Exactly what she needed to buffer her reaction to Edison Sweet.
She tossed down her pencil. Though she knew full well why that particular analogy had cropped up, she didn't choose to dwell on it. She blew out the lamp and flopped back down in bed, yanking the covers up to her chin.
The comparison was an apt one. Chemical reactions behaved in much the same way humans related to each other.
Not that she had a terrific amount of experience with the later.
After one disastrous season, her father persuaded her to marry his dear friend, Harrison. It was well done of him. Her wealth, combined with the Templeton assets, created an astonishing fortune, a fortune that grew once her father’s import business acquired the patina of sophistication that came from association with Harrison’s titled friends.
And Harrison had adored her. He built her laboratories in each of his family homes, bought her exquisite gowns in which she had little interest, and never, ever questioned the large bills from glass blowers or chemical warehouses.
Nor had he ever once set her body aflame.
Ada twisted restlessly beneath the sheets. As with molecules, like cleaved to like while opposites repelled each other with ruthless efficiently. Immutable laws decreed that cobalt cleaved to nitrate, and vigorous, vital men of action, were drawn to curvaceous, vivacious, feminine women.
Not blue stockings.
Not scientists.
Ada stared up at the shadowed ceiling. Women who craved knowledge repelled those sorts of men as surely as oil repelled water.
Why that particular fact should cause a strange sort of bruising in the area of her heart, she didn’t care to examine.
She rolled onto her side and closed her eyes. Someday she might entertain the idea of a lover. While she didn’t care for fashion, couldn’t bother about hairstyles or jewelry or handbags, she did realize she wasn’t overly homely.
Someday she’d meet a man who excited her senses. A man of science. A man of wit and charm and warm, well-made hands. A man who made her body tingle with anticipation. He might be—</p>
A sharp crack and the tinkle of breaking glass hitting the ground interrupted her imaginings.
She flew to the window overlooking the gardens. Having just gone midnight it was darker, if that was possible, than when she and Sweet had wrestled around on the lawn. Still, she was able to discern movement outside her workshop, where the white edging of the windows highlighted the figures in front of them.
She growled. Twice in one night was the outside of enough. She whirled from the window and grabbed her wrapper off the bedpost, pulling it on as she raced for the door. She was halfway down the stairs when she realized she was barefoot and weaponless.
Sweet hadn’t seen fit to return her revolver.
Shoes she could skip, but it would be the utmost idiocy to face thieves unarmed.
She squinted into the darkness. The hall table held a vase of flowers and three framed daguerreotypes. The edges of the frames were sharp, but would require a steady aim. That particular skill, she'd never laid claim to.
The kitchen offered an array of knives. And there was Cook's rolling pin. But those would require getting within arm’s reach of the intruder.
Not ideal.
Harrison's family crest. He’d been inordinately proud of the ugly thing. Had it commissioned after he and her father sold the factories. Ugly, and trumped-up as it was, it did contain the requisite swords crossed through the back of the shield.
She hurried into the parlor, cursing when her little toe caught a table leg.
She ignored the pain, and jumped atop the hearth, reaching above it to yank a long sword out of the shield above the fireplace.
The sword slid easily from its resting place, but it was far heavier than she would've guessed, too heavy to manage with one hand. The tip slammed down, biting into the wood mantel.
Ada shrugged off the damage. Now that she had two hands on the thing, she could at least keep the tip from dragging on the ground. Only just.
She was barely out the library door before the muscles in her forearms were fatigued with the weight of the ancient weapon.
The instant she opened the back door, she heard them, male voices whispering urgently in the dark. Things between the thieves did not appear to be going well.
“Stand aside, or we’ll toss you off.”
“You’re welcome to give it a go.”
Ada froze. The sword quivered in her grip. That voice sparked a thrill of anticipation.
"You an’ who's gang?" a harsh voice responded. "Gonna take more than one o’you.”
“Probably not.” Sweet sounded sure of himself, exceedingly so.
Disappointment squeezed her heart. He’d simply waited for her to go to sleep and skulked back to find her device. The betrayal was not unexpected.
The hurt was.
Rage shot through her, roiling in her gut, making her limbs vibrate with furious energy.
“You lying sot!” As if she had no control over her own body, Ada thrust the sword high above her head and barreled toward him.
"Wait!" Sweet yelled. “Stop!”
His command only stoked her fury. She lowered the tip to chest level and raced dead at him.
She was close enough now to make out his solid form. He was backed against the wall of her laboratory, to one side of the open door. A body-sized lump at his feet groaned softly. Two other large forms waited twenty feet back, facing him. All swung toward her, giving her blade their full attention.
A cold wash of fear caught at her throat, tamping down her rage.
The math was not in her favor. Three hooligans—four if she counted the lump on the ground—and she had but one weapon. A weapon she hadn’t the least idea how to wield.
The worry etched on Sweet’s face did nothing to reassure her. The long string of curse words cemented the realization that she’d charged straight into trouble.
Edison grabbed something out of the satchel at his feet and launched it at the ruffians. A loud snap split the air, then a flash of blinding light seared her eyes.
The sword fell from her hands as she threw them up to shield her eyes. The flash lasted no more than a heartbeat, but the dark afterimage—a pulsing black star rimmed with orange light—filled her field of vision. She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, trying to blot it out.
Before her vision cleared, Sweet was on the men, punching one, then the other. The sound of the blows—and the grunts of pain that followed—travelled quickly in the still air.
As the two of them regained their vision, they hit back. The smaller of the two landed a punch, snapping Sweet’s head sideways. He staggered back, but shook it off and waded back into the fight.
It was the only blow they landed. Sweet was clearly more skilled, and more agile, than either of his attackers.
He fought with a grim fury uncalled for in a disagreement between partners. Something in the energy of their blows—a desperation, a rage, a fear—made her doubt her initial conclusion.