Good afternoon and welcome to the steampunk celebration today!
The idea for my first steampunk, The Curse of the Brimstone Contract, came from a chance to write a Sherlock Holmes story. I wanted to write the classic story of a client coming to Holmes to solve a mystery but also inject some romance, ala “A Scandal in Bohemia,” the tale that introduced Irene Adler to the world.
“I’ll just write a Holmes-type and steampunk it up,” I thought.
Famous last words!
Because proper story worlds don’t work that way. Once a new technology is introduced, the changes it creates cascade to every corner of society. My story morphed from a basic murder mystery with romance to solving a mystery plaguing a Jewish seamstress, Joan Krieger, that has far-reaching implications for her society.
And my Holmes? He became Gregor Sherringford, the son of a rich and powerful Duke, who lives at the fringes of society because his mother was a low-born woman of India.
Joan and Gregor, outsiders both, find much in common as they uncover a mystery that hits home for Joan. Their union could hold the key, eventually, to saving Victorian London from itself, especially as my steampunk world also includes magic that everyone wishes to control.
But first they had to meet.
In honor of my original idea, here is the revised version of the first meeting between Joan Krieger and Gregor Sherringford, as she comes to his office to hire him.
And to enter to win an ecopy, just enter the rafflecopter giveaway.
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She knocked again, more insistent this time. Voices echoed down the alley from laborers gathered at the entrance. She caught the whispers. What was a well-dressed lady doing on this side of town beating on a brick wall?
I am on a fool’s errand, of course.
She adjusted her hairpiece out of nerves. One of the pins had come loose already. The tightness of the unfamiliar high collar tickled her throat. The laborers had mistaken her for a lady of class or, at least, an adventurer of some sort. Modeled after clothing she’d seen female explorers wearing in the newspapers, this was more breastplate armor than a proper lady’s dress. Joan could have worn her one good dress but if she was going to toss convention aside, why not do so fully?
Joan closed her hand around the heavy, heart-shaped silver pendant that hung around her neck, a gift from her late grandmother. At least the pendant, engraved with a Roman warrior woman’s face, went with the dress, even if gold would have matched the brown better. She must pass as someone of means. Sherringford had rescued a lady in his last case. Therefore, he took them seriously. She doubted he would take a Jewish seamstress as seriously, so this was her own version of an illusion. The pendant was her talisman of courage.
But ladies were also, apparently, a target. She glanced at the laborers again. Joan pounded on the door. Answer, blast you!
The door swung open but there was no one there.
Another illusion?
She stepped inside. The door slammed shut behind her with a whoosh of air. She started, turned and saw that the door had a hinge at the top that was rigged to a pulley. This was no magic. She had been let in by a machine.
That made sense, given the person on whom she was calling.
She walked down the short hallway to a room that threw a pocket of light onto the floor. Heat engulfed her, a certain sign this place was heated by mage coal. How did a detective living in this section of London afford such a luxury? Unsure and off-balance, she hesitated to step inside the room.
“For hell’s sake, you had better be the devil himself to interrupt my work!” a voice boomed.
“I am sorry,” Joan snapped as she walked into the room. “I seem to have quite forgotten to wear my horns.”
She bit her tongue. All her prepared speeches, all her rehearsed pleas for help, and this was how she’d begun? Truly, her nerves were at breakpoint. A man stared rudely at her, though she supposed he had cause. Still, she could not help but stare back. She had anticipated an eccentric. She had not expected him to be so pleasing to the eye. There were faint lines around his mouth, his brown hair was thick and full, and his skin was an olive-brown shade that set off his dark eyes nicely. His clean-shaven face revealed a jaw that hinted at a strong character. Gregor Sherringford seemed a champion, indeed.
He scowled at her. Would this paragon throw her out?
She glanced down at his clothes, which were more in keeping with what she’d been told to expect of him by the cook and her daughter. A scientist as well as a detective, they had said. He wore a stained leather apron, his sleeves were rolled up to the elbow and something yellow had discolored the tips of the fingers on one hand.
If he was a detective, truly, then perhaps he would be curious enough to let her speak her piece.
“So, you are not the devil, though you may be as much trouble,” Sherringford finally said.
As much trouble as you, she wanted to say, but this time held her tongue. “Good morning, Mr. Sherringford. I do apologize for my intrusion.” He must listen to her. “My name is Joan Krieger. I wish to contract for your services as an investigator.” She offered her hand like a man would do when conducting a business arrangement.
