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“Let’s walk around the room one more time,” Ruth said as she had her arm linked in Mech’s. She could feel his joint beneath the fabric and had to be careful not to hurt herself, but that was far from her primary concern in that moment.
Mech still lacked proper depth perception, so Ruth was compensating by guiding him so that he didn’t bump into anything. She had added tweaks to his outfit until it no longer looked so outrageous and used pieces of cream fabric to mimic skin in a couple of places, though not enough to draw attention to the fact that it didn’t quite look right. His movements were still stiff, but not enough to cause someone’s mind to jump to ‘mechanical’.
In the end, Mech was a pretty believable facsimile for human.
Or, at least, he was as good at faking as Ruth was, which was close enough.
“He’ll be fine,” Ivy said as she walked into the room and Ruth did a double take as she saw that she was wearing the dress she had bought her.
“You’re coming with us?”
She nodded. “As Thomas’ guest.”
“I thought you said you didn’t want to go to balls.”
“I don’t, but if something goes wrong with Mech, Thomas will be useless. And I didn’t exactly want to pass up an opportunity to see the Queen.”
Ruth grinned. “Then let’s go.”
#
RUTH SMILED AS SHE heard Ivy gasp as they pulled up to Buckingham Palace. It was a particularly impressive sight, she had to admit. Enough to distract her from running through everything that could possibly go wrong during the night.
“It will be fine,” Ivy assured her, noticing her frown. “Mech is more than up to the task, aren’t you Mech?”
“Oui,” the mechanical man replied with a convincing accent. At least, to Ruth’s ears, which she had to admit weren’t particularly attuned to such things.
“You’d better be,” Thomas said, anxiously glaring out of the window, as was a habit of his.
Ruth focused on the feel of her corset tight around her middle to calm herself as the carriage stopped.
Mech stepped out first and Ruth held her breath, waiting for him to stumble on the step he couldn’t see. Thankfully, he managed with only the slightest wobble.
He held his hand back to the carriage and Ruth took it, glad for his lack of skin. There was something far more comforting to his fabric-covered metal.
Thomas and Ivy followed them closely as Ruth focused on leading Mech up the path.
Thankfully, they had arrived at about the same time as a large number of other guests, so they formed a small crowd that was easy to get lost in as they entered the palace and made their way to the ballroom. Feeling invisible helped Ruth’s anxiety considerably.
Of course, that feeling disappeared the moment they entered the room and were announced.
“The Owl and Lady Ruth Constance Chapelstone.”
Ruth could have sworn that the room went silent as every eye turned to her and Mech. She found herself unable to breathe until people gradually turned back to their previous conversations.
She watched carefully and saw that there was barely a fraction of the same reaction to Thomas and Ivy, confirming that it had been entirely down to The Owl’s mysterious reputation.
Thomas had warned her that The Owl being so recluse had only encouraged interest in Britain’s Greatest Inventor.
“I have been waiting a long time to meet you, sir.”
Ruth let out a sigh of relief as James approached, focusing in on him instead of the glances and whispers she could feel aimed her way. She wasn’t quite ready for complete strangers.
Mech turned to him, though Ruth had to nudge him a little as he turn all of the way.
“You must be James,” Mech said. “Thomas has told me much about you.”
“And yet he has told me little about you. Half of the boys were convinced you were horribly disfigured. Though I suppose your mask doesn’t dispute that.”
Ruth glared at him. “You are being a tad rude, James.”
“It’s quite alright, dear,” Mech said, reminding her that they were supposed to be pretending to be a couple.
She took a deep breath as she realised that she hadn’t done anything to bring that into question; she had just forgotten that it was part of their story.
“This is the height of fashion in Paris right now,” he told James.
“We’re not in Paris now.”
“Oui, but I have been a tad nostalgic for home.”
James raised an eyebrow. “You’re French?”
“He’s English,” Ruth said, remembering the story Thomas had come up with. “But his mother was French and she insisted that he attend boarding school in Paris. He only returned a few years ago.”
James nodded, seemingly buying it.
“Sir,” a young man in a uniform said as he hurriedly approached. “There has been an issue that needs your urgent attention.”
“If you’ll excuse me,” James said before hurrying off with the boy.
“Well, that went well,” Mech said, though Ruth was already cursing under her breath as James’ sister saw them and made her way over.
