There Will Be Phlogiston
Read There Will Be Phlogiston Online
Authors: Riptide Publishing
Tags: #adventure, #action, #monster, #victorian, #steampunk, #multiple partners, #historical fantasy, #circus, #gaslight culture
Riptide Publishing
PO Box 6652
Hillsborough, NJ 08844
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.
There Will Be Phlogiston
Copyright © 2014 by Alexis Hall
Smashwords Edition
Cover art: Simoné,
www.dreamarian.com
Editor: Sarah Frantz Lyons
Layout: L.C. Chase,
lcchase.com/design.htm
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 Riptide Publishing at the mailing address
above, at
Riptidepublishing.com
, or at
[email protected]
.
ISBN: 978-1-62649-256-1
First edition
December, 2014
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An instructive story in which vice receives its just
reward.
Inspired by true and scandalous tales of the Gaslight
aristocracy, we present the most moral and improving tale of Lady
Rosamond Wolfram.
Weep, reader, for the plight of our heroine as she
descends into piteous ruin in the clutches of the notorious
Phlogiston Baron, Anstruther Jones. Witness the horrors of feminine
rebellion when this headstrong young lady defies her father, breaks
an advantageous engagement, and slips into depravity with a social
inferior. Before the last page is turned, you will have seen our
heroine molested by carnival folk, snubbed at a dance, and drawn
into a sinful ménage à trois by an unrepentant sodomite, the wicked
and licentious Lord Mercury.
Reader, take heed. No aspect of our
unfortunate heroine’s life, adventures, or conduct is at all
admirable, desirable, exciting, thrilling, glamorous, or filled
with heady passion and gay romance.
“
A lady is reputed so much the better dancer or
waltzer as she obeys with confidence and freedom the evolutions
directed by the gentleman who conducts her.
”
—Hillgrove’s Ball Room Guide: A complete
practical guide to the art of dancing
Thomas Hillgrove (1864)
Sneak Peeks
Squamous with a Chance of Rain
Cloudy Climes and Starless Skies
“That one,” said the Phlogiston Baron. “I want
her.”
Lord Mercury gently lowered the man’s arm. “It’s
rude to point.”
“In your neck of the woods, it’s rude to
breathe.”
“Well, yes, if you do it loudly and offensively, and
in a way that could be considered frightening to ladies.”
“And I suppose I do?” Anstruther Jones stuffed his
hands in his pockets, ruining the line of his otherwise exquisitely
tailored evening wear.
Lord Mercury compressed his lips on a smile. “On
occasions, but perhaps
I
find such occasions rather
invigorating.”
“You mean—” Jones leaned in “—when I’m fucking
you.”
The blunt words travelled all the way along Lord
Mercury’s spine like the caress of a rough hand. Heat swept upwards
and, more worryingly, downwards. He did not dare turn his head. The
man’s eyes would be too full of knowledge, too full of purpose, and
Lord Mercury would be able to think of nothing but how it felt to
be the object of such a gaze. “Please don’t. Not—”
He didn’t know how to finish, or if he even meant
what he was saying, but it didn’t matter because Jones pulled back
immediately, his attention returning to the woman who had initially
caught it. “Tell me about her.”
There was absolutely no reason for Lord Mercury to
feel . . . what? Disappointed? Was that what it was? These thorns
in his heart? He had been the one to curtail whatever it was Jones
had been trying to do. Taunt him. Flirt with him. Unravel him in
the middle of a ball, a notion at once terrifying and strangely
enticing, all his filthy secrets spattering to the pristine floor.
The last scion of Gaslight’s oldest family: nothing but a catamite
and a whore. And even his ruin was incidental, for Anstruther Jones
needed only one thing from him. Anything else was mere
diversion
.
Lord Mercury swallowed his pride—what little he had
left of it—and gave the Phlogiston Baron what he wanted. As he had
from the beginning, little knowing where his compromises and his
capitulations would lead. “That’s Lady Rosamond, Lord Wolfram’s
daughter.” His voice echoed in his ears as though it belonged to a
stranger’s. “She’s insipid. A china doll. I don’t know what you can
possibly see in her.”
“Something I like,” was the Phlogiston Baron’s only
answer.
“Acquaintance will likely cure you of that.”
Jones laughed—an ungentlemanly burst of mirth that
made people stare at them. It should have made Lord Mercury
uncomfortable. It
did
make him uncomfortable. Immoderate
laughter was uncouth, as he had explained on several occasions, but
Anstruther Jones would not be curbed. On any matter.
He laughed when he felt like laughing.
And there was something frighteningly pleasing in
that.
He set off towards Lady Rosamond, trusting Jones
would follow. She was standing demurely at her mother’s side—a
diminutive creature, golden haired, rose-cheeked, decked out in a
three-flounced, pink silk ball gown with skirts so wide it seemed a
light breeze might sweep her into the sky as if she were made of
nothing but light and air.
She had only recently made her debut, so Lord
Mercury knew little about her. Like all young ladies, she was said
to be charming, amiable, and lovely to behold. Her family was good,
her portion was good. She was greatly admired by gentlemen, but
not—he thought—by the other debutantes.
He knew well enough that there had only been pique
in his dismissal. Her beauty was striking. It would have been, even
if delicacy had not been the current mode. Picture-perfect
womanhood: soft, yielding, fragile, rosebud pink lips formed in the
shape of a kiss to be taken.
He bowed to her. “Lady Wolfram, Lady Rosamond, will
you allow me to introduce to you my—” the word caught a little in
this throat, a lie in so many ways “—friend, Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones,
Lady Wolfram, Lady Rosamond.”
“Of course you may.” Lady Rosamond’s voice was a
sweet, ladylike trill. “Introduce him, that is.”
Jones performed something that was probably a bow
(if you happened to have your eyes closed while he did it) and then
recited, “It gives me great pleasure to form your acquaintance,
Lady Rosamond.”
Her eyes, which were blue—not like Jones’s eyes were
blue, but bright and hard-glazed like the willow pattern on
porcelain—slid past them. “I’m sure.”
Her tone had not wavered, but it was not the
response Lord Mercury had told Jones to expect Nevertheless the
Phlogiston Baron only shrugged.