Brilliant Devices: A steampunk adventure novel (Magnificent Devices) Read online

  The governor appeared behind John’s shoulder. “Earl Dunsmuir, Count von Zeppelin, I hate to tear you from your lovely companions, but we are meeting in the library. May I show you the way?”

  Claire and Alice smiled at the reluctance with which the count allowed himself to be led away from a discussion that clearly interested him. Claire was rather more interested in what the meeting might be about.

  “Men,” Davina said. “How can they think about business when the orchestra plays so divinely?”

  Andrew gave her an odd look before he said, “Perhaps you would honor me with another dance?”

  And then Claire and Alice were claimed, and it was not until the evening ended that they saw the count again. They were putting on their wraps in the great entry hall with its black-and-white marble parquet when he came out of another door swinging his driving coat on.

  “Lady Dunsmuir,” he said, “might I offer your protegees a ride to the airfield? I am most interested in continuing our discussions about automata. You too, Mr. Malvern. I am a great reader of your monographs and would be honored if you would accompany us.”

  “You—you drive yourself, sir?” Andrew said.

  “Certainly. My captains will follow in their own landau. They think I drive zu schnell—how do you say? Too fast.”

  Claire bit back an eager acceptance, and turned to Davina. “May we?” After all, they had come with the earl’s party and were his responsibility.

  “You will be careful with them, Ferdinand,” Davina said, half teasing, half stern. “They are precious to us.”

  The count bowed, sweeping his beaver topper from his head. “As my own daughters, my dear lady.”

  “Then you must enjoy the ride, girls. We will see you later at the Lady Lucy.”

  Andrew handed Alice down the steps and into the rear compartment, and Claire seated herself in the front next to the count.

  “This is a Daimler,” Alice breathed, looking about her as if she were in a palace.

  “Eight pistons,” the count said proudly, flicking levers and spinning a great wheel next to his knee. “She’ll do nearly sixty miles in an hour, if the roads are good.”

  “Sixty…! Oh sir, when we get to the airfield, may we please look in the engine compartment?” Claire begged, and was thrown back against the seat cushions when the Daimler took off like a horse from the starting gate.

  “I will give you a personal tour of it tomorrow,” the count assured her. “Now, Fraulein Alice, I beg you to tell me more about these automata of yours. You say the one has magnetic feet?”

  Claire relaxed in the seat next to him as the count kept one eye on their route over the prairie and the other on Alice as he peppered her with questions. When he had extracted her promise of a demonstration in exchange for a good look at the engine in daylight, he said, “It is my belief that man was not created for drudgery, but for genius, and craft, and good, profitable work. Why should the factories not be run by automata? Why should machines not be operated by machines?”

  Claire had never devoted much thought to the subject of mechanized labor, but clearly, the great man had. On the other hand—

  “But, Count, machines cannot solve problems, or take a line of action to a logical conclusion. They can only obey.”

  Andrew chuckled. “I could say the same about many a fellow student in school.”

  “Yes, but those students are likely not inventing great devices in manufactories.”

  “God has given us many gifts,” the count said, “among them creativity, logic, and consideration for the needs of others. But I am not speaking of these. I am speaking of rote tasks on the manufactory floor. Why encumber a man with such when he could be in the laboratory, conducting experiments?”

  Something about this argument bothered Claire, but she could not put her finger upon it. She gazed into the darkness, thinking, as the landau’s lanterns illuminated the road ahead. Road was a generous term. The landau took its bumps and potholes in stride, its great wheels floating over them as if they were nothing. The moon had moved across the sky to the point where Claire could tell it was very late. Past midnight, at least. She hoped the Mopsies had not waited up to hear about the ball.

  “Count, do you not think that—”

  He cursed as a deer or an antelope of some kind bounded into the lamp light and across the road, and hauled back on the bar that controlled the rate of steam. Simultaneously, the sheet of isinglass next to her ear exploded inward, showering her with glittering fragments. She screamed and leaped to her left as the landau swerved and hit the bank on the driver’s side. The heavy Daimler’s nose lunged at the sky and then dropped them half on top of the bank, the engine laboring at nearly full throttle as its wheels thrust them up and over the other side.

  The deer bounded right, then left, and then disappeared into the darkness.

  “Count!” Andrew cried. “What are you doing?”

  And then Claire saw the blood.

  The right side of his head was awash with it, dripping black into his pristine collar and soaking the gray wool of his driving coat.

  “Count!” she shrieked. “Andrew, he’s hurt!”

  Without a second thought, she grabbed the acceleration bar from hands that had convulsed around it. Between her position and her inability to move the unconscious man, it was awkward, but she pulled back on it with all her strength.

  The Daimler had been moving at a speed of at least forty miles to the hour. The bar fought her, bucking and shuddering, but she did not release it. Instead, she threw her weight against it, wedging herself against the instrument panel and trying to gain purchase on the floor.

  “Claire, the wheel!” Alice shouted. “You must turn the wheel to reduce the steam pressure!”

  “I don’t have another hand,” she managed on a gasp.

  Alice flung herself over the back of the seat and, hanging bent in half, feet in their delicate dancing slippers braced against the bench, reached for the wheel and spun it with both hands.

