A Gentleman of Means (8 page)

“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.

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.”

“But …” Claire’s forehead creased a little in a frown. “Does it not strike you as odd that she should write to Alice—since she did not know I was alive—in her desperation, and not to her father? I never thought of it before this moment, but why should she do so?”

“Because I’m her friend?” Alice suggested. “It’s clear that her forced desertion of you and Ian in Venice was weighing heavily on her mind. If she only had a moment to send a message, sending it to me would kill two birds with one stone. She could reassure me as to her motives, and ask for help all at once.”

“Of course she would have meant for us to notify her father as well,” Ian said. “That stands to reason.”

“Does it?” Claire asked. Alice could practically see the wheels turning behind that thoughtful brow. “Unless she feared her father was somehow involved.”

“Nonsense,” Ian said. “You have shared his letters with us. They do not have the tone of a man who has engineered the kidnapping of his own daughter. To what end?”

“To get her out of Venice secretly?” Alice ventured. “What if the Famiglia Rosa was blackmailing Meriwether-Astor and he had her spirited away so they couldn’t get their hands on her?”

“But why not tell her, then?” Claire asked. “Though the matter of leaving us to manage our own escape from the lagoon must still be accounted for.”

“I should say so,” Alice said. “If the
Fancy
’s captain had orders to get Gloria away, though, he wouldn’t stand upon too much ceremony in his departure. I wouldn’t, if I were he.”

“But then why agree to take a pleasure party at all?” Claire asked. “Why not tell us it was not convenient, see Gloria aboard, and then quit the country? No, I am convinced there must be some deeper motive afoot here. It would seem almost as though Gloria does not trust her own father enough to reveal her whereabouts to him.”

“I do not believe it,” Ian said. “We saw no sign of that in Venice—they seemed civil enough. When you write to tell him about Gibraltar, I am sure that it will all become clear. And now I believe we must change for dinner. The sun has quite gone and the lamps have been lit.”

Claire bade them farewell and walked off toward
Athena
instead of to her suite in the palace, her head bent in thought.

And watch as carefully as she might through the viewing ports, Alice saw no sign of a pigeon’s departure.

She wasn’t sure what worried her most—that Claire was going to tell Meriwether-Astor his daughter had been kidnapped … or that she had no intention of doing so at all.

*

Rather abruptly, Claire realized she had boarded
Athena
while hardly being aware she had done so. She was nearly perfectly certain that she had intended to return to the palace to change for dinner, and yet here she was, wandering into the comforting embrace of her own ship and climbing the stairs into the saloon.

Andrew looked up from the disarray he had created on the dining table, which he was using as a temporary office until they found a suitable house for their first home. “Is it time to dress for dinner?”

In order to have a home together, one must be married first. And to do that, one must plan a wedding. Oh, why could they not simply take a steambus down to the city registry office and be married there? Or why had she not delegated the wedding preparations to her mother and Sir Richard, who had offered Gwynn Place as the natural location for the upcoming nuptials as soon as she and Andrew had become engaged?

Because she enjoyed her own way too much, that was why.

In her joy to see her only daughter married—even if it was to a man with neither title nor property—Mama would make a spectacle of the entire affair. Twelve bridesmaids from the neighboring families, enough flowers to keep an airship on the ground without benefit of ropes, and a wedding breakfast that would pay off every social obligation she had managed to acquire in the five years since she had returned to Cornwall a widow.

Claire realized belatedly that Andrew had spoken, but before she could formulate a reply, he said, “Dearest, what is the reason for such a sigh, and such a downcast expression?” He let his drawing roll up and crossed the saloon to take her in his arms. “Something has happened, hasn’t it?”

She laid her forehead on his shoulder. “Several things—one of them being the fact that there are five weeks between now and our wedding, and I do not have a dress, to say nothing of a church, flowers, or so much as a biscuit for the wedding breakfast.”

By his stillness, she sensed that she had surprised him. “I had no idea that this was presenting a difficulty.”

“We should have let Mama take everything in hand when she offered. I fear I have been rash—and arrogant—and self-aggrandizing, Andrew.”

“Nonsense. Rashness I will grant you, but not the others. Is it so necessary to have a dress, flowers, and a wedding breakfast?”

“Well, unless we propose to elope to Gretna Green, one usually observes the social niceties. We have not even inquired of Reverend Peabody if the Belgrave Square church is available on Christmas Eve morning. If we were to be married at Gwynn Place, we could have used the chapel on the estate and not even had to ask.”

“We still can, if that would remove one worry from your mind.”

“But what of our London friends?”

“What of them? Load them all into
Athena
’s cargo bay and take them down to Cornwall.”

“Andrew, be serious.” Between the uncertainty of Gloria’s situation and her own failings as a bride, Claire felt very close to tears.

And Andrew saw it. “My darling,” he said softly, “I cannot believe that our wedding is causing you such distress. Nor can I allow it. We will be married in the registry office here in Munich, and people may throw us as many parties as they like when we return to London as man and wife—as long as you do not have to arrange them.”

She raised her head. “Do you mean it? Not have a church wedding?” Then she collapsed against him once more. “Mama would never live it down. The gossip in London would be dreadful. We must have that at the very least.”

“Then we will, if that will make you happy. At Gwynn Place?”

“No,” she said slowly. “What do you think of the mermaid’s chapel in Baie des Sirenes? The one where Maggie was baptized as a baby?”

He paused for a moment, as though his thoughts had been taking a different path entirely. “It is very small.”

“Intimate.”

“We could not invite many people.”

“Your mother and mine. Snouts, of course, and the children from Carrick House. The Polgarths. And Alice, Jake, and Ian.”

“Ian?” Now he did more than merely pause. He set her away from him just enough to gaze into her face. “Is that not rather unkind, since he once cherished hopes along that line?”

“Not at all.” She lowered her voice to a whisper, in case Jake and Tigg had returned to the ship. “Alice is in love with him, and I believe he is half in love with her. He just does not know it yet.”

Had Andrew been in the dreadful habit of wearing a monocle, it would have fallen out in his surprise. “Are you sure?”

“She has confided in me—but you must not let on that I have broken her confidence. I have never been a matchmaker, but weddings, you know, are an excellent environment for experiments of that kind.”

“My word.” He took her hand. “I believe that when we are eighty, you will still continue to surprise me.”

“It keeps life interesting,” she said, feeling rather better, and kissing him in thanks. “Speaking of interesting—and appalling—this came to the palace and was delivered to Alice just now.” She produced Gloria’s note from her pocket and handed it to him.

When he had read it, his hazel eyes met hers with concern and a measure of shock. “Abducted?”

Rapidly, she told him of her discussions with Ian and Alice, and the conclusion she herself had reached. “Do you think I am completely mad? Do you think it possible that the reason she wrote to Alice rather than her father is because she does not trust him?”

He fell into his chair rather suddenly, and she pulled up another next to him. “I feel we must certainly entertain the possibility,” he said at last. “But Claire, Ian may be right. The letters we have received from Meriwether-Astor are the letters of a father frantic with worry for his daughter. We have no right to interfere—or to hesitate in sending him news of her.”