A Lady of Integrity Page 5

  Claire tried not to wilt, to meet this charge with the straight spine of a woman and a lady, not a child, but it was difficult. “It is only for a week,” she said faintly.

  “And what if it is not? What if some disaster strikes and we lose you? Will the life of young Jake balance the loss of yours, Mr. Malvern’s, and Lieutenant Terwilliger’s, to say nothing of those others who go with you?”

  Well, this was simply not fair. “One cannot declare the worth of one by the measure of another. And besides, it does no good to borrow trouble, only to prepare for it.”

  “And will you be prepared? Will you go, despite my wishes?”

  She was silent.

  “Because I cannot guarantee that upon your return, the position will be waiting for you, if you will treat it so cavalierly.”

  “Ferdinand.” Even the baroness’s eyes widened as she put a hand upon his arm.

  Claire felt as though she might be sick. “Please,” she whispered. “You cannot expect me to send others in where I am not willing to go.”

  “Your Queen is perfectly satisfied to let capable men handle the task. Are you so much better than she?”

  He had never spoken to her in such a tone before, nor used such words. How dreadfully she must be disappointing him—and how afraid for her he must be! She could feel his distress from where she sat—and it did not make this any easier.

  “Do not make me choose between my family and my career,” she said brokenly, her throat closing up. “I cannot bear to disappoint you … and yet I cannot bear to stay behind while others risk their lives.”

  “I am the last man to say that a woman cannot prove herself in laboratory and manufactory,” he said heavily. “Mrs. Bertha Benz—to say nothing of my own dear wife—would never let me hear the end of it if I did. But this is not the first time you will have to make this choice, Claire. Tonight it is young Jake. Tomorrow it may be Elizabeth, or Marguerite. Five years from now it may be a youngster with your eyes and Mr. Malvern’s smile. How will you choose then?”

  “How did you?” she had the temerity to ask. “How did the Baroness?”

  “I raised our family while the count was in the army and the government,” that lady said quietly. “My place was in the home—and in my office here in the palace.”

  “Times have changed since then,” Claire said. “A woman may employ her talents outside the home.”

  “And is that fair to her family? You see, Claire, these are difficult questions. But you must ask them of yourself—and when you know the truth, you must act upon it.” The count paused, his eyes at last softening to more resemble those of the man she had come to know since she and their friends had saved his life in the Canadas. He seemed to remember that, too, for he said, “I owe you my life and am the first one to say so. I will repay my debt … but you must be willing to take up the responsibility I give you.”

  He rose, and offered the baroness his hand. “We will wish you a good night, and will see you in the morning.”

  Claire kissed them both, and the door closed behind them.

  She sank onto the sofa, her lips trembling, her back straight now that she was alone.

  The Mopsies came in, murmuring quietly between themselves, and hesitated on the threshold. Then they crept away to the bedroom they shared.

  When the suite was silent and a very terrible hour alone with her conscience had passed, she crossed the room to the writing table and got out paper and ink. She wrote one letter to the girls, and took it into their room. Lizzie was a sound sleeper, and Maggie only murmured as she kissed them both. The second letter she addressed to the count, and left it propped against the vase of flowers on the mantel in the sitting room.

  Then she went out and crossed the vast darkness of the park, the glowing lamp on Athena’s mooring mast guiding her back to the one place on earth she needed to be.

  6

  Dawn lay upon the horizon, a line that might have been drawn in watery gray ink if one had been on the ground, but up here, it was a sky-wide glow in the viewing ports that promised a clear day and good flying.

  “Nine, continue on this course, and I will take the helm when we approach the Alps,” she instructed the automaton intelligence system that she and Alice between them had invented. She had never flown over mountains so high, but they could not be higher than the Rocky Mountains of the Canadas. Claire had rebuilt Athena’s engine from cell to screws over the last several years, with Andrew’s assistance, and had complete confidence in her ship’s ability to manage, no matter what was demanded of her.

