Gilded Lily

by Delphine Dryden

  The docks were quiet, nearly deserted, only an occasional gull cry or slap of water breaking the afternoon calm. Sounds of a barroom, drunken good humor and a shrill fishwife of a barmaid, drifted in from a few streets over, but the building Barnabas stood by seemed empty and quiet.

  The silence of Orm’s place, however, seemed active and ominous. He heard footsteps behind the fence. The creak of shifting weight on the planks of the pier, but not so much as a whistle from whoever walked there. No conversation or sounds of industry. When the walker seemed to have passed, Barnabas risked a peek between the fence boards. His limited view showed him only more sad, weathered gray wood.

  Emboldened, he gripped the top of the fence and hoisted himself up, feet scrambling for purchase, until he could rest his weight on top of the boards and have a good look in either direction.

  To his right was the empty, windowless prospect of the warehouse’s side wall, with the broad span of walkway between it and the fence.

  To the left was the corner of the warehouse and the waterfront beyond, and Barnabas had just decided to venture in that direction when a man rounded the corner, stopping with a look of near-comical shock that Barnabas could only suppose was a mirror of his own expression. Horrified, he tried to slip back off the fence, only to lose his balance and flip forward instead to land at the unexpected watchman’s feet.

  “Here now, you shouldn’t be on this side. There’s a sign that says no admittance! Now I ’av to take you in to Mr. Edwin, and none of us’ll be happy.”

  From his vantage, the poor guard looked as taken aback as he was, and more anxious about the prospect of dealing with Mr. Edwin than concerned with any danger Barnabas might actually pose. But he was armed with a vicious-looking club and seemed ready to call for assistance, so Barnabas steeled himself to either flee back over the fence or fight his way free.

  He stopped by some instinct when the boy—for he was young, this apparent criminal, and obviously green—looked over Barnabas’s head with a squint against the sun’s glare and then relaxed, sudden relief palpably altering his apple-cheeked face.

  “Mr. Finn! This one was slithering over the fence. I ought to stay on my watch, do you want to take him in?”

  “Happy to, Nick. I’m sure nothing would please Edwin more. But look, what’s that over there?”

  The newcomer pointed to the water; young Nick gaped in that direction, then slumped into Barnabas’s lap, felled by Mr. Finn’s expertly wielded blackjack to the head.

  “Sorry about that, Nicky. Well, well. You’ve just made my day considerably more complicated, I’ll have you know. Come on, back over the fence before we’re spotted.”

  His rescuer bent a knee and cupped his hands together, and Barnabas took the chance without thinking. He used the assistance to vault back over the fence, stumbling and pitching over onto his knees on the other side too. The other fellow was over a few seconds later, executing a neat turn at the fence top and landing on his feet, soft and agile as a cat. An eerily familiar cat.

  “You’ll need to get up. We mustn’t linger. What kind of conveyance did you come in? Is there a chance it’s been spotted?”

  Barnabas couldn’t believe his eyes, but he couldn’t ignore his ears. He knew that voice better than his own, even if it seemed at odds with the roughly clad, scruffy, patch-eyed pirate who was speaking. For a moment he was so overcome he couldn’t answer; the conflicting feelings welled up to clog his throat, to cloud his brain with years of unspent emotion. Relief, joy, anger and betrayal, all vying for first place.

  The pirate extended a hand, hauling him to his feet and frowning. “Did I arrive too late? Did Nick get in a blow to the head I don’t know about?”

  It couldn’t be. But it was.

  He flung his arms around the pirate, not caring if all the smugglers in the world were bearing down on the other side of the fence.

  “Phineas!”

  His brother succumbed to the embrace for only a second or two before pushing him away none too gently. “Yes, yes, but we really ought to have this reunion at a more opportune moment, when there isn’t quite so much risk of imminent death. Or pneumonia. Christ, you’re drenched. And now so am I.”

  Barnabas laughed because he would have sobbed otherwise. There was little humor in the short, ugly sound. “You heartless bastard.”

