A Gentleman of Means (9 page)

“But what if that is not her wish?”

“Then she would certainly have said so in her note.”

“What if she had no time? One doesn’t always, you know, in the midst of an escape.”

“You would certainly be the authority on that subject. But dearest, think how you would feel if it were Maggie or Lizzie—if those in Cornwall or the Baie des Sirenes had known of their whereabouts and deliberately not told you.”

“I would have been beside myself. More than I was at the time.”

“Then …?” He set the note on his pencil box and took her hands. “There comes a point at which you must realize you cannot save everyone, my darling. You are the most loyal and brave of friends, but this is not your fight. It is Gerald Meriwether-Astor’s.”

“But—”

“He is her father, and regardless of what we might read into or out of this note, he has a right to know of her situation. And goodness knows he has the resources to find her and return her to safety.”

“But—”

“Claire.” He squeezed her hands with gentleness, and she raised her gaze to his. “Promise me you will write to him tonight. It is the right thing to do, and in your heart you know it.”

Logic and every familial expectation told her his counsel was sound. But what if logic was wrong? What if there was some missing bit of information that would make everything clear—and in its absence any such action would endanger Gloria?

The grip upon her fingers became yet firmer. “Claire? Tell me you are not thinking of doing something rash.”

“I am not.” And she was not.

Yet.

“Family ties aside, you are in no position to act in any case. We have been through this before, when Jake was in danger.”

“That turned out well,” she pointed out. “It was manifestly the right thing to do.”

“Because Jake had no one to help him. The cases are different. Gloria does—in spades. Besides, think of your career, if nothing else. The count might have acceded to the last sudden departure, but I would not lay a silver
schilling
on his being willing to do so a second time, not a month later.”

At this, she released his hands and stood. Crossing to the viewing port—which showed her nothing but her own shape in the reflected lamplight—she said, “Perhaps that would not be such a bad thing.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“If I were to pull up ropes and go in search of Gloria, and he did sack me. Perhaps that would not be such a calamity.”

“Good heavens.” He rose, too. “Certainly it would be—not least because all my efforts on your behalf would have gone for nothing.”

“What do you mean?”

He unrolled the drawing on which he had been working for days now, and weighted its corners with paperweights—two bolts, the pencil box, and a whiskey glass—that sat on the table for just such a purpose. Wordlessly, she gazed at it.

“Andrew,” she breathed at last. “It is the Helios Membrane for
Athena
’s fuselage.”

“Precisely.”

“Have you been stealing glimpses at my engineering notebook?”

“I have,” he said brazenly. “Do you approve?”

What a relief it was to leave her troubled thoughts for a moment and concentrate upon something purely theoretical. She pointed to a cluster of lines. “I believe this collector ought to go on the top of the fuselage, not in the bow.”

“In the bow, it will be closer to the controls of the navigation gondola.”

“But it will be less exposed to the sun.”

He considered it, then nodded. “You are quite right. This posed some difficulty in the case of the steam locomotive, but of course the vessels are quite different. I will make the adjustment. At this rate I must remember to buy stock in pencils.”

She turned and hugged him about the ribs, pressing her face to his shoulder once more. “You are lovely to do these drawings for me. Thank you.”

“I look forward to the day when you can present them to the count. To see his face will be worth the price of admission.”

Instead of replying, she hugged him again.

For she had grave doubts that the future she contemplated held any such day.

“Miss Meriwether-Astor,” Captain Hayes said on the other side of her prison door, “you will be relieved to know that we are leaving
Neptune’s Fancy
here and taking to the air. Gather your things, please, and be ready to depart in ten minutes.”

The air? Ten minutes?

The air!

Gloria had been locked in this noisome cabin for only twenty-four hours, but there was an enormous difference between sleeping in it and being able to open the door, and attempting to sleep with the knowledge that no matter how hard you banged upon it or how loud a fuss you made, no one would unlock it until the times appointed. She had been allowed out to make use of the privy and to eat with Captain Hayes and the officers, as before, but that was all. Afterward, she was marched back in and endured once more the sound of the bolt crashing home.

It had only been twenty-four hours, and yet she had been reduced to utter gratitude at the prospect of another prison, as long as it wasn’t this one.

How pathetic. Claire would never behave like this. She would have picked the lock with a hairpin and swum to safety … or at the very least have secreted a paring knife about her person to be used at the first opportunity. Gloria had tried both, and succeeded with neither.

Accordingly, ten minutes later, she stood ready, the hated walking suit and blouse donned once more, her hair neatly coiled in its customary braided coronet, her hat pinned upon it. This time she had taken the precaution of stashing her money and few valuables inside her corset, so she need carry nothing in case the opportunity presented itself once more to escape.

Four bathynauts escorted her to the chamber under the bow where one of the
Fancy
’s
chaloupes
bobbed, its top open to receive passengers. Captain Hayes was already within, handing her down into the round body of the vessel as though she actually had a choice as to whether or not to place her hand in his.

“Am I permitted to ask why the change in prison?” she inquired with icy politeness.