  “What in God’s name have you done?”

  Claire turned in some surprise at having her communion with the skies interrupted in such a manner. “I have lifted,” she told Alice calmly as the latter came into the gondola, tying her hair up with a ribbon that had seen better days. “I acted as my own ground crew—no easy feat in the dark, I assure you. I’m glad you’re up. I shall likely need your help with wind currents and altitude as we cross the Alps.”

  Alice checked the viewing port, as if she needed the proof of her own eyes that yes, there were the Alps rising blue and serrated in the distance. “But the count—last night—he seemed adamant. Did he relent and allow you to go?”

  Claire busied herself with charts and general tidying up of the navigation table. “I don’t know if allow is the right word,” she said slowly. “He was very honest with me about the consequences of the two courses of action before me, and taking those into account, I chose one.”

  “You lifted before dawn—without consulting Captain Hollys or Mr. Malvern or even me,” Alice said flatly, seeing right through this prevarication. “Claire, what were you thinking? What if I had gone to a beer garden? What if the men have? Do you even know who is aboard?”

  “I know who is not aboard.” Fine. Yes, she had been rather peremptory about whisking people into the air who might not even have loaded their bags yet. But there was a greater good to be accomplished here. “Lizzie and Maggie,” she added when Alice remained silent and aghast. “Can you imagine the fuss if I had taken a conventional leave and forbidden them one last time to go? This way, the thing is done, the girls are safe where they belong, and while Captain Hollys may not have a spare shirt if his flight gear was not brought aboard last night, at least he and Tigg will have two fewer worries on this voyage.”

  “Provided either Captain Hollys or Tigg are even with us. Since they’re the official members of this mission, shouldn’t someone take the time to check?”

  “Check what? Claire, why are the engines—” Andrew Malvern stopped in the doorway, the view through the windows clearly not the trees and lawns he had been expecting. “Dear heaven. Where are we? What have you done?”

  Alice filled him in with rather more pointed brevity than Claire thought necessary, and he spun on his heel and ran back to the cabins from whence he had come.

  Claire braced herself.

  Sure enough, five minutes later Captain Hollys and Tigg spilled into the navigation gondola, tucking in their shirts, Tigg hopping on one foot as he dragged on his second boot.

  “Lady Claire, explain yourself at once!”

  Alice levered herself off the table and put her hands on her hips. “Now, now,” she said to the captain, “there’s no need to take that tone.”

  “There certainly is,” he contradicted her bluntly. “We have been shanghaied and I demand to know why!”

  “I should think it quite obvious, Ian.” Claire forced herself to speak calmly instead of matching his indignation with her own. “If we had not left with some stealth, there would have been no way to prevent the Mopsies from coming along. I am sure you agree that the absence of two young ladies of strong wills and irrepressible spirits will simplify our expedition at least a little.”

  “I still have two of the same on my hands.” He glared from her to Alice. “I am of half a mind to turn this ship about and take you back to Munich before we fly another league.”

  Alice’s eyebr
ows rose.

  Claire had to agree. Had he really had the temerity to say such a thing to her? If in the very beginning she might have had the smallest of regrets at declining his offer of marriage, now she was conscious of a feeling of relief at having her instincts confirmed by his own actions. “You forget, Captain, that Athena is my ship. If anyone is to be put off, it will not be me.”

  He managed to haul back on the headlong gallop of his temper with difficulty. “You are right. Forgive me. However, there still remains one young lady whose presence aboard you ought to have considered. For heaven’s sake, Claire, you are returning Alice straight into the danger from which she risked her life to escape.”

  “She is not returning me,” Alice corrected him with some spirit. “I am going back voluntarily.”

  “I hardly think so, if she lifted with you asleep in your bed and not even a may I, please.”

  “Do you seriously think I would have stayed in Munich or gone back to London while other people go to pull my navigator out of trouble?” Alice demanded. “You have a poor idea of the capabilities of women, sir.”

