A Gentleman of Means (19 page)

“On the outside, perhaps. But during his … illness … she has become more motherly, and he has become less arrogant and commanding. Somehow it has brought them closer to the middle, where they can see one another’s good qualities without the trappings of family and rank—or the lack thereof—getting in the way.”

He gazed at her over the drawings. “You have become very wise in the ways of your friends, I see.”

“I wish I were as wise about myself,” came out of her mouth before the thought had even formed in her mind. She turned away, lest he should see her blush and think—oh, never mind what he might think. He was perfectly free to think whatever he wanted. She must bring the discussion back to a more practical subject.

“So if we are to perform a rescue from the air, we must come up with a way to get Gloria up to the roof. Do you have any thoughts in that direction?”

He was silent as she walked to the fire, holding out her hands to the flame, though the room was not cold. At last he said, “We could send a message. Dress it up as a telegram for her.”

“We cannot guarantee someone would not open it before giving it to her. Or that they would not simply throw it into the fire. Besides, we have already sent a letter with an encoded message that she should be ready for a rescue late tonight.”

“Burglary is always an option.”

“The risk of discovery is too great. Particularly with firearms propped next to every window.”

“You could always slide down a rope from the balloon, open a window, and fetch her out.” From the smile in his voice, it was clear he meant it as a joke.

She turned slowly from the fire. “I could,” she said slowly.

“Claire, you must not be so literal. Even if I were serious, I would not put you in such a dangerous position.”

“I have been in dangerous positions before.”

“If anyone is aware of that, it is I, believe me.”

“But consider, Andrew. Ropes and windows aside, we have no idea where Gloria’s room is. We do know that at least one lady is staying there, and servants come and go. For the fifteen minutes it would take to locate Gloria and spirit her up to the roof, who better than I to play the part of imperious lady and frighten off anyone asking questions?”

“Impossible. They would see through you in a moment.”

“Andrew, you are clearly not familiar with the inhabitants of country houses. There is a very good chance that the staff is not familiar with all the guests, having been brought in from elsewhere to handle a large party. I do not know who this other lady is, but I could certainly impersonate a member of the party for the brief moments I would need.”

“No, there must be a more practical way. We must wait for Ian and Alice to return and talk it over with them.”

“We have been doing nothing
but
talking since yesterday, and have come up with nothing.”

“But now I am here, which might spark a different train of thought.”

“There is none. My logic is sound, and you know it.” She faced him, hands on hips. “Who better to make the attempt than I?”

Something seemed to break in his eyes. “Who better? And here we are again, Claire, exactly where we were in Munich, with you about to dash off to save someone, and I left behind to worry about you!”

His vehemence took her aback, until with a rushing of the blood in her veins, her temper flared. “That is the crux of the matter, is it not? You worry. And you worry because you do not trust me to succeed!”

“I have never known you to do anything
but
succeed! The crux of the matter is that you do not appreciate the feelings of those who love you!”

In the sudden silence, the last two words rang as though a trumpet had sounded in the room.

Andrew lifted his chin. “Yes, love you. I am not ashamed of my feelings, though you have spurned them.”

“I haven’t—I—”

To her utter horror, the strengthening elixir of anger drained out of her as fast as it had come, and her lips trembled. Tears welled up in her eyes—tears, when she thought she had cried them all out night after night in the comforting embrace of her pillow and the dark. Oh, how could her physical being betray her in this way—now, of all times?

“I haven’t spurned them,” she managed with a gasp. “You walked away.”

“Because if I had not, I should have had my heart broken again and again instead of only once. Every time you left to go and save someone, it would have broken. Every time you put someone else before me—before us—no matter how worthy, it would have broken. How can any man gaze upon such a future and not quail before it?”

He had said these things in Munich, but now it was as though a different woman was hearing them. How could she not have realized—how could she have been so blind to his point of view? Was it because of Tigg, who had had his father restored to him in body and then been brutally torn away in spirit? Was it because of Alice, who had borne up under the threat of death with a toss of her unruly mane and a sure finger on the ever-present pistol at her side—knowing that her chance for love might be snatched from her at any moment?

