 
The Lamplighter's Love

By Delphine Dryden

Delphine Dryden

http://www.delphinedryden.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The Lamplighter's Love

Copyright © 2011 by Delphine Dryden

Editor: Kelli Collins

Cover art by Delphine Dryden

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, and where permitted by law. Reviewers may quote brief passages in a review. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact the author at www.delphinedryden.com/contact.

Second edition

December, 2014

(This book was previously published by Ellora's Cave in September 2011).

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# About The Lamplighter's Love

Mary has trained for years to become the next Lamplighter of London. When her chance comes, however, she realizes the massive difference engines of the Lampworkers' guild would be a cold substitute indeed for the passion she's begun to explore with the current Lamplighter, Nicholas.

But Fate, it seems, is determined to separate them. A rival threatens to upset all Mary's hopes and dreams within the guild, and with her newfound love. Even as snow blankets London in readiness for Christmas, intrigue blazes in the secret labyrinths of the Lampworkers' guild below.

Through bitter deception and scorching erotic discovery, Mary and Nicholas must find a way to shine a light on a new future—one they can spend together.

# Chapter One

##

It was not quite cold enough at the bottom of the shaft for her breath to show as vapor, and that was the best Mary could say for the climate in the Lamplighter's domain. But it had to be cold. That was the point, why it must be buried so deep below the streets of London. Because the engines ran so hot, down in the cavern where the Lamplighter plied his trade.

So familiar, after so many years. The chatter of keys and gears, the constant motion of rods moving up and down over the exposed workings of the four great engines. The soft hiss of steam and hydraulics as the machines dispersed their printed messages up the tubes that ran throughout the Lampworks. The crisp, acrid odor of lubricant.

And in the center of it all there stood the Chair, and in it sat the Lamplighter. Both of his hands were secured in a framework of leather and metal, fingers extended to multiple tiny, felted hammers that stayed in constant motion, tapping over a dizzying array of ivory keys more rapidly than any mere human could ever do unaided. She had seen the Lamplighter work so fast those hammers blurred into invisibility.

"I'm here," she announced, knowing he could not see her from within the framework of mirrored viewing panels surrounding his head.

"Two minutes," he replied softly, haltingly. "The bridge is up at Northampton." He was still distracted by the work around him, all the various calculations for which he was responsible. Not just the lamps, although initially the post was created for that purpose. The first engine had run the city's gas lamps, but had worked strictly on a timing mechanism.

The first true Lamplighter had been needed when the traffic lights were added, when it became clear that more precise calculations and oversight were needed throughout the course of each day to avoid accidents between carriages and the new steamcars.

"I'll just set out the food."

"It'll only get cold. Leave it covered."

Now there were the street and traffic lights, the synchronized chiming of the city's great clock towers, the drawbridges and factory whistles and endless other systems. And all this was overseen by the Lamplighter. There were others who performed similar tasks throughout the country, of course. But only the one in London was _the_ Lamplighter.

_Nicholas_ , she reminded herself. He liked to be called by his name. So few used it, so few even knew it.

"And with that, the noontide is upon us, Mary."

She grinned, flushing with anticipation as she rushed to his side. The sound continued all around them, the engines still ran and marked time and did impossible calculations at inhuman speed and sent missives that would be relayed to the farthest reaches of the city within minutes. But for this hour, the Lamplighter took his ease. It would be one of only two rest periods for him between dawn and midnight, one of his few chances to speak with another human being in person. For years, Mary had been that person. And what had started as a relationship between master and apprentice had transformed, over the years, into a rare friendship.

"Are you sore?" she asked. She had already started on the straps that held his arms in place, whipping the tails free of their buckles with practiced efficiency. She could do this part blindfolded, if she had to.

"Not today. It must not be too cold outside." Even as deep as they were, the

Lamplighter often found himself reacting to the weather outside, particularly finding that his joints ached more readily during the winter months.

Mary laughed, the sound quickly lost among the machinery. "It's freezing. It snowed yesterday."

"Snow, really? I can't remember the last time I saw snow."

Probably close to the last time he'd seen the sun, Mary thought. The Lamplighter's skin was almost as white as the snow he couldn't recall. His schedule, over the years of his tenure, hadn't even allowed him time to see the sun. He worked all through the daylight hours, each and every day. For almost a third of his life, he had immersed himself in this unique service to his guild, his city and his country.

Mary had never asked him if he thought the rewards of the position were worth the sacrifice. At nineteen, she was still learning to imagine her own life ten years into the future. She might come to regret her choices, she might not. Today, she only wondered whether she would miss the snow if she went so long without seeing it or feeling it on her face.

A trip to the privy, a lengthy stretch of his limbs, usually restored the Lamplighter to something like himself. Mary stood at the table awaiting his return, fingers drumming a pattern that echoed the clatter of the engines.

"Are you ready?" His voice made her jump. He was standing right at her shoulder.

She looked at him, surprised she was nearly on eye level with him now. When she had started at the guild hall she had been so young, just twelve. He had seemed old beyond years to her then, his face youthful but his knowledge infinite.

Now she knew his limits, and his age too. Twenty-nine. His career was almost at an end. No Lamplighter worked longer than ten years, it was impossible.

"Of course. Don't you want me to lay the table for you?" She enjoyed that small domesticity, a pretty reminder of the life she had not chosen. Her mother had taught her to set a table, of course. But she'd had little use for the knowledge at the Lampworks.

"Leave it." He pressed his fingers to the small of her back, gesturing toward the Chair, and Mary felt a shiver run through her from that point of contact. "I'll get it this time."

Nicholas seated her and stepped in close, but stood in front of the Chair instead of beside it as Mary usually did. He seemed in a contemplative mood. Mary tried to read his expression, but the sharp light from the bulb hanging over the mirrored viewing array cast a shadow over his eyes. His hair, she noted, was getting too long again. It fell in his face, black as night and limp from the dankness of the cavern, stark against his pallor. Her own light-brown locks would never be so striking, she knew, even if she were to grow that pale over the years of her service.

"Coat, please. You know the gloves won't fit properly otherwise."

Sighing, Mary unbuttoned the short, fitted canvas coat that all guild masters wore when not in coveralls, and handed it to Nicholas. She remembered, as always, the first time she had removed it for him after taking her master's pin several months earlier.

The first time instead of the usual coarse shirt and vest, Nicholas saw the lace-edged chemise and corset beneath her newly adult, newly feminine uniform.

The established convention was that apprentices and journeymen were as good as genderless. They might live in separate dormitories but, on the job, all were equal and the only currencies were hard work and merit. All wore the same uniform; all were given the same opportunities. If it was an artificial environment, it was at least a ruthlessly fair one. That stopped, however, at the door of the guild hall for the girls and it ended when they graduated from apprentice to master. Masters went out in public as representatives of the Guild of Lampworkers, after all, some of them even resuming their inherited places in society upon earning their masters' pins. Though the guild liked to style itself as progressive, the world at large was still far less so. People might tolerate the sight of an occasional young girl in trousers and tunic, but a woman grown must bow to propriety outside the hall. For the female masters, that meant corsets and skirts at the very least.

Mary had found, to her surprise, that she rather enjoyed her new wardrobe. The unexpected touches of luxury, the whisper of soft fabrics against her skin, were delightful after years of harsh broadcloth, canvas and woolen. And she found she also rather enjoyed the look on the Lamplighter's face when she took off her jacket each day.

They had shared a moment, upon that first unveiling. A palpable thickening of time and possibility as she considered explaining herself but did not, and he seemed to ponder remarking upon the situation but did not. And then the air had cleared, he had moved to secure her within the Chair as usual while he took his lunch, and neither of them had said a word about it.

It was then she realized, for the first time, her assignment as the Lamplighter's dinner server and noontime relief was not an accident of her youth or standing. The guild might be progressive, but they would never have allowed her to come down to the engine room unchaperoned all this time without a good reason. Her world shifted with the realization of what it meant to be left alone with the Lamplighter, receiving the specialized training only he could deliver.

She was being groomed as his potential replacement. Must have been designated so from almost the very beginning. Because she was different from the others, had been even as a child. Something in her mind let her think in ways most others couldn't, to follow all the threads of activity the city's engines directed. From the first time she had sat in the Chair―five minutes of being overwhelmed by possibility―to the day she had shucked her new uniform coat to take a full hour's shift, she had not been just an apprentice and journeyman to the guild. She had been the Lamplighter's apprentice, the Lamplighter's journeyman. She had become a master with the potential to be the next Lamplighter of London.

He had still seen her as a child until that moment with the jacket, Mary suspected.

But since then, everything had changed. Not the particulars, of course. She still brought the tray and monitored the difference engines while he ate. She did such small tasks as he directed, learning the ways of the machines. But after Corset Day, there were new meanings to every look, every touch, every word that passed between them. Her increasing drive to learn all she could, the sudden surge of unfamiliar ambition upon realizing the job of Lamplighter might actually become hers, was matched by the swell of strange emotions and sensations surrounding the Lamplighter himself. At times she wasn't sure which she craved more, the position or the man.

Goose bumps rose along Mary's arms when Nicholas lined her hands up with the armrests and swung into place the suspended mechanism carrying the gauntlets. Her fingers slid easily into slots still warm from the Lamplighter's touch. She could feel the spring of the weights and counterweights against her fingers, the subtle whirr of the gyroscopic gears that provided more power over the long hours. Her muscles flexed against the snug, stabilizing straps. Each finger could tap in four directions, the hammers striking keys that struck wires that transmitted signals almost instantaneously across the four engines.

After her first few attempts in the Chair, her hands and arms sang with pain for hours afterward. Now, however, the hour was nothing to her. She knew all the keys, the subtle movements of each finger to convey meaning to the engines controlling the world far above.

"Now for the view."

Just before the mirrors lowered into place, she caught a glimpse of Nicholas' face, still in shadow. Then her vision was obscured by the reflections of a thousand equations and terse messages. The figures ticked by in endless rows and columns, revealing all that was important in the city's daily workings.

Mary found her place, orienting herself mentally within the world of the engines as she interpreted the screens. In her mind a picture of London emerged, with herself in the middle of it, sending invisible lines of control out to every intersection of the city.

Monitoring each schedule, reporting on the occasional irregularity, from time to time adjusting something just slightly to accommodate the fluctuation of traffic.

Time ceased to matter, and Mary let her awareness flit seamlessly from one event to the next, ebbing and flowing with the life of London through the medium of the difference engines.

It was easy to get lost in that world, and coming out was always a shock. Doubly so this time as she emerged from the cocoon of devices and routines to see not one, but two men waiting next to the Chair.

"Amberherst? Aren't you several hours early?"

Amberherst was her counterpart, the young master who took over the machines for an hour each evening while the Lamplighter took his only other respite of the day. Slender, nearly as pale as Nicholas but with fair hair to match, he looked like he might simply vanish into the machines completely one day. But his brain was as sharp as the fine edge of shattered glass.

"Jinks sent me. I'm to take a four-hour shift this afternoon. Tomorrow morning you'll start as well." He had already shucked his jacket and rolled his shirtsleeves back, and Mary sensed his impatience to begin though he was trying not to appear too eager.

She looked at Nicholas but could discern nothing from his expression. He was as smooth and cold as the mirrors he stared at all day. "So soon?"

Nicholas just shrugged. Amberherst cleared his throat and slipped past them to the Chair. "Sorry about it, Nicholas." Mary didn't think he sounded very sorry.

"I'm not," the Lamplighter said softly. "Let's get you strapped in."

* * *

Four hours at a stretch was much harder than she'd imagined. The flow was different over a longer shift, Mary found. And there were more things to think about. By the end of a week, she had seen a steamcar explosion, a suspension bridge malfunction, several traffic accidents and a host of smaller irregularities. All needed to be worked around, the flow of people and steamcars rerouted, the roadways cleared for emergency vehicles, the public kept apprised of routine maintenance. And of course, the lamps must be dimmed or lit on time, despite all that. Those functions were automated now, of course, run by the giant clockworks that dominated the cavernous inner halls of the lampworks. But the Lamplighter still oversaw the system, ensuring any malfunction was swiftly handled.

