Gossamer Wing

by Delphine Dryden

  “You’re no ladies’ man, are you, Mr. Hardison?”

  She was staring him down, as cool as ever, but he somehow got the impression she was trying very hard not to laugh.

  “A gentleman would never tell, madam.”

  “A gentleman wouldn’t have to if he could identify corset boning when he runs his hands all over it.”

  “Ah!”

  “Ah, indeed.”

  “That’s brilliant!”

  The whole thing was brilliant.

  It was also clearly made for her, and her alone. He could see enough to know the little engine would be temperamental if overloaded, too noisy for its task, not nearly efficient enough on gas, and liable to run too hot for safety. Hence the necessity for strict weight limits on her helmet, as there must be on every garment she wore while piloting the tiny jewel of a craft.

  “It’s overcast today, and I’m not wearing proper clothing. But since I’m in breeches, at least, I can still demonstrate for you if you’d like?”

  She had already snapped the balloon’s frame into place on the rigging, and pulled a trigger to ignite the little flame that would heat and expand it. It took only moments before the whole bullet-shaped structure, scarcely larger than a weather balloon, was filled with air and bobbing gently over their heads. Dexter felt lighter than air himself, struck with the unlikely prospect of seeing her fly the thing—like one of his daydreams come to life.

  The mounting must be the most dangerous part. Lady Moncrieffe swung one leg into the harness, then kicked off hard and pulled at a handle simultaneously so that for a moment she seemed to be clinging sideways to the airship’s underbelly as it rose swiftly. A single practiced hitch of her body lifted her fully into the cradle until only her head was visible.

  Even though the sky was gray today, and even though he knew where the airship was, Hardison had trouble spotting it once she’d risen high enough. On a cloudless day, at full altitude, the illusion would be complete.

  “How high does it go?” he shouted, not sure whether she could still hear him.

  No immediate answer came, but the little blimp dropped to within a few dozen feet over him. He could see Lady Moncrieffe’s face peeking down at him. A few stray blond curls whipped around her uncovered head, and her eyes appeared to be watering.

  “Coming down.”

  Her words were nearly lost in the wind, but he stepped away from the tarp to give her plenty of landing room. That operation wasn’t quite as smooth as her takeoff, as it appeared to involve some hovering, then a wriggle and leap from the airship with a tethering line firmly in hand. Precarious, but she did it capably, despite being quite obviously green around the gills.

  “Fish for luncheon,” she said tersely, not giving any other explanation as she hauled the ship down and shut off the gas and engine, letting it settle slowly down to the tarp and quickly pulling the canopy away from the propellor mechanism and gas nozzle. “I’m not a very good traveler.”

  “Ironic.” And she intended to take a transatlantic ocean honeymoon? He suddenly wondered whether the price of sharing a cabin with her might not be entirely too high, if a five-minute airship ride made her this ill based only on the unfortunately timed consumption of a fish-based meal.

  “Yes, isn’t it? I have the Alvarez implants. They do help. Supposed to, anyway.”

  “Do you really? I’ve read about those. May I see?”

  She shrugged. “I suppose. I don’t typically let strange gentlemen peruse my inner ears, but as you’re considering becoming my husband . . . and you’re a makesmith.”

  He was already at her side, placing his fingers quite shamelessly on her head and tipping it to one side like a piece of delicate machinery. Alvarez implants weren’t something a man got to see every day. Or any day, in his case. Fascinating.

  “With these you shouldn’t experience any nausea at all based on motion, you know.”

  “I know,” she said wryly.

  She held very, very still under his touch. He realized he had committed a huge breach of etiquette, but that pulling his hands away now would only draw more attention to it. Her skin felt like what it looked like. White peach. Every bit as soft as it appeared. Dexter willed himself not to sniff, to see if the smell matched the texture.

  Business, he reminded himself. It’s business.

  He bent closer to peer into her ear; he could just spot the tiny gold mechanism glinting where it breached her eardrum.

