A Lady of Integrity Read online

  “We have not had to ask for it before this,” Andrew admitted, “but she holds Claire in high regard. And even if she did not, Lady Dunsmuir is one of Her Majesty’s closest confidantes. Any request from that quarter is fulfilled instantly, though governments go a-begging.”

  In the Canadas, Claire had swung from a mooring rope high above the earth, and Andrew had been instrumental in drawing her to safety. But the sense of vertigo and weightlessness she suffered from now was the emotional kind, brought on by his inexplicable reluctance to handle this matter themselves. Since when had they ever called upon governmental resources to solve their problems?

  At the same time, the possibility did have its merits.

  “Very well,” she conceded at last. “I will send a pigeon tonight giving further details of the situation, and adding my plea to Alice’s, with the addition that Davina communicate with Her Majesty on our behalf. We will remain in Bavaria until we have heard from Windsor Castle.”

  “And what about me?” Alice said, cleaning up the last of the pastry crumbs on her plate with her forefinger. “Where am I to remain while I’m standing around being invisible?”

  “I wish you were invisible—it would make the logistics much easier.” Claire made her best attempt at a smile. “You will come with us, disguised as—oh, I don’t know. Which would you prefer? A man or a woman?”

  “If a woman’s disguise involves corsets and petticoats, I’ll go as a man, thanks,” Alice said with most unladylike decisiveness. “I could use new pants and a decent coat anyway.”

  “I can give the order to my haberdasher and you will not even need to leave Carrick House,” Andrew said. “But you will not be able to leave the ship in Munich, either, unless it is under cover of darkness. For all your pursuers know, you are still in that city, where no doubt they have been turning over every stone in search of you.”

  “Dunno about that,” Snouts put in. “Can’t see them sticking to the job very long if they don’t have any success. They’ll be wanting to go home to Venice to lie in wait for the next poor blighter.”

  “I agree with Andrew,” Claire told them, hoping this sop to his gentlemanly pride would go a little way to softening the discussion she knew they must have. “Alice must stay aboard Athena and avoid the viewing ports.”

  She rose, and the girls rose with her. After a moment and a pointed glance from Lizzie, Alice did too. But Claire did not go to the drawing room, as was usual after dinner. Instead, she went upstairs to her private study, where the Mopsies, clearly not finished with her yet, advanced.

  “Lady, you cannot leave us behind,” Lizzie said, sinking onto the sofa beside her and clutching her hand. “You’re going to need scouts, and you said yourself we have brave hearts.”

  “I did, and I meant it.” Claire’s grip tightened. “Falling afoul of danger while one is going about one’s life and minding one’s own business is one thing. But sailing straight into it on purpose is quite another. You must see, my dears, that I cannot take such a risk with your lives. It is not right.”

  “But you will risk your own? What will Mr. Malvern have to say about that?” Oh, Lizzie had not lost any of her logic because of her recent adventures, it was clear. Or her powers of observation.

  “I am hoping he will not need to say anything at all, if the Queen agrees to send assistance.” Lizzie gazed at her, and Claire felt her face heat. “Do not look at me in that way.”

  Alice’s lips twitched. Maggie studied a watercolor of Gwynn Place upon the wall.

  With a sigh, Claire gave it up. “Andrew and I are going to have words, and it will distress me, but I must not give in,” she said as Maggie cuddled up on her other side and Alice leaned protectively over the back of the sofa. “I cannot. When I think of poor Jake—”

  “So you will let us come and help?” Lizzie said slyly.

  Claire shook her head. “I am sorry, darlings. For once, you must think of yourselves before others. Of your futures. Of your own safety. And if you will not, then it is my responsibility to do so. There will be three capable individuals in this rescue party, which by any reckoning is more than enough. For I will have to convince Snouts that his place is not with us, as well.”

