Asher's Dilemma by Coleen Kwan Read Free Book Online Page B

with no inkling of the danger she was in. From a safe distance he watched as she alighted from her carriage and entered her lodging house, looking tired and worried.
    Asher held himself back from rushing after her, wishing to marshal his faculties before approaching her. He had no option now but to tell her the truth about himself. Indeed, he would even have to ask for her help. Time was running desperately short.
    He got out of the carriage, telling the driver to wait for him. The man merely nodded and drew his muffler closer against the rising north wind. Over the past few weeks Asher had hired him frequently, and he’d grown accustomed to Asher’s strange behavior.
    Dead leaves and litter eddied around Asher’s legs as he rapped on the front door of the lodging house. A tall, stout woman answered his knock and eyed him up and down suspiciously.
    “Good evening, ma’am. Is Miss Lambkin available?” he asked politely.
    “I don’t allow gentleman callers, especially at this hour.” The landlady folded hefty arms across her massive bosom. She had the build and countenance of a Saxon warrior.
    “May I send up a note for her then?”
    The landlady lowered her bull-like head into the generous folds of her neck. “I run a respectable establishment here, and I don’t approve of my female lodgers going out at night to meet strange gentlemen. If you wish to see Miss Lambkin, I suggest you call back in the morning.”
    Asher’s blood started to hum. For a moment he contemplated thrusting past the Amazon and forcing his way in. But that would guarantee Minerva’s eviction, and how would he be able to explain himself in the subsequent hullabaloo?
    Harrumphing in frustration, he turned away just as the mischievous wind picked up his hat and bowled it down the street.

Chapter Four
     
    Minerva emerged from Mrs. Pettigrew’s house, her head swimming with ideas. She now knew why her widowed client had requested she travel to London, and she fervently hoped she’d be able to help her. Mechanical hands, arms and feet she had constructed before, and once even an artificial nose, but this would be the first time she’d be building a substitute eye. False eyes had been around for centuries, but Mrs. Pettigrew required more than just a glass eyeball. Ten years ago, her deranged and jealous husband had shot her in the head and then turned the pistol on himself. He’d meant to kill her, but the poor woman had survived, albeit with a gaping hole in her head.
    It had taken Minerva considerable self-control to examine the injury without flinching, but sympathy had outweighed delicacy. In the end, Mrs. Pettigrew’s shocking disfigurement was no more than flesh and bone, and Minerva had quickly begun to see ways of designing a headpiece which would transform the mutilation into a thing of beauty. Mrs. Pettigrew had long wanted such a disguise, but had been reticent to approach a male craftsman. Eager to end her confinement, she had seen Minerva off with a handsome bank check to be used on the purchase of materials.
    Minerva started off down the road, leaning into a stiff headwind. Overnight, the winds from the north had strengthened to gales, and the blustery street was aswirl with dead foliage and detritus. Minerva pushed on. She would return to her lodgings and flesh out the design she’d sketched out for Mrs. Pettigrew, and then—
    “Minerva.”
    The familiar voice stopped her in her tracks. She glanced up to see Asher alongside her, seated in a carriage. Opening the door, he beckoned towards her.
    “Will you ride with me? I have something of great importance to tell you.”
    Minerva’s meeting with Mrs. Pettigrew had distracted her from the tribulations she’d endured the previous day, but now the memories came thundering back. She stared at Asher. He looked so different from yesterday, so beseeching and anxious. But he’d been so cruel. She tipped her chin. “So important you feel the need to accost me in the middle of