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  “He was holding us all for ransom, but unfortunately, I am not worth very much,” Claire said. “He had no idea what to do with me, but in the meantime, James had found out what had happened to the Lady Lucy, and was on his way to pay my ransom.”

  Andrew nearly choked on his breakfast, and Maggie handed him a mug of the grass-scented liquid.

  “Pa—Ned—decided that he’d take both ransom and ship if he wrecked her. Without witnesses, he’d have nothing but profit.” Alice glanced at Claire, who took up the tale.

  “I had been washed downstream by the flash flood, and Alice pulled me out. So when Mose and his crew went to set out the lamps to lure the ship in, I climbed up on a pinnacle of rock—”

  “Spider Woman,” Alaia said, passing behind her to fill Andrew’s clay mug. “She had not finished spinning the thread of this man’s life.”

  “Yes,” Claire said after a moment. “I flagged the ship with a lamp like the railway men do, and it changed course at the very last moment.”

  “I heard about that,” Andrew said. “The airmen at one of the public houses—”

  “Honkytonks,” Alice put in, then blushed scarlet.

  Claire smothered a smile. One would not correct one’s idol in public if one had thought about it beforehand.

  “Honkytonks, yes.” Andrew nodded at her, and she blushed even more deeply. Even her hair seemed to be turning scarlet.

  Andrew went on, “The word was that the ship must have been in poor repair to have lost a piece off her bow.”

  “Scraping along Spider Woman would have torn the canvas right off.” Valiantly, Alice attempted to recover. “It’s sandstone, you know—it’ll take your skin off soon as look at it.”

  “James may not know it yet, but he owes me a debt. And when I go this morning to return the diamonds, if I should meet him I will tell him so.”

  “And then you can have the bobbies come an’ arrest him for thieving,” Tigg muttered. “’E ’as to pay for making off wiv our device.”

  “You will do no such thing,” Andrew said firmly, but whether to Claire or Tigg, she was not sure. “James must not know that I am here, or that you know what he has done. It is clear that the Dunsmuirs do not, or they would never have received him. He has duped them the way he duped Ross Stephenson and most of London society.” He gazed around the table with seriousness. “When we have Doctor Craig’s cell safely in our hands again, that will be punishment enough. You may believe that the only reason he had funds enough to pay Lady Claire’s ransom was because the Texicans have already paid him off. Without the cell, he will have them to deal with.”

  “If it’s Stanford Fremont’s boys he’s dealing with, he won’t last long,” Alice told them. “Those boys shoot first and ask questions later, and they don’t tolerate anyone taking advantage of them.”

  Claire got to her feet—there was no table, but the sleeping pallets acted as seating and were arranged around a flat stone that served as one. If she was to enjoy any more meals like this one, she would need to let out the strings of her corset. Of course, four days of next to no food had made it rather loose, anyway.

  “Who is coming with me?”

  Jake got up, and Tigg as well.

  “I don’t like this, Claire,” Andrew said. “Look what happened the last time you were alone with him.”

  “I believe I stole his coach and relieved him of nine hundred pounds,” she said crisply before she thought.

  Andrew goggled at her. “That was you? You sent that money in a tube?”

  It was too late now to deny it. “I did. So you see, I am as guilty of thievery as he is.” She lifted her chin. “If you wish to break off our acquaintance, I shall quite understand.”

  With a shake of his head, he conceded. “I wouldn’t have the opportunity to put right his crime were it not for that nine hundred pounds. And since my plans for tonight include thievery on a grand scale, I can hardly point fingers at you.”

  “Do all the toffs in London have thievery on their minds?” Alice asked, looking from one to the other.

  “You bet yer boots they do,” Lizzie said with certainty.

  Chapter 21

  The Dunsmuirs’ joy at learning Claire was not among the angels knew no bounds. Lady Dunsmuir fell on her neck rejoicing, and even the earl clasped her hands in both of his, tears standing in his eyes.

  “Never for a moment would we have left you if we had known you were alive,” he said, his voice breaking. “But the flood was so fierce it did not seem that anything could survive it.”

