Heart and Soul (38 page)

He grinned at her, knowing she was referring to the dragon’s need to hunt after a long flight. He preferred not to think of how he satiated his hunger while in dragon form, though he’d always been careful not to eat a human. He simply said, “I could use a cup of tea as well.”

At this moment, he found a metal ring on the wall and pulled it twice. From deep inside, he heard a bell tolling.

After a long while, a man came and opened the door. He was sandy-haired, with a receding hairline and a sun-aged countenance, and for a moment Peter had no idea who he might be, until the man looked up and Peter recognized him to be Joseph Gilbert, who called himself Perigord. The man, in turn, was frowning intently at Peter, before nodding and saying, “Lord St. Maur. You look remarkably like your late mother.”

Peter nodded. He knew at least that he didn’t look like his father, something for which he’d always counted himself fortunate. He bowed correctly, though feeling somewhat odd that someone who had known him from earliest childhood was calling him Lord St. Maur. “We received your letter, and we came, as you see, with all possible expediency.”

If the man knew what means Peter had employed to arrive here so quickly, he chose not to comment on it, and instead bowed back and invited them into the small house, where he installed them in the dining room and a woman who answered to “my dear Charlotte” brought them tea. She showed some signs of crying.

Joseph’s repeated looks at Sofie finally brought from Peter the admission that Sofie had insisted on coming and from Joseph a rueful answering smile.

It wasn’t until several cups of hot, inky-black tea later that conversation turned to the subject that had brought them here. “Hettie is young,” Joseph said, “and we tried to keep her out of these matters as much as we could. I’m starting to think perhaps we did ourselves and her a disservice.”

He pushed at Peter two notes, written in an angular hand. Peter perused them rapidly. The first one said,
I have Lady Hester Gilbert. I will not release her until Lord Joseph Gilbert should contact me about his associates in the conspiracy to obtain and keep the two objects Her Majesty desires.

The second was much the same, but threatened several penalties should Joseph be so foolhardy as to try to recover his daughter or attempt to withhold information.

“You see the position I’m in,” he said.

“Yes,” Peter said, and hesitated over the names given. “I realize it is none of my business, but I notice this man, this”—he flicked at the paper almost derisively—“Captain Corridon, has referred to you and your daughter by your true surname and title. Does your daughter know it?”

“My title?” Joseph asked, befuddled, running his hand back through his hair. “I am a second son. I have no title. True, I changed my name, but—”

“You don’t know, then,” Peter said, feeling a certain amount of astonishment. “Good Lord, man, you told me you’d read notice of me in the newspaper, so I assumed you’d received news.” He looked at Joseph Gilbert’s blank face and sighed. “Your father died something like five years ago.”

“Yes, I know. I did read of that,” Joseph said. “But my brother Michael ascended.”

“Yes, but he, too, died, in a riding accident a little later. For the last five years, the estate has been closed, and deserted—except for those servants needed for maintenance—while they try to find you. I believe something in your father’s will forbade them from presuming death for a number of years; otherwise, they’d have done so already.”

Joseph sat in silence and after a while put his hand to his head, as if attempting to hold the idea in. “How could I…how could I have missed it?”

“You read the foreign papers.”

“Indeed…Only…Two years ago…I must have been…It must have been when the carpetship crashed in the Americas and we…I was…out of reach of British papers for months. But then, I am…Do you mean to say I am…Earl of Marshlake?”

Peter, who had gone through this transition himself all too recently, nodded. “Yes, you are indeed Milord Marshlake, and I daresay the trustees will be very glad to find it out.”

A sound of breaking crockery made them look. The new Lady Marshlake, having found out her status, had dropped the teapot to the floor, where it had shattered into pieces and sprayed hot tea far and wide. Stooping automatically to pick up the bits, she looked up and said, “I can’t, Joseph. It can’t be done. I am no lady.”

For a moment, there was a warmly fond look from her husband. “More a lady than many a one that wear the title with great pride,” he said. “Don’t worry, my darling. I’ll be there to see you through.” And then, looking at Peter, “But that makes the matter far more important. Because if this man knows what Hettie is…” He bit at his lip. “He is the second son of an earl, himself, and our title is transmissible through the female line. Hettie’s son would be the Earl of Marshlake after me. And her husband can wear the dignity while administering the estate for the children.”

“So you think he could force her to make a runaway marriage,” Sofie said.

“I think it’s a possibility. Clearly he has no scruples in using an innocent girl,” Lord Marshlake said.

“No,” Peter said. “What has been attempted to recover her?”

“We…” Joseph looked worried. “We found that she left our house on her own, possibly with the idea of eloping with this person. She met him at his barracks, where they spent some time in conversation. After which they took the carpetship to Hong Kong. I’ve been able to ascertain that through my contacts, even though I found they used assumed names. Reassuringly, they did not travel as husband and wife, but rather as brother and sister—as Adrian and Hester Ryan, with separate, single cabins.”

“Do you have any idea why Hong Kong?”

