Her Own Devices (25 page)

“A story for a long evening,” Claire said with a smile. “But suffice to say that Doctor Craig is perfectly sane and healthy, and she is at present enjoying her travels out of the country.”

Rosie marched up and tugged upon her skirt, demanding her attention, and Claire picked her up. The hen cuddled into her arms with the air of a queen resting upon her jeweled cushions, and surveyed her kingdom from on high.

“Most singular,” Lord Dunsmuir murmured.

Two of the boys brought the table out into the sunshine, and Granny Protheroe proceeded to lay out tea.

“Where’ve you been, Lady?” Lizzie wanted to know.

“You didn’t go to the laboratory?” Tigg asked. “If ’is nibs were there you might be in danger.”

Lady Dunsmuir’s eyebrows rose, and Claire hastened to explain as she took a seat. “I did not go to the laboratory. I have been visiting Mr. Arundel and sending telegrams.” She gazed at them all—Snouts, Jake, the Mopsies, Lewis, Tigg, and the others—and her heart broke at having to leave them. But it had to be done. “Has Tigg told you that I have broken my engagement to Lord James?”

The Mopsies nodded. “And good riddance, too.”

Lady Dunsmuir made a sound suspiciously like a laugh, picked up the teapot, and began to pour for all of them, her face appropriately sober once more.

“He is not ... taking it well. I am very much afraid he will force me to marry him before my eighteenth birthday, so I am going on a trip.” They stirred, and looked at each other with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. “I am going to visit Miss Churchill and Doctor Craig in the Canadas. I shall return in six weeks, after my birthday, so I’ll be back before you know it.”

Maggie sidled up to her and stroked Rosie’s feathers, and Willie came to her other side, laying his little hand upon her knee. “But what about us, Lady? Are we to go, too?”

“I—I am afraid not. I have cashed out my stock in the Midlands Railroad—”
And put half of it in shares of Count Zeppelin’s airships
. “—but even then, I could only afford passage for one.”

“Not go?” Maggie’s eyes filled. “But you promised. We’re flock mates. We’re always to be together. You said so.”

Oh, dear. “I know, but it’s only for—”

“You
said
so! You
promised!
” Maggie burst into tears, and Lizzie followed suit, and then Willie, too.

Claire felt her own eyes fill, and before she knew it, all the strain and emotional upheaval of the past few days overwhelmed her, and her breath hitched in a sob. “I’m sorry,” she choked out. “I must go where he cannot reach me—I don’t know what else—”

Lady Dunsmuir telegraphed an urgent message to her husband with her fine, expressive eyes.

“Lady Claire, if I might offer a suggestion?”

He could hardly be heard above the wailing. Rosie, disturbed by the noise and kerfuffle, jumped down from Claire’s lap and stalked away into the pea arbor, where she vented her displeasure on the unfortunate rooster.

Claire controlled herself with difficulty, swiping her wet cheeks with the palm of her hand. “Yes, m-my lord?”

“It seems to be the season to make travel plans. Since Willie returned to us, Davina and I have been vexed to the point of near violence by newspaper reporters camped outside the door, and sundry evil gossips making free with our names in public. We have decided to take an extended tour of my family’s holdings and enterprises in the Canadas until the furor dies down. We are, in fact, leaving tomorrow. This is why we came to visit—Willie would not rest until he had said goodbye to each and every one of his friends, including that extraordinary hen.”

Claire slipped an arm around Willie’s shoulders and kissed the top of his head. “You darling, always thinking of others before yourself.” She sniffled. “We should have been dreadfully upset to have come to call, only to find you all gone.”

“Claire, would you consider accompanying us?” Lady Dunsmuir’s soft voice silenced the crying, and the girls subsided into sniffles themselves. Claire pulled her handkerchief out of her sleeve and handed it to Maggie. “And the children, too, as many as wish to go, so that you will not be separated, and Willie will have companions with whom to enjoy the adventure?”

Claire’s breath went out of her in a rush. “My goodness, how kind you are—but we could not—the expense!”

