Gossamer Wing 1

by Delphine Dryden

  “I don’t think you’re aware of all the circumstances, my lady.”

  “I don’t think you’re aware of the danger your career is in with this agency if my father learns that his son-in-law negotiated himself out of a hostage situation only to be killed by friendly fire.”

  Charlotte knew Murcheson had remained at his factory, in an attempt to preserve his cover should it be intact after the events of the past few days. She found herself longing for the man’s presence, even if he had been a bit paternalistic earlier, because he would at least have listened to her. She had no assurance these men would. They had all put their guns away, but it seemed obvious they were only moments away from deploying them again to go after their quarry.

  “Please,” she begged. “Don’t storm the ship. Give Dexter just a little more time. Just . . . just ten minutes. If he doesn’t come out with Coeur de Fer by then, you can go in and do your worst.”

  “We have our orders, ma’am.” He stepped toward Charlotte, reaching for her arm. She backed away nimbly, drawing her pistol from its holster on her thigh.

  “I don’t give a damn what your orders are, I know what I heard and I won’t let any of you risk my husband’s life.” The men stood stunned, hands halted on the way back to their own weapons. She’d drawn too quickly for them to respond in time, however. Clearly they hadn’t been expecting anything like this from Charlotte. She wondered briefly if it was her size, her gender or the situation that had put them off guard.

  “Lady Hardison,” the agent in charge said slowly, “put your weapon down. You don’t want to do this.” He sounded as though he were trying to placate a child.

  Charlotte backed another few steps away and fixed the group with a glare. “You’re making a grave error to think I won’t shoot. Do you really think I value any of your lives more highly than my husband’s? You there!” she snapped at the agent standing farthest from her, “hands where I can see them. All of you, hands up. If anybody else tries reaching for a pistol, he’ll be shot for his trouble. I won’t kill you but I will incapacitate you if I have to.”

  The agent moved his hand away from the holster and raised his arms. The others followed suit, looking miserable and baffled about what to do next.

  Charlotte kept the gun trained on the lead agent and pulled out her pocket chronometer. “Ten minutes. That’s all I asked for, that’s reasonable, and if he doesn’t come out by then we’ll . . . reevaluate.”

  “Three minutes,” offered the agent.

  She shook her head. “You’re still not taking me seriously, are you? I don’t want to have to shoot you, but I will not let you board that ship, sir. Don’t try my patience. You’re in no position to negotiate.”

  “Murcheson will see you hanged if you’re wrong, Lady Hardison.”

  “My father is more frightening than Murcheson, trust me.”

  The noise of a hatch creaking open alerted Charlotte even before the agents’ amazed glances did, and she had to resist the urge to turn her head to see whether it was Dexter or Martin standing on the deck of the ship.

  “I’m all right. I’m coming down,” Dexter called out. “Please don’t shoot.”

  As the wave of relief struck her, Charlotte’s hand began to tremble. She forced herself to breathe steadily and stay focused on the agents in front of her as Dexter spoke again.

  “Mr. Martin is coming with me,” he told them. “Please, ah, don’t shoot him either. I’ve given him my word he won’t be hurt. Charlotte, what’s going on down there?”

  “Have you been harmed, Lord Hardison?” the lead agent called. His hand twitched down as though he were thinking of reaching for his gun, then snapped back up again when Charlotte made a warning noise.

  “No, not really,” Dexter said. “Have you?”

  With a feeble smile, Charlotte replied, “I haven’t shot anyone yet. These gentlemen are rather set on killing Mr. Martin, though. Shall I keep them from doing that?”

  “I suppose so. We’re coming down, but this gangplank will take me a moment. I’ll have to do it myself, Monsieur Martin is in no shape to help,” Dexter explained as he started turning the giant crank to extend and lower the gangplank to the dock. From the corner of her eye, Charlotte could see the mechanism working.

  Then there was a moment of silence, and she backed up even more to put the gangplank between herself and the agents, so she could see Dexter. He stood at the top with an arm braced around his slender, pale, black-suited companion.

