Gilded Lily (7 page)

The journey was an exercise in the relativity of time. The speed of the velocipede was constant, so they knew it was a half hour out and a half hour back in. But it had seemed like hours as they traveled the distance the first time, into the unknown darkness. On the way back, with their hearts racing from fear, the trip seemed the work of mere moments. They came to a jerky halt as soon as the vestibule was in sight, abandoning the velocipede and heading for the exit at a dead run.

“We've left the cart on the wrong track, and far too close to the entrance!” Freddie realized with horror. “Somebody will know it's been used!”

“I'm not going back to turn it around. You can do what you like, but you'll never get that lever down alone.”

Neither of them stopped running, in any case.

Barnabas hit the lift first and tugged the door open, then slammed it decisively behind Freddie once she was safely in. The device jerked upward as soon as the door was secured. Overhead the bulb guttered madly, but the motor operated smoothly, to Freddie's vast relief.

“It was an earthquake,” Barnabas repeated, sinking down to the floor and resting his arms on his knees as he caught his breath.

“I know. We had two in Le Havre when I was living there.” The space was cramped, but she slumped down beside him, sides heaving. Now that they were relatively safe, she felt foolish for having run. Surely the tunnel had been built to withstand a few minor tremors.

“But you said—”

“I
was
joking.”

“Oh.” He blinked, then smiled hesitantly. “That was quite good, actually.” The smile faded almost immediately and was replaced with a grim look that made Freddie even uneasier.

“Thank you. Are you all right, Lord Smith-Grenville? You look—”
Serious. Adult. Not as though you're having a bit of a lark.
“Concerned about something.”

He nodded, his lips tightening even more. Now that she was learning what to look for, Freddie saw all sorts of emotions on Smith-Grenville's face.

“Did you notice anything unusual about that submersible?”

“Other than the fact it nearly plowed into the porthole and killed us?” But she was already thinking back, trying to remember the details. There had been something, she was sure of it. She cursed herself again for bolting.

Barnabas shrugged. “That too. I meant the bristles all over the front of it.”

That was it! “I know what those are, I think! Or at least I know something about them. I overheard my father talking about some prototype of a device for catching smugglers. And something about a lily. There was a flower painted on that sub; I saw it when the thing banked, right before it swooped over the tunnel. A big yellow flower. The sub must be called the
Lily
. Though I can't think why; it doesn't look even vaguely floral. And Father seemed to think it was too small, but that one looked enormous to me. Perhaps the water made it look bigger?”

“That was no military vessel,” Barnabas corrected her. “And it wasn't a lily painted on the side. It was a poppy. A golden poppy.”

He'd grown paler still, and without thinking she reached over to touch his hand. He took her fingers in his, and a queer feeling sifted from her chest down to the bottom of her stomach. “Why is the poppy so important?”

“It's the emblem of an opium smuggler. Baron Orm, but he called himself the Lord of Gold. He's in prison in the Dominions, and in theory his operations were shattered. Obviously not, however.”

The lift creaked to a halt, but Freddie remained where she was, her heart beating as fast as it had when the earthquake began. “I read about him in the newspapers. You're not telling me everything, are you?”

Barnabas lifted his gaze to hers, frowning with his mouth but smiling with his eyes. “I've always had an excellent poker face, Miss Murcheson. I can't tell if you're unusually perceptive or just more persistent than most in trying to see past it.”

She matched his somber moue. “Unusually perceptive, of course.”

He snorted, then got to his feet, offering her a hand up. “So I might as well go on and tell you everything to save time, I suppose? I don't want there to be a submersible owned by opium smugglers. Particularly not that opium smuggler. Because I fear that somebody I know may be involved.”

They exited the lift together, and Barnabas cracked the door to the alley to scout for passersby.

“Who is it? Who's involved?”

He put a finger to his lips and held the door open to let her pass first. As she brushed by him, he murmured his answer.

“My brother, Phineas.”

H
E HAD SLEPT,
which helped immensely. But Barnabas still felt a touch of the surreal as he guided the curricle around the park the next afternoon. Miss Murcheson sat behind him, prim and lovely in a pale green frock that managed to be entirely modest yet show off her curves to great advantage. He wasn't sure if he preferred the fashionable ensemble to her workman's attire. He did know, however, that he had never courted anyone remotely in Frédérique Murcheson's category. Here, in this setting and in these garments, she was the paradigm of fashionable, demure loveliness. He found himself convinced, even though he knew full well it was a sham. She had a charmed glow about her, something indescribable and irresistible.

Barnabas eased the pair of matched grays past a halted landau and matched the deliberately sedate flow of traffic along the broad avenue. He enjoyed the responsiveness of the animals, the quiet surrounding them. Steam vehicles were not permitted in Hyde Park, a stricture most of the current generation railed against. Barnabas liked that the horses knew where they were going without constant monitoring. This team had come with his cover story, apparently. They'd been waiting for him this morning along with the keys to a reasonably fashionable steam car for longer excursions. Everything a young man-about-town might need.