Or was it because in these last weeks, she, Claire, had drunk the bitter gall of separation from the one man who completed her, who made her better than she was because of his love?

He had walked away, yes. Hurt had driven him from her. But she had inflicted it and then allowed it to do so. She, who could have stopped him, who could have listened, had let him go and thereby wounded herself beyond hope of healing.

Or … almost beyond hope.

For the trumpet call still rang in her ears—calling her to an adventure even greater than those she had experienced already. She had not been truly prepared for it when they had become engaged, or even as recently as Munich. But his absence from her life had created such a hollow within that she could not bear to live with it any longer.

She unfasted the top two pearl buttons of her lacy blouse, and Andrew’s eyes widened in shock at her impropriety. “Claire!”

Slowly, she pulled up the fine gold chain upon which hung her engagement ring with its three pearls. She unfastened the clasp and slid the ring into her palm, then refastened the chain around her neck and did up the buttons over it.

The ruddy color drained from Andrew’s face, and he set his jaw. “There is no need to return the ring, Claire. You may keep it in remembrance of happier times.”

“I do not wish to return it,” she said softly. “I would like you to restore it to its rightful place upon my finger.”

His gaze met hers and locked. “If I do, it does not mean that you and I shall never be parted. It will mean that if we must part, we do so in faith and trust.”

“It could also mean that we will not part at all—that we will do what must be done together.”

“It could,” he allowed. “For I must tell you that parting holds no charms for me. The last weeks have held more misery than I ever believed possible.”

“They have for me as well. I do not want to live through such misery ever again, Andrew. I want to live with you, as your wife.”

He took a step forward, and so did she. They met in the middle of the rug before the fire, and he took the ring from her palm.

“For as long as we both shall live,” he said tenderly, and slid it onto the fourth finger of her left hand.

She went into his arms, and it was like coming home after a very long time away.

The air held the kind of cold silence that meant snow was on the way, if Alice knew anything about weather, and so she convinced Ian to put the top up on the landau despite his preference for the wind in his face. “You’re on the ground now,” she grumbled as she pushed the acceleration bar out as far as the potted road would allow.

“I miss the air,” he said simply. “Don’t you?”

“Sure, but it’s not going anywhere. It will be there when
Swan
and Jake and I are ready for it.” She swerved to miss a pothole, and Ian gripped the leather seat to steady himself.

“And when will that be?” he asked.

She slanted a sidelong look at him, then focused her attention on piloting Claire’s pride and joy. “When we get the refit done, I suppose. I’m quite prepared to pay a moorage fee for your airfield, if that’s what you’re wondering. I don’t take something for nothing.”

“Certainly not. You are my guests for as long as you care to moor there. Look.” He pointed. “There is Haybourne House—or its wall, at least. I just glimpsed the plaque upon the gate.”

She didn’t dare slow down, in case there were watchful eyes in the woods, but that didn’t stop either of them from getting a good gander at the lie of the land. Not that there was much to see—the wall had to be six or eight feet tall, and made of old stone covered in lichen and moss. But it didn’t encircle the entire estate, it only seemed to enclose the forest—what the nobs called a
park
.

“Is it meant to keep people out of the woods?” she wondered aloud. “Look, you can just see the house through those trees.”

“It seems rather that they are trying to keep the deer in,” Ian said, looking while trying to make it appear as though he was not.

A shadow passed over them, and out of habit, Alice looked up. She gasped, and they practically ran up on the bank until she remembered where the braking lever was and hauled on it.

“Great Caesar’s ghost, Alice, are you trying to kill us? It’s only an airship.”

“Sorry,” she mumbled. “I thought it was—something else.”

He waited until they were bowling along again at their previous pace before he asked, “It is heartening to think that this time it is not I ducking in fear and gibbering upon the floor boards. What did you imagine it was?”

“I don’t know—so close to the ground—I thought it might be—”

Realization dawned in his eyes. “You thought it might be the assassin? Terwilliger?”

