“I do not blame you. This expedition is foolish. We ought to have stayed at Hollys Park.”
“If we’re going to fetch Gloria tonight, we have to have the Helios Membrane. It was either me or Tigg, since neither you nor Jake know how to pilot a landau.”
“I must remedy that forthwith. It is ridiculous that I have neglected this part of my education. When all this is over, I hope you will teach me.”
“You’ll have to buy one, first. Unless Andrew manages to convince Claire this afternoon that they belong together, she’ll want to leave as soon as we do what we came for.”
“It was cruel of you all to desert them.”
“Perhaps. But sometimes you have to leave two wild horses in the same paddock until they settle their differences.”
Alice could only hope that their accidental stratagem would work. Meanwhile, it felt good to do something other than pacing around the lovely rooms of Hollys Park or pulling down yet another section of Swan’s rigging for repair. She ran a risk appearing in public, it was true, but all things considered, it was worth it.
The Bath train station was a chaotic roar of trains, people dashing hither and thither, and piles of baggage waiting for porters. It took nearly an hour to determine from the baggage master that a large parcel bearing Andrew’s name had been assigned to a steambus scheduled to leave that afternoon, and twenty minutes after that to convince the driver of said bus that they were not in fact stealing the parcel, but were the bearers of a letter from Mr. Malvern with permission to collect it personally.
The thing weighed as much as two of Alice together, and it was all they could do to stagger to the landau and deposit it in the rear compartment.
“How does he expect a touring balloon to fly under that weight?” she said, gasping, as she leaned on the wing to catch her breath.
“Perhaps there is more in that parcel than he told us.” Ian flexed his arms. “I am pleased to see that my shore leave has not—” He stopped.
“Not what?” Alice leaned forward to catch his eye, and his arm caught her on the collarbone, pressing her back against the warm golden wing of the landau. “Hey!”
“Alice, stay behind me.”
“Why? What do you see?”
“Dash it all, he is coming this way. Quickly, we must pretend—forgive me—”
“Wha—”
Ian gathered her into his arms, and, trapped between his tall body and the landau, she could not move. And in a moment, she didn’t want to, for he dipped his head and kissed her.
Alice forgot how to breathe. Forgot that his heart belonged to Gloria Meriwether-Astor. Forgot that this was merely playacting—for if it was, he belonged on the stage at Covent Garden. He kissed her as though he really meant it. Thoroughly. Wonderfully. Endlessly.
She had not risen to her current state of prosperity by missing an opportunity when it presented itself. She fisted her hands in his lapels and pulled him closer. He made a tiny sound of surprise in his throat, and then went in for a second. And when, after an aeon in which the world tilted off its axis and began to spin in a whole new direction, the kiss broke and he lifted his head, it was to gaze into her eyes as though he had never seen her before.
He blinked.
She released his coat, self-consciously patting the abused lapels back into place.
And then his gaze lifted, over her shoulder, watching something. Not her. She could not speak, could only look into his face, seeing the way the winter sun gilded his lashes and made his blue eyes even more intense. But he was breathing heavily, as was she.
“What is it?” she finally managed, when she was sure her mouth would work properly. “Who did you see?”
After a moment, he nodded, but for some odd reason, did not step away as she expected. “I am not quite sure I would have believed it, if not for the evidence of my own eyes.” His gaze dropped to her lips … whereupon he blinked again and hastily met her eyes. “It was Gerald Meriwether-Astor. He just got into the steambus from which we removed Andrew’s parcel.”
He must be hallucinating. Could kisses do that to people? “Gerald Meriwether-Astor is forbidden to set foot on English soil. And even if he had the nerve to do it, he would never ride a steambus. The man is as rich as Croesus. He could hire a six-piston Bentley.”
“I agree on all points. And yet, there he is, you see? Dressed as a country walker—at this time of year.” He slipped an arm around her and moved around until she could gaze past his shoulder yet remain mostly concealed. Sure enough, there he was, a fireplug of a man wearing a tweedy jacket, heavy walking boots and the kind of tweed cap into which one sticks flies on hooks. With one hand, he used the pole in front of the steam pipe of the bus to help pull himself up as he climbed the steps. The fingers of the other were looped through the straps of a rucksack.
Alice sucked in a lungful of air. “Ian, we have to leave. If that’s really him, we can’t let him see us on the road. And we have to tell the others. Heaven only knows what this means—but it can’t be good.”
She leaped to re-ignite the boiler, and before the bus could get up a proper head of steam, they were out of the station yard and away down the road as fast as the acceleration bar would allow.
Two miles passed in a panicked blur before he spoke. “Alice—about what happened, there in the station yard—please allow me to apologize.”
She slowed their headlong rush slightly, but not much. “Why? I enjoyed it—and so did you. Though I don’t imagine Gloria will if she ever hears of it. We shall have to be clear it was necessary so that we wouldn’t be spotted.”
The landau plunged into a pothole and out again, but instead of grabbing the nearest stationary object, he gripped her arm. “What the devil does Gloria have to do with anything?”
