Romulus Buckle & the Engines of War by Richard Ellis Preston Jr

Author:Richard Ellis Preston Jr. [Preston, Richard Ellis Jr.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 9781477807682
Amazon: 1477807683
Goodreads: 18100373
Publisher: 47North
Published: 2012-12-31T13:00:00+00:00

YOUNG MEN, SQUARE-RIGGED

“YES, IVAN, YES—YOU ARE GOING to talk to her,” Buckle said to Ivan, mildly annoyed, as Burgess Sibley, leaning in under Buckle’s chin, attempted for the third time to properly tie his white silk cravat.

“Please stop moving around, Mister Buckle,” Sibley moaned.

“I’m not moving, Sibley,” Buckle answered, realizing that he had turned his neck as he was speaking.

Ivan was at the other end of Buckle’s bedchamber, pacing back and forth in front of an amused Ryder, who was leaning against the wall, wearing his finest traveling clothes, his steamer trunk at the door.

“You cannot escape Holly Churchill, you know, brother,” Ryder chuckled.

Flustered, Ivan stopped and repeatedly tried to light a pipe. He was mostly dressed, except for his waistcoat and frock. His hair, his unruly hair, stuck out in spikes from beneath his old, singed ushanka, which he refused to take off. His metal arm and goggle gleamed in the last of the afternoon light coming through the window, and when he turned, they reflected the amber glow of the wall lantern. Ivan had talked profusely for the last few days, unusual for him, about his latest experiment, a chemical analysis of women’s tears—though his progress had been hampered by his inability to get women to cry for him. Buckle knew that Ivan was worried, not about his injuries but about what Holly Churchill might think once she saw him, maimed and patched up with clockwork devices. Ivan had avoided Holly for the near month since their return to the stronghold, even refusing her requests to visit him in the hospital. And once Lee released him, he had dashed into the depths of the Pneumatic Zeppelin in her repair dock, and had barely poked his ghastly head out since then.

But tonight Ivan was required to attend the ball, and Holly was going to see him, and he had screwed it all up anyway. He was quite nervous about it.

“I cannot engage with her,” Ivan muttered, still poking a lit match unsuccessfully in his pipe bowl. “I really cannot.”

“Why not?” Buckle grumbled, giving Ivan a sharp look as his cravat collapsed in Sibley’s hands. Sibley sighed and started over. Buckle shrugged his shoulders a hair—his clothes fit nicely, the trousers tailored to a proper length over his leather shoes, but the starched shirt chafed under the waistcoat. His red cummerbund flashed its color about his slender waist, the gold chain of his pocket watch looped just so, and his black dress frock hung on a peg at his shoulder, a dark crimson cloudflower tucked into the buttonhole.

“Obviously, she is furious with me,” Ivan said, jamming the unlit pipe into his shirt pocket and extinguishing the match with a sharp wave of his arm.

“That is not what I have heard,” Ryder said.

“It is the truth. It is,” Ivan muttered. “And let us just leave it at that.”

Buckle laughed. “Holly is no wallflower, lad—she is going to march across that dance floor and claim you as her prize, despite your boorishness.”

Ryder laughed.

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