Miserably, she nodded. “I don’t like to think about it, but sometimes—I remember the three in Munich, and how they must have come—”

“I do not blame you. This expedition is foolish. We ought to have stayed at Hollys Park.”

“If we’re going to fetch Gloria tonight, we have to have the Helios Membrane. It was either me or Tigg, since neither you nor Jake know how to pilot a landau.”

“I must remedy that forthwith. It is ridiculous that I have neglected this part of my education. When all this is over, I hope you will teach me.”

“You’ll have to buy one, first. Unless Andrew manages to convince Claire this afternoon that they belong together, she’ll want to leave as soon as we do what we came for.”

“It was cruel of you all to desert them.”

“Perhaps. But sometimes you have to leave two wild horses in the same paddock until they settle their differences.”

Alice could only hope that their accidental stratagem would work. Meanwhile, it felt good to do something other than pacing around the lovely rooms of Hollys Park or pulling down yet another section of
Swan
’s rigging for repair. She ran a risk appearing in public, it was true, but all things considered, it was worth it.

The Bath train station was a chaotic roar of trains, people dashing hither and thither, and piles of baggage waiting for porters. It took nearly an hour to determine from the baggage master that a large parcel bearing Andrew’s name had been assigned to a steambus scheduled to leave that afternoon, and twenty minutes after that to convince the driver of said bus that they were not in fact stealing the parcel, but were the bearers of a letter from Mr. Malvern with permission to collect it personally.

The thing weighed as much as two of Alice together, and it was all they could do to stagger to the landau and deposit it in the rear compartment.

“How does he expect a touring balloon to fly under that weight?” she said, gasping, as she leaned on the wing to catch her breath.

“Perhaps there is more in that parcel than he told us.” Ian flexed his arms. “I am pleased to see that my shore leave has not—” He stopped.

“Not what?” Alice leaned forward to catch his eye, and his arm caught her on the collarbone, pressing her back against the warm golden wing of the landau. “Hey!”

“Alice, stay behind me.”

“Why? What do you see?”

“Dash it all, he is coming this way. Quickly, we must pretend—forgive me—”

“Wha—”

Ian gathered her into his arms, and, trapped between his tall body and the landau, she could not move. And in a moment, she didn’t want to, for he dipped his head and kissed her.

Alice forgot how to breathe. Forgot that his heart belonged to Gloria Meriwether-Astor. Forgot that this was merely playacting—for if it was, he belonged on the stage at Covent Garden. He kissed her as though he really meant it. Thoroughly. Wonderfully. Endlessly.

She had not risen to her current state of prosperity by missing an opportunity when it presented itself. She fisted her hands in his lapels and pulled him closer. He made a tiny sound of surprise in his throat, and then went in for a second. And when, after an aeon in which the world tilted off its axis and began to spin in a whole new direction, the kiss broke and he lifted his head, it was to gaze into her eyes as though he had never seen her before.

He blinked.

She released his coat, self-consciously patting the abused lapels back into place.

And then his gaze lifted, over her shoulder, watching something. Not her. She could not speak, could only look into his face, seeing the way the winter sun gilded his lashes and made his blue eyes even more intense. But he was breathing heavily, as was she.

“What is it?” she finally managed, when she was sure her mouth would work properly. “Who did you see?”

After a moment, he nodded, but for some odd reason, did not step away as she expected. “I am not quite sure I would have believed it, if not for the evidence of my own eyes.” His gaze dropped to her lips … whereupon he blinked again and hastily met her eyes. “It was Gerald Meriwether-Astor. He just got into the steambus from which we removed Andrew’s parcel.”

He must be hallucinating. Could kisses do that to people? “Gerald Meriwether-Astor is forbidden to set foot on English soil. And even if he had the nerve to do it, he would never ride a steambus. The man is as rich as Croesus. He could hire a six-piston Bentley.”