But down here, in the literal cavern of the difference engines, all information was secondhand. Mary "saw" these things as notations, equations, items on lists. She could observe London in her mind's eye as she worked. But for all she knew, none of this was really happening. She couldn't verify it with her eyes or ears, isolated as she was.

"It's like knowing everything but feeling nothing," she complained to the Lamplighter as he unbuckled her from the gauntlets one afternoon. "None of it seems real, you know? I think I understand the Bristol incident for the first time now."

Amberherst frowned as he took her place. "Shouldn't talk about that."

"I don't mean I'm in danger of doing the same," she snapped, holding a hand to her forehead. After hours of focusing on surfaces so close to her, she often suffered a headache on leaving the Chair as her eyes re-adjusted to the longer views.

The Bristol lamplighter of some thirty years past had earned an infamous place in history by going quietly, calmly insane and nearly bringing the city to its knees. After months of stony refusal to speak whenever he was forced from his Chair to rest, he set out one day to prove that the world outside the Chair did not, in fact, exist unless he willed it into being. He shut the traffic lights down, jamming the city and causing countless collisions. Next were the steamworks that powered most of the shipyard equipment. The fail-safes on the dry docks were overridden, flooding them and causing hundreds of deaths and incalculable damage to property.

And finally, the lamps. And who knew what else, really, because once the steam and gas were gone and darkness had descended on the beleaguered city, it scarcely mattered what other systems ran amok.

One might have thought this would serve as a warning to the guild, not to invest one man with so much power again. But dire as the incident was, tradition and politics kept the old practices in place. The Bristol lamplighter was labeled a madman—which he undoubtedly was—but he was also promptly dismissed as an outlier, a fluke. Some even argued the fact the disaster happened at all meant it was statistically much less likely for something similar to happen again. What were the odds that another madman would rise to such a position, his mania going unnoticed for so long? There was never even a suggestion that the nature of the work itself might have contributed to the Bristol lamplighter's mania. The guild only took human nature into account when it suited them.

Amberherst was a guild man, born and bred. "It's just poor form. Although to tell you the truth, I never really believed it was as bad as the legend has it anyway. I think it's just grown in the telling. And they like it that way, the older masters. It makes such a convenient cautionary tale. Shrouding it in secrecy pretty much guarantees that every apprentice will hear it too. But how bad could it be, really? People still have eyes and minds. Surely even if the steam and gas failed they would manage to get along until it was restored. These are machines, not engines of the divine, and the Lamplighter isn't a God. No offense, Nicholas."

Amberherst's eyes, a glittering smoky blue, disappeared behind the screens as Nicholas lowered them into place. The Lamplighter had said nary a word since Mary emerged from the Chair, she realized.

"You're quiet today."

He nodded, made a final adjustment to the screen array then stepped back. "It's a momentous day. Amberherst, are you ready?"

"I've got it. See you in two hours. Mind you, get him back on time, Mary."

"Back?" She looked from the Chair to Nicholas. "Momentous how?"

He turned his eyes to hers, venturing a hint of a smile. "We're letting Amberherst go it alone for a few hours. And it's early afternoon, only a few more days until Christmas. So . . ." He released a long sigh, as though trying to calm himself. "I'd like to go to a shop and buy a little something to send to my mother. And I would be honored if you would accompany me, Master Mary. Because," he admitted, "I don't actually remember how to get to any shops."

# Chapter Two

##

The steps that led to the front entrance of the Lampworks were slick with icy, melted mud. The slurry of salt and sand that had prevented slipping earlier in the day was long since trodden away, tracked down the street and into the hall by innumerable boots.

The doorman, an ancient gnome-like gentleman who still wore the convoluted prosthetic "hand" of a machine specialist, gasped as he recognized the Lamplighter.

Nicholas, in turn, gasped at the blinding glare that greeted him when he stepped out the door. He threw up one arm to protect his eyes, hissing in pain as the doorman and Mary shuffled him away from the entrance to clear the path.

"It's overcast today. But there is a bit of glare from the snow. Keep your eyes closed for a few moments and just try taking your hand away first," Mary suggested, hoping that her grip on the Lamplighter's free arm was a comfort to him and not a nuisance.

"My hat, sir. With my compliments. An honor, sir, a genuine honor," the little doorman said, gently placing his trim black derby on Nicholas' head before dropping into an awkward bow.

Nodding in the direction of the doorman, Nicholas shifted his hand to the hat's brim and tugged it down a bit before lowering his arm. Mary marveled at the sight of filtered daylight on his jaw, the delicate blue veins visible beneath the skin of his neck, and the way his impossibly long, sooty lashes fluttered upon his cheek before finally, slowly, lifting to reveal his eyes.

Blinking and squinting cautiously, he gazed at the scene before him, his mouth falling open. Mary tried to see it through his eyes, wondering what astonished him the most. People striding here and there, tradesmen and merchants and folk of all sorts, as casually as though it were nothing to be walking about the city. Above the buildings that rose all around the paved square courtyard of the Lampworks, there was a swath of chilly gray sky. The sharp smell of impending snow overrode even the odors of the pedestrians and passing vehicles.

Nicholas jumped as a steamcar jittered to a noisy halt by the curb. His hand clasped suddenly over Mary's, pressing it into his arm. She looked up to see him swallow, the pale line of his throat looking far too tender and vulnerable in this light. He scarcely looked human at all in that moment. More like some fairy-creature, dumped unceremoniously in the middle of London by a cruel, unseen magical hand.

"There's a sweet shop just down the road, and there's the stationer's on the corner. And a book shop. Would any of those suit your needs, sir?"

After a pause, Nicholas blinked again and nodded. "A tin of sweets. She'd like that, I think."

"Come on then. This way. First step's going to be the hardest, I suspect."

She wasn't expecting him to chuckle. The movement of his rib cage against her hand felt strangely intimate, even through many layers of heavy garments.

"I suspect you're right. I'm sorry I'm so taken aback, Mary. I really had no idea it would be so much to take in."

He stepped forward, but after that he let her lead as he took in the sights. Nothing spectacular, only the city in its workaday clothes. But there was the crisp chill in the air, the festive window adornments in the shops, a troupe of carolers just down the road.

The colors and smells and sounds combined to create that unique holiday atmosphere, the gleeful anticipation of the few weeks leading up to Christmas. The shops competed with good-natured zeal, enticing customers to sweeten their holiday fare with delicacies, or remember loved ones with thoughtful gifts for the Yuletide.

By the time they were halfway to the sweet shop, Mary had decided it was more like walking with a large child than an adult. Nicholas was drawn to every bright window display, to toys and lights and oh! Food! So their progress was slow, and she was forced to remind him they had only two hours.

"For today, that's right," he agreed, but when she asked what he meant, Nicholas had already moved on to the next distraction. "Mary, hot chestnuts! We must have some!"

Before she could blink, he had approached the chestnut vendor's cart and acquired two handfuls of steaming chestnuts. Neatly secured in twists of paper, they served as excellent hand warmers while they cooled, and Mary was glad of the heat. But she hesitated when Nicholas paid for both of them and moved to take her arm again to continue down the street.

"Thank you. I shouldn't have let you pay for those. Here, let me pay you back."

"For the chestnuts? Don't be ridiculous." He tugged, and they started walking again. "It's you who deserve my thanks for accompanying me on this little . . . adventure."

"It's an honor. And my pleasure. But are you sure you have enough pocket money? I don't want you to run short before we're even to the sweet shop."

Nicholas shook his head. "Mary, for ten years now I've been earning a master's pay and a stipend on top of it. And I've had absolutely no need to spend a single farthing of it. I appreciate your concern, but I have more than enough to spare to repay your kindness today with a packet of hot chestnuts."

Resigned, she let him press on, and she resolved to enjoy the chestnuts whether they were illicitly come by or not. She was fairly certain young ladies were not supposed to accept impromptu gifts from gentlemen in that manner. But if Nicholas was aware of that societal constraint, he seemed content to ignore it in this case.

People didn't know who Nicholas was, for the most part, or they might have done more than glance at his gleaming white face and then look away in studied courtesy. He might have been an invalid, or a foreigner, for all they knew. Only a few guild members hurrying by paused and stared to see the Lamplighter taking to the street in broad daylight.

Nicholas kept glancing up above the roofline and then quickly away, something Mary had seen him do several times since they ventured forth. She looked, but saw nothing of interest up in the crystalline frost of the sky. But she could feel Nicholas begin to breathe more rapidly, too rapidly, and when she looked back toward him she was alarmed to see he was even paler. She wouldn't have thought it possible.

"Is everything all right? Is there something up there?"

His voice as he replied held a frantic undertone that was even more alarming than his appearance. "Ah, yes, as a matter of fact. A truly daunting amount of sky. I think it might be wise for me to duck inside for a bit. Here, perhaps?" He stopped at the door to the bookshop and held it open for her. Passing him, Mary could see his chest still rising and falling quickly, and a pulse beating wildly in his neck.

"Sit there," she directed him, pointing to one of a handful of chairs in the corner of the musty but decidedly cozy shop. "The owner's a friend. I'll see if he can spare you a cup of tea."

He seemed about to object, but then sank into the chair with a rueful smile. "Thank you again, Mary. This was . . . unexpected."

"I think it's perfectly understandable. Stay, and I'll bring you some books to look over. Mr. Beckett loves a new customer."

She left Nicholas and went in search of the proprietor, an upstanding widower who usually kept a kettle on the tiny stove in his home over the shop. Today, Mr. Beckett was looking particularly festive in a red waistcoat, and his rapidly graying beard had been laundered and brushed to a fine, puffy salt-and-pepper cloud.

"The master girl! How are you, my dear?" He came around the counter to greet Mary with a peck on each cheek, just as he had since she first started patronizing the store as a child. She'd been away from home, lonely and frightened, and starved for fantasy. In Mr. Beckett, she'd found a sympathetic ear and a never-ending list of recommended books. He looked just the same today as he had when she was twelve, she noted.

Mary grinned, a typical reaction upon being greeted by the indefatigably cheerful Mr. Beckett. "I'm splendid. And I've brought you a new customer. Who could use a cup of tea, if it's not too much trouble? He's a bit run down."

The words "new customer" had predictable results, prompting Mr. Beckett to send his young assistant scrambling to crank his way upstairs in the tiny lift and fetch tea and biscuits. Meanwhile the genial book purveyor approached Nicholas with the open arms and broad smile of a born showman.

"Master Mary Cross' friend! Welcome to Beckett's. Tea will be with us momentarily."

"Master Morgan, Mister Beckett," Mary said, hoping to gloss over particulars in the introduction. Beckett, however, was already eyeing Nicholas with a keen awareness that cut straight through his convivial display.

"Master Nicholas Morgan? This is an honor indeed. Perhaps I should have told Timothy to use the best tea."

"Anything hot will do, Mister Beckett," Nicholas assured him. Smiling wryly, he gestured up at the ceiling. "As long as there's a roof over my head for a few moments instead of the infinity of the heavens."

"I can well imagine, sir. Forgive me for asking, but does the guild know you're out here?"

Mary and Nicholas smiled at each other. She broke away first, surprised to feel herself blushing.

"They do occasionally let me out of my monkish cell," Nicholas confirmed. "Although I confess it's been too long by far since I saw daylight. Or snow. Or . . . this many people. This many strangers." He glanced toward the window, marveling at the bustling crowds visible beyond the thick panes of glass. And then he looked back at Mary with a smile that suggested the sight of her was a comfort.

Beckett looked from the Lamplighter to Mary, a speculative glimmer in his eye. But he let the moment pass and rose with a decisive air. "Can I point you in the direction of a book today, sir? Some poetry, perhaps? Or a tome of British history? We also have a fine selection of technical manuals, in deference to our near neighbors at the Lampworks."

"Nothing so serious, I think."

"A ripping tale of piracy then? Or a good penny dreadful? Might be just the thing to help you relax after a long day of, er . . . whatever it is you actually _do_ down there."

Within seconds, it seemed, Mary and Nicholas had a stack of books to peruse, and cups of steaming tea brewed to a blistering strength and sweetened heavily, as Mr. Beckett said, to counter the possibility of shock.

The Lamplighter—who obviously did have a good deal more pocket money than Mary had ever dreamed—ended up purchasing three novels, much to the delight of the proprietor.

