I’m delighted to be here to share a short teaser for my Western romance with steampunk elements, Prudence and the Professor. Discover a rollicking steampunk romance from an award-winning author. The first book in the Brides of Jubilee series.
Montana Territory, 1863
The cheer from his small crowd of admirers was interrupted by a high pitched female scream.
The bouncing stopped and as he planted his two feet on the ground again, the children rushed up and surrounded him. They knew he had peppermint candy in a paper bag in one pocket.
It was another tradition he’d started that day. The laughter and jostling soon ended as they all understood he’d give them each one piece. He didn’t want to contend with the displeasure of the mothers of Jubilee if he doled out candy and spoiled too many suppers.
With the candy distributed, he pushed through the crowd to find Brandon assisting a woman down from the Steaming Meemie.
She rushed over to him, yanked off her goggles and stared at him wide-eyed. Her stormy gray eyes were full of concern. She blinked at him several times and Gerritt felt a twist in his gut. She was not what he expected.
She raised her hands, as if to examine him to see if he was still all in one piece, then seemed to recall they were perfect strangers and folded them across her breasts.
“Excuse me, Sir, but are you quite mad?”
If she’d never been a schoolmarm, she might have missed her calling. Although her shoulders were lifted and her arms crossed, her lips had a slight curl of amusement that signaled once she realized he wasn’t injured, she was enjoying the prank.
Several of the children who’d been trailing behind him almost knocked him over as they halted at her question.
Gerritt blinked. “I don’t believe so,” he offered, unsure if he wanted to admit to being totally sane. After all, it took a touch of madness to make a good inventor.
She shook her head and while she didn’t cluck her tongue at him like Miss Fairfield, his teacher when he was eight years old, he still felt as chagrined as if he was a pupil in a classroom.
“What in heaven’s name would possess a rational man to jump from the top of a windmill? I imagined I was witnessing someone falling to his death, not some outlandish prank initiated for the amusement of children.” She placed a gloved palm over her heart.
“It’s a good thing I’m not inclined to succumb to the vapors, else wise I’d be prostrate upon the ground.”
A twitch of her mouth told him she was working hard to suppress a grin. “I’m Professor Gerritt Rhinehart, and I assure you, I was never in any danger. I was demonstrating the properties of caoutchouc when it is vulcanized.”
He squared his shoulders against the attack from the tiny, teasing harridan.
She adjusted a rather ugly straw bonnet covered with several soiled stuffed birds, brushed off white cuffs dusted with the dirt of the trail, and cleared her throat. She reminded him of a field wren””small, shapely and alert. She pulled a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles from her pocket, donned them and then pursed her pink lips as she surveyed him from head to toe.
“I would suppose there must be a safer method of showing how adding carbon black and using a chemical compound strengthens rubber.”
Gerritt was shocked into silence as he realized she understood the process he’d been trying to explain to the children for several months.
“I’m Mrs. Prudence Worthington,” she said, stretching out the syllables of her name, so it sounded like prude ““ dance ““ worth ““ing-tonnnnn.
It was a neat trick and he was impressed. Her letters, written with the delicate, flawless script and clear description of how she could turn his unruly, messy office into a model of efficiency, had convinced him she was the best candidate for the job. He hoped she understood trying to change him wasn’t part of the deal.
Bio: Sibelle Stone is the pseudonym for award winning author Deborah Schneider. Sibelle writes fantasy and steampunk romance, with magical creatures, witches, fairies and amazing machines. She is independently wealthy, and spends her free time creating steampunk fashions, modding plastic guns into something more sinister, haunting antique shops and wearing hats.
Visit Sibelle at www.sibellestone.com
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