Magnificent Devices 6: A Lady of Spirit

by Shelley Adina

  Riding in the chaloupe was rather like being stoppered in a bottle—the kind that sailors on desert islands might throw into the sea with a message inside. There was nowhere to sit but on the floor, so someone threw down a coat and she folded herself upon it, careful to keep her back straight and her skirts covering all possible glimpses of ankle and foot.

  The tenders increased the steam pressure, and the chaloupe, tugging its train of cars, trundled into the sea. The water closed over its glass dome and Maggie felt the moment when the wheels slid into their housings and the thing began to move through the water under its own power.

  “How very extraordinary,” she murmured. It was a good thing she did not share Lizzie’s fear of water, or the prospect of half the ocean bursting in through the seams above her head would be terrifying.

  Jean-Luc, who seemed to have made himself her personal escort, gave her a short course on the control and piloting of it. “But zis is nothing compared to Neptune’s Maid,” he said. “I shall introduce you to her captain personally. He is called Paul Martin and he is one of the premier bathynauts in your father’s employ.”

  “Have you served under Captain Martin long?”

  His smile held pride and satisfaction. “I am his youngest brother, so I am in the position particular to say so.”

  The five hundred yards or so that they had to travel could have been fifty, and far sooner than Maggie would have liked, a shadow loomed over their heads, blocking out the silver light of the moon.

  “Monsieur Martin, how are we to be taken aboard?” she asked as innocently as if she had not seen the chaloupes embark an hour ago.

  Only an hour.

  Could it be only an hour since the worst thing she had to worry about was her grandparents’ poor opinion of her? She would give nearly anything to be back in that house with Claude and Lizzie safe and sound, and would happily take her grandparents’ slings and arrows as long as she knew she and her cousins would all be together.

  But that wasn’t likely to happen, was it? Even if none of this had happened, the fact still remained that Grandfather was in trouble. Maggie wondered when she would ever feel truly safe again.

  And then the great hinged jaw on the underside of the Maid opened and sucked them up inside … and there was no more time for looking back.

  22

  Captain Paul Martin, Maggie saw at once, was not going to be the pushover his younger brother was. When Jean-Luc introduced her, with all the flourishes the daughter of their boss was entitled to, Captain Martin merely regarded her, his eyes shadowed. “And why was I not informed that such an important passenger would be joining us?”

  “The pigeon seems to have been misdirected, Paul,” his brother said.

  “Impossible. M.A.M.W. pigeons fly only to M.A.M.W. ships—or, in this case, to a Seacombe ship under special instruction.”

  “Must I be included in a discussion of pigeons?” Maggie sighed, practically wilting with boredom. She did, however, finally see why the pigeon had gone to Athena instead of Grandfather’s steamship Demelza. Somehow, it had detected the old M.A.M.W. registry code and gone there first, even though Lewis had been careful to reconfigure it so that Athena flew practically undetected by anyone except their own pigeons.

  “I completely agree,” the Captain said. “But you must forgive me for some confusion on this point. Even if I had not been informed regarding your coming aboard this evening, I should certainly have known you were residing at maison Seacombe, so that I might have carried messages or extra luggage for you.”

  “How very kind you are.” Maggie gave him a limpid glance from grateful eyes.

  Which did absolutely nothing to soften the expression in his.

  “Must I present my bona fides, then?” She reached back into her memory—but thanks to Emilie’s wedding last week, not as far back as she might have done. “Let’s see. I was educated in London at St. Cecilia’s Academy for Young Ladies, where I was particular friends with Lady Julia Wellesley—now Mount-Batting—and Lady Catherine Montrose. Excuse me, I mean Mrs. David Haliburton. I returned to the Americas with Papa afterward, and traveled with him to the diamond mines of the Canadas. From there, we—”

  “Paul, mon Dieu, must we subject the young lady to this so wearisome treatment?” Jean-Luc had flushed with embarrassment. “I think her papa would not appreciate it when he hears of it. May I not show her to a cabin where she may refresh herself?”

