Her Own Devices (17 page)

It was a relief to see the cottage as they walked across the Regent Bridge, and a greater relief to know that the chemists had not burned it down, nor had it been attacked by some South Bank rival in her absence.

There were, however, a number of chickens in the garden that had not been there before. “Snouts, where did these come from? What a motley lot. And how thin.”

Before he spoke, he made a show of handing the lightning rifle back to her, as if formally relinquishing command. “Me and some o’ the boys were minding our own business up on the watch platform—”

“Snouts ...”

“Honest, Lady. It weren’t our fault some bilge rat decided to take potshots at us from the river—I suspect our friend the Cudgel ’as called in a few chips—and when I returned fire, ’is barge began to take on water.”

“But the chickens, Snouts?”

“They was on the deck, Lady, in cages,” Lewis put in. “We barely got ’em off in the skiff afore the old wreck sank.”

“You sank a barge and stole its cargo?” she said, aghast. “After I gave strict instructions that any birds were to be rescues only?”

“Lady, if that weren’t a rescue, I dunno what you’d call it,” Lewis protested. “Them bilge rats was swimmin’ for the Chelsea Embankment fast as they could go, never mind that them cages was shut fast and them birds trapped in ’em.”

“Poor birds was cover, like as not,” Snouts said. “Stolen to make ’em look like an ’armless barge goin’ t’Leadenhall from upriver.”

Claire took a calming breath. That did make sense. “Then you did well, and I am happy that Rosie has at least a dozen minions to manage.”

Even as they watched, a big black rooster flinched at Rosie’s flashing beak, and bowed himself to the ground as she passed. The walking coop stumped up and down along the wall, scattering those few birds who had not already learned to keep out of its way.

“I see the coop is operating.”

“Aye. Mopsies sent a tube with instructions,” Lewis told her. “Doc said it was to be oiled an’ exercised once a week, or it’d seize up.”

“Excellent. You all deserve a reward for your heroic behavior. I shall see Granny Protheroe about the prospect of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding for dinner tomorrow.”

The boys grinned and left her to herself.

Home. It might be humble, but how peaceful it was.

She settled on a kitchen chair and watched the Mopsies and Willie catch up to the coop, direct it over to the porch, and cool it down for the night. They removed the ladder from the watch platform overlooking the river—much to the dismay of the boy on watch, who would have to crawl through an upstairs window to go to bed—and leaned it against the door of the coop. As dusk fell, one by one the chickens gathered around the porch, where they could see Rosie in majestic repose up in the rafters. The girls gently persuaded them with handfuls of corn that the coop was the better option, until every one had mounted the six feet of ladder and was safe inside.

“What about Rosie?” Claire inquired. “She must become used to the coop as well.”

“Can you reach her down for us?”

Once up on the chair, Claire could just slip a hand under the bird’s feet. “Come along, your ladyship,” she said, climbing down with her. “It’s time for you to see your new quarters.”

Rosie went, but only under protest. Soon, though, the fuss behind the closed doors settled down, and Claire waved the girls inside much as they had just done with the birds, while Willie climbed into her lap.

Lizzie stopped at the door. “I liked that airship, Lady, and your house, and Polgarth and the chickens.” Willie nodded vigorously in agreement. “But I like it ’ere, too.”

“So do I, me dearie,” she said in her best imitation of Polgarth’s West Country drawl.

“So we won’t be leavin’, then, to go live in Belgravia?”

“No,” she said in her own voice. “I am sorry to say that there is no room in Wilton Crescent for a dozen of us and as many chickens. We are forced to stay where we are.”

Lizzie nodded, satisfied, and went in.

Willie touched the locket on her chest—one she’d had since childhood but had left in her treasure box at Gwynn Place. Lady St. Ives had put a daguerreotype of Nicholas inside it and pressed it into her hand when they’d said good night the evening before.

She opened it for him. “See? A picture of Nicholas, so I don’t forget him.”

Inexplicably, Willie’s eyes filled with tears, and it was some time before she could calm his sobbing enough that they could go in to dinner.

*

“Lady, you’ll be caught!”