“Certainly,” he said. “Do sit down on this side, with me. As you know, these little vessels will not trim unless the passengers’ weight is distributed evenly.”

“Yes, I know. I assume we are going ashore in a location inhospitable to the
Fancy
?”

“You assume correctly.” The remaining bathynauts boarded, and then the one with an officer’s bars on his collar ignited the
chaloupe
’s steam system and minutes later, it submerged. Instantly they were bathed in a wavering green light that told Gloria the water was shallow and the seabed sandy. Her knowledge of geography was greater now than it ever had been in school, but she could not imagine what coastline in the Mediterranean might match this description.

Except one.

“Have we not left Gibraltar?” In the time she had been locked in, they might have gained the west side of the Iberian Peninsula, at least.

Captain Hayes gazed at her with admiration. “In fact we have not. We had rather a little excitement with the port, you see, upon the
Fancy
’s being recognized. As you know, your father’s ships are not permitted in any English port, and Gibraltar being a territory, the authorities were anxious to uphold Her Majesty’s will in this matter. So we are forced to come in through the back door, as it were, and approach the airfield with rather more subtlety.”

“You are going to beach us in the
chaloupe
, then, and hope that you can withdraw before you are discovered.” She nodded, as if this were business as usual.

Inside, hope was bubbling like a cauldron. If she could only escape and smuggle herself aboard a ship bound for the Kingdom of Prussia, she could bring herself that much closer to her friends. Surely there would be a vessel flying the Iron Cross here. It was almost impossible that there should not be. Oh, this was good news indeed!

“We are,” the captain said. “An airship is waiting to take us to England, where you will be accommodated with every comfort.”

“What part of England?”

But he only smiled that charming, self-deprecating, maddening smile that conveyed nothing but regret at his inability to answer.

Gloria gritted her teeth and pinned her hopes on the next few minutes.

But to her dismay, the phalanx of bathynauts disembarked with her once the
chaloupe
had trundled its way up the beach. And there, on the extreme edge of the airfield closest to them, was moored the most unremarkable, plain, innocuous airship she had ever seen. It flew the dragon of St. George, however, which meant an unremarkable exit and an easy arrival in England.

The bathynauts had grips of iron as they took her arms and escorted her up the gangway. Not even a second’s opportunity did she have to run—or to scream, for that matter, because the stiff offshore wind blew any sounds other than the flap of canvas and the singing of ropes out to sea.

She was shown into a cabin, cheerfully informed by Captain Hayes that dinner was at eight o’clock, and before she could even judge the width of the porthole and whether she would have to disrobe before worming her way out of it and dropping the considerable distance to the ground, she felt the floor pressing up against the soles of her feet.

“Blast!” The very word choked in her throat with disappointment as she pressed her nose to the isinglass. Gibraltar and the dozens of possibilities for escape moored in her airfield dropped away at a dizzying rate and soon all she could see were empty expanses of sky.

It was, she supposed, better than empty expanses of water, but not by much.

A polite knock came at the door.

“Yes? I am still here, unfortunately.”

To her surprise, Captain Hayes leaned in. “Are you comfortable, Miss Meriwether-Astor? May we provide anything for you?”

“The porthole is too small,” she remarked, rather snappishly. “What are you doing aboard? Have you abandoned your undersea command so easily?”

He laid a hand upon his chest. “You dishonor me. But no, my remit is to see you safely to England. My first officer now has command of
Neptune’s Fancy
.”

“I wonder what he will have to say to my father when he returns to the fleet. One is usually allowed last words before one is shot.”

“Oh, as to that,
Neptune’s Fancy
will not be returning to the fleet. As you so rightly point out, that would be dangerous for the crew.”

“So you are stealing the undersea dirigible as well as the daughter? What a callous lot you are.”

“I should prefer the word
practical
. The
Fancy
has her uses and she will serve honorably in the execution of them.”

“What does that mean? Are you going to use her to sink the other vessels?”

But he had done humoring her. “We expect to moor tomorrow evening, so we have only tonight to enjoy each other’s company at dinner. Remember, eight o’clock.”

She turned her back on him. If she had hoped the cut direct would cause him to withdraw, she was again disappointed.

“And since an airship, unlike an undersea vessel, offers no opportunity for an escape while under way,” he said, “your cabin will not be locked unless you choose to lock it yourself. Good afternoon, Miss Meriwether-Astor.”

The door closed behind him and she waited, but he was as good as his word. No lock turned from outside.

She turned back to the viewing port where, far below, she could see the sere, wrinkled outline of the Iberian coast. Her stomach seemed to hollow out with grief. There went her last chance of regaining control of her life, of returning to the people she had come to regard as her friends—or at least, whom she desperately wished might regard her as a friend.

Where were they going? And once they got there, what would happen to her? Had Alice Chalmers ever received her message? Oh, why had she written that nonsense about trying to reach Munich? How many days would they waste searching the miles between Gibraltar and the Kingdom of Prussia before they concluded they must turn their attention to England?

Would she even be alive by then?