  The captain stiffened at being thus familiarly addressed in front of the rest of his crew. “I hardly consider questioning an unexpected passenger wearisome. Might I remind you that the well-being of crew and vessel is my responsibility, not yours?”

  “I promise I shall do nothing to affect that well-being,” Maggie said in French with a smile. “Except in a positive manner, of course.”

  Captain Martin’s gaze became speculative. “Your French is very good. How long did you study in Paris?”

  Oh dear. She would have to fudge, because she had no idea of Gloria’s movements in the last five years. The Lady had only heard from her twice, and those were brief scribbles that might have come from anywhere. The girl could have been in the Antipodes studying the dodo bird, for all any of them knew.

  She drew herself up, as though the question had been offensive. “We have quite good tutors in the Fifteen Colonies, surprising though that might seem,” she said with icy civility. “But with Papa’s recent business in France, I have had the opportunity to perfect any … flaws.”

  “I did not mean to cause offense, mademoiselle,” he said smoothly. “Jean-Luc, please show our guest to my cabin. Our journey will only be of two hours’ duration, and we are far enough by now into the Channel that we cannot return her to her hosts the Seacombes in any case.”

  Maggie allowed herself to gaze out of the glass that allowed the captain a one-hundred-eighty-degree view of their progress under the sea. The running lights pierced the Stygian darkness with a greenish light, touching on submerged rocks and waving forests of weed, on great silvery schools of fish, on the occasional wrecked ship. Perhaps they were sailing over the graveyard of the Spanish Armada itself.

  Perhaps they would be sailing over her own, if she did not figure out how to get herself and Claude out of this fix on the double-quick.

  She followed Jean-Luc down a passage with rounded walls, much like the barrel of a gun, that branched off in shorter corridors or down ladders to the various areas of the ship—galley, mess, bunks, armory. Jean-Luc pointed them out proudly. Maggie counted her steps and estimated that the Maid was roughly a hundred feet long and perhaps a third of that deep.

  Was it big enough to hide in, though? And where, among all these chambers and ladders, was Claude?

  Jean-Luc showed her into a fairly large room on the uppermost deck, in a location near what might be the pectoral fin on a shark, after politely waiting with his back turned until she had climbed the ladder so that he would not see up her skirts.

  And the first thing to meet her gaze was Claude, sound asleep on the bunk in its cupboard, snoring like a locomotive.

  “Goodness!” she exclaimed, before lowering her voice. “Are you quite sure it is proper to show me into a room where a gentleman is sleeping?”

  “Do you not know this gentleman?”

  “Of course. He has been my dinner and dancing partner these last several nights. It is Claude Seacombe, slightly the worse for wear after having a razzle, as he calls it, in the taverns of Penzance. But whether I know a gentleman or not has no bearing on the propriety of it, monsieur.”

  Jean-Luc laughed. “Ah, you colonials. Always so aware of propriety—except when you can get away with having none. I do not think Monsieur Seacombe is in any condition to put your reputation at risk, mademoiselle. Please feel free to wash up—Neptune’s Maid carries fresh water, as well as that which is produced when the seawater is changed to steam in the boilers.”

  “She is a lovely ship. I have just decided she is my favorite of all Papa’s f
leet.” She ran a hand over the arch of the door. “Just look at this carving—like the entrance to a treasure cave inhabited by mermaids.”

  “Ah, but she is small compared to the others. Neptune’s Bride, for instance, displaces twice as much water, and Neptune’s Messenger is capable of speeds up to twenty knots. And Neptune’s Fury, of course—” He stopped with an admiring shake of the head. “Well, the world will soon see what Neptune’s Fury is capable of.”

  “What do you mean?” Maggie asked, pretending to bend over Claude’s recumbent form to see if he had awakened at the sound of their voices.

  “But you test me, mademoiselle, when you are as aware as I that we are not to speak of it.” He wagged a finger at her. “I will return in half an hour, to escort you to shore at the Baie des Sirenes.”

  Maggie straightened so suddenly she banged her head on the upper edge of the sleeping cupboard. Fortunately, the thickness of the French braid encircling her head took most of the impact. “Baie des Sirenes?”

