The Marriage Machine (11 page)

“Excuse me,” Elspeth called. “Mark?”

The new bride turned to look over her shoulder. “Oh, it’s you,” she drawled, staring down her nose at Elspeth. She was dressed in a long wool coat and carried a fur muff, and already sported the aristocratic sneer she had assumed the Ramsays would have possessed but hadn’t after all.

Mark paused and stared down at Elspeth. His eyes were cold, bereft of friendliness. Elspeth couldn’t blame him for looking at her like that, after the trouble she had caused. Someone touched her elbow. Elspeth turned, to see the tip of Alexander’s cane, and was glad for the sudden diversion. Mark didn’t look all that interested in hearing what she had to say.

“Mr. Ramsay,” Elspeth pivoted to survey him. “How are you doing, sir?”

“Well enough, after all the excitement.”

“Please accept my apologies.”

“Hmph.” He rolled his eyes. “People need excitement every now and then. Keeps the blood high.”

She stared at him, not sure she heard him correctly.

“They were talking of taking you away. Execution. The fools! Someone had to do something.”

“You faked that collapse?” she sputtered.

“It was the only thing that came to mind. Not the most elegant idea, but effective.”

“But I thought you were on
their
side.”

“Mark did a thorough job of convincing me otherwise. Kept me up half the night talking about recent developments in the female constitution.”

The regal woman with the raven-colored hair came up behind the old man and grasped the handles of the wheelchair.

“Elspeth, is it?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Eleanor.” She held out her hand.

“Pleased to meet you.” Still trying to digest Alexander’s words, Elspeth shook the gloved hand of Ramsay’s mother and was struck by the serene strength in the woman’s face.

“Mark is busy at the moment, but he will be with you shortly. Why don’t you wait for him in the third car?” She gestured toward the blue car in the back. “It’s terribly cold out here.”

The regal glance swept down her uniform and across her boots, as if seeing for herself that Elspeth really did work for the power company. Elspeth made a mental note to contact her boss. He would expect her to return to work after the holidays and her honeymoon, but she had to let him know that she would never return to the SteamWizards.

“Thank you. I will.”

Elspeth scurried to the last car in the line, grateful to be away from staring eyes, while she struggled to compose the opening line she would use, once Mark appeared. She set her bag at her feet and closed the door, grateful even more for the warmth of the steam heater. She ran some phrases through her head. She didn’t want to demand, and yet she didn’t want to beg. She didn’t want to lay blame at his feet for what had occurred at the bower, and yet she didn’t want to take all the responsibility for it either. How would she ever come up with the right words? And what, precisely, did she want to say to the man? That she wished him well with his life? Of course she did.

But not with that woman.

Frustrated and disconsolate, Elspeth glared down at the floor.

Suddenly the door opened on the opposite side of the car, startling her out of her troubled thoughts.

“Shutterhouse?” a familiar voice called.

She glanced up, surprised when Mark bent to get into the car. He sank down into the driver’s seat and put his hand on the gearshift. His cool unfriendliness had transformed into the charming demeanor she knew so well. Her heart did a little flip flop.

“So, you decided to join us?” he asked.

“You promised me safe passage.”

“I did. But I didn’t think you would be up to things so soon.”

“I’m up to it.”

“Are you?” He leveled his blue eyes on her and she looked back at him. His lime-scented cologne billowed out, enveloping her in an intoxicating cloud. Her prepared speech vanished, replaced by an ache deep inside that fanned out in an unbearable wave. “What changed your mind?”

“I never changed my mind about going to the Outer Islands.”

“Oh, that. I see.” A shadow passed through his eyes, making Elspeth suddenly suspect that they were speaking of separate things. He slammed the door. “It’s damnable icy today. We’ll have to watch our speed.”

“Mark, I just want to say something. I need to say something.”

He clenched his jaw and waited, studying her face.

“Mark,” she began and then broke off, suddenly overcome by tears. They ran down her cheeks. “Why didn’t you tell me you were getting married?” Angry with herself for just blurting out her feelings, she brushed away the tears with the sleeve of her jacket, scratching her cheek in the process. “Why did you make me find out like that?”

“I had no choice. At that time I didn’t know if you were going to be my bride or not.”

“What do you mean,
at that time
?”

He shook his head and turned the key to engage the motor. As the car rumbled from merely heating the air to full throttle, he paused and glanced over at her. “Shutterhouse, why didn’t you trust me? I asked you to trust me. Why couldn’t you do that one simple thing?”

“What good would have come from trusting you?”

“It could have made the ceremony a lot more enjoyable. I would have
liked
that.”

“Oh, well.” Elspeth swallowed the hard lump that had lodged in her throat. “I’m sorry I ruined your big day.” She swallowed back a sob.

“Both our days, Elspeth.”

“Sorry, I guess I’m not into the marriage thing as much as you.” She clenched her teeth. “And as for that, why in the hell am I so unhappy? Wasn’t that stupid machine supposed to make me
happy
?”

Mark’s hard expression softened into a smile. But his smile only made her more upset. She crossed her arms and shut her eyes, struggling to control herself and doing a poor job of it.

“Shutterhouse, have you ever heard the expression, there are two ways to skin a cat?”

“Yes,” she retorted, feeling cross and heartbroken at the same time. “And it sounds positively barbaric.”

He pulled into the street, following the two cars ahead of him. Elspeth sat up straight, suddenly at attention.

“Where are we going?” she sputtered.

“To the Outer Islands.”

