Brilliant Devices: A steampunk adventure novel (Magnificent Devices) Read online

  “We shall be returning to London immediately following our tour, then,” Lady Dunsmuir said. “I will meet with Her Majesty to inform her of these developments.”

  “Do you fear reprisals, then, your ladyship?” the mine director asked.

  “I fear they have already occurred,” she said bluntly. “With the sabotage here and the attempt on Count von Zeppelin’s life, we would be fools if we did not believe them related. The only thing we do not know is who is behind it.”

  “We shall find out,” the count said grimly.

  “I’ll tell you who’s behind the sabotage,” the mine director said, his brows lowering in a frown. “If it isn’t Frederick Chalmers and his Esquimaux, I’ll eat my hat. Who else knows this mine like the back of his hand? And—begging your pardon, your ladyship—who parks his boots under the bed of a woman of the Esquimaux, the whole kit and caboodle of whom are in Isobel Churchill’s pocket?”

  Frederick Chalmers!

  Claire gripped the door frame hard so she would not fall headfirst through it. She must find Alice immediately. Could her father really be so close? Because it had to be he. How many men named Chalmers would have intimate knowledge of a mine’s workings if he were not an engineer?

  And then what the man had said sank in.

  They suspected Frederick Chalmers of the sabotage.

  Oh, dear. Which would be worse—never to know one’s father, or to know him for a saboteur and a criminal?

  *

  When Claire joined Andrew and their guide topside once more, she was hard put to keep from spilling her news. But of course one must not blab indiscriminately what one had learned by eavesdropping—though this was not a rule of etiquette her mother, Lady St. Ives, would ever espouse.

  They joined the others in the office, conveniently too late to have been included in the discussions. The meeting had broken up and everyone was enjoying thimbles of port and brandy. Claire and Maggie had just accepted cups of piping hot tea when a messenger came in.

  “Beg pardon, sir,” he said to the earl, “but a pigeon’s just arrived.” He handed his lordship an envelope bearing a most flamboyant script.

  The earl tore it open and read the contents.

  “Good heavens,” he said blankly, and handed the letter to the countess. “We are to be inundated with guests, it seems. The news of your visit, Count, seems to have traveled far and wide. And is about to travel farther.”

  Davina’s brows rose and she handed the letter to Count von Zeppelin. Then she turned to Reginald Penhaven. “It seems the end-of-season convoy is arriving a week early, in the company of Julius Meriwether-Astor and his family, plus a rather large contingent of reporters from the Texican, Colonial, and Edmonton newspapers. Do you know of Mr. Meriwether-Astor?”

  “Is he the railroad baron out of New York?”

  “He is indeed,” Count von Zeppelin said. “We have met on one occasion, but I am afraid it was not a happy one. He is expanding his interests from railroads to airships, you see, and did not look upon my newest designs with a friendly eye.”

  “His ships fly with the older Crockett steam engines, do they not?” Claire asked. And when surprised faces turned her way, she fought the tendency to blush under their scrutiny. “I went to school with his daughter Gloria. And when I was looking for a company with which to invest, naturally I first investigated a concern that was familiar to me.” She smiled at the count. “Their ships do not hold a candle to the Zeppelins, though, I am happy to say.”

  The count smiled back and waved the letter. “It seems he has been making a world tour in his newest model, seeking to drum up publicity.”

  “This seems a strange stop to make, then,” Mr. Penhaven observed. “A little out of the way, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Not if you bring reporters with you,” Davina countered. “The world comes with them. Count, I am afraid our dinner en famille is about to be augmented by several orders of magnitude. May I offer our mess hall once again, and recommend we move dinner to tomorrow evening?”

  He bowed to her gracefully. “If your chef will agree to working with mine, we will put on an event that will give these reporters something much more interesting to write about than Meriwether-Astor’s creaky old ships.”

  The door opened and another messenger came in. “A pigeon for you, your ladyship.”

