Riveted by Meljean Brook Page B

mouth opened, but she seemed at a loss for words. With wide eyes, the woman looked to her nephew, who didn’t appear taken aback.
    “I told her that you did,” he said to Annika. “But at the time, she thought I spoke of someone else.”
    And Lucia likely felt awkward now for asking to introduce them. Well, there was no reason for that. “I began wishing that I hadn’t rejected your offer shortly after I boarded—and I wished it all the more after I saw what Cook sent up for our supper.”
    The right corner of his mouth lifted. “Will you accept the company now?”
    “I will be happy to.” Though only one other seat had been grouped in this corner. Not enough for the three of them. “Give me one moment to drag the extra chair over from the library—”
    “I’ll do it,” he said before she could take a step.
    Lucia stopped them both with a lift of her hand. “David, you go ahead and sit, dear. I intend to win a round at the table.”
    She left them with a smile and swish of her skirts. Kentewess glanced at Annika’s chair, then to the one on her right—reluctantly, it seemed, as if he’d have rather chosen her seat. He sat after she did, his back ramrod straight. The light from the lamp on the small table between them glinted off the thin steel casing of his eyepiece and reflected in the lens. Not speaking, he simply looked at her.
    His obvious discomfort sparked her own. Suddenly uncertain, Annika searched for something to say, and could only come up with, “Thank you. Again.”
    “You shouldn’t. I’ve taken advantage of your gratitude, after all.”
    “You haven’t forced me to eat supper with you.”
    “My goal wasn’t to eat, but to remain in your company.”
    Oh, yes. So that he could know her better. “Well, you are inluck. You see the two things that compose almost all of my life now.” She gestured to her dress, then to the generator manual. “Making whatever sort of clothing takes my fancy, and those schematics.”
    “You sewed that one?”
    “Yes.” She touched the high neck and the stiff, pleated lace ruff. “I’m told that such finery is only for nobility and royalty. But I like the look of it so well, I can’t resist making my own. Do you mistake me for a queen?”
    He hesitated, as if deciding whether to answer diplomatically. When he chose honesty, she liked him all the better for it.
    “No,” he said.
    “Then no harm is done. If someone ever did mistake an engine stoker for a noble, then his idiocy will cause him more problems than my ruff ever could. Why do you wear gloves now? No one else in your party did.”
    Though his expression didn’t change, the fingers of his left hand curled slightly. “I never know how people will react to the prosthetic. Tonight, at least, I didn’t want to ruin my host’s dinner.”
    “People fear it?”
    “Some do.”
    “Do you take off your eyepiece, too?”
    But of course he couldn’t. She could see now that it was also grafted to him, a seamless meld of flesh and steel.
    That brief, one-sided smile flashed again. “No.”
    “So they must realize that a metal hand might be there, despite the glove. In fact, they might think that both of your hands are metal.”
    “Yes.”
    Ah. So he was saving idiots from themselves. “I’m usually more afraid of what I can’t see, because that threat is the unexpected one. Do you like being feared? It seems a powerful ability to make someone quake in your presence without any action on your part.”
    “It’s better than pity.”
    “What isn’t?” Pity only served the person who felt it; generosity better served the person who needed it. “I’d prefer everyone to fear me. Though that must be alienating.”
    The port officer hadn’t been able to send him away fast enough. She assumed that others did, too. They likely used varying degrees of politeness to do it, but the effect would be the same.
    “It can be, yes.” His admission held no self-pity, however; he sounded baffled. “You