  “Shhh! Your carriage, where is it? Or did you swim down the river? It smells that way, I must tell you, Barnabas.”

  “Neither. I came by commandeered submersible.” He couldn’t understand the vague pride that swelled in him when he made this disclosure, surely more the feeling of a younger brother to an older. The wish to please, to impress. Or perhaps just to remind his sibling that he too had unexpected resourcefulness.

  Phineas didn’t seem impressed, but the facial hair and eye patch made it difficult to tell for certain.

  “Just lead the way. Quietly.”

  • • •

  FREDDDIE HAD PROMISED to wait inside the sub until she heard Barnabas’s prearranged coded knock on the hatch. She had given that up after a few minutes and leaned on the rim of the open hatch instead, with her feet braced on the back of the pilot’s chair and her head and shoulders in the breeze. Not that there was much breeze under the dock, just an occasional stirring of the fetid air that brought a moment’s coolness at the cost of a fresh wash of fish and rot. And worse odors she refused to put names to.

  When the trapdoor dropped down mere yards away from her head, she gasped and nearly lost her footing attempting to duck out of sight. But it was Barnabas, identifiable by his dripping wet trousers. He swung from the rope-and-plank ladder that had come down along with the door, then navigated a tricky scramble onto the nearest crossbeam, making room for the next climber, a development even more unexpected than having Barnabas return from his venture after only five or so minutes.

  “What are you doing? Are you mad? That trapdoor is inside somebody’s business establishment, anyone could have seen you. And who is that?”

  “Shh! The warehouse above is empty. Nobody saw us, but they’ll hear you if you keep that up. Fire that thing up, we need to leave with all due haste.” Barnabas made room on the beam for the other man, who jumped across after closing up the hatch behind them. He wore an eye patch and directed a fearsome scowl at Freddie as he followed Barnabas over the intervening puzzle of woodwork to reach the submersible.

  “All three of us? We’ll never fit. And he’s a pirate.”

  She pointed at the stranger’s eye patch as clear evidence. Barnabas shook his head and waved a hand, dismissing her concern. He maneuvered himself into the hatch and dropped down, pulling her with him and bracing them both against the moment of turbulence as the sub took the shift in weight. “All will be explained in the fullness of time, Freddie, but we must go now.”

  As if to punctuate his demand, a distant shout and a rumble of footsteps erupted above them. Freddie cast a final baffled look at the newcomer, then flung herself into the seat, engaging the fuel tank and readying the engine. “Secure the hatch. This is still warm, it’ll only take a moment.”

  “Hatch secure,” the stranger volunteered. He was squeezed into the back of the cargo area, looking entirely too long and gangly.

  “Check it, Barnabas.”

  “I think he knows how to secure a submersible hatch, Freddie. Probably better than either of us.”

  “Is he the acting captain of this vessel, Barnabas?” asked the pirate in polite, cultured tones that in no way matched his appearance. Something about him tugged at her mind, even as she tried to focus on the sub’s controls.

  “Is . . . I suppose so. One might say that.”

  “Then you check the hatch.”

  Freddie smirked. “Thank you, whoever you are.”

  He didn’t respond. Not all that polite, then. Barnabas, grumbling, fidgeted behind her—checking that the hatc
h was secure, she assumed. Although now she trusted the stranger to have done it properly in the first place.

  “Why did you say the acting captain?” She fiddled with the ballast controls, taking the submersible down and angling toward the open water beyond the pier. “Why not just the captain? It’s my submersible, I’m piloting it, who else would be in charge?”

  He chuckled, and she had to stop herself looking to make sure it wasn’t Barnabas responding. They sounded freakishly alike. That was what had bothered her a moment earlier.

  “I know you can’t be the captain, and I know it isn’t your submersible. It’s the Royal Navy’s submersible, and you and Barnabas stole it. Your uniform is real enough, but you’re no more an officer than my brother.”

  “Brother?”