She couldn’t shake him off or she’d lose her grip on the acceleration bar. Besides which—to her shame—she rather liked the feel of his hand.
“Well, nothing right now, maybe. But once she is safe, I expect she’ll have quite a lot to do with you.”
“You are speaking in riddles, woman.”
His testiness allowed her to be a little more frank than she might have been ordinarily. “It’s no riddle that she’s the woman you’ve had your eye on since Venice. Everyone knows it—except maybe Gloria. She’s a good choice for you.”
“For me?”
Goodness. Did she have to spell it out for him? Fine, then.
“She’s smart, and pretty, and knows how to dress for all those fancy occasions you and Claire are in the habit of going to. She’s got buckets of money, and you have a title. If I didn’t like her so much, I’d hate her, because she’s going to have—” She stopped.
“Have what?”
“You.”
“Is she?”
“Isn’t she?”
“No, she bloody well isn’t! I’ll thank you to allow me to do my own choosing.”
“Well, fine. Just hurry up about it, will you?”
“Hurry up? I’ve only just realized it myself.”
“Realized what?”
“I’m not going to tell you that when we’re tearing down a road in a landau!”
Oh, the big bumble of a man! She hauled on the braking lever and the landau careened over to one side, where thankfully there was not a bank. Or a tree. “There. Are you happy? You have two minutes to tell me what on earth you’re talking about before that steambus catches up to us, so spit it out.”
He glared at her. “I have never in all my life met such a headstrong, maddening woman.” He checked himself. “Except for Claire.” The glare returned. “I’ll have you know that I am not going to court Gloria Meriwether-Astor. I’ve never had any intention of doing so. The only reason I’m up to my neck in this business is because she is your friend. I am doing this for you.”
She gaped at him, while the landau’s boiler bubbled, and steam pressure built.
“You are not.”
“Do not contradict me! I am helping to rescue your fri
end. I am offering you my airfield for as long as you need it. I would offer you my hand and my home, too, if I didn’t think you’d shoot me on the spot for my impertinence!”
He couldn’t be serious.
But yet, he must be. He was certainly furious enough to be.
Wordlessly, holding his gaze, she reached into the pocket of her pants and took out the lightning pistol she had made. She laid it on the seat beside him, and he took it up, resting it on his knee.
“We have to go,” she said at last.
“This conversation is not finished.”
“I know. Hang on.”
She retained just enough presence of mind to remember what Claire had said about letting off the pressure, and the landau leaped ahead like a deer.
When she had it under control, she realized that he had chosen to hang on to not the handles or even the seat, but her hand, though it was wrapped around the acceleration bar in a white-knuckled grip.
Her heart filled and lifted with such amazed, crazy joy that if the landau had suddenly tilted up into the air and taken flight, she would not have been a bit surprised.
20
Gloria lay upon her bed, fully clothed and wide awake, her head turned upon the pillow so that she could see the moon rise through the tall windows. She couldn’t remember ever caring about where the moon was prior to this, but tonight, she had opened the drapes the maid had so carefully closed, every nerve strung taut as she waited for the slow silvering of the sky that would tell her it was time.
Saturday night, when the moon was full, just as the crinkled invitation under her pillow had said.
In the meanwhile, her brain ran riot, running over every possible scenario for rescue.
For it was a distressing fact that while she knew the when of a rescue, she did not know the how. Even though she knew it was ridiculous, she had waited through dinner and the interminable evening that followed with bated breath, in case they decided the bold approach was best, and came dressed in evening clothes, ready to introduce themselves and sit down for a game of cowboy poker.
But they had not. So that left a few other options.
Would they come by road, in the landau? Certainly not—they would be spotted before they drove halfway through the park.
From the windows at the back of the house, she had seen walkers and hunters in the hills, the former somehow managing not to be shot by the latter in their pursuit of game. Perhaps her friends might disguise themselves and come that way, pretending injury so that they would be admitted to the kitchen, from whence they would promptly lose themselves in the house until they located her.
To her knowledge, that had not occurred either.
And so she lay there, wondering what other plan Claire and Ian might come up with. But every option seemed impossible. After the mysterious gunman’s single shot, more gentlemen from the Walsingham Office had arrived to scour the estate. They had found nothing save a flattened space in the grass under the trees opposite the house, where presumably he had lain to take his shot. Subsequently they had not seen so much as a hair of him, which made her even more certain it must have been a poacher with terrible aim, who had frightened himself so badly he was probably in Ireland by now. If it had not been for the patch on the drawing-room wall where the portrait had been removed and the plaster repaired, she might have thought she had dreamed the entire incident.
If only she could shimmy down the wistaria vines and run! But Barnaby had taken her at her word—every window was guarded, every door had a man posted next to it. Nameless, pleasant men whom one would forget instantly if one were not forever tripping over them in passages.
Her very soul yearned toward the hills in the south—to fly over tree and wall and garden and land in some nameless village where she could buy a ticket on the milk train and disappear. Or perhaps she would simply fly to London, while she was at it, and—
Gloria caught her breath, sat up abruptly, and flung her feet over the side of the bed.