  “Do you have the retrieval hook with you?”

  “Always,” she assured him. Her voice sounded a bit breathy, a bit distant. “But Mr. Hardison, I’m not going to let you disassemble my inner ears in a stable yard. Potential engagement and prior correspondence notwithstanding, we hardly know each other.”

  That was her pulse, racing there under his thumb where it rested along the elegant curve of her jaw. She looked tiny, birdlike, compared to the scale of his hands. Dexter released her as gently as he had touched her, slowly, with a reluctance he couldn’t quite define except that she felt lovely and soft and much more alive than he had expected. Not like an alabaster angel at all.

  “Another time perhaps, my lady.”

  His bow was ironic, but his tone was as gentle as he could make it.

  She didn’t smell like peaches. She smelled like lemon verbena, and ever so slightly of tea.

  * * *

  CHARLOTTE WASN’T SURE what she had been expecting from the Makesmith Baron. But whatever it was, she knew it hadn’t been . . . this. This big friendly bear of a man, with curious eyes and gentle paws, who looked like he might crush a teacup with two fingers, or break a chair by sitting on it.

  He didn’t fit into her world.

  Oh, he was a gentleman. His ancestry was every bit as elevated as her own. He hadn’t snapped the handle from the teacup, nor had he allowed his weight to pull so much as a squeak of complaint from the poor little chair in the solarium. He knew what he ought to say and do, whether or not he always chose to say and do it.

  But he had made choices in his life that baffled her. He seemed so large, and easy, and . . . free.

  His bulk was all muscle, she could tell, and mostly evident in his shoulders and the powerful muscles of his thighs that she could see when he knelt to help her with the airship. They stood out in sharp relief, despite the tasteful tailoring of his clothing. His hands had felt strong enough to twist her head from her neck in one swift go. But the way he touched her was so considerate, he might have been holding something as fragile as a robin’s egg.

  Charlotte was never one for poetics, and she wasn’t inclined to begin now. More importantly, the man now knew a secret that might be vital to her own interest, no less than that of the Crown.

  “You won’t tell my father,” she stated firmly. “About the implants not working as well as they might. They’re modified to mark the altitude as well, they’re necessary to my task. They might also be useful if I needed to pilot another sort of pressurized craft in the future. Submersibles, for instance.”

  “It’s not a question of them not working as well as they might, it’s a question of them not working at all, if you’re still getting motion sickness.”

  “Usually only on the airship,” she assured him. “And possibly at sea, but that remains to be seen. They’ve cured my motion sickness in steam cars entirely, and it used to be quite severe. I’ve consulted Dr. Alvarez and she’s had the implants out and in again. It’s her opinion that they’re functioning properly and the real problem isn’t with the equipment.”

  “She thinks it’s all in your head?”

  He was too quick, and she didn’t like the way he’d smiled when he said it.

  “My father can’t know. The implants are another factor in the Crown’s accepting me for this piece of work. If he got wind of this he would have word to Whitehall in a heartbeat.”

  The
great bear of a smith was thinking, very obviously, while running his gentle, callused fingertips over the lower half of the dirigible’s framework. Corset boning. She might have told him whalebone, and it would have been as accurate. Things seemed to slip out of her mouth around him. Charlotte had been far too long out of the society of men younger than her father, and this particular man was so very much to take in all at once. He seemed twice the size of Reginald. Familiar, unobtrusive, reserved Reginald who was dead, making any comparison suspect due to the passage of time and its effect on memory.

  “So it’s also about submersibles?”

  It took her a moment to catch the drift of his thoughts. “Yes. In a sense. He hasn’t told you about your part yet, has he?”

  “The Viscount? No. We’re set to meet tomorrow if I agree to this, apparently he intends to make a formal presentation. But you know.”