  “Mind your trim.”

  “Oh!” She steered away from a looming hulk of algae-draped wood and into an avenue of thick pillars. “You’re Phineas! He found you! And you’re not an opium fiend after all, how lovely.”

  “Phineas found me,” Barnabas corrected. “I’ve no idea if he’s an opium fiend—”

  “I am not.”

  “Or whether he’s truly working for the smugglers instead of the government now—”

  “Of course I’m not working for the smugglers. But just a moment, I have to ask . . . are you a girl?”

  Freddie understood he was no longer speaking to Barnabas. “Even if I am, I’m still the captain. What gave it away, though?”

  “Understood. You said it was lovely I wasn’t an opium fiend. Not the usual turn of phrase I associate with young male officers. But I had my doubts, anyway, looking at your hair. Bits are coming down from under your cover.”

  “Cover?”

  “The hat.”

  “Oh, I see.” The bobbed hair, while performing brilliantly under a standard hat, was less manageable under the smaller, streamlined model worn by naval officers. Now that Phineas had mentioned it, Freddie was aware of wispy curls tickling behind her ears and over the nape of her neck. She would have to invest in more pins, and possibly try some pomade next time.

  Barnabas cleared his throat, reinserting himself in the discourse. “As we’re discussing subtle verbal signals, Phineas, I have to point out you said you were not working for the smugglers. You did not say you were working for the government.”

  Phineas chuckled again. “Blast. I was hoping you could tell me. You’re working for them now, aren’t you? That was my impression, anyway. I’ve kept tabs. One of the clerks for Father’s man of business in London is secretly working for me as well, so I see a great deal of his correspondence. When I learned you were on your way to Rutherford Murcheson, I made what seemed the obvious assumption. If anything I was expecting you to show up sooner.”

  “But don’t you know if you’re still working for Murcheson?”

  “I did know. However, when I was taken to the Dominions by Lord Orm’s crew last year, my last communication to my superior at the Agency went unanswered. Next thing I knew, my name showed up in an article in the Times about the ravages of opium abuse in Her Majesty’s military, and I learned that the Navy had informed our parents I was missing and due to be discharged in absentia for addiction, moral turpitude, and suspected treason.”

  “They never discharged you, to my knowledge.”

  “But the letter was sent. I’d been working for Murcheson for months already at that point and been into several opium dens as part of my investigations, so the suggestion of addiction was part of the cover story for my absence from my post with the Navy. Murcheson didn’t warn me of that before I agreed to work for him, I hasten to add. Then the cover story made it pitifully easy for them to explain away my disappearance. My name was published on a list of accused deserters. And Murcheson ignored my efforts to check in. Even once I was back in London and learned he was here as well, he took no apparent notice of my attempts to contact him.”

  He sounded more jaded than horrified. The abandonment hadn’t surprised him, Freddie thought. Her father’s involvement didn’t surprise her. “Why do you suppose that is? That he ignored you?”

  “Bear in mind I’m only telling you this—or rather, telling Barnabas this—because I’ve reason to believe Barnabas is caught up with the same Agency, the same point of contact. I can’t assume it’s coincidental. I fear Murcheson plans to use my history against you, Barnabas. To discard you too, the moment you cease to be useful to him. He’ll claim addiction runs in families, I’d wager anything on it. He always viewed me as disposable; I just didn’t know it until it was too late.”

  “But weren’t you supposed to be investigating the opium smugglers?” Barnabas queried. “Why would Murcheson toss you aside for continuing to do that?”

  “I was already embedded as an operative working for Orm’s men in London a few years ago, trying to piece together the supply chain for the rash of new opium dens spreading across London and the French coast. Working on one of the smugglers’ submersibles, primarily. I’d made contact with them in one of my forays into the dens. Then Orm himself came for a visit. Ostensibly he was there for his cattle ranching concern, but the real motivation was a push to strengthen his European operations. Pinpoint new lieutenants to take the smuggling deeper into the Continent, find new markets. And handpick useful talents to bring home with him. I was taken off my sub and informed I’d be returning to the Dominions to join one of Orm’s personal airship crews. This wasn’t presented to me as a choice, you understand, but a fait accompli.

