A Clockwork Christmas Angel Read Online Free Page B

Abigail teased.
    “Half for you and half for me,” Maggie said before breaking out into laughter.
    Anxious faces met them when the two women walked back inside.
    “I’m dreadfully sorry to worry all of you so much.” Abigail spoke up before Maggie could say anything. “My nerves are still delicate but I have my wits about me again after a small constitutional. Please, let’s continue where we were,” she smiled, “it is Christmas Eve after all.” And a much more congenial Abigail Hogarth joined the merry-making, her spirits buoyed after the whole evening had almost turned into a disaster.
    ****
    “Are you sure you don’t want me to accompany you home?” Maggie asked as Abigail climbed back into Matt’s carriage while the rest of the partygoers broke up and each went their own way amid cries of well-wishes, reminders to visit, and happy holidays.
    “I’m certain. I won’t impose on you.”
    Maggie pursed her lips and, realizing that her friend was almost as stubborn as she, gave it up as a lost cause before it began. “Matthew, please make sure she gets home safely,” she called up to the driver.
    “Yes, Miss,” he answered promptly.
    Abigail settled back into the plush cushions and smiled to herself as she leaned her head back and let the gentle rocking of the carriage lull her eyes into drooping. That night she had taken her first steps into becoming real again. Maggie and Matt were fully on her side and she felt sure, with a little work, that her old friends from the theater could be persuaded to accept her limitation—no—difference, she corrected herself. Her new arm was as good as a real one, and even better when it came to ruining tables, as long as she remembered to wind it. She pulled off her gloves and watched in drowsy fascination as the faint illumination from gas lamps created hypnotic patterns on the polished surface of her arm. Unique, ran through her mind before she fell into slumber.
    ****
    Her sleep was shattered moments later by Matt’s hoarse shout from up front. “Abigail! Lock your doors!”
    What? She groggily lurched to the side and hit the locking mechanism on the door. Opening the window, she stuck her head outside, painfully banging it on the top of the bouncing portal. They were picking up speed, and the cold wind woke her fully. She glanced up at Matt’s box and saw him standing, reins in one hand and a large pistol in the other, looking back. He had removed his jacket and the wind whipping around his white silk shirt molded it to his arms and chest and she became aware of his raw power beneath the civilized garb. What in the Lord’s name was going on?
    Abigail twisted her head and her heart leapt into her mouth. A large airship was slowly descending almost directly on top of them, the drone of its engines remarkably quiet. Its skin was painted black like the night sky, only the dim moonlight betraying its presence. She could make out large doors open on one side of the gondola, faint lamplight illuminating several figures standing in a large doorway on its side. At her observation, two of them jumped from the door and she shrieked in shock. They were leaping to their death! Then she noticed the line playing out behind their falling figures that stopped their plummet. More figures jumped.
    “Git back inside!” Matt yelled and fired.
    Realizing it was not the time to argue, Abigail slammed the window shut and turned the small lock on it. The same pistol discharged with a loud report a second time and soon came the sound of return fire. She jumped and screamed when something hit the carriage near her head and a ragged hole erupted in a shower of tiny splinters. The horses whinnied in panic over Matt’s cries and the cab shook violently as she got pitched to the floor...
    Abigail came eye-to-eye with the polished gleam of a shotgun barrel under the seat. Something collided with the cab and she looked up in time to see a man clothed in black with a mask and dark goggles