Secrets (The Steamship Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  She makes the dreams of mechanical devices come true and he dreams of becoming a steamship captain.

  Samantha Crill can read the hearts of mechanical devices and transform them into what they long to be. In a steam-powered Victorian England where only the wealthy can afford such sophisticated contraptions, the law does not look kindly on Naturals who destroy these purchases. Barely able to resist the demand of the devices, Sam becomes a danger to everyone around her, not in the least because the mechanicals show little restraint once changed.

  Nathaniel Bowden, cabin boy on the oldest of the East India Trading Company’s steamships, intends to learn everything he can in the hope of becoming a captain in this age of productivity. He’s eager and willing, but his despised noble background and the engineer’s unprovoked loathing threaten his position with the crew.

  If Sam can't learn to control her nature, the engine's whispers combined with Nat's curiosity will put his future—and both their lives—at risk.

  Praise for the Books of

  Margaret McGaffey Fisk

  Secrets

  “Through her young heroine and hero, the author breathes life into a curious, exciting and often dangerous world of steam, sail, sentient machines, loyal friendships and deeds of quiet bravery undertaken in the face of widespread fear and bigotry, to deliver a clever, entertaining and unique new take on Victorian Steampunk.”

  — David Bridger, author of A Flight of Thieves (Sky Ships) —

  Shafter

  “Trina’s life revolves around protecting her family and as a shafter, the lowest of Ceric society, her choices are limited to what she can steal. However, a chance at a new life aboard a colony-bound ship teaches her a new way of life and the price of unquestioned loyalty in this exciting tale, rich with cultural world building and science fiction adventure. This is a story you’ll love, with a tale you won’t want to see end!”

  — Lazette Gifford, author of Glory —

  “While the heroine yearns for another world, you’ll crave any universe, any tale, created by this exciting new speculative fiction author. In Shafter, McGaffey Fisk delivers an inter-planetary colony system and populates it with complex and sympathetic characters. Travel from the tunnels of Ceric to the stars beyond with a master thief and her master storyteller.”

  — Valerie Comer, author of Majai’s Fury —

  Secrets

  The Steamship Chronicles

  Book One

  Margaret McGaffey Fisk

  Cover art and design by Margaret McGaffey Fisk

  Cover Illustrations and Photography: The Ship “Favorite” Maneuvering Off Greenock, 1819 by Robert Salmon courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington; Colin Fisk (photography); and Graechan (text graphics)

  TTO Publishing logo design by Blue Harvest Creative

  www.blueharvestcreative.com

  Secrets

  Copyright 2014 by Margaret McGaffey Fisk

  eBook edition created 2014

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this eBook, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you did not purchase the copy you’re reading, please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s hard work.

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published by

  TTO Publications

  ISBN-10: 1-63139-004-X

  ISBN-13: 978-1-63139-004-3

  Print edition ISBNs

  ISBN-10: 1-63139-005-8

  ISBN-13: 978-1-63139-005-0

  1

  Sam had been working on one of her machines in the garden when her sister’s maid came to collect her.

  “Lady Stapleton calls for you,” Kate said, looking at the machine with a narrowed gaze.

  Abandoning her tools, Sam leapt to her feet and grinned, pausing only to give the machine a quick pat in farewell.

  Lily and Henry had been gone for a full week this time. The winter’s chills had taken a toll on her sister’s health and so Henry delayed his business until she felt well enough to travel. He took Lily on his trips whenever he could, weather permitting, and her sister seemed happier for the time away from the worries of the estate.

  Still, Sam missed them when they were gone.

  “You walk proper now.” the maid said sharply before Sam could burst into a run.

  The woman seemed to have a sixth sense for when Sam might misbehave and took every opportunity to scold. She’d treated Sam like a feral child even before the maid’s copper-link necklace got caught up in one of her bouts.

  No matter how much Sam had tried to explain and apologize, the woman continued to glare whenever Lily and Henry could not see. She’d returned the necklace with its broken clasp repaired, but that made no difference. Even fixing the steam-powered heater so their piped water wouldn’t freeze in the winter had failed to soften the maid’s attitude.

  It took all of Sam’s focus to keep to a steady pace, but Kate’s annoyance couldn’t dampen Sam’s growing excitement for all the maid schooled her walk.

  “Now don’t you be tiring your sister, Miss Samantha. She doesn’t be needing any of your antics,” the maid said when they came to a halt in front of the sitting room door.

  Sam ignored the warning as she waited for Kate to sweep into the room first, a subtle breaking of tradition the woman used to put Sam in her place without drawing Lily’s attention. But the maid only turned the silver knob, pulled the door open, and waved for her to enter.

  Ducking her head to hide a cheeky smile, she stepped past Kate and into the room, anticipation wiping out the maid’s unpleasantness.

  “I’m so happy you’re back.” The words burst from her before she even looked around. “What did you find for me this time?”