  She nodded, unsure whether to tell him more than she already had. She knew she shouldn’t, but she also knew he had worked on classified government projects before. He had also passed a rigorous security clearance before her father had ever approached him, and the particulars of the mission might be enough on their own to convince him to say yes. “Tomorrow when you meet with my father again, you must pretend never to have heard this. As I said, my part is straightforward. They need a packet retrieved, and they need more information on this man Dubois. It’s just chance that I’m to be spying on him in the same general location where your skills might be welcome. There’s a new military station, Mr. Hardison. A covert, submerged station with a tunnel leading from the shore, in the English Channel off the coast near Le Havre. The British government can use it as a base of operations for intelligence, and for practical matters like docking submersibles for repair, so they never have to be seen above water, even on the English side.”

  His eyes widened as he turned to her. Charlotte could almost see the thoughts churning frantically behind his forehead, trying to organize themselves amid the frenzy of excitement at the prospect she presented.

  “It can’t be done.”

  It was the sort of thing a man like him said for form, because it needed to be said to put it out of the way. She took a perverse enjoyment in contradicting him, even if she knew that he didn’t really believe it. Even if he anticipated her words.

  “Oh, but it already has, sir.”

  His decision was made then, if it hadn’t been before.

  “If it’s dirigibles, submersibles and an undersea station, then I think it’s obviously time we were married.”

  “Oh, Mr. Hardison, you’ll make me blush. Will you pile the harness on the hammock section, please? It folds together more easily that way.”

  The Gossamer Wing was portable when stowed, but only to a degree. It always seemed much larger going back into its cases than it had coming out. Charlotte tackled the blimp carapace, folding carefully to keep from putting undue pressure on the boning, and managed to keep the cursing under her breath as she wrestled it back into storage.

  “The trunks weigh more than the rigging itself,” Hardison scolded her. “You need lighter cases, perhaps something with flexible sides.”

  She looked at him over the soft mound of silk that puffed stubbornly out of the trunk she was attempting to close. The mini-dirigible’s top half was as unstructured as any balloon, and as inconvenient to tame when deflated.

  “Can I expect a prototype of this new luggage from your workshop within the week? I might decide it’s quite convenient to be engaged to the Makesmith Baron.”

  “I assume it’s a state secret, otherwise that would make a splendid wedding present.”

  So cheerful. So easy. His smile was dangerously contagious, and she found herself all too likely to make uncharacteristic quips in hopes of prompting more smiles from the man.

  “A tasteful necklace or a new carriage would no doubt be more appropriate.”

  “Oh, I see. Do you need a new carriage? Perhaps a new steam car?”

  “No,” she admitted. “I hardly use the one you custom-made for me three years ago. Motion sickness, you know. Besides, my driver is rather tall for it and my mother berates me when I drive myself.”

  “Pity. I could have made you a bang-up steam car. Even better than the last one. But I’m sure we’ll come up with something.”

  * * *

  DEXTER WAS SO preoccupied driving back to his estate that he nearly ran himself off the road twice. Finally he pulled over at a roadhouse, ordering a lager to soothe his nerves and ease his thoughts into some semblance of sense.

  The good lady spy was no merry widow, but she had definitely piqued his interest. More than that, he admitted to himself. Of course he wanted her, but it was much more than just lust, which would have been simpler and easier to dismiss. Her letters had never conveyed her personality, only her keen intelligence and an occasional glimpse of wit. In person Dexter found her beautiful but fragile, a compelling blend of strength and delicacy. She was brittle, but he found her brittleness fascinating. He wanted to soothe her like a skittish horse, tame her to accept the things she had learned to fear, and he was more than old enough to know the source of that want was not located solely in his compassionate heart.

  His thoughts on the woman were too complex, too instantly evolved, to signal anything other than a full-scale infatuation . . . but if so, it was infatuation with all the weight of unreasonable hope to lend it substance. Whether or not her father liked it, Charlotte, Lady Moncrieffe, was a significant inducement to him. She had a heady blend of physical and mental attractiveness that seemed custom-made to entice Dexter into taking foolish risks. And then there were the details of the mission itself to consider. The very pressing danger that the French might be on the brink of developing a weapon of devastating power. An undersea station, and some puzzle still to be solved there about which Charlotte hadn’t yet learned the particulars. He could swear his fingers itched with eagerness to get his hands on the inner workings of such a structure.

