Magnificent Devices 07 - A Lady of Integrity (8 page)

*

Because of the general trickiness of flying over mountains, with their updrafts and sudden wind shears, Claire could not simply leave the flight to the automaton intelligence system and go to bed that evening. Luckily, she had two other experienced captains and two engineers aboard, which neatly solved the problem.

“I shall take the graveyard watch,” Captain Hollys said when she laid her plans before them.

“You shall not,” Claire objected. “When we land in the Duchy of Venice, we will need you sharp and observant, which you will not be if you have been flying in the night. Alice and I will divide the task in four-hour watches. Andrew, if you act as Alice’s engineer and navigator, I shall be as happy as it is possible to be with Tigg once again at my side.” She smiled at the young lieutenant, who leaned back in his chair in the dining saloon and passed an arm about Lizzie’s shoulders.

“Nothing would make me happier, Lady—with your permission, sir?” he asked Ian.

But Ian clearly was not of a mind to give in just yet. “It is not right, Claire, for a man to leave his duty to women.”

In the silence, there was a tiny clink as Claire’s thimble of port touched the table, and a gulp as Alice tossed back hers.

“I believe your duty as conceived by Her Majesty has not yet commenced, Ian.”

“That may be so, but I am still quite able to assist you in this manner. I have stood many a double watch with no reduction in my faculties, I assure you.”

“I have no doubt of that at all,” she said with a softening of her tone. “But it is only four hours, and will pass quickly.”

“All the more reason for me to assist. With three, we may reduce it to three hours apiece.”

“But we don’t have a third engineer,” Alice put in. “Please, Captain. Claire is right. We need you fresh for our landing.” He gazed at her for a moment, until her cheeks flushed under his regard. “Perhaps I might offer my apologies for my hasty words earlier,” she went on with difficulty. “We are not trying to keep you away from the helm. Truly, we’re not. We are simply trying to do what’s best for our mission, and if that means dividing up the watch, then that’s what we have to do.”

To Claire’s astonishment, Ian cleared his throat and nodded briefly. “Very well. Lieutenant,” he said to Tigg, “I would say I needed you just as rested, but the young have amazing powers of restoration. You have my permission to act as engineer with Lady Claire.”

“You speak as though you were as old as Count von Zeppelin, sir.” Maggie, clearly sensing that a storm of some kind had been narrowly avoided, had the temerity to tease him a little.

“Some days I feel that way,” he murmured, and reached for the bottle of tawny port.

Her earlier color faded from Alice’s skin, leaving her looking sad and chewing on her lower lip.

Now what was this? Claire was tempted to ask, but for all she knew, Alice’s mind had gone back to Jake and it would be best to let sleeping dogs lie. No good ever came of prodding and prying.

So it was that at ten of the clock, when the three-quarter moon rode high in the sky, she and Tigg took possession of
Athena
’s helm and charts for the first watch.

“I miss the old boat,” he said affectionately, patting the frame of the starboard viewing port. “Even with all the ships in the Dunsmuirs’ fleet, there isn’t one quite like her.”

“That is because she was made in the Americas—and built for speed,” Claire said. “Do you remember the night she came into my possession?”

“Do I,” Tigg said. “I remember the Mopsies loading me up with ordnance and sending me back to the
Lady Lucy
, frightened out of my wits but determined to free our crew or die trying.”

“And that is precisely the meaning of courage,” she told him fondly. “To be frightened, yet to stand up and do what is right. And your courage saved a ship, a family, and a crew, and led to your first promotion, if I recall.”

“It did. Perhaps our mission here will lead to another, and I can afford to—” He stopped, looking closely at the cables overhead as though checking that they were operating properly.

“Afford to what, Tigg?”

“Nothing, Lady. Is this what your work is going to be with the count—adapting the automaton intelligence system for the passenger liners?”

“You know perfectly well that it is not,” she said, undecided whether or not to allow this conversational dodge. “He has had the systems in place for several years now. My share of the income from the patent is what is paying for Lizzie’s and Maggie’s educations.”