Lord Dunsmuir waved a negligent hand. “Oh, we do not travel on
Persephone
.
Lady Lucy
, the family airship named for my grandmother, is moored at Southampton. Between my father, rest his soul, and my younger brothers, one of us has always been in the air either coming or going from our business in the Canadas. Believe me, there is room for you and your household, as our most honored guests.”

A private airship—! Goodness, the Dunsmuirs must be wealthier than she had ever dreamed.

“We are staying at the hotel at Waterloo Station, and will take the seven o’clock train to Southampton tomorrow morning.”

And to travel in the comfort and companionship of a family she had learned to respect ... suddenly the prospect of traveling alone to the other side of the world held no appeal whatsoever. “I should love to share the adventure with you,” she said. “And the children—you are sure—?”

“If they agree to come, I can have a word at the Home Office and have traveling papers prepared within the hour. I assume you have yours.”

She did, having secured them during her errands this morning. Goodness. Well. All that remained was to determine who would go. “Mopsies? What say you?”

“We’re going,” Maggie said promptly. “I like airships.” Lizzie looked a little ill, but where her twin went, there she went also.

Willie grinned, left Claire’s side, and went to hug his mother, as if in thanks for arranging the entire enterprise.

“Tigg?”

“I—I dunno, Lady. I feel beholden to Mr. Malvern, but I want to stick wi’ you. Then there’s the landau to be thought of.”

“You have a steam landau?” his lordship asked. “Even better. Ours goes with us on the cargo deck. Yours will balance the load. It is simply a matter of driving them up into a boxcar and tying down the wheels.”

For every problem, he provided a solution. How lucky Lady Davina was to have a man who lived positively instead of negatively.

“If the landau and the Lady go, then I go,” Tigg said, lifting his chin as if to challenge anyone who disputed it. “I s’pose Mr. Malvern will understand, since our project is done with and I dunno what he’ll be working on next.”

“Snouts?” Claire asked. “Jake? Lewis?”

Lewis shook his head. “No airships for me, nor Rosie either. I’ll stay and look after the chickens.”

“Nor me,” Snouts told her. “Beggin’ yer pardon, Lady, but I’m better off on t’ground where I know what’s what. Someone ’as to be in charge of this lot, and it won’t be you, Lewis.”

Jake mumbled something, and at Claire’s prodding, said, “’Er ladyship did give me yer uncle’s coat. Shame to waste it.”

“It would be. I should appreciate your companionship and protection, Jake, if you would come.”

He glanced up under his shaggy hair at the Earl of Dunsmuir. “If ’is lordship don’t mind?”

“Certainly not,” he said stoutly. “I should be glad of a man’s company. And it doesn’t hurt to learn a thing or two about aerial navigation. Captain Hollys is a fine teacher, despite the fact that it’s taken years to pound such facts into my thick skull.”

Lady Davina clapped her hands like a delighted child. “Then we are agreed. We shall share this adventure together. In fact, if you can gather your things on such short notice, we can leave now and spend the night in the hotel. I understand they serve a particularly fine roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.”

And so it was decided, with less fanfare than it took to plan a dinner party.

Claire required only moments to pack the clothes for herself and the girls, along with enough notebooks to record their journey—the only difficulty being where to conceal the lightning rifle, for she would not leave it behind. Finally she rolled it up in her driving duster and strapped it to the outside of her traveling case, which was stuffed with the extra burden of the blue satin ballgown and her leather corselet, driving goggles, and riding hat.

She would not leave her raiding rig behind, either, or a small supply of gaseous capsaicin and enough small parts and gears to construct a firelamp or two.

Because it was a big world out there, and one just never knew.

A lady of resources and intellect always faced the future prepared.

*

Dear Claire,

I am writing to you in shame and great distress. After you departed the Crystal Palace last night, the most appalling scandal broke out involving someone we both know well.

I hardly know how to say this, so I will just write it baldly: James has absconded with our chamber. Worse, he has sold it to a consortium of Texicans who promised to triple the deal that Ross Stephenson offered him. I say him because I have been completely cut out. All I have are the bolts on the exhibit floor that were left after they carted the entire chamber out in the small hours of the morning. From what I have been able to discover, James and the Texicans plan to shoulder their way onto one of the transatlantic airships that accept heavy cargo, and flee before agents of the Midland Railroad Company catch them.

