Admiral Helmsley tugged on his uniform tunic so hard the medals on his chest jingled. “Wish you could have explained all this at my offices, boy.”

Lucifer’s trousers, the man was a stubborn old goat. Edison ran a hand through his hair. Better that than give the old codger a good pop on the nose.

The old sailor hadn’t believed a word of Edison’s story, though if he were being fair-minded, it was a fantastical tale. Still, dragging the man out of his offices at gunpoint might have been a miscalculation.

At least they hadn’t been followed.

Young Henry showed admirable skills piloting the ungainly growler through afternoon traffic. Not having to drive gave Edison leave to make certain there was no one on their tail.

“Did you have to bring him to the house?” Spencer asked, irritation clear in his clipped tone. “No offense meant, sir.”

“None taken.” The older man rocked back on his heels and wrapped his arms across his round chest. “Well Sweet? You got me here. Let’s get down to business. The wife’s angling to attend some God-awful soiree this evening. My salty arse won’t be worth a ha’penny if she misses it on my account.”

Before Edison could point out that they never would have left the comfort of his well-appointed offices had he chosen to take Edison at his word, Meena stepped between them.

“Let’s sit a moment, shall we?” She took the admiral’s arm and led him toward the dining room. “Are you hungry? We have stew.”

“I am rather peckish, now you mention it. Any ale by chance? I’ve never been kidnapped. A pint wouldn’t go amiss.”

Meena jerked her head at Briar. “I believe Mr. H just purchased a jug of Flannery’s finest. Should be in the pantry.”

Once their odd crew was seated around the table, bowls of stew and ale in front of them, Edison took a long swallow of beer. Ada sat at the Admiral’s right. He tried to catch her eye, but she seemed intent on her conversation with the old seaman.

Though she was again dressed in one of her practical working dresses, she fit there next to the old officer. Every time the man laughed, his chest full of medals winked in the light from the chandelier above the table, reminding Edison that he himself had no such accomplishments to show.

Ada did. Ada had created a power source that was going to change the world.

He fashioned crude devices that didn’t work—at least not the way he intended. When he wasn’t doing that, he was skulking about the city’s nasty underbelly, chasing criminals.

It wasn’t a world she knew.

It wasn’t a world where she belonged.

Though the stew was hearty, with just the right touch of spice, he pushed his bowl away half-eaten. She belonged in accomplished, learned circles, teaching men like Spottswood that women were going to think rings around them, whether they cared to admit it or not.

The last place a woman like Ada Templeton belonged was in his bed.

There it was. The bare truth of it. If he was any kind of gentleman, he wouldn’t tempt her again.

“Why did you bring Admiral Helmsley here?” Meena asked him.

Edison glared at the old man. “He wasn’t interested in the device.”

“Not true,” the admiral cut in. “Wouldn’t be any good without Mrs. Templeton is all.”

Spencer paused in the middle of buttering a roll. “Why not?”

“Gadget’s useless without the person who can make it work.” He pointed his butter knife at Spencer. “There’ll be things to change, bits needing adjusting and such. No one but the creator’d be able to do that.”

He reached for Ada’s hand. “And might I add, I’m thrilled to the teeth you’re unharmed, my dear.”

Ada smiled at him fondly.

Edison set his spoon down. A dreadful thought took hold. “Are you saying no one’ll buy the battery from an intermediary?”

Silence fell as everyone but the old officer contemplated that thought.

He patted his substantial belly and sat back in his seat with a great sigh of satisfaction. “No one with any brains in their heads.” He wiped his lips with his serviette. “With a device as complicated as Mrs. Templeton’s dry cell battery, it’s the designer you want. She’s the golden goose. Without her knowledge, the thing’s just a damned expensive paperweight.”

Ada’s eyes widened. She caught Edison’s gaze. “So it’s only of use to someone who can pretend they developed it.”

“I’d say so.”

“That eliminates you,” Spencer said to Edison.

Edison forced himself not to slam his fists down on the table. It did at that.

Meena pushed aside her bowl. “We need a new plan of attack.”

The admiral patted Ada’s hand. “Hate to say it, my dear, but if it were me, I’d dangle you in front of this villain.”

Edison could feel his family struggling to maintain an outward expression of calm. He was doing the same.

The longer he’d spent in Helmsley’s company, the less he believed the older man had anything to do with the attack.

But there was his staff. And Ada’s friend, the owner of the chemical company. Possibly that insufferable gent they’d stumbled across outside the Admiralty. Lord knew her stepbrother wanted to get his hands on her work. Every one of them had staff and servants to account for as well. Staff and servants who could be bought.

Too many possibilities to track.

The Admiral was right. They’d have to use Ada as bait.

Edison pressed his palms to his tired eyes. They’d accomplished part of their goal. The admiral knew Ada was alive and her battery was still available. He could only hope the older man would spread the news wide and far. Whoever wanted the device should know about it by morning if they didn’t already.

In the meantime, they did indeed need a new plan.

A plan even a highly decorated admiral had no need to hear.

Edison pushed back his chair. “We’ve presumed on your time long enough, sir. Should be getting you back to your house.”

A sharp wrap on the front door interrupted any response.

Edison exchanged a look with his cousin-in-law. As if of one mind, they both rose from the table. Being closer to the entryway, Spencer took point. He reached for the door while Edison waited behind it, a stout umbrella in his grasp.

As soon as he heard the familiar voice, Edison lowered his weapon. “Burke.”

The tall detective strode into the house, his gaze pointed and assessing. “If I were a betting man, I’d put down twenty quid there’s an admiral lurking about the premises. One seems to’ve gone missing.”