"One more thing, Master Lamplighter," Beckett said before they departed, with a twinkle in his eye. "Allow me to present you with this complimentary umbrella as a token of your first visit to Beckett's. Perhaps it might help to, ah, shield your eyes as they grow accustomed to the glare."

He handed over a very fine, black silk umbrella with a beautifully carved handle of some glossy dark wood. It was obviously well made, and obviously well used. Nicholas accepted it and closed his eyes for just a moment, releasing a breath as though suddenly relieved of a burden.

"I cannot thank you enough," he said to Beckett. And he sounded as though he meant it with every fiber of his being.

And the pair ventured on their way under the comforting shelter of the umbrella, with a bit more spring in their step. It was obvious that between the tea, the rest and the umbrella, Nicholas felt much fortified against the overwhelming sight of the open sky and the sheer numbers of the crowd around them.

"And here's the sweet shop," Mary announced brightly, blushing again as Nicholas gave her hand a little squeeze, letting his fingers brush the backs of hers as he freed his hand to open the door.

They didn't stay long. The shop was crowded, noisy and bright, sending Nicholas into a slight panic. He purchased a large, colorful tin of assorted sweets, and had the shop owner wrap it in gold paper with a crisp, white ribbon.

"I can take it to the post tomorrow for you, if you like. Or at least send an apprentice with it," Mary offered as they left the small, noisy space and breathed a sigh of relief upon hitting the relatively open pavement again. Nicholas snapped the umbrella open as soon as they were clear of the door. The crowd had thinned a bit, with the remaining pedestrians quickening their strides and bundling themselves tighter against the worsening weather. Mr. Beckett's gift seemed almost prescient.

"Snow," whispered Nicholas as the first flakes drifted softly down to settle on his outstretched hand. "Look, Mary. It's snow."

She looked, watching with him as the fat fluff of iciness melted on the warmed leather of his glove. A steamcar puffed by just inches away from them, and Nicholas didn't even flinch at it this time, so captivated was he by the wondrous stuff falling from the previously intimidating sky.

Like a boy, he laughed in delight and tipped both the umbrella and his head back, closing his eyes and letting a few snowflakes land on his outstretched tongue. The sight did something odd to Mary's insides, causing a funny twist in her belly and breasts. She had to quell the urge to reach out, to steal a flake from the soft, pink pad before it could melt. She felt oddly envious of the snow.

"We should be getting back," she reminded him softly. With a reluctant nod, Nicholas righted his head before grinning at her.

"I know it must seem foolish. You see these things all the time, it's just—"

"No," Mary rushed to assure him, wrapping her hand over his arm again and clasping him firmly. "No, it isn't foolish. It's wonderful. I feel lucky to have been . . . the one escorting you today."

She had wanted to say something else, something more personal, but pulled back at the last minute. Because he was the Lamplighter. And she, despite her brand-new title and status, was still only a novice in his eyes. And a possible successor, it seemed. She wondered if she would have a day like this, after a decade or so. A day when even a few blocks' walk in the open air would seem like an adventure in the untrammeled wild.

Nicholas cocked his head, pursing his lips. "Silly. Who else would I have possibly wanted here for this?"

He started them back down the street, back to the security of the guild hall, his free arm now too full of packages to hold her hand. But Mary felt giddy anyway, in a way she thought was probably very unwise to examine too closely.

It was a walk to the shops and a wondering at snowfall, that was all. That was all it could be. And nobody knew that better than the Lamplighter, unless it was Mary herself.

# Chapter Three

##

Taking luncheon to the Lamplighter had fallen to her in the first place, Mary had long assumed, because she was new. Because she was young. Because her mental tools, while many and varied, did not lend themselves to the studied avoidance of onerous duties. She was a good girl, dependable and diligent by nature and habit.

So each day at noontide she left her apprentice's workbench and appeared at the kitchens to accept the covered tray. She carried it through the echoing limestone corridors of the guild hall until she reached the lift, where she placed the tray on the floor so she could haul back the lever that released the counterweights. She had learned to brace herself for the jolt as the platform began its descent.

The first time she'd had no warning, and wound up sprawled in a terrified heap over the tray, her heart pounding even louder in her ears than the ratcheting, clanking mechanism of the lift as it dropped her down to her destination. The other apprentices had looked for the bruises upon her return, snickering at her abraded palms.

That had been seven years ago, and most of those laughing children lingered for years more in the apprentice shop while she had moved up almost right away. But it still stung. She was still set apart. And she was still the new girl, only she became the new girl among the journeymen. And then, with unprecedented speed, among the masters. The youngest too, by far, at not quite nineteen.

The Lamplighter, who was also set apart by the nature of his duties, seemed the only sympathetic ear at times. Over the years, she had come to think of him as a friend, and though it would have been easier to let an apprentice carry the tray for her, she relished her visits with Nicholas too much to share with anyone. So she still took the tray to the Lamplighter herself. She still let people think the task was a burden, lest anyone offer to take it upon themselves.

Amberherst kept doing the dinner trays now to cozy up, she suspected. Not that it would make a lick of difference. The guild had clearly already slated him as a potential successor, alongside Mary, and their relative aptitudes had long since been studied, quantified, evaluated. And now Nicholas was being phased out, it seemed. A formal announcement could not be too far away. And Mary had every reason to hope her future was already secured, because she had seen Amberherst more than once in the intimate company of a lithe young journeyman named Jocelyn. If they had any sort of connection beyond friendship the guild would know, because the guild always found out about that sort of thing. And it would be a strike against him as a would-be Lamplighter. It was hardly a job for a married man, or even a man who hoped to soon marry. Nor for a seducer, if that was all those two had between them.

"If he wants her, he'd better hurry," Mary said to herself, knowing it was uncharitable in the extreme.

"Mary?" Nicholas spoke from behind the mirrors, and Mary flushed to realize she'd been speaking out loud.

"Nothing. I'm here, whenever you're ready."

"Good. It's calm now, let's get you strapped in." He raised an eyebrow at her as she swung the screens aside. "I want to show you something new today."

After their odd moments of connection yesterday, Mary was keenly aware of every touch, every brush of his skin against hers as he buckled her hands into place. Had he always taken such care, she wondered? Or was she just more sensitive to it now that she'd allowed these foolish notions to enter her head? His fingers seemed to leave trails of sensation behind them, pulling shivers from her that she tried desperately to resist.

With the mirrors back in place, she saw that things were indeed calm at the moment. The early traffic had abated, the ship channel was quiet and no disasters seemed imminent.

It was all running like the clockwork it mainly was, and she saw nothing that wasn't familiar, long since mastered.

"You said there would be something new," she said, puzzled.

From beyond the mirrors Nicholas spoke, his voice sounding closer than she'd expected. Mary squinted through the brass hinges between two panels, but could see nothing beyond the screens.

"There is, but it isn't on the viewers. I want to talk to you today, to explain something. And I want to make sure you listen and think."

She nodded. Then, realizing he couldn't see her, she spoke her agreement. "All right. I'm a captive audience now anyway, I suppose."

"About that. It has occurred to me that you've probably already deduced the guild's plans for you. You're nothing if not smart, Master Mary Cross."

It was still a thrill to hear that title. "I have given it some consideration. I can't quite believe it's what I think."

"I believe they'd like me gone with the New Year. And I have reason to believe the guild currently favors you for my replacement."

"But Amberherst and I have only just started taking longer shifts. I thought you still had another year to go at least," she protested.

"I'm almost thirty, Mary. I can't keep the pace up much longer. No one could, the guild knows that all too well." He sounded resigned, but Mary heard a note of bitterness as well. "It will be a splendid retirement, of course. Land, money, a title. A voice in Parliament if I care to exercise it."

That was the well-known reward of the Lamplighter, to be showered with such benefits. In part this was recompense for the fact that, after their unique service, many Lamplighters suffered crippling arthritis and loss of vision before reaching even nominal old age. But the prize was still tremendous. And with the recent reforms, even a female Lamplighter could look forward to holding land and taking a title after retirement. At nineteen, this all seemed a goal too high to even be dreamed for Mary, whose parents were stolidly middle-class.

"Will you keep horses? I've always fancied having horses," she admitted, though she knew it sounded childish next to the idea of a seat in Parliament.

Nicholas chuckled. "I expect so. I'll be an earl, after all. But Mary, more important are the things I won't have."

He must be standing—no, kneeling, she realized—right before her knees. She felt a distinct warmth where his body blocked the chill from reaching her forelegs. Mary was hyperconscious of the bared skin of her neck and chest, the hint of cleavage she knew was on display right at Nicholas' eye level. She was glad for the mirrors that blocked her blush from his view.

"Is the channel still clear, Mary? The storm yesterday threw the shipping schedule off."

Wrenching her mind back to the information before her, Mary focused on the leftmost screen, a third of the way down. Arrivals and departures, via teletype from the port authority, and a descending column of potential differences indicating the precise times at which certain actions must be taken if event "x" occurred at moment "y". All the possible futures calculated, then excluded one by one as the minutes ticked by.

"All clear."

"Good. Keep an eye on that. But listen. Because of all the things I've told you over the years about this position, what I have to say now is undoubtedly the most important."

"All right."

"When I leave here, it's true I will receive a great many things. And I'll have the means to purchase anything else I might ever desire. Lamplighters are too well known by the guild rank and file to kill us all off, is the problem, but we know far too much about how the city works to risk our disgruntlement."

"Kill you off? They would never!"

Nicholas chuckled but Mary saw little humor in his eyes. "I hope not. Some of the guild's historical records make me think it's been considered from time to time over the years though. Especially after Bristol. The politics of the guild are not always as neutral and benevolent as they would have the public believe. Or perhaps I've just spent too long in the dark, and it's made me tend toward dark thoughts. You'll have to forgive me a touch of cynicism. The point, however, is that the Crown seeks to appease us this way, with money and a title to ensure our fidelity. They have for the past sixty years or so. What none of us ever get back, Mary, is the one truly important thing we've lost, and that is time."

"Time? But you're only twenty-nine, that's not so old."

"Old enough," he snorted. "But it isn't a question of starting a bit late, Mary. It's all that I've missed during that time. I've spent most of the past ten years in this room. One hour off at noon and six each day, seven hours of rest and sleep just upstairs. Do you know I was your age, nineteen, the last time I saw the sun? The last time I shared a meal with my family. The last time . . ."

She waited for him to resume, but instead of words she felt a touch, featherlight against her knee. Through the heavy work skirt she felt it, and then a firmer tug on the fabric.

"Sir? Nicholas? What . . . what are you doing?"

"The guild leaders are old fools, Mary. They think they can change human nature by simply ignoring it. And they think if they appoint a young woman as Lamplighter, she won't give them half the trouble of a man. Because if she's been sheltered enough, she simply won't know what she's missing. But I don't think that's right. Or fair. You should know what you're agreeing to give up. Amberherst already does, God knows."

"Nicholas," she repeated, now breathlessly, "what are you doing?"

She knew what he was doing. He was unbuttoning the front placket of her practical skirt, the better to sweep it aside. And now he was pushing her thin petticoat out of the way to look at her nearly bare legs. And now he was pushing his body between her knees, parting them and finishing the destruction of her modesty as the gusset in her drawers spread open.

She jerked at the restraints on her wrists, feeling for the first time in years a sense of claustrophobia in the confines of the Chair. But with her hands as good as shackled, and her head boxed in by the mirrored framework, she could not escape.

Nor was she quite sure she wanted to.

Nicholas was shushing her gently, stroking his hands along her calves in a manner clearly calculated to soothe. Mary stilled, but her internal struggle continued. The sense of propriety drilled into her from such an early age was swiftly losing a battle against every girlish daydream she had ever entertained about Nicholas the Lamplighter. And against the power of her own burgeoning desires, which she must not have been suppressing as well as she had thought.

"I'd been with a girl a few times before I started. But I was stupid. I thought it was love, and that she would wait and the time would fly by. She married someone else, of course. I wanted to go after her, to try and talk her out of it. But my contract wouldn't allow that. I don't blame her for it though. Ten years is a very long time, Mary."

His hands lingered at her knees, rubbing softly, the tender pressure nudging her thighs even wider. A sudden draft struck her with an icy chill, and Mary realized she was mortifyingly wet between the legs. Her sex tingled, in fact, under what she imagined was Nicholas' intense scrutiny. And she wanted more, wanted his touch on her, so badly she ached.

