“I did do the same in your place,” he said at last. “I have swept my share of floors and fetched many a cup of tea.”
And here was the crux of the problem. He had accepted being treated like a janitor instead of an engineer, and had risen in the ranks for what appeared to be twenty years, his star finding its zenith in this third-floor office, this leather chair.
Her star was out there in the flight paths of Count Zeppelin’s mighty ships, plying the winds and wheeling over time and tide alike.
And therein lay her sin.
“You will return to your bench,” Her Brucker said in a tone all the more dangerous for its quietness. “You will fulfill your assigned duties with patience and goodwill, and cease this meddling in levels of operation far above your pretty head. Am I clear, Fraulein Junior Engineer?”
She could defy him. She could go over his head, too, and bring the shortcomings of the Flight Development Department to the attention of the vice president or even the count himself. But what would that net her except a widening circle of resentment, dislike, and quite possibly sabotage?
“Quite clear,” she replied, her jaw tight with the need to restrain herself from slapping him. “Shall I take my reports with me?”
“That will not be necessary.” With deliberate precision, he picked up each report by the corner and dropped it in the rubbish bin behind his desk. When he was finished, he folded his hands on its glossy surface and regarded her with something akin to triumph. “You are dismissed.”
She turned on her heel and left, practically hissing with rage. If ever the thought had crossed her mind that she might show someone besides the count her sketches for the power-generating fuselage skin she was calling the Helios Membrane, she abandoned it now. They should never get her invention.
Then she snorted, a sound of derision in the quiet laboratory. She could leave her engineering notebook on her bench for a month and nothing would happen to it. For it was clear that no one within two hundred feet would recognize what they were looking at.
*
That evening, while the girls were preparing their assignments for the next day, and Alice and Jake had gone back to Swan to see whether Ian could be persuaded to take some nourishment, Claire sipped her thimble of port and debated whether or not to approach Count von Zeppelin.
“You are a man,” she said at last to Andrew. “If you were in my position, what would you do?”
Andrew laid down his pencil and let the drawing he was working on roll itself up. “That is precisely the difficulty, my dear. I could not be in your position. There is a reason I maintain my own laboratory in Orpington Close, shabby and smelling of fish and mud though it might be. I am the sort of man who must be his own master—even more so now, since James’s departure from this world.”
She gazed at him. “I have always wondered what brought two men of such differing temperaments together. I could not imagine how you would have found companionship in one another’s company.”
“I would not call it companionship,” he reflected. “Certainly not friendship. I should call it rather a shared goal, with skills complementary to one another that made it possible to attain that goal.”
With a sigh, Claire put the tiny glass on the table at her elbow. “It distresses me that I find none of those things at the Zeppelin Airship Works. And I had such high hopes of it—of finding like minds with mutually agreeable goals. What shall I do if I am like you, Andrew, and unable to call men of lesser capability master?”
“There you go, being arrogant and self-aggrandizing again.”
“I know,” she said sadly. “It is becoming quite a failing in my character. I am glad to find a similar flaw in yours, otherwise I should be in danger of thinking you quite perfect.”
At this point the drawings were abandoned altogether and Claire rejoiced in the affections of a man whose attentions gave her as much pleasure as his conversation. She was reminded again that if she did not pay more attention to her wedding plans, she would be married to Andrew in her laboratory coat, and how disappointed Mama would be then!
When she extricated herself from his embrace, she tucked up the strands of her hair that had caught on one of his buttons and become disarrayed. “Andrew, tell me true, as the little ones back at Carrick House might say. Do you think I ought to go to the count?”
“Let me ask you a question in return.” He straightened his waistcoat. “If you do not, do you have the endurance to last in the Flight Development Department for as long as you must?”
If he had not told her his own feelings, she might have felt obliged to say yes. But here was another path, forming a third possibility next to the one labeled Return to London a Failure. But balanced against it were her obligations to the count: four years of university in exchange for her acceptance of the post. Room and board in the palace while the girls finished school.
“I cannot simply walk away from my obligations,” she said at last.
“Then there is your answer,” Andrew told her gently. “But I should not abandon a conversation with him altogether. He will still be interested in your feelings and, were I in his place, I should be deeply interested in a department that puts status before innovation.”
Andrew was right. She should speak to the count not for her sake, but for his. On Sunday after church, when she saw through her French doors that the count was inspecting the last of his roses in his sunny private garden, she slipped out and along the flagged path to join him.
“Claire!” His voice was warm as he indicated a yellow rose. “Look at this. She has been hiding in the foliage all summer, and now that the other roses have faded, at last she gets her chance to bloom.”
Might that not be a fitting epigraph for her own situation? Perhaps she could use it as a way to ease into the conversation she wished to have with him.
“What a pity that with the end of the season, her time in the sun will be so short,” he concluded.
Oh, dear. Perhaps not.
“I have not seen you all week.” He straightened and offered her his arm. “How is Captain Hollys? My personal physician tells me his health is not all it could be, and recommends that he be removed to England with all possible speed.”