There, now. She had given him an opening. It would be up to him to take it. An updraft pressed the deck against the soles of her boots, so she bent her knees and steadied the helm as they passed over the lights of a town far below. The chart told her it was St. Moritz.

“Has it been expensive, their education?” Tigg asked.

“It has not been inexpensive,” she allowed, “but it has been greatly offset by the count’s hospitality. He has acted like the best, most generous sort of uncle to the girls. It is partly what angered me so when I discovered them aboard. I do not wish anything to upset him and the baroness, though,” she amended, “I suppose I am as culpable as they.”

“I’m glad Lizzie and Maggie are with us,” he said. “It will be almost like old times.”

“But you are not children anymore, Tigg,” she reminded him gently, “and it seems we play on a broader stage than the old neighborhood in Vauxhall Gardens. We are no longer merely defending our cottage against marauders.”

“I think we are, still,” he said. “They’re still marauders, only they’ve got a better hideout and sneakier tactics. But we’ll outfox ’em, you’ll see.”

He sounded so much like the Tigg of old, ready to take on any challenge even if he only had a rock for a weapon.

“I shall depend upon you to see to the girls’ protection,” she said, her smile fading. “I mean it, Tigg. They are as precious to me as one, at least, is to you.”

His dark eyes met hers, and in them she saw the determination of a man to protect his own. “If anyone so much as touches a hair on Lizzie’s head—or Maggie’s—he’ll answer to me, all right, and he won’t like it.”

“Your feelings for Lizzie have not changed, then?”

“No, and they’re not likely to. It’s been Lizzie and no one else for me since we first moved back to Carrick House and she wouldn’t kill those baby bats up in the attic. Remember, when we were clearing out to make bedrooms for the others?”

Claire did, only too vividly.

“I knew she was your scout, and already a fighter, and probably far smarter than I, but I saw the gentle side of her that day. And I was never the same after that.” He cleared his throat and pretended to check the chart, though St. Moritz was barely off the stern. “You don’t know how difficult it’s been, watching her turn into a young lady and wondering if she’d fly so high above me that she’d never want to settle for a rope monkey.”

“You’re not a—”

“I am now. But I won’t be forever. That day at her grandparents’, in the garden, well … we settled it then. I know we’re too young, but it means a lot that you approve, Lady.”

“How could I not approve, dear one?” She left the wheel for a moment to hug him. “Lizzie is a fortunate young woman. And if the two of you are willing to wait until you can afford to establish a home, then that is to your credit. Each of you deserves that respect from the other.”

“That’s what she says, too.” He nodded eagerly. “That’s why this mission has got to go well. With Her Majesty watching, it could mean attention in the right quarter, and faster advancement in the Corps than I could hope for otherwise.”

She put a hand on his arm. “Do not let the prospect of advancement blind you to finer considerations—such as loyalty to those who gave you your start.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t leave the captain,” he assured her. “He’s done more for me than I deserve. But wouldn’t you want to see me with a First Engineer’s bars some day, even if it’s on a different ship?”

“I would indeed.” She touched his cheek, delighted with the same deep dimple she found there, in a face that was now a man’s. “It would be the proudest day of my life to see you attain your dream.”

“That, and my wedding day?”

“Let us not get ahead of ourselves,” she said primly. “If there is to be any talk of weddings, it will be the one with which I am most immediately concerned at present.”

She could only hope that they would return to take up the preparations for it once again. After the revelations of today and her admission to Alice of her own fear for the girls’ safety, she could almost wish she had nothing more urgent to attend to than a dress fitting.

“And here I thought I’d managed to weasel my way out of all this fuss and frippery,” Alice grumbled.

As far as Claire was concerned, this fuss and frippery was going a long way toward keeping her fear for the girls and for Alice herself at bay. If one could concentrate on the sleek line of a cream linen walking skirt, or upon the delicacy of the cutwork and embroidery upon one’s white waist, one could avoid thinking of … oh, dear. There she went again.

“I think you look nice, Alice,” Maggie told her. “What do you think of this spring green skirt?” She twirled in front of the mirror. “It’s the wrong time of year for it, isn’t it?”

