Gossamer Wing (6 page)

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 always 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.

“Dexter.”

They had been practicing, the better to lend an air of genuine affection to their engagement.
See
, her tone of voice told him,
I can say your first name with no hesitation at all, because I have taught myself to say it as part of my duty to the Crown
.

“Are you feeling quite well?”

She tried to think how to explain what she was feeling, but decided against it and went with a shrug instead.

“I’m not used to being back among so many people yet, I suppose.”

“Steam car outings and salons aren’t really adequate preparation for this, it’s true,” he sympathized. “I’d much rather be in my workshop. I’ve always hated these things.”

His voice was mild, pleasant. He seemed to be enjoying himself well enough. Perhaps he was simply as good an actor as he was a dancer.

Charlotte allowed herself the luxury of a slightly longer look at her partner while he steered them around a tricky knot of fellow revelers. In the gleam of the gaslight, she could see the russet tint that softened the black of his hair and brows. Clean-shaven in the current fashion, hair neatly trimmed. The dark gold figured brocade of his waistcoat played up a golden hue she hadn’t noticed before in his complexion. The Chen influence, she supposed, recalling Dexter’s Chinese ancestry. His features were pure Hardison, however, elegant but just a bit boyish. It would have made an ideal face for a rake, had he chosen to wield it that way.

He didn’t, of course. As far as she knew, he had never dallied indiscreetly, never played the cad, never so much as publicly sullied the reputation of the local barmaid her father had informed her was the occasional companion of the Baron’s nights. The Viscount had had a man check on that sort of thing, apparently.

Dexter had given the young woman a generous settlement the day after Charlotte demonstrated her airship to him. That was before he had even spoken with the Viscount and given his official pledge of participation in the charade. He hadn’t been seen in the barmaid’s company since, her father had reported.

“It’s time,” Dexter whispered in her ear as the last few bars of the waltz drew the crowd to a halt. While the others applauded, Dexter led Charlotte quickly out to the terrace. As they descended the steps and headed for a secluded corner of the garden, she told herself that her shiver was only a result of the late April evening’s gathering chill.

He pulled her to a halt around a corner formed by a boxwood hedge and an overflowing herbaceous border. A starlit fountain surrounded by low-growing white roses greeted them with charming sound and scent. There was a bench, of course, placed advantageously for courting couples. The Vanderbilts’ townhouse was somewhat infamous for the convenience of its gardens when trysting was on the agenda.

“Shall I kneel?”

“Whatever for?” She looked back toward the house, to the relative safety of the lights and crowd, visible in twinkling glimpses through the spring foliage.

“Veracity,” he said with a shrug. She could tell he was stung.

“I apologize.”

“No, no. I didn’t mean to be flippant. I know this can’t be easy for you. I’ve never been married, much less . . . well. I shouldn’t jest.”

That hurt more, his being kind for the sake of her feelings. She couldn’t allow that. “No, you’re right. By all means, let’s get into the spirit of the thing.”

“Are you sure—”

“Quite sure, Mr. Hardison.”

“Dexter,” he reminded her.

Charlotte was glad for the night, for the cover of shadow in the secluded little lover’s nook. Dexter had been so unfailingly kind, so courteous and thoughtful, these past few weeks. Ushering her into and out of steam cars, holding her chair, opening doors and fetching her drinks. Making painfully polite conversation with her mother and her mother’s friends, always behaving as though he were eager to get back to her side.

He was the hero who had brought her out of mourning, the knight in friendly bear’s armor who had won her from her dark castle of grief with his gentle, determined charm. For a novice, Hardison seemed brilliant at the long game.

Charlotte’s mother had exclaimed with joy when Charlotte confessed to her—per the plan—that Dexter intended to propose at tonight’s ball. And she had completely mistaken the reasons behind Charlotte’s subsequent tears.

Charlotte had known Reginald for eight years, been courted by him for two of those years, and was married to him for fewer than seventy-two hours. Three nights. Theirs was a reserved but friendly courtship, and she had enjoyed his company in bed by that third night.

