an ample bosom—one imagined her having to scurry hither and thither to maintain balance lest she topple over, yet she moved with swan-like grace.
“We’re showing all these scallywags how to behave,” Sonja replied. “This place is far too rowdy.”
Meredith snorted. “If somebody blew their nose here, it would qualify as a riot.”
Aunt Lily cast them a haughty glance from the corner of her eye, then beamed at her gentleman admirer. “You’d best behave, young ladies—” She gave her best ventriloquist impression through the teeth of a fixed smile, “—if you want to see daylight for the next month.”
An empty threat. She’d tried grounding them in the past, but it was tough to be a jailer when you were rarely at the prison in person. Aunt Lily was one of the most popular women in Portsmouth and Southsea, or at least she had been before Father’s latest scandal. Her endless engagements kept her away from her home for much of the time. But despite what she said about Meredith and Sonja hating having to stay with her while Father was away on his subterranean adventures, they honestly didn’t. She was fun to be around when she actually bothered to talk to them, and the empty house and grounds gave them endless opportunities to explore, idle, and otherwise hide from the world.
A world that hated them, that they hated in return.
“Your father was asking for you earlier.” Aunt Lily coyly turned her nose up at her gentleman admirer across the garden and looked straight at Meredith, masking a yawn with her fluffy hand warmer. “There’s someone he wants you to meet.”
“Yes, Auntie.” Sonja motioned to put a finger down her throat.
“That’s enough of that, little madam. You know how important this visit is for your father—for all of us.” The glint in her questing eyes sparked, as though she’d caught the scent of wounded prey somewhere in the garden. So honed was her social survival instinct, Darwin himself might do well to follow her exploits at one of these eclectic functions. No matter what gossip ailed the McEwan family back in England, Aunt Lily would sniff out an antidote and peddle it tirelessly until she came up smelling of roses. She always did. Her motivation might be selfish but that social finagling had also helped revive Father’s reputation in the past.
He needed it now more than ever.
A little over eighteen months had passed since Ralph McEwan’s heroic return from his second expedition to the subterranean realm he himself had discovered back in 1899, a vast underground network of chambers and tunnels that, as far as he’d ascertained, went farther and deeper than man had ever thought possible. On his first expedition, he’d penetrated the earth in his famous mechanical iron mole, and his discovery of a world far beneath the surface had stunned the world. But shortly after his return from that adventure, claims that he had stolen the design for his burrowing machine from an American colleague had tarnished his reputation.
It had taken him seven years to mount his second expedition and a further eighteen months to complete it. In that time, Meredith and Sonja had grown up together, mostly alone. They’d watched Mother grow weaker every day until the tuberculosis had claimed her. They’d also developed keen instincts for deflecting insults aimed at Father from classmates, idiotic neighbours, and other pesky insects. Had Father returned home triumphant from Subterranea this time, things might have changed.
But history cruelly repeated itself. No sooner did he arrive back from Central Africa with a trove of samples and artefacts than the mud began to fly once more.
Reports that he had maimed his expedition partner, a Frenchman named Armand Clochefort, weeks before embarkation—to claim sole authorship of all discoveries—and that that had caused the Frenchman to commit suicide, had landed Father in serious hot water. The reprieve the McEwans had hoped for did not arrive—rather their name was blackened further still.
Only a handful of loyal colleagues openly honoured Father’s achievements these days. Professor Sorensen was one of them, which meant all Norway held Father in high esteem, for Sorensen, an inventor of some note, was a much-loved and well-respected figure in his home nation, and the people trusted his judgement implicitly.
If only the same were true of his nieces—the Niflheim trolls—who had humiliated Meredith and Sonja so viciously the last time.
But not tonight, harpies.
Sonja tugged Meredith behind a group of sporty-looking gentlemen while their aunt was distracted. “We need to make our move.” She folded