“I’d have to presume because Hettie heard us say…other people had gone there. And she was foolish enough to tell this to Captain Corridon.”

“Is it possible she is cooperating with him? That he has promised her marriage in return for her help?”

“Anything is possible,” Joseph said. “Hettie is fifteen and at that age girls can be more silly than not, even those who have a little more wit than the rest.”

“I can’t believe, and you won’t get me from it,” her mother intervened, “that our daughter would lend herself to threatening her papa and mama like this.” She looked pleadingly at Peter. “Our Hettie is a good girl.”

“Let us pray,” Joseph said. “I certainly do.”

“Rest assured,” Sofie said primly, “my husband and I will make every endeavor to find her quickly and return her to you unscathed.”

“Well, I hope so,” Joseph said. “I don’t wish to speak. But it is my daughter, you see. And though I have gathered that the jewels falling in the wrong hands could destroy all of the universe…” He shrugged. “It didn’t when Charlemagne got it, did it? And, if I speak, at least Hettie will be safe.” Then he looked ashamed of what he’d said, and added, “I don’t want to imply that I would want to denounce anyone. But if I can’t save my girl any other way…Well, as you can see, he gives me an address to make contact when I’m ready to talk, and a person there will let him know.”

Peter nodded. “You’ve said quite enough, and I thank you for your frankness. I will do my best to recover your daughter as soon as humanly possible and I will keep you apprised of my progress. I hope it doesn’t come to your having to do what we’d all regret.”

A MATTER OF THE HEART

There were no passenger carpetships, as such, flying
between Hong Kong and Canton—which Red Jade called Guangzhou—partly because all the passengers who might wish to go there would be limited to the small island of Shameen, so it didn’t attract any tourist business, and partly because there was no passenger traffic on that coast at all. The fear of the flying junk pirates had done that, and kept the passenger carpetships grounded. In fact, only the cargo that would be of absolutely no use—or at least of no interest—to the pirates flew confidently in the skies between Hong Kong and Canton.

Of course, it had been no problem at all for Nigel to find a job as a carpetship flight magician aboard one of these ships. Though the flights were scarce, the magicians qualified and willing to undertake them were even more so. None of them were willing to risk their lives for very small pay, and the island of Shameen was not a place where anyone in their right mind wanted to go for amusement. Divided between French and English concessions, Nigel understood—from the gentlemen who manned this ship—it was a pleasant enough island to reside in, but nothing extraordinary. All the carpetship personnel stayed at the Victoria Hotel, and, in fact, had reserved rooms.

The ship that Nigel took was called—ironically, he thought—the
Pirate Queen
and was very small, operated by a three-man crew—not counting the flight magician, of course—and transported mail, as well as things the inhabitants had requested. The captain, Gordon, a young man of informal manners, had told Nigel, “You’d think that living in the land from which silk flows, women wouldn’t feel a need for cotton muslin, but you’d be quite wrong. It appears that silk is considered too fast and dangerous for the reputations of some of the misses, and so we must take them cotton and linen and who knows what. On almost all our flights, half the cargo is millinery, a lot of it shipped from England and France at exorbitant costs.” He’d shrugged. “But what is the use of trying to penetrate the minds of women?” After which he had hastily apologized, because Nigel was, after all, married. “Though you were smart, my friend, in marrying a Chinese. They are raised to be obedient and regard their husbands as their lords and masters.”

Nigel had trouble holding his laughter, because he could not imagine Jade thinking of anyone as her lord and master, much less himself.

But he’d done his duty by the carpetship, in the little piloting room that could have fit three times over into the flight room of the
Indian Star.
And in return he’d gotten a small room with a double bed.

There was no question, of course, of his sharing that bed with Jade, though she had suggested somewhat tentatively that they might share it if fully dressed. Only, Nigel, who had never been able to consummate his first marriage, now felt as if he couldn’t trust himself.

He couldn’t quite describe it. The enchantment that had been cast over him when he’d first seen her in English attire, sinking into that ridiculously deep curtsey at the Perigords’, had deepened and grown. He was almost sad that they hadn’t needed to marry, instead of perpetrating this deception on the entire world, and wished he could have thought to convince the girl that she needed to marry him before she dared claim to be his wife.

Only, he’d married a wife, once, for quite the wrong reasons. And he didn’t want this woman to marry him for the wrong reasons, too. So he’d given her the bed and he had, himself, slept on the floor.

The journey took only a day and a night, and that because the tiny carpetship, loaded as it was, flew barely above the surface of the water and made—Nigel was sure of it—worse time than a sailboat or junk would have. In fact, the rationality of using the carpetships evaded him, leaving him to guess it was a matter of habit and perhaps of prestige. You sent your letters via carpetship, or sent for your packages from the continent via carpetship when you wanted to be absolutely certain of getting things in the shortest time possible. There was neither discussion nor any thought given to it, otherwise.

Before he went to the flight deck to land the ship, he dressed, using the half-open door of the wardrobe as a shield from his supposed wife’s eyes. Also, to prevent him from observing her changing.