Wellington Estate.
That night.
The estate's halls were quiet, save for the low murmur of servants extinguishing lamps. Outside, the rain had faded into a whisper, leaving the windows glazed with silver.
The Admiralty's words still echoed in his head.
"Could such a machine drive a ship?"
He had answered honestly, but the implications were staggering.
Steam had already conquered the rails; now it would claim the seas.
He pushed aside a stack of ledgers and unrolled a blank sheet of parchment. His quill hovered only a moment before moving with purpose.
Across the top, he wrote in neat engineer's script:
Project: Steam-Powered Naval Vessel.
He leaned back, exhaling slowly.
A steam-powered battleship—it wasn't a fantasy. It was a problem of scale, balance, and endurance.
He began sketching the basic form of a hull, labeling its compartments as he went—boiler rooms, coal storage, propulsion chambers. Then he paused, eyes unfocused, lost to memory.
