Magnificent Devices Read online

  “Does she ride your shoulder, as the parrots do in Nouveau France?” Lieutenant van Ness’s eyes twinkled with honest humor, and Claire found herself liking him. What a pity he kept such deplorable company.

  “She will if she is forced to, but for the most part, she travels in my hatbox. I lost the hat, alas, somewhere over the eastern part of the Territory.”

  “I should like to see this bird. I never would have believed a chicken could possess a spirit of adventure.” Smiling, the lieutenant addressed himself to his dinner.

  Claire did as well, it being the first solid food other than poh-soh-lay and the flat bread that she had eaten since she had been ill.

  Oh, if only she knew what was happening at the laboratory! But it was miles from here—at the south end of the city, where the railyards were—so she would not have news until Andrew, the girls, and Alaia’s sons returned.

  Those boys would fit right in at the Vauxhall Gardens cottage, she was certain. They could hardly contain their anticipation at the prospect of another adventure, and had gone with James before their mother could prevent them.

  “So if I might inquire, Lord Dunsmuir, what are your plans from here?” James asked, forking fluffy mashed potatoes and gravy into his mouth with appreciation. Perhaps he did not care for the local cuisine as much as others might—and his haggard appearance was due less to emotion than to simple reluctance to eat unfamiliar food.

  And then a particular intensity in his eyes caused a frisson of alarm down her back. She did not want James knowing their destination. Who knew what he might be capable of, frustrated and infuriated without the means to power the Carbonator?

  She opened her mouth to deflect the conversation to safer waters, but the earl forestalled her. “As I said, we lift in the morning, to continue our voyage to Edmonton.”

  “Edmonton,” James murmured. “And the Canadas, I understand, are part of the Empire, under the dominion and laws of our glorious Queen?”

  Claire could not imagine why he would state the obvious—he must simply be making dinner conversation for the benefit of their Texican guests.

  “Yes, we have a home and many friends there,” Lady Dunsmuir put in. “I am looking forward to introducing Claire to society—I am sure she will be the toast of the town.”

  “It seems a certainty,” Lieutenant van Ness said gallantly. “What a pity you are lifting so soon—I would be pleased to show you what rough society we have here.”

  “It cannot be so rough if you are a representative of it,” Claire told him with a smile. “Did you spend much time in the court of the Kaiser, sir?”

  He smiled while Fremont guffawed. “There’s no putting one over on this young lady, is there?”

  Claire suddenly realized why she did not like the man—was it necessary to refer to her in the third person at every opportunity? Did he never make a remark to a woman directly?

  “Lady Claire has a good ear,” the lieutenant said. “As it happens, I was in the service of Count von Zeppelin himself.”

  “And is he as remarkable an engineer of airships as I have heard?” Claire asked, unable to tamp her eagerness down to polite dinnertime levels. “When I left, I was particularly interested in the new B-30 model, built for military communications and transport at high speeds.”

  Fremont guffawed again. He might be rich as Croesus, but he sounded like the donkey in the farm across the river from Gwyn Place.

  Lieutenant van Ness did her the courtesy of answering quite seriously. “In fact, a prototype model is at the airfield here. If it were not so late, I would have been honored to give you a tour.”

  “I saw it on our way in. What is its top speed?”

  “Really, Claire,” murmured Davina.

  “Under steam power, and with a tailwind, it has reached speeds of nearly fifty knots—well in excess of the fastest train in England—”

  “—the Flying Dutchman,” he and Claire said simultaneously.

  James glanced at Fremont with a smile of which an automaton might have been proud. “I feel as though I am at a meeting of the Royal Society of Engineers.”

  “Why, thank you, James,” Claire said. “Our voyage may have delayed my plan to attend the university to study engineering, but it has not weakened my intention.”

  “Claire, shall we leave the gentlemen to their port and cigars?” Lady Dunsmuir rose gracefully, and Claire had no choice but to follow or appear hopelessly forward and discourteous. “We will have coffee and dessert in the lounge.”

  She settled next to Davina on a soft couch near an expanse of glass that would have given them a view of the prototype airship had it not been dark and the drapes drawn.

