A Gentleman of Means (15 page)

But he had told the Lady he would try to find out what he could of the comings and goings in Gibraltar. New information of the Famiglia Rosa could only be to their advantage.

“What do you do for the Doge?” he asked, more quietly still.

“Anything he asks of me. At the moment, the family has the wind up about convict labor in Venice. A deal gone bad or some such. So my being here is self-serving, I suppose, while their eyes are turned to the Adriatic and not to the north.”

Tigg nodded. “I heard. Something to do with Meriwether-Astor, wasn’t it?”

His father’s eyes gleamed. “That’s the last name I’d expect to hear on your lips.”

“I was just in Venice—third engineer on a ship taking a party to the art exhibition. Heard about the fuss.”

“Rich folks, must be.”

Tigg shrugged. “A job’s a job.”

“What do you know of the convicts, then?”

“Nothing. Just that they work under the water, cleaning the gearworks. Nasty custom, if you ask me.”

“The family lost a couple of them. Big stink about it. Some young lady broke them out and got away with one of the impounded ships. Stupid gambit on her part—the family are like dragons. You touch even one coin and they’ll burn you to hell and back for it.”

Alice. It had to be. “There’s a price on her head?”

He tilted one shoulder up in a half shrug. “Death medallions come at a pretty high price.”

Tigg’s stomach did a slow swoop that made him feel a little ill. “Does everyone in the Levant know about the sentence, then? A man wouldn’t have much of a chance—a young lady even less.”

“No. There was a price of a hundred gold guineas on her head, but that’s been lifted. When the family give a medallion, it’s to a trusted man. And he doesn’t come back until the job is done or he dies trying.”

Medallions. Tigg’s mind flashed to that night in the park at Schloss Schwanenburg. Three men had not come back. Did the Famiglia Rosa think they were still looking, or did they know the men were dead? It had only been a couple of weeks. Surely that was not enough time to send out another squad?

He dared not ask further. But it seemed clear as day that a medallion meant a man was charged to deliver the death sentence to a victim. Best to change the subject before a word slipped loose that would give Alice away.

“So,” he said with an air of a man who has another appointment, “you spotted me at Gibraltar. Do you moor there often?”

“It’s the gateway to the Mediterranean and the family have business interests there,” his father said, clearly equally willing to change the subject. “But I was on two days’ land leave, soaking up the sun—and the excellent grog at the Barnacle. You might be interested in this—ever seen an underwater dirigible?”

Tigg schooled his face into polite but slightly disbelieving interest. “No. Sounds impossible.”

“There you’d be wrong. Talking of Meriwether-Astor, he’s got a fleet of them in that part of the world, and no one the wiser. Just between you and me and the wall here, I think the family would be wise to throw in with him. But that’s none of my affair. I’d never seen one, or the little bubble they use to come ashore.”

“You saw one come ashore?”
Chaloupes
, Lizzie had called them. But he could betray no knowledge of that.

His father nodded. “I was too far away to see much, just saw the dirigible surface and send out a little bubble of a thing. Rolled up to a ship and rolled back into the sea in about ten minutes, neat as you please.”

Tigg’s heart felt as though it would beat so hard the man would be able to see it right through his jacket. “Seems impossible—like they’d be swamped. Does it roll onto the beach like a ball?”

“No, it has wheels. Brilliant, the mind what came up with that.”

He couldn’t ask about the airship. Bad enough he was asking questions about the undersea dirigible. But those might be asked by anyone with an interest in engineering marvels—anyone who had never seen what he had described.

“I can’t say the Sea Horse’s grog measures up to the Barnacle’s,” he finally said. “Or anywhere but the bottom of a rat’s nest.”

The man smiled. “You see I’m only drinking enough to be polite.” He tilted the mug until its noxious contents lapped at the rim. “Those gents are doing the same. Smart coves. Obviously been here before.” He nodded toward Snouts and Jake. “Not me, I’m here on business.”

“For the family?”

“Aye.”

“Rocks and hard places come to mind.”

His father nodded, and pushed the tankard away. “I want you to have this.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked like a coin. “Nope. Not that.” He laid the locket on the table. “It’s all I have.”

The locket with his mother’s picture. Tigg’s heart pounded, and he felt as though his next breath might choke him. “I can’t take that. It’s yours.”

“She had her portrait made and gave it to me on one of my first voyages after we were married. She would want you to have it. I have no ties here now save this one. It should be with you.”

“No ties?” Tigg couldn’t help it—he challenged him with the implication, though his mind was churning like the funnel clouds he’d seen in the West Indies. How could this man say
no ties
when the biggest one of all was sitting right across from him?

