nearly got his leg severed by flying timber last fall. A lady like you would be eaten alive.”
It did sound rather daunting, but she couldn’t afford to be choosy. This could very well be her only option for gainful employment. No time to be squeamish.
“I’m willing to take my chances,” she assured him, lifting her chin in challenge. “Now, if you’d be so kind as to write down the directions for me?” Nicole laid the advertisement in front of him and smiled in such a way that made it clear he’d best not argue.
The man stared at her for a long minute, then shrugged and pulled a pencil from behind his ear. “Your choice,” he said as he scribbled a few notes at the bottom of the ad. “Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“I won’t.” Nicole smiled sweetly as she accepted the paper from him. Then, tucking the paper into her money purse as if it were a fifty-dollar gold piece, she waved her thanks and headed back to the boardinghouse.
She’d managed to wring an address out of the postmaster,now all she needed to do was convince a madman to hire a female secretary before he blew her to bits.
Darius Thornton laid down the journal he’d been reading and rubbed his eyes. He’d been up all night again. Reading. Studying. Taking notes. It was always this way when the latest publication from the Franklin Institute arrived in the post. He’d been particularly intrigued by the article on boiler plates. The author proposed a correlation between the thickness of the boiler plates and the likelihood of explosion. It was a fascinating concept, and one he’d not yet considered. It might make for a worthy experiment.
He glanced across his desk and noted the other piece of mail that had arrived yesterday. A letter from his mother. He pushed it farther away, angling it behind a stack of boiler diagrams he’d been working on. If he couldn’t see it, he wouldn’t fall prey to the guilt it inspired.
Mother didn’t understand. No one in his family did. Not really. His father and brother had put a good face on things and told him to take all the time he needed, that King Star Shipping would be there for him when he was ready to resume his duties. But Darius could read between the lines. They all thought him . . . emotionally damaged.
They didn’t understand his mission. His calling. His need to redeem his greatest failure. The little girl’s cry still haunted his dreams. Whenever he closed his eyes, he relived the torture of not reaching her in time. So he rarely closed his eyes anymore. He slept only when exhaustion rendered him unconscious—and dedicated every waking moment to finding ways to make steam engines safer. Read everything he couldget his hands on. Studied schematics. Examined old boilers and engines. Conducted experiments.
Steamboat boiler explosions took hundreds . . . no, thousands of lives every year. Innocent lives. Lives that didn’t deserve to be cut short. Lives more worthy than his own. Yet God hadn’t spared those lives. He’d spared his. The only way Darius could rationalize such an injustice was to assume that God expected him to do something with the time he’d been given. So he poured himself into his work and refused to be distracted from his course. Not by society. Not by business. Not even by well-meaning family members who loved him and wanted him home.
Scratching at an itchy spot on his jaw through his half-grown beard, Darius scowled. Enough of that melancholic nonsense. He yanked open his desk drawer, pulled out his logbook, and began jotting down ideas for an experiment involving boiler plates. He referred back to the article from the Franklin Institute and tried to decipher the notes he’d scribbled in the margins.
Blast. He couldn’t even read his own writing—words he’d penned only hours ago. Darius ran a hand over his face. He must have been more tired than he’d thought last night. He flipped through the previous pages of his logbook and examined
It did sound rather daunting, but she couldn’t afford to be choosy. This could very well be her only option for gainful employment. No time to be squeamish.
“I’m willing to take my chances,” she assured him, lifting her chin in challenge. “Now, if you’d be so kind as to write down the directions for me?” Nicole laid the advertisement in front of him and smiled in such a way that made it clear he’d best not argue.
The man stared at her for a long minute, then shrugged and pulled a pencil from behind his ear. “Your choice,” he said as he scribbled a few notes at the bottom of the ad. “Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“I won’t.” Nicole smiled sweetly as she accepted the paper from him. Then, tucking the paper into her money purse as if it were a fifty-dollar gold piece, she waved her thanks and headed back to the boardinghouse.
She’d managed to wring an address out of the postmaster,now all she needed to do was convince a madman to hire a female secretary before he blew her to bits.
Darius Thornton laid down the journal he’d been reading and rubbed his eyes. He’d been up all night again. Reading. Studying. Taking notes. It was always this way when the latest publication from the Franklin Institute arrived in the post. He’d been particularly intrigued by the article on boiler plates. The author proposed a correlation between the thickness of the boiler plates and the likelihood of explosion. It was a fascinating concept, and one he’d not yet considered. It might make for a worthy experiment.
He glanced across his desk and noted the other piece of mail that had arrived yesterday. A letter from his mother. He pushed it farther away, angling it behind a stack of boiler diagrams he’d been working on. If he couldn’t see it, he wouldn’t fall prey to the guilt it inspired.
Mother didn’t understand. No one in his family did. Not really. His father and brother had put a good face on things and told him to take all the time he needed, that King Star Shipping would be there for him when he was ready to resume his duties. But Darius could read between the lines. They all thought him . . . emotionally damaged.
They didn’t understand his mission. His calling. His need to redeem his greatest failure. The little girl’s cry still haunted his dreams. Whenever he closed his eyes, he relived the torture of not reaching her in time. So he rarely closed his eyes anymore. He slept only when exhaustion rendered him unconscious—and dedicated every waking moment to finding ways to make steam engines safer. Read everything he couldget his hands on. Studied schematics. Examined old boilers and engines. Conducted experiments.
Steamboat boiler explosions took hundreds . . . no, thousands of lives every year. Innocent lives. Lives that didn’t deserve to be cut short. Lives more worthy than his own. Yet God hadn’t spared those lives. He’d spared his. The only way Darius could rationalize such an injustice was to assume that God expected him to do something with the time he’d been given. So he poured himself into his work and refused to be distracted from his course. Not by society. Not by business. Not even by well-meaning family members who loved him and wanted him home.
Scratching at an itchy spot on his jaw through his half-grown beard, Darius scowled. Enough of that melancholic nonsense. He yanked open his desk drawer, pulled out his logbook, and began jotting down ideas for an experiment involving boiler plates. He referred back to the article from the Franklin Institute and tried to decipher the notes he’d scribbled in the margins.
Blast. He couldn’t even read his own writing—words he’d penned only hours ago. Darius ran a hand over his face. He must have been more tired than he’d thought last night. He flipped through the previous pages of his logbook and examined
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