  “Lieutenant van Ness seemed quite taken with you.” Davina offered her a Sevres porcelain cup bearing the Dunsmuir crest picked out in gold. “It is almost a shame we are leaving so soon. But I cannot be altogether sorry.” She lowered her voice. “It is only by chance and misfortune that we are here at all, of course. I have asked John to convey my wishes to Captain Hollys that we make for Edmonton with all possible speed. The sooner we are in the Canadas, the happier I will be.”

  “It has not all been misfortune,” Claire said softly, stirring cream into her coffee. “I have met some wonderful people.” Without Alice and Alaia, her life would have been the poorer. As it was, she did not know how she was going to say goodbye to Alice, knowing it was unlikely she should ever see her again.

  “I am glad to hear it, but weighed in the balance against these few are people like Ned Mose, and Jake’s near death, and now poor dear James’s own brush with mortality.” Davina tasted her coffee and looked up. “He came all that way to ransom you. Are you sure that, whatever your reasons for breaking your engagement, they are valid now?”

  “Quite sure.” Claire sipped her own coffee.

  “But in the face of such devotion—his face when he came in and saw you—”

  “Davina, it pains me to speak of him. There are things you do not know.”

  “There always are,” the countess said with a sigh. “It is a great pity. He would be a fine match.”

  “Socially, perhaps, but in no other way, shape, or form.” It was long past time to change the subject. “I am glad we are leaving sooner rather than later. Tell me, do you think this climate is healthy for Will? I hope he is not developing a cough from the dust?”

  This sent Davina into a lengthy commentary on the health of her beloved boy, and Claire nodded and smiled in all the right places. Not for worlds would she hurt Davina’s feelings after she had been so good to her and the children, but some topics were so distasteful that the less time spent with those words upon the tongue, the better.

  When the gentlemen came in and settled on the couches for their dessert, there was no more talk of eligible men. Instead, the talk turned to what Claire supposed was inevitable—railroads and the prospects for more of them.

  She was content to occupy her couch, back straight, an interested smile upon her lips, while all the time she counted hours and steps and miles, wondering where Andrew and the girls were and whether they had accomplished their mission. In fact, within half an hour she was quite ready to bid her host and hostess goodbye for the evening, and make her way back to the village to wait for news of them.

  She had just put her plate down after finishing a dessert that resembled pumpkin pie but certainly was not, when there was a thump on the decks below, and the sound of raised voices.

  Claire and Davina both glanced toward the door, and the lieutenant half rose. “Is there some trouble below?”

  A shout was his answer, and Lord Dunsmuir and the Chief Steward started for the door at the same time. A scuffle could be heard on the gangway, and then a muffled curse in a voice Claire could swear sounded familiar.

  James had risen to his feet as well. “Is that—?”

  Three or four men in black coats much like those Claire had seen Andrew wearing in his laboratory appeared in the doorway. “Mr. Fremont, sir!” one of
them called.

  Between them they held a man who was covered in dust and bruises, his hair flung over his face. His canvas coat appeared to have been dragged along the ground—possibly with him still inside it.

  His canvas coat.

  Claire started to her feet, but James beat her to it. “Andrew?” he said in tones of utter astonishment. “Stanford, ask your men to release him at once. I know this man.”

  “What is the meaning of this?” Stanford Fremont demanded. “Can’t you see we are at dinner with Lord and Lady Dunsmuir?”

  The biggest of them gave Andrew a shove, and he stumbled to his knees. “We thought you’d want to talk to him yourselves, sirs,” he said, “seeing as he was trying to steal the power cell right out of the Carbonator. Caught him red-handed, we did, and you know the penalty for thieving here. The only question is, do we shoot him now or wait until dawn?”

  Chapter 22

  Lizzie kicked the man in the black laboratory coat with all her strength. He howled and his grip loosened for a split second, just long enough for her to tear loose and pound up the gangway. “Lady!” she shrieked. “Help!”

  Maggie grabbed her opportunity, kicked the man in his other shin, and took off after her sister, screeching loud enough to raise the dead.