  “All right. Don’t shoot,” Dexter warned them again, though the agents made no move toward their weapons. “He’s dying already, anyway, so there would really be no point.”

  Dying? Charlotte watched them descend, the sight confirming Dexter’s words. Martin was obviously sick unto death, his breath a rasping wheeze, his legs barely able to support his trembling body. As they approached the circle of watery light provided by the dock’s single lamp, Charlotte could see that Coeur de Fer was flushed an unnatural pink, and drenched with sweat.

  “Dear God. You can lower your weapon now, Lady Hardison,” the agent in charge said as Dexter stopped by a piling and lowered Martin to sit on the rough stump. “Your husband is right, there would be no point to shooting this man. He’s done for. Stand down, gentlemen.”

  Charlotte considered him for a moment, then cocked her pistol back and flicked the safety on before tucking it back into its holster. She turned to Dexter, who was still bending over the crumpled husk of a man he’d half-carried off the ship.

  “He has a story to tell,” he explained, straightening to look at the agents and Charlotte.

  Coeur de Fer nodded, then took a breath and began. “Seven years ago, I sold my soul . . .”

  * * *

  THE AGENTS HAD gathered around Coeur de Fer, straining to hear his voice, one of them writing it all down in a notebook he’d procured from somewhere. From time to time in the narrative, one or another of them would exclaim as another years-old mystery was resolved.

  Murder and sabotage, callous cruelty and greed. If half what Martin said were true, Dubois was a monster indeed, even worse than the sort Murcheson had suspected him of being. And Coeur de Fer had been his creature, trapped into service by his own ambition and poor choices.

  “Simone Vernier probably had all the information she needed to have Dubois strung up. If she had only lived long enough to report . . .” The British agent’s voice trailed off as he considered what might have happened had Dubois received the justice he’d deserved back then, when he really had been committing deliberate treason, actively conspiring against the ruling faction of the French government in hopes of derailing the treaty process.

  “Ah, but if she had, she would have probably also gotten those notes to our superiors, and if that had happened the French might never have come to the negotiating table with the British,” Martin countered. “Who ever knows about these things? That was one of Dubois’s mistakes, thinking he could predict the outcome of such complicated plans.”

  An ambulance siren sounded in the distance, approaching rapidly. Martin reached out, clutching Dexter’s forearm. “My mother is Marie-Terese Imbert. She lives in Bayeux. See that she gets my remains, at least the metal. I am worth far more dead than alive, and I should like to be some good to her after all these years.”

  “I will,” Dexter assured him.

  A fit of coughing and retching overwhelmed Martin, and he could barely speak by the time he regained what little breath was left to him.

  “I was Jean-Michel Imbert once,” he whispered. He swayed on his post, and Dexter leaned in to support him again. “My greatest regret was letting my mother think I had died. But I couldn’t let her know what I had become.”

  Dexter thought of his own mother, several years widowed but nevertheless peaceful and happy, and extravagantly proud of her son. She had cried at his wedding. That had been his great regret, lying to his mother about Charlotte and the marriage, but he’d known she would forgive him after the fact and b
e proud of him for serving the Crown so selflessly. He was struck by how fortunate he was, and how ridiculous it was that he took his luck for granted most of the time.

  “Perhaps you’ll last long enough to talk to her yourself,” he comforted Martin, but the other man shook his head.

  “Thank you, my friend,” he whispered. Dexter could barely hear him. “You’ve rid me of the poison after all.”

  As the attendants swarmed down from the ambulance and muscled the nearly dead Jacques Martin into a gurney, Dexter stepped away and walked toward Charlotte. She stood several yards from the frantically active scene, staring at Martin. Dexter couldn’t read her expression, but she was so beautiful it made his breath catch in his throat.

  Her hair fell over her shoulder in a loose plait, stray curls catching the rays of the cheap floodlight in a halo around her head. The white jacket she wore was fastened up tight against the chill. She wore holsters on both thighs, a pistol in one and a wicked knife in the other, and on the whole she gave the appearance of a dangerous but angelic child. A fierce guardian spirit. A creature of myth.

