Read Seven for a Secret for Free Online Page B

are written in later centuries, revolution was never the work of one man. If Germany, France, and New England could each be democratized to such variance of effect, what chance was there of working any kind of prediction at all? Well, none, and he had long known it. “No,” he said. “But it does make it seem possible that perhaps we could prove of some utility in overthrowing another conqueror, does it not?”
    “And if there are consequences?”
    He stepped back from the window, so her arm bent from the elbow until their shoulders touched. “Then there are consequences.”
    Her fingers squeezed. In the glass, he saw her hand tighten on nothing, then drop to her side. “You are the
Scarlet Pimpernel.”
    It was perfect and unexpected, the sharpness that he admired. “Amédée Gosselin,” he corrected. He turned to her, and in his dressing gown he swept a mocking bow. “At your service.”
    She should have laughed. Instead, she watched with a frown, touched her lips with one finger, and said reluctantly, “You’re like a stone sometimes.”
    He straightened and nodded, venturing a smile. “From the inside, too.”

    England’s ceaseless rain meant freedom for Sebastien, though that freedom did not come without risk. He asked Mrs. Moyer to have Jason bring the car around, swathed himself in rain cape and overcoat and hat, chose an umbrella from the stand beside the door, and stepped out into the rain.
    Umbrellas blossomed like a mourning garland along the pavement. As the Mercedes purred up to the curb, its black hide glossy in the rain, Sebastien added his own bloom to the bouquet and stepped from under the door-awning and down the puddled walk. Jason trotted around the car to hold the door, and Sebastien ducked down to enter. Strange to step down into a vehicle rather than up to one, but he had grown accustomed to stranger things. Before allowing Jason to close the door, he folded the umbrella behind him and gave it a useless shake, sending droplets flying. The rain hammered down with enough authority that it grew wet again before it was dry.
    As Jason slid into the front seat and behind the wheel, adjusting his cap and the mirrors, Sebastien thought he would like to learn to manipulate this arcane machine with its levers and lights and dials, the rumbling motor under its long domed bonnet. Perhaps he was not quite ready for the knacker yet, if gleaming technology could still enthrall. He remembered with clarity the first time he had seen a water-clock, a horse-drawn coach, a steam locomotive. It took mortals to invent such things. Wampyr, in growing their experience, became too attached to it.
    Yes, he thought. He would learn to drive the car.
    “Where to, Dr. Chaisty?” Jason was playing the role. He, like Mrs. Moyer, was perfectly aware of Sebastien’s nature. There was no hiding such things from servants, and so the wise wampyr hired staff who were already well-informed of the needs and preferences of his kind. There were social organizations that made such things possible.
    Those organizations had other justifications as well. Sebastien purposed to visit one now.
    “My club, please. The underground one.”
    In the dark, he would have walked the short three miles, but there was too much risk in changeable weather. So instead he sat back and folded his arms over his chest while Jason navigated expertly through crowded, spring-rattling streets. A car was still a great luxury in the Americas, but in England and on the Continent, the Prussian Empire’s resources made petrol cheap and plentiful. So the Mercedes was far from the only vehicle on the road, which was also clogged with pedestrians—most of them brandishing still more black umbrellas—carriages, lorries, cabs, traps, and the last of the morning’s delivery wagons, drawn by steaming, miserable-wet yellow Suffolk Punches and slate-colored Percherons.
    The drive required only twenty minutes, a significant improvement upon walking. “Shall I wait,