“There’s a right time of year for green?” Alice asked, fussing with the supple leather belt about her narrow waist, and trying to tuck the embroidered front in under it.

“No, dear heart.” Claire pulled it out again. “It dips in front like this, so one has the appearance of a pouter pigeon.”

“That’s attractive?”

“Some gentlemen find it so. Not that we are concerned with such things. We have a higher purpose—and if we must pay the price of vanity to look as though we are fashionable tourists attending the exhibition without a care in the world, then we shall.”

“The green is perfect on you, Mags,” Lizzie said. “No one would ever guess there is a lightning pistol in your boot.”

“Lizzie!” Claire hissed.

“Sorry, Lady,” Lizzie whispered.

They were back on good terms again, after Claire’s loss of temper the first day of their voyage. She had lifted her chin and lowered her pride, and apologized for speaking to the girls in such a way in front of the gentlemen. Once they understood the source of her anxiety, they had hugged her and assured her they would have “all eyes out for danger, Lady.”

Of course they would. They had been scouting since their parents’ airship had gone into the Thames when they were only five—an attempt by Lizzie’s father to cover up the murder of her mother. Anything less than complete faith in their abilities did them a disservice.

What was wrong with her lately? Claire paid for their disguises and the entire party walked out into the narrow paved lane, their boxes and bags brushing against the walls on either side and now containing the more workaday skirts and blouses they had worn from the airfield on the mainland. She was not prone to fretting and worrying about things she could not control. Andrew was right. It must be because she now knew how much it was possible to lose.

It was true that she had lost everything before. But through her own resources and the efforts of those around her, she had built a life and an estate, for lack of a better word, that anyone might be proud of. And she was determined that the girls might have their share of opportunity and happiness, as well.

They strolled along the Zattere, past the Street of the Incurables where the unfortunates of the city must be, and past the enormous Church of St. Christopher, patron saint of sailors with its enormous rosary made of fishing floats draped across the doors. Claire felt a sense of gratitude flood in, scouring away the fear.

They were a flock. And anyone who threatened the flock would have to deal with all of them. Claire released the last bit of anger at the girls for having disobeyed her, and rejoiced in a sense of thankfulness that they were beside her now. And from that sprang a renewed determination to make their little homemade family whole again with the rescue of Jake.

“We must catch a water taxi here,” Andrew said, dapper in a linen suit and boater hat that was so very unlike his usual habiliments that it took Claire a moment to realize who was speaking. He consulted his guidebook and compared it with the name painted over the dock. “Yes, this is the right one.”

In moments, a boat steamed up, its stack belching steam and its conductor holding out a hand so that Claire might board.

The art exhibition covered several acres of an area that Claire understood had once been a convent. But now it was a lovely public park, divided by colonnades and shaded by olive trees, with the Grand Canal visible at one end.

The water taxi let them off on the paved embankment, which Claire was learning was called a
fondamente
. Then, twirling their parasols and as carefree as a flock of frilly birds, she and Alice and the Mopsies accompanied Andrew, Ian, and Tigg into the exhibition grounds.

“I wonder if I will spot Claude first?” Lizzie said, her keen gaze scanning the crowd for her half-brother.

“He won’t spot you, that’s certain,” Tigg said. “I hardly recognize you outside of school uniform or raiding rig.”

“I clean up rather nicely, I’ll have you know,” she told him, her nose in the air. “At least, so I’ve been told by
other
gentlemen.”

“Lewis doesn’t count, Liz.” Maggie spiked her balloon, earning her a push from her cousin and a rude noise.

“Girls,” Claire said, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. “I hope you are merely playing parts; otherwise, Claude will not
want
to recognize you.”

“His note said he would meet us here,” Lizzie told her, “next to the bell tower. I’m so glad he and his party are still in Venice. I feel as though I want to pinch him to be sure he is all right, after the undersea dirigibles made off with him and we had to spirit him out of France.”

Maggie shivered, as if the cold waters of the English Channel could still engulf her, no matter how warm the climate and sunny the day in their present location.