Clockwork Heart: Clockwork Love, Book 1 by Heidi Cullinan Read Free Book Online

He glanced Cornelius’s way as he exited, hoping perhaps to catch an invitation, something —but Cornelius had his eyes shut tight.
    Johann went to bed as silently as he could, wrapping his blanket around his torso. He told himself it was stupid to be disappointed he wasn’t getting kissed again, and did his best to go to sleep.
    * * * * *
    Cornelius couldn’t understand why the café hadn’t repulsed Johann, but he didn’t question the reaction. He didn’t bring the episode up in conversation, either, and he didn’t take him back to the café.
    In fact, in the month following their initial outing, Cornelius avoided discussing or thinking of many things with many people. He allowed Louise to clean the room once more, but when she gave pointed looks at the hulking pirate practicing his walking along the side of the bed, Cornelius pretended to not understand what could possibly be wrong with this arrangement. Master Félix asked a few questions about Johann, then largely forgot his existence until the faux-pirate walked in front of him. He’d predict Johann would bring trouble, then return to whatever project had him captivated at the moment.
    By early May, Conny couldn’t avoid his father’s increasingly insistent demands he visit the magistrate, and so one bright and sunny Tuesday afternoon he secured Johann with instructions to stay in the room and speak to no one, then hired a carriage to the other side of town.
    The magistrate, Baptiste Tremblay, was a measly mouse of a man, and he was firmly in the archduke’s pocket. Most city officials were, since they were installed by political favor, but Conny had always resented having such a simpering mewl as a minder. This visit was worse, since it wasn’t simply Conny and Tremblay having awkward conversation over sherry. The tinker Cornelius had been avoiding the night he found Johann was also visiting the magistrate. Worse, once he’d introduced the two of them, Tremblay left them alone in the salon to have their discussion.
    Dr. Martin Savoy didn’t look like a tinker. His clothes were too neat and too plain, and the wrong style. He wore a high-necked jacket mirroring an officer’s uniform, a style popular only with the most elite, politically minded set in Paris, which no tinker Cornelius had ever met would consider wearing. Some of their kind were tidy, yes, but Savoy was drawn with four pins. Tinkers would never set so much store by fashion, and they’d never waste their money on gold piping. If they wanted sparkle on their clothing, they’d use copper filament. Even his spectacles were wrong—small and round, the glass slightly tinted but highly reflective, making him appear to have no eyes. Possibly he dressed so because he was, as Tremblay had whispered in the hall, also a physician, and therefore he moved in higher social circles than a mere surgeon. But even if Savoy had been in proper plain trousers, he would have left Conny feeling uneasy. He regarded Conny like an old billy goat who didn’t much care if Cornelius wanted to be mounted.
    Savoy sat still and focused on Tremblay’s sofa, holding a cup of tea before him as he regarded Conny with a discomfiting smile. “Your father speaks very highly of you. He says you will soon surpass your master in your skill at both clockwork prosthetics and clockwork surgery.”
    Conny sipped at his sherry and smiled thinly. “How kind of my father to notice my skill. I hope someday I will excel enough he might deign to praise me in person.”
    “Your father is well aware of your talents.” The physician’s reptilian smile curled into something Conny assumed was meant to be flirtatious but made him want to retch. “He isn’t the only one noticing you, either, my little rabbit.”
    “Attracting attention has never been an issue for me.” Conny crossed his legs and dusted lint from his shirtsleeve as he reclined in his chair.
    “Your father would like you to work with me in Paris. I should like this as