Page 10 of The Lawrence Browne Affair
Georgie arched an eyebrow. “That’s a lot of wire.”
“And a lot of tubing to protect it. Perhaps if it were only one wire,” Radnor murmured. “But I can’t see what use a single signal would be.”
Georgie was about to open his mouth to agree but then remembered tapping a warning onto a closed door, the night watchman peering through the window of a warehouse Georgie’s friends were burgling. Before he even knew his letters, he had learned the taps and scratches that boys used to communicate with one another during robberies. Georgie was slight and dark and very quick, the perfect lookout. Three taps on the window pane meant the watchman was coming, hold still. Six taps meant cut loose and run fast. Four scratches meant all clear. But he couldn’t very well tell the earl any of that.
There were other signals too. A finger held at the hip meant take care, this cove has a knife. A tip of the cap followed by crossed arms meant let’s dive into this bloke’s pockets. All these little gestures—a secret language used for centuries by thieves to ply their trade and keep one another safe. And it was all lost to him, maybe forever. He was as good as exiled, transported to a land where nobody spoke his native tongue.
“Three taps could mean an unfriendly ship has been sighted. Two taps could mean a storm off the coast. That sort of thing,” Georgie suggested.
Radnor was staring at him with an unreadable expression. Most of Radnor’s expressions were unreadable, to be fair. There was frustration and impatience, but the rest were totally opaque. Perhaps it was the beard.
“And the message would travel faster than a horse?” Georgie asked, trying to return to a safe topic.
Suddenly Radnor smiled, such a totally unexpected sight, Georgie very nearly smiled helplessly in return. “Yes, faster than a horse.”
“Faster even than a very fast horse?”
Now the smile was even broader, almost wolfish, and the earl folded his hands behind his head. “A message would travel from Penkellis to London in a matter of minutes, if only the wires could be placed.”
Minutes. That sounded too good to be true. If Georgie were to gull marks into investing in this device, nobody would believe it. They’d spot him for a fraud immediately.
An idea came to him, dangerous and brilliant, like a knife in the dark. Hecouldsell this device. Or, better yet, he could steal the plans and give them to Brewster. There might be enough value in the device to buy Georgie’s clemency, to earn his return to the world he missed, to protect Sarah and Jack. He could get his life back.
But he couldn’t very well write a letter announcing his whereabouts and hinting vaguely at a contraption that might theoretically result in almost instant communication from the coast to London but might instead be the delusion of a madman. Brewster would send someone to kill him, make no mistake.
Georgie would wait and see if Radnor’s device worked. Then he would draw up plans, complete and detailed, and use them to broker a deal with Mattie Brewster.
Radnor wouldn’t like it, once he found out that his former secretary had deceived him, had stolen the fruits of his labor. But that was his problem; he was wealthy and titled and could do without one poxy contraption. Georgie stamped out any stray thought that suggested otherwise.
“All right.” Georgie sat at one end of the table. “Let’s get this thing working. Send me a message.”
Lawrence stared at the wires. If he were a proper man of science, instead of a tinkering eccentric, he’d have already thought up a suitable message, likely something in Latin, something fittingly grand for the first use of this device. He looked down the table at his secretary, as if Turner’s too-handsome face would hold an answer. But Turner only looked patient, expectant. Likely bored.
Bugger Latin. He tapped out a few letters. Anxiously, he waited, watching the bubbles rise on the opposite end of the device, watching his secretary’s face as he deciphered the message.
Turner’s mouth quirked up in a small, surprised smile. Not bored now. “Truly? You,you, my lord”—he raked his gaze over Lawrence’s sloppily attired person—“are commenting onmymode of dress?”
Lawrence’s message had been short. Thirteen characters.Thatwaistcoat.Turner didn’t look the slightest bit offended, though. Likely he took Lawrence’s sartorial judgment for what it was worth—which was to say precisely naught. “I don’t think there’s been red embroidery within ten leagues of Penkellis in my lifetime.”
“I’ll be sure to parade it through the village later on, then. If your contraption hasn’t killed me, that is.” He smoothed one hand down his waistcoat, his long fingers as finely wrought as the embroidered flowers that swirled and twisted across the gray silk of the fabric. “And I’ll have you know that my sister, who is an expert in matters of dress, assures me that the thread is scarlet, not anything so vulgar as red.”
He was joking, Lawrence realized. That arch smile was meant to be playful. It was for Lawrence’s own benefit. Lawrence could hardly remember a time when smiles were for him. Had Isabella smiled at any point during their marriage? Father and Percy had never smiled at anyone. Simon had smiled at him, though, toothless and absurd.
He shook his head, clearing the thought, sending it back to gather dust with the rest of the things he wasn’t to think of.
It was, he understood, his turn to talk. He needed to say something that matched Turner’s tone. He wasn’t capable of witticism; he could no more engage in banter than he could fly. “Your sister is an expert on dress,” was what he settled on, forgetting to make the words into a question.
“She’s a dressmaker. A modiste,” Turner amended. “In London.”
Lawrence imagined Turner surrounded by bolts of brightly colored fabrics, running his hands along smooth silk and soft velvet. Perhaps the sulfurous scent of the electrolysis was affecting his thoughts, because he could almost hear the rustle of the costly fabrics as they gave way under Turner’s touch. He must have let his reverie go on too long because Turner sat back in his chair and rolled his eyes.
“Yes, I know. You expected to have a gentleman as a secretary, but you’re a shocking brute, so you’re stuck with me.”
It took Lawrence a moment to grasp what Turner meant. “Oh, that’s not . . . Wait.” He furrowed his eyebrows, reaching for the question he needed to ask to make sense of this. “You’re not a gentleman’s son.” Of course he wasn’t. Lawrence ought to have known that any son of a proper English gentleman wouldn’t take kindly to being targeted with flying books or addressed in terse profanities. But then what was the man doing as a secretary, a position generally held by the third sons of impoverished vicars?
Now Turner was regarding him with a look Lawrence recognized as exasperation. “I’m not a gentleman, full stop. And I don’t know why I’m telling you this, except that I don’t expect you care.” He looked strangely thoughtful now.
This was why it was safer to communicate in scowls and monosyllables. Safer still was to avoid people entirely. He put his foot wrong as soon as he started a conversation. He ruffled feathers without even knowing he had encountered a bird.