"My contract included a stipend for 'needs of an intimate nature'. A medical expense, that was how it was listed. Money for prostitutes, or some doxy to keep about if I could find one who would tolerate my schedule." Mary's horror at this revelation was only intensified by the next one. "But your contract would not have that provision, of course, because you're a woman. Despite all their vaunted policies of equality, the guild does not see sexual release as vital or even relevant to the well-being of a woman."

"I . . . can't imagine you using a pros— One of those women. Vital to my well- being?" She wasn't sure what to be embarrassed about first, unless it was Nicholas' laughter at her obvious consternation. Or his hands working in tandem, creeping higher to caress her thighs in careful strokes over the muslin of her drawers.

"Of course you couldn't imagine that. You probably know precious little of the whole business. Guild girls are locked up tighter than Spanish gold until they marry, or until they become masters and move out. But you're still two years away from majority. You can sign a contract for employment, but you can't live alone or own property yet. Which is why they think they've found the perfect candidate. One who won't know enough to make trouble, and who will cost them a good deal less."

"And you think I need to know more?" She knew he wasn't talking about the engines, but her fingers clutched within their restraints anyway, as if she could type in this strange assortment of data and generate a sensible explanation on one of the screens before her. As though being encased in wood, leather and brass should give her some sort of protection against her own rebellious urge to wrap her legs around Nicholas' waist.

"I think it's only fair for you to know what you would be signing away."

"You can't mean this. Proposing to teach me about . . . about _pleasures of the flesh_?"

Her attempt at indignant incredulity was short-lived. She gasped as he slid his hands boldly up to the tempting expanse of delicate flesh that extended from the top edge of her corset. It was a sturdy garment, but made to be fastened quickly and by the wearer.

For the Lamplighter's nimble fingers, it was the work of seconds to unfasten the row of tiny hooks and push the boned cloth aside, then yank down Mary's chemise to bare her breasts.

"In answer to your question, that is precisely my meaning." She felt him leaning forward against her knees. Then his mouth covered one nipple, and she could think of nothing but his hot tongue swirling over the sensitive, puckered flesh, the exquisite suction that seemed to pull not just at her breast but also at the bundle of nerves between her legs. "And now I have a question. Are you going to tell me to stop, Mary? Because I will, if you tell me to. If you don't want this."

She wasn't sure she even remembered the words to tell him what she wanted or otherwise. Something new, he had promised her, and she was lost in this wholly new sensation the Lamplighter was demonstrating. No words would come, although in the dim recesses of her mind she knew she was wrong to allow this, wicked to delight in it.

"That's my good, clever girl," he mumbled against her skin, and she could have sworn she felt his lips curving into a smile. "Just let me touch you. I've wanted to. Oh, how I've wanted this. I can remember doing this before. And this. But it's so much sweeter now that it's you."

His fingers were trembling a little as he touched her quim, pulling a sympathetic vibration from her clitoris. Either too eager to wait, or too aware of her obvious arousal, Nicholas nudged one finger inside her tight, wet channel and groaned as he pushed the digit in to the hilt. His mouth returned to one of her breasts while his free hand moved to its mate, and Mary cried out as he worked her nipples in time with the gentle thrusts of his finger inside her. She tried again to free her hands, move closer to him, _anything_.

But the Chair was inexorable, and so was Nicholas in his patient tutelage.

Just as he had taught her the ways of the engine, he taught her the truth of her body's own potential for pleasure. A touch here, a kiss there, until Mary's need grew sharp and insistent. Her trepidation gave way under the onslaught of sensation. The steady pistoning of Nicholas' finger inside her, the tap of his thumb against her clitoris and the increasingly enthusiastic attention to her breasts, overwhelmed her until she thought she must either swoon or combust. And yet, inexplicably, she craved more.

More of his touch, more of him inside her, more of the killing ecstasy that robbed her of her breath even as it made her feel she was coming alive for the first time.

It did not occur to Mary that the Lamplighter must also be affected, until he cursed gently against her stomach and jerked away. He tugged on her legs and she slid down in the Chair until her bottom was nearly over the edge and her head was free of the mirrored enclosure. With her arms still trapped and supporting her, the position was odd but not uncomfortable. But if Mary had felt exposed to the Lamplighter's scrutiny before, she melted under his gaze when her eyes met his, and found fire and adoring desperation.

He looked young, unsure of himself. And so very needy. A fervent supplicant before the altar of her flesh.

"Nicholas," she murmured, because the Lamplighter was nowhere to be seen.

"Mary, do you know what comes next?" As if she might not know what he meant, he tucked a finger back inside her cunt and pressed his other hand against the front of his trousers, where a sizeable protrusion marred the fall of the dun-colored cloth against his lean body.

"I . . . I think I know. They've explained it to us." In clinical, mechanical terms, as inserting one component into another and initiating a process to arrive at a particular result. That lesson seemed in no way related to what she and Nicholas were doing. She knew what he wanted in theory, but the reality was proving so far beyond the realm of her expectation that she thought almost anything might happen if he joined with her. If kisses and caresses were resulting not in shameful regret, but bliss beyond reckoning, then who knew what wonders coitus itself might hold in store?

"Would you let me—do you want—" he attempted.

"Oh yes!" she blurted. Then, embarrassed at her own urgency, she cleared her throat and tried it again more quietly. "I do want that."

"I won't spend inside you."

She had no idea what he meant, but as this was obviously meant to reassure her, she thanked him.

His trousers were undone in the blink of an eye. Past her lap, Mary could just see the blunt, pink tip of his member rising up as he took it in hand. A few short, sharp tugs and then he placed it at the entrance to her body, lining himself up. She expected a pain then, as he breached her, but instead of thrusting he petted her clitoris with his thumb until the wonderful feelings started to curl back into the realm of her awareness. More quickly this time, as though her body had only wanted prompting to learn this new, delightful behavior. Shivers of pleasurable need coursed through her, faster and brighter when he rubbed his fingers over her pussy. He lingered in the moisture he found there and gently spread her to accept his cock.

"It will hurt a bit this time, I think. I'm sorry, love."

He leaned in, and Mary felt an unbearable pressure and then a bright pop of pain as he burst through the constriction of her hymen. She gasped and rolled her hips, trying to ease the sting, but Nicholas grabbed her thighs and held her steady as he pushed deeper with short, determined thrusts. By the time he reached her limit, the sting had faded to a mild burn. And when his pelvis fetched up hard against hers, she cried out and forgot the pain completely.

Nicholas thrust into her carefully despite his obvious tension, and the friction drove Mary's pleasure to a fever pitch, to a bright pinnacle she thought must be the ultimate bliss. Except . . . except _there, just there_ , as he bent his head to take her nipple in his mouth again, and the change in angle did something like magic.

The climax came fast and hard, raging through Mary like a fire, taking her breath and all reason with it. She reached with her feet, pulling Nicholas in, instinct driving her to grind against him, drawing her pleasure out. She heard him gasp, felt his lanky frame shudder as his own release began.

And then there was hot liquid on her thigh, and the ache of sudden emptiness where just an instant ago her whole world had been focused on how he was filling her. Mary's eyes flew open to see Nicholas leaning over her as if exhausted, his cock again in his hand. He wore a look of total astonishment, and she was quite sure it mirrored her own expression.

"So long," he murmured. He sagged a little farther, resting his forehead on the part of her lap that was still dry. "Oh Mary, love, thank you. It's been such a very long time."

She wanted to reach out, to stroke his hair back from his forehead and hold him close. But the Chair still kept her from the affection she would have shown. When she spoke, she heard a dry humor in her voice and wondered where it had come from.

"So you never did use the prostitutes, I gather?"

He lifted his head to stare at her, a bemused twist to his smile. "Not once, no."

"Can you unstrap me, please?"

"Oh! Of course. And help you tidy up."

He did so, with his handkerchief and a certain amount of playful digression. Mary stopped him at last, placing one hand over his and stroking his fingers before pushing him gently away. She stood, stretching her stiff arms and smoothing down her skirt, and when she turned around he was looking vaguely miserable but determined.

She didn't want to hear whatever he had to say. She slid her arms around his waist and nestled her cheek against his shoulder, sighing with remembered pleasure when his arms came up to embrace her. Tradition had it that a Lamplighter's heart beat in time with his machines, as cold and efficient as his calculations. But Mary heard the truth beneath her ear, the all too fallible flesh and blood that made up this complicated man.

"Was that for me," she asked at last, "or for yourself?"

He laughed and tightened his grip around her. "Both, I suppose. It was meant to be for you. I didn't mean for it to go quite that far."

"It was very effective," she pointed out.

"I've no doubt."

"You've done a cruel thing, you know." She pulled back just enough to look at him.

"If they do offer me the post and I refuse, we both know I'll have no future here.

They've been training me for this for years, I know that now, and I'm a loss to them if I don't put that training to use. But if I accept . . ." Her gaze traveled over to the Chair, which bore no sign of their recent activities.

"You'd know what you're missing." To his credit, he did sound apologetic.

"Yes I would," she said, lifting a hand to push his hair from his eyes at last. "And you're quite right, Nicholas. Ten years is a very long time."

"The first nine years or so weren't too terrible, actually." He traced a fingertip along her collarbone. "But the last few months have been a living hell."

Mary smiled at that, unable to resent him though she knew she probably should.

"So it was for you, after all."

"There is a third possibility, you know."

Mary's mind was a blank, and her equally blank stare seemed to amuse Nicholas. This time it was he who reached to brush a strand of hair back into place, to caress her cheek. And then, for the first time and with no fanfare, he kissed her. A sweet, lingering kiss that promised the world.

"You see," he explained patiently after they both recovered their wits, "I'm quite fatally in love with you. And it has recently come to my attention that after the New Year, I'll be in need of a countess."

# Chapter Four

##

The look on Amberherst's face told Mary everything she needed to know. He was not hearing anything new in this meeting of the Guild Council. She was sure of it. As she heard the scheme described for the first time, and reacted accordingly, he remained smug and impassive. The arrogant, grasping bastard.

She wished two things as she sat before the leaders who had decided on this fate for her. One was that the Lamplighter was in attendance, because she suspected he would have a great deal to say to the Council about their so-called modernization scheme. And second was that she had simply followed her heart and accepted Nicholas' proposal on the spot, after that frantically ecstatic interlude in the Chair.

_Curse my own notions of fair play_ , she chastised herself. Because she hadn't wanted him bound to a decision while he was still so ill at ease with the world at large, she had told him her answer must wait until he was back in that world for at least long enough that the sky no longer caused him to panic. She thought he would surely come to his senses shortly after receiving his title, and marry somebody far more appropriate to the role of countess than a nineteen-year-old Master of Lampworks who had been trained to spend her life alone in a room looking at figures. And if by some miracle he decided he still wanted Mary, they would be none the worse for having waited a short time.

"But perhaps I'm not hearing correctly. If I may ask for some clarification, sir?" she found herself asking. "As stated, it sounds as though I would in fact be filling the post some ninety-eight hours per week, compared to Master Amberherst's fifty-four. Yet he would bear the title of Lamplighter, as well as the full salary, and I assume would therefore also be the only one to accrue the benefits usually enjoyed by the Lamplighter after retirement?"

The Elder master, Cyrus Smith, smiled at her. It was a benevolent beam that would do any grandfather proud. His voice was so soothing and reasoned it was difficult to disagree with anything he said. Or so Mary had found in the past.

"But surely you can grasp, Miss Cross—"

" _Master_ Cross," corrected Alice Temple, the Second Elder. She looked none too pleased at the information her colleague had conveyed thus far, but she hadn't spoken out directly. Mary knew the Council's deliberations were always completed prior to any public discussion. If Master Temple had voiced objections, they had already been overruled.

"Of course. Master Cross, surely you can grasp," Smith repeated in a tone that somehow suggested his belief she was, in fact, not capable of grasping anything more complex than the alphabet, "that Master Amberherst will have, in those shorter hours, the lion's share of the work. The busiest times for traffic, both on the roadways and in the shipping lanes. The peak business hours. These operations will keep him very busy, while many of the hours you will spend monitoring the engines are not even manned at this time. Most of the functions are automated and will require no action on your part, absent some emergency." He made an expansive gesture, as though granting Mary a boon.