  “I do not,” he retorted with heat. “You forget that I fly for one of the most important and capable women in England.”

  “And what would she say of this lecture you’re giving us?” Alice flung at him. “I’d lay a bet you wouldn’t say such things to her.”

  “Lady Dunsmuir is not in the habit of lifting without the permission—or at least the knowledge—of all aboard.”

  “Permission?” Claire repeated. “Captain, Alice, do calm down. I admit my actions were peremptory—and I do hope you and Tigg were able to get your bags aboard last night—but do you not see that we all share a common purpose? Come. I beg that you forgive me for my haste in leaving and realize that it was for a greater good—the safety of Lizzie and Maggie.”

  A bubbling cluck sounded behind Ian’s trouser leg, and Holly and Ivy popped through the door, heading at a brisk trot for Claire and the treats that usually resided in the pockets of her raiding rig.

  If Alice had been surprised by the view outside the windows, Claire was now equally astonished by the view within. For the birds were certainly not supposed to be aboard.

  “Where did you come from?” she asked the small golden hens, picking up Ivy and allowing her onto her left shoulder. “Surely the girls did not leave you aboard when they took their trunks off. Why are you not safe in your coop in the count’s garden?”

  Ivy cooed happily next to her ear, but it was not a reply. It was a greeting.

  “There you are, you fluffy rascals,” Maggie said, squeezing out from behind Tigg and picking up Holly. “Is there a chance of breakfast yet, Lady? Why is everyone up so early?”

  *

  Claire’s stomach dipped with horror as she stared into Maggie’s innocent face—entirely too innocent—while her own cheeks flooded with color and then began inexorably to blotch. “Maggie,” she said quietly, “is Lizzie aboard as well?”

  “Yes.”

  “And when did the two of you manage this?”

  In the dreadful pause that followed, Maggie seemed to realize the depth of the trouble she was in. “Last night.”

  “After I checked on you in your room in the palace? After I returned to the ship myself?”

  “Yes, Lady. We came in through the communications cage, where the pigeons dock. It—it’s a flaw in Athena’s design, and a squeeze now that we’re older, but—”

  Claire’s razor-quiet voice cut her off. “Is there a reason for this deceitful behavior?”

  A rustle near the door produced Lizzie, just in time to hear this question, take in the silence in the room, and observe the state of Claire’s complexion. Claire saw the moment when Lizzie came to the conclusion that innocence was futile and they would have to employ a different strategy.

  “We knew you would need us, Lady,” Lizzie said, her tone cautious, as one might use when approaching a lion. “It wouldn’t be proper for an unmarried lady to attend the exhibition in a company of gentlemen, so we came along to make the numbers more believable.”

  Another silence. Any other response would dignify this nonsense far too much. And she needed a moment to take a firm grip on her temper—and her fear.

  “First,” Claire said, “I am engaged to one of the gentlemen, so your concerns are groundless. Second, Alice, too, was a lady the last time I looked. Third, do you realize you have put your final year at the lycée in jeopardy? Do you really have so little respect for yourselves that you would risk losing all for which you have worked so hard? And fourth, the count and the baroness will be frantic with worry, thinking you have been kidnapped. Have you no regard for them, after all they have done for you?”

  Maggie shrank under the lash of her tone. Lizzie did her best to bear up, but by the fourth point, she, too, could only gaze at the floor, blinking, her lips trembling and her fingers pleating the skirt of her raiding rig.

  “You will send a pigeon at once,” Claire said, “informing them of your whereabouts and asking them to send a landau to the commercial airfield to meet the packet from Geneva. We will re-route our course and have you on it this afternoon.”

  “But Lady—”

  “I will hear no arguments. You have disobeyed and deceived those who love you most with no regard for our feelings, and I can barely look at you for disappointment. Go aft now, please. You may leave Holly here.”

  Meekly, Maggie put the hen on the teak floor, and the two of them trailed out the door, faces red with shame, tears standing on their lashes.

