Read Online A Matter of Circumstance and Celludrones by Claire Robyns - Free Book Online Page B

think you know.”
    Lily stooped to pluck the head of a lilac flower as she walked.
    “My father was much older than my mother, an eccentric scientist by
all accounts.” She stripped off a petal and watched it float to the ground.
He’d died before her third birthday and she had no memory of him at all. “My
mother said he’d created Ana as his legacy to me, both a gift and a curse, as I
could never reveal she was in any way different.”
    She turned her head to peer at Lord Adair. “You don’t seem as
concerned about people learning of Neco. Are you not afraid he’ll be taken from
you, that someone might steal him in order to learn the secret of his design?”
    “You’ve seen Neco. The man can take care of himself.” His lips
twitched. “That story is almost as bad as the misbehaving bunny you made up
yesterday.”
    “You think I’m making this up?” Clearly Ana wasn’t as unique as she’d
been led to believe, but the celludrone was all Lily had of her father. That
and a trust fund that would make her husband very happy one day. There were no
paintings of the man, no miniature in a locket her mother might have passed on.
She didn’t even have a single memory to treasure.
    Lord Adair met her gaze with a frown. “Your mother spun you a load of
yarn, that’s what I think.” He looked away. “Neco and Ana are the last
remaining celludrones fashioned on the original, ancient Egyptian schematics. I
don’t know how McAllister came by the parchments. I do, however, know that Neco
and Ana were built by him. In Scotland, not France.”
    “This McAllister might have built the original celludrones, but my
father practically created an entirely new technology from it when he designed
Ana.”
    His eyes came back to her. “You have it the wrong way round. Duncan
McAllister built six celludrones such as Neco and Ana. Then he patented a
simplistic model and sold it to a manufacturer in Manchester. Not for the
money, although I’m sure he made a small fortune,” Lord Adair added. “The
production of simple celludrones was a means to hide his six in plain sight.”
    Lily increased her pace. She didn’t need to listen to his ridiculous
ideas. It was his word against her mother’s. She’d only met him two short days
ago; she barely knew the man.
    Her heart pounded and the blood reverberated in her head. Why would
Lord Adair lie? How does he know all these things?
    “Where’s his blasted proof?” she muttered beneath her breath.
    The flat ground abruptly gave way to a steep bank that dropped into a
small lake. One foot slid forward on the slippery grass and the rest of her
followed, bumping along on her bottom to a series of unladylike grunts.
    “Lily…!”
    She clutched at the long grass, thankfully finding purchase and
drawing her knees up before her boots touched the water.
    “Good God, are you okay?” His hands came around her waist, sliding her
all the way up the bank again and hauling her to her feet. “Are you hurt? Did
you twist your ankle?”
    His hands left her waist, but didn’t go far. As if he expected her to
collapse any second.
    “I’m fine.” She pushed her hat straight and wiped her
brow—unfortunately before she saw the grass stains and mud on her glove. She
scrutinized Lord Adair’s face to read the extent of the damage.
    His expression was deadpan. “You…you’re not going to cry, are you?”
    “I wasn’t planning on it.” She tugged her gloves off before they could
do more harm. “Why, were you?”
    His expression broke with a deep chuckle that creased his eyes and
softened the hard lines of his jaw. Lily shook her head at him, but then she
was laughing too.
    Laughing at the absurdity of both the moment and at how complicated
her life had suddenly become. Laughing so she wouldn’t cry at the loss of a
silly childish notion that should never have lasted past the nursery.
    It had made reasonable sense back then that the ghost of her father,
his soul, lived inside Ana. How else