“I agree on all points. And yet, there he is, you see? Dressed as a country walker—at this time of year.” He slipped an arm around her and moved around until she could gaze past his shoulder yet remain mostly concealed. Sure enough, there he was, a fireplug of a man wearing a tweedy jacket, heavy walking boots and the kind of tweed cap into which one sticks flies on hooks. With one hand, he used the pole in front of the steam pipe of the bus to help pull himself up as he climbed the steps. The fingers of the other were looped through the straps of a rucksack.

Alice sucked in a lungful of air. “Ian, we have to leave. If that’s really him, we can’t let him see us on the road. And we have to tell the others. Heaven only knows what this means—but it can’t be good.”

She leaped to re-ignite the boiler, and before the bus could get up a proper head of steam, they were out of the station yard and away down the road as fast as the acceleration bar would allow.

Two miles passed in a panicked blur before he spoke. “Alice—about what happened, there in the station yard—please allow me to apologize.”

She slowed their headlong rush slightly, but not much. “Why? I enjoyed it—and so did you. Though I don’t imagine Gloria will if she ever hears of it. We shall have to be clear it was necessary so that we wouldn’t be spotted.”

The landau plunged into a pothole and out again, but instead of grabbing the nearest stationary object, he gripped her arm. “What the devil does Gloria have to do with anything?”

She couldn’t shake him off or she’d lose her grip on the acceleration bar. Besides which—to her shame—she rather liked the feel of his hand.

“Well, nothing right now, maybe. But once she is safe, I expect she’ll have quite a lot to do with you.”

“You are speaking in riddles, woman.”

His testiness allowed her to be a little more frank than she might have been ordinarily. “It’s no riddle that she’s the woman you’ve had your eye on since Venice. Everyone knows it—except maybe Gloria. She’s a good choice for you.”

“For me?”

Goodness. Did she have to spell it out for him? Fine, then.

“She’s smart, and pretty, and knows how to dress for all those fancy occasions you and Claire are in the habit of going to. She’s got buckets of money, and you have a title. If I didn’t like her so much, I’d hate her, because she’s going to have—” She stopped.

“Have what?”

“You.”

“Is she?”

“Isn’t she?”

“No, she bloody well isn’t! I’ll thank you to allow me to do my own choosing.”

“Well, fine. Just hurry up about it, will you?”

“Hurry up? I’ve only just realized it myself.”

“Realized what?”

“I’m not going to tell you that when we’re tearing down a road in a landau!”

Oh, the big bumble of a man! She hauled on the braking lever and the landau careened over to one side, where thankfully there was not a bank. Or a tree. “There. Are you happy? You have two minutes to tell me what on earth you’re talking about before that steambus catches up to us, so spit it out.”

He glared at her. “I have never in all my life met such a headstrong, maddening woman.” He checked himself. “Except for Claire.” The glare returned. “I’ll have you know that I am not going to court Gloria Meriwether-Astor. I’ve never had any intention of doing so. The only reason I’m up to my neck in this business is because she is your friend. I am doing this for
you
.”

She gaped at him, while the landau’s boiler bubbled, and steam pressure built.

“You are not.”

“Do not contradict me! I am helping to rescue your friend. I am offering you my airfield for as long as you need it. I would offer you my hand and my home, too, if I didn’t think you’d shoot me on the spot for my impertinence!”

He couldn’t be serious.

But yet, he must be. He was certainly furious enough to be.

Wordlessly, holding his gaze, she reached into the pocket of her pants and took out the lightning pistol she had made. She laid it on the seat beside him, and he took it up, resting it on his knee.

“We have to go,” she said at last.

“This conversation is not finished.”

“I know. Hang on.”

She retained just enough presence of mind to remember what Claire had said about letting off the pressure, and the landau leaped ahead like a deer.

When she had it under control, she realized that he had chosen to hang on to not the handles or even the seat, but her hand, though it was wrapped around the acceleration bar in a white-knuckled grip.

Her heart filled and lifted with such amazed, crazy joy that if the landau had suddenly tilted up into the air and taken flight, she would not have been a bit surprised.