He hesitated a second and then clasped her hand and shook it. He had a firm grip but his intent stare discomfited her. She had the distinct impression he could see all the way through her. Yet, to her, he seemed to contain endless depths of mystery. She’d met many men through her work but none like this one, who stirred something so deep inside her.
“How did you hear of me and how did you find me?” He scowled again.
“A mutual acquaintance told me of you and your office.”
“Who?”
“That would be indiscreet to reveal, sir.” The cook’s daughter had told her how to find this place but Joan had no idea how Sherringford would react to that information. “And is it discreet to interrupt a man in the middle of his work?” He stated thequestion in a whisper, almost as if he’d directed it at himself, so she did not answer. “Your presence here raises many questions,” he added in a normal tone.
“Yes, I have many questions, sir. My hope is that you will provide the answers.” She tilted her chin up.
“I hardly qualify as “sir’, any more than you are a lady, Miss Krieger, despite your efforts to appear so.”
She flushed. “I wished only to appear as someone who needs your skills and has the means to pay for them.”
Sherringford snorted. Truly, that was a nice change from his scowling. She wondered what he’d look like when he smiled. Charming, she guessed, and wondered if anyone had been lucky enough to be charmed by him. Probably not, as his biting tongue likely drove them away.
“Very well. Stay if you can keep quiet while I finish the work you’ve interrupted. Refrain from any complaints. I well know this isn’t fit for a lady’s sight. But perhaps, not being a lady, you will not care about that.”
She felt her face grow even warmer. Now he sneered at her.
“Your room seems not only unfit for a lady but for anyone. The temperature is ungodly warm, Mr. Sherringford.”
Oh, dear Lord, another snap of her suddenly waspish tongue. She had antagonized him again.
“Ungodly? Some say that my work and I both fit that description.”
“I’d call you and your work fascinating.”
Unexpectedly, he smiled. She blinked. Oh yes, his smile definitely was charming. “Now, be quiet while I finish,” he said.
Mortified, she vowed to not say another word. She took in Sherringford’s workshop. The rectangular room was filled with tables shoved against all four walls, with yet another table in the center. Metal pipes, wheels, gears and other objects she could not identify covered the tables. Beakers with tubes going in and out were set up in one corner, and unlit burners nestled underneath.
Next to the beaker contraption, a wooden box with a blinking light made whirring sounds. She had never seen anything like it. It was possible these contraptions were part of some magical ritual, but it seemed more likely they were merely machinery, like the door. The cook’s daughter had said that Sherringford was familiar with mages, not that he was one. The door illusion argued otherwise, but perhaps that was commissioned work. She had heard mages could be hired, if one had enough money and knew the right people.
Overhead, pipes ran along the ceiling. Some were connected to the equipment on the tables, though she thought perhaps their valves were closed. It was hard to tell from where she was standing.
The room smelled vaguely of rotten eggs and fog. At least it was well lit. A large circular apparatus hung from the ceiling. She hesitated to call it a chandelier, as it looked so strange with all those pipes and gears whirling, but it served the same function.
“You seem struck dumb, Miss Krieger,” Sherringford said. “Such an interesting change from when you arrived.”
“It was you who asked me to remain silent.” Perhaps her arrival had discomfited him too. It was nice to think so. She blinked.
“This is a most unusual room. Wherever do you sleep, Mr. Sherringford?”
She regretted the question as soon as she asked. That was most impolite and hardly better than sniping at the man.
“As it happens, there is a small room in the basement that serves my needs.”
She nodded. At least he did not seem to have taken serious offense.
He waved his hand at her. “I must finish now.”
He bent to a device on the center table. On one side of the thing, a stylus was set over a handwritten note. A second stylus, twin to the first, perched over a blank piece of paper
Sherringford muttered to himself and pushed a lever. The pair of styluses burst into sudden movement. He smiled thinly, watching his contraption work.
The stylus over the blank paper fell out of the brace holding it upright.
Joan clearly heard Sherringford curse, which she ignored, as a polite person should. She tried to reconcile Lady Sarah’s protector, someone who had stood up to a lord, with this man puttering around his gadgets and gears. The two versions seemed like ill-cut pieces of clothing stitched together.
He seemed to be copying something with his contraption, or at least trying to do so. She had adapted something similar for the shop so the work of the seamstresses would be uniform. The question was why he needed to do this. Was it part of some other investigation?
Sherringford picked up a small circular clasp with a tiny gear at one end and slid it down the stylus.
