Fields of Air: A steampunk adventure novel (Magnificent Devices Book 10) Page 2

  “One cannot discover the truth if one is not permitted to mine. Spain must have gold, and therefore it must have its lands back. This is where your father’s vision and the late Viceroy’s aligned most happily.”

  “And what of the new Viceroy? Is he a believer in legend?”

  A muscle flexed in the man’s jaw. “Our new ruler, while a paragon of manly virtue, is of a more studious bent. The way to appeal to him is through books and history, so I have left learned men to educate him while I am gone. An appeal to reason cannot help but bear fruit.”

  “Is he so very young, then?”

  “He is out of the schoolroom, and had been preparing to attend university in Spain like all his ancestors before him, when God called his father to heaven by means of a failure of the heart.”

  “I see.” A bookish young man might see war very differently than his Ambassador seemed to. This could only work in her favor. “The shipments of arms you have received thus far, then, have included guns, ammunition, train cars, articulated loading cranes, and cannon.”

  His brows rose. “You are well informed.”

  “I looked it up.” She gave him a sunny smile. “But there are entries for armaments I do not understand. The final shipment, which I understand you will take possession of personally, contains many, many tons of iron comprising mechanicals that seem to be parts for larger machines, not those that have been completed.”

  How pleased he seemed with her knowledge!

  “You are quite correct. The Meriwether-Astor Munitions Works has quite outdone itself in supplying the parts for the machinery that our scientists and engineers have designed. Machines that, unlike airships, for instance, do not offend God, but rather emulate His own creation.”

  “In what way? Does not every creation of man emulate that of God to some degree?”

  “I see you are a budding philosopher as well as a great beauty.” The warmth of his gaze might have been bestowed upon his own daughter. “I hazard to say that his late highness would have enjoyed talking with you as much as with your father.”

  “How very kind of you. I cannot agree, I am sure. But the machines?”

  “Have you ever seen the mechanical horses upon the—how do you call them? At the fair or the exhibition.”

  “The carousel?”

  He snapped his fingers. “The carousel. Exactly.”

  “Why yes, I have. I spent many a happy day at the exhibition as a child, and the carousel was one of my favorite amusements.”

  “Picture those horses then, not affixed to a pole, but made of moving iron and forming the cavalry of an army, invincible, and unaffected by weather or the need for food or water.”

  “The final shipment contains parts for mechanical horses?” A sudden vision of such a cavalry, thundering across the desert toward a sleepy town, took her breath away with dread.

  “Sí, senorita. And cannon in the arms of mechanical behemoths. And racing machines built to be faster than a leopard, carrying rockets and bursting through offensive lines to release them into the heart of an army.”

  “Good heavens.” Gloria felt quite winded, her mind reeling at the spectacle. “Would it not be simpler to sign treaties with the Texican government, contribute equipment, and split the yield from the mines equally?”

  “There are no mines yet, and there will not be until the land is ours again,” he said gruffly. “Land is our birthright—as any Californio will tell you.”

  “Californio?”

  “The noblemen of our country—what the English call landed gentry. Many have titles extending back to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and families with roots in the titled nobility of Spain. We do not sign treaties. We own.”

  “I see,” Gloria said thoughtfully, as though the prospect of mechanical war animals and the annexation of perfectly happy territories minding their own business were normal. “And the army is prepared, then, and ready to invade once the final shipment arrives?”

  For the first time, his arrogant, proud gaze faltered, and he considered the orange trees with a frown, as though he found them somehow lacking. “The Viceroyalty does not have a standing army. And His Highness is not the leader of men that his father was. But when the time comes, I will see that each landowner raises men from his own acres to go and fight.”

  Gloria knew her history and geography as well as the next schoolgirl. This seemed rather feudal. “Is this the way they have always done it?”

  “We have not needed to—not in two hundred years. Hence the growing necessity to make our will known to the upstarts and trespassers upon our ancestral lands.”

  “So … no one has actually fought in two hundred years?”