  They burst into the lounge together, only to realize a moment too late that there were more men in black coats—the room was crawling with them—and there, looking like death warmed over, was his nibs himself, the Lady’s former fiance.

  Oh woe, the plan was all at sixes and sevens, and now what were they to do?

  Maggie dove for the Lady’s skirt and clutched it, sobbing in terror that was half real. “Lady, that man grabbed us and they was ’orrible to us and oh, Mr. Malvern is in such trouble!”

  The Lady sank to her knees and gathered Maggie and Lizzie into her arms just as the bloke that had tried to hold them ran into the room, red-faced and swearing.

  “There!” he shouted. “Mr. Fremont, sir, those two little she-demons were in on it with him. You just leave them to me, sir, and I’ll show ’em how to mend their manners. I’ll shoot ’em myself.”

  “You will do no such thing.” The freezing tones that could quell even Lizzie on a rampage made a shiver tiptoe down Maggie’s back as the Lady rose to her feet. “What is the meaning of this?”

  The man gawked at her, then at the big man with the mane of hair groomed so perfectly that it could have been carved like the angels in Westminster Abbey. “Mr. Fremont, sir?”

  “Answer the young lady—Baxter, is it? I’d like to know myself why you’re wrangling children when you’re supposed to be working in my laboratory.”

  “They ain’t children. They’s devils. I got bruises coming the size of apples, sir.”

  “I dislike repeating myself,” the Lady said, enunciating so clearly the consonants cut the air. “Why are you manhandling my wards?”

  Maggie straightened, but didn’t leave off her hold of the Lady, instead slipping both arms around her waist. A comforting hand came down upon her shoulder, and the Lady drew Lizzie close as well.

  “Your … wards?” Baxter didn’t look as if he knew whether he was coming or going. “I dunno nothing about that. All I know is that when we captured Malvern here breaking out the power cell, we found these two in the yard outside. Ain’t no reason for kids to be there, so they have to be together.”

  “I believe the children are acquainted with Mr. Malvern, as am I,” Lord James said. “I cannot help but think there has been a dreadful misunderstanding.”

  “Not much to misunderstand,” another man said. His moustaches were the size of mice. Maggie stared, wondering if he ever lost his food on its way to his mouth. “This man Malvern was caught thieving, and it looks like these girls were with him. The penalty for thieving in the territories, like I said, is death by a single shot. So I’ll ask again—are we doing it now, or at dawn, so he has the services of a padre before he meets his Maker?”

  “They,” Baxter said, feeling his calf. “Those little demons are going with him. I’ll do it myself.”

  “You will do no such thing,” her ladyship said in scandalized tones. “They are only children. And Mr. Malvern is a very good friend of ours, to whom we owe a great debt. I am sure it is as Lord James said—a misunderstanding.”

  “Andrew, would you like to explain?” his lordship said. “What were you doing at the laboratory? What are you doing here in the Americas at all? The last I saw you, you were coming to an agreement with Ross Stephenson about that device you exhibited at the Crystal Palace.”

  Mr. Fremont laughed a big laugh that didn’t sound a bit as if he thought something was funny. “You’re behind the times, Dunsmuir.” He slapped his lordship on the back, and when Lord Dunsmuir turned slowly, his eyebrows rising, Mr. Fremont went on oblivious to the fact that his lordship didn’t appreciate the familiarity. “That deal’s dead in the water. Selwyn here went with the horse that’s going to win this race.”

  Horses? Maybe the man had had a knock on the noggin. He wasn’t making a bit of sense.

  Mr. Fremont waved an expansive arm. “I understood from James that Malvern had signed off on the whole shebang. Isn’t that right, James?”

  “Whether he did or he did not is immaterial,” his nibs said, smooth as butter. “The fact remains that I own the Carbonator and can do with it as I wish.”

  “That is not the case.” Andrew struggled in the grip of the black coats. Mr. Fremont waggled a hand at them and they let him go. He tugged his beaten canvas coat into place while his face reddened with temper. “I am joint owner of that device, and you people stole it out from under me. Ross Stephenson paid earnest money in good faith and James, you reneged on that deal. This entire enterprise is a dishonorable mess from start to finish.”