Claire nodded, pacing beside him on the walk toward the gazing ball. “He informed us of that last night, as well. Alice is the only one free to take him home, but she is reluctant to leave the safety of friends, to say nothing of your sentries … despite the excitement lately.”
“I have confirmed that the medallions belong to the Famiglia Rosa,” he told her, his voice dropping although they were alone. “Those emblems stand for Venice, Naples, and Rome—the three cities ruled by the brothers di Alba. Frankly, I should feel more comfortable if she did go. It was clear that their target was Swan—and that the price on her head has not been removed.”
Claire could not bear it. To lose both her friends at once?
But of course she must not be selfish. Ian would do better in his own house, with his own physician, and Alice would be far safer in England than she appeared to be here.
“You are quite right,” she said. “Now that the repairs to the fuselage are finished, I will speak with her and find out when she can pull up ropes. We cannot risk any further danger to either of them.”
“And what of you? You will be sad to lose your friends, but as you say, it will be for the best. And you have much to occupy your mind here.”
Claire took a breath and leaped into the metaphorical breach. “Yes, I have been very busy with documenting improvements to the processes and equipment in the Flight Development Department.”
“Have you?” His brows rose—and since he had been looking into the gazing ball, his reflection seemed all circles and curves. He straightened to face her. “Are improvements necessary?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, rather more bluntly than perhaps she should have. “I am not meant for fetching tea and sweeping floors, I am afraid. So I fill the hours with fixing things and t
hen documenting what I have done. Sadly, though, I have been asked to cease and desist. Apparently the managing director does not appreciate more paper arriving on his desk.”
She smiled, hoping he would smile, too, but he merely gazed at her, puzzled.
“And what of the department head?” he asked. “Should not the notice of these improvements be directed to him?”
“They were, but after I found my reports in the rubbish bin, I’m afraid that in a fit of pique I sent them to the managing director.”
“Did you?”
He might have sounded a little more encouraging. “He called me into his office earlier in the week and, well, I shan’t be writing any more reports.” She brightened. “But he did not tell me I must stop improving things, so that is some comfort.”
“What improvements are we speaking of?”
“The cable that runs between the engine room and the navigation gondola in the A5 model, for instance,” she said eagerly. “I spliced in a communications wire so that commands might be given simultaneously, as we do in the newer models. Such a simple adjustment, yet so much more usefulness and efficiency! And then—”
“Claire, let me understand you correctly. You have made engineering changes to parts that are already in production?”
“Yes, because—”
“But this must not be.”
She stopped walking, and at the drag on his arm, he stopped as well. “Why not? I have documented everything, despite my so-called superiors’ choosing to ignore it.”
“Changes such as these must come from the Office of Quality Control on the third floor and be disseminated correctly.”
“I sent them to the third floor for that very purpose. And they were tossed in the rubbish bin.”
“That is because you are a junior engineer.”
“Then they are fools. Had you treated my modifications in such a manner, we should both be dead under a snowdrift in the Canadas.”
“That was different.”
“How so?”
“Lives were at stake.”
“If the A5 plummets to earth because the engineers and the bridge cannot communicate efficiently, lives would be similarly at stake.” With an effort, she remembered his many kindnesses, and attempted to rein in her distress at his lack of understanding.
“My ships do not plummet to the earth, and that is because men of talent and skill take care that they should not.”
“But sir, what of my talent and skill?”
“It is a raw, untried talent that needs cultivation and discipline,” he told her kindly. “It needs to be tended by men of greater knowledge, who have come up through the ranks and learned just as you will learn.”
“So Herr Brucker said.”
“I am glad to hear it.” He gazed at her. “I know how you feel, Claire.”
Did he? Could he possibly—a man with a Blood heritage, who managed his own empire without let or hindrance, with the possible exception of the odd command from the Kaiser himself?
“I once burned with ambition, too,” he went on, “and fate conspired to place me where that flame would do the most good. There is a reason the hierarchy operates so well at the Zeppelin Airship Works, my dear. You will see. You will rise quickly through the ranks and prove to one and all that you deserve every promotion—and that your improvements ought to be taken seriously.”
At last the truth was borne in upon her. “So you can do nothing to change my situation? I cannot work on the automaton intelligence system, as I had expected when I accepted the post?”
“If you were to do so, you would be like that rose there.” He pointed to a spindly-looking specimen. “It has not had the benefit of sunlight on all its petals, and is therefore lopsided. We do not want our best engineers to be one-sided, only working on projects that appeal to them. Our best engineers can turn a hand to any project in the hangar. Can manage any ship, any engine. That is what I see for you, Claire, if you can only be patient.”
What could she do but nod, smile at him with affection, and squeeze his arm in thanks for his encouragement?
It was consequently a very good thing that he did not see her once she regained her own bedroom, where she flung a cushion at the wall with such energy that it split all along the seam. Feathers drifted gently to the floor.
They had not the means to fly any longer, either.