“In the dining room.” Spencer pointed the way.

Burke sighed and headed in to the room. “Of course he is.”

“Admiral Helmsley, sir.” Burke sketched the man a short bow.

“And you are?”

“Detective Inspector Caleb Burke, sir. From the Yard. It seems you’ve been… misplaced.”

“Misplaced nothing.” The glass of ale in the man’s hand sloshed precariously as he waved it about. “This lot kidnapped me, is what happened. Not that I plan to press charges.” He smiled at Ada like a doting grandfather. “I’ve been worried about Mrs. Templeton. Good to have my mind at ease over that business.”

Burke shot Edison a sharp look before addressing the admiral. “May I escort you home? Your wife will be worried.”

The older man rose slowly, as if his joints might not move as easily as they once did. “Splendid. Need to prepare for a bore of an engagement.” He sighed. “The wife’s idea.”

He made his way around the table, but stopped just inside the doorway to look back at Ada. “That battery of yours is a splendid device. Splendid. Get this business done up and Her Majesty’s Navy still wants it.”

He looks at the men. “You keep her safe, or I’ll have my best officers after you lot.”

Edison met his gaze. “You have our word.” As long as he breathed, nothing would harm her.

Admiral Helmsley stared back, as if taking his measure, then nodded. “See to it.”

Before following his charge, Burke leveled them with a measured look. “I’d like to head home and take my boots off. Could you leave off the kidnapping for the rest of the night?”

Meena grinned at him. “Cross our hearts.”

Burke snorted. “Wish I could say that was reassuring.”

Meena and Briar chuckled and shared a look, before Briar waggled her fingers at him. “Enjoy your evening, Detective.”

Edison followed the men to the door and locked it behind them.

He returned to the dining room, but remained in the doorway, taking in the conversation. He wanted to think he was concentrating on creating a new plan, but the truth was he couldn’t take his gaze of off Ada.

How had he ever thought her too reserved? Too aloof? Too rigid to warm a man’s bed?

Perhaps—as Briar and Meena continued to remind him—he was a jelly-brained idiot, too intent on his own pleasure to think beyond the next conquest.

“We’ll need a reason for you to be in a public place at a pre-arranged time,” Meena was explaining. “A place that’ll tempt our man to make a move.”

Ada shuddered. It was a tiny movement. He wouldn’t have caught it a week ago, before he knew her so intimately.

She was trying to put on a brave face, but he could feel the fear wrapping its tentacles around her. She lived in a world of orderly chaos, where chemical reactions might go awry, but where her larger world ticked along with great predictability.

A world without violence.

A world as foreign to him as the House of Lords.

A world with no place for a man like him.

Edison sank back down in his chair, his stomach curiously hollow.

Nelly rushed in from the kitchen, a gnarled ball of newsprint in her small fist. “I have just the thing.”

She dropped the paper on the table, pressing it flat with her palms. “I was just about to toss this in the cooker to bring up the fire when I saw it.” She squinted down at the page. “Says here there’s to be a talk on noble metals put on by the London Chemical Society this Friday at their meeting rooms.” She looked up. “I think Mrs. Templeton oughta march right in there and show those old men what for.”

Edison couldn’t disagree.

He wanted to. He wanted to keep things just as they were for as long as he could, but he’d never been one to believe in fairytales. Every story he knew had a bad ending.

It seemed his was coming more quickly than he’d expected.

* * *

For a Navy man, Ravensworth showed a shocking lack of fortitude.

And even less foresight.

Seeking him out in his own offices had been a grave error. Doing so in full uniform sealed the man’s fate.

The man stood before him, chest heaving, mustache soaked with sweat, as if he’d been chased by the devil himself.

“The bloke barged his way into the admiral’s office,” Ravensworth explained, his words slowed by his ragged breathing. “Next thing I knew, the admiral was gone.”

He twisted his white uniform cap about in his hands as he spoke, his gaze flitting about the room like a frightened rabbit expecting a hunter to strike.

Which, of course, he would.

Sooner rather than later.

Anticipation brought a smile to his lips. “Not to worry,” he offered soothingly. “I know exactly who it was.”

“You do?”

“I do.” He nudged the crystal inkwell at the top of his leather blotter, aligning it until the object was square to the edge. “A man of no consequence whatever.”

“Thank God.” The navy man slumped down in the chair across the desk as if his legs had given out beneath him. “I was worried we’d been found out. Ever since that woman escaped…”

Anger twisted in his gut at the memory. He waved off the rest of the man’s boring recitation.

She escaped him once. It wouldn’t happen a second time.

He’d have her device. He’d have her fame and her accolades and the fortune that went along with them.

“So do we rescue Admiral Helmsley?” The small-minded twit scratched at the corner of his mouth. “I can have a detachment of sailors ready in an hour. They could--”

“Secrecy.” He cut the man off. “This plan relies on the utmost secrecy. Send out your men, and we’ll have too many people asking questions.”

Ravensworth’s mustache quivered as he licked his lips. “Right. I see what you mean. What’s next then?”

“Mrs. Templeton will show us the way.”

The idiot stared, puzzlement plain in his watery gaze.

“She’ll have to move forward at some point.” He outlined the obvious. “She’ll need to show herself. Show the device. If she waits too long, she risks someone else perfecting their own version.”

“So you see,” he said as he crossed to the decanter beneath the window, “waiting won’t serve her.”

He held up the brandy, a question in his eyes.

“By all means.” Ravensworth nodded too readily, too eagerly. “Just the thing.”

“Isn’t it just,” he whispered to himself as he added a pinch of white powder to his guest’s glass. “Isn’t it just.”