Read Cold Stone and Ivy for Free Online Page A

concoctions filled his head. He tried to smile.
    “Thank you, sir. I’m sure I will be fine.”
    Jekyll disappeared behind his door, and Christien threw a glance around the street. Cabs out now, chimney sweeps heading to work, street girls selling flowers. No one following him, no villains or voices out of place. Histrionics, he thought again. Science and fact, those were the cure for an overactive imagination. He welcomed the challenge, knowing the Ghost Club would find him a hard nut to crack.
    And with that, he stepped briskly up the last of the steps and pushed through the fine white door of Hollbrook House.
     
    SHE FOLLOWED LOTTIE down a long hallway, watching the sweepers whirring along the floors. They were all the rage in London now. Small, round, and mechanical, their spinning brushes polished the floors and beat the rugs. They detected changes in the surface of the floor, whether wood, carpet, or stone and adjusted brushes accordingly. They were also designed to avoid both furniture and stairs, and she could see tiny buttons in the top, glowing as the machines altered their courses at will.
    At the end of the hall there was a grand staircase and one of the devices was humming toward it.
    “Aren’t these ingenious?” she said. “I’m quite amazed at how they navigate the stair.”
    The device hummed to the very edge of the first tread and paused, bobbing a little. She could see the lights along the top blink and flash, then turn green. Suddenly, the sweeper shot forward into the air, dropping top over tail from step to step to step with a series of thumps. It ended upside-down on one of the landings, whirring and humming happily but going nowhere.
    “Perhaps that one is defective,” said Ivy.
    “They’re all like that,” said Lottie.
    Ivy grinned and followed the girl down the stair.
    Golden-framed portraits lined the walls, of great men and horses, fine ladies and dogs. She shook her head, wondering if the great men placed the same value on the horses and dogs as the ladies.
    “The Lords de Lacey,” said Lottie. “Ye must be quite ’appy.”
    “I would be happier back in London.”
    “’Onestly, miss?”
    “I’m sorry, Lottie. Don’t mind me. I’m not very good at restraining my tongue. It was a stubborn thing, growing up Savage.”
    Lottie smiled at her. “What’s ’e like, then, Mr. Christien?”
    “You’ve never met him?”
    “Only once, miss. Ah’ve only begun working upstairs this past year.”
    “Oh, he’s very clever and very serious. My tad likes him because he’s rich, but I like him because he’s clever. He’s so dashedly clever. He’s studying to be a police surgeon, in fact, like his mentor, Dr. Bond. That’s how we met. He was working with Bondie, met my father, and came back for tea with the rest of the coppers. I’m hoping he’ll let me help him on some of his cases. We would make such a grand team— Oh! Look! There he is!”
    On the last landing, there was a large portrait of a gentleman standing by a curtain, dressed in fine clothes with a pair of dogs at his feet. As far as paintings went, it was only slightly exaggerated, but the dark hair, porcelain skin, and delicate pouting mouth were unmistakable.
    If any man could be called beautiful, it was Christien.
    “Oh no, Miss Ivy. That’s Renaud Jacobe St. John Lord de Lacey, the sixth Baron of Lasingstoke.” Lottie nodded. “ Yer Christien’s father.”
    “Oh, how remarkable.” She tried to study the painting more closely, but it was a large canvas mounted high on the wall. “You can most certainly see the resemblance.”
    “’E looks t’be very clever indeed, miss,” said Lottie with a grin.
    Ivy noticed the next and last painting in the line. It was also of a man in fine clothes, standing at a window. His back was to the painter, so that little could be seen of his face, and his hair was pulled back in a short queue. The rest of him was almost in silhouette.
    “Who’s that?” she asked.
    “Ah,