  “It’s the Lady,” Willie informed his father, as though fire, flood, or act of God was irrelevant where she was concerned. He clasped her legs through her skirts and gazed up at her with such happiness that Claire couldn’t help but kneel to hug him.

  His parents, of course, thought he referred to her title. “It is, indeed, darling,” the countess said. “And I have never seen a more welcome sight.”

  “Then allow me to offer you another.” Claire handed her one of Alaia’s mats, rolled into a tube. She and Alice had scrubbed away all evidence of the diamonds’ misadventures in the hatbox, where Rosie had used them for a cushion, and when the mat unfurled on the mahogany dining table, their full beauty glittered in the lamplight.

  Lady Dunsmuir gasped. “But how—where—oh Claire, we thought they were lost forever! Even when Will told us they were safe, I did not believe him. I am sorry, my darling, but I did not see how it could be true.”

  Claire smiled at Willie, and Tigg rubbed the top of his head with rough affection. “Willie, the girls, and Tigg put them into a hatbox with Rosie, attached a small dirigible, and launched them into the air the same moment that—” She stopped and glanced at Jake, who had just emerged from the earl’s hard clasp looking rather ruffled.

  “The same moment as I went into the lake,” he finished. “Wish I’d seen ’em. Rosie wouldn’t’ve had to spend a night shut up in a box elsewise.”

  “Jake, my dear boy.” Captain Hollys appeared, breathing rather heavily, as though he’d run all the way from the gondola. “One of the middies just told me he’d seen you board.” He shook his hand, pumping it so hard Jake’s jaw flexed in an effort not to wince. “I am so very glad to see with my own eyes that you are safe and unharmed.”

  “Thank you, sir.” The boy swallowed, then stood straighter. “I want to apologize to you all. I done so to the Lady, but I want you folk—I mean to say—” His lips trembled and his voice broke. “I wouldn’t ’ave done it if they ’adn’t threatened to kill you, starting wiv the youngest. Turned me coat, I mean. I were sorry then and I’m sorry now.” He stumbled to a halt.

  “My dear fellow.” The earl shook his hand a second time. “One doesn’t come back from the dead to apologize. Consider it forgotten, and we will go on as we began—as friends.”

  Jake’s face crumpled, and it was only with a heroic effort—and a glance at Tigg, who would never let him live it down if he wept like a girl—that he blinked his tears back and clasped the earl’s hand in return.

  Lady Dunsmuir gasped. “John! We must send a pigeon at once to Gwyn Place. Poor Flora—she must hear this happy news at once, before she undergoes the dreadful trial of a funeral.”

  In the air hung the word again, which Davina was too delicate to say.

  Claire put a soothing hand on her black silk sleeve. Black—could she be wearing mourning for Claire herself? “Do not distress yourself. We have already done so, with a message in my own hand so she knows the happy truth.”

  Her ladyship beamed with relief and did not seem to wonder where Claire had obtained her information. “You must fetch the girls—why are they not with you?—and bring them to dinner. We will be lifting off in the morning, and were having something of a send-off. It was to be rather a sober affair, but now we shall have a real celebration. Claire, you will never guess who our other guest is.”

  “The Prince Consort?” she asked, as though she could not possibly already know.
/>   “Your fiance, Lord James Selwyn!”

  Tigg sucked in a breath through his nose, and the earl did not miss the cautioning hand Jake laid on his shoulder. “Are you young men acquainted with his lordship?” he asked.

  Lady Dunsmuir looked from them to Claire, clearly dismayed that her delightful surprise had elicited not the joy she had expected, but this flat silence.

  “Aye,” Tigg said with admirable brevity.

  “Dear Davina.” Claire did her best to remember how one acted with blushing modesty. “I did not bring it up during our voyage, because I could not bear to think of it, but … Lord James and I … we … that is to say …”

  “She gave ’im the air,” Tigg put in helpfully.

  “Yes.” Oh dear, she must not laugh. Not when Davina had put her fingers to her lips in distress at the thought that she might have embarrassed Claire. “I broke our engagement the night of the exhibition at the Crystal Palace.”

