancestral estates at Carking Fardels, he had once been deemed the most handsome man of his generation. That had been before the duel he had fought with Baron Leopold von Schindler of Austria.
    One evening in the year 1798, the eighteen-year-old Chuting-Payne, only scion of his line, had been hosting a dinner for various ambassadors, in an attempt to further his political ambitions. Present had been his sovereign, the demented King George the Third. The Austrian Baron von Schindler, somewhat tipsy and of a fractious nature, had criticized with Teutonic wit Chuting-Payne’s wine list in front of the royal guest of honor. Humiliated beyond tolerance, Chuting-Payne had immediately challenged von Schindler to pistols at twenty paces.
    Von Schindler, revealing himself as coward and caitiff, had fired while Chuting-Payne was still turning, blowing off the man’s nose.
    Immense quantities of blood streaming down his face, Chuting-Payne had then calmly drilled von Schindler through the heart.
    The jewelry firm of Rundell, Bridge Rundell—the very makers of the new lightweight crown that was to be used in frail Victoria’s upcoming coronation—had been employed to melt down some family sterling and fashion a prosthetic silver nose to replace Chuting-Payne’s missing flesh one. They had exerted all their skill, and the resulting simulacrum was a marvel to behold. Affixed by gutta-percha adhesive, the nose was said to be capable of exciting the most jaded of women.
    But the attainment of a new nose was hardly the end of the affair. Pressed by the Austrians, King George had sworn out a warrant for Chuting-Payne’s arrest. The man had been forced to flee the country. As the tale went, he had ended up in India, in the Province of Mysore, still an independent nation at the time. Turning his back on his own country, Chuting-Payne had allied himself with the Maharaja of Mysore, Tippoo Sahib, and his French backers against the British. He had lived in Mysore for a year, until it fell to a joint attack by British and Mahratta troops.
    Escaping from the siege of Seringapatam, Chuting-Payne had then traveled among the other independent Indian nations—Sind, Rajputana, Punjab—until the death of George the Third in 1820. Somehow he had amassed a large enough fortune to bribe King George the Fourth to rescind the long-standing warrant against him. He had returned to his native land over a decade ago, a figure of enigmatic Oriental qualities, sunbrowned and distant, more wog than limey.
    Having been mistreated by Victoria’s ancestor, Chuting-Payne had conceived a stupendous hatred of their whole line. As Melbourne had intimated to Cowperthwait, the man would like nothing better than to involve the throne in any sort of scandal.
    “Mister Cowperthwait, I believe,” said the silver-nasaled nobleman, his voice imbued with queer resonances. “I don’t think we’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. My name I assume you know. Allow me to introduce my servant, Gunputty.”
    Gunputty bowed. Cowperthwait croaked out something. The bizarre pair completely unnerved him.
    “What brings you so far from your retorts and alembics, Mister Cowperthwait? Looking for more amphibious subjects among the slime? By the way, where is your creation lately? I’ve noticed her absence from de Mallet’s.”
    “She’s—I’ve—that is—”
    “No matter. She’s not the only unique lady missing. Or so my spies report.”
    “I—I don’t know what you mean. . . .”
    “Oh, really? I think differently. In fact, I believe we are both abroad in search of the same thing, Mister Cowperthwait. Lest the hoi polloi overhear, we’ll just call her ‘Vee’ among ourselves, shall we?”
    “You’re—you’re hallucinating.”
    “Far from it, Mister Cowperthwait. Although I must admit that your addlepated clodpoll of a servant, who appears the byblow of a New