Scarlet Devices (15 page)

“Oldest trick in the book. Good one, Cantlebury.”

“Will you wait a moment before you go?” Eliza asked, reaching for Matthew's hand under the table and speaking low so only he could hear. “I should go up with them. I can't be the last one here in the dining hall with you, it would only give the temperance ladies more grist for the mill.”

He turned her hand in his, rubbing a thumb across her palm and whispering back, “Does this mean I can't even kiss you?”

“It would be begging for trouble. And don't try sneaking into my room later either.”

“I would, you know. As the doctor said, the town belongs to the sinners after nightfall. When in Rome, and all that.”

“I wish you could, I'm not averse to further sinning with you. But you won't. You mustn't, Matthew.”

“I won't. Sleep well and dream of me, sweetheart.”

Eliza suppressed a delicious shiver at the lewd things his fingers were doing to hers, then pulled her hand away reluctantly and spoke to Miss Speck and Cantlebury again. “Since you two are a respectable married couple, I'll walk up with you, if you don't mind chaperoning me as far as my room. Good night, Mr. Pence.”

“Good night, Miss Hardison. Cantlebury...
s
.”

 • • • 

S
HOUTS AND SHRILL
cries roused Matthew, instead of the gentle ring of his chronometer. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he stumbled to the window and pushed the sash up, raising the volume abruptly on the ruckus.

The sidewalks near the hotel, even the packed earth road, were crawling with Temperance Society members bearing their telltale signs. More townsfolk arrived as he watched, joining the fringes of the crowd and craning their necks to see into the hotel's wide bay windows.

Dragging yesterday's trousers, shirt and shoes on as he went, Matthew ran from his room. At the gallery overlooking the hotel's common hall, however, he skidded to a halt and gaped at the spectacle below. The shrillest of the temperance ladies stood on one of the sturdy trestle tables, facing off against Eliza, who struggled to fend off a battering with a placard. Eliza wore breeches and a short jacket with a longer flounce in the back, and she appeared to be dripping wet from head to toe.

He shouted to her, but couldn't make himself heard over the commotion. He had to worm his way down through layers of society ladies and others to descend the stairs and get to the table, where he could finally hear what they were shouting about.

“Shameless scofflaw!” screeched the woman, raising her sign to swat Eliza over the head with it.

“You're mad as an inbred hatter, and stop
hitting
me with that ridiculous placard.”

The placard in question was a worse-for-the-wear white, and bore one word in large red letters.
HARLOT
.

“You've made your final mistake, Jezebel, and you'll find out you've gotten too big for those britches when my husband arrives.” Her eyes held the manic gleam of the zealot.

“That doesn't even make
sense
.”

Eliza made a fair point. Sidling past the last few ranks of crowd members, Matthew gained the side of the table at last and tapped on Eliza's boot to get her attention.

“Good morning, Miss Hardison.”

“Matthew, do you have any idea what—
ouch
,
stop that
!” She raised her arm to block further cracks on the head with the placard, which fortunately seemed too light to do much more than annoy. “I woke early to give my steam car a quick rinse, went for a fresh bucket of water and found myself pushed into the trough.
Pushed
. And then this woman here—
lunatic
, rather—started screaming about having me arrested for wearing trousers.”

“They're breeches,” he noted.

“
Thank you
. I said the same thing and she insisted it was still against the law for a woman to wear them within the city limits.”

“Law-breaking hussy!” the woman confirmed. Her friends in the crowd babbled their support for this accusation, while the less temperate onlookers began to question one another about the law. If it were on the books, it didn't seem the public in general knew of it.

“When I tried to return to my hotel room for dry clothes, there was this horde of temperance ladies barring my way. It's outrageous.”

“I agree. Madam, I believe we need to rouse the gentlemen from the rally commission, and—”

“Mr. Hoover!” The woman shouted over him. “Arrest this woman!”

The sheriff, a tall, lean man with a handlebar mustache and one of the largest hats Matthew had ever seen, strode across the suddenly silent room, his spurs chinking against the dusty floor. He halted at the head of the table, forcing his wife to turn her back on Eliza in order to speak with him.

“Edith,” he drawled, then leaned to one side and doffed his hat with a nod at Eliza. “Miss.”

“Good morning, Sheriff Hoover.” She waved her fingertips at him with one hand, the other still keeping a wary guard against placard attacks.

“We're all up a mite earlier than usual, wife. Seems to be some excitement.”