She sat there, stunned, unable to think of anything to say in response. The words springing to mind were not utterable in the current company. After a few moments of pained silence, the Elder master nodded and went on.

"Master Amberherst has already agreed to take the Chair at the New Year. It is our hope that you will join him at that time. That you will embrace this rare opportunity to pioneer a new position within the Guild of Lampworkers."

"And if I don't?" Mary whispered then quickly bit her lip, hoping she hadn't been overheard.

"Sorry?"

She cleared her throat and stood, speaking in as clear a tone as she could muster.

"Thank you for your time and consideration, masters. I will give the offer some careful thought."

Of the six men and three women, only Master Temple met her eye before the meeting was brought to an end.

Mary had no thought of where to go, what to do, after leaving that room. Only to go, to walk away, as far and as fast as possible. She needed to outpace the horrible knot of sorrow, anger, rage that threatened to choke her where she stood.

But Amberherst intercepted her, a light of ferocious glee in his eerie pale eyes. "A word, Master Cross?"

His fingers were already wrapped around her upper arm, bruising her, as he yanked her into an empty meeting room next to the Council hall.

"Not now, Amberherst," she hissed, jerking away from him and barely restraining the urge to claw at his face.

" _Now_ , Cross. I heard you in there. _And if you don't_? If you don't, what do you suppose will happen to you, you stupid cow? Can't you see you're finished here, ruined, if you don't go along with this?"

"All I see at the moment is a filthy, scheming worm," Mary said coldly, making each word as crisp as she could.

"Idiot. Did you really think some little girl from the countryside had a chance at becoming the Lamplighter? Have you bought every single lie the guild ever spewed to coddle you along? Well, of course you have, haven't you? The girls always do."

"What are you talking about?"

Amberherst smirked, his self-assurance causing a cold chill to race through Mary's bones. "I was raised here because my mother was guild. My father's another matter."

"What are you talking about? Your father's guild, I've met him. He's a metallurgist," Mary said, feeling lost when Amberherst laughed in her face.

"No. That's the man my mother married. My father was her youthful fling. Or rather, she was his. And now my father is in line for a dukedom when _his_ father dies. And if his wife continues barren, as she has these many years after giving him only one daughter, then my father will need his heir. He plans to adopt me, which will also solidify certain vital trade interests between him and the guild. But obviously his heir can't just be a guild master, or even just the Lamplighter. I'll need to be something else entirely, something new. In order to be accepted before I've even served as Lamplighter, I'll need to have already been in society when he introduces me. So obviously I'll need my evenings free. And I'll need a wife who can mingle with the _ton_."

He preened, causing Mary no end of disgust. "After I've taken my official position in the Chair, and the adoption has been formalized, I'll be marrying Lady Olivia Munson. She's a third cousin or something, I gather. Some horsy-looking girl from Sussex."

"But what about Jocelyn?" Mary asked.

"What about her? Won't she be the lucky one? Not many in her position have a gentleman friend as well-connected as I'm going to be."

A mistress. He was planning to keep Jocelyn as a mistress, while he married the horse-faced cousin and turned the position of Lamplighter into a political sinecure. The guild itself was planning this.

Mary tried to catch the fleeting threads of her thoughts but couldn't seem to pin anything down. It was all too much to take in, and she wanted to pinch herself hard, wake herself up from the nightmare the day had become.

But there was more. Amberherst blocked her when she tried to stagger away, yanking her roughly around to face him. "This _will_ happen, Mary. And you will do as the guild has told you to do. Mark my words. Or you'll regret it."

"What do you think you can do to me, Amberherst? What more is there?"

He looked her up and down with a leer. "Well, there could certainly be more. For instance, it wouldn't be to your credit, or to the guild's, if it got about that you—a supposed guild master—were really no better than the Lamplighter's resident doxy. If the word spread that for the past two years at least, you've been going down there and servicing him? After all, it's even in his contract. Money for whores, even if it's not in so many words. Did you know that, _Mistress_ Mary?"

Without pausing or thinking, she slapped him, the sound of the blow as clear as a gunshot in the small, quiet room. And then, horrified at herself, terrified of what Amberherst had threatened, she ran from the room as the tears began to fall. The last thing she heard was the sound of his cruel laughter, chasing her down the corridor.

* * *

The apprentice had brought her Nicholas' reply within twenty minutes or so. He would arrange a later shift for Amberherst, as she suggested, and meet her at the Pig and Sprocket at eight o'clock.

His handwriting was jittery, barely legible. Mary wondered if his joints were aching. It was snowing again, unseasonably cold if beautiful. She wrapped a woolen shawl under her cloak, and a thick knitted scarf around her neck, but she was chilled nonetheless by the time she had braved the wind and frost and made it to the warm glow of the pub's common room.

She felt an illicit excitement as she secured a room for the night, glad for the master's garb that granted her leave to do so without suspicion. An unmarried woman, carrying only a small valise, still raised many an eyebrow if she tried to obtain a room in an inn. But the publican at the Pig and Sprocket didn't seem to notice or mind what she was carrying. She was clearly just another traveling tradeswoman to him, no doubt on her way to or from some training or special job of work. He pocketed her money and summoned a boy within seconds to take her to her room, granting her all the deference her uniform demanded.

Mary tried to ignore the irony that the public's perception had actually changed faster than the true practices within the guild hall. Clever management of information and publicity, she now realized, had affected this. People had been trained to think of the guild as a model of progressive thinking, and an example of what was capable in a truly egalitarian system. And true, there had been some changes. The second in command was a woman now, a relatively young one at that compared to some of the other elders. But Mary had to wonder if Master Temple really had less power as Second Elder than she'd had as a master of her own workshop. Certainly she seemed to hold no sway with Master Smith or the rest of the elders. And when it came to the really important decisions, their thinking was as old and dusty as it ever was.

Alone in the small room, Mary unfurled her one pretty dress from the valise and snapped it out in front of her, pleased to see that it hadn't wrinkled badly. She was out of her heavy uniform in a twinkling, and couldn't help but enjoy the curiously light and airy feeling of the smooth blue bombazine as she fastened it over her underthings. The soft silk and wool felt like gossamer after years spent in thick, protective canvas.

A quick glance at the glass confirmed that her hair was a disaster. The tidy twist at the back of her head had started to shed pins, and her hair had dried into fair, wispy curls around her face where the snow had first frozen and then melted. But time only permitted her to tweak the bun roughly back into place with a few more hastily placed pins. The rest would do, she supposed. It would have to do.

Just as this single night would have to do, for it would be her last with Nicholas.

Mary had wept and railed and racked her brain for ideas, but in the end she saw no way out of her dilemma. She had only two viable options. The first was to take the job as offered, knowing that it spelled the end of any bright future for her. The second was to return home in shame and hope that her parents would listen long enough to forgive her. She might find work there in the village. Perhaps she might even make some widowed farmer a suitable enough wife, after the scandal had died down. Assuming the farmer was too desperate to be choosy, and would agree to marry a woman who'd been publicly branded a whore.

The one thing she could not do was agree to marry Nicholas. Not now, after learning what she had at the meeting with the Elders. Because he would find out too, all the details of the exciting new post she'd been offered. Mary cursed herself a thousand times over for not accepting his proposal at once, as she'd yearned to do. She'd wanted nothing more than to fling herself into Nicholas' arms, but hesitated because she thought she should give them both a little time to think. Surely that was the wise and mature decision? They had both acted rashly, and Mary was anxious that Nicholas had also been speaking rashly, and he might come to regret such an impulsive offer once he'd been out in the world again awhile.

After their moments of blissful madness, she'd been determined to take her next steps with a bit more deliberation and care. Now that choice seemed less like wisdom and more like the rankest folly. If she accepted him now, he would never know if she had married him for love or simply to escape an untenable position at the guild. They might be happy or not, but there would always be that inkling of doubt.

And what might become of the city if Amberherst were left in sole control of the Chair? He had always been competent, workmanlike, but never showed the astonishing facility with figures that Nicholas or even Mary had. Add to that his resentment, if he were left to do all the work when he had planned to do so little, and all of London might suffer from his wrath or at the very least his negligence. She couldn't help but recall the Bristol lamplighter, and imagine how much worse things might be in London if the great city was similarly attacked from within.

There were other lamplighters in training, she knew, at Lampworks across the Commonwealth. And nearly all of them were men. Mary reasoned that by removing herself from the equation, she might at least force the Elders to reconsider investing Amberherst with so much power. For surely they would never dare to make the same humiliating offer to a male lamplighter that they had to her. If they had to replace Mary, they would have to do so by finding a replacement who could truly take over the Lamplighter's job as well as the title. Bad luck for Amberherst, but good luck for London.

She'd thought on this, and for a moment her heart had brightened, thinking she had found a way out. A way to stay with Nicholas. But then she recalled the fear, the terror that Amberherst would make good on his threat even if Mary's refusal of the position were followed by news of her impending marriage to the newest peer of the realm. It wasn't a matter of her simply being compromised, and the marriage being required because of it. Amberherst would in essence be accusing her of prostitution, of having been the Lamplighter's guild-subsidized lightskirt for two years, even before she came of age.

It almost didn't matter whether the truth came out later, once Amberherst's version of events hit the press. Mary was old enough to know that people would assume there was no smoke without fire. They would believe the worst and later be suspicious of even the most credible evidence to the contrary. If Amberherst spread this vile rumor, he would destroy not only Mary's reputation and prospects, but also Nicholas' good name, before he had even started on the bright future he might otherwise enjoy.

It was a future she had hoped, for a few glorious hours, to share with him. But now, all she could have was one more night. And she planned to make the most of it.

# Chapter Five

##

He arrived at the door to the private dining room promptly at eight, and stood in the doorway blinking at her for several seconds, looking startled by her appearance.

"Nicholas, are you coming into the room?" she asked at last, puzzled.

"Oh! Yes, of course. I just . . . the blue, it suits you. Even if it is the color of the sky. It matches your eyes too. I never even realized. But of course they're blue."

She smiled at his seeming bewilderment and rose to help him out of his snow- bedecked coat, and his scarf that was crusted with frost. "Should I have warned you I wouldn't be in uniform?"

"It might have been wise," he confessed. "You're stunning enough even in your workshop togs. This is nearly too much." He put his icy hands on her shoulders, drawing her closer. "But I'll adjust."

His kiss was icy, too, but still managed to raise Mary's heart rate almost immediately. When she gasped for air, he pressed his tongue gently into her mouth, and she found it was hot and soft, a delicious contrast to the chill of his lips.

Footsteps in the hall alerted them in time to distance themselves from one another, and Nicholas made a production of draping his coat and scarf over a chair by the little hearth as the serving girl laid down two bowls of thick stew.

"Wine?" Mary asked, gesturing toward the bottle and glass. The innkeeper had opened and poured for her, but she wasn't sure if she was meant to pour for Nicholas.

It was something a countess would know, she thought. Just as well she wasn't going to be one of those. They probably didn't frequent establishments like the Pig and Sprocket anyway.

He filled his glass and then leaned back in his seat, sipping casually as though he dined out every day.

"I've taken a room for the night," she offered quietly.

After a moment, the Lamplighter nodded. "I was going to ask if you wanted me to. I don't really know what I'm about, here."

"You know more than I do," she pointed out.

"True. Unfortunately true."

Mary tried not to let the giggle escape, but after a few seconds of mighty struggle, she gave up and it burst forth, soon to bloom into full-blown laughter. Nicholas was not far behind, and they both ended in tears, winding down their bout of spontaneous hilarity with weak gasps as the fit slowly ebbed.

"We were never prepared for this sort of thing," she complained, holding her aching sides.

"It's true. Nobody teaches you how to conduct a tryst," Nicholas agreed, slugging back a mouthful of wine. "I do love your laugh, though, Mary."

"We sounded like a pair of escapees from Bedlam."

He leaned forward, resting his chin on his hands. "I did, perhaps. You sounded like an angel. And I'll never hear otherwise."

She blushed and grinned, finding herself entranced by the very fine wrinkles that formed at the corners of the Lamplighter's eyes when he smiled. He looked warmer, more human today. And not just around the eyes.

