Page 70 of Inventing Vivian

Chapter 18

Vivian sat in the backof the delivery wagon, her arm resting on one knee, her other leg dangling over the paving stones as they bumped along the waterfront. Lord Benedict sat in the same position on the other side of the wagon, though Vivian carefully avoided his gaze.

She was embarrassed by her outburst after discovering the letter. She wondered if her reaction might have been more tempered had she slept in the past two days. But with her worry over Mr. Li and her disappointment about the exhibition, her emotions were volatile. And, above all, she hated that she’d been deceived.

The idea that Lord Benedict had sat at dinner with her family and listened to her prattling on about her mysterious benefactor... the questions he’d asked had been meant to elicit answers about himself. He was having a laugh at her the entire time. She felt silly and humiliated.

The wagon went over a bump, and she grabbed on to the side of the wagon to steady herself and braced herself for the pressure of her corset boning against her ribs. It didn’t come, and she felt strange to be moving so freely without the restriction. Another bump bounced her nearly out of her seat, and reflexively, she glanced across at her companion.

If she were to be completely honest, she didn’t feel Lord Benedict’s intentions in remaining anonymous were meant to be nefarious, but they were still misleading. And being misled by a person she’d trusted... it hurt.

Letting herself remain hurt was much easier than allowing herself to feel the complicated emotions that lurked beneath the pain. Her face burned. She’d felt an affection for both men, enough that she’d felt guilty about dividing her heart as she had. But learning the two were one...

The cart rattled to a stop, and Vivian pushed away her emotions and focused on the task at hand.

The dockland was loud and crowded. Carriages rumbled past, laden with barrels and bales. Men hauled crates in and out of warehouses. Overhead, large cranes swung from cargo ships, their loads casting moving shadows over the world beneath.

Seeing Lord Benedict slide off the cart, Vivian checked that her cap was firmly in place, and she jumped down as well, her feet sliding in the heavy boots. She wore a scarf around her neck and tucked her chin down into it to hide her face.

She stole a glance at Lord Benedict, appraising how he looked in the dockworker’s clothing. He wore a thick coat like hers, but instead of hanging limply, it was tight across his shoulders. She looked away, irritated at her blush. It was hardly the time to be noticing such a thing. And she reminded herself that she was still angry.

Devon, seated in the wagon driver’s seat, was dressed in much the same costume as the pair of them. He wore his hat low, and he hunched over the reins. “’At’s the one,” he said in an accent much thicker than Vivian had heard him use before. He nodded toward a brick building with sliding wooden doors through which crates just like theirs were being carried in and out by a steady stream of workers. The building was smaller than the ones surrounding it. Bars covered the windows.

They dragged two crates from the cart, setting the larger on the paving stones and the smaller, containing the camera and Vivian’s photography equipment, on top.

The wagon started away.

“Ready?” Lord Benedict asked quietly.

Vivian nodded.

They hefted the stacked crates and started toward the wooden doors. Benedict walked backward, glancing behind him as he went.

The larger crate’s edges were sharp, and the rough wood dug into Vivian’s fingers. Even though it was empty, she still struggled beneath its weight.

“You should try to slouch more,” she said in a quiet voice, although no one was near enough to hear.

“You should try not to be so pretty,” he returned, giving a teasing smirk.

Vivian stumbled, taken off guard by his words. Her breath caught, and she glared at him. Such a compliment would never have affected her before, but today everything seemed upside down.

When they reached the warehouse doors, Benedict gave a slip of paper to the supervisor standing there.

The man glanced at it and motioned for them to enter. He directed them to the far corner, wrote down the numbers on the crates, and turned back to meet the next delivery.

They stepped over the track, where the door would roll closed.

Vivian was glad to see the warehouse was just as Mr. Barnaby had described. The roof was high with steel beams and rafters. And the ceiling was made of panels of glass. She imagined they were glazed to let in the light but prevent the heat from compromising the cargo. Along the edge of the building were numbered rows, each filled with stacks of wooden crates and barrels. Vivian wondered whether the building belonged to Mr. Barnaby. He hadn’t mentioned how he had access to the place. And what was in all the containers?

They made their way to the shadowy corner in the rear of the warehouse, setting the crates on the ground.

Vivian shook her arms and took stock of the place. Near the back wall, an enormous crate the size of a large sofa sat apart from the others. On the sides the wordsFragile—Egyptian Mummieswere stenciled in red paint, just as Mr. Barnaby had said.

This is where Vivian would aim her camera.

The other workers in the building came and went without sparing the pair so much as a glance, and Vivian figured as long as they looked as if they knew what they were doing, no one would bother them.

Lord Benedict dragged crates around to make a hiding place where Vivian could operate the camera, use the portable darkroom, and still remain concealed. She took the development chemicals, a toolbox, and other photo-graphy equipment from the larger crate. Then she set her hidden camera at the right height, angled the lens toward the mummy crate, and piled others around and on top of it.

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