“Of course,” Alice said so breathlessly that Claire was sure she had no idea what she was agreeing to. “Shall we be off?”
Alice would have gone on ahead had not Claire had the foresight to tuck an arm into both of theirs, which placed her companionably between them and gave neither the opportunity to escape. They set a leisurely pace down the linden walk, which led away from the fountain and the airfield, and would branch into two directions about half a mile farther on. She fully intended to make them walk the entire perimeter—or as long as it took to put some color in their cheeks and find at least a little relief from the fears that beset them both.
After some one hundred yards of remarking upon foliage and several species of birds, Alice became restless and pulled away. But at least she did not leave them.
“What was it you wanted to talk about, Claire?”
Propriety dictated that she should release Ian’s arm, as well, which she did, but that did not prevent her from bending to look at a leaf, and then resuming her pace with Alice now in the middle. What a good thing these gravel walks were wide enough to accommodate a carriage … or a threesome.
“I hope you will give me your counsel,” she said, “and then I hope you will allow me to give you mine.”
“That seems a fair bargain,” Ian said. “How may we help?”
So Claire told them—of her reports, the rubbish bins, being called upstairs into the managing director’s office, and finally, of her conversation with the count earlier in the rose garden. “I am finding it very difficult to resign myself to a career so different from what I expected,” she concluded on a sigh. “I hoped you might tell me either that my expectations were wildly exaggerated and I should fit in as others have done before me, or that I ought to tender my resignation at once so that someone more fit for the post might have it.”
“Well, there isn’t anyone more fit for the post that I can see,” Alice remarked. “There are probably many more less fit.”
“I speak more of a fitness of the mind and temperament, I suppose,” Claire said. “Certainly there are many junior engineers graduating from the university who are perfectly capable of sweeping floors and making tea, and have most of the skills I possess.”
“I doubt that last point.” Alice’s grin seemed to encompass their like-mindedness, and reminded Claire that the two of them had perfected the automaton intelligence system together without assistance of any kind from managing directors or memoranda.
“So now you are on the horns of a dilemma,” Ian mused. “You have arranged your life, and that of the girls and Mr. Malvern, to support a career with Zeppelin, and now you wonder if you have made a monumental mistake.”
The man did not mince words, even in his emotional extremity. “In a nutshell, yes,” Claire said with a fair approximation of grace. “Have I? What do you think? I value your opinions.”
“What does Andrew say?” Alice asked. “For of course you must have discussed this with him.”
“I have, yes. And he told me that to be in my situation would be insupportable. He has not the temperament to be happy in a hierarchy, preferring to be the master of his own ship.”
“I cannot blame him there,” Ian put in.
“What do you mean?” Alice demanded. “You work in a hierarchy yourself. More than one—first, the Royal Aeronautic Corps, and second, your own family and way of life.”
For a moment, he seemed taken aback at being thus contradicted, but then Claire realized he was acknowledging the truth. “You are quite right,” he said. “It is strange I never thought of it in those terms before. Perhaps I am comfortable in the Corps because I am used to categorizing people according to rank—and therefore it is no hardship to categorize myself.”
“But I come from the same background, and I do not,” Claire said. “So that is no indication of suitability.”
“But how can there be only two choices?” Alice said. “One’s life isn’t like that path up there, with either a right turn or a left. Which will we take, by the way?”
“Let us go to the right, through the copse,” Claire suggested.
She was half afraid that Ian would turn back, but he was still grappling with the question Alice had posed, and passed under the branches without difficulty. “Of course there are not merely two choices for you,” he agreed. “To return to London or to stay and be unhappy—such cannot be your only options.”
“Let me tell you what I thought, but did not want to consider further,” Claire told them. “I could do as Andrew does, and strike out on my own. Metaphorically speaking. Of course I would not leave my friends and my home.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Alice said. “It seems sensible. Look at me. I would die in that place, even though it fascinates me in an odd way—rather like watching an enormous difference engine and wondering how on earth all those moving parts produce an answer in the end. But the problem with being on your own is that you tend not to know where your next meal is coming from. Just ask Jake.”
“I could always fall back on cowboy poker if I were an utter failure.”
“Let us hope it would not come to that,” Ian said. “So are you resolved, then?”
“How can I be?” Claire asked in despair as they paced under the maples, red and orange leaves burning as they fell through the dappled, low afternoon light. “How can I renege on the bargain I made with Count von Zeppelin? How can I face his disappointment in me?”
“How can you pay back four years’ worth of tuition?” Alice asked a nearby fir.
“The family would be happy to make you a loan to do so,” Ian said at once. “It would be an honor to assist you.”
“Thank you, Ian, but I have resources that would be up to the task if the count were willing. But somehow I feel that our friendship and camaraderie would end were I to treat his gift in such a manner. He believed—still believes—that he is helping me to make my dream come true.”
“But what if it turns out to be a nightmare?”
Alice had just voiced Claire’s secret fear. “A very good question. I wonder if I have the fortitude to find out the answer.”
