The Escapement of Blackledge: a novella by Mary Robinette Kowal

could see his cheeks darken with a blush as if this were a daring proposition.
    Helena crossed the room and sat on the lounge next to him. Now that she was here, at this point, the information between them sat like a box that she needed to push through. She rested her hands on the knees of her buckskin trousers and took a breath. She swallowed and took another. “Lord Blackledge—”
    “My name is Weatherby.”
    She tilted her head, wishing she could see him a little more clearly.
    He cleared his throat. “I have been intimate enough with you that my title seems rather foolish. And… And I suspect that you are about to tell me something that is difficult for you.”
    Helena’s eyes stung at his unexpected kindness. She bent her head, swallowing the grief. She had to convince him to help her. “If I told you that I needed it to prove my birthright?”
    “I should still need particulars.” He reached out his hand and stopped just short of touching her. “Miss Troyes—”
    “Helena.” Her name sprang from her mouth without any volition from her.
    He tilted his head. “Helena. Helena…Troyes? May I take it that your parents are classical scholars?”
    “No. It is a stage name. I mean…” She rubbed her forehead. Though she could almost see Mama Agnes standing in the shadows, with her hands on her hips, but Helena plowed ahead. She had already given up too much as he could find her more easily with her stage name than with her real one anyway. “My name is Helena Worthen, daughter of James, Baron Worthen.”
    “Lord Worthen? Who built the Painting Lady?”
    It had been so long since her father had been anything other than an invalid that it took her a moment to realize that he was speaking of one of her father’s automatons. The recognition broke from her in a laugh. “I’m sorry. It’s been… I should have known that you would recognize his name.”
    Weatherby sat back against the lounge. “And… I suppose that might explain why you know about clockwork.”
    Might. She sighed and picked at one of the rough spots on her hands. “If I could easily prove to you who I was, then I would not need your assistance.”
    “Fair point.”
    “So. What would you charge to rent or sell your mechanical arm?”
    “May I assume that you would pay me with stolen funds?”
    Helena’s cheeks burned. The answer was yes. Of course it was yes. “You have not seemed to object to my activities thus far.”
    “Oh… but I have.” Weatherby opened his palms and turned them up. “For reasons that I cannot explain to myself, I have not reported you. But I have stopped you. Thrice now.”
    This was not the direction she wanted his thoughts to turn. She had to make him understand why she had made the choices she had. “When I was eight, we were on holiday in Wales. There was a fire at the coaching inn where we had stopped for the night. My mother died. My father— he was badly burnt. News was sent back to England that we had all died. My uncle inherited and then passed away a short time after and the title passed to his son. My aunt… I have— I have been trying for the last ten years to prove that my father is still alive.”
    “May I take it that his appearance is sufficiently altered that it is easy for her to deny him?”
    Helena nodded.
    “But were there no servants—”
    “Everyone had gone ahead to prepare the house. We had only our coachman, and my mother’s maid. Neither of them survived. It is a miracle that my father did.”
    “And you? How did you…?”
    “My father— I remember him waking me and it was smoky. There were flames in the hall. He told me to go to a stone gatehouse that we had passed, and that he would find Mama and meet me there. Then he threw me out the window. So I ran and waited there while the inn burned.” She took a breath, feeling anew the burning scratch of the smoke. “And I waited. Because Papa had said he would come. I had gotten lost wandering off earlier in the trip, and