  Gloria thought of the Kingdom of Prussia, where the army was an honorable career choice for any man. Or of England, where airships were registered with the Admiralty and, whether privately owned or not, crewed by trained aeronauts who could take to the skies to defend England’s shores at a pigeon’s notice.

  So these Californios learned about war in school, but no one had actually fought in centuries? Were they mad? Or had legends of pride and grandeur blinded them to their actual capabilities—and even the necessity of war?

  “Not physically. But every boy learns the art of war in the schoolroom and gymnasium, preparing him so that at any moment he may obey the Viceroy’s will—in the person of his humble servant—to rise up in his glorious name.”

  Did he mean himself? Was she at this moment speaking to the real power behind the throne, now that a boy who was probably not even in his twenties had inherited it?

  “This is why our late Viceroy’s partnership with your father has been of vital importance,” de Aragon went on, removing his censure from the orange trees and turning his dark gaze upon her instead. “I—we mean to declare war on the Texican Territory and take it back—and the Meriwether-Astor Munitions Works has made it all possible.”

  She had not missed that slip of the tongue. He meant to declare war. Was it possible that the young Viceroy knew nothing of the Ambassador’s mission in the east? How widespread were these plans? And what of the gentry—did they support the Ambassador or the studious prince? To say nothing of the farmers and ironsmiths who would be doing the actual invading—what were their views upon the subject? But of course she could not ask.

  Instead, she offered as warm a smile as she could muster, and opened her mouth to say something inane and feminine and harmless.

  The door to the conservatory opened, and Mrs. Hadley leaned in. “Gloria, dear? Are you in here?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” She stood, and de Aragon stood with her as Mrs. Hadley rustled over, splendid in burgundy silk. “Senor de Aragon y Villarreal and I were discussing some matters of business.”

  “Goodness, dear, that will never do. You sound just like your father—and half Philadelphia looking for a dance with you. If you will excuse us, Ambassador.” Mrs. Hadley ushered Gloria toward the door with gloved hands that fluttered like birds. When they were out of the ambassador’s hearing, she said, “I am bidden to tell you that you have a visitor. She is in here, in the morning room.”

  Gloria’s heart leapt. Claire! “A visitor? Who could it be?”

  On the threshold of the morning room she stopped short in stunned surprise, the skirts of her ball gown swirling around her feet.

  “Will I do?” Alice Chalmers asked with a grin. She had made a concession to her surroundings by donning a practical navy skirt, and a rather lovely gray coat that Gloria had never seen before. Snow dusted the shoulders of it, and sparkled in her hair, for of course it would never occur to Alice to wear a hat.

  “Alice!” She flung herself, laughing, into her arms. “I am so glad to see you. But—is everything well? Our friends—? There is nothing wrong, is there?”

  “Now, why would the sight of anyone from England make you think someone was in danger?” Alice asked, rather rhetorically, for they both knew perfectly well it had happened on more than one occasion. “No, everyone i
s well, and Claire and Andrew send their best love.”

  “Thank heaven for that.” Gloria pressed a hand to her heart to still its thumping. “I must hear all the news, but first—have you eaten? Can you stay to supper?”

  Alice listened to the orchestra for a moment, and observed the men in white tie and the bejeweled women in swishing ball gowns passing to and fro through the foyer to the ballroom. “No, I don’t think so.” Her gaze returned to search Gloria’s face. “I do have news, but this is neither the time nor the place. I’ll come in the morning, all right? Jake is quite anxious to see you, though he’d never show it and would likely challenge me to fisticuffs if he knew I’d told you.”

  Jake was the first person in Gloria’s life who had actually told her the truth—about herself, about life, about the way people ought to treat one another. He had changed her course forever. They all had. They were her flock.

  “We cannot have that,” she said to Alice. “Until tomorrow, then. As long as the news is not bad, I can contain my impatience.”

  Alice nodded, and Gloria saw her out the Hadleys’ massive front door herself, despite the chill that blew about her shoulders and neck.