Ian bent to pick up a fallen stick, and swished at a pile of leaves. “We have not been very successful in counseling you, have we? Perhaps you will be better at counseling us.”
Claire took the cue, though she and Alice ran the risk of walking back alone. “I understand that the count’s physician recommended you return to England, Ian.”
The stick whistled through the air and thwacked the leaves. “He did.”
“And shall you take this recommendation in the spirit in which it was given?”
“I shall not.”
“Might one ask why, when there is nothing holding you here, and there might be many benefits to being at home, with familiar things around you and all the care that others can give?”
“I do not need to be cared for.” Thwack. “I am not ill.”
“You are not entirely well, either,” Alice pointed out. “You and I have had this conversation.”
“And I say now what I said then—I am on temporary leave, and when that is ended, I shall return to my command. When Lady Lucy goes to Scotland, I expect.”
“When is that?” This was the first Claire had heard of it, though she had wondered more than once when the Corps would demand that its captain return to its service.
“Next week.”
Alice made a derisive sound rather like the air rushing out of a balloon. “That’s far too soon. You’re not fit for duty—and I’m speaking as a fellow captain, not as your blasted nursemaid, so don’t give me that face.”
“I have never asked you to be my nursemaid.”
“Your friend, then, who comes in the night when you scream, and who picks you up when your knees buckle.”
Ian, whom Claire had never heard use vulgar language, used it now, with relish and some variety. “Must you say such things in front of Claire?”
“I have stood with you and been sh
ot at for my pains,” Claire pointed out calmly, choosing to ignore the outburst and stick to the point. “I do not think either of us is easily shocked or dismayed by simple human responses to dreadful events. You must not be ashamed. We are your friends, and you deserve our loyalty and respect.”
“You would not say so if you knew the weakness—this wretched weakness that overwhelms me.” He threw the stick away with such force it broke against the corrugated bark of an oak.
“My point exactly,” Claire said, taking his arm now. “You must allow your mind and heart to heal. Some wounds of that kind need as much time as a broken bone. Even more, perhaps, since one cannot observe their physical improvement.”
“But the Dunsmuirs need me. And Tigg. What of him? He has his career to think of.”
“There is nothing preventing his return to his duties,” Claire said. “But I strongly advise you to listen to the doctor and return to Hollys Park until you have recovered.”
“In solitude. What an appealing prospect.”
“Certainly not,” Alice said immediately. “Jake and I might have repaired the bullet holes in Swan’s fuselage, but her general refit has yet to be finished. It’s not going to happen overnight—or even by Christmas, I suspect. If you have a field handy, we can fly you home and then you can keep helping us to put the old girl back together, just as we’ve been doing here.”
Oh, bless Alice! What an excellent plan! Claire flung her arms about her and hugged her hard. “What a friend you are, to be sure.” For of course nothing would then stand in the way of Ian’s seeing her excellent qualities. Her maternal side would come out, her softness and vulnerability, and he couldn’t help but fall in love with her.
Ian gazed at Alice as she walked beside him, Claire on her other side. “You would do that, Alice? It seems quite above and beyond. Why, it would mean leaving Claire and Andrew and your other friends here—though I believe I can safely promise that no one will be shooting at you at Hollys Park.”
“With those villains dead, and no one to tell the Doge I’ve pulled up ropes, maybe I won’t need to look over my shoulder any longer,” Alice said. “Anyway, pigeons fly just as fast between here and England as they do anywhere else. We’ll all be in London for the wedding, if nothing else, and that’s only five weeks away.”
Five weeks! Good heavens. And what had Claire managed to accomplish thus far? Deciding that she must really order her wedding dress was a far cry from actually having it in hand, which any other bride-to-be would have done by now. Being married in a laboratory coat would become a certainty if she did not set plans in motion immediately.
“That is true,” Ian admitted.
Claire could smell success in the offing. “And you are all invited down to Gwynn Place for Twelfth Night, so we might be together again there. The girls are anxious to see their families, and Claude is coming from Paris.”
“That’s quite a long honeymoon, Claire,” Alice pointed out.
“What do you mean?”
“Won’t you have to be back here to work?”
Claire stared at her, trying to puzzle this out. “I’m sorry, Alice, I feel rather stupid. I don’t understand.”
“Will you be able to get so many weeks’ holiday from Zeppelin, is what I mean—for a honeymoon that includes a trip to Cornwall?”
It had never once occurred to Claire that this might be necessary. “I must ask permission?”
“I expect so. Isn’t that how these things work?”
“I have no idea. Is it like requesting land leave from the Corps?”
“That is simply a matter of clearing it with one’s superiors and sending in a form,” Ian said “I expect it’s much the same here. One just cannot cast off and leave others to do one’s duty.”
“Oh, dear.” What a depressing prospect this was. How could one’s freedom be constrained to such a degree? How was one to bear it? Why, she might as well call herself a servant, paid for her skill but at the beck and call of anyone in the hierarchy above her, no matter whether they had earned her respect or not.
