A Gentleman of Means (10 page)

For a moment, he hesitated, and then he seemed to catch himself. “Yes, it is, isn’t it? We post a watch for just that reason.”

She clenched her teeth, and forced a smile. “Am I to be similarly incarcerated here?”

“I would rather you thought of yourself as a much anticipated guest, worthy of every comfort and attention. Miss Meriwether-Astor, may I be the first to welcome you to Haybourne House.”

“Thank you, sir. Is it the property of friends of yours?”
Or of whomever has engineered my abduction?

“No.” His smile was that of a man looking on a much beloved face after many years away. “It is my home.”

As she clocked in, feeding her
Stempelkarte
into the mouth of the difference engine that ran the administrative operations of the Zeppelin Airship Works, Claire still struggled with the decision that had kept her awake half the preceding night. Should she tender her resignation today, come what would?

The prospect of spending so much as a month catering to the whims of Messrs. Weissmann & Co., never mind ten or twenty years, was such an appalling one that it threatened to overwhelm even her sense of obligation to the count. She would have to pay back four years of tuition, and move her things and those of the girls onto
Athena
. Would he accept a scheme of monthly payments—which would include moorage fees—until the girls completed their schooling in June? Or would he wash his hands of all of them and ask her to pull up ropes at once?

When she arrived in her laboratory, feeling rather ill, she was astonished to find Herr Weissmann standing next to her bench, clearly waiting for her.

“Ah, Fraulein Junior Engineer. Would you come with me, please? We are expected in the offices of the managing director without delay.”

“Why? Has something gone amiss?”

“I assume he will tell both of us when we arrive. Hurry, now.”

Mystified, Claire snatched her gray laboratory coat from its hook and fastened its horizontal clasps as they walked briskly to the telescoping ironwork of the elevator. What could Herr Brucker want with both of them? Unless …

Oh, dear. Perhaps someone had discovered her bit of spliced cable and, in the absence of a memorandum documenting the change, had demanded an explanation. She was rehearsing what she might say when she and Herr Weissmann were ushered into the august presence.

The managing director laid down his fountain pen and regarded her unhappily. “Herr Weissmann, do have a seat.” When Claire looked about her, she observed that the other wooden chair had been removed from the office, leaving her no choice but to stand. “Fraulein Junior Engineer, thank you for coming so promptly.”

She inclined her head, stiffened her spine, and folded her hands before her. This did not seem to be the moment to insist on a lady’s prerogative to be seated first. Perhaps they were unaware such a prerogative existed.

“I will waste as little of Herr Weissmann’s time as possible, and come to the point directly. This morning upon my arrival I found der Landgraf von Zeppelin himself waiting in my office, with no fanfare and no notice.”

Claire’s lashes fluttered with surprise, but otherwise she made no movement. However, a measure of triumph warmed her heart. The count had changed his mind and come to her rescue, obviously having come to the conclusion that she was wasted here. She settled her feet more comfortably in anticipation.

Herr Brucker regarded her coldly. “He informed me that you had gone over the heads of several levels of management and approached him directly with your dissatisfactions concerning your employment here.”

She frowned at his impugning her motives for speaking up. “I live in the palace, and in the course of a walk through the rose garden, met him there. Naturally he inquired as to how I was enjoying my work. I did not complain. I merely told him the same things I told you.” She stopped herself before saying,
clearly to greater effect.

“And what was his response to your remarks?”

“What one might expect. He referred me back to your … leadership and advised me to be patient.”

Once more his gimlet glare reminded her of poor Herr Grunwald back at school. “He has also advised me to be patient, but I find it increasingly difficult in the face of so obstinate a young lady.”

Arrogant, self-aggrandizing
, and now
obstinate
. It was fortunate that the people closest to her did not agree with his estimation; otherwise, she might find herself taking these criticisms to heart.

“I am afraid that I must put the interests of the Zeppelin Airship Works before those of patronage and obligation. Der Landgraf has given me a free hand with the engagement of new engineers; he also gives me a free hand with their dismissal. Fraulein Junior Engineer, please collect your things. As of this morning, you are no longer employeed with this company.”