“Aye, I’ve hurt your feelings, haven’t I, when that was the last thing I wanted.” His gaze faltered at last. “Like I said, once my business here is concluded, I’ll be gone far away. You and that picture are the only evidence that Tom Terwilliger ever visited this corner of the world and left anything good behind. You take it with my blessing, and I’ll die content.”

Tigg couldn’t wait to escape this place—this man—this moment. He scooped up the locket and tucked it into one of the pouches on his belt. “All right. Fair winds, then.” He stood, and his father stood with him.

He offered his hand, and Tigg felt his stomach roll. He couldn’t shake it. He couldn’t. And yet, there was no reason anyone could see that he should not.

So for the first time in his memory, he put his hand into that of his father.

“Good-bye, Tommy. I wish you well.”

He couldn’t even return the wish. But he must say something. “Perhaps we may meet again.”

“We won’t. But it’s good of you to say so. Fair winds to you, too.”

Tigg’s throat closed and he turned away, stumbling blindly toward the door and knocking into Snouts’s chair on the way past. Once outside and well away down the street, he gasped and pressed one hand to his mouth. When his mates caught up to him a few minutes later at the meeting point on the south end of the bridge, he was ashamed to have to dash tears from his cheek.

Jake put an arm about his shoulder—Jake, who was not a demonstrative individual and would as soon punch someone as offer him comfort. “Laddie, it’s all right. It’s done now and no harm.”

“No harm?” Tigg croaked. “No harm? Did you see what he carried?”

“No. He pulled that necklace out and gave it to you. Is there something wrong with it?”

“Not the necklace. The other.”

“What other? What are you going on about, man?” Snouts demanded. “What’s wrong?”

“The medallion. In his pocket. Like the ones we found in Munich. They’re given to men commissioned to carry out the death sentence.”

Jake dragged in a breath, understanding breaking over his face in the light of the electrick lamp on its post. “Alice.”

“There’s a death warrant for her. He told me.” Tigg gasped for air and choked on it. “And my father is the one who’s been sent to carry it out.”

Lady Claire gazed at Tigg in horror, at the pinched expression of pain around his eyes, and knew the truth even before she had to ask. “Are you sure?”

He nodded. “How many men can there be in England in the Famiglia Rosa’s employ, carrying a death medallion, and with such specific knowledge of Alice’s actions in Venice?”

“But he seems to have mixed up the actions of two or even three women—Alice, myself, and Gloria.” She glanced at Alice, sitting white-faced on the sofa with Jake while Ian paced in front of the fire like a caged lion.

“He saw Gloria loaded onto an airship and said nothing to make me believe he even knew her, or her connection with breaking out their missing convicts.” Granted, it had been from a great distance.

“Goodness,” she said a little shakily. “In that case, there is as good a chance that he meant me and not Alice at all.” Tigg reached out, and she took his hand with gratitude for its comfort.

“But Claire, you did not have a hundred-guinea price on your head,” Alice pointed out, her voice a whisper as dry as sand. “I did. He meant me, sure as rain means flash floods.”

Claire gave Tigg’s hand a squeeze. “But you, Tigg. What are your feelings after tonight’s events? What kind of a man did you find your father to be?”

“Besides the kind who can be hired to kill my friends?” Claire’s heart broke afresh at the bitterness in his tone. “I hardly know. Anything I might have thought before that medallion came out of his pocket by mistake was completely wiped away afterward. It was all I could do not to shoot him on the spot.”

“At the Sea Horse, you might have got away with it,” Jake put in helpfully. “I was waiting for something—but not that.”

“I thought the worst we’d have to deal with was the Cudgel,” Snouts agreed. “I’d never have expected this.”

“One never does expect a Venetian assassin,” Claire said in despair. “Well, so much is clear—Alice must leave London immediately.”

“Hey!” Alice objected.

“You were planning to anyway,” Jake reminded her. “Tomorrow, if I’m not mistaken.”

“But what about Gloria?” Alice asked. “I’m not going to abandon her—for all we know, her situation is as bad as mine. We ought to find her first and then run off and hide later.”

“It is not a matter of hiding,” Ian said. “It is a matter of keeping you safe until—” He broke off with a glance at Tigg.

Her dear boy’s jaw firmed in a way that told Claire he was a boy no longer—and likely never would be again. She just wished his final step into maturity and the knowledge of the betrayals life could hold did not have to be like this. Not cutting so close to the heart.

But then, was that not the case with betrayals, by definition?

Tigg looked his captain in the eye. “Are you saying that my father must be killed before he can kill Alice?”

“I am not saying that at all. But he must be brought to justice if he should make the attempt. We will do our best to make certain he does not—but if he should do so, we must be prepared. I must inform the Admiralty that there is a deserter back in the country, in any case. If Her Majesty’s men can apprehend him, then Alice will be able to breathe easily.”

