Briar laughed. “I couldn’t wait to get out of those gin-soaked things. Cabbage isn’t nearly as bad.”
“I’ll help you change.” Meena gestured for Ada to precede her up the stairs to the apartment above.
Shoulders slumped, Ada followed his cousin without sparing him the slightest glance.
He winced. She had to be tired. Tired and hungry and sick of his bullock-brained self.
The boy was leaning back in his chair, feet on the desk. He crossed his arms behind his head. “You’re not the best spoken of the lot, are ye?”
Crane coughed, bringing a hand up to cover his mouth. Nelly and Briar tried to hide their grins behind their hands.
Edison frowned up at the landing as Meena and Ada glided off down the hallway above.
Of all the times for his charm to desert him.
They were coming down to it. He and his league would catch the villain, and Mrs. Ada Templeton would go on to the fame and fortune she deserved.
He’d been hoping for a few more intimate encounters first.
Extraordinary woman like Ada didn’t grow on trees. If she gave him the least opportunity, he’d take it.
Not that he was doing anything to help his case.
*
Songbirds chirped outside the window of her borrowed bedroom. Their cheerful commotion only aggravated Ada’s dark mood. The sunlight did help, either. It forced its way through a chink in the drapes, shining merrily, suggesting last night’s fog had burned away.
Ada sighed. Stifling gloom better suited her thoughts.
She gripped the open doors of the wardrobe and glared at the pitiful collection of gowns.
The blue satin called to her.
She ached to feel that sensual power again, wanted to flaunt her bare skin, to force Edison to recall the passion, the raw lust, they’d shared just yesterday.
Sensual matters were far out of her sphere of existence, but even with her lack of experience, she knew he’d felt it too.
Why, then, had he been so distant last night? Was that simply the way of men, to slake their thirst and move on?
She couldn’t believe that. Not when every caress, every sigh, every moan remained so fresh in her own mind.
Ada tapped her thumb against the door of the wardrobe. The blue satin mocked her. What if all that passion, all that daring and boldness was generated by a bolt of cloth and some silk undergarments?
And now, like an actress leaving the stage, it was time to shed her alter ego and return to boring old Ada Templeton, too scientifically minded to be a desirable woman.
Ada wrenched her perfectly serviceable, perfectly comfortable, perfectly dull gray dress off of its hanger and held it up to the morning light.
Ugly. Ugly, ugly, ugly.
She tossed it on the bed and eyed the three other gowns hanging in the wardrobe.
Except for the borrowed satin, the rest were even duller than the gray.
Ada glared down at the offending dress. If only they’d all catch fire. Then Cherise’s gown would be the only choice.
But there was an alternative.
Ada rushed over to the chest of drawers next to the wardrobe. The underthings. No reason she couldn’t sport the silk stockings, the whisper-thin chemise and the delicious satin corset.
She unwrapped her dressing gown and stepped into the luxurious underthings. The same way the thick steel case of her battery hid a riotous soup of chemical energy, her outer shell might suggest calm and decorum, but her inner layer would channel the bold, sensual woman she’d played for those few brief hours.
The woman she wasn’t ready to abandon.
Once the mirror showed that she was buttoned from one end to the other, without a stray hair out of place, she girded herself for the breakfast table.
Whether the prickly inventor downstairs chose to repeat their mutual performance or not, she could strive to retain the essence of that wild woman.
Dress in order, Ada stalked off down the stairs to face tea and toast and Edison’s boisterous family.
When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she saw Nelly and the boy standing outside the dining room, deep in conversation.
The boy gripped the doorframe as if braced against a strong wind determined to blow him inside.
“He won’t hurt you,” Nelly insisted.
“‘E’s a crusher. I can’t go in there.”
“He’s one of us.” She raked him with a look. “Besides, you’re nothing but small change to a detective like Inspector Burke. You ain’t done nothing big enough for him to bother gettin’ out his handcuffs.”
“Have too.”
Nelly snorted. “Says you.” She raised her hands in a gesture of frustration. “Do whatcha want, but I’m hungry.” She flounced through the doorway.
Ada watched as the boy struggled to decide between certain incarceration and coddled eggs.
As she would have guessed, sustenance won out.
The Sweets and Detective Burke were already tucking into a fine looking breakfast when she entered. The boy had squeezed himself in between Edison and Spencer, as far away from the dreaded detective as he could sit.
The only open seat was at Edison’s right.
He rose with the other men as she glided through the doorway. He nodded in greeting and went back to buttering his toast.
A simple nod.
No mischievous smile, no clandestine, heat-filled glance. No bloom in his cheeks or fire in his eye.
Ada wilted inside her wrinkled gown. It was only to be expected. All that seductive power she’d wielded hung, unused, in the wardrobe upstairs. Plain, sensible Ada Templeton, chemical scientist, held no allure for a man like him.
The smell of toast and bacon suddenly put her off as her stomach sank down to her feet.
Ada slipped into her seat. Before she could protest, Edison grabbed her plate and loaded it with food from the serving dishes in the center of the table.
He slid it in front of her without a word, his attention on the discussion at hand.
The pile of golden eggs and glistening bacon mocked her. Was he trying to tell her something? Would he have done that for any guest?
Ada blinked down at the innocent-looking food. If there was a secret message to be decoded, she was at a loss.
“That’s it?” Meena was frowning at the detective. “All those ruffians can recall is an average-sized man of average age and average looks?” She let her half-eaten toast drop back onto her plate. “That’s less than helpful.”
Burke sighed. “My bet is the man behind this paid an intermediary to hire those thugs. We’re still a layer away from our real target.”
“It’s what I would have done,” Spencer said.
Mouth full of eggs, Edison nodded in agreement.
“And there’s nothing to learn from the murder site?” Briar asked.
Burke patted his lips with his serviette. “Not as yet. We know the victim had her neck broken, and three witnesses saw a hired carriage drive off, but I don’t hold out hope we’ll turn up the driver.”
Meena said something, but Ada couldn’t decipher it. Burke’s mention of the murder started a buzzing in her ears that rose in intensity even as the horrid images of a pale face and a limp body ran through her mind.