Free The Steampunk Trilogy by Paul di Filippo Page A

He was amazed at his hunger, having expected to bear some lingering anxiety and consequent loss of appetite over the death of Chuting-Payne. However, even the resemblance of the strawberry jam to Chuting-Payne’s spilled brains was not sufficient to dismay him.
    As he ate, Cowperthwait pondered the problem of Victoria.
    Chuting-Payne had claimed to know her hiding place. It was obvious the knowledge was fresh, for during a recent meeting last week—at the establishment of a Jewish moneylender reputed to occasionally harbor runaway children—Chuting-Payne had been as obviously ignorant as ever. Therefore, he must have discovered it just prior to the contretemps at de Mallet’s—
    De Mallet’s. Cowperthwait ceased to chew. An image of the old bawd materialized vividly before his slack-jawed face.
    “Someone très spéciale  . . . the chance of a lifetime. . . .”
    It couldn’t be—could it? De Mallet’s establishment was the first place Melbourne would have searched. The only reason Cowperthwait hadn’t bothered himself was that certainty. And yet—
    Tossing back the blankets, Cowperthwait sent his breakfast flying. “Nails! Nails!”
    McGroaty ambled in unconcernedly while Cowperthwait was attempting to insert both lower limbs into a single trousers-leg.
    “Nails, we must hurry with all dispatch to Madame de Mallet’s.”
    McGroaty winked. “Takin’ care of some other needs now, I reckon.”
    “Oh, Nails, you’re hopeless. Just ready the transportation.”
    Soon Cowperthwait found himself admitted by a sleepy and disheveled majordomo into the empty parlors of Madame de Mallet’s. (McGroaty was waiting outside; should Cowperthwait’s hunch prove correct, it would hardly do to have the uncouth ruffian present to embarrass the delicate sensibilities of the woman he now fully expected to meet.) The gilt fixtures and flocked wall-coverings appeared tawdry in the light of day that diffused through the drawn heavy drapes. There was a nauseating odor of spilled champagne and stale bodily exudations. The place wore a face far different from its glamorous nighttime image. Cowperthwait wondered which manifestation, if either, was closest to reality.
    Hand on the staircase rail, Cowperthwait was hailed by the servant. “’Ey now, Guv’nor, you can’t disturb the girls at this hour—”
    “Oh, shut up, man! I’m not here for a roger. For Agassiz’s sake, why is everyone so blasted fixated on their privates?”
    In the upstairs corridor something drew Cowperthwait unerringly toward the room that had once held the salamander Victoria. At the door, he knocked softly. A feminine voice responded.
    “Is it night already? I feel like I’ve hardly slept. Come in, then, come in, I’m ready…”
    Cowperthwait twisted the handle and entered.
    The chamber was curtained from the daylight, and lit only by a single candle. The match that had just ignited the tallowed wick was being puffed to extinction by the pursed lips of the woman in bed.
    Woman, yes. Now she was plainly girl no longer.
    Victoria’s long hair was a soft brown, halfway between the flaxen color of her youth and the foregone darker shade of her maturity. Her face was round and still somehow innocent, her nose and chin somewhat pronounced. She would, Cowperthwait suspected, never look more radiant. These looks, he knew, were slated to be soon captured by the court painter, Franz Winterhalter.
    The Queen possessed a commanding gaze which Cowperthwait now found hard to disengage from his own. At last doing so, he took in the rest of Victoria’s dishabille.
    She lay with the covers thrown back, wearing the sheerest of peignoirs. Her bust and hips were full, giving some hint of a future stockiness, and she looked ripe for bearing many children. Cowperthwait was suddenly certain that it would not be long before a new little Prince or Princess graced the land.
    Yet this maternal aspect of Victoria was still implicit, not dominant. At the moment, she