“Your mother is driving?” Elspeth gasped. “She drives?”

“Of course. You can learn, too. Thomas is a great teacher. He’s a lot more patient than I am.”

Elspeth’s thoughts raced.
Thomas
. She’d forgotten all about him. She glanced at her left hand, and the golden band winked at her, as if mocking her. So she had married Thomas after all. That was why no one in the Ramsay clan had been all that surprised to see her.

“But shouldn’t you be in that car?” she pointed at the brown vehicle ahead of them, where Madame Lipstick languished. He’d probably kept her up most of the night.

“With Mariam?”

“Yes.”

Mark shrugged. “I’ll get to know Mariam soon enough. We’ve got years to get acquainted. And I wanted an extra car.” He turned the corner, heading toward the boundary of the city. “But back to what I was saying.”

“You mean about cats?”

“Yes. There are two ways to go about things. The hard way and the sensible way.”

He glanced at her. She stared at the side of his handsome face, confounded at where the conversation was headed.

“You aren’t following me.”

“Not really.”

“Okay, then,” he said, obviously enjoying himself. “Do you know the official components of scientific inquiry?”

“Like hypothesis, method and results?”

“Exactly. And part of the scientific method is using something called a control.”

Elspeth brightened. Mark didn’t seem all that changed by the Marriage Machine, and she didn’t feel any different either. He was married to someone else, but still carrying on a lively conversation with her. Perhaps she could bear such a life. She still wanted to kiss him and to feel his arms around her, but she might be able to live without those things if she tried hard enough. And if Thomas didn’t begrudge her spending time with his brother.

His voice, full of amusement, interrupted her thoughts. “Shutterhouse, are you listening?”

“Yes,” she replied. “A control?”

“A good experiment always has a trial group and a control group. But what if there can only be one group studied at a time because of equipment restrictions?”

She shrugged, still not sure what point he was trying to make.

They headed into a curve, and the car ahead of them fishtailed and nearly skidded off the road. Mark swore and honked. The car tooted back at them.

Mark continued undaunted, as if the incident had never occurred. “What if the first data are gathered, then a single change is made, and the second group of data is gathered. Would it still be a valid experiment?”

“I would assume so.”

“Do you think a scientist could be persuaded to believe the results of such an experiment?”

“Yes, but what are you getting at, Mark?”

“Even the Overseers?”

At her shocked stare, he looked over at her. “Even if it involved the Marriage Machine?”

“The Marriage Machine?” She gaped at him. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that you should have trusted me, Shutterhouse.”

Elspeth stared at him—at his firm mouth, his sharp nose, and his lively, intelligent eyes—and suddenly the events of the past few days fell into place and all made sense.

“You
did
vandalize that machine, just as I first suspected!” she gasped. “You were the one that poked the hole in the supply line.”

“I had it done,” he replied. “So I could come in as a repairman—with no one the wiser.”

“But I beat you to it.”

“And stole the ruby, hoping no one would ever suspect the machine didn’t actually work—at least not in the way it was intended to.”

Elspeth nodded.

“Great minds think alike.” Mark shifted into a lower gear as the vehicle cleared the final milepost of the city. Elspeth would have liked to look out the window at a landscape she had never seen before, but she was too caught up in what Mark was saying to care where the car went. “That was the exact same thing I intended to do,” he added. “I had begun to suspect the very same thing you did, that the human body had at last overcome the effects of radiation. And what better way to find out than change the machine before my own wedding.”

“My Gottfried,” Elspeth whispered.

“And that’s where the cat skinning comes in. You can try to make your point by being a martyr and facing the wrath of the Overseers—and perhaps never change a thing. Or you can show the Overseers scientific proof that the machine is no longer needed. If the women from your group and the groups thereafter get pregnant after our holiday ceremony without the benefit of the real ruby in place, the Overseers won’t be able to deny the facts. And then we can show them the truth.”

“The ruby we replaced wasn’t real?” she murmured.

“It was a glass replica. So Gramps would still see a red glow.”

“So the real ruby is where?” she asked.

“Safe and sound in the attic of the townhouse.”

She couldn’t find words to express how brilliant he was.

“Oh, and by the way, Shutterhouse,” Mark reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a perfect tangerine. He held it out to her. “Happy C-day. I meant to give this to you yesterday, but things got rather out of hand.”

“Thank you.” She gazed at him and then at the precious citrus fruit in her hand. She had nothing to give him in return, not even a lemon. And she wanted to give him so much. If he asked her, she would give him everything, no matter how forbidden.

While Elspeth was still contemplating the future and the part Mark might play in it, she saw the brown car skid off the road and plow into a snow-covered bank. Mark motored to a stop, and they both jumped out and ran forward. The doors of the brown vehicle swung open.

“Are you all right?” Mark called. He dashed to the passenger side of the car, most likely to see to the safety of his wife. Elspeth slipped and slid to the driver’s side, where she assumed she belonged. She wished to show a little respect for the man who had not forced her into the wedding bed.

“Thomas?” she ventured. A booted foot popped out of the car. And then a very tall, broad-shouldered man rose from the seat and scrambled out of the vehicle. Elspeth stared, not believing her eyes. She stood in the snow, the wind blowing her leather jacket around her knees as she glanced from one brother to the other.

Mark and Thomas were identical twins.

“Are you okay?” she stuttered.

“I’m fine, thanks.” He shot a cool smile at her and then glanced over the top of the car. “Darling, are you all right? I should have been more careful.”