  Alice gazed after their retreating backs, then turned to Claire as though she didn’t know who to offer comfort to first. “Claire,” she began, “surely they—”

  But Claire turned away, blinking back the tears she would not shed in front of the girls.

  Tigg had already gone out after Lizzie, but the two men still stood there, gawking and unwelcome during this moment of feminine emotion. As though realizing that such a moment demanded privacy and consideration for finer feelings, Alice took the elbows of Captain Hollys and Andrew, and steered them toward the door.

  “What—”

  “Give us a moment, gentlemen,” she said.

  “I hardly see why—”

  Alice glared, and Captain Hollys abruptly closed his mouth, turned, and departed, Andrew on his heels.

  Gently, Alice removed Ivy’s feathery self from Claire’s shoulder and passed a comforting arm about her. Claire leaned her forehead on her friend’s shoulder and let the tears come. “There, there. It will be all right,” Alice said softly as she patted her back, as though Claire had been one of her little half-sisters back in the Canadas.

  “I’m just—so afraid for them—and for you,” Claire finally managed between sobs.

  “Don’t be afraid for me,” Alice said in some surprise. “I made sure I stocked up on bullets for the Remington before I left.”

  “But the girls—if anything should happen—”

  “I would put those two up against just about anybody,” Alice said. “Don’t forget that one foiled a plot to kill the Prince of Wales, and the other stopped a French invasion. These are no ordinary young ladies.”

  “Believe me, I have not forgotten.” Neither had she forgotten the knifelike terror during the final moments of each of those occasions, when she had thought them dead. “But in striving to give them as normal an upbringing as possible, I fear they may never forgive me.” Claire sniffled and wiped the tears off one cheek with the flat of her hand, then pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and used it with vehemence. “But if I let them come, I may regret it for ever.”

  “Forgive me for saying so, but our sudden lift tells me that you defied the count this morning in a way not so different from the girls’ behavior last night. You just got away with it and they didn’t.”

  Trust Alice to bring her face to face with the truth she had been trying to avoid. “Thank you for the reminder of my own poor example,” Claire moaned. “Hones
tly, I am the worst guardian anyone ever had—and if they are killed or taken prisoner and forced underwater, I do not know what I shall do.”

  “The same thing we’re going to do for Jake,” Alice told her firmly. “This is no time for you to lose your nerve, Claire. We have work to do, and I can’t do it alone. We need every hand on deck. If I have to walk back into that boiling kettle of a Duchy, I tell you what, I’d be glad of Lizzie or Maggie watching my back.”

  “I would too—but their educations, Alice.” Shouldn’t a guardian look at the longer view, not merely the current emergency? How was one to know the right thing, when what was right at one moment might be wrong for the next?

  “Send a pigeon to their headmistress and say that a family emergency has come up. All we need is a week. They won’t be booted out of school for missing that, will they?”

  “No,” Claire said slowly. “I do not suppose so.” She couldn’t keep the plea out of her gaze. “Do you really believe we ought to take them?”

  Alice’s mobile mouth took on a rueful cast. “I believe that if we don’t, they’ll bribe an aeronaut in Geneva to get them over the Alps themselves, and that poses its own problems.”

  The corners of Claire’s own lips twitched, and the tension in Alice’s shoulders eased a little.

  “Thank you, Alice,” she said. “I am glad I can count on you to tell me what I need to hear, not merely what I want to hear. And now I must hurry back before they release that pigeon. On the way I shall decide how best to recant my position. Will you take the helm?”

  “I’d be happy to.” Alice turned to relieve Nine of his duty, blowing a long breath up through her curly fringe, as if she’d had a narrow escape.

  7

  Alice gripped the wheel with a sense of relief, the familiar course scrolling beneath Athena’s hull like a map being unrolled on a giant’s table. Flying she could handle. It was straightforward. You calculated your course, prepared as much as you could for the unexpected, and kept a weather eye out.