A Lady of Integrity Page 6

  She supposed that motherhood—or being a guardian standing in a mother’s or an older sister’s place—was somewhat similar, if you got right down to it. But she wasn’t sure she’d be able to manage the Mopsies if she were walking in Claire’s shoes.

  Still, her relief at having those two irrepressible girls along felt like a child’s balloon under her breastbone. She hadn’t been telling Claire a story—she’d meant it when she’d said she’d rather have one of them at her back than just about anybody. And what did that say about her own maternal instincts, such as they were?

  “Captain Chalmers?” Ian Hollys stepped into the gondola, looking about him as if he were expecting to be snapped at. “Permission to enter?”

  “Granted,” she said, and he strolled over to the viewing port, taking in the landscape and no doubt pinpointing exactly where they were. Well, one look and anybody could see that. The Bodensee spread below them, a silver sheet in the morning sun, like a flat doorstep before the wall of the Alps.

  “I take it the contretemps with the girls has been resolved satisfactorily?”

  “Yes.”

  “So why then are we bearing due south rather than west, toward Geneva? This route will take much longer.”

  She suppressed a tingle of irritation at having her course questioned, even by an aeronaut of his standing and experience. It was a fair question, but if their positions had been reversed, she would have kept her mouth shut and assumed the other person knew what they were doing.

  “Because our plans have changed,” she said. “We’re not going to Geneva. We’re heading straight for the Duchy and the girls are coming along.”

  “After that lecture, Claire is backing down?” His eyebrows rose. “Is that wise, to give such strong-willed young ladies as these the upper hand?”

  “She isn’t backing down, and if you think they have the upper hand with her, you haven’t been around them much.” She adjusted course a slight degree. “I simply convinced her that we can use their help, and she’s gone to send a pigeon to the school to say they’ll be delayed a week with a family emergency. And another, I expect, to the von Zeppelins letting them know the girls lifted with us.”

  “She was quite right, you know. Their behavior was deceitful. But she is not without culpability, either, lifting like an owl in the night.”

  “Did you manage to get your bags aboard?” Alice asked.

  “As it happens, we did. But that is completely beside the point.”

  “Oh, do give over, Captain Hollys. What’s done is done, and grumbling about it isn’t going to change anything. She did what she believed she had to do—and so did the girls. Their motives were for the best and sometimes you have to look past the means to the end.”

  “Is that your philosophy?” He clasped his hands behind his back and gazed out the bow, as if checking that the course she’d set was the correct one. No, that wasn’t fair. She was probably reading too much into it. It was a bad habit. “That the end justifies the means?”

  “Why don’t you ask me that when we have Jake and my ship safely back in hand?”

  “Perhaps I shall. Would you like me to take the helm as we pass over the Matterhorn?”

  “Why?” she blurted. The nerve of the man! “Claire gave it to me, and I’ll hang onto it until she relieves me, if it’s all the same to you.”

  His skin reddened, as if he wasn’t accustomed to being spoken to in such a way. Well, maybe he wasn’t, in his own gondola. But she could speak any way she wanted to in her own—or at least, as long as she had the helm.

  “I simply did not know if you had planted the flag.”

  Hmph. So of course he had assumed she hadn’t. “Yes, we did, in the Stalwart Lass on the flight down.”

  It was a crazy custom—almost a rite of passage among the rope monkeys. You’d fly so close to the famous peak that you could plant a small flagpole bearing the pennant of the country you flew for and the call numbers of your vessel. It signified both skill and the extent to which you’d traveled. Jake had hung on a harness below the Lass’s engine compartment, hooting like a cowboy riding a bull, as he’d planted the flag in the frozen snow while she steered overhead, and then been reeled up before the tricky winds and the cold punished them for their impudence.

  “Congratulations,” Captain Hollys said, somewhat stiffly.

  “Have you done it?” If they were to work together on this mission, then she supposed she should be polite. Really, he’d given her nothing but courtesy in the past, so she should be a little nicer.