"Have you been spending more time outside, in the sun?"

"Not that there has been much sun. But yes, I have. While you and Amberherst have been taking these longer shifts."

The mention of Amberherst recalled Mary's fear and anger, the despair she felt over the decision she was faced with. She wanted to talk about anything but him, anything but the guild and its machinery, its machinations.

"Tell me where you've gone."

And he did, regaling her throughout dinner with his tales of learning to hail a taxicab, his trip to Hyde Park, the visit to the tailor he'd been obliged to consult for clothing since he would need more than his guild uniform and decade-old trousers and the like to meet his anticipated social obligations.

"You'll be next, you'll see what it's like," he warned her at one point. Mary steered him to another topic, trying to think only of that night. The future, whatever it held, could wait.

The publican almost certainly knew that the lady master and the gentleman had gone up the back stairs to her room together following their meal. But he turned a blind eye, saying nothing if indeed he did know, and they made their way to the room unhindered. It occurred to Mary, as she fumbled with the key and finally gave it over to Nicholas, whose hands were steadier, that this would be their first time alone. Truly alone, behind a locked door, with no great danger of interruption and only one very clear purpose in mind.

Little wonder her hands were trembling. She felt like a fallen woman, a wanton, and the worst part was, she was thoroughly enjoying the forbidden thrill of it all. Nicholas seemed cautious, as if he worried that he might frighten her with a too-sudden advance. But for Mary, the time for caution was over. She approached him as soon as the door was latched, looped her arms around his and lifted up on her toes to kiss him, taking him by surprise.

He recovered quickly, however, taking control of the kiss as his nimble fingers unfastened the buttons down the front of her dress at lightning speed. The pretty fabric fell away, revealing the same underthings he'd seen before. He didn't stop this time. He peeled away her layers, chemise and corset and drawers, until only her thick woolen stockings were left.

"I think I like that," he remarked, holding her a little away from him to admire the sight of her, so nearly nude.

"I look ridiculous," Mary protested, but her words melted away when Nicholas pressed his lips over one cold-tightened nipple, warming it with his tongue until it grew even harder.

"You look beautiful," he whispered over her skin, letting his lips map her sternum, her clavicles, the subtle indentation where her shoulder met her neck.

It was too much. Mary moaned and reached for Nicholas' shirt, nearly tearing it in her zeal to get it off. She felt a ravenous urge to touch him, to feel his skin against hers.

His trousers, a bit too loose on him, fell away easily, but hung up around his ankles until he had hopped and struggled and finally wrenched his boots off his feet. She scarcely had time to admire his naked form before he lifted her by the waist with unexpected ease and carried her to the bed. Sitting her on the edge, he knelt before her and slowly, with infinite care and a great deal of extraneous fondling, removed her stockings to bare her completely.

It was as erotic as anything he'd done yet. Mary was squirming where she sat by the time he was done.

"Patience, my love," the Lamplighter teased as he joined her on the bed, using his body to press her back until she was lying beneath him, her thighs trapped between his.

"We have hours yet."

She didn't want him in hours, she wanted him that instant. But if she must wait, she would have to keep her mind occupied in some other way than by wondering what he would do next, when and how he would touch her.

"Nicholas, the other day, in the Chair," she began, knowing he would understand which day she meant, "why did you strap me in like that? And put the screens up? What were you afraid I would do?"

His abdomen bumped against hers when he chuckled, and his cock brushed against her pelvis in a way that made her buck up into the pressure before she could stop herself.

Nicholas took her hands in his, pressing them firmly down against the bed as though it would help him remember why he'd restrained her hands the first time. "I suppose I was afraid you might run off, or that I would be so terrible at it that you would push me away out of sheer aggravation. And if you did tell me no, I wanted to give myself a little time to get a head start before you came after me with murder in mind." He kissed the corner of her mouth, smiling wryly. "I do apologize for being so graceless though. I never meant for you to feel as though I would force you, if you did refuse me."

"I never did," Mary assured him. It was only the truth. "I'm not sure why that would be. But I knew you would stop if I said I didn't want to."

"I was very pleased you did want to." Another kiss, longer this time.

"So I gathered. Are you really going to make me wait for hours?" she asked breathlessly, stirring against him and trying to shift her legs apart. "I don't think I can bear that."

"All I've been waiting for is to regain enough control that I won't go off like a green boy the moment I'm inside you this time." He swallowed hard, looking as though any control he had won was fragile at best.

Mary melted a little more at the keen intensity in his dark-fringed eyes, the hunger and emotions she could read so clearly there. How could he have ever thought, even for a moment, that she could refuse him anything? Didn't he know he was everything?

"I don't care about that." She blinked back tears, hoping he wouldn't see, or at least that he wouldn't understand their cause.

"But I do, my love." And he began kissing his way down her body, marking her with gentle bites, breathing fire into her veins until she felt like finely blown glass that might shatter into a million sparkling slivers at the slightest touch.

When he said he wanted to taste her, Mary had no idea what he meant. It was a shock to her, his hands parting her thighs to press them open and back in a lewd display, his head lowering toward her lap. She couldn't quite believe it, that first hot, slick slide of his tongue over her slit. It felt too good, impossibly good. She thought she might die if he did it again.

Then he did it again, and all she could think of was wanting more. More fluid heat, more tickling breath, more of it all. And especially more of _that_ , his lips pressed to her clitoris in a scandalous parody of a chaste kiss, just before he slipped his mouth open again to circle the tender nub with his tongue.

"Nicholas!" she cried, seeking his head and gripping his hair with both hands.

"Please! Now, oh please, now!"

Raising his head, he met her gaze with lustful, heavy-lidded eyes. "You want me now, Mary? Then you shall have me."

He levered himself over her in one swift movement, using one hand to position himself and thrusting far too quickly into her tight sheath. But she was eager and wet, and she drove him on, clasping her legs around him to draw him in when he would have slowed down to ease his passage.

"Now," she repeated, greedy for what he could give her. When she arched her back, his reserve seemed to break. He shoved himself in to the depths of her with a shuddering cry, and then plunged in again and again, setting a bruising pace.

Mary clung to him as he took her, mindlessly matching his rhythm until her pleasure reached a blinding crescendo and burst through her body. Her cry of bliss seemed to spur Nicholas, who groaned as he reached his own release, pushing deeper still until he was completely spent.

They lay there, tangled together in happy exhaustion, not sleeping but not quite awake. Just floating, caressing one another tenderly, lost in their love.

But time marched on, and Big Ben soon chimed the end of their idyll. Eleven o'clock. They counted out the bongs together, rueful about the inescapable confirmation.

Nicholas leaned over her with a final kiss then rose a little stiffly to dress himself.

Mary watched, unable to find the energy to stand just yet. When she moved it would be over, and she couldn't bear that. Just a few minutes more, she pleaded with herself.

"God."

Nicholas had straightened from tying his boots and was standing, hands in his hair, looking aghast.

"What? What's the matter?" She sat up then, clutching the blanket to her chest automatically. "Nicholas?"

"I forgot. Oh Mary. I'm so sorry, darling, I forgot." He strode back to her and bent over, the picture of concern.

"Forgot what?" Her mouth grew dry at his expression of misery. And drier still when he reached beneath the blanket and placed his fingers gently against her sex.

They slid easily over the delicate skin, which was far, far too wet.

Mary closed her eyes for a moment, hoping to open them and discover she'd been dreaming. It didn't work. It was all too real. Nicholas' seed was spilling out of her now, and if there were damage it was already done.

"I'm sure it will be all right," she lied, as cold dread spread through love-warmed limbs.

"How long until—"

"I'll let you know. A few weeks, I suppose. I'm not entirely sure."

He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his fingers clean, then Mary, a gesture she found sweet if futile.

And then, because she knew she was going to cry and she couldn't do it in front of him, she smiled and stroked his cheek. _One last time_.

"It will be all right," she repeated. "But you should go now. You don't want to be late getting back. People will ask questions."

"I can't just leave you," Nicholas objected, but Mary was already shaking her head.

"I'll stay here the night, since I've already paid for the room. And I'll be back at the hall in the morning before anybody even notices I've been away."

After a few moments of obvious uncertainty, he nodded, though he didn't look happy about it. "Lock the door behind me."

"I will."

When he was gone, and she had watched from the window until he disappeared around the corner, Mary retrieved her chemise and drawers from the floor and pulled them on, then bundled herself in the bedclothes. But she had taken a chill, it seemed, and couldn't manage to make herself warm again. As she lay there shivering, the tears came at last, inexorable as the storm that began to howl outside, rattling the windowpane with each gust.

# Chapter Six

##

The morning brought clear, icy stillness to London, and a sense of equally crystallized purpose in Mary's mind. She was awake and away well before dawn, returning to the guild hall over pavements still bearing a pristine coating of snow. It crunched lightly under each footstep, and the freezing damp had numbed Mary's toes by the time she mounted the stoop in the alley behind the hall to let herself in by the kitchen door.

The scullery was already bustling, of course, and Mary paused on the threshold to absorb the warmth, the sleepy camaraderie, so similar to that of the workroom floor.

Friends? She wouldn't be leaving many of those behind, she reflected, finally making her way up to her room to change. Acquaintances, yes. Colleagues. But she could really only name one true friend whose companionship she would miss when she left the guild. And he was the reason she must leave.

It had come to her, at some point during that long and mostly sleepless night. She could stay, and take the scraps she'd been offered while Amberherst took a place at the head of the table. She could spend her ten years doing the work she had trained to do, and afterward take the pension that was due any retired master.

But to do that, she knew, would be to lose her soul. Watching Amberherst steal all the reward, watching Nicholas find and marry a suitable woman. Remaining here, friendless and marginalized, would kill everything that was good inside her.

And while returning to her parents might kill a part of her as well, at least she would be back among family. And have a chance of putting her dashed hopes behind her, finding a new way to make a life. She was still a master of the Lampworkers, that credential would not be stripped from her. She could find something worthwhile to do, if she tried.

When she ducked back out of her room to make her way down to breakfast, Amberherst was there. Waiting, leaning on the wall opposite her door, hands in his pockets. How had she never noticed before how very unpleasant his smile was?

"Pleasant evening?" he inquired softly.

"Not that it's any concern of yours." She made as if to sweep past down the hall, but he blocked her with one arm.

"It concerns me very much, and I think you know why. It's a decent meal they serve there at the Pig and Sprocket, isn't it. Nice rooms too. _Mistress_ Mary."

She glared at him, too angry to speak. He took her silence as leave to continue.

"Some say the Lamplighter's not really even a man anymore. But I guess you'd know different, eh?" He made an obscene gesture with his hands, and she smacked them away without a second thought.

It was an unfortunate move. In a trice, Amberherst had her wrist in his and spun her away from him to twist it up behind her back, pinning it there with agonizing pressure as she struggled to get away. He was tall enough to have the advantage, however.

"Haven't you done enough already? It's over, Amberherst. You can have the position. You can be the Lamplighter. I'm packing my things after my shift and leaving, and I wish you and the guild luck in finding a replacement."

She took a grim satisfaction in knowing he would have to do a great deal more of the work than he'd intended, until said replacement could be found or trained.

"Oh no, you innocent little darling you. Are you really that stupid? You're not going anywhere. Without you, my deal falls apart. And if I get so much as an inkling that you're considering doing a disappearing act, your little arrangement with the Lamplighter will be made very, very public. You were even fool enough to make it easier for me, by running off and fucking him last night. Innkeepers are fairly cheap, I was pleased to learn. It will help no end to have a neutral party to corroborate."

Amberherst yanked her arm higher, pulling her back against his body, and to Mary's infinite disgust she felt a stiff lump poking at the small of her back. Her struggles had aroused him, the vile beast.

Struck with sudden inspiration, Mary made herself go limp, as if the fight had gone out of her, and ignored the screaming pain in her shoulder and arm as she slumped down and back against Amberherst. And then, when she felt his grip relax, she stood firm to put space between them and brought her free hand down hard, her fist connecting directly with that hateful bulge.

He screamed in her ear but lost his grip as he shifted his hands automatically to his crotch. Mary wasted no time in fleeing, and by the time he had recovered enough breath to start adding coherent words to his shouts, she was safely down the first flight of stairs, on the hall where the senior masters lived who were spinsters.