  Pulled in three different directions, horrified, saddened—was she about to weep? For here was her lower lip, actually trembling with distress. Maggie gave her one keen look and got to her feet. “Lizzie, you have made the Lady cry. Apologize at once.”

  To Claire’s astonishment, Lizzie looked as though she was about to burst into tears herself. “Lady, I am sorry. Never mind. We’ll go to Bavaria, as you said, and do as we ought.”

  She pulled Maggie and Alice from the room. Claire would have been grateful for a moment’s privacy to collect herself if at that moment she had not heard a heavier step upon the stairs. It would have taken a great deal of distress to force Andrew up into the family regions of the house—indeed, both of them would likely blush at the impropriety of it tomorrow.

  If they were still speaking tomorrow.

  Claire took a deep breath and braced herself to disagree with the one person for whose good opinion she cared most deeply in all the world.

  4

  But it was not Andrew who stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. It was Snouts.

  Claire had known this conversation was coming, but she had not expected it so soon, with Andrew still downstairs. But whether soon or late, it must happen, so she patted the sofa next to her and he sat, remembering in spite of his agitation to tug on the legs of his trousers as a gentleman did.

  “In all your plans, Lady, it was not clear what my part was to be,” he said without preamble.

  “What should you like it to be?” she asked softly.

  “You know what I do,” he said with his customary bluntness. “These years running the Morton Glass Works haven’t changed the part of our lives that we keep under wraps. I would be your second, as I always am. Whether we waylay a man or eavesdrop or use our fists to get the information we need, I’m the one who takes care of it for you.”

  “Not for years now, Snouts.”

  “I haven’t lost the hang of it.”

  “And what of our operations here? What of Lewis, and the glassworks, and the others here in the house who look to you for leadership?”

  “With Tigg in the Corps, Lewis is my second. He can fill in for me.” He gazed at her, his eyes full of the determination of a man much older than twenty-one.

  “Lewis cannot protect Granny Protheroe and a house full of children under fifteen,” she pointed out with gentle logic. “I depend on you to provide that protection. Imagine if it got out to the south side that my entire inner circle and I had left Carrick House defenseless. What then?”

  He was silent, the truth of the matter doing full battle with his need to help his brother.

  She pressed on. “Jake has myself, Alice, and Andrew to help him, and if Her Majesty responds to our plea, the resources of the government will be brought to bear as well. But what will the inhabitants of Carrick House have if you come with us?”

  Claire saw color flood into his face as he realized the truth of the situation. “But he’s my brother,” he said at last. “It’s my place.”

  “Your friends may stand in your place for you,” she said. “But no one can replace you here. You have been my second for four years while the girls and I were at school. Would Jake wish you to abandon your post to come to his aid if it meant endangering the defenseless in your own home?”

  Slowly, Snouts shook his head, and Claire took heart. “I give you my word, Stephen, that I will not come home without him, though it means I die in the attempt.”

  “Don’t say that, Lady.” His lips barely moved, he was struggling so hard not to reveal his emotion to her.

  “I mean every word. You protect and keep the ones I love, and I will do the same for your brother. Are we agreed? Is it a fair exchange?”

  After a moment, he nodded, and then did something so o
ut of character she was left speechless with surprise. He reached out and hugged her. For a moment she felt his cheek against her own, burning hot with his emotion, before he pulled away and fled the room.

  Outside, she heard a murmur and realized that he had met Andrew at the top of the stairs.

  She braced herself. For she knew perfectly well that all the carefully reasoned arguments she had just given Snouts were about to be used on her.

  *

  Andrew rapped lightly on the door and when he heard Claire’s voice, stepped into her inner sanctum. From this room she ran what Andrew jokingly referred to as her empire—the airfield in Vauxhall Gardens, her investments in steam transportation, her patent registrations—and from which she maintained a lively correspondence with Lady Dunsmuir, Dr. Rosemary Craig, Dr. Frieda Schmetterling of the University of Bavaria, and a number of other women of singular intelligence and vision.

