Aether Spirit (31 page)

Eliza disappeared during dinner. So did Aidan.

Allen felt badly about Eliza’s behavior too. After dinner and cake, he pulled Chadwick and Claire aside and said, “You were right, Claire. We should never have invited Eliza. We could have done the party without her servants. Both of you have my sincere apologies.”

“That’s all right, Mister McPhee,” Chadwick said. “I know Claire and I don’t have an easy road ahead of us.”

“Then please take this as a sign of my trust in you to take care of her—she’s been talking about your new steamcart for weeks. Would you like to take her for a ride around the park? Just a short one.”

“Oh, thank you!” Claire threw her arms around her father’s neck.

“Yes, thank you!” The way Radcliffe looked at her, Claire knew he would find a quiet spot to pull over and steal a few real kisses before bringing her back. “You can borrow Patrick’s helmet and goggles.”

“Be careful,” Allen admonished. “If it wasn’t a night for celebration, I’d say to wait because the fog is thick out there, but your steamcart has lanterns, right?”

“Yes, sir. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of her as if she was already my wife.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Fort Temperance, 4 March 1871

The base clock struck one. Chad untied Patrick’s wrists and tried to figure out what to do with Claire.

“We could carry her, but I don’t think I could get her over the wall safely,” he said.

“No, you’re going to have to bring her back,” Patrick said.

Chad muttered something under his breath that would have made most of the soldiers blush. “I can’t! If the ring and the letter put her under like this, I’m the last thing that will bring her back. Dammit, I wish the aether device had worked!”

“How do you know it didn’t?”

Chad frowned at Patrick, who rubbed his wrists and flexed his fingers.

“Because it increased her hallucinations. In fact, we all felt them.”

“What if what we heard and saw weren’t hallucinations? Remember how the statues moved in Paris and trapped Iris? And how the aether lighting in the theatre caused us all to feel things we’d rather forget when we first tested it? We know we’re dealing with something supernatural.”

“And the creature that looked like Mrs. Soper said we’d die if I broke her heart again. I can’t. You know that even if I revive her, we couldn’t be together. The north might win the war, but prejudice will remain.”

Patrick poked a hard finger into Chad’s chest. “Again, you’re not giving the lass credit for how strong she is. Or yourself. That’s been your problem the whole time—you don’t think you deserve her. You act like you don’t, but you secretly believe all the people who tell you you’re not good enough. And you know what? If you keep acting like a daft ass, you’re proving them right.”

Chad retreated, and his back found the cell’s bars. Had he really been in a prison of his own making? Could he claim Claire as his, for them to face the difficulties of life together?

“Allen told me before I proposed to her that he and Melanie would warn her, tell her how difficult it had been for them with Melanie ‘marrying beneath her’.” He snorted. “There was no finer man than Allen McPhee.”

“You’re right, and it had nothing to do with who he was and where he came from. He thought you’d be a fine husband for his daughter. He trusted you with her. Claire went into your engagement with her eyes open. Give her enough credit to let her make the choice again. You can’t limit her to keep her safe. That makes you no better than her Aunt Eliza.”

“That witch.” But Chad recognized how Patrick was right. Again. And he had to wake Claire. Otherwise getting out of the base would be impossible. Even Patrick with his strength couldn’t carry her over the wall, and walking out of the prison with an unconscious woman would attract too much attention.

The ruby on Claire’s finger winked in the moonlight streaming through the small window, and Chad knew what to do. He picked her up, cradling her in his arms, and sat with her on his lap, her head tilted back. Her mouth fell slightly open in unconscious invitation, and he accepted. Her lips moved against his, and he dug his fingers into her hair while gently probing her mouth with his tongue. She stirred, and he broke the kiss to caress her face.

“Claire? C’mon sweetie, you can come back to me now. I need you, and—” He swallowed the lump in his throat, which hushed his next words to a whisper. “And I love you, never stopped loving you.” He kissed her hair. “My beautiful, silly, stubborn Claire.”

* * * * *

Claire heard the hoofbeats and turned to the steamcart’s driver, who the glow of the lanterns showed her to be Chadwick Radcliffe, her fiancé.

