Page 17 of A Bloom for a Blacksmith

Her cheeks blooming with color, Iris swallowed. “He said I must be making the blunt working on my back,” she whispered. “Since there was so much of it in my account.” She turned to the manager. “I’m not a harlot, sir. I have never even…” she paused and sniffled, “done that,” she finished lamely.

“Of course you haven’t,” Stella said. “Is he working today?” she asked, offering Iris a hanky. The girl’s own handkerchief was practically soaked with her tears.

Iris nodded. “He is. Or he was. A manager went to get my card from him to show me that a withdrawal had been made. But it was the clerk who took all the money and closed the account. I’m sure of it,” she explained, her words interrupted by the occasional sob.

“Your account,” Mr. Streater stated. “Is it under your name?”

Iris nodded. “Miss Iris O’Connor.”

“And your brother’s name?”

“Jacob O’Connor.”

Rising to his feet, Mr. Streater said, “Wait here, if you would. I’ll be a few minutes.” Anger seemed to simmer beneath his words as he made his way to the door.

“Yes, sir,” Iris replied meekly.

The two women watched the head of clerks depart his office, exchanging curious glances as he did so.

One thing was certain—someone was in a lot of trouble.

Chapter Eight

A Project Back on Track

Meanwhile, in the workshop at Agremon townhouse

Angus Thompson used long tongs to lift the metallic engine frame he had been hammering and dunked the hot metal into a barrel of water. Steam rose from the sizzling vat until he extracted the piece and placed it back on his hot anvil.

“You do excellent work,” Darius remarked, his arms crossed over his chest. He had been watching the blacksmith recreate the pieces that had been destroyed in the explosion the day before.

“I do hope this design change works,” Angus said, once again heating the piece over an open flame.

“It will. I should have known it would be a problem before it was,” Darius said, dipping his head. “I was so concerned about the drive mechanism, I didn’t pay enough attention to the pressure that the steam would create in such a small chamber.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, sir, from where did you get the valves?” Angus asked, nodding in the direction of a row of steam pressure valves displayed on the workbench.

“Oh, I made them,” Darius replied. “Modeled them after the larger one Hackworth developed for a locomotive. A safety valve with a leaf-spring. Smaller, but quite an improvement over the ones they’re using in steam ships.” He absently examined one of them.

Obviously impressed, Angus paused in his hammering to ask, “How did you learn to make them?”

Darius considered the query for a moment. He couldn’t exactly tell the young man the truth. Even before he had lived in Ancient Rome, he had known how to construct various valves for use in plumbing and irrigation. Applying the same principles to valves for steam pressure was simply the next step in their evolution. “Trial and error, I suppose. I read about them in books. I had models to follow, of course,” he said with a shrug.

Angus continued to heat and pound the metal frame before finally dousing it in water.

“Good work,” Darius remarked, when Angus pulled it out of the barrel. Steam curled up from the smooth steel surface as he set it aside.

“I must say, I do like making blister steel from wrought iron,” Angus commented, adding another scoop of coal to the burner.

“I appreciate your willingness to make it,” Darius said, examining the pieces Angus had completed that day. “It’s terribly expensive to buy.”

“That’s because no one has sorted how to make it in volume,” Angus said as he stirred the coal beneath a crucible. Heat radiated from the furnace, making the air above it appear wavy.

“Perhaps someday you will be the one to do it.”

Angus gave a start and scoffed softly. “Given a large enough crucible and the means to remove the impurities from the wrought iron, perhaps I could.”

“Well, what you’re doing now is good enough for our needs,” Darius said. “What do you have left to complete?”