Jake and Lewis gaped as Tigg handed her into the steam landau. She pulled the lightning rifle out of its holster and tucked it under the seat, otherwise it would dig into her back as she drove. The buckles and clips of her corselet held their usual accoutrements, and her skirts were rucked up to her knees by their leather straps. A riding hat completed the raiding rig, with a black chiffon scarf tied round it in case she needed it, and her driving goggles perched on the brim.

“I think not, Jake.”

“I thought you said you was goin’ to a ball wiv ’is nibs, not on a firelamp run.”

“I am. A fancy-dress ball.” She indicated a Venetian leather mask hanging from a clip, bought that morning in Portobello Road. “The best disguise is to go in plain sight. I can’t think of an ensemble more likely to accomplish that end, can you?”

“Make someone recognize you, more like.”

“It’s hardly likely anyone from the South Bank gangs will be at Lady Wellesley’s ball. And if they are, it’s for thieving, which I would be well equipped to prevent, don’t you agree?”

“If you say so, Lady.” Doubt laced his tone. “One of us orta go wiv you.”

“Tigg will go with me as far as the laboratory, where he will wait with the landau, and his lordship is going the rest of the way.” Jake made a sound that conveyed his opinion of his lordship’s usefulness in a tight spot. “I will be all right, Jake. I’ll have the rifle in its holster and a vial of gaseous capsaicin at my belt. Which I will not need, of course. These are civilized people, more interested in waltzing and gossip than in wrangling and stolen goods.”

With that, she ignited the landau and pushed out the steering lever. The boys stepped back as they bowled past, taking the familiar road to the laboratory.

“I’ll be interested to see what progress Mr. Malvern made on the chamber this week,” she said to Tigg.

“I went yesterday, Lady. He’s got it all constructed, and said ’e was waiting for you before ’e did a test ignition.”

“How exciting! Does it look like the old chamber?”

“It’s bigger. I could stand up in this ’un.”

“Did he ... have any message for me?”

Tigg shook his head. “Just said ’e were impatient to see us Monday so’s ’e could do the test and see wot adjustments we need to make.”

Claire stifled a pang of disappointment. Of course he would say nothing to Tigg. And when they arrived at the laboratory and found him there, tinkering, he was his old self, breezy and self-deprecating and utterly unlike the man who had kissed her so passionately.

Which was all to the good, she thought as the baronial coach pulled to a stop, its horses stamping, and Lord James got out.

“Great Caesar’s ghost,” he said, gaping at her much as Jake and Lewis had done. “What in heaven’s name have you got on?”

“A costume,” she said, twirling like a ballerina. “Do you like it?”

“You look like an air pirate. Let those skirts down at once. Do you want His Royal Highness to see your knees?”

“They are covered in wool stockings, James. It is not likely he can see through them. Why, you are wearing hose yourself. What is the difference?”

He had chosen to go as an Elizabethan courtier, complete with white lace neck ruff and puffed and slashed pantaloons tied at the knee with ribbons. “The difference is that they are
your
knees.”

“You are being illogical.”

“And you are being intransigent.”

“And you both look wonderful.” Andrew moved between them. “With your masks on, I would not recognize either of you, which is the point of fancy dress, isn’t it?”

“Just so,” James said stiffly.

“So take your matching knees and go have a wonderful time. Lady Claire, I look forward to Monday, when we’ll see what our contraption will do. Tigg, how fortuitous that you came. I could use your assistance, and then perhaps we’ll go round the corner to the pub for a meat pie.”

Tigg’s face lit up. “Yes, sir. I’ll just check the pilot flame on the landau, and be in in a tick.”

It took all of the ride to Wellesley House for James to master his temper and speak civilly to her. There was no receiving line, of course, since it would not do to be recognized at the door, which allowed him to find a circulating waiter straightaway and secure two glasses of champagne. He knocked one back, found her a glass of punch, then drank the second one more slowly.

After that, he was ready to converse. And following that, to mingle.

Secure behind her mask, Claire smiled at the raised eyebrows and smothered gasps that her costume provoked. No Greek goddesses or china shepherdesses for her. The fact that her raiding rig was both sensational and utterly practical delighted her.

“Goodness. And what have we here?” said a fairy Claire assumed to be Titania, complete with glittering wings, in Julia Wellesley’s unmistakable drawl.

“An air pirate, milady,” Claire responded in her best airman’s vernacular. “We moored t’yer roof an’ gots our eyes on yer jewels.”

