“It’s true,” Jessaline said, stalling desperately in hopes that some solution would present itself to her. “This man refused my request to build the device.”
“Then why did you come back here?” Forstall asked, tightening his grip on Eugenie so that she gasped. “We had men watching the house servants, too. We intercepted orders for metal parts and rubber tubing, and I paid the glassmith to delay an order for custom vacuum-pipes—”
“You did that?” To Jessaline’s horror, Eugenie stiffened in Forstall’s grasp, trying to turn and glare at him in her affront. “I argued with that old fool for an hour!”
“Eugenie, be still!” cried Norbert, which raised him high in Jessaline’s estimation; she had wanted to shout the same thing.
“I will not!” Eugenie began to struggle, plainly furious. As Forstall cursed and tried to restrain her, Jessaline heard Eugenie’s protests continue: “ … interference with my work … very idea …”
Please, Holy Mother, Jessaline thought, taking a very careful step closer to the gun on the sideboard, don’t let him shoot her to shut her up.
When Forstall finally thrust Eugenie aside – she fell against the bottle-strewn side table, nearly toppling it – and indeed raised the gun to shoot her, Jessaline blurted, “Wait!”
Both Forstall and Eugenie froze, now separated and facing each other, though Forstall’s gun was still pointed dead at Eugenie’s chest. “The plans are complete,” Jessaline said to him. “They are in the workshop out back.” With a hint of pride, she looked at Eugenie and added, “Eugenie has made it work.”
“What?” said Rillieux, looking thunderstruck.
“What?” Forstall stared at her, then Eugenie, and then anger filled his expression. “Clever, indeed! And while I go out back to check if your story is true, you will make your escape with the plans already tucked into your clothes.”
“I am not lying in this instance,” she said, “but if you like, we can all proceed to the garden and see. Or, since I’m the one you seem to fear most …” She waggled her empty hands in mockery, hoping this would make him too angry to notice how much closer she was to the gun on the sideboard. His face reddened further with fury. “You could leave Eugenie and her brother here, and take me alone.”
Eugenie caught her breath. “Jessaline, are you mad?”
“Yes,” Jessaline said, and smiled, letting her heart live in her face for a moment. Eugenie’s mouth fell open, then softened into a small smile. Her glasses were still askew, Jessaline saw with a rush of fondness.
Forstall rolled his eyes, but smiled. “A capital suggestion, I think. Then I can shoot you—”
He got no further, for in the next instant Eugenie suddenly struck him in the head with a rum bottle.
The bottle shattered on impact. Forstall cried out, half-stunned by the blow and the sting of rum in his eyes, but he managed to keep his grip on the gun, and keep it trained more or less on Eugenie. Jessaline thought she saw the muscles in his forearm flex to pull the trigger –
– and then the sixgun was in her hand, its wooden grip warm and almost comforting as she blew a hole in Raymond Forstall’s rum-drenched head. Forstall uttered a horrid gurgling sound and fell to the floor.
Before his body stopped twitching, Jessaline caught Eugenie’s hand. “Hurry!” She dragged the other woman out of the parlor. Norbert, again to his credit, started out of shock and trotted after them, for once silent as they moved through the house’s corridors toward the garden. The house was nearly deserted now, the servants having fled or found some place to hide that was safe from gunshots and madmen.
“You must tell me which of the papers on your desk I can take,” Jessaline said as they trotted along, “and then you must make a decision.”
“Wh-what decision?” Eugenie still sounded shaken.
“Whether you will stay here, or whether you will come with me to Haiti.”
“Haiti?” Norbert cried.
“Haiti?” Eugenie asked, in wonder.
“Haiti,” said Jessaline, and as they passed through the rear door and went into the garden, she stopped and turned to Eugenie. “With me.”
Eugenie stared at her in such dawning amazement that Jessaline could no longer help herself. She caught Eugenie about the waist, pulled her near, and kissed her most soundly and improperly, right there in front of her brother. It was the sweetest, wildest kiss she had ever known in her life.
When she pulled back, Norbert was standing at the edge of her vision with his mouth open, and Eugenie looked a bit faint. “Well,” Eugenie said, and fell silent, the whole affair having been a bit much for her.
Jessaline grinned and let her go, then hurried forward to enter the workshop – and froze, horror shattering her good mood.
The bootblack man was gone. Where his body had been lay Jessaline’s derringer and copious blood, trailing away … to Eugenie’s worktable, where the plans had been, and were no longer. The trail then led away, out of the workshop’s rear door.
“No,” she whispered, her fists clenching at her sides. “No, by God!” Everything she had worked for, gone. She had failed, both her mission and her people.
“Very well,” Eugenie said after a moment. “Then I shall simply have to come with you.”
The words penetrated Jessaline’s despair slowly. “What?”
Eugenie touched Jessaline’s hand. “I will come with you. To Haiti. And I will build an even more efficient methane extractor for you there.”
Jessaline turned to stare at her and found that she could not, for her eyes had filled with tears.
“Wait.” Norbert caught his breath as understanding dawned. “Go to Haiti? Are you mad? I forbid—”
“You had better come too, brother,” Eugenie said, turning to him, and Jessaline was struck breathless once more by the cool determination in her eyes. “The police will take their time about it, but they’ll come eventually, and a white man lies dead in our house. It doesn’t really matter whether you shot him or not; you know full well what they’ll decide.”
And Norbert stiffened, for he did indeed know – probably better than Eugenie, Jessaline suspected – what his fate would be.
Eugenie turned to Jessaline. “He can come, can’t he?” By which Jessaline knew it was a condition, not an option.
“Of course he can,” she said at once. “I wouldn’t leave a dog to these people’s justice. But it will not be the life you’re used to, either of you. Are you certain?”
Eugenie smiled, and before Jessaline realized what was imminent, she had been pulled rather roughly into another kiss. Eugenie had been eating penuche again, she realized dimly, and then for a long perfect moment she thought of nothing but pecans and sweetness.
When it was done, Eugenie searched Jessaline’s face and then smiled in satisfaction. “Perhaps we should go, Jessaline,” she said gently.
“Ah. Yes. We should, yes.” Jessaline fought to compose herself; she glanced at Norbert and took a deep breath. “Fetch us a hansom cab while you still can, Monsieur Rillieux, and we’ll go down to the docks and take the next dirigible southbound.”
The daze cleared from Norbert’s eyes as well; he nodded mutely and trotted off.
In the silence that fell, Eugenie turned to Jessaline.
“Marriage,” she said, “and a house together. I believe you mentioned that?”
“Er,” said Jessaline, blinking. “Well, yes, I suppose, but I rather thought that first we would—”
“Good,” Eugenie replied, “because I’m not fond of you keeping up this dangerous line of work. My inventions should certainly earn enough for the both of us, don’t you think?”
“Um,” said Jessaline.
“Yes. So there’s no reason for you to work when I can keep you in comfort for the rest of our days.” Taking Jessaline’s hands, she stepped closer, her eyes going soft again. “And I am so very much looking forward to those days, Jessaline.”