  “Is that so?” With two fingers, Fremont dug in the pocket of his fine jacket and pulled out a chased-silver cigarette case. Maggie would bet Lizzie’s fingers had twitched at the sight of it. He lit a cigarillo and blew a stream of smoke in Mr. Malvern’s face.

  Ooh, if that weren’t as rude as rude could be!

  “So, what, were you planning to take back what you consider your own?”

  “It is half mine.” He glanced at the Lady. “More than half. Lady Claire is invested in it as well. It cannot be sold—or moved—or duplicated—without our consent. I do not speak for her, but I certainly do not consent.”

  “Really.” Lord James accepted a nasty, stinking cigarillo from Mr. Fremont. “And whose name is on the patent application, might I ask?”

  “Yours and mine, of course,” Mr. Malvern said.

  “Are you quite sure? I believe at this moment it is in Fremont’s offices with only mine on it, to be filed in the Santa Fe Office of Engineering as soon as we have the manufacturing process in place.”

  The Lady’s fingers were digging into her shoulder, and Maggie squirmed.

  “So you redacted his name as well, James?” she asked. “I am fascinated at the way you treat your friends.”

  “The real application is in my laboratory,” Mr. Malvern snapped. “I don’t know what counterfeit you plan to file, but it is not the real patent. That can only be filed in London, with the approval of the Royal Society of Engineers.”

  “Spoken like a true subject of an irrelevant Empire.” Mr. Fremont waved this away as though he were bored to death with the whole subject. “The fact is, you broke into my laboratory with larcenous intent, and assaulted my men in the defense of my property, as Murphy here says. Out here we deal with thieves ourselves. Baxter, Murphy, take Mr. Malvern here to the city lockup and see he has a padre.”

  “Mr. Fremont, I must protest.” The earl stepped in front of the man called Murphy, who had grabbed Mr. Malvern’s arm in a grip he couldn’t shake. “This man is a subject of the Crown. He cannot be shot. He cannot even be detained without benefit of a hearing by a magistrate. He did no harm. He was most likely examining this device to see that it had come to no grief.”


  “He had the cowling off and had the power cell half disconnected,” another man put in. “That’s more than an examination. Five more minutes and who knows what damage he would have done. Lucky thing Murphy here forgot to take his smokes with him during shift change, and came back to get them.”

  Murphy dragged Mr. Malvern, kicking and struggling, to the gangway. They all seemed to have forgotten Maggie and Lizzie.

  “This is outrageous!” the Lady cried. “You cannot do this! Lieutenant van Ness, do something!”

  “Fremont, Lord James—surely this bears looking into,” said the man in the slate-blue uniform with the little gold birds on his collar points. “It isn’t the Texican way to execute a man before we have all the facts. Especially not a citizen of the Empire.”

  Mr. Fremont’s eyes narrowed, and Maggie pressed closer to the Lady. She’d seen a snake in the Tower Zoo once that had looked just like that. The poor rat they’d put in the cage with it for its dinner hadn’t had a ghost of a chance.

  Lord James stubbed out his cigarillo in a crystal dish that Maggie knew her ladyship meant for candies. “Let us be calm,” he said. “Perhaps I can see a way out of this difficulty.”

  “I knew you would.” Fremont made to clap him on the back, too, but James stepped out of the way. “Let’s hear it.”

  “Since Stanford and I are joint partners in this venture, I believe I can speak for him as well, when I suggest an exchange.”

  “An exchange?” his lordship said. “A man’s life for—what?”

  “For a woman’s.” Lord James smiled at the Lady, who simply stared at him while all the color drained out of her face. “I propose—” He smiled wider at the word. “—that Lady Claire retract the statements she made to me when last we saw one another in London, and reinstate our engagement. Instead of fabricating the Selwyn Kinetick Carbonator immediately, I further propose we continue with our manufacture of enough carbonated coal for a demonstration run to San Francisco, where we will conclude our arrangements with the Royal Kingdom of Spain, and then Claire and I will take ship for Her Majesty’s namesake city, Victoria, in the Canadas.”