  Something groaned deep in the belly of the landau and dual clouds of steam hissed out of both sides of the bonnet.

  It seemed like an hour before the great landau came to a reluctant, canted stop against a small rise crowned by a stubby tree that had seen one too many winters. With a sigh, the vehicle settled onto its wheels, as blown as a horse.

  Andrew gripped Alice’s waist and assisted her to slide back against him, and all three of them pushed open the wings and scrambled outside.

  “Alice, grab one of the lanterns,” Claire said. “Andrew, help me get the count out where we can see him. Oh, please don’t let him be dead!”

  Andrew slipped his arms under those of the unconscious man, and they pulled him from the Daimler. Once he was laid out on the long grass of the prairie, Andrew laid an ear upon his chest.

  “Alive,” he said, and Claire’s knees went weak.

  Alice bent down with the lantern. “This don’t make a lick of sense,” she said, “but it looks like he got creased by a bullet.”

  “A bullet!”

  “You’re right, that doesn’t make any sense,” Andrew agreed. “But only because we don’t have all the facts. But they must wait for another time. At the moment we must act, and quickly.”

  “We have to get him back to Government House,” Alice told him in a tone that said there was no other option. “It’s a good couple of miles, but he needs a doctor, pronto.”

  “Where are his captains?” Claire said suddenly. “They can help us. They may even have medical training.”

  “I’ll fetch them.” Andrew leaped up. “See if you can stop that bleeding.”

  The sound of his dress shoes thudding on the ground faded into the dark. Claire scrabbled under her skirts. “At last. A sensible use for froufrou.” She ripped an entire row of eyelet ruffle from her innermost petticoat and wrapped it carefully around the count’s head. “I need something to secure it with. Do you have a pin?”

  “Nothing,” Alice s
aid in despair, waving her hands at the frothing pool of skirts. “This is the most useless outfit in the world.”

  “My kingdom for my corselet and all its pouches. Never mind. If you would be so kind as to remove the ivory pick from my hair, I shall thread it through these holes. At least this fine cotton will provide some protection and absorb the blood.”

  Alice pulled the pick from her chignon and sucked in a horrified breath. “Claire, you’re bleeding yourself!”

  Claire secured the count’s makeshift bandage before she lifted a hand to her cheek and brought it away smeared with blood. “It doesn’t hurt, and I am fully conscious,” she said in a wondering tone. Would she collapse without warning at any moment? “It must have been the isinglass window. Is it very bad?”

  “Head wounds bleed like a son of a gun,” Alice said quietly, her fingers gentle as she investigated. “There’s a lot of glass in your hair, and a bunch of tiny cuts, but nothing big. The count’s in much worse shape. If it was a bullet, and even if it did just graze him, we have to act fast.”

  “Alice, the ground is freezing. We must get him into the back of the landau and cover him up.”

  “You’re right. Come on. Lucky job he ain’t built like that Lord Arundel. We’d never manage it.”

  Claire dropped the poor man’s feet once, but together, with much huffing and a few whispered curse words from Alice, they got Count von Zeppelin into the rear compartment of the landau. Claire activated the storage door in the side, and there, like a miracle, was a heavy traveling blanket and a can of kerosene for the lanterns.

  “At least we won’t be left in the dark.” Alice refilled the Daimler’s lantern carefully while Claire tucked the blanket around the count’s unresisting form. “Where is Andrew, for gosh sakes? This man doesn’t have any time to waste.”

  They could hear nothing but the sound of the wind, whistling through the dead branches of the tree.

  “He should have been back by now.” Claire closed the compartment door with a thunk.

  Alice gazed at her, eyes huge and becoming increasingly frightened in the lamplight. “I didn’t hear a shot.”

  “We didn’t before, either. The window simply blew inward with the force of the projectile.”

  “It would’ve got you and him both if he hadn’t swerved for that antelope.”

  “Alice?”

  “Yes?”

  “Perhaps they’re still out there. Perhaps you should put out all the lamps. We are not, after all, so far from where it hit us.”

  “I’ve got a better idea. Let’s go get Andrew and get out of here. Can you pilot this thing?”

  If only she’d watched more closely as the count had initiated the ignition sequence! But no, she had been too bothered by the thought of Andrew and Alice alone in the rear compartment to pay much attention.

  Of all the silly geese …

  Never mind. She must focus on the task at hand. How different could the Daimler’s instrument panel be from that of her own Henley Dart?

  “Yes,” she said.

  “I don’t see we have a choice. The count has to get to a doctor, and the longer we wait, the poorer his chances are. If we can’t find Andrew, why, we … we …” Her voice faded.

  The same dreadful thoughts hovered in both their minds. What if he had been shot, too, as he came over the rise? And why had the count’s captains not come to their aid as soon as they saw the Daimler go off the road? In Claire’s mind, there was only one answer. If Andrew had shared their fate, she did not think she would be able to bear it.

  “Come.” She shook away the ugly thought before it could root in her mind and terrify her. “You must ride in the rear compartment and hold his head.”