  The wind was changing. There would be a storm before long.

  CHAPTER 2

  Unlike most of the imposing houses along Washington Avenue, Number 50 sat on a double lot, which meant that behind its majestic iron railings and its tall laurel hedges lay not an orchard or an airing garden, but a private airfield, complete with two mooring masts.

  It was here that Gloria directed Alice to moor Swan. When she attempted to assist her friend by tying off the ropes herself, she was gently nudged out of the way by young Mr. Stringfellow, who seemed to have grown six inches since Gloria had last seen him in Venice, and a gangly, sober individual who had introduced himself as Evan Douglas, a cousin to the Mopsies.

  “We’ve got this, miss,” Benny told her with all the gravity of his thirteen years. “No need to trouble yourself.”

  “Would you say that to Lady Claire, or Lizzie?” she asked him.

  “No, miss, but I’m much better acquainted with them than I am with you, and they are better acquainted with ships. Besides which, it is my job.”

  Perhaps she was merely feeling nettled by the Californio ambassador’s obvious belief that not only was she merely ornamental, but lacking in brains to boot. Perhaps this was why she had felt compelled to do something, even if it was only tying off a rope. But one did not interfere with a middy’s duties, so she stepped back and waited for Alice to shut down Swan’s boilers and emerge.

  She was holding to Alice’s reassurances that their friends were well, so the news she carried couldn’t be that alarming. It was most efficient to have her guests moored here, close at hand, and while Gloria was an admirer of efficiency, she also could not help the warmth that glowed in her heart simply at having her friends near her again.

  Alice appeared on the gangway, and Swan bobbed slightly as she jumped down. “Is this all right?”

  “It couldn’t be better.” She smiled, and pulled her short wool jacket more closely around her. The morning was bright and sunny, but last night’s change in the weather had brought a hard frost and the air held the kind of biting cold that called for scarves and mittens. “Perhaps we might talk aboard your ship. For privacy.”

  If she had thought that Alice would question her, she was mistaken. She only nodded and waved toward the hatch.

  “Mr. Stringfellow,” Gloria said to him, “breakfast will be coming out shortly. Might I ask you to direct Mrs. Polk and her staff aboard?”

  “Yes, miss.”

  “And then I hope you will join us.”

  “If that’s all right by the captain, miss.”

  Alice raised one eyebrow. “When have I ever starved my crew on purpose? Of course you may join us. Jake, Evan, you too. I have a feeling that we’ll all want to share our news.”

  Mrs. Polk, being well used to Gerald Meriwether-Astor’s comings and goings, did not bat an eyelash at the prospect of moving an entire meal for five people across the lawn and into Swan’s rather Spartan dining saloon. When she and the two maids had gone, Alice fell upon the coffeepot like one starved.

  “Colonial coffee,” she sighed from the depths of a stoneware mug. “Nothing like it in the world.”

  “Have some cream,” Gloria urged her, and removed the silver lids from the dishes. “And some eggs, and sausage, and baked squash and applesauce.”

  Evan Douglas made an inarticulate sound that could have been sheer longing, and before half an hour had passed the dishes were empty and the young men finally satisfied.

  Alice shook her head. “You’d think I did starve them.”

  “We have plenty of food, Captain, but it does not taste like this,” Jake said, sitting back with his own cup of coffee and belching behind his hand.

  “I will admit that while all of us can feed ourselves, none of us can cook,” Alice told her.

  Despite her assurances the evening before, Gloria could not help but ask again, “Claire and Andrew are well, truly? And the girls? And your fiancé?”

  “Very well. The shindig on Twelfth Night was a triumph.”

  Gloria felt an upwelling of relief. “I am glad to hear it. Did she wear the dress I sent?”

  “She did, and the Queen herself complimented her on it—and you, indirectly. She remarked how lucky Claire was to have friends with such taste.”

  Her cheeks flushed with pleasure. “How very kind.” Ornamental she might be, but there were advantages to having an eye for cut and color. And with the House of Worth, of course, one could never go wrong.

