Free The Baskerville Tales (Short Stories) by Emma Jane Holloway Page A

was soft under her fingertips, as if it had come from a stationery shop that sold only the finest supplies.
    Under other circumstances, she might have assumed there was a mistake. It wasn’t her birthday and she wasn’t expecting a gift. But the tag read, “For the Delectable Miss Imogen Roth” in neat gold script. Overall, the parcel was a perfect cube, six inches to a side. Small, but not too small to be intriguing. A tingle of excitement ran up Imogen’s arm, as if the present was alive with magnetic forces. She shivered, but it was a delicious wriggle of anticipation.
    How did the box get out here in the middle of the night?
After all, her bedroom was three sets of windows above the ground floor, and there wasn’t even a good climbing tree outside.
Magic? An acrobat from Ploughman’s Paramount Circus? The Society for the Proliferation of Impertinent Events?
After all, SPIE had destroyed the opera with a giant mechanical squid. A stealthy aerial delivery was hardly beyond their skills. The morning quivered with possibilities, and Imogen hadn’t even had her chocolate yet.
    A moment later she was sitting on her bed, the parcel in her lap. She chewed her lip a moment, feeling an obligatory pang of guilt. It wasn’t proper for young ladies to accept anonymous gifts, but somewhere in the back of Imogen’s mind, she felt she deserved it. This was supposed to be her first Season in London society, but so far it had been horrible.
    Her best friend had been sent away from London in disgrace, and Imogen’s brother had been obliged to save the family fortunes by going to work for Jasper Keating, the most powerful man in London. Tobias had also promised to marry Keating’s daughter, but the whole thing was hardly a happy ending. Poor Tobias had given away an independent future—and, she also suspected, a woman he loved—to cover their father’s mistakes. And if Imogen were to be an equally dutiful daughter, she would put on a bright smile and catch a rich and titled husband who would boost her father’s political career.
    Given all that, she
deserved
a present.
    She pulled the end of the gold ribbon, and the knot came open with a gentle rustle. In another minute, she had the paper off. A note was taped to the top of a heavy white box. “Lovely Imogen,” it read. “Please accept this bit of whimsy. May it bring a smile to your bright eyes. Yours, BP.”
    “Bucky,” she whispered into the sunny morning air. Buckingham Penner was the one bright spot in her existence. She’d known him for years as Tobias’s best friend, but he’d lately transformed from a familiar face to her most promising suitor. He was funny, smart, handsome, and he danced extremely well. And, apparently, he could get a gift box to her window ledge in the dead of night.
    She lifted the lid, and a puff of lavender smoke curled up through her fingers. Tentatively, Imogen peered inside. Although she wasn’t supposed to know, both Tobias and Bucky were members of SPIE, and there was no telling what kind of invention might come out of their workshop.
    The box was lined with more of the rosy tissue, and nestled inside was a heart-shaped piece of brass with an antiqued finish. She lifted it out to discover it had tiny curved feet and a hinged lid, rather like something she’d set on her dressing table to put her rings in. She set it on the nightstand.
    No sooner had she pulled her hand away than the lid began to slowly open. A flock of tiny paper butterflies no bigger than the end of a pencil wafted into the air, borne on another gust of lavender smoke. Imogen let out a gasp of pleasure, trying to catch one of the delicate paper marvels midflight. Then a bright blue bird whirred into the air on clockwork wings, trilling sweet, crystalline song. It sparkled in the sunlight as it circled around the room, throwing shards of rainbow onto the walls and ceiling. Imogen gaped as it fluttered to a halt on her writing desk,and then began an elaborate version