  Alice climbed in and gingerly took Count von Zeppelin’s head into her silken lap, heedless of the blood. “This has to be one of the most valuable heads in all the world,” she muttered. “How’d this come about, I’d like to know?”

  Claire tried to remember the order in which he had flipped levers and spun the wheel. After a number of false starts, not to mention some suggestions from the back, the mighty boiler rumbled to life and steam began to issue from the pipes extending out the side. She leaned on the acceleration bar and spun the wheel to give it more steam, and they began to roll.

  With the other hand, she guided the landau into an arc that took them back the way they had come, and in a moment, they half rolled, half slid onto the road.

  She had underestimated the other landau’s location, and they were now behind it. But where were—

  “There’s Andrew,” Alice said urgently, craning her neck to be able to see over the padded cushions. “Thank God.”

  “What is he doing?” Claire murmured, half to herself. For he was not administering aid to anyone. He crouched against the wing of the captains’ landau, head down, his body stiff and focused into the distant night. Cold fear cascaded into her stomach.

  Claire piloted the landau as close as she dared. “Andrew!” she called through the broken window. “Are you all right? Where are the men? Come quickly—we must get the count—”

  Without warning, the rearmost window exploded and Claire distinctly felt something thud into the cushions upon which she sat.

  Alice screamed and Andrew jerked upright as though he had been struck by lightning. He flung himself into the front compartment, shouting, “Go! Go!”

  “But the captains—”

  “Go!”

  Claire leaned on the acceleration bar and the engine coughed, like a horse who has been struck with the crop when it expected to stop and nibble the grass. It had gathered a small head of steam while she had paused it and forgotten to release the pressure valve, and with this, they leaped down the road at a headlong pace.

  With one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the acceleration bar, Claire peered wildly into the night hoping nothing would smash their one remaining lantern.

  “What happened?” she managed between chattering teeth.

  “Dead, both of them.” Andrew’s tone was grim, his face carved in stone at the edge of her vision. “And while I was searching for signs of life, a bullet missed me by half an inch.” He raised his arm. “It passed right through my sleeve. The second one went over my head when I ducked behind the landau.”

  Claire could not look, though she heard Alice gasp. Her gaze was fastened on the ribbon of road ahead and she could not look away.

  “But who—how could anyone—”

  “I do not know, but I fully intend to find out,” Andrew said. “It could only have been someone who knew when our party would leave Government House—and that the count would be piloting. For it must be he who was their target.”

  “An assassination?” Alice squeaked.

  “With a silent weapon.” Claire risked a glance at Andrew. “You heard no report, such as gunpowder would make?”

  “None. Nothing but the whine of the bullet, and then the impact.”

  “So no indication of where the gunman stood.”

  “We must return in the morning to search the area, and notify the authorities.”

  “We can’t go back to Government House,” Alice said. “Not now. It’s too risky.”

  “We can only hope there is medical aid on the count’s airship.” Claire pushed the acceleration bar out as far as it would go, and they flew through the night on the landau’s towering wheels as though the hounds of hell were after them.

  Chapter 10

  Claire had barely brought the Daimler to a hissing, growling stop—something must have been punctured under the chassis during their plunging flight to the airfield—when it was swarmed by the count’s men. In less time than she would ever have thought possible, he had been removed from the rear seat and borne aboard the ship.

  She was bundled off to sick bay herself, and a stinging concoction applied to her temple and cheek where the isinglass fragments had struck her.

  “You were lucky,” the officer murmured, dabbing the excess away and a
pplying sticking plasters. “The hood of your cloak protected your arms and shoulders, and the cuts are not deep.”

  “I wish I could say the same for the count.” Claire’s voice wobbled. “Please, can you tell me if he will be all right?”

  “It is my first concern, after your welfare,” he said gallantly. “Please, rest for a moment and I will find out. In the meanwhile, mein herr und fraulein, you are certain you are not injured in any way?”

  From the white-sheeted bunks next to her own, Alice shook her head and Andrew said, “No, not at all. Lady Claire and the count suffered the brunt of the first attack. When the captains tried to come to his assistance, they were shot. By the time I reached them, it was already too late.”

  “Ist so?” The second officer’s gaze hardened. “We will send a detachment. They will bring in our fallen companions and search for the ones who did this.”

  Claire had a feeling they would find as little evidence of anyone being there as they’d had warning of a shot, but all the same, she was glad that men of competence were swinging into action. This was an international crime, she thought, struggling to keep her mind clear. If the count took a turn for the worse, the consequences could be grave.

  There might even be war, if Prussia blamed the government of the Canadas.

  She did not want to be in a war. She wanted to go home, to the cottage by the river, to Carrick House, to Gwyn Place …

  “Claire! Herr Doktor, she is going to faint.”

  The darkness feinted at the corners of her vision, and no matter what she did, she could not stop its advance.

  When she opened her eyes several minutes later, Alice’s and Andrew’s anxious faces were hovering over her. “Claire? Can you hear me?”

  “Yes. I am perfectly well.” She struggled to sit up on the pristine white pallet. “I was merely overcome for a moment.” Her head still swam a little, but if she said so, they would fuss, and this was no time for fussing. “Have we heard anything of the count’s condition?”