  Davina tore open the envelope, scanned the letter, and raised her eyes to the heavens. “We may as well invite the governor of the territory and be done with it. This is from Isobel Churchill. She is on her way from Edmonton with what she says is an order from Prime Minister Darwin himself that we suspend production of our diamonds pending a hearing of the Esquimaux’s case before the Bar.”

  “Poppycock!” the earl exploded, taking the letter as if its contents would wither to nothing under his furious glare. “The prime minister has no such authority—particularly since the diamonds for Her Majesty’s thirty-fifth anniversary tiara are being cut and finished as we speak. I’m sure she would have a thing or two to say about a suspension, particularly since she chose the stones herself.”

  “Not to mention the fact that our mine is not under Esquimaux control,” Davina said more mildly. “It seems I may have to reveal my parentage to the dear lady after all this time, and settle the matter.”

  “That is your choice, my dear.” The earl touched her cheek, his temper fading as he regarded his wife with fondness. “You have the family and Her Majesty behind you, whatever you decide.”

  “I am not ashamed to let it be publicly known to Isobel Churchill … and twenty foreign reporters.” Davina raised her chin and looked positively wicked. “Perhaps I might even upstage Mr. Meriwether-Astor’s world tour.”

  Chapter 15

  Claire found Alice shortly thereafter, pacing to and fro in the gondola of the Stalwart Lass. She lost no time in telling her about Frederick Chalmers—and about Mr. Penhaven’s suspicions concerning his activities.

  “I ain’t going to judge him one way or the other,” Alice said after a short silence, during which Claire wondered if she were revising the appearance of the dream figure she had called Pa for most of her life. Adding shadows and angles. Taking away a certain amount of the glow.

  Or perhaps she was merely wondering about the presence of a woman in his life who was not her mother.

  “I ain’t interested in his politics. I’m just interested in whether he’s my pa or not, and if he is, why he went away and left me and my ma.”

  “The question is, how do we find him without raising the ire of the mining people? It would not do to be seen consorting with one whom they consider a saboteur.”

  Alice’s gaze was uncompromising. “Are you afraid, Claire?”

  Alice’s inability to prevaricate could sometimes produce most uncomfortable results. “Not afraid, no. But our situation is rather delicate, both of us being guests of the Dunsmuirs.”

  “I’m not really a guest. I’m here under my own steam.”

  “But you’ve eaten at their table—and will again, if the ball tomorrow night goes off as planned.”

  “I don’t have to go to that. Would rather not. But we’re getting off track. How are we going to find my pa?”

  “That nice boy who was guiding us might know,” Maggie said suddenly. “You could say you wanted to take Lizzie an’ me to see some real Esquimaux.”

  Claire gazed at her in admiration. “What an excellent mind you have, Maggie. The very thing. How difficult can it be to locate a Texican man in an Esquimaux village? Let us ask the ground crew to unload my landau at once. We shall be back for dinner before anyone notices we are gone.”

  Within half an hour, the thing was done. While Tigg, who was given land-leave by Mr. Yau to accompany them, supervised the unloading of the landau, Claire and the Mopsies changed into raiding rig.

  “Not that I expect any danger, of course,” she assured them, buckling her leather corselet. “But it would be foolish to set off into a wilderness populated by bears a
nd caribou without some means of protecting ourselves. And the lightning rifle cannot be holstered in a sash.”

  The young man had innocently provided them with a map and an offer of assistance, one of which was accepted with gratitude and the other declined with the same. And before long, they set off along a track of packed and already frozen gravel, which seemed to receive frequent use.

  “How far is it, Lady?” Tigg asked, leaning over the bolster between the compartments. “Will we see a bear?”

  “Mr. Eliot said about five miles as the pigeon flies, but that does not take into account the turns and—ouch! My apologies, that was a big one—the potholes.”

  “We’re lucky there’s a road at all,” Alice observed, hanging on to the seat with both hands. “Oh, kids, look—a bear, to be sure!”

  An enormous brown heap of fur back in the trees lifted its head to observe their chugging passage. They probably looked as strange and exotic to it as it did to them … but nevertheless, Claire increased the steam as they passed just in case it took exception to their presence.