“Father has spared no expense in outfitting my latest suitor, I see,” was Miss Murcheson's comment once they were moving along again and past the risk of being overheard.

“He's certainly made me plausible,” Barnabas agreed. “If I last, he said he'd arrange a house for me, as well. As my family no longer maintains a London residence, I have to admit it's welcome. Saves me the time of finding a place to let and a decent livery. And this probably does a great deal to restore your status on the marriage mart. Having a well-bestowed chap such as myself so eager to ignore his business obligations and drive out with you instead.” He spoke with a cheer that was not entirely false. It was far from an unpleasant task to take this drive, and throwing himself into the role of ardent suitor was still the best way to go about it.

“He said, humbly,” she retorted. “I have no desire to restore my status on the marriage mart. But more importantly, you fell asleep again on the way home last night and never told me the rest of your brother's story.”

He glanced around automatically, paranoid about the proximity of the surrounding carriages. Nobody was close, and aside from a few curious glances at the new lordling from the Dominions, nobody seemed to be paying them any attention. Most of the talk he'd caught centered on last night's earthquake, which the members of the
ton
seemed to consider a bit of a thrill. The morning paper reported three dockworkers dead from a building collapse. Barnabas suspected the rank and file were less than thrilled by the quake, and he wondered how any of them would respond if they knew a much larger quake had been predicted to occur soon. Or so Miss Murcheson claimed to have overheard. Such news might cause a panic, even among the jaded aristocracy.

“I shouldn't have told you what I did about Phineas. I was exhausted and delusional.”

“I saw the poppy on that submersible too. It was no delusion.”

“Yes. But perhaps it was simply an old mark, or a coincidence. It can't be Orm. When I left the Dominions he was still incarcerated. Isolated. No communication with the outside world, not so much as a carrier pigeon.”

She pulled a fan from somewhere about her person and snapped it open, waving it prettily in front of her face as she thought. “You thought of this man Orm and your brother instantly. One should always trust one's first instincts. And what about the whiskers?”

“What whiskers?”

“On the submersible. If that wasn't some sort of sensor array, my name's not Fred Merchant.”

“Your name
isn't
Fred Merchant.”

“You know exactly what I mean. The point is, there was some sort of nonstandard equipment, and that was no military vessel. You knew that instantly, and I must concur. What's more, I've consulted a map my father had handy—”

“He had it handy? Just lying about in a parlor, I suppose?”

“Don't interrupt, please. I have my ways. If we were where I estimate we were, that part of the channel is supposed to be off-limits to all but the military. There's a narrow passage for commercial vessels into the estuary, but most of it was never opened up after the war ended. Not so much as a fisherman squeaks by. The military doesn't like to cede ground or water once it controls it. But if that was a civilian sub we saw, and it had some sort of underwater sensor attached, perhaps a proximity detector . . . well, it could be using that to sneak past the Navy patrols.”

“That would definitely give the smugglers an advantage,” he admitted. It would allow one smuggler the drop on not only the authorities but any competition as well. And if the criminal in question were indeed smuggling opium, he might gain the upper hand even against the British East India Company's monopoly.

It was bizarre, discussing matters of such great secrecy there in the sunlight, in the midst of so many peers. These were topics for clandestine whispers in the darkness, not open discussion in carriages in broad daylight. Miss Murcheson's lace-bedecked parasol did not provide nearly enough cover for all they had to say. She looked extremely fetching beneath it, however. But then she always looked fetching, even dressed as a plump male tinker with grease smears on her face.

“If Father suspected a civilian, a smuggler, had already developed the equipment his men were still trying to build, that would explain his determination to speed up testing. To use something larger than whatever the
Lily
is. And he hasn't returned home. I think he is in France. I believe we still have some sort of military installation in Le Havre. No, listen,” she insisted, when he started to protest that the terms of the treaty with France prohibited such a thing, “that storeroom in his factory there. Exactly the same, my lord. What if it leads to another tunnel? Another underwater passage? What do the tunnels lead to?”

“A faster way to get across?” he suggested. “People have talked for years about building a tunnel under the channel. If the Navy started working on such a thing during the war, they're hardly likely to have abandoned it just because of the treaty. As you pointed out, they don't like to cede territory.”

“But this side's tunnel looked new. They were still building it. There was fresh sawdust. A new lift cage. Lighting still to be rigged. I saw the Le Havre entrance—”

“If that's what it was.”

“I saw it years ago. When his factory was only a few years old. He used to take me there all the time when we first moved to France; it was only a year or so later that my mother started to forbid it. The tunnel wouldn't have led to nowhere, would it? There's a
destination
down there somewhere. That's why they're still keeping people out.”

“But the channel is hundreds of feet deep. What would be worth the inconvenience and danger of keeping it under that much water?”

