Page 45 of The English Duke
He stood. “You don’t have to do that,” he said, when she went to open the first of the boxes.
She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Who better? I packed them. I know what’s in each.”
He sat back down, watching her. She was looking for something. After taking out a sheaf of papers from the first box, she put the top back on and moved to a coffin-like crate.
“You’ll have to help me with this one,” she said.
Grabbing his walking stick, he moved slowly to her side, taking the precaution of grabbing a length of iron from one of the vertical bins against the wall.
She nodded at him approvingly as he bent and used the iron as a pry bar, lifting the lid from the box.
“I wanted to make sure it wasn’t disturbed in the move,” she said, helping him lift the lid.
“It’s your father’s prototype.”
She nodded. “Bessie.”
Mounds of shaved wood were pillowed atop and on the sides of the torpedo ship. She gently pushed it away, revealing a bullet-shaped vessel four feet long. The metal had changed from a copper color to verdigris in several places, indicating that it had been used on more than one voyage.
At least Matthew hadn’t lost his in the bottom of a lake.
Placing the lid of the crate on the floor, she carefully lifted the ship from its nest.
When he moved to assist her, she shook her head.
“It’s not that heavy,” she said.
“I’m not an invalid, Martha,” he said his voice stiff.
She looked at him, her eyes widening at his comment.
“Of course you aren’t. I didn’t decline your assistance because I thought you were unable to give it.”
Her glance swept up his body and down again, leaving him to think he’d never been so thoroughly examined by a female.
“No,” she said. “I most certainly would not consider you an invalid. A man in his prime, perhaps.”
He felt the back of his neck warm.
“Besides, I’ve lifted Bessie myself numerous times.”
As Martha carried the vessel to the workbench, he grabbed his walking stick and followed, silently cursing his lurching gait.
Once seated at his workbench he reached out a hand and placed it on the curved copper snout.
“It looks like mine,” he said. “But that’s to be expected, since your father and I exchanged drawings.”
She nodded. “This is the one he was operating that last day. I still don’t know what he did that was different. I’ve examined it and tested it myself numerous times, but I haven’t discovered what changed. Perhaps you’ll be more successful.”
He didn’t say anything, merely moved his hand carefully over the body of the ship and the seams where the three sections of the ship were joined together. If the prototype was true to Matthew’s drawings, the engine run by compressed air was in the middle of the ship while the hydrostatic valve and pendulum were in the rear. At the bottom was the rudder keeping Bessie level and on course.
He wondered if it also controlled the depth at which the ship ran.
His fingers trailed over the copper vessel, hesitating on the spots of verdigris.
“Why didn’t Matthew tell you what he’d done?”
“At first he wanted to share the secret with you,” she said. “Later, when he realized you weren’t coming, he was too ill and delirious.”