  “Yes, that is the deepest anchorage on this part of the coast closest to the Seacombe landing. The town is insignificant, of course, but the bay, while not ideal for surface ships, is made to order for les navires. It will become very important to the Bourbon regime, non, when your papa’s plans are put into motion?”

  “But of course,” she said. “Merci, Jean-Luc. I find myself a little fatigued at the very prospect. I will look for you in half an hour.”

  He bowed himself out with every appearance of regret, and Maggie heard the key turn in the lock.

  Really? He bothered with such a thing when tons of water kept her more a prisoner than any lock ever could? Ah well, no matter. She had no plans to escape now. In thirty minutes of searching, she would know everything the captain’s cabin had to tell her, and have time for a face-wash besides.

  She knew the two most important things already. Claude was safe and well—though he would likely have a dreadful headache when he woke up—and their destination was the Baie des Sirenes.

  The town where Mother had gone to wait for her confinement. The town where Maggie had been born.

  Where there might be a graveyard that might hold a grave with two coffins in it.

  *

  To: Meriwether-Astor Priority One

  From: Captain Paul Martin, Neptune’s Maid

  Situation Report: Seacombe still unwilling to cooperate. have secured insurance in form of grandson. Miss Meriwether-Astor is also aboard at her request. This is no place for a lady. Expecting Fury by sunset. Request instructions.

  *

  To: Lady Claire Trevelyan, Athena

  From: Elizabeth Seacombe, Victory

  Maggie and Claude have been taken away by a navire—an underwater dirigible called Neptune’s Maid—because our grandparents would not agree to some horrible smuggling scheme. Mr. Meriwether-Astor is behind it. That’s where the colonial goods are coming from—the Americas via France. Please come, Lady. I don’t know where they have been taken, but I need help.

  23

  Gwynn Place had first been constructed during the reign of George I, but it had not reached its current size and beauty until the Regency of that witty inventor who subsequently became George IV. The previous evening at dinner, Lady Flora, the second wife of Sir Richard Jermyn, and mother of Lady Claire and the current Viscount St. Ives, had told them the tale.

  Since anything connected with Claire was of interest to him, Andrew Malvern had paid more attention than such stories usually warranted.

  “My late husband was not terribly clear on the details—but it seems that in her youth, his grandmother was quite the bluestocking, always closeted away tinkering with bits of machinery. Claire, I am quite sure these tendencies must be inherited, for I cannot account for them otherwise. There are certainly no such tendencies on my side of the family.”

  “I am sure that is true, Mama.”

  “What was Claire’s great-grandmother’s name, Lady Flora?” Andrew asked.

  “She was called Loveday Trevithick.”

  “Ah, that explains it,” Andrew said with the satisfaction of feeling a puzzle piece slip into place. “That family is known for their genius with mechanics. Richard Trevithick invented the steam engine and put the nation on the path to greatness that it enjoys today.”

  “Yes, well, at the time, greatness was a long way off, to hear Vivyan tell it,” Lady Flora said. He suspected she might have sniffed, but deferred because of his obvious admiration for the Trevithick name. “While she was a gentleman’s daughter, and Gavin Trevelyan a gentleman, she had nothing to bring to the match save her talents—and sadly, they did not extend to kitchen and home.”

  “Unless one needed something fixed, presumably,” Claire said into her soup.

  Sir Richard and Andrew laughed, and then sobered when Lady Flora did not. “In any case, love seems to have won out, and they had three children—a boy who inherited the estate, and two girls.”

  “My great-aunts Jenna and Elowen,” Claire explained to Andrew. “They married brothers—you will have heard of Admiral Wingate? It was he who first circumnavigated the globe by airship, in eighteen fifty-two.”

  “I have indeed,” Andrew said. “I declare, you have quite the illustrious family.”

  “We do our part,” Lady Flora said, and turned the conversation to other things.