“Lady Chapelstone,” she greeted. “It’s been a while since I saw you.”
Ruth nodded. “I don’t have the sturdiest disposition,” she explained. “I don’t often leave the house.”
“Yes, Thomas has told us. It’s such a shame. James was quite keen on getting better acquainted with you.” She turned to Mech. “But, of course, you don’t need attention from other men when you have one of your own.”
“Owl, this is Lady Anne Holly,” Ruth introduced.
“Owl?” Anne asked with a raised eyebrow. “Doesn’t he have a name beyond that?”
Ruth froze, not quite believing that they hadn’t thought of that.
“Michel,” she blurted out as her brain finally unfroze. “His name is Michel.”
Anne smiled, seemingly not picking up on Ruth’s nervousness.
“I’m glad I had the opportunity to meet you, Michel. Everyone has been quite excited about having the chance to meet the enigmatic mind behind some of the greatest inventions of the last few years.”
“Thank you,” Mech said, allowing Ruth to breathe a sigh of relief.
She was worried that he might make a social slip-up.
“Your hair ornament is quite fetching,” he continued.
Ruth froze. Where had that come from?
Anne blinked at the random comment, but didn’t otherwise comment, to Ruth’s relief.
“Thank you. It actually has this magnetic component that unclips.”
She had already unclipped it to show him before Ruth could think of a reasonable objection.
As soon as the ornament was near him, it sped off to attach itself to Mech’s chest.
“Oh! How odd,” Anne exclaimed.
Mech moved to extract it before Ruth could get to it and his arm became glued to his chest as Ruth did her best to suppress the urge to groan.
“How is it attaching like that with no metal?” Anne asked as Ruth yanked the magnet away from him, wondering just how strong it was.
“I have no idea,” Ruth said, with no clue what else to say as she gave Anne her ornament back.
Anne frowned, giving Mech an odd look, but otherwise not saying anything.
Ruth hoped that him being mechanical was too much of a leap for her.
“If you’ll excuse us, we should catch up with Thomas,” Ruth said before dragging Mech away.
“Put your arm back down,” she said as she realised that he was holding it up against his chest.
“I can’t,” he told her. “I appears to be stuck.”
Ruth tugged it down so that it was at his side before sighing. There was no way that wouldn’t attract attention if she didn’t fix it.
“His name is Michel,” Ruth said under her breath as she made her way back to Thomas and Ivy.
“Who?” Ivy asked.
“The Owl. We forgot to give him a name.”
“Have you had any trouble?” Thomas asked.
“Anne had a magnetic hair clip and now Mech’s arm doesn’t work.”
“Michel’s,” Thomas corrected.
“Right, Michel’s, though I don’t think that was the most important part of that sentence.”
“Can you fix it?”
“Maybe. I’ll need somewhere out of the way to take a look.”
Thomas frowned in thought. “If I disappear too it may draw suspicion, but for you to go with him alone without a chaperone...”
“Ivy can go with me.”
“Fine, but be quick.”
“I will,” Ruth promised before heading off with Mech — Michel — and Ivy.
“Where do you want to do this?” Ivy asked.
“Somewhere private. Beyond that, I don’t care.”
Ivy nodded before heading straight out into the hall and around a corner to a cupboard.
“How did you know this was here?”
“You predicted trouble, so I kept an eye out. You’re not exactly the most observant, so it seemed prudent to keep note of the area.”
Ivy grabbed a small gas lamp from a table and passed it to Ruth so that she would have some light.
“I’ll keep an eye out for you.”
“Thank you,” Ruth said before heading into the cupboard with Michel, placing the lamp onto the shelf.
“Let me have a look,” Ruth said before hiking up her skirt to reveal the tools she had strapped around her thigh.
Michel used his other arm to hoist up the broken one so that Ruth could inspect it. She pushed his sleeve up to look at the metal joints beneath.
“It seems Anne’s magnet shifted a part of your elbow out of alignment. I should be able to get it back into place easily enough.”
She got to work as quickly as she could.
She had barely started when there was a knock on the door.
“I’m not done yet,” she said, as quietly as she thought would still carry through the door.
“You are Miss Ivy, correct?” Ruth heard through the door, identifying James’ voice.
“That is correct, sir.”
“What are you doing loitering in this corridor?”
“I just needed a moment to myself. This is my first ball and it’s all a little hectic.”