“Do you hear that?” she asked.

“Yes.” He shook his head. “Probably a draft dodger trying to use the fog to get out of town before the hunters catch up to him.”

“I can’t say I blame him.” She felt the ruby ring on her finger and smiled. She hadn’t wanted to wear gloves so she could continue to look at it and so had tucked them in her reticule once they got out of sight of her parents’ townhouse. Chad wore his driving gloves, so she couldn’t hold his hand skin-to-skin. He’d always been a cautious sort, but she knew that he would always take the best care of her.

“Yes, maybe he has a sweetheart.” Chad squeezed her hand and smiled at her.

She grinned back, and tried not to think about how the army was paying for his medical education, how he’d end up somewhere on a base or in a field hospital close to the enemy. She hoped the war would be over soon, but it didn’t look likely.

The hoofbeats grew closer, and she tightened her fingers on his. He pressed hers back and returned his hand to the wheel.

“So I can have better control in case he doesn’t see us and I have to swerve. Better put your gloves on.”

The ring slipped off Claire’s finger when she reached into her reticule, but she didn’t dig for it. She pulled her gloves out and closed the little bag to keep her treasure safe. Now her heart beat in time to the frantic hoofbeats, sharp on the cobblestones, and her hands shook so badly she couldn’t get her fingers in her gloves. Chadwick slowed the cart to a crawl.

The horse appeared out of the mist, rearing and pawing at the air. The rider’s face was half-covered by a scarf, but the eyes were familiar, blue like Claire’s own. Claire screamed and instinctively covered her head. The beast came down, its shoes sparking against the metal steam engine block, and the entire steamcart shook and buckled.

Something hissed, and Claire knew she had to escape, but the door was stuck.

“Chadwick!” she cried. “I can’t get out, can’t find my way.”

The darkness pressed in on her, and she braced herself for what she knew came next. She’d put her hands up to protect her face, and then there would be an explosion and searing heat, and then loss and grief and—

He turned to her and caressed her face. “It’s okay, sweetie, you’re safe with me. Come on, open your eyes, I love you…”

Claire opened her lips and welcomed the kiss and the warmth, hope, and love that came with it. The emotions washed over her, taking the dregs of the nightmare memory and the barriers that had kept her from remembering it away in a rush of golden light. She opened her eyes to see not gold, but silver moonlight through a tiny window and the face of the steamcart driver, her former fiancé, close to hers. She reached her arms around him and kissed him back. His body felt right this time, and she knew she’d missed it for the last six years.

“You still love me?” she asked when he paused to bury his face in her hair.

“Never stopped,” he murmured.

“Oh! Me being on the base must have been torture.”

He nodded, and she felt something wet on the roots of her hair. He shook and released all his tension, sadness, grief, and despair. She received it and passed it back to him as love and healing as her own heart mended. The base clock struck one-thirty, and it felt like a benediction, but Chad raised his head, and his gray eyes caught the moonlight with a flash of panic.

“Uh, you two?” Patrick asked from the cell door. “This is a lovely reunion, but you better hurry it up a bit.”

He set her on her feet.

“I remember everything now,” she said. “We were engaged, and my Aunt Eliza didn’t approve, and there was a steamcart accident with a horse.” She put a hand to her temple.

“Don’t force it,” he said. “The memories might come back gradually.”

“No,” she said with a sigh that replaced the last of her own tension with joy. “I was going to say it doesn’t hurt anymore.”

“Good.” He kissed her again, then put a cloak around her and something on her head that had yellow-tinted goggles attached to it. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Y’all ready?”

Claire stiffened. A man in a Confederate soldier’s uniform who carried a gun stood there and beckoned to them, but he looked familiar.

“Private Greely, you look very convincing,” Chad said.

“Good. Let’s send you on your way, and then the boys and I are going to cause some mischief. Did you know the general’s balloon is in the next courtyard over?”

They passed by the cells in the prison, all except the last one, where a group of men in Union uniforms sat tied up and gagged.

“They’d left their uniforms at the front,” Greely said. “Rather nice of them wasn’t it?”

“Yep, there’s that legendary Southern hospitality,” Patrick said. “Got one for me?”

“Of course!”