Mrs. Hoover drew herself up to her full height and stabbed a finger in Eliza's direction. “Look at that, Mr. Hoover. Would you just look at that shameless display!”

The sheriff leaned over again and scanned Eliza's wardrobe, raising his eyebrows slightly as he saw the shameless trousers in question.

“The young lady appears to be wearing britches. She also appears to have taken a swim. Or was it a dunking?”

“A dunking,” Eliza volunteered.

The sheriff nodded, rubbing his bristled chin thoughtfully. “And you're standing on a table.”

“She ran up here to escape justice,” his wife explained huffily. “I followed her to secure her for you.”

“For me to do what, offer her a towel and a dry pair of britches?”

Even some of the temperance ladies laughed at that, Matthew noticed.

“To arrest her, you fool! For breaking the law!” She produced a folded piece of foolscap from her jacket pocket, brandishing it in her husband's face. “Copied from the law books in your own office, Mr. Hoover.”

He ducked to avoid taking a blow from the paper, then snatched it and read the writing quickly.

“Edith, did you know it's illegal to have a pigsty in front of a house in Dodge?”

“And what of it?”

“Do you know how many people in this town have pigsties in front of their houses? It's also illegal for a man to relieve himself on the street here, by the way. He can use the side of a building, but not the street itself. That's the law. Also illegal to perform a wedding ceremony for your goat, even if it's to another goat. I can only assume there's one hell of a story behind that one.”

For a moment the woman looked ready to back down, but a murmur from a few of her backers bolstered her indignation back to full steam. “This is a question of moral terpitude, husband. Turpitude!”

“Does anyone here actually know what turpitude is?” the sheriff asked the room at large, not seeming to expect an answer. “'Cause I don't, and I figure maybe I'm missing out on something really interesting.”

Matthew snickered and caught a wink from the droll lawman. Then the crowd muttered and parted again to allow the two hastily summoned rally officials, a pair of timid-looking gentlemen who had assumed their assignment would end once they'd clocked the racers' arrival and departure times. They'd deliver their results to the express rider who would begin a relay back to the last telegraph office in Meridian City, then take a slow coach back to New York City.

Neither man looked pleased to be awakened before it was even properly morning yet. And neither of them had any help to offer Eliza. The taller of the two, in fact, took one look at the developing situation and began to disclaim the rally committee's legal responsibility for any and all actions performed by race participants in violation of local ordinance or royal decree, and so forth. He stopped only when Whitcombe, stepping up behind him, clapped a huge hand over his shoulder and met his frightened glance with a dead-level stare.

The sheriff raised his hands, quieting the hubbub. “Now, the law my wife has copied down here dates back to 1865. Probably should've been struck from the books a long time ago, along with the one about the goat-marrying. But the fact remains, it's the law, and I'm sworn to uphold it. However—” He scowled and raised his voice above the crowd's response. “
However
, the law Mrs. Hoover is referring to clearly states that it is unlawful for a woman to
dress as a man
by wearing
trousers
. Unless she's holding the reins of a horse at the time, which doesn't seem to apply here. So let's think about that.”

“There is nothing to
think
about,” his wife interjected.

“Well, now, Edith, you've been running all over town with these other fine ladies, calling Miss Hardison all manner of names that suggest you don't think much of her virtue. Up until yesterday I was ready to give you the benefit of the doubt, but having met the young woman now she seems to be quite a well-brought up young lady. Polite, pleasant, modest. I hear she wouldn't even stay in this dining hall alone with Mr. Pence, there, lest somebody get the wrong impression. But all that aside, I have to ask you all, is there anyone in this room who thinks Miss Hardison's getup there counts as dressing like a man?”

Everyone shifted, looking around one another for a better perspective. Matthew saw one man take a sharp elbow jab from the woman beside him, apparently for appreciating the view too much. Eliza's breeches, tailored to fit her form perfectly when not sodden, were a dark aquamarine blue. Her short boots were hidden under navy brocade spatterdashes that rose nearly to her knees. Her jacket, which was clearly ruined now, had once been a delicate confection of ruffles in subtle gradations of blue, trimming a tight bodice of cream colored
peau de soie
. She looked more blatantly feminine than any other woman in the room.

“Perhaps if the man were an eighteenth century French courtier,” suggested a hidden voice Matthew recognized as Cantlebury's. A ripple of amusement swept the room, and the mood relaxed a fraction.

