A Very Vengeful Christmas

By Mikala Ash

Elizabeth Hunter-Payne is convalescing after her brutal takedown of a ruthless killer. Troubled by nightmares and a nagging ghost of a memory, she is approached by Horatio Cumberland. He and his wife Fleur, the greatest scientist couple in the empire, hold radical ideas of sexual freedom. They report a stolen automaton, a highly sophisticated sex machine.

Miss Clayton, the cool, prickly and experienced agent of the Queen, joins the Investigation Bureau and takes on the case. Her investigation takes her to the shadowy London docks, the music halls and pubs of Whitechapel, as well as a luxurious four-poster bed.

Is the theft just a routine crime, or is something more afoot? Can Elizabeth, working in the background, solve the puzzle and defy her injuries to save Miss Clayton’s life? Another thrilling steampunk adventure with brilliant, sexy scientists, automatons, ruthless spies, submarines, and razor-sharp swordsticks.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Changeling Press
• Release date: Nov 26, 2020

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swordsticks.

Chapter One

One of Our Automatons is Missing

Monday Morning, December 19, 1859

In the court of dreams my doppelganger judge put on the black cap, and as I vainly pleaded for mercy, I condemned myself to the gallows.

It was a recurring nightmare where the scales of justice balanced the lives lost and ruined by my actions as a detective against the unknown lives saved by those very same actions. As always I was found wanting. I must have been getting used to having my sins outweigh my virtue for I no longer woke bathed in sweat and screaming for Jonathan, my late beloved husband, to save me.

Though it was the week before Christmas I had yet to adopt the customary joy and optimism of the season. I opened my eyes to the gentle lilting of a Christmas carol, and the heady perfume of flowers. As she sang, Marianne my faithful maid and housekeeper, fussed with that morning’s delivery of a dozen crimson hothouse roses. She noticed my stirring.

These are beautiful, madam. Best yet, I think.

She gave me the card. As was the case with all the other deliveries, there was inscribed in copperplate a single letter: B.

It pains me to send him away, madam.

It’s for his own good, I said petulantly. I would not let Baudry see me this way -- bruised, battered and bedridden -- and allow him to bestow upon me the inevitable I told you so look. Undoubtedly I would return the expression with equal force, and an argument would ensue. I would put that lamentable conflict off to a time I was not so miserable and indisposed.

It seemed an eternity ago that I decided to accept the Queen’s Commission to act as one of her agents in the secret defence of the realm. That commitment would certainly expose me to danger, even more than I had attracted over the last few months since commencing the EHP Investigation Bureau. I feared that my unofficially adopted son, Archie Putts, and my two lovers, Dr. Jack Baudry, and Felix Rider, all of whom had demonstrated their willingness to risk their lives for me, would have that duty demanded of them again. I had no doubt they would willingly, and thoughtlessly, accept it, and that was the problem. I could not endure that dread responsibility. What if they were injured beyond what they had already endured, or worse, killed? I had made the logical and painful decision to step away from the Bureau and sever all romantic associations. I hoped this would eliminate their exposure to danger.

The very day after making that decision I had been seriously injured in a life and death struggle with Captain Wragge. I had been alone, an occurrence which I felt proved my point, for if Baudry or Felix had been present they would have been in peril as well. Baudry would say that it proved his point: that I needed his protection. A position, I maintain, which further demonstrated my contention -- that his desire to protect me would get him killed. The circular arguments had been rattling about in my head ever since. I was heartily sick of it.

Where are the newspapers?

Breakfast first, she said firmly.

I need something to read, I insisted. "While you fetch Cook’s excellent eggs and bacon rashes, I’ll read The Times. This morning’s, mind. I’ve read yesterday’s six times over."

She sighed in frustration. Very well, madam. She handed the newspaper to me. Horrid thing, my gran used to say. Between those pages you’ll only find despair.

Then it will reflect my mood exceedingly well.

She took the flowers away to leave in the hall. There must be quite a collection scattered about the house by now.

The statuesque Nurse Hazleton passed her on the way. Good morning, madam, she said with the professional familiarity of one who had seen you naked, wiped your bottom, bathed you while you were unconscious, and had complete control over your stiff and aching body. Let’s have a look at those dressings.

I had been convalescing for a week since the mortal confrontation with the murderous Captain Wragge, and I never imagined being trapped in a warm comfortable bed could be so annoying.

She gently pulled away the sheets from the metal cage that protected my bruised and swollen leg from the pressure of the bedclothes.

In addition to breaking my nose, painfully straightened by my family physician Dr. Wamburton, Wragge had stabbed me three times in the leg. I had nearly bled to death. Had it not been for his co-conspirator Christina Margate’s timely application of a tourniquet, I would have died on the hotel room floor. She was scheduled to depart for America, and I was glad she would soon be gone. That pernicious woman had clouded my horizon in more ways than one.