  Besides being a baronet, and Lord Dunsmuir’s cousin, he was good-looking—if you liked the tall, dark, and masterful type—and captain of one of the most recognizable ships in the world. If what Claire said was true, he was making quite a splash among this season’s debutantes, with Miss This on his arm one evening and Lady That dancing with him the next, to say nothing of enjoying the opera with the Honourable So-and-So the night after that, while he looked for a wife to suit him.

  The man had everything going for him and probably didn’t even need to earn his living. Could she really be blamed for giving in to the temptation to cut him down to size once in a while?

  “Yes, on our first voyage to Byzantium,” he replied, shaking her out of what was fast becoming a mood. “It only counts if you do it your first time across, you know, so one of my lieutenants came prepared. I had the helm while he dangled from an access hatch on a safety line. I must confess I was glad when the job was done. One moment of wind shear and we’d have been picking ice out of our teeth while we waited in line at the pearly gates.”

  She’d had a moment of fear herself, wondering what she was doing as she risked life and ship to participate in such a crazy custom.

  “I am surprised at your temerity, with only your navigator as your crew,” he added.

  “One to fly, and one to plant the flag. That’s all you need.”

  “But the loss of one would mean disaster for the other. I hope you come to your other decisions as captain with greater thought and less daring.”

  Well, if that didn’t beat all!

  “We survived, didn’t we? And besides, I have one of Claire’s and my automaton intelligence systems in the Lass now. If there are only the two of us, it’s because I don’t need more.” She paused. “Until Mr. Stringfellow joins us. Then we’ll be three.”

  “This ship has the same, does it not?” He gazed above her head, where the cables ran like nerves between the brains of her original automatons, still running like clocks, bless them.

  “It does. So you’ll excuse me when I disagree with you.”

  Again, his skin reddened. With the world’s briefest bow, he said, “Forgive me for intruding.” And he turned on one boot heel, as though he were on parade, and marched out the door.

  Hot blood cascaded into Alice’s cheeks with chagrin and remorse. The man was risking life and liberty to come to her assistance and this was how she treated him? What was the matter with her?

  Now she would have to go and apologize. And he would take it as his due, which would mean she would lose his respect.

  Fiddlesticks.

  Why did she care?

  Because earning someone’s respect meant something. It cost dearly, and few people in her experience had that kind of coin. With a few prickly words, she had thrown it away, and now, too late, she would give anything to get it back.

  *

  Because of the general trickiness of flying over mountains, with their updrafts and sudden wind shears, Claire could not simply leave the flight to the automaton intelligence system and go to bed that evening. Luckily, she had two other experienced captains and two engineers aboard, which neatly solved the problem.

  “I shall take the graveyard watch,” Captain Hollys said when she laid her plans before them.

  “You shall not,” Claire objected. “When we land in the Duchy of Venice, we will need you sharp and observant, which you will not be if you have been flying in the night. Alice an
d I will divide the task in four-hour watches. Andrew, if you act as Alice’s engineer and navigator, I shall be as happy as it is possible to be with Tigg once again at my side.” She smiled at the young lieutenant, who leaned back in his chair in the dining saloon and passed an arm about Lizzie’s shoulders.

  “Nothing would make me happier, Lady—with your permission, sir?” he asked Ian.

  But Ian clearly was not of a mind to give in just yet. “It is not right, Claire, for a man to leave his duty to women.”

  In the silence, there was a tiny clink as Claire’s thimble of port touched the table, and a gulp as Alice tossed back hers.

  “I believe your duty as conceived by Her Majesty has not yet commenced, Ian.”

  “That may be so, but I am still quite able to assist you in this manner. I have stood many a double watch with no reduction in my faculties, I assure you.”

  “I have no doubt of that at all,” she said with a softening of her tone. “But it is only four hours, and will pass quickly.”

