Hearts of Smoke and Steam (23 page)

He nodded. “Two. Gone away.”

Sarah grasped the hand that held hers. “What happened?”

“I was
ladro
…” Sarah gave him a puzzled look. “
Criminale
…A villain.”

“You?” she said with a laugh.

Emilio nodded and stood up. “Watch,” he told her, and then leaned over backwards, his back arching down until he had his hands flat on the floor. Then, in a single fluid motion, he brought his legs straight up over his head. “Il Acrobato. You see?”

Sarah couldn't believe it, but as she watched him walk around the room on his hands, she realized that it was no joke. “I made machines and climb buildings.” He stood upright and mimed climbing up a rope. “I take people's jewels.” He plucked imaginary gems and tucked them safely away into an invisible bag before he sat back down on the couch next to her. She noticed that he had chosen to sit closer to her than he had been before…“But the
polizia
, they are smart. They find out who I am.”

Of all the men in the world, Sarah had found a repentant villain to have a romance with. For a moment she felt angry and foolish, and then she was suddenly almost blinded by a desire to wrap her arms around him and…“I should…” Sarah said, and then realized that she had no idea what she should do at all. The situation was so far beyond anything she had ever even imagined. She wanted to escape, but where could she go? To bed? What if Emilio followed her there? What if she wanted him to? For the first time in her life, Sarah Stanton found herself feeling almost naked without the armor of her corsets and skirts.

“You wore a mask?” she said, scooting herself away from him just a little bit as she tried to regain her composure.

“Sì, sì.
Harlequin.” He moved his hand over his face as he spoke. “I was a boy. I read about Americans, and I think is okay to steal for my wife and children.”

After Sarah had revealed her father's identity to the world, he had tried to explain to her why he had spent so many years wearing a mask and keeping his identity as the Industrialist secret. It wasn't just for their safety, he had told her, but also that as the Industrialist he was free of human flaws. In the eyes of the people he could be a perfect hero.

Emilio was hardly the first foreigner Sarah had heard of who had attempted to become a would-be Paragon. She had heard of heroes in London and Paris. There was even a small group of men in San Francisco who called themselves the Barbary Boys. Her father said they were more pirates than Paragons, although they sounded quite dashing. Of course, no one but the true Paragons had been given the power of fortified steam.

Sarah looked up and saw that Emilio was moving towards her again, and this time there was no question as to what his intentions were. She told herself she needed to lean back and fend him off, but her body seemed to be moving forward in spite of her good sense, and before she could exert her will, they were kissing again.

She could feel the glass dropping out of her hand, and she had no idea how much, if any, of the liquor was left. Somewhere in the distance, the cup bounced off the rug, and she realized that she didn't care.

Emilio's arm slid around her waist, catching the small of Sarah's back and pulling them closer together. Every one of her senses was suddenly filled with this man, and the taste of him was even more intoxicating than the liquor. A flood of feelings from passion to shame rose up in her so quickly that Sarah suddenly felt as if she were drowning in them.

She wondered if this kind of desire was what Odysseus must have felt when he heard the Sirens' call. Then even that tiny thought was wiped away, and Sarah crushed herself more tightly against Emilio than she had been when their lives had depended on it. It was wrong, and it was wonderful.

From some tiny corner of her mind, a voice screamed out to her. “Sarah Stanton,
control
yourself!” The words were spoken in clipped, strict tones, and she realized the voice she was hearing was her mother's.

Sarah grabbed onto the warning like the drowning Greek sailor she had imagined herself to be, and swam back to the surface of common sense. Freed from passion, she broke free from Emilio's embrace and pushed herself away.

Emilio seemed shocked as he realized that the moment had passed. His eyes were as wide as his face was red. “I…Is something wrong?”

Sarah glanced up and tried to say, “Nothing.” As she thought more about his question, a laugh spilled out from her mouth. It was only a small chortle at first, but as she tried over and over again to speak, the utter ridiculousness of pretending to be able to cover up
everything
made her laughter come out with more and more intensity until she realized that she was about to cry again.