Something told Claire that a man who had slipped into England with such insouciance that he could order a tankard in full view of a tavern’s company would present more of a challenge to the Admiralty than Ian gave him credit for. But that was not her affair.

Her friends were her affair.

All I see is that once again you choose someone else over me and a life with me.

Sick at heart at the memory of Andrew’s words, she grasped at something Ian had said to turn the course of her thoughts. “This airship, Ian, that lifted with Gloria aboard—while you are at the Admiralty, is there a way you might find out its course? At least we might be able to narrow down Alice’s present location.”

“That was days ago, Claire. She could be in the Hebrides by now—or the Antipodes, for that matter.”

“But surely we could ask. It is the only clue we have.”

“But without identifying numbers or even a flag, how should we know what to ask for?”

“He—Terwilliger—said that the
chaloupe
rolled up the beach, rolled back, and they lifted, all within ten minutes,” Tigg said. “But we saw that beach. It was rocky at high tide. They had to have come ashore at low tide, when the sand was exposed. If we consult the tide table, we could know approximately when they lifted. And any ship departing for England on that day at that time has a good chance of being our quarry.”

For the first time since they had come in and she had seen Tigg’s face, as drawn and ill as that of a prisoner, Claire felt a little bubble of hope. “Your logic is sound, Tigg. Ian, can you accomplish this on Monday?”

“I can,” he said. “And once I do, what then?”

“We go to wherever that ship was bound, of course,” Alice said a little tartly.

“No, we go to Hollys Park, as planned. With all due respect, Captain,” Jake added hastily to Alice. “We’ve got to get you someplace safe, where the average assassin wouldn’t think to look for you. To say nothing of the problem we have with
Swan
being unregistered.”

“That is an advantage,” Ian told him. “As long as we are discreet and stay out of the passenger and shipping lanes, we can slip out of London to Somerset with no one the wiser.”

“The fewer wise, the better,” Alice said cautiously, “and I can see the benefit of stashing
Swan
at your house for the time being. But we can be of more use to Gloria if we ship out on
Athena
after that.”

“A moving target,” Jake suggested.

“I must agree,” Claire said thoughtfully. “And within England’s borders one might fall a little behind on filing one’s flight plans without incurring too much official interest.”

And so it was settled. Alice would not attend church with them the next day, but instead lie low at Carrick House. Needless to say, this did not sit very well with her, but Claire had a brain wave and detailed Captain Hollys as her companion. On Sunday afternoon her foresight was rewarded, for Alice had to be restrained practically by main force from going out to
Swan
.

“I’ve got the fidgets and no mistake,” she snapped at Claire. “Wouldn’t you? I have to do something.”

“It’s only for one more day, dearest,” Claire said soothingly. “
Swan
is safe enough at our airfield. No one shall harm her—or board her without your leave.”

“She’s too recognizable,” Alice said. “I need to replace her fuselage—the silver and blue marks her for a Zeppelin ship, and she was the only B2 in that cursed impound yard on the Lido. Anyone with half an eye will know her—and from what Tigg says, Terwilliger was in full possession of both his eyes.”

Replacing an airship’s fuselage was no casual operation. It took days and a full crew to deflate the gas bags, disconnect all the rigging and lay it out on the ground, remove the old fuselage and then put in the new. The beauty of it was that it would be the perfect project for Alice and Ian to do together at Hollys Park. Perhaps when they were reunited with Gloria once more, they might all repair there and spend Christmas with him.

In a location utterly unlike the Christmas she had planned with Andrew.

As if she had heard Claire’s thoughts, Alice said almost wistfully, “What a shame we don’t have the Helios Membrane you and Andrew were designing, Claire. It would be just the thing.”

“It would be.” The hollow around her heart had become a physical pain with this additional reminder. She must not think of it. “When we have Gloria safe and sound, I will make it my first priority. After all, we still have our living to make, don’t we?”

Alice was wise enough to drop the subject.

On Monday their patience was rewarded when Ian returned from the Admiralty. They all crowded into the drawing room to hear what information he had been able to gather.

“First of all, the Admiralty has been alerted to your—to Terwilliger’s presence in England,” he told Tigg. “If it is possible to apprehend him, Her Majesty’s finest will do it.”

“And if it is not?” Claire asked when Tigg could not speak.

“Then we must be prepared, and keep Alice safe, as we discussed. Now, as to this ship he mentioned at Gibraltar, thanks to our bespectacled friend and his difference engine, we now have an identity and a flight plan.”

“Excellent,” Claire breathed. “What and where?”

“She was not even given the dignity of a name, only a set of numbers. She is an older model cargo ship, meant for short-range flights between port and city, and she was leased by some run-of-the-mill concern.” He consulted a bit of paper. “Amalgamated Division.”