7
Restless and dissatisfied, and unwilling to take the customary Sunday afternoon nap, Claire walked out to Swan. Andrew had gone to call upon a colleague, and the girls were walking along the river with Tigg and Jake. The walk across the park did her good, and she was able to board with something approaching calm, if not good humor.
“Claire,” Alice said with some surprise, coming along the gangway from the saloon, having clearly felt the slight dip and recovery in the ship’s trim that told her someone had boarded. “I didn’t expect to see you—I thought you might go with Lizzie and Maggie.”
“And provide an unwelcome fifth wheel to that merry gig? I think not.”
“I hardly think you’d be unwelcome.”
“I’d rather spend a little time with you. How is your patient?”
The corners of Alice’s blue eyes pinched a little, and Claire felt a dart of anxiety. “Come and see for yourself.”
Ian, while dressed in trousers, clean shirt, and waistcoat, was sitting on the edge of his bunk, gazing at something invisible on the floor beyond the hands that hung between his knees. He looked up almost with relief when Claire peered in.
“Claire. You look like an English garden.”
Surprised, she smoothed her green walking skirt with its wide band of floral embroidery at the hem. Perhaps her color was a little high, both from emotion and from exercise. “Thank you, Ian. I have come to ask Alice to take a turn around the park with me, but perhaps you are pining for gardens yourself and would like to join us?”
“Around the park?” The expression of gallant politeness he wore cracked so suddenly that Claire saw it for the sham it was. “You ladies must go. A gentleman can only be an intruder in such a party.”
“Not likely,” Alice said. “You need to get outside, Ian. You’re beginning to frighten me.”
“I do not wish to go,” he said stiffly. “I have—things to take care of here.”
Alice’s chin firmed in a way that almost made Claire feel sorry for the poor man. “Nothing will happen to you in broad daylight. If two ladies can walk around the park, then you can, too.”
“I do not fear something happening to me.” He almost sounded like the old Ian.
But he was not.
Claire knelt next to him—for he had not risen on her entrance—and laid a hand on his knee. “Please, Ian. I have a matter to discuss with Alice, and I would value your opinion also. It is a lovely day—and who knows how much longer this weather will hold?”
In his eyes, she observed that his fear had a death grip on all the rules of gentlemanly behavior. Valiantly he struggled, silent and still, until generations of good breeding won out. “Very well. Give me a moment to locate my jacket and I will join you in the saloon.”
Alice gripped her hand silently as they retreated down the corridor. “Thank you,” she breathed when they reached the main saloon, which would have comfortable chairs and possibly even a dining table some day. “He hasn’t been off the ship since that night. I’m at my wits’ end.”
“My dear friend, I am so sorry.” Claire stood with her in a warm beam of sunlight falling through the viewing port … which had the unfortunate effect of showing her just how little sleep Alice must have had. “I’ve left him entirely to your care and have been so wrapped up in my own concerns that I’ve hardly spared a thought for anyone else’s. I am ashamed.”
“You have nothing to be ashamed of. He’s a grown man. I’m just so worried.” Her voice dropped. “It isn’t natural. He’s not the same person he used to be, and I don’t know how to bring him back.”
“Perhaps time is
the only thing that will heal him?”
Alice shook her head, and a curl fell out of today’s attempt at a chignon. “Jake is worried, too. He says there was a man in that prison who went stark raving mad, and it began in just this way.”
“But Ian is far from the prison, and he was incarcerated less than a week.”
“For some men, I think, even a day of being treated as less than an animal, of being starved and beaten and expected to work for hours and hours in a situation where one false move could mean death, would be too much.” Alice’s lips trembled before she swallowed and regained control. “He is a baronet, Claire. A man of renown, given respect across the skies. Such treatment as he received would have been inconceivable until he was faced with the reality of it. I am very much afraid that being witness to the cruelty this world is capable of has damaged his soul.”
Claire gazed at her, at the grief in her eyes, at the ravages of a sleepless night—perhaps more than one—on her face. At the softness of her mouth as she spoke of him.
And suddenly every suspicion she had ever had on the subject of Alice and Captain Hollys formed a conviction.
“Alice … can it be … do you have feelings for Ian? Finer feelings that those of a colleague or even of a friend, companion, and nurse?”
Alice’s face turned bleak. “Am I so transparent?”
“No. I only this moment realized it, and we have been together for weeks.”
“You mustn’t tell anyone,” she said urgently. “Especially him. You mustn’t tell him.”
“Whyever not?” Alice loved Captain Hollys. Why, this was wonderful. If ever two brave, capable, stubborn, impossible people were meant for one another, it was they.
“Because—because—oh, you know why, Claire!”
“I do not. Enlighten me at once.” Claire barely restrained herself from waltzing her friend about the saloon.
“Because—”
“I do apologize, ladies, for making you wait so long,” the subject of their conversation said, stepping over the raised sill of the doorway. “I could not find a hat to save my life, so Alice, I have appropriated one of yours. I hope that is all right?”
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