“As this is not eighteenth century France, I think we can all agree the lady is not dressed like a man. Especially not a man from around these parts,” the sheriff added. “Furthermore, and correct me if I'm wrong, but those aren't trousers she has on. They're britches.”

“Breeches,” Eliza corrected, stressing the regional difference.

“All right then. Not dressed like a man and not wearing trousers. Edith, honey, I can't arrest this young woman. Now let's everyone go back outside and wait for the race gentlemen to send the drivers off.”

He lifted his still-protesting wife down from the table, and Matthew automatically offered Eliza a hand, then panicked, fearing she might rebuff him. To his relief, she simply took his hand and stepped down via a chair. To his delight, she kept her fingers clasped around his far longer than propriety called for. It wasn't enough to make up for his lonely night, but it was something.

Though she smiled at the crowd around her, many of whom leaned in to offer words of encouragement, Matthew could see the strain she was hiding. When most of the spectators had dispersed, he bent close enough to whisper, “You were magnificent up there. And very brave.”

“What I am is very tired of this,” she replied. “I wish I were home. I don't quite wish I'd never come in the first place, but I'm beginning to think you were right. This was no place for me.”

He shook his head. “No. I was wrong, Eliza. You've come alive doing this. You're more than strong enough. Anyone can see that, and I was a fool not to. You're like a force of nature, and I think you're the popular favorite to win this rally now. Otherwise Orm wouldn't be wasting so much effort to target you.”

Sighing, she withdrew her hand and gave him a weak smile. “I'd better go get dressed. Again.”

He plucked at one of the ruffles near her neck, drawing away a soaked piece of dirty straw. Even bedraggled, she was beautiful. Still, she was
very
bedraggled. “Good idea.”

T
HE UPROAR OVER
trousers delayed the day's start by only fifteen minutes, when all was said and done. The sunrise glow had nearly faded from the clouds when the eight drivers set off toward Colorado Springs on their last road leg. Whitcombe, Parnell and Miss Davis took an early lead, taking off hell bent for leather as soon as they cleared the last buildings on the outskirts of town. Eliza led the other five in a loose file, spanning a mile or so along the almost invisible trail through the vast plains of the western Victoria Dominion.

That loose formation probably saved them.

The pirates struck from nowhere, hard and fast. Eliza saw their airships, two giant wind balloons with black sails, against the horizon ahead. She slowed, looking behind her for the others, then ahead in an attempt to spot the leaders. Blossoming fire made it all too easy. Something was exploding, and she only hoped it wasn't one of her competitors' steam cars.

At least it wasn't as loud as the sinkhole had been. Braking more sharply, she rolled down her window as Cantlebury came abreast of her vehicle.

“Any idea?” he called, eyes on the explosions.

“I can only assume it's the pirates. Do you have any weapons, Mr. Cantlebury? I have a small pistol, but I fear that wouldn't do much good in this case. I'm not even sure where to aim.” The pirate ships' balloons were not simple air-filled bags, or even the type with an internal honeycomb structure, but lumpy conglomerations of countless smaller ballonets. Unless one knew which were the critical spots, shooting might not even send the ship off its course.

“Ugly sons of bitches, aren't they? If you can't make it elegant, it isn't an impressive engineering feat in my book. I have a fowling piece, and I recommend aiming for the engines. Avoid the turbines in the rear, however. Wouldn't want a ricochet. Let's move to just behind the top of this next rise. From there perhaps we can see what they've done to the steam cars. Or otherwise. I mean, for all we know it's some newfangled mode of crop dusting, not sabotage at all.”

He waved airily at her and sped off, stopping a half mile or so away on the hill in question and exiting his vehicle, fowling piece in hand. Eliza was right behind him with her pistol, and the others followed within a few minutes.

“Whitcombe's car looks like it took a bad hit. He may be inside, I couldn't see him.” Cantlebury said to the other three as they all crouched behind the ridiculously meager cover of some scrub oak. “Miss Davis's is obliterated, but she's sitting off to one side of the wreckage so perhaps she's not badly hurt. No sign of Parnell unless he's still in his car. Does anyone have any better anti-aircraft weaponry handy? So far we've a fowling gun and a ladies' pistol. Meaning no offense, Miss Hardison, I refer primarily to the floral mother-of-pearl inlay in the grip, which is lovely work by the way.”

“No offense taken, sir. And thank you.”