For whoever was behind this abduction would have sent a ransom demand to her father, would they not? The fact that she had not been informed of the answer that should have met them when they surfaced at Gibraltar meant nothing. It only confirmed what Gloria had always suspected—her father would not pay a ransom because he did not value her life, and Barnaby Hayes was too kind to tell her so.

Oh, Dad had said often enough that he wanted her to helm the company after he was gone, but that had only been civility. And a means to keep her busy when she was not fluttering about spending his money in Paris and entertaining her erstwhile friends in London.

Sending her plea for help to him would have been a waste of paper and a pound sterling. At least Alice might make an attempt—and if even she did not, Gloria had the cold comfort of having told her she had not meant to leave her friends to die in the Venetian lagoon.

No, the most sensible thing for her father to do was to cut his losses and move on—to marry again and spend the next several years trying for a boy. Perhaps he would erect a memorial to her in one of the squares in Philadelphia.

IN MEMORIAM

GLORIA DIANA MERIWETHER-ASTOR

AN ORNAMENT TO SOCIETY

Hmph.

The gong sounded and Gloria realized she had been standing here woolgathering for an hour, at least. Not that it mattered. She had nothing to change into, and no inclination to regret it. She straightened her spine and prepared herself to spend yet another dinner sparring with Captain Hayes.

And wondering how on earth a man so amusing and charming and unfailingly kind could be such an utter villain.

*

The nameless, featureless airship dropped out of the clouds as it circled closer to its destination, fighting a headwind that swept toward it from the east. At the large viewing port in the main saloon—which, being furnished only with the bare necessities, had not much more than a spectacular view to recommend it—Gloria gazed down at the ground. A hawk stooping upon its prey could not have concentrated with more energy as she attempted to spot even one recognizable landmark.

They had definitely arrived in England—that much was obvious.

The rolling hills patchworked by harvested fields and stone walls had a calm, provincial beauty that she had never fully appreciated before. Roads meandered like threads across the countryside, punctuated by jewel-like towns, church spires, and dark folds of forest whose autumn colors were nearly finished. Far to the north lay a sheet of silver, turning slightly pink in the setting sun.

The sea. In the north.

That could not be. In her mind’s eye, Gloria examined one of the charts pinned to the wall of her father’s office in Philadelphia. The country spooling out below the ship was far too well-behaved to be northern Scotland. No, this was definitely England, so to the right would be—

—Bristol. With a sigh of satisfaction, Gloria felt the world slip into its proper place as the heavy vapor from the city’s steam engines created a smudge below them like a second cloud. The map in her memory superimposed itself upon the landscape. That was no sea, but the Bristol Channel. If that were so, and they held their course, within ten minutes they would fly directly over Bath.

When her prediction proved correct, Gloria fought down a whoop of triumph at the sight of the Royal Crescent and the Roman steam baths as they passed below, and schooled her face to impassivity. It was fortunate she did, for a lightness in her body told her they were losing altitude, which meant the ship was coming in for a landing slightly to the east of Bath.

She must not be caught parsing out their location, tempting as it was to observe every detail. It was enough for her to know in which direction Bath lay. Bath, and the possibility of losing herself in the busy town until she could buy a ticket on the steam train to London and thence to Claire’s house.

She gained the privacy of her own cabin moments before a knock came at the door. As the ship settled onto its mooring ropes, she glanced out the porthole and saw a thick stand of maples and elms close by, the last of the red and yellow leaves even now being whisked from their bare branches by the November wind.

It had been months since she’d seen a proper tree. There were none in Venice.

She opened the door to find Captain Hayes in the corridor. “Miss Meriwether-Astor, I am pleased to inform you that we have arrived.”

“And where might that be?”

“I am not at liberty to say.” He offered her his arm and, having no choice, she took it.

She felt rather clever to be in possession of forbidden knowledge, and was consequently quite pleasant as they disembarked and he escorted her across a wet field to a path through the trees. “Am I to be housed in a prison?” she inquired. “Is this wilderness Dartmoor?”

“No, and yes,” he said.

A lie! The wretch, did he think her so simple? This pretty country in no way resembled the inhospitable moors surrounding the prison. Clearly he intended that she believe herself to be some hundred miles to the south and west, in case she took it into her head to send a message or attempt an escape.

“Goodness. I had not suspected it to look so … civilized. The pictures in magazines are quite different.”

“Never believe half of what you read,” he said easily.

Or a quarter of what you tell me henceforth
.

They passed into a wide clearing, and then a view opened up before them that, had she been here as an invited guest, might have taken her breath away.

A house sat nestled in a fold of the hills, the golden light of electricks gleaming on the wet gravel sweep in front and the tall pediments before the door. Below it ran a small river, the laughing sound of which Gloria could hear from where she stood. Spreading oaks and the pointed tapers of Italian cypress were visible in the last of the fading light.

To someone, this was a much beloved and cared-for home. To her, it was yet another series of locks and bars.

“What a lovely house, and such an appealing prospect, so close to one of the most dreaded prisons in England,” she said.