As they approached the cathedral, the sun’s fading hues of amber, coral, and crimson illumined the silhouette of its gothic spire. To think, if the day had gone according to plan, she might never have beheld this unique wonderment. Might never have experienced such pleasant company and delightfully absurd conversation.
“My dear Miss Stanton, I’d much rather be absurd with you than normal with anyone else.”Never had a sentence made her glow with such ridiculous pleasure. Never had a remark embraced her with such warmth of camaraderie. Never had someone, beyond the framework of immediate family, known her so well and accepted her so completely. Clara peered up at the man on her arm. Dear Mr. Theodore, how had she ever got on without his friendship?
A pair of uniformed figures flanked either side of the cathedral’s main doors. Gooseflesh pricked Clara’s arms beneath the fitted sleeves of her borrowed dress. Would their disguises prove effective? Mr. Theodore tipped his top hat in a silent greeting. The policemen responded with a cordial nod and allowed them to pass unhindered.
Mr. Theodore opened one of the cathedral’s double doors and bowed at the waist. “After you, my dear.”
As Clara preceded him into the cathedral, her discarded arm suddenly felt quite cold and forlorn. She hastened into the candlelit nave, boots clacking a stern reprimand.Just friends. Just friends. Just ... nouse.Despite her best attempts, she could no longer deny her burgeoning feelings toward Theodore. So she wouldn’t.
I have feelings for Theodore.
There. Her feelings had been acknowledged and could now be expelled.
For feelings, she’d learned, were naught but drunken guests with skewed judgment and boisterous laughter that made merry at your expense and left a disastrous mess come the sobriety of dawn. The only way to deal with them was to admit their presence, escort them to the street, and bar the door. Firmly. Now that she’d done so, she could resume enjoyingMr.Theodore’s company without fear of succumbing to romantic inebriation.
Clara made her way to the right transept. This was agreed to be the most logical place to search for Grand’s next clue. For what better place to hide an automaton in Strasbourg Cathedral than near an astronomical clock inhabited by numerous automated figures?
Before the collective craftsmanship of painters and technicians, clockmakers and sculptors, Clara was struck breathless. Moonlight streamed through a stained-glass window behind the clock’s turret, towering sixty feet above her, whilst flickering light from surrounding candelabras glinted off the lavish gold leaf. To the right, a spiral staircase accessed the clock’s various levels. The orrery. The twelve-hour clock flanked by cherubs. The twenty-four-hour calendar dial. Yet the clock’s defining feature lay at its base, behind a pair of glass panels labeled in golden lettering.Comput ecclesiastique. Equationssolaires & lunaires.
Mr. Theodore drew nigh with a clank and an awed gasp. “Is that—”
“Schwilgué’s perpetual mechanical Gregorian computes.” Clara couldn’t help but smirk at the childlike glee of the septuagenarian at her side. “I thought that might attract your gaze.” She couldn’t imagine the unique mechanism’s display of turning gears and whirring thingamajigs failing to captivate anyone, least of all a tinker-heart like Mr. Theodore.
“How well you know me, madam.” Mr. Theodore fixed his jade eyes upon her alone, his jaw working as though he wasstruggling to arrange his thoughts into satisfactory words. “We make a great team, you and I. It has made me wonder if I might—if you might...” He cleared his throat. “When all this is over ... when we return to London ... may I call on you?”
Clara’s heart gave way to palpitations. Surely he didn’t mean that how it sounded. “Of course we shall see each other for dinner every Sunday and luncheon on Wednesdays, just as before. None of us would have it otherwise, and if you attempted to renege, Mum would have a fit of the vapors. At this juncture, you are thoroughly stuck with us.”
“That is a fate I’ve no desire to oppose.” Mr. Theodore’s gaze fell to his cane as a ruddy flush overtook his graying whiskers. “What I meant—what I was clumsily trying to inquire—was if I might call on you. Yourself. Alone. I mean, chaperoned, of course. But perhaps not ... so ... closely? So that we might feel alone. The both of us.” His gaze sought hers. “Together.”
Together.
The word spread brilliant warmth across Clara cheeks, turning her stomach in the most delightful and dreadful way that inspired those troublesome feelings to climb in through an unguarded window. “I ... I think that would be—”
Watch chimes signaled a new hour, echoing through the cathedral as a distinct mechanical melody rang out in answer. Clara retreated from Mr. Theodore. Never had she been so grateful to hear that little watch chime. Without another word, they began to search for Grand’s device. Hasty discovery was imperative. The devices must be rejoined and silenced before their chimes gave them away to the police outside.
Mr. Theodore veered left while she went right. There. Something stirred by the statue of a griffin. Dashing up the spiral staircase, she reached the griffin figure and found an automaton bear cub climbing down the clock casing asthough it were a tree trunk. She leaned forward and, with the tips of her fingers, grasped the bear by the back paw.
“Arrête, voleur!”
The command rattled Clara as she raced down the stairs, clutching the little bear to her chest. The familiar pounding of police boots grew louder. Drew closer.
Leaping from the final step, Clara reached for Mr. Theodore’s outstretched hand.
CHAPTER
29
“Tell me, ducky. Did growing old alongside a strapping, amiable, charming man ring any notions of wedding bells?” Mum raised a sixth cup of tea to her lips, arching a puckish brow over the porcelain. “Ding-dong, ding-dong.” The clangor drowned in a slurp of equal subtlety.
Ding-dongwas an apt description of Mum when she was giddy on caffeine. Clara shot a glare at the overcast sky, which tilted a lacy parasol of clouds over the sun’s face and denied her a scapegoat for her reddened cheeks. That traitorous blush proved irrefutably that the feelings she’d tried to evict had never truly left. “I enjoyed our little adventure, but that’s all, Mother. No bells. No ringing.” Except for his terrifying question still pealing in her ears.
The one she’d never answered.
Mum lowered her cup and saucer to the table with an emphatic clatter. “Do you mean to tell me you were out until two o’clock in the morning, and you didn’t even kiss the boy?”
“Mother!” The blush burst into flames, scorching Clara from the tips of her ears to the nape of her neck. She glanced at the people strolling by their table outside the Gingerbread Gnome Inn. Was this private discussion to be shared with all of Strasbourg? “I told you. After retrieving Grand’s device from the cathedral, we had to outrun the policemen, return the costumes to the opera house, have Jacqueline assist us in ridding our faces of all that paint, and walk back to the hotel to fetch you before switching locations to keep a certain prowler off our tail. It took time.”
“Time spent alone with a strapping, amiable, charming man.” Mum sighed. “Time wasted, so it seems.”
