Page 27 of Her Scandalous Pursuit

“Oh, Carson...” Gordon waved away that idea. “He’s too impulsive, not responsible.”

“Which is why he would be willing to steal it.” Desmond stopped, his eyes narrowing. “Is it because he’s a gentleman’s son? It would be more of a scandal if Carson was caught. Whereas I am disposable.”

“No!” Gordon’s eyes widened. “No, of course not. Truthfully, it would be far easier to lose Carson than you. You’re the brightest of the lot. The best. I can’t trust any of the others to accomplish it. I regard you like a son. I remember when you first came to the city.” He smiled reminiscently. “How eager you were, how bright. I didn’t care that you couldn’t pay. I wanted the opportunity to pass my knowledge on to someone who would be able to understand it. To use it.”

Desmond felt himself softening. He could not have asked for a better, more generous man to mentor him than Professor Gordon. He owed him so much, and guilt twisted through Desmond at the thought of turning him down. “Sir...I know that I can never repay what you have done for me. And if I have been like a son to you, I assure you that you have been a much better father than the one I had. I would do almost anything for you, but this...” He trailed off.

“Of course.” Gordon nodded. “Well, if you cannot, you cannot. I will have to do it myself.”

“Professor! No!” He would certainly get caught. Professor Gordon hadn’t the first idea what to do, and he was anything but agile. “You mustn’t. It would destroy your career.”

“No. It will save it. Don’t you see? I must have the Eye. Mr. Wallace is growing impatient with our lack of results. I’ve no idea how long he will continue funding our research. I shan’t have enough for this laboratory. The equipment.” He waved his hand around, indicating the contents of the room.

“We’ll find another patron,” Desmond said, though he was not sure there was another wealthy man out there intent on spirit research. Wallace had been something of a godsend.

“No. And it’s not just that. It’s... I have become an object of scorn to my fellow scientists. A jest. They overlook everything I’ve done before, the articles I’ve written, because I’ve chosen to focus on the spirits.”

“I know. It’s very unfair. Your paper on the diffusion of—”

“This is science.” Gordon slammed down his fist on the table. “This is more important than the properties of a chemical or what gases exist on the sun. This concerns the very essence of life—the beginning, the spark, the thing that raises us above the beasts.”

“Of course it’s more important.” Desmond had heard these arguments many times before, especially when the professor had downed a tankard of ale. “You mustn’t distress yourself over it.”

“I was respected. I was admired. I remember Faraday himself once told me I had a bright future ahead of me.” He gazed off into the distance, smiling a bit at the memory, then swung back to Desmond. “I have to get that back. With the Eye, I can prove how wrong they were. I can prove that I’m not a doddering old fool.”

Desmond’s chest ached at the sight of tears glimmering in his mentor’s eyes. Gordon was driving himself mad over this. It was cruel that they ridiculed him, unfair that they cast doubt on his earlier work because he was “playing with ghosts.” As much as Desmond himself would like to see whether the Eye worked, he wanted it even more for his teacher.

Was it really so terrible a sin to take the Eye? Gordon was right; the Eye was at best a plaything for a spoiled aristocrat. In Gordon’s hands, it could be groundbreaking. It could give something to the world. Advance man’s knowledge. Would it be so terrible to take one trinket from a duchess’s coffers? Would it be as difficult as he had described?

He was young and fast and reasonably agile. If he awakened anyone, surely he could make it out of the house before they could grab him. He had a better chance of success than any of the others. He hadn’t served as an apprentice to his father’s illegal trade, but he had absorbed a fair amount of information on the art of breaking into a house. At least he knew how to pick a lock.

The odds for him were not as bad as he’d said. He could get into the house and take a look around. Of course, the endeavor was doomed to failure—finding what he didn’t know to look for was a fool’s errand.

But perhaps that would be enough for the professor. He could find an unlocked window or pick a lock and slip inside, look around the house a bit, find nothing and leave. He could go back to Gordon and tell him that he had been unable to find it. Perhaps his making the effort would be enough to ease the older man’s distress. Perhaps it would enable Gordon to accept that he could not steal the thing.

And if by chance Desmond could find the Eye...

“I’ll do it.”

IT HAD NOT been his brightest decision, Desmond reflected as he walked toward the address Professor Gordon had given him. Gordon had maneuvered him into acceding to his pleas. Desmond had been aware of it at the time, but even so, he saw little way out of it.

He did owe Gordon a great deal. The man had helped him in many ways—not only tutoring him without charging him, but also recommending him for the job that he could not have gotten on his own, steering him through university and providing him the opportunity to work on a well-funded research project. How could he refuse? How could he let the man proceed on his own and wind up imprisoned? It would be the deathblow to his reputation as a scientist.

Desmond was honest enough to admit that he was also seduced by the lure of finding the Eye, the possibilities it might open, the chance for them—for him—to find success. However unlikely it was that he could obtain the instrument or that the legends surrounding it were true, the prize that dangled before him was hard to resist.

Desmond didn’t expect fame or fortune, but the opportunity to discover, to know, to make some mark in the scientific community, lured him. Which brought the lowering thought that perhaps the difference between him and his father was only in the kind of reward a criminal act might bring.

Well, no matter how foolish, he was in it now. He’d promised Gordon, and he would at least make a try to find the thing. He was also going to do his damnedest not to get caught.

He didn’t intend to break into the house tonight, though that was probably what Gordon hoped for. Carson’s thievery reasoning had been persuasive. The best time to break into the house was probably in the evening, when the inhabitants were downstairs and the servants were busy in the kitchen. But that opportunity had passed now. It would be bedtime, at least for an aged woman, and everyone was more likely to be on the bedroom floor.

The wise thing was to make a plan, to locate the windows and doors and hopefully get some idea of the layout of the house. It would scarcely do to climb in the dining room window in the middle of the meal. He needed to find the most secluded door or unused room. Or there might be a viable way to get in on the second floor—a tree, say, or a conveniently placed drainpipe.

It was a long walk to Broughton House from the nearest omnibus stop. He wondered if he could spare enough money for a hack the night of the theft—but, no, then there would a witness who knew he was in the area at the time of the theft. He must think more like a criminal.

The houses grew larger and obviously more expensive as he neared his destination. He’d expected that. What he hadn’t expected was that when he reached Broughton House, he would find that it took up the entire block. His jaw dropped as he stared at the huge stone building, looming up before him like a more stylish government building, reducing even the grand domiciles across the street to insignificance.

It was hopeless. How could he expect to find one object in this enormous house? He let out a sigh. He had to at least make an effort. Desmond studied the house. A long walkway ran down the side to a far less magnificent door. That was doubtless the trade entrance, where servants and sellers brought food and supplies. Beyond that door, a high wall jutted out from the side of the house.