Fly. Of course.
Claire flew an airship, didn’t she? That’s how they’d come to Venice. How they’d come to England. And very likely how they’d come to Hollys Park, for who would drive on roads as poor as the ones in England?
Every man Jack in this house was watching doors and windows, bushes and trees, waiting for her father to arrive. No one was looking up. No one was guarding the roof.
No one had been more surprised than Gloria to see the note that had come by pigeon this morning, in response to the letter she had written a few days ago.
Gloria,
I will not dwell upon the utter hell you have put me through during the course of this escapade. I will not elaborate upon the letters I have sent to your friends, and the letters they have sent to their friends, all in an effort to locate you. We have all been convinced you were dead, and instead you are running off with a scoundrel with not even a thought for those who feel responsibility for you.
I utterly forbid you to marry the bounder. If you do, not a single penny of your inheritance will you ever see. I will donate the lot anonymously to a foundlings’ home in Philadelphia, so you will not even have the satisfaction of your name upon a plaque above the door.
You may expect me by train on Saturday, when I will deal with this man and take you back to the Fifteen Colonies. My ship is waiting in France and we will quit this side of the Atlantic immediately. You may inform your erstwhile suitor that the only reason I do not have his head, his property, and his career is because I must enter and depart the country quietly. If he has laid so much as a finger upon your person, he will deal with the consequences.
Your father,
Gerald Meriwether-Astor
He never signed his letters Dad like a normal person. He always signed them with his full name, as though she had never met him before in her life.
He had not turned up on schedule, but that did not fuss her much. With any luck, he had been arrested in Bath, which would save Barnaby and the pleasant men some exertion. She did not care. As far as she was concerned, she had become an orphan the moment she learned about the French invasion of England.
So she had put him through utter hell, had she? Say rather that, like the Famiglia Rosa, he did not allow anyone to take what was his. The only emotion he likely felt was outrage, not love or fear for her safety. Even his reply had been about his rage and his money, not about her happiness or well-being.
Well, she had disappeared quite successfully against her will. She would disappear even more successfully under her own steam, and despite all his millions and his seemingly endless supply of men and ships and guns, he would not be able to find her then, either. Perhaps Claire would help her find work to keep a roof over her head, and then she could live her own life instead of pretending to be content as a mere appendage—or inconvenience—to his.
The house slept, as much as the pleasant men working their rotating watches could be said to do. Having no coat, since she had not been out of doors since she arrived in her suit and shirtwaist, she pulled a woolen blanket from the back of the chair next to her bed and wound it about herself as a shawl. Her rings and her little bit of money were already tucked into her corset.
She crept into the corridor, which was carpeted, and up the back stairs, which were not. The servants had gone to bed, so there was no one to see her slip up a set of stairs so narrow they practically formed a ladder. A short corridor served several storerooms, which she only knew because she had prowled about up here the other day for want of anything better to do. She did not dare light a lamp, for the guards posted outside in the garden would surely see it glimmering in the topmost row of windows under the roof, and send someone to investigate.
The door to the roof was in a tower so short it was more like a human-sized barrel, so she unlatched it by feel and stepped out, closing it carefully behind her.
Air! Sky! Freedom!
Gloria dragged lungfuls of frigid air deep into her lungs, then scanned the sky for anything rese
mbling an airship. But nothing crossed the sky but banks of woolly clouds, moving in from the north. It felt like snow.
Surely they would come soon. Surely she would not have to retreat to her room, half frozen, and spend the rest of the night contemplating yet another day of imprisonment.
Claire, are you out there? Are you really coming?
Please don’t leave me here.
*
“We must leave soon, or she will think we are not coming.” Cautiously, Claire leaned out of the basket, craning upward as she attempted to see Andrew in the touring balloon’s rigging. Except that it was not really a touring balloon anymore. It was something quite new.
“There—that’s got it,” came Andrew’s voice from above. “Ignite her, Claire, and we shall see if this will work.” Nimbly as any midshipman, he climbed down the rigging and landed in the basket beside her. “I had the Membrane laid out in the sun all day and its energy clusters are fully charged—how fortunate the weather has cooperated until now.”
“Let us hope all these cobbled-together parts will cooperate with one another, as well,” she observed, her hands moving quickly from switch to lever. “It has been so long since I ignited a vessel without Seven that I have quite forgotten how—to say nothing of the fact that we have no coal or fire.”
“It seems strange, I agree. And—now.”
He pushed forward the final lever and to her immense satisfaction, the power stored in the Membrane made its way to the automaton clusters, each of which featured a small, modified version of one of Dr. Craig’s power cells, and thence to the makeshift gondola. The propellers began to turn.
She clutched Andrew’s arm. “It works!”
He caught her against him in a hug of triumph, and kissed her soundly.
“Now, now,” said a voice from below. “None of that out in full view.”
Claire detached herself from Andrew and leaned over the rim of the basket. “That will be enough of your impertinence, Jake Fletcher McTavish,” she said, smiling. “You may cast off.”
A Gentleman of Means Page 19