“Yes, I suppose that is what happens when someone like Thomas lets his tastes run a little... lower class.”
Ruth riled up immediately, but knew that giving away her presence would do nothing to help. She redoubled her efforts on Michel in the hope that they could leave the cupboard as soon as James turned his back so that she could comfort Ivy if she needed it.
“Maybe Thomas is just tired of all you aristocrats and your out-of-touch ways.”
Ruth held back a snort at that.
“Just because he wants something exotic for now doesn’t mean that he will still want it when it comes time to settle down.”
“Careful, sir. One might think your concern stemmed from a personal interest.”
Ruth frowned. What had Ivy meant by that?
She heard James splutter. “How dare you insinuate something of that nature.”
Of what nature? Ruth thought to herself as she finished aligning Michel’s elbow, only for a stray bolt to fall to the floor with a loud clang.
“What was that?” she heard James ask.
“Nothing,” Ivy said quickly.
Ruth cursed under her breath as she tried to figure out how to cover up what they had been really doing. After a moment, she came to the only logical conclusion and pulled Michel’s sleeve down over his exposed joints before ruffling his shirt.
“What are you doing?” Michel asked lowly as she tugged at her corset.
“Hopefully only tarnishing James’ idea of me, not my entire reputation.”
She moved into Michel’s arms as James yanked the door open, despite Ivy’s protests.
“James!” Ruth exclaimed as she extracted herself from Michel. “We were just...”
James became immediately flushed. “Ruth! This is highly inappropriate. You two aren’t even betrothed.”
“Actually they are,” Ivy said quickly. “He proposed just before we got here. You can forgive them their excitement, I’m sure. Unless, of course, you want me to tell Thomas who you want to get excited with.”
James spluttered before silently nodding.
Ruth and Michel followed Ivy back through to ballroom.
“What did you mean by that?” Ruth asked Ivy.
The younger woman smirked. “Much like me, James isn’t very discriminatory when it comes to the gender of his partners. Of course, given his position, he is a lot more careful with the information. The real shame is that Thomas feels the same way, but they’ll never get over their need to protect their images.”
Ruth frowned. “Wait, Thomas feels the same way? But I thought... You and Thomas seemed to be getting closer.”
Ivy snorted. “No, Ruth, Thomas is definitely not interested in women.”
Ruth blinked. “Oh. I hadn’t realised. If I had, I would not have made an assumption about your relationship.”
Ivy frowned. “How did you not know? He has never been subtle about it. In fact, I’m sure I’ve heard him outright refer to his preference in your presence at least twice in the past week.”
Ruth simply blinked again. “I had not noticed. If I am being honest, I tend to stop listening when you two discuss social matters.”
Ivy smiled, shaking her head. “Regardless, I’m just here to help you out and to keep your uncle’s reputation in good standing. Rumours start spreading if you go so long without a companion at social events, as I’m sure you would have learned if not for Michel.”
“Yes. Who I am now apparently engaged to.”
“I’m sorry, but I had to think on my feet. That seemed like the best way to do it.”
Anne spotted them at that point, approaching quickly.
“Ruth! Did you hear? James came back for just a moment before saying that there was an emergency the Queen had to attend to.” She turned to Michel. “It looks like you won’t get to meet her after all.”
“It’s alright,” Michel assured her. “I mostly came because my not having met James yet was becoming a security issue. Now that we have met, Thomas should be able to negotiate my contract with the Crown.”
Ruth smiled. “If you don’t mind, Anne, we should be heading home. I don’t do well with staying awake too late.”
#
AS SOON AS THEY RETURNED to the house, Ruth was bouncing up and down with excitement.
“Did you see that? We did it! James saw The Owl and no one figured out he wasn’t real.”
Thomas sighed, folding his arms. “Yes, except now you’re engaged to him. That’s not going to end well.”
“Oh, lighten up,” Ivy said with a grin. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to figure out how to extract myself from this cumbersome mess.” She pulled at her skirts.
“They aren’t that bad,” Ruth defended.
“Yes they are,” Ivy shouted back as she headed out of the room.
Ruth grinned as she offered Michel her arm. “Come on,” she said to the mechanical man. “You’ve been running all day. We should shut you off and make sure everything is still working.”
“Of course, my lady,” Michel said, taking her arm.