Julia sniffed behind her silver mask. “What a pity everyone else’s eyes are on your legs. Ah, well. Some people have no sense of propriety and are no doubt no better than they should be.”

“Lord Robert Mount-Batting liked ’em well enough.” Which was the truth. “Asked me for a waltz, ’e did.” Which was almost the truth.

She had pretended to threaten him if he did not dance with her, and he had put up his hands, laughing, and surrendered. His name was on her card for the third waltz—which would never have happened if she had been in regular evening clothes. In her old life, she had been introduced to him at least five times and he could never remember who she was.

Julia whirled and pushed through the crowd, her wings raking the coiffures of passing ladies, and Claire resisted the urge to chuckle. Julia would no doubt be kinder if he had asked her to marry him when she expected him to, immediately following graduation.

“I say, well done,” purred a voice behind her. Claire turned to see the female equivalent of a Cowboy, complete with buckskin skirt, drover’s coat, and a Colt repeating pistol strapped low on her hip. “It takes a woman with a spine to stand up to Julia Wellesley in her own ballroom.”

Claire took a closer look at the merry black eyes behind the mask. “Peony Churchill?”

“The same. Jolly marvelous costume, Claire. I would never have recognized you. Even your walk and your carriage are different.”

That was because she lived under no one’s thumb nowadays. “How
did
you recognize me?” Heavens, if Peony could, then anybody could, and she would have to leave rather sooner than she’d planned.

“Your voice,” Peony said simply. “Julia doesn’t mix with the working classes, so she can’t tell an imitation airman when she hears one. But I can.”

“I shall have to do better, then. But tell me, why are you still in town? I thought you were going to the Canadas.”

“I am.
Persephone
leaves on Saturday next, makes a stop in Paris, and I will be in New York by Wednesday night. From there we take another airship directly to Edmonton, and go by train to the mines up north.”

“It sounds terribly exciting.”

“It is. I do regret missing the new exhibitions coming to the Crystal Palace, though. The papers say they will include the most advanced engines ever invented.”

“I shall write and describe them in detail, then.”

“That would be wonderful. And put a few clippings in while you’re at it. We shall get our mail care of the Canadian Pacific Hotel in Edmonton.”

“Expect one from me. Peony, is that pistol loaded?”

“Of course not, or I should be tempted to shoot Catherine Montrose. What about that magnificent device on your back?”

“Oh, yes, it’s loaded. But Catherine is quite safe. It’s for my own protection only.”

Apropos of nothing, Peony said, “Is it really true you are engaged to Lord James Selwyn?”

“Yes,” Claire said slowly.

“You sound as though you don’t want to admit it.”

“I—well, our engagement is—the circumstances are—”

A man materialized at Peony’s elbow and bowed. “Oh, dear, this will be the second waltz. Goodbye, Cl—er, Mamzelle Air Pirate. I want you to tell me the end of that sentence in your letter.”

“Safe travels,” Claire said. Perhaps by then Peony would have forgotten.

*

By the time Lord Robert Mount-Batting appeared to claim his waltz, he was three sheets to the wind. If she had been a better dancer, she might have been tempted to lead, but as it was, she was forced to endure an embrace much closer than she would have preferred.

She had been perfectly right to wear her working clothes. The leather corselet protected her from roving hands as well as it did flying objects or certain kinds of weapons.

“Izzat a real gun?” he slurred, looking over her shoulder. “Where’d you get that?”

“I inherited it, and of course it’s not real,” she said, attempting to steer him away from a potted palm before he fell into it. “I imagine it’s just painted ceramic.”

“Looks real.” He attempted to touch the barrel, and she gripped his hand firmly. “Who are you again?”

“If I told you that, sir, the unmasking at midnight would be dull indeed.”

“Whole party’s dull. Julia’s angry with me. I ought to just go to the card room and stay there.”

Claire perked up her ears. “There’s a card room?”

“Course. Wanna play?”

Two hours later, Claire had cleaned out every man at her table using the very latest permutation of Cowboy Poker.

“I don’t understand it,” one man muttered—a knight with estates in Sussex, if she remembered correctly. “That hand just came out in the
Evening Standard
tonight. How is it possible for a female to know it already?”