  The room, he understood, had once been her parents’ bedchamber, but now it was tastefully furnished with a mahogany desk and a smaller desk of teak, where Snouts and Lewis might work on matters concerning the Morton Glass Works and the Gaius Club and consult with Claire as often as needed. A few good landscapes by Cornish artists hung on walls painted a soothing pale yellow, with white wainscoting, and the windows overlooked the garden where Lewis’s hens pecked and hunted.

  Two of those happy individuals, Holly and Ivy, were usually to be found somewhere in Claire’s vicinity, but he supposed that with the lateness of the hour, they had gone to the walking coop that stood under the beech trees below.

  Andrew took his seat next to Claire on the sofa and searched her downcast face. “Having second thoughts, dearest?” he asked gently.

  “Second … and third … and probably fourth by morning.” She raised her gaze to meet his own. “But they all circle back to the most dreadful one. I cannot bear to think of Jake in prison. He is not the sort who will survive in such circumstances. His own temper at being unjustly accused will precipitate him into even greater peril—perhaps even mortal peril. I am afraid, Andrew, that if we do not act soon, we will have no reason to act at all.”

  He took her hand in both of his. “Her Majesty will not allow an English subject to be treated in such a fashion. Even the most humble of her subjects deserves the process of law to prove his innocence.”

  “But this was not a legal matter. It was a shanghai, and I cannot see Her Majesty bringing the force of our government to bear on criminals such as these. They will simply deny that any such person exists in the Duchy, and if forced to prove otherwise, they will simply dispose of him before her representatives arrive.”

  “We can only hope she disagrees with you.”

  “And if she does not? What then, Andrew? Will you disagree with me, too, once all hope of help is lost to us?”

  Trust Claire to come to the sticking point immediately.

  “Is it so wrong of me to fear for your safety?” Clearly unwilling to reply, she turned her gaze to the silk draperies. He went on, “Or to ask you to think before you plunge headlong into a situation for which you are not prepared?”

  “How can one prepare for this?”

  The truth was that one could not. But his fiancée was very good at thinking on her feet—and this was what frightened Andrew the most. That, and the thought of a failed rescue resulting in the woman he loved being imprisoned under the water herself.

  Or worse.

  “Let us consider the situation,” she said. “Should Her Majesty not be willing to assist us, what then? Will you allow Jake to die there before you will allow me to go?”

  “I do not recall any situation in which I have been called upon to allow you to do anything,” he pointed out. He must say something while he tried to marshal his panicked thoughts.

  He had experienced terrifying danger at Claire’s side—including the imminent threat of death and imprisonment. Why, then, should the thought of this voyage loom so darkly in his mind? Was it that it contrasted so completely with the bright picture of happiness he had been entertaining of late? Was it that, having secured her affection, he now valued it even more than the life of a young man?

  Andrew shuddered away from such an estimation of himself.

  “I know you are afraid for me,” Claire said, her face softening at the distress he could not hide. “Since you will be with me, I shall be just as afraid for you. But do you not see that if we do this together, we have twice the chance of success?”

  “Do what, exactly?” he replied, keeping his voice steady with difficulty. She responded best to a calm discussion of facts, so he must school himself to calm. “We cannot land, guns blazing, and expect to succeed at all. This Famiglia Rosa will see us coming from fifty miles off.”

  “Of course not,” she said, evidently heartened by his willingness to talk the matter over instead of locking her in her room, as his former business partner and her erstwhile fiancé had once so foolishly done. “We must approach this as a woman does—pleasantly, innocently, twirling our parasols and remarking upon the scenery. We shall attend the exhibition in full view, securing Claude’s safety while we are at it, and spirit Jake away by … by …”

  “By what means?”

  Crestfallen, she admitted, “I have not yet worked out that part, but I am sure I shall once we arrive.” She brightened. “It is Friday. Can you not contrive a strategy for rescuing someone from underwater by Sunday?”