Miss Speck displayed a revolver of her own, a somewhat more impressive sidearm than Eliza's. Madame Barsteau had no weapons.

“I have something,” Matthew offered. “It hasn't been tested in action, I only came up with it the night of the storm, but it's better than nothing.”

He quickly laid out his plan, considered Eliza's vehement objection once she heard the particulars and pressed on anyway. The pirates circled over the wreckage, and Matthew was concerned they would soon shift their attention to the second cluster of cars. They were screened in their position over the hill, but not well enough to remain hidden for long.

“Right, so . . . Madame Barsteau, you'll drive my car for me. Cantlebury, Eliza and Miss Speck, you three will follow to the halfway mark in Cantlebury's vehicle, then stop there, get out and cover me with your firearms.”

The whole thing moved so quickly Eliza didn't know what to think. She and Lavinia crammed into Cantlebury's narrow steamer, with its single bench seat, and barreled down the hill after Matthew. Stopping halfway per his instructions, they separated and looked for some form of cover. Eliza chose a thinly leafed scrub tree, behind which she cowered, shaking and sick to her stomach. Madame Barsteau drove on, straight into the heart of the trouble. One of the airships clearly spotted the newcomer, coming about to meet the onslaught. The car looked tiny on the ground with the massive ship looming over it.

His solution wasn't a conventional firearm. Instead he had fashioned a crude grappling hook from the tines of a rake and attached it to a launching device that strongly resembled a harpoon gun. A long cord—Matthew said he always carried it, just in case—trailed from the end. When the car was almost beneath the ship, Matthew emerged from the passenger window, sat on the sill and fired his makeshift grapnel over the wooden side of the vessel's oversized wooden “basket.”

He'd told them he would only have one shot, and for a moment it looked as though his efforts would be in vain.
Too high, you aimed too high
, Eliza thought, her heart skipping a beat at the realization that Matthew would be directly in the crosshairs of any gunmen on the ship. The pirates could fire, or drop more explosives, and he would never have time to evade them. But she crossed her fingers as the hook sailed in an arc over the bow and down again to snag on the opposite side. Matthew must have told Madame Barsteau to make haste because the car spun dust up in its wake as she drove straight for the ground below the other ship.

It would have been spectacular if it hadn't happened so slowly. The snared ship's crew had no time to respond to the change in direction before they found themselves tugged along, soaring serenely through the sky and broadside into their companions in crime. If they'd been at full running power with momentum enough to resist the car's pull, the trick never would have worked. But hovering rendered the ships uniquely vulnerable, and Matthew had used that weakness brilliantly.

More grenades flew from the pirates' decks, exploding in puffs of dirt and grass in Matthew and Madame Barsteau's wake. It was too late; the heroes had already loosed their line and were heading back up the hill when the ships' sails and balloons billowed into one another, bringing their basket hulls together in a collision that looked gentle from the ground but must have been anything but for those on board.

And then the flame, and the explosion, a flash of fiery helium that almost scorched the onlookers, even at a quarter mile away. Eliza ducked behind her tree, acting on instinct though some part of her knew it was wholly inadequate protection. Another instinct compelled her to confirm, through the brush, that the car was still moving, that Matthew was still on his way back to her.

They were all recovering from that shock when Parnell came dashing across the plain toward them, with Whitcombe in hot pursuit.

“Bastard!”
the big man shouted as the leggier Parnell gained distance from him. “Don't let him get away!”

Fool that he was, Parnell seemed to judge Cantlebury the weakest link in the chain of people blocking his path and aimed straight for him. It was a simple enough matter for Cantlebury to stick his fowling piece out at the critical moment and trip Parnell. The lanky cowboy flew face-first into an especially prickly scrub oak, his hat soaring in the opposite direction.

Cantlebury nodded in the tree's direction as Whitcombe wheezed up to the hilltop. “Got him.”

“Thank you.” Whitcombe pounced on Parnell while he was still trying to disentangle himself from the branches and began digging in the other man's pockets. “Where is it, you sly son of a bitch?”

“I don't . . . know what you're . . . talking about . . .” Parnell gasped. He was bleeding in several places, from the tree and apparently from the earlier blast, and from the way he was clutching his side Eliza thought he might have a broken rib or some other injury.

“The telegraphic device. Where the bloody hell did you hide it? I know you didn't drop it, I was watching for that. You must have . . .
a-hah
!”

He yanked a small metal box from Parnell's trouser pocket, ignoring the man's yelp of pain.