  “Evidently, my other employer was uninterested in supporting an operative so far from home, regardless of the quality of information I might supply. He had no brief to track the opium ring to the Dominions. Not then, anyway. His authority didn’t extend so far. He’d have had to pass my handling along to either the New York or Salt Lake City bureaus, and he would have lost the credit for anything I uncovered after that point. Easier to cut me loose, cut his own losses. And in some small amount of fairness to him, I never did receive official approval to shift my base of operations halfway around the world. I had to leave Europa before I heard back from him. Not that I could have done anything else without risking my life unnecessarily, but Murcheson did technically go by the book when he pronounced me a rogue.”

  Barnabas was obviously appalled. “But Murcheson would never have done that, thrown you to the wolves that way. There must be some mistake.”

  Freddie knew better. “No, that sounds exactly like something Father would have done.”

  “Father?”

  The shift in his tone was palpable, ominous. Freddie focused on her navigation for a few moments, finding and following the deep groove leading back out of the estuary to the channel’s deeps. The pause gave her a chance to collect herself, her thoughts. “I’m not just any girl. You needn’t fear he’ll hear anything back from me, however. I don’t work for the man. And I should point out I’m the one agreeing with you regarding his professional ethics. On paper it all reads sensibly, and he’ll never do anything to endanger his reputation. Or his family, for that matter. He’s an excellent father in that respect. But outside of that, he doesn’t care who he hurts.”

  “Who do you work for, then?”

  A prickle on the side of her neck when she turned her head was Freddie’s only warning. Phineas was holding a slender, wicked blade to her throat. He kept it where it was, letting the point dig into her skin, until she looked back at the console with a calm born of such extreme fear she simply couldn’t comprehend it.

  In her brief glimpse, she’d seen Barnabas gaping from his brother’s face to the knife, clearly unable to form a response to the unexpected turn of events.

  “I work for myself, Mr. Smith-Grenville.”

  “As a planted society darling? A sweet, simple aristocratic angel nobody would ever suspect? That’s his favorite type.”

  At that, she had to snicker. “I’m very fa
r from that type, sir. No, I work as a tinker-makesmith.”

  “A—what?”

  “A tinker. I go out on a pony trap full of tools, dressed as Fred Merchant the tinker, and hire my services to people with broken equipment. Engines mostly, some clockwork, you know. The occasional defective printing press.”

  “Mechanical spit dog,” Barnabas reminded her.

  “That was a first.”

  “I’m horribly confused,” Phineas responded, but he eased the knife away.

  Barnabas shifted into her line of sight just long enough to place a proprietary hand on her forearm. Not interfering with her steering, just offering his support. “She’s very good at what she does. She can fix anything.”

  Oh, bless him. Bless him a thousand times over for that.

  “And the classified, eyes-only submersible? Your father just happened to let you take it for a spin, did he?” She knew it wasn’t the case, but he sounded like he was still holding the knife to her throat.

  “Oh, no, you were quite right about that. I stole it.”

  “And you just happened to know how to pilot it.”

  “I’m a quick study. And I had the manual.” She pushed the book over her shoulder as evidence. “One engine is much like another, so once you add the up and down aspect of navigation through the water it’s not terribly different from driving a steam car or anything else. Was your airship so different to operate from a submersible?”

  Phineas took the manual. After a moment he responded, some of the tension easing from his voice. “I suppose it wasn’t, at that. I wish I’d had a book to study; that would have made the transition a good deal easier.”

  Now that they were all less fraught, Freddie noticed another less than pleasant element in the sub’s close atmosphere. “Good heavens, what is that smell?” Rotting vegetation with a hint of hot pigsty, was her best guess, but she could hardly say that aloud. “It’s quite unpleasant.”