Claire stared at him. “No longer employed? You cannot sack someone whom the count has appointed. Does he know of this?” It was one thing to be impaled upon the horns of a dilemma. It was another thing entirely to have one horn—and one’s choice of it—taken away entirely.

“No, but he will. It is within my authority to let a man or woman go if I determine they are disruptive to the work and safety of others. That, I am afraid, is what my report to him will say.”

The rage that had been tamped down these last weeks while she tried to balance ambition with obligation flared wildly into life and Claire lost her temper.

“Then I suggest you include something a little more truthful in your report,” she snapped, enunciating with the icy clarity learned at the silken knee of Lady St. Ives. “I came here this morning with the intention of handing in my resignation. Never in my life have I seen a business so mismanaged, so dependent on
patronage
and
obligation
as this one. If I put together every brain in the entire Flight Development Department, I still would not find the intelligence of one of my automatons.”

His eyes bulged, and he glanced past her, as if about to call one of the uniformed men who acted as security at the main doors.

“I shall be glad to shake the dust of your laboratory off my feet—and I shall have to, since cleanliness is a foreign concept and no innovations have been made in weeks that might stir up the dust in any case.” She laid a hand on the doorknob, shaking with anger. “I shall inform the count of your actions, of course, when he asks me at dinner this evening. If I were you, I should
dust
off my curriculum vitae.”

With that, she swung open the door, swept through it, and slammed it so hard behind her that the secretary sitting just outside jumped practically out of her dirndl.

Within ten minutes, Claire had returned her laboratory coat to its hook, removed the brass plate bearing her name on her bench, and marched out of the hangar to her steam landau. She could barely sit still long enough to wait for the boiler to heat, but when it did, she piloted it out of the gates at a far greater speed than she had coming in.

And if a few tears were whisked out of her eyes as she bowled along the Talkirchnerstrasse, it was only due to the wind, nothing more.

*

“Sacked?”
Andrew gaped at her, eyes wide with astonishment. “They let you go? Are they mad?”

“They are the equivalent of a horse and carriage, mired in the mud of tradition and hierarchy.” Claire collapsed onto the sofa aboard
Athena
and pulled the driving goggles from her hair. “I would never have expected this from a company so far ahead of the rest of the world in technology and vision. It is heartbreaking, Andrew. I do not understand how the greatest innovations of the modern age could come from minds as small as those.”

Andrew got up from his drawings to sit beside her and take her hand. “Clearly there are other minds better occupied in other hangars,” he pointed out. “I wonder what these men believe the charter of flight development to be?”

“Whatever their belief, they no longer have my assistance in bringing it about. I will make it clear to the count that, despite what they say, I have resigned my post. I do not wish it known among the Royal Society of Engineers that I have been sacked. That would be intolerable.”

“Quite so,” Andrew agreed. “What now? For I do not for a moment suppose you have left without a plan in mind.”

For the first time that morning, Claire smiled, and turned her hand so that it clasped his, palm to palm. “I shall form a partnership with you, if you will have me. I have come to believe that I, too, am the sort that must captain her own ship.”

The smile that broke upon his face warmed her heart the way the sun will warm the coldest dawn. “I confess that when I saw your indecision, I was hard put not to attempt to convince you to do that very thing. We shall be partners in life and in work, and I will be the happiest man on earth.”

He leaned in to seal this prediction with a kiss.

“I am likely to be homeless shortly,” she reminded him.

“You have two homes in England.”

“But the girls’ education—I cannot pull them from the
lycee
when they are mere months away from matriculation. We cannot leave Munich until afterward.”

“Then we will find that farm posthaste, for until we are married, I must continue to live aboard
Athena
. A landing field must take priority over a laboratory for the time being.”

Athena
. The resolution she had formed on the drive home rose up inside her, and Andrew must have seen her face change, for he sat up, his keen gaze unwavering.

“Have I said something? Have you changed your mind about a farm?”

“Andrew—now that I am free—I must—oh, you will not like it.” He looked positively alarmed now, but the words must be said. “I must find out what has happened to Gloria.”

Those beloved eyes gazed into her own in a moment of disbelief before his face slowly darkened.

