Steampunk 1 – Jo & Griff
I strode into my office holding the strange box. It was made of wood and had four brass feet lifting it nearly an inch high. There was no clear way to open it. No lid where there should have been. On the top of the box was carved a series of cogged wheels that seemed to glow amber. Peering at it more closely, I noticed a faint whirring noise interrupted at regular intervals by a distinct click.
I set the box on my desk and turned in a swish of petticoats to pull the mouth piece of the interroom communicator towards me. “Barksdale.” I tapped my foot, waiting for my butler to respond.
“Yes, Madame Le Roux?” His smooth voice carried through the voice modulator in the wall.
“Send a runner to Lord Griffin immediately. I have urgent business with him. Tell him it cannot wait.” I snapped the arm back against the wall and returned to my desk without waiting for a reply.
“Yes Madame.”
I glanced at the box. My fanciful side shrunk from the strange item, labeling it magic. My rational, logical side knew it was simply a puzzle to be solved. The bigger question was, how did it fit in with the week’s strange events? After my thwarted attempt on Griffin, the counterfeit money some of my girls received, and the strange monocle I found two days ago I was far past the idea that I was experiencing a strange series of coincidences. Was it the Bureau of Steam Technology? The BST could very likely have created the box and the monocle. Perhaps the Steam Control Party sent a message? If it was one then it had to be the other as well. The BST and SCP were practically the same entity.
A knock at the door a short while later preceded Griffin’s appearance in my office.
“Jo, what did you find?” Griffin wasted no time with pleasantries. He was after all trying to figure out who had hired me to kill him.
I indicated the box on my desk with a wave of my hand then opened the top most drawer to my right. From within I produced the counterfeit money and strange monocle that had also been found. I lay them next to the box.
Griff’s silver eyes sparkled with interest as he investigated each item. His long tapered fingers reaching for the box first. He picked it up and peered at it closely. Nothing of his inner thoughts appeared on his handsome patrician face. My blood heated in recognition of his male beauty, all the more perfect for its imperfection. A smallish scar whipped out from below the corner of his right eye toward his hairline. I liked to imagine he acquired it as a child falling out of a tree or having taken a spill from a horse. It certainly wouldn’t be anything as mundane as tripping over a toy and breaking it. He was too much a man of action for something like that.
The monocle now in his grasp, he turned to pace the room. I surreptitiously took in his long muscular legs as his coat floated around his body. Dressed in the height of fashion, his stock was perfectly tied.
Raising the monocle to his eye so that it enlarged the metallic luster until it glowed like a blue moon, he peered at me. “It must be the BST. There is not another group capable of such industry. But how are these things connected? And how do they connect to you?”
I rose from my seat and sauntered toward him. “Me? Don’t you mean how they are connected to you?”
His eyes flashed with determination and maybe a little desire as he followed my progress across the room. “They are connected to me through you, and to you through who ever hired you to kill me. If we find the person that commissioned these, we will find who hired you.”
The heat of desire warmed my body. My pulse thundered. This thing between us was building steam until it might break free on its own like a runaway airship. A spicy musk swamped my senses, nothing like my usual preference. Without conscious thought I moved into his arms and welcomed his kiss. I could feel the rigid muscles of his athletic body pressed against me. I could have stayed there forever, but Barksdale rattled down the hall pushing the tea cart. We stepped apart in the nick of time.
