Her Own Devices by Shelley Adina Page A

her here. She put down her spoon.
    “Stay here and enjoy your lunch, girls. I’m just going over there by that row of potted palms to say hello to the young lady in the yellow sprigged walking dress.”
    “’Ave a sandwich.” Maggie pointed to a delicacy on her plate. “These little ’uns with crab inside are ever so good.”
    Maggie was right. The crab sandwiches were indeed delicious. Claire could empathize with Dr. Craig in one way, at least—food never tasted so good until you had gone a long time without any. She would never take it for granted again.
    She made her way between the tables, glad she’d dressed in a particularly nice waist with eyelet embroidery and rows of tucking, and that—thank you, Cowboy Poker—her hat was new, pleated at the back and trimmed with a jaunty blue-and-white striped bow. “Emilie! I’m so glad to see you.”
    The astonishment in her friend’s eyes behind their spectacles was almost comical. “Claire! Oh, Claire, whatever happened to you? Are you mad?” Emilie gathered her into a hug that was so sympathetic it almost hurt. “Dearest, to what desperate straits you have been driven—and to think I am partly responsible!”
    Claire righted her hat and sank into the nearest gilded chair. “I—what?” She directed a vague smile at the other two girls. What were their names? And what on earth was Emilie talking about?
    “We have just heard the news, haven’t we?” Emilie appealed to the others, who nodded. “About your engagement to Lord James Selwyn. It’s all over London. Claire, you don’t even like him!”
    Oh. That.
    Claire gathered her wits. She had been so focused on electricks and in freeing Dr. Craig that she had not devoted a single thought to her new fiance, nor thought up an appropriate story to explain him.
    “He—he has improved on further acquaintance,” she said rather lamely.
    “I heard he was a shocking rogue,” said the girl on the left in a voice just above a whisper. “And that no lady is safe with him.”
    “Abigail, that can’t be true,” the other girl said. “Claire would never engage herself to a man like that.”
    Abigail. Yes. That meant the other one had to be Charlotte. They were cousins, but for the life of her, Claire couldn’t remember their surnames. “Certainly not,” she said. “I feel perfectly safe with him.” As long as she had her lightning rifle to hand.
    “You shall be Baroness Selwyn,” sighed Abigail. “A perfect match, since you are the daughter of a viscount.”
    “The sister of one, presently,” Emilie corrected her. “Claire, do tell us how this came about.”
    Oh, dear. “He wrote to my mother informing her of his intentions, and then he proposed.”
    “Oh, you comical person. But was it terribly romantic?” Charlotte wanted to know. “Was it outdoors, in a pavilion, or indoors, with a bouquet of flowers?”
    Flowers. Paper. In the hearth. “Indoors, with flowers.”
    Charlotte clasped her hands in delight and subsided.
    “So you will be comfortably situated and I can stop worrying,” Emilie said. “I take it you are with your grand-aunts Beaton in Greenwich?”
    “No indeed.” So Emilie’s mother was still monitoring her correspondence, and she had not received Claire’s tube sent days and days ago. “I wrote to you some time ago to let you know my situation. Perhaps I miscoded the tube.” She smiled for the cousins’ benefit, while Emilie’s smile faded and her lips thinned. “I am employed as assistant to a scientist, and am supervising the education of a number of young persons.” She nodded toward the Mopsies, who were signaling the waiter with imperious energy. “Two of the girls are over there, by the window.”
    “They look delightful,” said Abigail. “What pretty dresses. Who are they?”
    “Orphans. They are, however, very intelligent and their lessons are coming along briskly.”
    “Fancy you a teacher,” Abigail said. “I never would have guessed.”
    “Claire