For some reason that mystifies me, he has tried to make reparation by sending me money. I will use it to pursue them. Needless to say, it is my livelihood and reputation that are at stake.

I swear, Claire, that I will get the kinetick cell back. Dr. Craig said it was yours. It is one thing to use it to make our own living in an honorable way. It is quite another to steal the entire device and flee the country. But without the cell, the chamber will be nothing more than glass and brass, and we will see how clever the Texicans are at carbonating coal without it.

I do not know when I will see you again.

I hope you will think of me kindly.

Yours in haste,

Andrew Malvern

THE END

Enjoy Lady Claire’s continuing adventures

in book three,
Magnificent Devices
,

coming in 2012!

Award-winning author Shelley Adina wrote her first teen novel when she was 13. It was rejected by the literary publisher to whom she sent it, but he did say she knew how to tell a story. That was enough to keep her going through the rest of her adolescence, a career, a move to another country, a B.A. in Literature, an M.F.A. in Writing Popular Fiction, and countless manuscript pages. Between books, Shelley loves traveling, playing the piano and Celtic harp, making period costumes, and spoiling her flock of rescued chickens.

Find out about Shelley’s other novels at
www.shelleyadina.com
:

The All About Us series

It’s All About Us (2008)

The Fruit of My Lipstick (2008)

Be Strong and Curvaceous (2009)

Who Made You a Princess? (2009)

Tidings of Great Boys (2009)

The Chic Shall Inherit the Earth (2010)

Steampunk

Lady of Devices
(2011)

Her Own Devices
(2011)

Magnificent Devices
(2012)

Paranormal

Immortal Faith (2011)

the first book in the Magnificent Devices series!

Copyright 2011 Shelley Adina Bates

Lady of Devices, a steampunk adventure novel

Magnificent Devices, Book 1

London, 1889

To say the explosion rocked the laboratory at St. Cecelia’s Academy for Young Ladies might have overstated the case, but she was still never going to hear the end of it.

Claire Trevelyan closed her eyes as a gobbet of reddish-brown foam dripped off the ceiling and landed squarely on the crown of her head. It dribbled past her ears and onto the pristine sailor collar of her middy blouse, and thence, gravity having its inevitable effect, down the blue seersucker of her uniform’s skirt to the floor.

Shrieking, the other students in the senior Chemistry of the Home class had already flung themselves toward the back of the room and away from the benches directly under the mess. “Ladies!” Professor Grünwald shouted, raising his arms as if to calm the stormy waters, “there is no cause for alarm. Collect yourselves, please.” His gimlet eyes behind their gleaming spectacles pinned Claire in place like a butterfly on a board. “Miss Trevelyan. Did I not, just moments ago, tell you not to add the contents of that dish to your flask?”

“Yes, sir.” She could barely hear herself over the squawking of her classmates.

“Then why did you do it?”

The truth would only net her another grim punishment, but there was no other answer. “To see what would happen, sir.”

“Indeed. I seem to remember you gave Doctor Prescott the same reply after the unfortunate incident with the Tesla coil.” His jaw firmed under its layer of fat. He addressed the back of the room, where the others huddled against the cabinets in which he kept ingredients and equipment. “Ladies, please. Adding peppermint to an infusion of dandelion and burdock will do you no harm. You may adjourn to the powder rooms to rearrange your toilettes if you must.”

Several of the girls stampeded from the room, leaving behind Lady Julia Wellesley, Lady Catherine Montrose, and Miss Gloria Meriwether-Astor, who watched her humiliation with as much wide-eyed delight as if it were the latest flicker at the theater. Claire straightened her spine. She should be used to this. Fortitude was the key.

Another gob of foam landed on her shoulder. Behind her, Lady Catherine stifled a giggle.

“And are you satisfied with your newfound knowledge?” Professor Grünwald was not finished with her yet.

“Yes, sir,” Claire said with complete truth.

“I am delighted to hear it. In future, when I tell you not to do something, I would like the courtesy of obedience. You are here to learn the chemistry of the home, not to engage in silly parlor tricks.”