She hurried on before he could contradict her. “I know that you said her father must be informed about the note—”

“And was he?”

“No.”

“Claire!”

“Andrew, listen, please. She sent that letter to Alice—to us—in her extremity. To
us
, not her father. I cannot avoid the conclusion that she did not want him to know her whereabouts. And the only reason for that must be because she does not trust him.”

“Ridiculous.”

“Perhaps with the threat from the Famiglia Rosa, he had her removed for her own safety—but that does not seem right. Why not tell her? So I must conclude that either they are behind it, or some other nameless party is using her as a pawn in a larger game.”

“You are boxing with mist—and moreover, it is none of your affair. Claire, for the love of heaven, tell the girl’s father and be done with it so that we can get on with the planning of our own lives.”

Her lower lip trembled at his tone. She had seen him angry with her before, but that had been motivated by fear for her safety. What was his motivation now?

“I cannot,” she whispered. “My friend is in danger and she has no one to help.”

“If she is, then she has asked for help in the wrong quarter. Whether or not she trusts her father is immaterial. It is his duty to rescue her, not yours. He is a man of enormous resolution and nearly limitless resources. You are a young lady with responsibilities and prospects of your own that have nothing to do with Gloria Meriwether-Astor.”

“She is my friend.”

“She is my friend also, and Alice’s, and Ian’s … and you do not see us haring off to fetch her when others are better equipped to do so.”

“Andrew, you do not mean that.” He could not be so heedless of the plea for help that Gloria’s letter had contained.

“I do mean it!” As if unable to sit still for another moment, he leaped to his feet and began to pace. “Claire, I do not understand you. Time after time you have put aside your own welfare and that of those who love you to fly off into danger. Time after time we are left behind wondering when it will ever be our turn to enjoy your full attention. Time after time we wonder if indeed you love the adventure and the risk more than you care for those whose hearts you hold.”

She stared at him, her cheeks prickling as the color drained from them. “Of whom do you speak?” she managed at last.

“Of Maggie, of Lizzie, of Alice … and of me.”

“I do not fly off without you. We go together, if we go at all.”

“Perhaps I speak metaphorically. For if we do not go physically, we run the risk of never seeing you again.”

“That is not true.”

“Perhaps it has not been. But that is no guarantee of the future.”

“The future is never guaranteed.”

“Do not split hairs with me. The point is that your life is being left behind while you dash off to save someone else’s. I do wonder if you do it on purpose. I do not want to, because that would make you unnatural and unwomanly … but I do wonder.”

How could he say these things to her? How could he be so cruel? “On purpose? What on earth are you talking about?”

He stopped and turned, his face as colorless as her own—and his eyes—

“Do you really want to marry me, Claire?”

“Of course I do! How can you say that after all we have been through together—after all the plans we have made?”

“Then prove it.” He took a breath and pressed a fist to his heart, as though it pained him. “Abandon this plan of going to Gloria’s rescue and let her father handle it, as I advised you. Then turn your attention to our wedding with a heart undivided and free—just the way you were when you accepted my proposal that day on the cliffs.”

That day on the cliffs, she had had no inkling of the dangers that awaited—dangers brought on almost exclusively by and encapsulated in the person of Gerald Meriwether-Astor.

In one blinding sweep, Claire saw the truth behind all the events that Maggie and Lizzie referred to as their
adventures
. In the Canadas, he had attempted to start a war by assassinating Count von Zeppelin. He had sold Lizzie’s father the massive telescoping cannon with which the latter had planned to assassinate the heir to the throne. He had cozened the Bourbon pretender into an invasion of England, selling him his guns, his underwater dirigibles, and his war machines. And he had bargained with the Famiglia Rosa for the lives of English men and women—no matter that they were convicts—and condemned them to a short life and a watery grave.

Claire had not brought their adventures on herself out of a mad need to dance on the edge of danger. Gerald Meriwether-Astor was the architect of them all—the reason she could not lead the kind of life she wanted with Andrew. And he was undoubtedly the man who had prevented his daughter—her friend—from living the life she was capable of and deserved as a woman of resources and potential.