  “You danced with the Prince,” Willie said. “Mama read it in the court circ—clerk—”

  “Court circular,” his mother said. “Oh Claire, I had no idea. Let me send a message to his hotel at once. It would be indescribably awkward if—I mean, the poor man is probably not recovered from our telling him you were dead, and to see you again—but my goodness, why on earth is he wearing mourning for you if you are no longer engaged?”

  “I cannot imagine. I would be grateful if you would send the message informing him that I am alive and well, so that he is prepared to celebrate rather than mourn.”

  Tigg and Jake stared at her as if she were speaking the language of the Navapai, no doubt wondering why she was actively inviting the blackguard into their company. After kissing Davina and telling her she could not wait another moment to retrieve her clothes and change, she pulled Tigg and Jake into the cabin that had been hers and closed the door.

  “Lady, what are you thinking?” Jake’s gaze was wary, but she could tell he expected her to have a reason behind her mad behavior.

  “Just this. If Lord James is here indulging in the earl’s good wine, he will not be at the laboratory tonight when Mr. Malvern goes in. I am going to contrive to have one or two of the barons invited to dinner, if I can, to lessen the chances of his discovery even further.”

  “Lady, are you sure?” Tigg’s face creased with doubt. “I wouldn’t want to be within a mile of ’im, meself. What if ’e convinces you to be Lady Selwyn again?”

  “I can safely assure you that will never happen.” She chivvied them into the corridor. “Now, Jake, I want you to go find Mr. Malvern and tell him my plans. I will make your excuses to the Dunsmuirs. Tigg, off to your cabin for a scrub and a change. I’m not ashamed to appear anywhere in my raiding rig, but I must say I will be glad to see a waist other than this one.”

  Her lovely blue evening gown was gone, confiscated by Ned Mose—no doubt to bestow on Alice’s mother. Claire could not regret that, though it did mean she must appear at dinner in a plain navy skirt with an embroidered white waist more suitable for work in a laboratory than at an earl’s table.

  She twisted the St. Ives pearls around her neck—hidden safely under Maggie’s clothes this whole time—and touched her grandmother’s emerald ring with affection. Both pieces went a long way to restoring her confidence.

  She was not feeling a dearth of confidence at the prospect of sitting across a dinner table from James. Rather, she needed the pearls to remind herself of who she was—the Lady of Devices, who did not tolerate attacks upon herself or her own. It would take all her self-control not to fling the roast at James’s head for his confounded thievery.

  *

  James had removed the black armband, but his face still carried traces of strain in the pinched look around his eyes and a physique that had lost weight in the weeks since she had last seen him.

  Claire doubted, however, that these touching proofs could be attributed to his belief in her demise.

  “Claire,” he breathed as he came toward her, hand outstretched, in the lounge of the Lady Lucy. “I cannot tell you how happy I am to see you alive and well.”

  “And I you.” She stepped back when it appeared he might take her in his arms, and he bent to kiss her hand as if he had meant to all along. “Thank you for being willing to pay ransom on my behalf.”

  Lady Dunsmuir gasped. “Claire, that is hardly a topic to bring up in polite company.”

  James smiled at his hostess. “If I have learned nothing else in my business affairs here in the Texican Territory, it is that while the country is beautiful, life here can be unexpectedly brutal, with no regard for polite company. For instance, the airship that carried me south to come to Lady Claire’s assistance barely missed a rock formation that would have wrecked it. Who would have predicted such a thing?”

  How convenient it was that they seemed to be in a mood for truth. “It missed the formation—called Spider Woman—because your navigator has quick reflexes. I was up in those rocks signaling with a lantern to turn the ship aside. It was about to be wrecked on purpose by Ned Mose and his gang of sky pirates.”

  How satisfying it was to render him completely speechless for once—he who had an answer for everything.

  Mr. Stanford Fremont, the most powerful railroad baron in the Texican consortium, nudged James with an elbow. “Saved your life, eh? Maybe there’s a little spark in that cold fire yet.”