This clasp was too big, and the stylus fell off again. He cursed once more. Well, it sounded like a curse, though it was in a language unfamiliar to her. Perhaps one of the Indian dialects? His skin tone was darker than that of most Londoners. Being Indian might explain why he lived in this section of London, even if he did perform services for the nobility.
But his ancestry was of no concern to her. All that mattered was whether he could help. And it seemed he could not help until he finished this, but she did not have time to wait all day. Someone would notice her absence.
His fingertips tapped the table, obviously looking for a smaller clasp to fit the stylus better. He would never find anything in that mess. She looked down. Small objects could easily fall off tables, and circular ones tended to roll. She knelt, no easy feat in her stiff dress. She saw a glint of brass almost hidden behind the table leg.
“There.” She pointed.
“There what?” he snapped. But he followed where she had pointed. He saw the gleam, knelt and carefully lifted the metal piece. It was a clasp, just as she had guessed. And it turned out to be the one he was looking for.
After he had placed the newfound piece securely around the stylus, Sherringford turned to her.
“Humphf,” he said, as if that meant something.
“Humphf,” she answered back.
He raised an eyebrow. “If you will turn around, you will see there is a door. It leads to a room where we can discuss your problem. Wait and I will be with you in a moment.” She wanted to protest that she would rather watch him finish his fascinating project, but she had been forward enough already. She had obtained her first objective. He was going to hear her out.
She turned toward the corner of the room where he had pointed. What she had taken as part of the wall was actually a hidden door. Unlike the real illusion that concealed the outside door, this one was simply a clever design, with the doorknob recessed and hidden if one did not look carefully.
Was Sherringford a mage of some sort? She had never met a wielder of magic, at least not knowingly. She had no idea what one would be like. Of course, she had never met a consulting detective before either. In for a penny, in for a pound, as the saying went.
Joan pushed the door open.
This room was as different from the workshop as a lordly manor was to the debtor’s prison.
Bookshelves covered the walls, their dark color matched by the huge throw rug on the floor that was decorated with swirling Oriental-style designs against a black background. In the center sat a comfortable sitting couch with matching chairs on either side.
Gregor Sherringford was not as indifferent to his surroundings as he had first appeared. She could certainly picture him here, curled up with a book, his dark hair falling in front of his eyes. A pleasing image.
She heard the door close behind her. She turned, her face full of color. She had no reason to be embarrassed, but she was.
“Why did you not tell me to wait here at the beginning, sir?” she asked.
“It is interesting to see how people react to the workroom. If they are appalled or otherwise react badly, then they’re not people worthy of my time.” He hung his leather apron on a coatrack and rolled down his sleeves. “And I was in the middle of an experiment.”
“I do not much like trusting my future to someone who tests me like that.”
“And I don’t like being interrupted by someone ill-mannered enough to snap at me. If you wish to leave, you know where the door is located.”
She reluctantly shook her head and kept a firm grip on her tongue. If she could keep her temper with her father, she could keep it now. “What I wish is to have had no need to come to you, sir, but that is sadly not the case.”
“I’m clearly your choice of last resort. That would not be unusual among my clients.” He smiled thinly, as he had a moment ago in his workroom. “Please, stop glaring at me, Miss Krieger, and have a seat. We will both be more comfortable. Also, no more calling me sir. Mr. Sherringford will do.”
“I was not…” She cleared her throat. She had not been glaring. She had been studying him. In this setting, he belonged. The softer light burnished his hair and skin, as some silks glowed in certain candlelight. Now, she could well imagine him a gallant romantic hero as well as a champion. “I suppose I was glaring. My apologies. I have never done anything like this before. It has me off-balance.” She clutched her pendant tight as she sat down. “How much do you charge, sir?”
“That depends,” he said.
“On how much I can afford to pay?” she asked.
He drew his eyebrows together. She had angered him somehow. Again.
“It depends on your problem. I have valuable work, as you saw. I dislike interrupting it.”
“So it must be a problem that can be solved quickly?” Trying to sort what he meant was like trying to get a proper measurement off a squirming customer.
“On the contrary, only a complicated problem would be worth setting aside my other matters. As to the fee, if it presents a proper challenge, I will waive it.”
“Excuse me? Usually, more work means a higher fee, not a lower one.”
“So I have been told. But those are my terms.” He looked at her and opened his palm, clearly signaling the next move was hers. “You definitely seem like a person who might have a worthy case. Thus my interest in hearing you out.”
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