Brilliant Devices (13 page)
Of all the silly geese …
Never mind. She must focus on the task at hand. H
ow 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 u
gly 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 acce
leration 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.
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 applying 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?er t ^th="2bsp
“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?”
The medical officer assisted her to a sitting position, honorably keeping his gaze averted from her ankles until she had
settled her velvet skirts over them.
“Our ground captain has sent out men to the site,
fraulein
. Also, I have a report from my superior that he has examined
der landgraf
—the count, I should say. You did well to bind up the wound and get him here so quickly. The loss of blood was not as great as we feared, and my superior is stitching him up now. He will have a most interesting scar that will fortunately be healed by the time we all must face the Baroness.”
“Is she a woman of character, then?” Alice asked.
“She is,
fraulein
. Like a lioness in defense of those she loves. It is indeed fortunate she was not in the landau with you, for she would have leaped out and hunted these men herself.”
“I see some similarities,” the officer allowed.
From the gangway area on the deck below, they heard a commotion, and in a moment, Captain Hollys appeared in the door of sick bay. A soldier panted up behind him. “My apologies,
Herr Doktor
, but he would not wait to be announced.”
“Claire!” Ian exclaimed. “What on earth happened? Her ladyship was ready to send out a search party, and
when the messenger came from the
Margrethe
, she—”
“Get out o’ the way!”
A second commotion could be heard in the hall, and like a pair of jack-in-the-boxes, the Mopsies evaded the grip of someone behind them, popped past Captain Hollys’s legs, and flung themselves on Claire. “Lady, we was so worrit!” Maggie exclaimed. “Her ladyship’s fit to be tied.”
Claire gathered them both close. What a gift it was to feel their warm bodies, their coats still bearing the night’s chill, but the warmth of love and concern flowing between the three of them acting like a tonic to her spirits.
Hot tears welled in her eyes and she buried her face in Maggie’s hair as she blinked them back.
Captain Hollys appeared to be restraining himself with some difficulty—but whether it was to
castigate the Mopsies or to fling himself to his knees and hug her, she could not tell. Perhaps that was just as well, though it was very dear of him to be concerned.
“Her ladyship will be even more so when she finds you have followed me over here,” was the only observation he allowed himself, however.
“O’ course we followed you,” Lizzie told him. “’Ow else was we to find where the Lady was?”
In the face of such irreproachable logic, he merely said
to Claire, “Lord Dunsmuir has sent me to escort you personally back to the
Lady Lucy
.” He glanced at the medical officer. “And we have dispatched a messenger to Government House by air, informing Lord Arundel of this outrage. Be assured that we will not rest until these miscreants are brought to justice.”
Ignoring Andrew’s protests, Captain Hollys offered Claire hi
s arm and was all solicitude during the measured walk over to the
Lady Lucy
.
“Count von Zeppelin is fortunate that his ship is fitted out so well,” Andrew said
tightly as its golden fuselage came into view. “That medical bay is the very last word in modern equipment.”
“The
Landgrafin Margrethe
is a military flagship,” the captain said, not relinquishing Claire’s arm in the slightest. “It was named for the count’s mother and is the crown jewel of the Prussian fleet.”
“Wot’s a Prushin? cs other and” Lizzie wanted to know.
“Prussia is the European kingdom on the other side of the English Channel, past France,” Claire told her. The cold night air was invigorating, and she was feeling much less woozy and sick. “We must add geography to your studies in mathematics, mechanics, and language arts, I see.”
“So wot’s ’e doin’ ’ere, then, this Zeppelin cove, besides getting shot at?”
“The shooting does change the answer to that quite substantially,” Andrew mused aloud.
“Perhaps it has something to do with his meeting with Lord Dunsmuir and Lord Arundel at the ball.” Claire squeezed Lizzie’s fingers to let her know that her questions had not been impertinent. “Lizzie, you have quite the discerning eye for politics.”