“I hurt myself pretty badly in Baghdad.” Jamie flexed the arm that had been broken the year before and taken nearly six months to completely heal. “It was a daft idea.”
“But it worked,” Dougal declared. “Your flying machine worked.”
“For a few minutes.” The daft idea had been deciding that the open desert outside of Baghdad would give Jamie the space he needed to experiment. That had been true, but also the hidden gullies and treacherous rocks had made for a hard landing.
“A few minutes is longer than most people have stayed aloft,” Violet pointed out. “You should be proud, Jamie.”
“No one saw it but my friend Daoud—well, him and a camel. Daoud fixed me, but our machine was beyond him. Difficult for me to help him with a broken wing.”
Jamie stretched his fingers again. He remembered lying in great pain, and Daoud peering down at him in terror. Jamie had felt glad he’d insisted on flying alone, because if he’d had to carry Daoud back to his family a battered mess, he’d have never heard the end of it.
Daoud’s mother could blister the hide off a man when she was displeased. She didn’t approve of the British and was not happy that her son had befriended one from those isles, even a rebellious Scotsman. Jamie swore he’d seen a glint of satisfaction in her eyes when Daoud had carried Jamie home, though the woman had made certain Jamie received the best of care. Still, she’d been relieved when Jamie had made his return to Scotland.
“What about you?” Jamie decided it was time to change the subject. “How did things go in America?” He directed the question to Daniel, who took the hint and removed Jamie from under the microscope.
“Splendidly,” Daniel said in his big voice. “I had some interest in my designs. A few orders.”
“More than a hundred,” Violet broke in proudly. She squeezed Daniel’s arm. “Danny’s being modest.”
“You helped, love. Twas your tinkering that convinced the buyers we had the best car in the world.” Daniel beamed at Jamie. “Violet was in the driver’s seat when the car broke its own speed record. She is amazing.”
Daniel wrapped a fond arm around an embarrassed but pleased Violet, and their two children regarded them in indulgent exasperation. A happy family, Jamie reflected with a touch of envy.
Not that he wasn’t a member of a large and loving, not to mention interfering, family himself. But watching Daniel—or indeed, Jamie’s own parents, who were not ashamed to kiss passionately in front of everyone—Jamie wondered if he’d ever find someone to share such a bond with.
The memory of Evie’s impact against him on the dock resurfaced. Jamie had felt a crush of soft woman in her wool coat, and her sharp exhale as she’d collided with him. In spite of her joke that she’d hurried to him to keep him from falling, Evie hadn’t expected to see him there.
Her wide eyes had hidden something, though she’d quickly pretended she had nowhere to be but on the dock bantering with Jamie.
Jamie fleetingly wondered if she’d been meeting a lover—and he didn’t mean the fiancé. The Evie he’d observed at Cambridge would never do such a thing, but people changed—as Jamie had.
How much did Jamie know about Evie, truly? Only how she’d tasted during that one, heated, spectacular kiss when he’d been enraged at her. A kiss he’d never forgotten.
The train continued its noisy and puffing way to London, at last pulling into Victoria Station. From there, Daniel, Violet, and children would depart for their home in Hill Street, near Berkeley Square, while Jamie would return to his bachelor digs in Piccadilly.
After disembarking, Jamie and Daniel lingered at the end of the baggage cars to supervise the unloading of Daniel’s motorcar. Daniel had hovered over the vehicle’s transfer from ship to train like a worried aunt, and now winced as its tires bounced over the ramp that five porters guided it down.
“Jamie,” Daniel said once the motorcar was safely on the pavement. “Would it be inconvenient for you to drive this around to my lock-up? I need to see Violet and the children home—they’re exhausted, though they’d never admit it.”
Inconvenient? Jamie grinned. “Be delighted to?”
Guide a sleek racing car through the streets of London? Of course, he would. Jamie was longing to see how the thing ran—the new motorcar had barely come out of Daniel’s workshop before he’d whisked it off to America.
Daniel gave the car a fond glance, then nodded resolutely, as though entrusting a maiden daughter to the care of her first gentleman caller. “Go easy with her, lad.”
“She won’t have a scratch on her, I promise.”
“See that she doesn’t,” Daniel returned severely.
Violet interposed herself between Jamie and Daniel. “Jamie knows what he’s doing with a car, Daniel. You taught him yourself.”
True, Jamie had been driving Daniel’s cars since he’d been twelve years old. He knew every gear, every lever, and every inner working of every engine Daniel and Violet had built.
The automobile in question was a long, red-bodied touring car, ostensibly made for an outing in the country, but well-tuned for both speed and stamina. It had two seats in front and a large bench seat in back. Daniel always made certain the cars he designed could hold his entire family plus a contingency of dogs.
Jamie hugged his cousins—except Dougal, who preferred a solemn handshake—and waved goodbye as Daniel and family sought their carriage. Jamie tried not to rub his hands in glee as he turned to the motorcar.
He first put the top down, as the day was fine, if windy, folding the leather canopy and its frame out of the way in back.
Leaning over the driver’s side door, he set the gear in neutral, turned on the ignition, and closed the choke. Then he removed the hand crank from its compartment and set it in its slot in the front of the car, making sure his thumb was folded out of the way before he cranked.
He yanked the handle upward once, twice. Daniel’s engine, finely tuned, fired up almost immediately, and the crank came free. Jamie darted to the driver’s side once more and released the choke, feeding the engine and letting it settle.
As he straightened from returning the crank to its compartment, he realized he’d drawn a crowd. Evie McKnight stood not a dozen feet from him in the midst of the fascinated audience. A younger version of Evie, presumably a sister, watched as avidly. Evie’s mother and second sister, by contrast, were busy gazing rather frantically up and down Vauxhall Bridge Road.
Jamie lifted his hand to Evie before he leapt into the driver’s seat and guided the car carefully through the throng that had gathered about it. Motorcars were no longer as rare in London but were still unique enough to attract attention.
Jamie navigated his way to Evie and her sister, the car purring like a contented cat. “May I assist you ladies?” he called.
“Are you Mr. Mackenzie?” the younger sister gushed, her eyes wide with astonished delight. “Will you take me riding in this motorcar someday?”
“Marjorie,” Evie said in mortification.
Jamie winked at Marjorie, who grinned at him. “Have you been deserted?” Jamie asked Evie.
Mrs. McKnight, who approached in time to hear Jamie’s question, wore the look of a woman annoyed, frustrated, and worried that she’d have to tramp across London on foot. Or worse, cram herself and her offspring into an insalubrious hansom.