_Never_ , Mary promised herself, slowing to catch her breath as she rounded the landing and headed down to the first story. _This will never be me_.

Amberherst hadn't dared follow her, and in fact his noisy presence in the women's residential wing must have caused him some difficulty, Mary thought when her panic eased. True, he hadn't been in among the female students, but generally it was understood that even among the adults, any visiting male masters would be discreet for the good of all involved. The guild hated a scandal. Maybe Amberherst would be at the center of his own, and never get the chance to create one regarding her.

Mary was feeling somewhat cheered by the idea of Amberherst trying to explain his presence, howling and clutching his genitals, in that particular hallway. For surely his noise had awakened any of the ladies who might still be abed.

But her watery cheer was snuffed out when she arrived for her shift in the Chair that afternoon, and saw the look on Nicholas' face when she raised the screens.

He was angry. Not just angry, livid. Jaw clenched, eyes dark, lips pressed into a thin line that spoke as loudly as any words might. And he didn't say a word as she unbuckled him. But he grabbed her hands as soon as he was free, holding on far too tight.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he finally ground out.

Mary wasn't sure what to say, because she wasn't sure what he'd learned. She shrugged instead, looking away from his painful glare.

"They'll make a slave of you, Mary. Keep you in the shadows while that arrogant son of a bitch gets all the glory. No title. No standing. No extra benefits after you've sacrificed your youth to them, your prospects, your health more than likely. And for what? You would truly prefer that to the life I could give you?" He gave her hands an urgent little shake.

"Of course I wouldn't," she whispered.

"Then why? I don't understand. Smith says you've made no objection, given him no reason to think you won't accept. Amberherst has already signed a contract, and yours is waiting in Smith's office for your signature. When were you planning to tell me?"

Lines of bitter regret marred the handsome planes of his face, and Mary wanted more than anything to smooth them away. Behind him, the machine that dominated both their lives continued to clatter and whirr, conducting the business of the city without them.

"Shouldn't somebody be checking on things?" she whispered, nodding toward the Chair.

"Hang the engines. Let them all keep their own schedules for a minute or two. Mary, why won't you explain?"

The bitterness faded into misery, and it was more than she could bear. Something broke inside her, or turned like a switch, and all the things she hadn't said came tumbling out at once.

"I was doing it for you, Nicholas," she cried, "for you! Because I thought you needed a chance to see the world outside this place first, and find a real countess. And then after they told me, I hadn't given you my answer yet, and I knew if I went with you, you would be sure to find out what they'd tried to do. And don't you see, you could never have been sure I hadn't done it, married you, just to get away from this. And then while I still wasn't sure, Amberherst—"

"Mary," Nicholas said, tugging gently at her hands until she stopped. "Mary. Of course I would have known, darling."

"But I hadn't even said I love you back yet," she wailed, mortified to realize that tears were splashing over their combined fingers.

"You were rather overcome by events at the time," he said, having the decency to look a little sheepish. "But I knew. I've known for a long time. Probably longer than is remotely proper, given your age."

"That could have just been hero-worship, Nicholas."

"But it wasn't. And do you want to know a secret?" He leaned in, as though their conversation might feasibly be overheard. "I knew I felt the same. Even before that day you started coming down here and working in your underthings."

"Sir! How scandalous. I'm shocked." She fluttered her eyelashes, then reminded herself sternly that she was supposed to be telling him goodbye forever. Flirting was not usually a component of that. "But Nicholas, I'm not cut out to be a countess. I don't even know when to pour the wine, or which fork to use, or what a second footman is for. My parents were hardly poor, but we certainly weren't quality. You need somebody who can help you. Who knows what to do in society."

"No."

"But don't you see, you can't just—"

"No," he insisted. "I don't need that. Or perhaps I do, but I don't need it in a wife. And I don't give a rat's arse if you're from quality. Heaven knows I'm not. But we can hire people to teach us all that. As much as we need to know, anyway. I'm not altogether certain I want to spend much time in society."

"No, it sounds dreadful," Mary concurred. "The dresses are pretty though."

"And you shall have those, I've told you. You'll spend so much time being fitted you'll never want to see another pin. I won't have anybody mistaking my countess for a charwoman."

She smiled, not at the idea of dresses but at the deliberately solemn face Nicholas was making. And then sadness penetrated her consciousness, filling her with dread once again. "Nicholas, there's more. Amberherst. He's a little mad, I think. He says he'll force me to stay, to take the position, and if I try to do anything else he'll . . ."

Nicholas was looking at her with such trust, such loving concern, that Mary found herself choking up as she forced the words from her mouth. "He'll destroy both our reputations. Spread the rumor that for the past two years I haven't been your student, I've been your . . . that thing you said, that you had money for in your contract. He'll imply that the guild arranged it that way, arranged for one of their own members to . . . and," she rushed on as he opened his mouth to interrupt, "he's paid the innkeeper at the Pig to back him up. We made it easier for him. _I_ made it easier for him. Oh Nicholas, I'm so sorry!"

She flung herself toward him, easing her sorrow against his firm shoulder, if only for a precious few moments of solace before the cold, hard truth must be faced.

Nicholas wrapped his arms around her, stroking the back of her neck, murmuring reassurances.

"He _said_ all that to you?" Nicholas asked when her sobs had begun to wane.

Mary nodded against his shoulder. "Once after the Elder masters met with us, and then again this morning. He twisted my arm too. Literally. I had to . . . well, do him a damage in order to get away."

She felt his arms tighten around her until she could scarcely breathe.

"I'll kill him," he whispered into her hair.

It was sweet to hear, she had to admit, but sadly impractical. "That would probably be unwise."

"True. Tempting, however. What sort of damage did you do him, anyway?"

She blushed furiously. "I struck him hard with my fist. In the, er, area where men are particularly vulnerable."

Nicholas pulled away to stare at her in disbelief before bursting into laughter. "You punched him in the bollocks? Amberherst?"

She nodded, still blushing but unable to hold back a little smile. "Well, in that general region, yes. It was very effective."

"I'd imagine it was," he agreed, wiping a tear from one eye.

"He roared like a bear," Mary added. "I shouldn't wonder if half the ladies on the hall heard him bellowing."

"Wait. The ladies? He did this where?"

"In the hallway outside my room. He was waiting when I came out to go to breakfast. It was early though, I imagine some of the masters were still sleeping."

He looked thoughtful, lifting a hand to his chin and stroking for a moment in silence. "I think it's time for you to start your shift, Master Mary," he said at last, leading her to the Chair and beginning to strap her hands into place.

"Nicholas, what are you planning? Please don't kill Amberherst. It wouldn't be worth it."

"Darling, never you fear." He gave her a quick kiss, and then a more meaningful one, obviously regretting the moment he had to drag himself away. As he lowered the screens into place, he smiled as though he had a delightful secret.

"What are you going to do?" she demanded, even as she started to scan the mirrored streams of information before her.

"See to it that Amberherst is hoist on his own petard. And I think I know just the way to do it. I'm off to see Cyrus Smith, dearest. I'll miss you terribly while I'm gone."

# Chapter Seven

##

"Where are we going?"

"I'm still not telling you. And leave that alone." Nicholas pulled Mary's fingers away from the knotted scarf with which she was currently blindfolded. With an exasperated huff, she let him take her hand and hold it as the driver of the sleek little steamcar navigated through several more turns.

At last, hissing and whistling as its boiler was eased, the vehicle rattled to a stop and Nicholas lifted the blindfold away. Mary blinked a few times, and then looked around curiously. She saw nothing, only a rather pleasant curved street of attractive stone and brick buildings. A few people were walking here and there on the pavement, clearly bound to or from holiday gatherings. Their heavy cloaks and greatcoats in no way disguising the obvious quality of their apparel.

"I still don't know where we are," Mary said, turning to Nicholas.

"Mayfair."

"I see. And why are we in Mayfair?" She didn't want to complain. But it had been a long day, with her shift that morning following a nearly sleepless night, and the stress of the altercation with Amberherst on top of it all. And, she suddenly remembered, it was Christmas Eve. "Did you know it was Christmas Eve?"

"Yes. Didn't you?"

"Honestly, I'd forgotten all about it. Are you going to tell me? Why do you keep smiling like that?"

"I could tell you, but I would much rather show you, and it's hardly the weather for sitting out on the street." He nodded to the driver, who hopped out of his seat in the cab of the smart little vehicle to open Mary's door.

Nicholas was waiting, arm poised for her to take, and he led her up the steps to the nearest door before brandishing a key with a happy little flourish.

"You have a key to it?"

"I do." He opened the door and gestured for her to precede him into the echoing marble foyer. Gas lights were already burning, revealing the high polish of the stone and the luminous wood of the stairway and banister that curved elegantly at one end of the long, vaulted space.

After a moment, he raised his eyebrows in expectation. "Well? What do you think?"

"It's lovely," she said. "What is it?"

"A house."

"Yes, I can see that."

"I bought it this afternoon. I've had an agent looking for something suitable for some time now, actually. But the deal was closed today."

Mary's world spun around for a moment, but Nicholas was still there waiting, smiling, when she regained her equilibrium.

"Come and sit on the stairs and admire it with me for a few minutes while I tell you about the rest of my afternoon," he suggested cheerfully, leading her to the bottom step where she sat down more heavily than she meant to.

"This afternoon, while you were in the Chair," he said, sitting next to her and stretching his long legs out before him, "I went to have that talk with Master Smith. Who had already had some complaints, it seems, about the incident in the residential hall this morning. Evidently the first person upon the scene was Master Temple, who was none too pleased to have to deal with Amberherst, clutching his privates and attempting to defame you, before she'd had so much as a sip of coffee."

"Oh, she's very cross before breakfast," Mary confirmed.

"She frogmarched the lad straight to Smith's office, where he pouted and stewed and made threats about what his father would do when he found out. That went on a good hour or so, according to Cyrus. And then, by happy chance, another complainant arrived. One might say another nail was hammered into Amberherst's coffin, and the hammer was wielded by none other than young Jocelyn. Apparently she's none too pleased with Amberherst."

Mary nodded. "I expect not. He planned to keep her as a mistress while he married up in an attempt to ingratiate himself with the _beau monde_. A respectable member of the Lampworkers, with every prospect of mastery within the next year, and he thought she would agree to that? It was absurd."

"His plan might have worked better if he hadn't already pledged to marry Jocelyn. Not secretly either. Her parents were in favor of the match. Of course, they're ready to charge him with breach of promise now. So by the time I enlightened Master Smith about Amberherst's threats to you, and pointed out how badly the scandal would reflect not only on the two of us but on the guild itself, he had already had enough. He contacted Amberherst's father. And I suspect Amberherst will find, when he leaves his shift this evening, that he is no longer a candidate for adoption by the future Duke."

Mary tried to take it all in. All the emotion, the uncertainty of the past few days, and the changes she knew had been wrought in her. It was too much, all of it. For now, it was enough just to breathe, and hold Nicholas' hand, and allow herself a tiny, hopeful inkling of relief.

"Smith has also been negotiating with Manchester to send a lamplighter they've been training there. He's quite good, apparently. But you should know that I wouldn't leave until old Cyrus promised the position would be yours if you wanted it. The true position, I mean. Just as it was. I think he's seen the potential dangers of trying to groom a Lamplighter to mingle with the _ton_ on his off hours."

She thought about it, the job she had trained to do, had been selected for years ago, before she even knew what the lamplighters did. It had seemed the pinnacle of achievement, her obvious ambition in life. The thing she had been meant to do.

But now? Now, it seemed like ten long years without Nicholas. She wouldn't have minded the isolation, the hours, the responsibility. She might, in fact, even miss her time in the Chair, sitting Godlike and watching, controlling, as all of London rolled by in an endless equation.

She wouldn't miss it nearly as much as she would miss Nicholas if she took the job, however. It was a difference of magnitudes.

"I don't want it anymore."

He sighed and clasped her hand a little tighter in his. Then he brought it up to his lips to press a kiss to the back of each finger. And to her palm. And to her wrist, which made her shiver with pleasure.