  “All the more reason for me to assist. With three, we may reduce it to three hours apiece.”

  “But we don’t have a third engineer,” Alice put in. “Please, Captain. Claire is right. We need you fresh for our landing.” He gazed at her for a moment, until her cheeks flushed under his regard. “Perhaps I might offer my apologies for my hasty words earlier,” she went on with difficulty. “We are not trying to keep you away from the helm. Truly, we’re not. We are simply trying to do what’s best for our mission, and if that means dividing up the watch, then that’s what we have to do.”

  To Claire’s astonishment, Ian cleared his throat and nodded briefly. “Very well. Lieutenant,” he said to Tigg, “I would say I needed you just as rested, but the young have amazing powers of restoration. You have my permission to act as engineer with Lady Claire.”

  “You speak as though you were as old as Count von Zeppelin, sir.” Maggie, clearly sensing that a storm of some kind had been narrowly avoided, had the temerity to tease him a little.

  “Some days I feel that way,” he murmured, and reached for the bottle of tawny port.

  Her earlier color faded from Alice’s skin, leaving her looking sad and chewing on her lower lip.

  Now what was this? Claire was tempted to ask, but for all she knew, Alice’s mind had gone back to Jake and it would be best to let sleeping dogs lie. No good ever came of prodding and prying.

  So it was that at ten of the clock, when the three-quarter moon rode high in the sky, she and Tigg took possession of Athena’s helm and charts for the first watch.

  “I miss the old boat,” he said affectionately, patting the frame of the starboard viewing port. “Even with all the ships in the Dunsmuirs’ fleet, there isn’t one quite like her.”

  “That is because she was made in the Americas—and built for speed,” Claire said. “Do you remember the night she came into my possession?”

  “Do I,” Tigg said. “I remember the Mopsies loading me up with ordnance and sending me back to the Lady Lucy, frightened out of my wits but determined to free our crew or die trying.”

  “And that is precisely the meaning of courage,” she told him fondly. “To be frightened, yet to stand up and do what is right. And your courage saved a ship, a family, and a crew, and led to your first promotion, if I recall.”

  “It did. Perhaps our mission here will lead to another, and I can afford to—” He stopped, looking closely at the cables overhead as though checking that they were operating properly.

  “Afford to what, Tigg?”

  “Nothing, Lady. Is this what your work is going to be with the count—adapting the automaton intelligence system for the passenger liners?”

  “You know perfectly well that it is not,” she said, undecided whether or not to allow this conversational dodge. “He has had the systems in place for several years now. My share of the income from the patent is what is paying for Lizzie’s and Maggie’s educations.”

  There, now. She had given him an opening. It would be up to him to take it. An updraft pressed the deck against the soles of her boots, so she bent her knees and steadied the helm as they passed over the lights of a town far below. The chart told her it was St. Moritz.

  “Has it been expensive, their education?” Tigg asked.

  “It has not been inexpensive,” she allowed, “but it has been greatly offset by the count’s hospitality. He has acted like the best, most generous sort of uncle to the girls. It is partly what angered me so when I discovered them aboard. I do not wish anything to upset him and the baroness, though,” she amended, “I suppose I am as culpable as they.”

  “I’m glad Lizzie and Maggie are with us,” he said. “It will be almost like old times.”

  “But you are not children anymore, Tigg,” she reminded him gently, “and it seems we play on a broader stage than the old neighborhood in Vauxhall Gardens. We are no longer merely defending our cottage against marauders.”

  “I think we are, still,” he said. “They’re still marauders, only they’ve got a better hideout and sneakier tactics. But we’ll outfox ’em, you’ll see.”

  He sounded so much like the Tigg of old, ready to take on any challenge even if he only had a rock for a weapon.

  “I shall depend upon you to see to the girls’ protection,” she said, her smile fading. “I mean it, Tigg. They are as precious to me as one, at least, is to you.”