She had loved her husband, and welcomed his affections eagerly, if shyly. But she had never felt
this
. Charlotte had never felt a fraction of the huge, unnamable
thing
that overcame her when Hardison was anywhere in the vicinity. She had never breathed Reginald in, or felt his absence like the absence of some essential element in the air whenever he left her side. During their courtship, she had never missed Reginald like a limb when he went home for the day, or even when he went off to spend several months in Europa. Perhaps because she had known him so long, she had been unable to imagine that he might not return.

Reginald had never
loomed
the way Hardison—Dexter—loomed over her now without even trying, in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with the sheer physical magnitude of the man. Immense though he was, Charlotte couldn’t lie to herself about the real reason he seemed so terribly real, so terribly
present
next to her in the dark.

She wanted him. She
lusted
for him, even though she knew she shouldn’t.

It was new to her, such uncontrollable physical desire. And like all things she couldn’t control, she distrusted it. She distrusted herself when she felt the pull of it, and she felt guilt beyond measure for never having felt this way about her actual husband. What had she been depriving Reginald of, by not responding this way to him? How had she deprived herself? Had Reginald known what they were missing? Surely he must have, men always seemed to know those sorts of things, no matter how new they were to the whole business. Had he cared? Whether she wanted to or not, Charlotte found
she
cared. Now, after the fact, when it was too late by five years. She cared very much.

It didn’t matter. It couldn’t. Her marriage to Hardison was to be a sham, a ploy, she reminded herself. His interest was in the technical novelty of his mission, and hers was in regaining the plans and helping ensure the French got no further in building their dreadful weapon, as she field-tested the stealth potential of the
Gossamer Wing
.

Here in the romantic dark, however, Dexter leaned over her as they sat side by side on the lover’s bench . . . and it might have been real. For a moment, it seemed real.

For a moment, Charlotte decided, she might even let herself pretend.

* * *

HE’D THOUGHT HER
an angel in the sunlight. Now, Dexter saw that he had been wrong.

Charlotte was a creature made for night gardens. She bloomed in the starlight and moonlight, opening like a sweetly scented white blossom under the indirect glow of the night sky. She was too subtle to need anything so blatant as sunlight in order to shine.

He wondered if she had chosen the color of the dress on purpose to tease him. Palest blue silk with an opalescent shimmer in the mesh overlay, the blue that melted into a cloudless sky, rendering her invisible on her airship. She was the opposite of invisible in the ballroom, wearing this blue. It matched her eyes, set off her hair . . . and the décolletage was inspired, more daring than a young unmarried woman was allowed. The prerogative of a young matron. Or a young widow who was finally out of mourning.

Dexter wanted to run his finger along the edge of the silk, push down the little extra rim of net that pretended at modesty to reveal another inch or so of peachy-soft skin. He scooted a few more inches away from her, lest he forget himself in the moonlight and give in to that temptation.

If he had been courting her in earnest the past month or so, he would have risked placing his lips just there at that moment, right on the soft rise below her clavicle. She was a widow after all, not a green girl. If he were a real suitor, he might well have dared far more than that by this time. Would she, he wondered, taste faintly of tea and lemon?

It was business, Dexter reminded himself. Charlotte had lost a husband, one she’d loved enough to want to avenge at the risk of her own life. She was no sophisticated companion to spend a night or two with and then leave after presenting a costly bauble. Nor was she an accommodating barmaid with a playfully liberal interpretation of morality and no illusions about his intentions toward her. She was a lady. And he, curse it, was a gentleman. According to the briefings he’d received from Darmont, aside from supporting Charlotte’s mission, his interest in the matter was supposed to be confined to the undersea station and the need for seismic monitoring given the frequency of earthquakes in the English Channel.

If he were really to get into the spirit of the thing, he sighed to himself, then the delectable Charlotte, Lady Moncrieffe, would probably toss him on his arse. Petite she might be, but he knew she’d been well trained for her assignment and he had little doubt she could flip him onto the ground as easily as he flipped a hot cog out of a mold.