  She had never been so glad to see the end of a road—if eight miles of unrelenting torture could be called a road. They crested a rise in the ground to see a river valley spread out below them, and clustered along it, a series of gleaming humps in the ground, in front of which smoke rose gently in the afternoon sun.

  “They bury their ’ouses, too,” Tigg said. “Bet they gave the miners the idea.”

  Claire rolled slowly to the outskirts of the village and before she could even begin to shut down the boiler, they had been surrounded by children of all shapes and sizes, in colorful dresses and thick jackets, their awed, bright-eyed faces rimmed in fur hoods.

  “Now, now, don’t be touchin’ this landau, you lot,” Tigg warned, trying to push the wing open wide enough to get out. “That bonnet’ll be ’ot.”

  Smiling, Claire and Alice descended, and lifted the Mopsies down. Two little girls who couldn’t be more than Willie’s age immediately reached out to touch Lizzie’s golden hair where it streamed over the breast of her coat, their velvety eyes huge. “Chama,” one of them said. Then her gaze moved to Alice’s head of blond curls, which she’d drawn up carelessly in a bunch and tied, unfettered by either pins or hat. “Chama.”

  “Chalmers.” Alice pointed to her chest. Then she swept a hand out to indicate the village. “Chalmers?”

  The children shrieked and ran like a pair of rabbits, bouncing and dodging between two of the mounds and disappearing.

  Alice’s shoulders sagged. “So much for trying to talk. Maybe Chama means Shove off or I’ll shoot in Esquimaux.”

  The chattering crowd of children seemed to be pushing them willy-nilly toward the village. “Tigg, stay with the landau,” Claire called over her shoulder, rather unnecessarily. For Tigg had planted himself bodily between the bonnet and two older boys who were trying to see where the tendrils of steam were coming from. She had no doubt that by the time they returned, Tigg would have given them a lesson in basic physics and they would be using a wrench for the first time.

  As they approached the strange silvery mound where they had last seen the little girls, a door opened in its basal structure and a woman stepped out.

  Claire’s first thought was that this was Alaia—the Navapai woman who had cared for her and her friends in her dwelling on the mesa outside Santa Fe. Her face held the same calm confidence edged in joy. But there the resemblance ended. Where Alaia had been slender and graceful, this woman was stocky and solid—at least, she appeared to be under her red dress and fur-trimmed coat. Clinging to each hand was one of the little girls.

  Ah. This must be their mother.

  The deep brown gaze passed over Claire and Maggie, lingered a moment on Lizzie, and proceeded to Alice, where it missed no detail of Alice’s appearance. Then she lifted her chin.

  Alice found her voice. “Um. Chalmers?” she said, no doubt feeling as foolish as she sounded.

  The woman planted her feet, as if she were expecting a blow. Claire received the distinct impression of a ship’s captain, giving the command to fire all cannon even though he knew the battle was lost.

  “Chalmers,” the woman said, in a voice as mysterious and deep as an owl’s call, and just as musical. “Alice?”

  *

  “What do you mean, the Esquimaux village?” Andrew Malvern couldn’t decide whether he most wanted to ream out his own ear, or to box those of his companion.

  “Just what I say, sir,” said the young man who had been their guide that afternoon. “The young ladies went off in a landau to the village, about eight miles from here. I offered to go with them, but they refused.”

  “And you let them?” Andrew’s eyes were practically bugging out of his head, and he reined in his temper with difficulty. “You let two young ladies go off into the wilderness without protection of any kind?”

  “They were better protected than I, sir,” he protested. “Have you seen that mucky great gun Lady Claire carries? Can she really shoot it?”

  “Yes, she can, and—” He stopped himself with a physical effort. “That is not the point! The point is, they do not know their way, nor do they know the extent of the dangers in this country. How could you have been so foolish?”

  The young man wilted. “It wasn’t just the two young ladies. The girls and that young blackamoor went as well.”

  This time Andrew was bereft of speech entirely. When he could speak again, he managed to get out, “That young blackamoor, as you call him, is my laboratory assistant and a midshipman on your employer’s personal vessel.” He breathed heavily. “You will refer to him as Mr. Terwilliger.”

