Sir Beauford rose from his seat behind the podium. He sent Ada a hearty smile and stepped up to speak. “I should like to introduce our featured guest, Mrs. Ada Templeton. As many of you are aware, Mrs. Templeton has succeeded in harnessing the energy of certain chemical reactions, giving her the ability to fashion a stable dry-cell battery device, about which she will now enlighten us.”
The more he talked, the more detached Ada became. She felt as if she were moving about inside a glass bubble. It deadened sound, deadened the feel of her limbs, making her feel as if her gait was stiff and unnatural.
Tepid applause flowed from the audience. She forced herself to move across the stage and plant herself in front of the slender lectern. It was too delicate for her liking. She wanted something big, something tall and wide and massive to hide behind. Instead, she had was a narrow pillar topped by a square of lacquered wood hardly wide enough to hold a girl’s diary.
“Sir Beauford and esteemed members of the London Chemical Society,” Ada began. Her voice, thin and uncertain to start, grew in volume with each word. “I’d like to thank you for your kind invitation.”
The audience rustled in their seats. After the stultifying recitation they’d just received, she didn’t wonder. Though gaslights flickered along the walls and the back doors remained open, letting in a flood of afternoon light, the room was dim, making it difficult to make out individual faces.
One of them a killer.
Her knees trembled. Ada grabbed the edges of the podium, trying to wait out the wave of anxiety. He wouldn’t strike now. He needed her to disappear, not become a martyr.
He’d wait. He’d wait until she was as isolated as possible before he snatched her up.
The only thing to fear now were the cutting tongues of the mean-spirited souls in the audience who believed it was their sacred right as men to be the best and brightest.
Ada sighed, struggling to remain on topic as she peered out at the sea of strangers. Thick legs sticking out into the aisle, Stanton Grenville stood out among the strange faces. Though seated at the far back of the room, he seemed to feel her attention, offering one of his wide, friendly smiles and a bracing nod of encouragement. Not ten feet behind him, Spencer and Nelly waited, each positioned in a back corner, angled to best observe the assemblage.
Meena and Briar stood in the wings, flanking Edison’s automatic butler. Meena leaned on her parasol, and though she appeared to be unarmed, Ada knew Briar had enough knives stashed in her hidden pockets to stop a battalion of killers.
A dull ache that had nothing to do with public speaking twisted her guts.
How she was going to miss them all.
She cleared her throat, and dove into the speech she’d prepared. She touched on the battery’s development and expounded on the stability of its power.
If the audience wasn’t enthusiastic, neither were they the boorish crowd she feared. Mostly, she sensed polite—if skeptical—interest. Fair enough. She wouldn’t be inclined to believe her claims on their face, either.
Soon enough, it was time for the demonstration. She nodded to Meena, who aimed the automaton in her direction and flipped it on.
The whir of wheels and gears seemed louder onstage. Ada smiled at the gasps from the audience as the oversized teakettle rolled his way along the boards, pipe-stem arms rising out from his sides. When he reached the lectern, a tinny voice rang out, startling her.
“Hello. I am Brutus. How may I help you?”
Ada laughed. Though smaller, more contained, more metallic than his creator’s deep tone, Edison’s voice rang out from the small speaker.
Gasps of delight sprang up here and there in the audience.
Still smiling, Ada remembered to switch the automaton off.
“As you can see,” she said, “the chemical battery has more than enough power for locomotion… and speech.”
He must have added it last night. She pictured him on the floor of his workshop, cursing as he fitted a miniaturized gramophone speaker inside the mechanical.
All to make her smile.
Grief made her breath catch. He was an extraordinary man. She wouldn’t find his kind again.
A man in the front row waved a hand to catch her attention. “But how does it--?”
His question was cut off by a great many shrill hissing sounds, as if a whole platoon of tea kettles came to a boil at the same time. The piercing sounds came first from the left, then the right side of the room as thick white smoke spiraled up from under numerous seats. Great plumes of unnaturally white mist poured out from under the chairs.
Panic seized the gathering. Men vaulted over seats, falling atop others as people scurried for the exits. A few hardy souls ran toward the smoke.
In the time it took for Meena to rush onto the stage and grab her, tendrils of smoke stretched all the way to the ceiling.
“Come on!” Meena grabbed her by the shoulders, pulling her offstage.
Just as the reached the cover of the wings, Ada squinted out over the confusion. Edison stood at the back of the room, jostled this way and that by panicked audience members racing for the exits. Body rigid, he was staring at the stage.
What had he been thinking? She wanted to throttle him. He’d been so preoccupied with plans and contingency plans. He’d fashioned ten different ways to spirit her off the stage, should it come to that. His devices must have malfunctioned. Malfunctioned and caused a panic.
Ada glared at him.
Eyes wide, he raised his hands and shook his head. “Not mine.” Though there was no hope of hearing him over the din, the words were clear enough.
“That’s not good,” Meena observed.
Now Ada could see Nelly and Henry—Spencer too—fighting their way through the crowd to get to the stage. The three of them had just disappeared into the thickest of the smoke when a great commotion at the back caught her attention.
“Help!” A man’s voice, raw with panic, cut through the din. “Help me!”
Ada squinted out through the dissipating smoke. The room was clearing, both the smoke and the audience dissipating. At the back though, signs of a struggle caught her eye.
Stanton.
She leapt back out onto the stage. Arms pinned behind him by two large brutes, Stanton was being dragged out the door.
“Help him!” Ada yelled. “Help!” Jumping up and down now, she jabbed a hand toward her friend.
Edison, Briar and Spencer whipped around, fighting to make their way to him. Before they got near, his assailants manhandled him out the door.
Skirts fisted at her hips, Meena leapt off the low stage. She turned, offering a steadying hand. Ada’s heart was already racing so fast, she felt nothing as she slammed to the ground. Only Meena’s grasp kept her on her feet.
Without a word, Meena raced up the aisle, Ada on her heels.
By the time they reached Stanton’s seat, Edison and Spencer were coming back into the empty theater.
Hands on his slim hips, Edison was shaking his head. “Vanished.” He thrust his fingers through his tousled hair. “Must’ve had a carriage right outside.”
Spencer kicked a chair.
“We’ll find him,” Edison said once he caught her attention.