A Lady Never Lies by Juliana Gray

wolfed down in haste along the rainy trek up the hillside. But he’d seen the cavalier way in which the baggage men had tossed the chests and trunks about, and if any of his instruments and gadgets had been broken, it might mean weeks of wasted work, waiting for replacements to arrive from London, or else finding a suitable machinist nearby.
    No, he had to satisfy himself before dinner, before bed, or else he wouldn’t be able to sleep.
    In the settling dark, he could hardly distinguish one box from another; they had been stacked against one another in reckless disorder, reeking of mildew and damp air. He stumbled about, running his hands along the various textures of leather and metal and canvas, searching for the familiar shapes of his own custom-made chests, designed to absorb the shocks of travel and weather and careless foreign drovers.
    He found them at the back of the pile, larger and plainer than the rest. They’d been battered about, the leather a bit scuffed. Probably stained with rain, too, though the light was too dim to tell. He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a little ring of keys, and felt through them until his fingers encountered the shape he sought.
    With a twist of his wrist, he slipped the key into the lock of the first chest. The tumblers clicked into place with a satisfyingly efficient clink, undamaged by the damp, and Finn opened the lid. The familiar mingled smell of metal and leather and oil rose up to greet him like an old friend, faithful and unchanged, endless blissful memories of tinkering and experimentation distilled into this clean musky scent he’d known since childhood. He ran his fingers over the bumps and ridges within. All tight and snug, the close-fitting felt wrappers undisturbed, the delicate bits of engine and instrumentation safe and sound at last.
    A deep sigh of relief heaved under his ribs.
    “Is that you, Mr. Burke?”
    Finn jumped and whirled. His knee knocked over the chest and spilled the contents onto the floor with a god-awful metallic crash, followed by an equally catastrophic secondary crash, followed by a few solid clinks and then the lonely ring of a single machine part revolving to infinity on the stone floor.
    “Oh dear,” Lady Morley said faintly. “I’m so terribly sorry.”
    Ordinarily Phineas Burke was a solid man in a crisis. Kept his wits, reacted with cool efficiency, started putting things to rights almost before the disaster had finished unfolding. And in fact, as soon as the chest had struck the flagstones, Finn’s brain told him he ought to be dropping to his knees, attempting to recover the lost machinery and assess the damage.
    His body did not obey, however. He stood frozen, contemplating the figure before him, wrapped in a dazed sense of déjà vu, as if the events of the previous night had returned like a recurring nightmare. This time she was holding a candle, and the light wavered between them, turning her skin to gold. “Lady Morley,” he said stupidly, “what the devil are you doing here?”
    “Your . . . your things . . .” she said, equally dazed. “Let me . . . let me help you . . .” She sank to the floor and set her candle next to the dark pool of her skirts.
    “No . . . quite all right . . . it’s nothing,” he said, and dropped down next to her to run his hands along the cold stone. “You’ve done enough already.” The words fell from his lips before he could think.
    She straightened, still on her knees, and her voice turned hard. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Burke. I shouldn’t have startled you like that. I only came to tell you about the arrangements.”
    “The arrangements.”
    “For the . . .” She rose and made a motion with her arm. “For all this.”
    He felt himself stiffening for battle. Damn it all, where was Wallingford? Finn hadn’t the faintest idea how to deal with women like this, imperious women who carried all before them. Always taking offense, always saying one thing