Emilio had a look on his face—like a child that had been slapped too hard, and was about to cry. “Bella, do I make you sad?”

“No, no,” she managed to squeak out between suddenly rising giggles. When she realized that her emotions were no longer under her control, Sarah closed her eyes and lay back against the couch, making no sounds at all except for occasional gasps as she convulsed with mad laughter. “I'm sorry, Emilio.” Perhaps it was the freedom to truly breathe after years and years of having corsets wrapped around her chest, but she found herself laughing with more intensity than she could ever remember having done before.

And this time, even when her mother's voice commanded her to stop making a fool of herself, Sarah ignored it.

She wondered if being more open to laughter than to passion meant she was broken somehow, and the thought only made her laugh harder.

Emilio took her hand. “I sorry, Sarah,” he said with some shame. “
Sono sciocco.
I wish I had more words for you.”

Taking in a huge lungful of air, she held her breath and pressed her hand against her chest until she finally felt the laughter subside. Emilio had already put up with so much, she couldn't continue to laugh in his face.

Taking another breath, Sarah realized that she felt almost as exhausted as she had after the battle with the Ruffian that had happened—had it really only been earlier today?

“You…” she stifled the urge to laugh. “You,” she tried again, “have nothing to be sorry about Emilio. It's me…”

He turned away from her and nodded. “I see.”

“I'm,” she said, trying to suppress another chortle, “I'm afraid that everything is terribly far from all right for
me
now, Emilio.”

“I see,” he repeated. The look on his face was even more confused, and she realized that she had, quite without intending to, managed to hurt his feelings. She wondered if Viola would be angry at her for causing pain to her brother, or thrilled that she was learning how to break a man's heart. Either way, it wasn't the kind of woman she wanted to be.

Taking a moment to make sure that the laughter had truly ended, she leaned forward and kissed Emilio. This time she intended to maintain her composure, and although this kiss was far more chaste than the previous one had been, the moment she felt him start to move toward her again, Sarah pulled away. “That's all I can give you right now, Emilio.”

He nodded, obviously disappointed. “I think I understand.”

Sarah felt a sense of relief, although disappointment lingered somewhere just underneath the surface as well. Had part of her wanted to be ravaged? Had she really become such a wild creature in the few months since she had left society behind?

“Is okay, Sarah.” Emilio closed his eyes for a moment, and then stood up. “I want to show you something.” He held out his hand to her.

Sarah slipped her hand back into his and let him help her up off the couch, ignoring a sudden impulse to fall back into his arms. “What is it?”

“Your heart—I think I can fix it.”

She smiled at that, and then, when Emilio pointed over to the door to his lab, Sarah felt a sudden pang of guilt as she realized that in all the excitement of the day, she had completely forgotten about Tom.

“Come with me,” he said. His foreign features and complexion still reminded Sarah of the whispered tales that Sally Norbitt would tell of exotic men—foreign princes who would sweep away society girls and take them to mountain palaces, where they would commit unspeakable acts of lust with their virgin brides.

Of course Emilio was hardly royalty, or, she assumed, prone to unspeakable acts. And Sally could be prone to telling ridiculous lies. But it also seemed like this Italian man had no fear of touching a woman when the mood struck him.

As she let herself be dragged into the workroom, Sarah noticed that Emilio had done more than simply try to repair Tom. The space was much cleaner than it had been on her previous visit. The floor was obviously swept, and while there were still bits and pieces everywhere, he had at least tried to make the place more tidy and presentable. Things that had been simply scattered before were now placed in somewhat orderly piles, and the path on the floor was clear enough that a woman might cross safely in her bare feet.

Reaching the desk, Sarah looked down to see that he had indeed started putting the heart back together. Although a number of gears were still laid out on the table, the rest had been placed back into an open half of the heart in something that approximated order.