  Too good to be true, he told himself. Too good to be true for me.

  “You forgive him, and I can’t,” she greeted him. She didn’t sound angry, just puzzled and exhausted.

  Dexter stopped short a few feet away from her. “What makes you say I forgive him?” He wasn’t so sure, himself, that he’d forgiven anything. The man had nearly killed them both, by his own hand or by proxy. He’d chased them, and then drugged and kidnapped Dexter. Charlotte had lost her husband to the man. It would take a great deal to forgive all that.

  “Maybe not forgive. But you pity him. I was so frightened when I realized he’d taken you, but all the time you felt for him. I still see a monster.”

  “Dubois was the monster. Martin did terrible things,” Dexter said, “but in his own mind he didn’t have much choice.”

  “We always have a choice.”

  After an awkward silence, Dexter cleared his throat. “This wasn’t quite the greeting I expected. And not the one I’d planned. Thank you for coming to my rescue, Charlotte.”

  Charlotte shook her head. “No. I just kept the agents from rushing in. You rescued yourself. You were so reasonable in there. So . . . kind.”

  “Why don’t I feel complimented?”

  Dexter was irked, in fact. He was tired, very tired. He wanted a substantial kiss and a great deal of coddling, and instead Charlotte seemed too stunned at his forgiving nature, too awed by his supposed kindness to provide those things.

  “I’m sorry. You should feel complimented. I’m . . .” She blinked back tears, shaking her head sharply then flinging herself at him in a ferocious embrace. “I’m just so glad you’re not dead!”

  “That’s better,” Dexter chuckled into her neck.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  He wrapped his arms around her, dipping down and picking her up by the waist for a few seconds. Amazed, as always, by how light she was. He set her down gently and framed her face with his hands, wiping a tear away with one thumb.

  “I just realized, you came all the way here in the submersible, didn’t you? I can’t believe you did that for me. That was very brave of you.”

  Charlotte nodded. “Murcheson may be less than pleased, though.”

  “You did it without his permission?” Dexter asked, taken aback.

  She blushed as she confessed, “I did it against his express orders to stay at the station.”

  Dexter frowned. “My knight in shining armor. But you took too great a risk holding the agents off like that. They had their orders to follow. You can’t go drawing weapons on your own side, Charlotte. Murcheson will be even less pleased about that than about the sub.”

  “Sir? Ma’am? We’re heading back to the station. We’ll need you to come with us.”

  Dexter ignored the agent who’d spoken, and indulged in another few seconds of staring at Charlotte. She licked her lips and offered a tentative smile, and Dexter couldn’t help himself. He bent and kissed her as chastely as he could manage, then pulled away long before he wanted to and nodded at the waiting agent.

  “I’ll meet you there, I suppose,” Charlotte said. “I’ll have to take the sub back to base.”

  “It’s already on its way there, Lady Hardison,” the agent told her, as he set off for the waiting steam car, clearly expecting them to follow. “I sent Jensen with it. Boss’s orders.”

  “Oh. I see,” she responded, and shot a guilty glance at Dexter. “I’m already in disgrace, I suppose.”

  He took her hand in his. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”

  * * *

  THE AMBULANCE SPED toward the hospital, steam engine roaring and the stoker working constantly to keep the fuel and water levels steady. Jean-Michel Imbert had just enough consciousness left to wonder why they bothered to hurry. The poison had nearly finished its work inside him, he could tell. He would be surprised to survive the trip.

  At least I die as myself, he thought. At least Dubois died first.

  He hoped that Hardison would hold to his word and see that his mother got his body. Between the arm and the ear, he was probably carrying close to a pound of gold around inside himself; as the least reactive metal, it was the standard for lining implants, and his were top-of-the-line models.

  I always loved you, Simone. He wondered if he would see her in heaven, some special section set aside for people like them who had done terrible things in the service of a greater good.

