Miss Minnie and the Brass Pluggit Read Online Free

faces and no further jests about the Brass Pluggit.
    He might not be brass, but he could pluggit as well as any man.
    All of which was a lot of fun, but didn’t explain his current mood of heightened anticipation as he waited for the notorious Miss Minnie’s arrival.
    He’d often blessed his communications channels, a large collection of telegraph wires that he’d cleverly blended into one tidy unit. He could receive messages or information from a variety of sources without surrendering an entire room to the technology. A light above a certain control indicated news from London. Another signaled messages from Cairo or Johannesburg. None were labeled—only Pierce and Dusk knew the origin of the telegraphs. And Dusk barely bothered with them, preferring to work in the greenhouses and leave the other matters to Pierce.
    Those other matters were housed in the belly of the lighthouse itself. And concerned nobody but Pierce. Certainly not Miss Minnie, or Lady Dalrymple as he supposed he should call her. Whether this was a simple visit of curiosity or something more, he wasn’t sure.
    But the fact her name had been linked to his old school friend Sir Roger Lutterson—that was too big a coincidence to ignore. Politics was politics, after all. He’d known it was only a matter of time before he attracted attention from Whitehall—it didn’t require a huge amount of logical thought to assume that perhaps Miss Minnie was the preliminary salvo fired on behalf of his government.
    They’d be wondering what he was doing, tucked away in this quiet little serene corner of the British Isles. The drawback to having attained some degree of fame within the scientific community was the prominence and attention one attracted after that point.
    Pierce’s work with magnetic levitation, conducted at the University of Stuttgart, had been rewarded both financially and academically and put his name on the front page of many scientific journals.
    And, it would appear, brought him to the attention of his own illustrious government representatives. He caught himself curling his lip in what probably would have looked like a sneer to anyone else, had they been present. Fortunately they weren’t, because Pierce didn’t like to betray his inner sentiments. And although he certainly found plenty to sneer at in the Houses of Parliament—both the Commons and the House of Lords—he’d prefer to keep those notions tucked away where they couldn’t return to bite him in the arse.
    For some obscure reason, the thought of being bitten in the arse brought his thoughts back around to Miss Minnie. And stirred something very male in his loins. He lifted his head and listened, trying to hear over the soft susurration of the waves around the base of the cliff. He had the oddest notion that if he sniffed, he would be able to smell her, pick up her scent, follow it to her…
    Shaking off the strange fancies, he glanced landward once more and stiffened at the quick familiar wink of sunlight off his whimsy.
    She was on her way. Dusk had found her successfully.
    As he began to descend the smooth wide stone stairs within the lighthouse, Pierce wondered how she’d responded to his servant. Although servant was completely the wrong word for Dusk. He was more friend than employee, more father than friend and a little bit of everything when needed.
    Since Pierce had created the mask for him, Dusk had been devoted in his loyalty. Both men had been pleased with the result—Pierce with the overall effectiveness and artistic appearance of his creation, and Dusk with the fact that he could now walk freely amongst his fellow men without knowing they were turning away in horror. And there was the added benefit of the fascination his mask held for the ladies.
    Yes, it had been a good day when their paths had crossed, a good day for both of them.
    It remained to be seen whether this day would prove to be a good one as well. Pierce moved to the large arched doors that led