Emilio pointed at the empty side of the heart that lay nearby. “Look there!” He reached up and pulled down what appeared to be a brass tube on the end of an articulated arm. It hung down from an apparatus on the ceiling, and when Emilio pressed a button on the side of it, a small but intense flame appeared, revealing a series of glass lenses designed to focus the light onto the workbench.

As Emilio brought the device down closer to the table, the glow focused on the inside of the heart's curved shell, revealing a series of markings etched into the metal. “What is it?” Sarah said, looking closer.

“Is the same question I asked!” Emilio replied, clearly excited. He grabbed another arm from the array, the tension springs on either side of it letting out a merry groan as he pulled it into place. The end of it contained what appeared to be a large magnifying glass. “Can you see?” he asked as he tried to move the lens into focus.

Sarah swatted away his hand and looked through it. “I might be able to see if you stopped fussing.”

She moved her head back and forth until the markings became clear. “They're words!” The script itself was tiny and dense—far too small to have been written by hand, especially against the curved brass chambers, and yet, when properly magnified, it was crisply legible. “The gears must lie in a precise ratio,” she read aloud. “They are aligned in such a manner that they provide not only the timing, but preserve the character of their motion.”

“This is amazing!” she said, turning to Emilio and giving him a smile. Sarah looked again, not understanding any of the actual text, but simply reveling in the familiar cadence and stentorian but slightly poetic tone of Darby's language. “Every attempt has been made to make the dimensions and chambers as precise as possible. At the same time, the process of transformation is organic, and like all things of nature it is the action itself that creates the perfected individual.”

“You see!” Emilio said with a smile. “He tells us!” Emilio asked her after a moment.

She pulled her eyes away from the glittering words and looked up at Emilio. “Definitely.”

Emilio nodded. “Is very good.” He pointed to a series of books that lay open on the desk. In it were copious notes, entirely in a language that she assumed to be Italian.

Sarah couldn't help but notice that his handwriting was, in its own way, as tight and precise as Darby's had been, although how the old man had managed to shrink his distinctive script and apply it to the walls of Tom's heart was beyond imagining.

“I try to understand,” he said as he looked down at the floor, “but so much of it I cannot.”

Sarah peered back through the lens and tried to find the beginning of the text. She spotted a large, florid letter
T
and began to read again. “To those who have discovered my words, and would attempt to understand what it is I have created here, welcome. I cannot be sure what your purpose is in opening this vessel, but I assume that it is noble. In your hands is one of the most powerful objects I have ever created. It, more than anything else I have ever done, will change the world. I trust you to make it better.

“But to fully understand what I have created, you must first recognize that science is more than just the discipline of proof; first there must be a theory. To invent the impossible, we must first imagine the improbable. So, to any brave soul who discovers these words, I tell you that a true understanding cannot be reached through science alone.”

As she spoke, she realized that it was both thrilling and terrifying to hear Darby's words from beyond the grave. How many other secrets had he hidden away before his death? “Human ingenuity is the art of seeing, and then making. It will never be enough to simply copy something. You must
will
your success into being.” Sarah thought back to the key that Darby had worn around his neck—the broken element was proof that even perfection couldn't always guarantee the intended result.

She stood up, took Emilio's hands into hers, and then stared intensely into his eyes. Sarah hoped that the seriousness of her words could keep her passion at bay. “Do you trust me, Emilio?”

He smiled and nodded. “I do, Sarah.”

“Sir Dennis and I were very close, although never more than friends. Sometimes I imagined that, if our lives had been just a little bit different, another time…that he would have been the kind of man to me that I think you could become. Do you understand?”

“You loved him.”

Once again Sarah felt a prickling in her eyes. Of course she had. “I did.” Her love for Darby was a childish, impossible thing—far more than just years had separated them. But her feelings had also been powerful, passionate, and real. Sir Dennis had been a true mentor to her, guiding not only her mind, but also her spirit, to places where she could dream of escaping from her father's world and discovering a way where she might begin to make her dreams come true. And now they had. Everyone had secrets and failures, but being a hero meant trying again anyway…