To conclude that case I had disobeyed everyone’s wishes, and in my deplorable state, journeyed to the airship terminal on Parliament Hill to say farewell to Nathanial Royston. My newfound brother-in-law was returning to India to wed the love of his life. At the very least, Jonathan’s inconstant doppelganger had brought some light into my life with the promise of nieces and nephews.

Still weeping, Nurse Hazleton said.

Twice a day I patiently suffered her skilful ministrations. She would methodically unwrap the bandages, remove the stained cotton pads, sterilise around the stitched wounds with carbolic acid, a new treatment enthusiastically promoted by the surgeon Dr. Lister who, she told me in tones of pure adoration, planned to use it in future surgical procedures. Then she would apply new pads, and then wrap it all in wide bandages to keep everything in place. I had become used to the procedures and only winced occasionally.

The pus is clean. There is no smell, she reported as if that was a major achievement. She had said the same every morning and every night since I regained consciousness.

So I’ll keep the leg another day, shall I? I said irritably.

Longer than that, I shouldn’t wonder. As soon as the stitches are out, doctor says we need to get you on your feet to use those muscles again.

I can’t wait.

She rearranged the sheets after replacing the cage over the leg, as any weight on the wounds was still exceedingly irritating.

The Times was, as Marianne predicted, brimful with horrid news. The sabre rattling in Europe continued unabated. Our enemies seemed numerous, our friends few. Russia despised us for our crippling them during the Crimean War in which my beautiful Jonathan gave his life. The French, our erstwhile allies in that conflict, were still our traditional enemies, and they plotted against us with enthusiasm. The Austro-Hungarian Empire, having global ambitions of their own, hated us with a passion.

The movements of armies overseas were complemented by suspected conspiracies at home, principally regarding the cause of the odious fog that had plagued London these last few months. The Great Stink, blamed on the lack of adequate control of the city’s sewage, had spurred the greatest building and construction works London had ever seen, adding to the confusion already caused by the laying of railway tracks both above and below ground. More malign conspiracies were suggested in letters to the editor, boldly stating our European antagonists were behind the thick roiling atmospheric soup and were seeking to choke the life out of our country by polluting our air.

My destruction of the grotesque killer, the Collector, still garnered a half column of ink, but his removal had not erased the fears that each gruesome murder since proved beyond doubt the existence of a trade in body parts, again a plot instigated by our foreign foes.

A Russian military airship was reported lost over the North Sea, the crew of thirty-five missing. I wondered what effect our new invention, steam-powered aircraft, would have on the aerial navies of the world. They did not rely on gas-filled envelopes for lift and were apparently far more manoeuvrable. Regarding new and frightening technology, I read another short report about a Russian undersea boat, a submarine, sighted in the Dardanelles.

Of local concern was a French steamship, the Chrysalide, being held in quarantine in the London docks after a sailor was found dead a week or so before, possibly of typhoid. Outbreaks of this dread disease were sadly common in the city, occurring almost yearly. Its cause and mode of transmission was hotly debated in the article. Did it pass from one person to another due to physical contact, or was the result of breathing bad air? Poor personal hygiene and unsanitary conditions were also blamed. All conditions could be imagined to be present in the close confines of a steamship. Demands to have the vessel leave England were resisted by the desperate captain who pleaded to stay. According to the editor, he argued most plaintively over the ship’s railing, asking where could he go? A second reported death resulted in growing pressure from a mob of angry protestors who had picketed the quayside, and the captain had finally relented, and agreed to depart the day after tomorrow. The poor crew, I thought, condemned to a terrible fate, alone upon the uncaring sea.

I was quite glad when a knock on the door disturbed my reading.

Madam, Marianne said. Archie has brought a caller. He begs your pardon, but it seems urgent.

Thank God, I said throwing The Times aside. Something to do. Quick, the blue house dress will suit, we’ll just pop it over my nightdress. No one will know.

Madam!

Oh, all right. Whatever you think best.

Archie should have telegraphed, she complained as she went to the wardrobe. Given us fair warning, that way you would have time to…

I beg to differ, I replied. If he had sent such a telegram, you would have intercepted it, and sent one back telling him I was asleep, and not to be disturbed.

Her face went red, and she busied herself in the wardrobe. She eventually pulled out two light housedresses for me to consider, one green, the other a cornflower blue.

I don’t see what difference it makes what I wear. I’ll have that blessed blanket over my knees anyway.

She shot me one of her looks, and I rolled my eyes in return, but surrendered to her nonetheless. My bandages made my leg quite stiff and we struggled to get me into the blue silk. While she fussed over my slippers I gave my face a wash. It took much longer to put my hair into some order. In the mirror I clicked my tongue in despair. I was a sight! My face was swollen with multicoloured bruises, and