“That’s a contradiction in terms,” Alice observed from the sofa, where she was poring over a two-year-old edition of a supply catalogue.

“Never mind that,” Claire said impatiently. “Where was she going?”

“Where we suspected—hoped—she might,” Ian said. “Bath.”

“I knew it!” Claire exclaimed as the pieces snapped into place in her mind. “He is taking her to his house, the wretch. Did he not imagine that he would be found out?”

“They went to some lengths to prevent that,” Alice said. “It’s only because we have the right people here in the drawing room asking the right questions that we know anything at all.”

“For which we can all be grateful.” Claire gave her an exuberant hug, which did nothing for the state of her hair, but which left both feeling much better for it. “We depart for Somerset at dawn tomorrow, leave
Swan
at Hollys Park, and reconnoiter the few miles to Haybourne House in
Athena
.”

“Claire, it would behoove us to think this over a little more—” Ian began.

“I am tired of thinking,” Claire informed him. “I am equally tired of people stealing my friends and treating them badly. We are going to put an end to it once and for all.”

*

“Great snakes, Claire,” Alice breathed as they carried their bags from the private landing field to the gravel walk that led to the house in the distance. “He tells me he owns all this—and you turned him down?”

Ian had pointed out landmarks as they circled the field prior to mooring—the house, golden even in the cold light of November, with its elegant Georgian façade, its gardens laid out behind (“The roses and other flowers are finished for the year, of course,” he said, “but the shrubbery and the maze are evergreen”) and the extensive park with its gravel walks and long drive that terminated in a circle at the front door.

Maybe she’d spoken out of turn, for Claire only bit her lip and glanced behind, where Tigg and Jake were piloting the landau down the ramp out of
Athena
’s cargo bay. Ian was tying the last of the mooring ropes, which gave them a few moments of privacy.

“Of all this I might have been mistress? Is that what you mean?” Claire said at last. “I’m afraid there is more to a man than his property. Ian will make a wonderful husband for the right woman—but I am afraid that I am not she.”

Some twist of anxiety that had been winding tighter and tighter in Alice’s chest since Andrew and Claire had ended their engagement loosened, and she took a deep breath.

“Were you worried?” Claire asked with a sidelong glance.

“I have no right to be anything at all,” Alice said bluntly. “We are comrades in arms, no more.”

“But he kissed you, in Venice, did he not?”

“A moment of madness, I suppose. It hasn’t been repeated—not since he became ill. And I don’t suppose it ever will be.”

“Do not give up hope, Alice. I believe you are just the woman to make a different kind of man of him.”

“He’s already the best of men.”

Alice’s spirits lightened as a mischievous smile spread across Claire’s face. “Even when he is arguing with you and you are throwing wrenches?”

“I didn’t hit him—or intend to. I didn’t even hit the bulkhead, and the deck can withstand anything short of a bomb.”

“And you have neatly avoided my question.”

“If you must know, even then. In fact, sometimes I provoke him just to rile him up and pull him out of the megrims.”

“Does it work?”

“Sometimes. And sometimes I just have to drop the wrench and hold him until the fit passes.” Alice felt almost guilty telling Claire Ian’s darkest secrets, but weren’t they all friends and companions? And if not Claire, who else would she tell? She had no other confidante—and Jake, much as she liked and valued him, was not the kind of young man to whom you revealed your vulnerabilities or those of others.

“I am sure you would much rather do that than fling hand tools at the man.”

Now Alice had to smile. “I would. But it feels dishonest—as though I’m taking advantage of him.”

“I doubt he feels that way when he is in the depths of a nightmare. Are they coming less often?”

“Some. Not much. I hope that with the return to his home the hours between will be greater and the severity less. Distraction helps. If he is focused on finding Gloria, then perhaps he won’t have room for the megrims.”

She looked away, but not in time. Claire shifted her valise to the other hand, which brought her closer—close enough to see Alice’s face. “What is it, dear?”

Alice threw another glance over her shoulder. Ian had finished tying off, and had climbed into the landau with the boys. They would catch up to them in a moment.

“Nothing.”

“I do not think
nothing
brings such a bleak expression to a woman’s face.”

“It’s silly. Gloria is much the better choice for him anyway.”

Claire seemed to trip on her own hem, which was highly unusual for her. “Gloria?”

“Of course. Don’t you see that the thought of her is practically all that is keeping him going right now?”

“Gloria.”

“Don’t sound so skeptical. You know they’d make a perfect pair, with his breeding and her money.”

“The woman who shares his passion for flying and mechanics is not Gloria, of that I can assure you.”

Alice sighed. “But marriages aren’t based on flying and mechanics. They’re based on … well, you of all people know what they’re based on, in this day and age—and money is the foundation of it all.”