  Henry and Lily had gone to Dover, a full day’s carriage ride from the estate. Lily always brought something back to make up for Sam’s inability to leave, and ever since Henry set up a little workshop, those gifts often included small mechanical objects crafted by blacksmiths. Only the most complicated and well-used machines would make her lose control, and she so loved working with the devices.

  Sam’s gaze found the empty sofa with its elegant, carved wood legs, the table bare of anything, and finally, her sister on the stuffed armchair, looking even more frail than usual after her winter sickness. But color highlighted Lily’s cheeks, streaks of red Sam knew meant a secret waiting to burst out.

  She crossed to her sister and knelt before the chair, her lanky height taller than Lily’s when seated. “What is it then? I know it’s got to be something special with you all colored up.” Sam could hardly keep still as expectation triggered sparks of pleasure to dance along her nerves.

  Lily still said nothing, the faint smile dropping from her expression. She put a hand on the top of Sam’s red curls but did not move at first.

  As always, her sister’s presence brought with it calm enough to ease even the worst of Sam’s episodes before something disastrous occurred. She leaned into the touch, enjoying the attention as Lily stroked her hair. But soon the quiet made her antsy.

  “Hush, Samantha. Just sit a while.”
/>   If anything, the soft words made her more uncomfortable, especially with her sister’s use of her full name.

  Lily rarely did nothing.

  She always had some work in her hands.

  Sam had been growing steadily, and Lily often mended old clothes for the servants’ children when she’d finished Sam’s, one of the many reasons all of Henry’s staff loved her. The table should have had her sister’s latest project scattered across it, whether a crochet napkin or some clothing in need of repair.

  Instead, it stood empty.

  “I can’t,” Sam said after a pause. She pulled out from under her sister’s hand and went to the sofa, folding her legs under her in a posture that usually made her sister scold.

  Lily didn’t even notice.

  “It’s a baby, isn’t it? That’s why you’ve been going to Dover with Henry, spending so much time away. That’s what Cook says.”

  Sam refused to repeat Kate’s speculations. Lily would never put a new child over Sam. They belonged together.

  A faint smile touched Lily’s mouth before she shook her head. “What have I told you about listening to the servant gossip?” As usual, the words held no heat. Lily understood better than anyone how much Sam craved company, even if it meant spending time in reach of the lady’s maid and her barbs.

  Her sister did not deny the gossip, but neither did she confirm it.

  “That’s not why I called you here, Samantha.”

  Tension rippled down Sam’s back. Twice her sister called her Samantha when Lily knew she preferred Sam.

  Lily twisted a strand of long blond hair between her fingers, looking anywhere but at Sam.

  She tried to remember what she could have done to bring lines to Lily’s face, but nothing came to mind. She’d even transformed a rusty old plow into a contraption to keep herself inside the workshop if she happened to feel a fever coming on while Lily was away. She didn’t want her sister to have to worry.

  “It’s not about the plow, is it? Surely no one cared that I used it. Why the grass had grown up all around so I had to cut it free.”

  A laugh burst from Lily, leaving a comical expression in its wake as though her sister had not expected to find humor in the story. “You cut a plow free? And dragged it back to the workshop by yourself, I’d guess. It’s not like Cook would have helped you…or Kate. Tell me you haven’t co-opted one of Henry’s workers? He needs them to keep the estate profitable, not running after your schemes.”

  Sam flushed and jerked her legs forward so they draped over the edge, her twisted skirt barely reaching her ankles and failing to hide the dirt-smeared feet below. “Old Mister Simmons is nice enough, especially after the steam-powered heater, but he keeps the others away from me.”

  Lily shook her head. “Maybe better one of them than on your own after all. Someday you may regret your boyish ways.”

  Sam sat straighter, hands pressing brocade on either side of her. “What’s the point in being a lady? It’s not as if anyone’s going to come courting. They don’t know I’m here. Nor will I have a coming out. Not even in the Merchanter Ball as you would have if Mother had lived. My prison’s larger now, but it’s not much different from that old barn. I can’t leave, and no one comes to see me either.”

  She remembered Kate’s admonishment a bit too late. Front teeth sank into her lower lip as she stared at Lily.

  Sam had never spoken so in her whole life. She hadn’t even known the continued strictures bothered her until right then.

  Lily’s pale features became drawn, and she half-rose from the chair as though coming to cuddle Sam like years before. “If things could have been different…”

  Sam drew on the calm Lily’s earlier touch had produced as she prepared to wash away the hurt in her sister’s expression, but Lily never gave her the chance.

  “That’s actually why I called you here.” Her sister settled back, shoulders curled with an invisible weight. “Do you remember how it was before Henry came for us? Do you remember our plans?”

  “Safe haven.” The words came out in a reverent whisper, too strong a dream for even Henry’s generosity to squash.