  Andrew found it difficult to listen politely to a discussion of local families, and afterward, when Claire and her mother and Sir Richard’s unmarried sister passed through into the drawing room, he found himself equally distracted, glancing at the clock and wondering how a man such as his host, who was possessed of both intellect and means, could have so little conversation.

  “Sir Richard,” he said, interrupting a soliloquy on the merits of two different kinds of grain, “might I ask your advice on a subject requiring some delicacy?”

  “Hm? What? Delicacy? What do you mean?”

  “I mean Lady Flora’s daughter Claire.”

  “Claire? What about her? Hardly see the girl. About time she left gadding about the world and came to see her family. It’s not because she needs money, is it?”

  Andrew recovered quickly from his surprise. “No, sir, it is not. I believe her to be quite sound in her management of money, and she would not importune her mother in any case, even if she were not.”

  Sir Richard harrumphed. “Damned good thing. Gwynn Place is only just getting back on its feet again after that Arabian Bubble business. But what did you want to ask me about?”

  Andrew gathered his courage. It was not in his nature to confide in someone he had only just met, but needs must where the devil drives, as his mother used to say. “Some years ago, when she was only eighteen, I asked Claire to marry me.” Sir Richard choked on his port, and Andrew handed him a linen napkin. “Are you quite all right, sir?”

  “Yes, yes, quite all right. And what was her answer?”

  “She—to be honest—she gave none. But her conduct toward me since has given me reason to believe that any indecision was the result of her age and not her inclination. And I have been advised by persons in a position to know that I ought to try again.”

  “Eighteen. And she’s what now? Twenty-five?”

  “She will be twenty-four in October, sir.”

  “Girl’s practically on the shelf. No wonder her mother has given up on her. Well, if you’re looking for permission to ask for her hand, I’m not the man to give it. Technically you ought to apply to her brother, but since he’s only six, Flora is the one. Joy and jubilation in that department, I’ll wager.” His sandy eyebrows rose as he took Andrew in from head to foot. “Set up well enough to support her, are you?”

  “Claire is possessed of an independent competency, but even if she were not, the answer would be yes. I have been quite successful in my field, and with my doctorate in hand, I expect that to continue. I have a standing invitation to take up a professorship at the University of Edinburgh, should I choose, as well as invitations
of a similar kind from the University of Bavaria in Prussia.”

  “Damned cold place to live, Scotland. Never travel north of the Cotswolds if I can help it.”

  And that had been that. Andrew had risked his sense of propriety and had nothing to show for it, and earlier, when he had applied to Lady Flora in the privacy of the morning room as she wrote out the day’s menu for the cook, he had come out not much further ahead.

  “Marry Claire?” She had laid down her pen and gazed at him in astonishment. “But I thought you were her—her employer?”

  “I was. But on a more personal level, there has been no one for me but your daughter since the moment she turned up at my laboratory five years ago, looking for a job.”

  Lady Flora passed a hand over her forehead. “Pray do not remind me. But are you certain? I am her mother and I love her dearly, but let us be honest—she does not exactly have the temperament for wifehood.”

  That depends on the sort of wife one is looking for. “I believe her temperament will suit me exactly. Do I have your permission to ask for her hand, then, Lady Flora?”

  She had waved her fingers, as if this idea must be dissuaded from landing in anyone’s head. “She has been independent of me for so many years that I am not deluded that my opinion counts for anything … but yes, Mr. Malvern, if you are willing to take her on, you have my blessing. And … I wish you good luck.”

  Andrew had not been through these proceedings before, but even he suspected that most mothers would not have added that last.

  So now all that was left to do was to find the lady herself, and pose the question. But this proved to be more difficult than he might have expected, and the house larger and more confusing than it looked from its serene and Georgian southern prospect, gazing out over Carrick Roads to the sea.

  After a series of gabbled directions from a housemaid, he somehow found himself out in the herb garden, and upon blundering through a door, ended up in a neat enclosed yard full of raised beds of vegetables, with a tidy row of small sheds along one wall, where the sun was guaranteed to warm them. Sheds was an unkind term; as he approached, he saw they were more like small houses, snugly built and weather-tight.