  By the time he finished his relaxing beverage and set off once more, Dexter was beginning to wonder why he had hesitated even a moment in agreeing to the proposal. He would write Lord Darmont his formal acceptance the moment he reached home.

  Four

  NEW YORK CITY

  ACCOMPLISHING A BELIEVABLE sham marriage was a good deal more complicated than either Charlotte or Dexter had anticipated. Subterfuge usually was.

  First there was a new wardrobe for Charlotte to acquire, completely free of black and pewter and the ghastly dull lavender that had never suited her. Then there were parties and outings to attend with Baron Hardison, so that the always inquisitive folk of high society would see them together and not view the coming engagement as sudden or in any way suspicious. Charlotte had expected to hate every moment of this plunge back into the social whirl, but somehow it all seemed easier with Hardison there. He was so open, so friendly, and as he rarely left her side she always had somebody to talk to. Somebody interesting to talk to, at that. Dexter seemed to enjoy her company, which Charlotte found flattering if a bit disconcerting. She felt strangely inclined to giggle and bat her eyes at him, and had to remind herself often that it was all for show.

  Their timeline was necessarily shorter than most courtships, given their need to sail to France as soon as practicable. A month or so into their dealings, there was a ball to attend, and a proposal to fake while there.

  “It shouldn’t be too difficult,” Hardison reassured her, scanning the crowd briefly as they waltzed around the perimeter of the Vanderbilts’ ballroom. “It’s too cold for the garden to be very crowded tonight. We nip out for a few minutes, then we’re back in. You’ll be wearing a ring and a blush, I’ll be looking unbearably smug, and the world will never know it isn’t all as authentic as can be.”

  Charlotte nodded, her lips tight. She wanted to relax, to enjoy the night instead of just pretending to enjoy it. She had alway
s loved dancing, and had had so few occasions to do so with Reginald.

  This felt disloyal. While Reginald had certainly been a competent dancer—all properly raised gentlemen were competent dancers—the great clumsy bear who held her now had turned out to be head and shoulders above any man who’d ever ferried her around a dance floor. Figuratively and very nearly literally. Even in heeled slippers, Charlotte was short enough in comparison to Dexter that the top of her coiffure barely reached his shoulder. And the Baron, it transpired, was far more than a merely competent dancer. He could . . . dance.

  He wasn’t clumsy at all, she had learned, despite his size. His body was as careful, as deliberate and gentle in its movements, as his hands had been on her head. She could still recall that moment in the stable yard so clearly, even a month later—the odd stillness that had overtaken her when he touched her, the funny little twist in her stomach. She’d felt taken over, and she felt taken over again in the waltz tonight. Dexter’s hand on her waist was as solid as a building, his firm grip on her gloved hand not painful but simply inexorable. He led, and she must follow. She didn’t even think about the steps.

  It was like floating, or flying. Like the Gossamer Wing, without the nausea.

  For that reason, Charlotte could not feel at ease. Dreams rarely ended well for her, and she didn’t trust herself when life felt too ethereal or pleasant. She tried to remind herself that people were never what they seemed, and this was all make-believe. But Dexter felt so real, so solid, from the deft grip of his hand on hers to the uncompromisingly hard muscle of his shoulder. Based on the dimensions she’d been able to glean thus far, Charlotte thought Dexter must have the approximate build of a Greek god as depicted in early marbles. Not one of the youths, but somebody fully ripened into manhood. Poseidon, possibly.

  “Charlotte?”

  The sound of her name drew her attention back to her partner, away from inappropriately specific thoughts of his body. She tipped her head back—and back, and back—to look up at him.