  “Captain, we did not fly the Atlantic to talk about dresses,” Jake grumbled. “Time’s a-wasting.”

  “This is called leading up to it gently,” Alice informed him. “I’m trying to think of a way to say this that won’t come as a shock. Do you mind?”

  “I mind,” Gloria said, a slight chill replacing the glow. “You said everyone was well. I had thought your news was happy.”

  Alice looked up, sympathy in her gaze. “Your cousins Sydney and Hugh Meriwether-Astor were in London—at Carrick House, in fact, as well as at the ball.”

  “Were they?” Gloria sat back in astonishment. She had not expected that. “When last I heard from them, they were in Egypt—I wonder if my pigeon ever located them north of Morocco?”

  “It didn’t need to. Sydney was found in Claire’s office, reading her correspondence—in particular, the letter in which you told her you planned to oust him from the board and shut down the deal with the Royal Kingdom of Spain and the Californias.”

  Gloria’s corset hugged her ribs far too tightly. She could not get a breath. Carefully, she set down her cup, and focused on breathing in and out. “Sydney? Going through someone’s correspondence? Are you certain?”

  “Maggie caught him,” Jake said. “But that’s beside the point.”

  “The point is that the gentlemen caught the packet the next morning and left Paris on Persephone on Wednesday,” Alice told her.

  “Today is Friday. So they will arrive at Lakehurst tomorrow, and be in Philadelphia Sunday afternoon, well in time for the board meeting on Tuesday.” Gloria thought rapidly. “Good heavens. You must have lifted the very next morning.”

  “We did. I wish I could have had an Admiralty speed and altitude recorder aboard,” Alice said with some regret. “I suspect we might have broken a record or two.”

  “I’d like to break something else,” Jake muttered. “Sydney’s head, for a start. But I’ll have to make do with the memory of Lizzie’s laying him out on the Victoria Embankment.”

  “That is a story I am dying to hear,” Gloria told him, still a little winded, “but not just now. He will almost certainly vote against me, and here is why.” Quickly, yet in enough detail to paint the whole chilling picture, she told them everything that Senor de Aragon had said, right down to the schoolboys learning the art of war along with their arithme
tic.

  “The devil you say!” Alice exploded. “Invade the Texican Territory? Are they mad?”

  “They indeed may be, but the Ambassador at least is deadly serious,” Gloria told her. “I am not convinced the young Viceroy even knows of his plans, to say nothing of the ordinary people. But whether they do or not, can you picture men convinced they are warriors ready to fight, while no one has seen the business end of a gun aimed at them in generations?”

  “That doesn’t make the prospect any less dangerous.” Evan Douglas spoke for the first time, and Gloria realized she had forgotten he was there, though he was seated next to young Benny. “One might even posit that fanatics are more of a threat than men brought up to fight, for they have no idea of the danger, and worse, have sacrificed sense to idealism.”

  “I do not think sense comes into the equation at all.” Alice passed a hand over her hair and clutched the neat braided roll at the back. “What are we going to do?”

  Gloria’s throat closed and moisture sprang to her eyes at that little word that meant so much. We. Alice had used it so easily, as though it had not even occurred to her merely to deliver her message, thank her for breakfast, wave Gloria down the gangway, and pull up ropes.

  We’re a flock, Maggie had once said, and Gloria had rejoiced to find herself numbered among them. She had never been so grateful for it as now.

  * * *

  WITH A SMILE for the men around the mahogany table, Gloria seated herself in her father’s chair and arranged her fine wool skirts about her. She had dressed carefully this morning in a midnight blue suit trimmed in purple silk and black lace, with a jabot of matching lace on her silk blouse. Her hat was a delightful confection bearing blue and purple flowers and black tulle, and rested jauntily upon her blond hair, which she had dressed high in order to make herself look taller while seated.

  Gloria knew she looked well. And while butterflies might be doing merry dips and dives in her stomach, at least she had the appearance of control here at the head of the table.