“Something that's underwater anyway,” Freddie posited. “Some sort of mining operation, or specialized research facilities. Or a docking station for submersibles with special hydrophonic sensors that the Navy doesn't want anyone to know exist.”

“This is giving me a headache.” He steered toward the shadiest side of the drive, slowing the horses. “I should just tell your father what we saw.”

Freddie snapped her fan shut and glared at him. “You wouldn't dare.”

“I'm done for anyway, Miss Murcheson. I've failed in this assignment from the start. Now look there, everyone passing also sees you staring daggers at me, and you know how fast these things travel. Before too long word will get back to your father that I'm not even an adequate suitor.”

In a twinkling, her expression and posture altered, everything about her intimating a coquettish willingness to be courted. She even tapped his shoulder with her fan, and giggled. It was all quite devastating. “Oh, Lord Smith-Grenville, you're a delightful suitor! Never doubt it for a moment!”

“Thank you.” He attempted to match her demeanor, but the girl's skills were far beyond his own. Once again, he could only coast along in her wake, anxiety warring with admiration.

“Now, tell me about your brother. Do you really think he's an opium smuggler?” She flipped the fan open again and batted her eyelashes as she asked this. It was completely egregious, but Barnabas was still utterly charmed. Miss Murcheson's eyelashes were longer and thicker than he'd realized before, and the dress brought out the green in her eyes.

“Oh. That. Honestly, I don't know what to think. Phineas was a naval officer serving in Europa until a few years ago. Then he went missing, and all the evidence suggested he'd succumbed to an opium addiction.”

“How horrible!”

“I never believed it. His commanding officers told us, but it seemed so out of character for Phineas. I looked for him everywhere, even in Le Havre and Paris. My friend Matthew Pence tried to enlist your father's aid in the search, in fact. But by that time all the people who'd seen him said he'd gone west to the Lord of Gold.”

“That myth? I suppose it turned out to be true, though. All those poor people on that farm . . .”

Baron Orm had kept thousands of workers addicted and enslaved on his vast opium farm in the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada. More than half of them had died, unidentified, when their source of the drug had been incarcerated. Only a few had been healthy and lucid enough to come through withdrawals with their faculties somewhat intact. Of those, a mere handful were able to testify as to the conditions at the farm that Orm had called El Dorado.

Phineas hadn't been among that handful. He hadn't been among the wretches doomed to live out their half-witted lives in sanitariums. Nor had his body been found among the legions of dead.

“My friend Mrs. Eliza Pence, who won the Sky and Steam Rally, swears she saw Phineas at the finish line ceremony. He was one of Orm's men. Not an opium slave, but a hired mercenary. A pirate.”

“Oh, dear.”

“She ascribed him higher motives than I can. Assumed he was there for some good reason, and that he didn't come forth to help her because he saw there was no need. But I can't be so sanguine about it. Phineas always did have a hidden side. Why would he hide it if it wasn't dark?”

Freddie sighed, toying with the edges of her fan. “He might have assumed nobody would accept it. Even if it wasn't a dark side. We all have our reasons.”

Barnabas navigated a corner before responding. Their turn around the park was finished. “I can't equate your desire to thumb your nose at your father by working on shopkeepers' equipment to my brother's decision to abandon his family and commission—and evidently his clandestine job as a secret agent—to throw his lot in with a band of criminals. If he did, which I find I still have trouble believing.”

To her credit, Miss Murcheson maintained the sweetly flirtatious smile she'd worn since he pointed out that people were watching them and gauging the course of their supposed relationship. “My feelings about Father have nothing to do with my work, Lord Smith-Grenville. I would do it all in the open if I could, but I do it in secret anyway because I must. Machines speak to me. I hear them, I see them, I know them and I can no more resist their call than you can resist looking for your prodigal brother. These are our passions. Even though you tell yourself you've given up on his character, you still look. And you still won't tell my father about the submersible we saw, until you're sure you won't be incriminating Phineas in the process.”

She was right. He was a fool, but he wouldn't go to Murcheson. “Probably I just don't want to incriminate myself.”

“That too. It occurs to me . . . I heard Father say something about ‘S-G.' He seemed to be talking about an agent, someone he was disappointed with. I assumed at the time he was talking about you, but now I'm not so sure. What if Mrs. Pence was correct, and Phineas was working for the Crown when she saw him in San Francisco? Still working for my father? He'd be an S-G too.”

His jaw dropped. “I
knew
it. I
knew
your father wasn't telling me everything he knew about Phineas. Good God, this could change everything!”

“Perhaps. By the way, what's wet work?”

Barnabas's gut clenched, hearing the ominous term fall from such tender lips. “Wet work? Your father said that Phineas . . . ?”

She shook her head, artistically arranged curls bobbing around her smooth shoulders. “He said that S-G was squeamish about it. Father sounded rather disappointed. It sounds like something a scullery maid would do, so I didn't quite understand. Is it a type of work you're supposed to be doing? Or something to do with working on submersibles? If not, it's still entirely possible Father meant you, you know.”