  Eight years had passed, but the memory of sitting on a pillow of moldy hay as Lily described what awaited on the Continent rose sharp as though yesterday. Lily had read accounts from their father’s journals telling of a place where Naturals gathered without a care for who saw them transform a simple machine into the mechanical that lived at its heart. They spoke of a place where Sam would have friends, people around her who never once wore that look of fear her abilities brought forth. Even Cook, who had befriended Sam for her enthusiastic appetite, still kept a wary eye out for any sign of an approaching bout.

  It had been a beautiful dream, something to keep a little girl warm at night as Lily worked herself almost to death earning their passage when they had only rumors to guide them after the crossing.

  “But instead we came here.” Her voice went flat when she’d intended to show Lily that she held no regrets.

  In truth, most days the estate offered enough room to ramble and the workshop gave her the ability to play with her natural affinity to machines. If she didn’t have many friends—only one really beyond her family—at least she didn’t live in fear that her smallest slip would cost her everything, and worst, cost Lily. Only lately had disquiet rippled beneath the peace Sam had found here.

  Kate’s sour words had struck hard. Sure, neither Henry nor Lily showed any sign of resenting her presence, but neither had they filled the empty rooms with the children both had wanted. Now Sam had to wonder if the choice lay not in chance but in the same fear that hovered in the servants’ eyes when they thought Henry couldn’t see.

  “Yes, we came here. And it’s better for you than that old barn for sure, but wouldn’t you want something more? You talk of Merchanter Balls, so I’d guess you’ve been haunting Henry’s library again, but you can never have that here.”

  Lily rose, her skirts swirling down to tiny feet encased in slippers. “Wouldn’t you prefer a place where you could follow your nature without restraint? Where you didn’t have to watch your every instinct?”

  Sam had never thought her sister unkind before.

  She stared at Lily, mouth half open. “Of course I would,” she said, jerking to her feet, “But it’s not possible. It never was no matter how much we pretended. I try not to think on it.”

  A wistful smile crept across Lily’s face. “I thought I’d taught you how important it is to have dreams. Sometimes that’s all we have.”

  Anger melted away as Sam crossed to her older sister, noticing for the first time how they stood almost the same height despite more than ten years between them. “You did, and it’s true. But we found our dream of a safe haven here, with your Henry and my workshop.”

  Lily shrugged and turned half away. “It’s not enough. It never will be with you still trapped. You said so yourself.”

  Sam stared at her dirty feet, the earlier anger turned inward. “I didn’t mean it,” she said to her big toe. “I wasn’t thinking.”

  A strangled laugh brought Sam’s face up again.

  “It’s when we don’t think that the truth comes out, and a surer truth I’ve never heard from your lips. Whether you admit to it or not, the confinement chafes. It has since you got over the delight of grass beneath your feet.”

  Sam crossed the toes of one foot over the other in a feeble attempt to hide the grass stains that always seemed present, wishing she’d stopped long enough to put on the slippers her sister preferred she wore.

  Lily only shook her head. “You might have put the Continent from your mind, but I’ve had Henry make discrete inquiries since you turned thirteen. There’s more to life than running wild in a cage. You deserve that as much as anyone, and the accounts in Father’s journals prove there’s something to find.”

  Sam barely heard anything past the fact that Henry had kept searching. The dream came back with the full force of longing, a vision
of the two of them in true freedom now grown to include Henry’s strength. “Has he discovered something?”

  When Lily glanced away, Sam’s shoulders slumped. There had been nothing despite Lily’s hopes. She’d figured that out years ago, though she’d never let on.

  Her sister straightened her spine. “He has found it.”

  The soft words took a moment to sink in. Tingling swept through her limbs, and her scalp tickled as the dream became reality.

  Around her, the room broke into its component parts, metal highlighted in her vision. A mantelpiece clock she desperately ignored every day called out for mobility.

  “You’re old enough now to go on your own.”

  The rest of what Lily said hit with the force of a blow, silencing the aether-driven pull from the clock and everything else.

  “My own? What of you and Henry? Why can’t you come too?” Sam’s voice spiraled up until it sounded much younger than her fifteen years, but she couldn’t help the desperation in its tones. “We’re supposed to be together.”

  The way Lily had avoided Sam’s eyes now gained another meaning.

  Her sister pressed both hands to her stomach and slumped into the chair. “We were supposed to be together, Samantha. Father asked me to keep you safe, and I have. But I can’t give you what you need any longer. It’s cruel to keep you here when I know there’s a better place for you to be.”

  “Yes, a better place. But one with room for you as well. Like we’d always planned it.” Sam grabbed Lily’s fingers and laced them through hers. “Together.”

  Lily pulled free. “My place is here with Henry.” Her voice trembled on the words.

  Sam relaxed, sensing the weakness in her sister’s argument. She had only to press, and Lily would give in. Her sister would let them stay together as they were meant to be. “Henry can come too. I’m sure there’s a place for him on the Continent. Who wouldn’t like your husband? It would be perfect.” She reached for the hand again.