  James flushed while Claire gazed at the man, marveling at his effrontery. He had only just met her—how very rude of him to make such personal remarks about a stranger!

  “I would have done the same had you been on the ship, sir,” she said coolly.

  The insult sailed over his leonine head. “I like a woman with spirit. How did she come to be so intrepid, so young?” He rocked back on his heels, his thumbs hooked in the velvet lapels of his dinner jacket.

  “I do not call an unwillingness to see a good ship and crew die intrepid, sir. Any of us possessed of a lamp and the ability to climb rocks would have done the same.” She turned from him with a polite smile and addressed James. “You have not introduced the others in your party. I should like to make their acquaintance.”

  He gathered himself with difficulty. “Certainly. Lady Claire Trevelyan, may I present Garrison Polk, who owns the Silver Nevada Railway, and Lieutenant Robert van Ness, commander of the detachment of Texican Rangers here in Santa Fe.”

  She offered her hand graciously to each man. As Lieutenant van Ness bowed over it, he clicked his heels as precisely as any Prussian soldier. “I am honored to make your acquaintance, Lady Claire,” he said in accents that confirmed he had not been born on this side of the Atlantic. “Let me assure you the Rangers are doing everything in their power to bring Ned Mose and his crew of miscreants to justice.”

  “I hope you find him,” she replied. “It should not be too difficult—his airship has, I believe, been stolen and he is grounded for the time being.”

  “There are more ways to get out of Resolution than by air,” the lieutenant growled. “But rest assured we know all of them. It is only a matter of time.”

  Lady Dunsmuir came forward and laid a hand on James’s arm. “Dinner is served, gentlemen. James, will you escort me in?”

  The villain, patting Davina’s hand on his arm as though she were a child too innocent to see what kind of man he was. Claire set her teeth and thought longingly of the lightning rifle, under her pallet in Alaia’s home.

  Never mind. By this time tomorrow they would all be in the air heading for the Canadas, with the rifle once more in her possession and the Carbonator’s cell safely tucked under canvas in her steam landau in the hold.

  And then James’s perfidies would all catch up to him with a vengeance. Her only regret was that she would not be here to see it.

  Tigg had taken his supper with Willie earlier, but as Lord Dunsmuir cut the roast beef and Davina passed her a plate, as though they dined en famille, her ladyship returned to her previous line of thought.

  �
��Are the girls quite safe, Claire? I must say it surprises me to see you separated.”

  “I hope you told them in no uncertain terms that their behavior in leaving us was unconscionable,” John put in. “When we realized what they’d done, I nearly stopped breathing.”

  “What had they done?” James inquired. “I’ve long been of the opinion that those children belong in a school or institution of some kind that will impose a little healthy discipline on them.”

  Claire’s knife clanked on china as she cut her beef with a little more energy than necessary. “They would not be separated from me,” she said mildly, to cover it up. “They refused to believe I was dead, and came to find me though it might have meant their lives.” Her lashes flicked up. “It is difficult to instill such loyalty in an institution, would you not agree?”

  Stanford Fremont gave a bark of laughter. “She’s got you there, James.”

  The man’s familiarity was beginning to get on Claire’s nerves.

  “But where are they, Claire?” The countess was honestly concerned. “And how did you get from Resolution to Santa Fe? I cannot puzzle it out.”

  She smiled. “This land may be brutal, but it harbors people who are willing to help when one is in need. Friends brought us here, and the girls are with them.”

  Technically, the girls were with Andrew, acting as his scouts, but he was a friend, was he not?

  “I am glad to hear it, though I must say, finding a friend in that dreadful little town is quite an accomplishment.” The countess shuddered.

  “They will be aboard in time for lift tomorrow, Claire, I hope?” John asked.

  “Of course. You may depend upon it.”

  “And that extraordinary hen?”

  Lieutenant van Ness leaned forward. “I beg your pardon, sir? Did you say hen?”

  “I did. When was the last time you took ship with poultry in your party?” Lord Dunsmuir’s question, Claire was quite sure, was merely rhetorical. “But this bird travels with Lady Claire, and woe betide anyone who mistakes her for a meal.”