How, she wondered as the path took a turning and they could once again see the palace dreaming in the distance, seeming to float upon a mist of smoke from burning leaves, had the Lady of Devices been reduced to this?
And by her own hand, too.
8
They had nearly crossed the park and were close enough to the lake that the swans had begun to swim toward them, when Alice pointed to a figure running across the airfield. “There’s Benny Stringfellow.”
“Oh dear,” Claire said. “I do hope nothing has happened at home. Is that a message in his hand?”
Young Mr. Stringfellow ran up, a bit of lined paper crumpled in his fist, and panted, “Lady, a pigeon. It come to the palace addressed to ’is lordship, but it’s got Alice’s name on it so one of the footmen brought it out to Swan.”
“Thank you, Mr. Stringfellow. It was kind of you to bring it to us so promptly.”
Alice unfolded the note and scanned its few lines. The breath rushed from her lungs and she clutched Claire’s shoulder. Wordlessly, she handed it to Ian and both he and Claire bent their heads over it.
“Great Caesar’s ghost!” Ian said after a moment. “I cannot believe it!”
“I can believe that our dear friend has been kidnapped much sooner than I could believe she had deliberately left us to die.” Claire clasped her hands and lifted her face to the sun. “Oh, I am so happy to know she did not!”
“Claire, you are missing the point.” Ian folded the message and handed it back. “Did you not see the word abducted?”
“I most certainly did.” She turned a sunny smile upon him. “But I see much more than that. Our friend is restored to us, whole and well. We are free to care for her without let or hindrance—without doubt and without anger.” She took the paper once more and read again Gloria’s desperate appeal for help. “Truly, I am happier than I have been since we stepped off the stone pier in Venice and boarded Neptune’s Fancy.”
Ian and Alice exchanged a glance. “And the doctor believes my mind to be touched,” he muttered.
Genuine happiness welled up in Alice’s heart, not because of the first real news of Gloria—she had been abducted, yes, but at least she was alive and had not deliberately left Claire and Andrew, Ian and Jake under the sea to die—but because Ian had made a joke.
A joke. Perhaps there was hope for his recovery after all.
One step at a time. That was how you crossed a desert. And lately Alice had felt as though she were crossing a vast, inhospitable expanse since they had made their escape from Venice. These days working with Ian on Swan had been the finest kind of torture. She had treasured his confidences, despaired at his depression, and day after day, been the one to wake him from his nightmares and soothe him when he wept.
She had never before considered herself the kind of woman who might soothe a fevered brow. You didn’t find many fevered brows in engine rooms and honkytonks, and the only kind of fever she had run into in Resolution had usually been brought on by the morning after the night before.
And yet, with Ian it had seemed natural. Or maybe caring for him had been the natural part, and dipping the rag in cold water had merely been the outward expression of it.
Whatever the case, it was nice to be needed. To be the one he looked for when he woke, confused and sweating, as though the sight of her face was all he had to anchor himself to reality.
When the doctor had told her that in his opinion, Ian should be returned home to England at once, she had nearly lost control of her emotions and begun to cry. Because if that happened, she was pretty certain she’d never see him again. They might cross flight paths once in a while, since she was still contracted with the Dunsmuirs, but other than that, what reason would a baronet have to keep up a friendship with a pirate’s daughter?
Bless Claire for backing her up when Alice had broached the solution she’d hardly dared hope for. Especially when it sounded as though her
life wasn’t exactly going like a penny clockwork, either.
They had almost reached Swan and Athena, their steps quickening with urgency even though the afternoon slumbered its way toward evening.
“What do you know of Gibraltar, Ian?” Claire asked. “I have never been there, never seen it, other than illustrations in magazines.”
Ian seemed to have been considering his facts already, if his thoughtful expression was any indication. “It is the largest airfield in the Mediterranean,” he said, “and is also a dockyard of enormous proportions. Practically all traffic coming from the Colonies into the Mediterranean, the Levant, and Africa puts in there for supplies and clearances. For that reason, there is a lot of wealth floating about—and consequently, the criminal element thrives as well.”
“Imagine Gloria being taken against her will and traveling under the sea all these weeks,” Alice said. “I can’t think of any fate more awful.”
“I can,” Ian whispered, then turned his head away and cleared his throat.
Alice could have kicked herself.
After a moment, Ian went on, “If by some means she managed to escape long enough to send this message, and was not recaptured and returned to Neptune’s Fancy or another vessel, I have grave doubts about her safety. The docks and airfield are not a place where a gently bred young lady may go about alone. I would even advise Tigg and Jake to go together, were they to visit.”
Alice would think twice about wandering around there alone as well; Gloria was a resourceful young lady, but even the most resourceful could be set upon, injured, or even killed in less time than it took to think about it.
“We must send a message to her father immediately,” Ian said. “If anyone has the resources to find a young woman in a shipping port, it is he.”
“He probably has the authorities there in the palm of his hand anyway,” Alice agreed. “If you grease enough palms, no one is going to notice how many unregistered undersea dirigibles you have swimming about.”
A Gentleman of Means Page 7