Claire turned to give Patrick some privacy and raised her eyebrows at Chad who, she now saw, also wore a Confederate uniform.

“Long story,” he said and pulled the cap down over his forehead. “I’ll tell you when we get back to base.”

Soldiers outside darted about and in and out of buildings. They seemed to be looking for something.

“I’ll go first,” Chad said.

“No!” She grabbed his arm. “I can’t lose you again.”

“Don’t worry, you won’t.”

“You there!” Someone called to him. “Are the prisoners secure?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good, because there’s an intruder on base.”

“I’ll report if I see anything suspicious.”

The other soldier moved on, and Claire relaxed slightly.

Patrick and Radcliffe mimicked the other soldiers’ movements as Claire darted from shadow to shadow. They passed the next row of buildings and found a courtyard where the general’s balloon sat inflated and ready to go. Claire wondered if he had it going so he could float back to Montgomery at first light and report his victory in capturing the inventors of the aether weapon. That would give the Confederates new hope.

Unfortunately four of the general’s private guards surrounded the balloon.

“Private Greely, let’s create a diversion,” Patrick said.

“With pleasure, Mister O’Connell. The armory is this way.”

“Perfect!”

“Patrick, wait!” Claire said and darted out. Chad caught her arm, and she felt his fingertips against her scars but wasn’t ashamed of them anymore.

“Let him do what he needs to do.”

He held her against him, and an explosion lighted the courtyard.

“Water! Start a water line!” someone shouted.

The general’s guard ran to help, and Chad and Claire ran for and tumbled into the basket. Chad bent over it to untie the moorings.

“But Patrick!”

Chad’s mouth tightened into a line that didn’t reassure her. “He’ll get out. The others will help him, and he’s quicker than most give him credit for with his size. Meanwhile, we need to get back to General Morley and tell him not to attack with
La Reine
. This is our only chance to make it back before he gives the order.”

Claire helped him, and the balloon lifted. Patrick ran full-speed into the courtyard and grabbed one of the ropes with one hand, a group of Confederate soldiers behind him. He fired at them with the pistol he held in the other, and they fell back.

“Shoot the balloon!” One of them yelled.

“No! You’ll start a helium fire, and the whole fort will burn!”

“It already is!”

Chad hauled Patrick over the side as Claire increased the flame to make the balloon rise faster. The soldiers must have settled the argument about the helium fire because bullets whizzed past them. A few made small holes in the silk, but not enough to down the balloon or set it aflame. They stopped when there was more gunfire on the ground.

“Good, our boys must’ve found them,” Patrick said and wiped his sooty face with his cap. “That was fun!”

Claire peeked over the side and saw they had left Fort Temperance behind them and floated toward Fort Daniels. Explosions rocked Fort Temperance. The resulting pressure waves nudged the balloon and set the basket swinging. Flames shot over Fort Temperance, and she hoped the Union soldiers were all right.

She clutched at Chad as her memory dragged her back to the steamcart, fire surrounding her. Chad took her in his arms and held her against him, and the images faded.

“You’re safe now,” he told her.

“I know,” she said and leaned into his strength.

The holes in the balloon made them lose altitude until the basket landed on the ground just inside the border. Chad and Patrick helped Claire out. They could still see the glow to the south.

“I hope it was worth it,” Claire said. She tried not to imagine the screams of the soldiers at Fort Temperance as their base burned.

“Regardless, we have each other.” Chad got on one knee and took her hands. “Claire McPhee, will you make me the happiest man in the world and marry me?”

“Happy birthday to me,” she said. “Of course I will!”

Chapter Thirty-Three

Fort Daniels, 27 March 1871

A crowd gathered around the wagon from town, which carried the last round of telegrams, mail, and most importantly, newspapers.

Claire clutched Chad’s hand. Would the nail-biting days waiting to see if that last battle and
La Reine
had accomplished what was needed be over? The cries of the wounded in the flames still haunted her dreams.

The driver tossed a paper down into the crowd, and Bryce snagged it with his one hand, his eyes widening when he read the headline.

“Confederates surrender in face of new weapon developed by Union and destruction of Fort Temperance! A decade of war ends!”