  His dark eyes met hers, and in them she saw the determination of a man to protect his own. “If anyone so much as touches a hair on Lizzie’s head—or Maggie’s—he’ll answer to me, all right, and he won’t like it.”

  “Your feelings for Lizzie have not changed, then?”

  “No, and they’re not likely to. It’s been Lizzie and no one else for me since we first moved back to Carrick House and she wouldn’t kill those baby bats up in the attic. Remember, when we were clearing out to make bedrooms for the others?”

  Claire did, only too vividly.

  “I knew she was your scout, and already a fighter, and probably far smarter than I, but I saw the gentle side of her that day. And I was never the same after that.” He cleared his throat and pretended to check the chart, though St. Moritz was barely off the stern. “You don’t know how difficult it’s been, watching her turn into a young lady and wondering if she’d fly so high above me that she’d never want to settle for a rope monkey.”

  “You’re not a—”

  “I am now. But I won’t be forever. That day at her grandparents’, in the garden, well … we settled it then. I know we’re too young, but it means a lot that you approve, Lady.”

  “How could I not approve, dear one?” She left the wheel for a moment to hug him. “Lizzie is a fortunate young woman. And if the two of you are willing to wait until you can afford to establish a home, then that is to your credit. Each of you deserves that respect from the other.”

  “That’s what she says, too.” He nodded eagerly. “That’s why this mission has got to go well. With Her Majesty watching, it could mean attention in the right quarter, and faster advancement in the Corps than I could hope for otherwise.”

  She put a hand on his arm. “Do not let the prospect of advancement blind you to finer considerations—such as loyalty to those who gave you your start.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t leave the captain,” he assured her. “He’s done more for me than I deserve. But wouldn’t you want to see me with a First Engineer’s bars some day, even if it’s on a different ship?”

  “I would indeed.” She touched his cheek, delighted with the same deep dimple she found there, in a face that was now a man’s. “It would be the proudest day of my life to see you attain your dream.”

  “That, and my wedding day?”

  “Let us not get ahead of ourselves,” she said primly. “If there is to be any talk of weddings, it will be the one with which I am most immediately concerned at present.”

  She could only hope that they would return to take up the preparations
for it once again. After the revelations of today and her admission to Alice of her own fear for the girls’ safety, she could almost wish she had nothing more urgent to attend to than a dress fitting.

  8

  “And here I thought I’d managed to weasel my way out of all this fuss and frippery,” Alice grumbled.

  As far as Claire was concerned, this fuss and frippery was going a long way toward keeping her fear for the girls and for Alice herself at bay. If one could concentrate on the sleek line of a cream linen walking skirt, or upon the delicacy of the cutwork and embroidery upon one’s white waist, one could avoid thinking of … oh, dear. There she went again.

  “I think you look nice, Alice,” Maggie told her. “What do you think of this spring green skirt?” She twirled in front of the mirror. “It’s the wrong time of year for it, isn’t it?”

  “There’s a right time of year for green?” Alice asked, fussing with the supple leather belt about her narrow waist, and trying to tuck the embroidered front in under it.

  “No, dear heart.” Claire pulled it out again. “It dips in front like this, so one has the appearance of a pouter pigeon.”

  “That’s attractive?”

  “Some gentlemen find it so. Not that we are concerned with such things. We have a higher purpose—and if we must pay the price of vanity to look as though we are fashionable tourists attending the exhibition without a care in the world, then we shall.”

  “The green is perfect on you, Mags,” Lizzie said. “No one would ever guess there is a lightning pistol in your boot.”

  “Lizzie!” Claire hissed.

  “Sorry, Lady,” Lizzie whispered.

  They were back on good terms again, after Claire’s loss of temper the first day of their voyage. She had lifted her chin and lowered her pride, and apologized for speaking to the girls in such a way in front of the gentlemen. Once they understood the source of her anxiety, they had hugged her and assured her they would have “all eyes out for danger, Lady.”