She felt something cool on her finger, and dragged her eyes away from Nicholas' face to her hand. A slender band of gold gleamed on one finger, supporting a sapphire ringed with tiny, glittering diamonds.

"Do you want me, Mary? Or should I have asked before I gave you the ring, to be sure?"

"I've never wanted anything more," she said softly. "I would want you even without the ring. But I'll keep it if it's all the same to you."

They chuckled, leaning together to let their joy dissolve into kisses. Teasing at first, playful and glancing. And then deeper, as Nicholas angled her head just so, to take her mouth with his tongue.

"I want to take you to Gretna Green as soon as the guild releases us," he murmured when they parted for air.

"In case there's a child?"

"No," he assured her, "because for once I'd like to make love to you without having to go back to work directly afterward. I'd like to keep you up all night and make love to you over and over."

Mary whimpered as Nicholas scraped his teeth over the delicate skin beneath her ear. It set that entire side tingling, and she could have cried all over again at the frustration of knowing it could only be a tease for now.

Nicholas, however, clearly had other plans. He shifted her, pulling her around and shoving up her skirts until she was straddling his lap. She could feel his arousal, his cock pressing for release against his trousers. His hands were already busy elsewhere, shoving her cloak and jacket off her shoulders, untying her chemise to reveal the tops of her breasts.

"The driver—" she began, straining to maintain some shred of propriety.

"Has been sent away and told that he is under no circumstances to return in less than one hour," Nicholas said, before flicking his tongue against the hint of pink at the edge of the fabric where her underthings nearly revealed her nipple. "I want to do this someday with you in only your corset. Don't let me forget."

"I won't." She gasped as his hands found the gap in her drawers and delved beneath the muslin to find her wet, eager cunt. Not to be outdone, Mary reached for the front of his trousers and managed to work his cock free even as he worked his fingers inside her.

She wasn't sure how to proceed, then, but Nicholas coaxed her up on her knees enough to give him room before he angled his stiff, ready length to press against her entrance.

"Take me inside this way," he encouraged, using his free hand to press gently down on her thigh. She pressed until his tip was lodged inside her, tensed for a moment, and then let her body surround him in one heated slide. They groaned in tandem, resting their heads on one another's shoulders as her body learned this new way to accommodate him.

After a moment, Mary felt Nicholas' fingers at her hip, his thumb seeking and finding the nub of her clitoris. His other hand cupped her ass, guiding her into a slow pulse against him.

"Perfect," he whispered. "Just like that. Ride me just like that, Mary."

She caught his rhythm and made it her own, stroking herself against his hand until her need overtook her and her pace grew more frantic. Before she meant to, before she was ready, her climax struck her hard, rolling in wave after wave of bone-deep bliss.

Nicholas, buried deep inside her quivering body, was clearly helpless to resist the rapture that took him as it left her. Calling her name, he clamped his hands tighter still around her hips, jerking her closer with a groan.

Mary could feel him come, hot spasms of pleasure releasing inside her. She squeezed herself around him and relished the moan of sheer joy that escaped his lips as a final shudder swept over both of them.

"I promise it won't always be over so quickly," he said with chagrin once they started to stir again.

Mary laughed. "As long as it's in a bed. Any longer like this and I'm not sure I could stand again."

"Your knees! I'm sorry. Here, let's get you up." He lifted her off his lap, and Mary felt a keen sense of loss as he slipped from her body. Then she felt another unpleasant sensation as his seed began to creep down her thigh.

"Definitely in a bed. With nowhere to go afterward," she muttered, attempting to tidy herself. Her uniform skirt was resistant to creasing, fortunately, and her jacket covered the rest of the general disarray. "I suppose I'll do. My hair must look a fright."

"It looks delicious," he corrected her. "All the colors of good things to eat. I adore it."

"It's brown," she said, shaking her head.

"No, look." Stepping close again, he tugged an errant strand completely free from its pin, holding it between their faces and sampling the texture with his fingers. "See here? The darker bits are just a little red, like cinnamon. This bit is nutmeg. You have a hint of sherry running through it. And honey all around your face, and where those little curls form against your neck."

She felt herself smile with more than her lips and eyes. Her whole body seemed to turn to him and open, like a flower under the sun. Her soul, she might even dare say.

"I love you, Nicholas."

He beamed at her. "There now. That wasn't so hard, was it? I love you too. And I think you're going to make a splendid countess."

"Will we really have this whole house to ourselves?" Mary swirled into the vastness of the vestibule, trying to imagine how it would feel to do so in an elegant gown.

"Ourselves and a fair number of servants. And perhaps," he crept up behind her, encircling her waist with his arms and pressing his hands flat against her abdomen, "more residents will arrive after we've settled in."

Mary pressed her hands over his, wondering how long she might have to settle in before those arrivals. "Will you be terribly disappointed if they don't arrive quite so soon as all that?"

"Not at all. The longer they take to make an appearance, the more time I have to spend ravishing their mother in every room of the house. It is a rather large house, as you can see."

"We have more important things to do first," Mary chided him.

"What could possibly be more important than that?"

"Deciding where we're going to put the Christmas tree. We only have a year to get it right."

Nicholas nibbled on her earlobe before replying, "I think we can probably combine the two chores."

Giggling, she turned in his arms, tipping her head back and basking in the affection of his gaze. She saw love there, and humor. She saw the future, and was suddenly quite eager for it to begin.

# Thanks for reading!

I hope you enjoyed _The Lamplighter's Love_.

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Ready for some more steamy steampunk? Try the Steam and Seduction series from Berkley Sensation:

Gossamer Wing

Scarlet Devices

Gilded Lily

**Keep reading for an exclusive excerpt from** _Gossamer Wing_ **!**

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Intermezzo

 Love with a Chance of Zombies

(EPIC award winner)

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 The Theory of Attraction

 The Seduction Hypothesis

The Principle of Desire

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# Excerpt from Gossamer Wing

"My airship, the _Gossamer Wing_." Charlotte gestured with shy pride to the pile of closed trunks standing just inside the open door of the stable. Across the central corridor, a long dappled gray nose peered out at them with placid curiosity. The scents of well-tended horses and leather mingled with the earthier aroma of any stable, and sunlight danced through motes of dust around the unassuming trunks.

At last, feeling compelled to say something, Dexter nodded at the nearest of the three cases. "Impressive."

With a snort no lady should consider issuing, his companion hauled the case onto its side and flipped the latches open. "Here, help me with this, it'll go more quickly with two."

He helped Charlotte spread a lightweight tarpaulin on the dusty ground of the stable yard, then arrange a silk-covered blue pad and a confusing array of white leather straps. Beside this, from another case, came a rig he thought he recognized as a miniature version of a typical dirigible motor—but a version that looked more suited for a sugar egg than for any practical use. It was all frosted glass, enamel and silver, and so beautiful it took him a moment to see the sheer genius of the thing.

_Camouflage_. Of course. Once the propeller was in motion, and with the rigging obscured by the pale sky-blue silk below it—kept carefully clean by the tarpaulin until it was safely in the air—the whole thing would be nearly invisible. Even the pedestrian little gas canister had a tidy silk and leather wrapper to disguise it from eyes below. The slightly pearly sheen to it all would bounce back enough light to minimize the appearance of a shadow on the underside of the rigging.

The pièce de résistance was the blimp itself, and Dexter couldn't help a gasp of delight as he helped Lady Moncrieffe free it from the last of the trunks.

"I've never seen anything like it. I knew there was a dirigible involved, of course, but I simply never imagined something like this. Is this . . . wood? Leather?" He felt at the seams and joints, the fragile-seeming skeleton he could feel within the opal-blue silk casing. Even his knowledgeable fingers had trouble identifying the light, sturdy sub- stance that gave the thing structure and some shape before it was filled with gas.

"You're no ladies' man, are you, Mr. Hardison?"

She was staring him down, as cool as ever, but he somehow got the impression she was trying very hard not to laugh.

"A gentleman would never tell, madam."

"A gentleman wouldn't have to if he could identify corset boning when he runs his hands all over it."

"Ah!"

"Ah, indeed."

"That's brilliant!" The whole thing was brilliant. It was also clearly made for her, and her alone. He could see enough to know the little engine would be temperamental if overloaded, too noisy for its task, not nearly efficient enough on gas, and liable to run too hot for safety. Hence the necessity for strict weight limits on her helmet, as there must be on every garment she wore while piloting the tiny jewel of a craft.

"It's overcast today, and I'm not wearing proper clothing. But since I'm in breeches, at least, I can still demonstrate for you if you'd like?"

She had already snapped the balloon's frame into place on the rigging, and pulled a trigger to ignite the little flame that would heat and expand it. It took only moments before the whole bullet-shaped structure, scarcely larger than a weather balloon, was filled with air and bobbing gently over their heads. Dexter felt lighter than air himself, struck with the unlikely prospect of seeing her fly the thing—like one of his daydreams come to life.

The mounting must be the most dangerous part. Lady Moncrieffe swung one leg into the harness, then kicked off hard and pulled at a handle simultaneously so that for a moment she seemed to be clinging sideways to the airship's underbelly as it rose swiftly. A single practiced hitch of her body lifted her fully into the cradle until only her head was visible.

Even though the sky was gray today, and even though he knew where the airship was, Hardison had trouble spotting it at times once she'd risen high enough. On a cloudless day, at full altitude, the illusion would be complete.

"How high does it go?" he shouted, not sure whether she could still hear him.

No immediate answer came, but the little blimp dropped to within a few dozen feet over him. He could see Lady Moncrieffe's face peeking down at him. A few stray blond curls whipped around her uncovered head, and her eyes appeared to be watering.

"Coming down."

Her words were nearly lost in the wind, but he stepped away from the tarp to give her plenty of landing room. That operation wasn't quite as smooth as her takeoff, as it appeared to involve some hovering, then a wriggle and leap from the airship with a tethering line firmly in hand. Precarious, but she did it capably, despite being quite obviously green around the gills.

"Fish for luncheon," she said tersely, not giving any other explanation as she hauled the ship down and shut off the gas and engine, letting it settle slowly down to the tarp and quickly pulling the canopy away from the hot engine mechanism and gas nozzle. "I'm not a very good traveler."

"Ironic." And she intended to take a transatlantic ocean honeymoon? He suddenly wondered whether the price of sharing a cabin with her might not be entirely too high, if a five-minute airship ride made her this ill based only on the unfortunately timed consumption of a fish-based meal.

"Yes, isn't it? I have the Alvarez implants. They do help. Supposed to, anyway."

"Do you really? I've read about those. May I see?"

She shrugged. "I suppose. I don't typically let strange gentlemen peruse my inner ears, but as you're considering becoming my husband . . . and you're a makesmith."

He was already at her side, placing his fingers quite shamelessly on her head and tipping it to one side like a piece of delicate machinery. Alvarez implants weren't something a man got to see every day. Or any day, in his case. Fascinating.

"With these you shouldn't experience any nausea at all based on motion, you know."

"I know," she said wryly.

She held very, very still under his touch. He realized he had committed a huge breach of etiquette, but that pulling his hands away now would only draw more attention to it. Her skin felt like what it looked like. White peach. Every bit as soft as it appeared. Dexter willed himself not to sniff, to see if the smell matched the texture.

_Business_ , he reminded himself. _It's business_.

He bent closer to peer into her ear; he could just spot the tiny gold mechanism glinting where it breached her eardrum.

"Do you have the retrieval hook with you?"

"Always," she assured him. Her voice sounded a bit breathy, a bit distant. "But Mr. Hardison, I'm not going to let you disassemble my inner ears in a stable yard. Potential engagement and prior correspondence notwithstanding, we hardly know each other."

That was her pulse, racing there under his thumb where it rested along the elegant curve of her jaw. She looked tiny, birdlike, compared to the scale of his hands. Dexter released her as gently as he had touched her, slowly, with a reluctance he couldn't quite define except that she felt lovely and soft and much more alive than he had expected. Not like an alabaster angel at all.

"Another time perhaps, my lady."

His bow was ironic, but his tone was as gentle as he could make it.

She didn't smell like peaches. She smelled like lemon verbena, and ever so slightly of tea.

Text from Gossamer Wing: Copyright 2013 Delphine Dryden; all rights reserved, Berkley Publishing. Used with permission.

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Like the excerpt?  Read more!