Eliza had seen an almost identical device before. On many occasions, actually, as it rested in a carefully lit alcove in the gallery of specimen machines at Hardison Hall. A miniature radiotelegraphic transmitter. Dexter and Charlotte's had a dent in it the shape of a bullet, and though they'd never given the full story, Eliza gathered the metal had stopped the bullet from injuring Charlotte. The inner working was mangled, but Parnell's tiny machine was clearly the same sort of thing.

“Who were you contacting?” she demanded, striding forward to join Whitcombe by the stunted, shrub-sized oak from which Parnell still struggled to free himself.

“I'll never tell!” he screamed, as though he were being tortured.

“No need for melodrama, Mr. Parnell,” she scolded.

“He was tapping out a message to the pirates on one of those ships. And from what I could see, they laughed at him and threw him to the wolves. Which is what you deserve, you smarmy, conniving bastard!” Whitcombe finished his speech with a well-aimed prod to Parnell's side and seemed satisfied with the whimper he got in return. “Jesus. Did we just kill them all, Pence?”

Matthew and Madame Barsteau had returned in uneasy triumph. Matthew looked pale, and Eliza wanted nothing more than to rush to him with open arms and thank him for his heroism. She couldn't, not with everyone there, but she vowed to find the opportunity before the day was through. Her heart was still pounding, but her mind soared clear and calm above everything else. He had saved them, with a bent rake and some thin rope. All because he'd seen a girl in a gun turret and had a brilliant idea, then implemented it without a thought for his own safety. And even if he hadn't done those things, she would
still
be madly in love with him. Those things had just brought it to her attention.

Matthew clapped Whitcombe on the shoulder. “I appreciate your saying ‘we,' but at the moment I feel entirely to blame. And I think . . . I beg everyone's pardon.”

Then Eliza's hero and true love walked his pale, trembling self over to the next pathetic little bush where he bent over and was overtly, unheroically sick. When he was done he fell back, sitting abruptly with his head down, hands wrapped around his knees. Eliza's heart broke. She scanned the group, completely at a loss as to how to proceed.

Miss Speck reached out to Eliza, touching her arm. “Go to him. We all know, Miss Hardison. Nobody cares right now. Just go.”

She went, and he leaned into her when she knelt next to him and put one arm around his shoulders.

“Some of them jumped off,” he whispered through silent tears. “I saw them fall. They didn't want to burn. My God, I've never even seen a dead body before except at a funeral, Eliza. Much less killed . . . how many men? How many?”

“Shhh.” She couldn't say how many because she didn't know, and she didn't want to. She couldn't tell him it would be all right or that he was justified, because she didn't know that either.

“Eliza, when you said you shouldn't have come, that the rally wasn't the place for you . . . I understand now. I understand how you felt.”

“Matthew—”

“I thought I might go home covered in glory and start my business as a champion for the Dominions, but how can I? How can any of us think we've
won
after this?”

“Matthew,
listen to me
.” She pressed his chin with her fingers, turning his head so he had to look her way. “You are a hero. You are the finest man I know. Not because of what you did to those men in the airships, but because you
care
about what you did. They didn't care. They were throwing grenades even at the end. You're ill to think of it, because you're so very
good
you can't stomach a world where you have to do such a thing to save your friends. But you
did
save us, my love. You charged in and did what you had to do, and saved us all.”

He gazed at her for a long moment, his face drawn as her words sank in. Then he nodded once, slowly, as if it pained him. “I'm no hero. But I can live with the part where I saved you. And the others.”

“I'm absurdly in awe of you right now,” she confessed. “Your facility for using your engineering knowledge in practical applications with whatever materials you find at hand is . . . quite thrilling.”

“Temptress.” He wiped his mouth with the back of one shaky hand. “I'd kiss the dickens out of you right now, but you wouldn't thank me for it.”

“My Matthew, always so considerate.”

“I wish I were your Matthew.”

“Don't. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said—”

“I know.”

Gathering himself, he rose to his feet and rejoined the group. Eliza stayed on her knees, trying to think through all that had just transpired, all she had just said, the thoughts that ran through her mind when she was in danger. No, when
Matthew
was in danger. Lavinia Speck had said that the rest of them knew, and didn't care, about Eliza's closer-than-appropriate relationship with Matthew. Eliza had cared. She had been holding back, until she heard that kind voice granting her permission to do what she had so badly wanted to do.