  “Yes, sir.” By now the boy was close to tears. “What can I do, sir?”

  “Despite the fact that I would put the Mopsies up against anything except a bear, I see no option but to pursue them. But I swear, sir, that if any harm has come to so much as one hair upon their heads, you will pay for it with your hide.”

  “Yes, sir,” the young man whispered miserably. Then his gaze shifted upward, past Andrew’s shoulder. “Oh, no.”

  Andrew turned. A ship had emerged from the clouds over the forested tops of the hills—a ship with an ornate brass gondola and a bronze keel that ran the length of the fuselage. They could feel the sound of its engines as a vibration in the stomach—rather the way dread felt.

  “Whose is it?”

  “That would be the Skylark, Mrs. Churchill’s ship,” the young man said on a sigh. “We’re in for it now.”

  “Why? Is she so terrifying?” Andrew followed his guide, who broke into a jog as he headed in the direction of the airfield. “I’ve read about the lady’s political and charitable works, and she seems rather admirable to me. Do you suppose her daughter will be with her?”

  “I imagine so. Don’t let your admiration blind you to the facts—she is determined to shut the mines down. The Firstwater is only one of several.”

  They emerged from between the low-slung buildings as the Skylark sailed low over their heads. The ground crew swung into action, and within a few moments, the ship was secured to its mooring mast and settled into position. The gangway folded down and two ladies descended, allowing the crewmaster to hand them to the ground.

  Andrew, slightly out of breath, realized one of them was Peony Churchill. The other, then, must be the famous and redoubtable Isobel Churchill—intrepid explorer, fearless speaker, and scourge of Parliament.

  She did not look like a scourge. Indeed, her daughter was taller than she by a head, and her figure was trim and set off becomingly by a tobacco-brown tailored suit and a small hat set over one eye that somehow involved netting, silk roses, and pheasant feathers. It managed to add to her height, however. Her hair was russet brown and piled up under the hat in fat curls. She looked, in fact, like one of the smart set so frequently seen in Kensington High Street and the Burlington Arcade.

  But upon closer inspection, it was in her eyes that Andrew saw the woman who made membe
rs of parliament quail and newspapermen uncap their pens. For those eyes did not suffer fools at all. They saw the world as it could be, and had very little patience with it as it was.

  That sharp brown gaze also noted the distinct lack of an official welcome—if you did not count Andrew and his guide.

  Andrew swept off the fedora with the driving goggles affixed to the brim that had seen him from New York to Santa Fe to Edmonton, and bowed. “Mrs. Churchill. Miss Churchill. I trust you have had a pleasant flight?”

  “Why, Mr. Malvern,” Peony said before her mother could speak. “How lovely to see you again. Mama, this is Mr. Andrew Malvern—you remember, the scientist for whom my friend Claire was working in London. We met him last night in Edmonton, at the governor’s ball.”

  Had it only been last night? For Andrew, it seemed a lifetime ago.

  Isobel Churchill extended a gloved hand. “How do you do, Mr. Malvern? You are a long way from home.”

  “As are we all. I am here as a guest of the Dunsmuirs—mostly, I am afraid, because they do not know what else to do with me.”

  “I am sure that is not the case.” She smiled, and Andrew felt the power of her intelligence, not to mention that of the dimples that flirted at the corners of her mouth. He began to see why individuals at the highest levels of government believed her to be one of the most dangerous women in England. And maybe even the world. “Perhaps you can tell me where I might find the Dunsmuirs.”

  “If you will allow me to escort you, I believe they are in the offices still.”

  “Are you sure you want to do that?” The dimples twinkled, and he found himself losing track of his concentration. “If you are their guest, being seen with me could put your next meal in jeopardy.”

  “I am quite sure that not only my next meal, but yours as well, is already being taken into account.”

  “You are very gallant, but the Dunsmuirs know why I am here. I shall say my say and be back in the sky by sunset. There is weather coming, and I wish to be safely in Edmonton before it does.”