  “Simone,” he whispered.

  “Shh,” the attendant sitting next to him said. “Save your strength, monsieur.”

  “For what?” Jean-Michel wondered. He thought he said it aloud, but the medic didn’t respond so perhaps not.

  For what, indeed? When it came to the moment of truth, it seemed, dying was really quite easy. Painful, yes, but it required no action on his part. He could struggle or he could give in, but he would die either way.

  Jean-Michel decided he had struggled quite enough; it was finally time to give in.

  Twenty-two

  HONFLEUR AND LE HAVRE, FRANCE

  TO CHARLOTTE’S DISMAY, once she and Dexter finished their debriefing and returned to Honfleur things seemed to go back to exactly the way they had been.

  Dexter slept for half the day then returned to the station, eager to finish the work on his seismograph. Charlotte went to the station as well, where she received an official suspension from duty for her unauthorized use of the submersible and for interfering with the other agents. The paperwork made no mention of her pulling a weapon on them, a small concession to the fact that her argument for not storming the freighter had proven accurate. Murcheson strongly implied she was lucky to get off so lightly, however, and that her interests might best be served by resigning her position as a field agent upon her return to the Dominions.

  “I’m better at desk work anyway,” she admitted.

  “It was bad luck about the airship,” Murcheson offered, though it was cold comfort. Charlotte missed her dirigible keenly. Martin—Imbert—had admitted to tipping off the press about it. “Perhaps the Agency will be willing to try again in another few years.”

  “Will you tell me something?” she asked Murcheson before she left Atlantis Station for the last time. “It’s about Reginald.”

  “Anything I can, my dear.”

  “When Dexter asked about that night Reginald took the documents, you said something about Reginald going up the side of the Opéra. I was just curious what you meant? Was there scaffolding there at the time? If there was, why didn’t Martin—Imbert, I mean—just follow him up? It must have taken much longer to pick the locks and use the stairs inside.”

  Murcheson shook his head. “No, Reginald scaled the side, like a monkey. You know how acrobatic he was. The boy left everybody in the dust during training whenever the job was to climb a wall or scramble up a rope.”

  “I’m sorry?” Charlotte felt l
ike she’d been caught in the wrong conversation. “I was talking about Reginald. My late husband.”

  “Yes. Moncrieffe. Skinny chap, tall, very fit, spectacles, good at maths? Moncrieffe.”

  “But . . . but Reginald hated sport. He wasn’t remotely athletic. We used to laugh about that, about how in school he never played for the teams, he always—”

  “Oh, dear. No, of course he wouldn’t have, would he? They wouldn’t let him. He was usually a good many years younger than the other boys in his form, as quickly as he went through.”

  Charlotte nodded. “That makes sense.” Something still struck her as strange about it, though.

  Murcheson reached over and took one of her hands, patting it kindly. “I forget how young you both were. My dear, I have a question for you. Do you like sport?”

  “No,” Charlotte said immediately. “I enjoy riding but on the whole I’ve never been a fan. Particularly of anything involving teams.”

  “Yes, I see. And Reginald knew of this, I suppose?”

  She considered it for a moment. Had he known? He must have. She had never held back her opinion on the matter. Far from it, in fact—there might have been a certain amount of open scorn. “I think he must have.”

  “I think it’s possible he wasn’t so much averse to athletics, then, as keen to share your aversion. He did like to impress you, you know. But when you weren’t looking, he was a demon on the cricket pitch for the interagency team. And the lad could scale a sheer wall like a lemur on cocaine.”

  She smiled at the image, even as her heart ached to learn this new thing about Reginald, too late for it to do any good.

  “He should have just told me,” she sighed. “It’s not as though I would have minded. Why would he be so dishonest?”

  Murcheson patted her hand again, seeming to cast about for the right words. “He was young and in love,” he finally said, “and desperate to marry you. He was hardly the first man to lose his head under those circumstances and do stupid things in an effort to present himself in the best possible light. You shouldn’t think ill of him for it.”