  This was too much. “I suppose now is not the time to remind you that you were to have ordered your wedding gown by tomorrow?”

  “Wedding gown?” She looked so completely at sea over the change in subject that he had to laugh.

  “Yes, dearest. If we are to be married at Christmas, I am told one must do these things in advance. See? It is marked on your calendar.” He nodded at the wall calendar, scribbled over and crossed out to the point where it was difficult to see. But on October third it clearly said wedding dress, twice underlined.

  “Oh, dear,” Claire said. “That’s not the order, it is merely an appointment. I must remember to cancel it. I’m afraid I haven’t given much thought to the arrangements—dress, church, flowers.” She brightened. “But one isn’t required to carry flowers, is one? Many brides carry a Bible or a prayer book or some such.”

  “I think you have the wedding ceremony confused with an execution, dear.”

  “Do I? No, surely not. Oh, bother. It is three months off, and now is not the time to think of such things. A boy’s life is in danger.”

  Andrew held back a sigh. She was utterly right—and therein lay the only cloud upon their nuptial horizon. Not for the first time, he wished that her loyalty and love for those around her would not precipitate her into rash action. She was forever charging off to save people, which someone had to do, of course. But it came at the expense of her own domestic felicity, to say nothing of his peace of mind.

  But if it was to be his fate to love a woman of resources and integrity, then the least he could do would be to live up to her. She believed him to be the partner best suited to a common happiness, and he would do everything in his power to support and protect that belief.

  Which is why he finally said, “We shall have a simpler wedding that requires less advance planning. If I am to build a prototype of some kind in two days, I shall have to visit the metal yard tomorrow.” The walk would give him time to think and possibly even come up with a design. “It is at times like this that I wish Tigg had not chosen the Corps as his career. I could use his skill.”

  “Oh, Andrew.” She flung herself into his arms, and he took a selfish moment to enjoy the warmth of her embrace and the scent of her auburn hair under his cheek. “Thank you.”

  “I shall seriously consider an elopement if this is to be my reward,” he murmured.

  “Not for that, you gumpus, though I am grateful you favor simplicity. I meant for throwing your lot in with mine, foolish and hopeless though it often seems to be.”

  “If we are to be married,
we shall be throwing our lots in with each other,” he said with a slight return of his usual good humor. “It is wise to practice as much as possible beforehand.”

  This earned him a kiss, but as he held her, perhaps his arms were a little tighter about her slender form than usual. And he tried not to think of what would happen to his heart should she be torn away.

  *

  Alice may have been forbidden to leave Athena, but Claire was simply unable to.

  Her personal vessel, while not quite as shabby as it had been when she’d originally acquired it, still looked as out of place as ever in the grand park that doubled as an airfield at Schloss Schwanenburg, the Munich estate of Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin. Moored around her were examples of the finest air fleet in the world, with the possible exception of that of Her Majesty’s Aeronautic Corps, shining silver and blue in the late autumn sun. Athena, in conrast, was the brown of a sparrow, of canvas left too long in adverse conditions, and possessed a gondola not of brass, but of a material that might have begun as teak but was now built up and built on in a manner understood only by her present captain.

  “I cannot bear it.” Claire paced the narrow corridor between the engine compartment and the navigation gondola, from whence she would be able to hear the arrival of the pigeon from England. “It has been three days since Lady Dunsmuir’s message went to the Queen. How long does it take to decide whether or not one is going to save a boy’s life?”

  “Claire, you need to get your mind off it. Let me do the pacing,” Alice suggested, not for the first time. “You should be dressing for dinner with the count and his wife. They’ll be here in half an hour. Do you want them to find you in your shirtwaist?”

  “I don’t care if they find me in a pair of your pants and one of Mr. Stetson’s hats.” Claire reversed direction past Alice, who was holding up the wall near the cabin she tended to call her own when she was aboard. “I’m going mad.”

  “We all are, dearling.”