Lady of Spirit, A (17 page)

“They are not all she loves,” Polgarth pointed out. “And when my young lady loves, she’s all in—no holding back.”

“Don’t I know it.”

“You strike me as the same, if you’ll pardon my saying so. Just tell her, Mr. Malvern. She has not had so much love in her life that she’ll turn it down out of hand. She’ll see it for the gift that it is—even if she has a difficult time believing the gift is for her.”

And with a feeling rather like an explosion in his heart, Andrew realized why Claire held the poultryman in such high esteem.

But before he could speak further, Polgarth pointed toward the gate in the wall. “Speaking of my young lady, here she comes.”

But Claire was not strolling back from the paddock, reading her mail and not looking where she was going. Instead, she came flying through the half-gate, slamming it shut and scattering hens right and left as she dashed across the lawn.

A piece of paper fluttered from her fingers, and Andrew’s heart constricted in sudden fear.

The Baie des Sirenes might as well have been named the Baie des Baleines, so deep it was. In any case, nothing resembled a sounding whale more than these undersea dirigibles, and Maggie could see why sailing- and steamships went elsewhere for their moorage. Cliffs plunged straight into the sea, much as they did across the Channel in Cornwall, but in a notch in the landscape, the pretty town of Baie des Sirenes tumbled from a church at the top to a promenade and long stone quays, where fishing boats were moored on lengthy lines to accommodate the tide.

They had not docked at the stone piers like normal vessels—oh, no. For deep under the water were undersea caverns, where the
navires
could come and go practically undetected by anyone watching from the town or up on the bluffs, where a lighthouse warned of the rocks.

Neptune’s Maid
surfaced inside one of the caverns that held two other
navires
, and her passengers disembarked on a stone jetty within that led to passages up to the surface, worn smooth by feet and wheels.

Claude was still the next thing to unconscious, and had been removed with his arms flung over the shoulders of two bathynauts, his feet dragging and stumbling as his mind struggled to shake off the haze of drink and resume its functioning once again.

Maggie needed to find a way to stifle him until she had the opportunity to apprise him of her deception. It would be just like him to greet her by her real name and ask a lot of silly questions, which would put them both at risk—herself more than he. For what value did Maggie No-last-name have to these smugglers? None. They’d probably drown her in a weighted sack like a kitten, and with the depth of these waters, no one would ever know.

Her search of the captain’s cabin had been as thorough as it was tidy. She had found several sketches of the
navire
called
Neptune’s Fury
, which appeared to be a much bigger version of the
Maid
, with a hold that might just be able to contain a whale, if such a thing were necessary. She could only imagine how many crates of Texican cigarillos had voyaged under the Atlantic inside it—and how much money must be possible in the smuggling trade. That rascal Meriwether-Astor was getting his revenge on Her Majesty for her temerity in shutting down his shipping lines, and no mistake.

But why bring the French into it? Or rather, why allow the French to bring him into it, which was what it had sounded like. Maggie could find nothing in desk or bookcase to tell her the answer, except a long and rather dull treatise on the lineage of the current Bourbon and all the countries he was supposed to be king of if his ancestors hadn’t had their heads chopped off in the previous century.

They emerged from a carved arch in the rock of the cliff that reminded Maggie strongly of the Seacombe
sawan
, except it was quite a lot larger, and were decanted onto the broad stone quay outside. Their procession along the promenade and into the town would have been rather like the Seacombes’ procession through Penzance to Grandfather’s offices, if it hadn’t been for poor Claude. The burliest of the bathynauts finally slung him over his shoulder and carried him along to the stone inn and tavern that presided over the landward end of the quay.

They deposited him in a comfortable chair in a parlor with a crackling fire in the hearth. Maggie held out her hands to the blaze as Jean-Luc bowed. “You will be comfortable here while a room is prepared for you, Mademoiselle Meriwether-Astor.”

“And what of that poor boy?” She nodded over her shoulder.

“We will look after him until his grandparents agree to work with your father.”

“To what do they object?” Maggie asked. “I can hardly imagine Papa in partnership with such people at all. They seem rather … small.”

“It is not they but the land they control that interests him. Or should I say the landing—for the beach that runs along their so many acres is perfect for the coming ashore of
Fury
’s cargo.”

“Ah, I see,” she said, though she did not. “It must be enormous.”

“It is indeed,” Jean-Luc said in delight. “Have you seen it?”

“No, not yet.”

“Then you must permit me to give you a tour while we await the arrival of your esteemed father. My brother had a pigeon sent the moment we surfaced.”

How long did it take to fly from Cornouaille to Paris? Not long—perhaps an hour or two? “I shall be so glad to see him. My stay at Seacombe House was only to be a few days, but it seemed like
weeks
.”

“Sadly, we do not anticipate his arrival until sunset. The crossing of the Atlantic is no small matter.”

Gerald Meriwether-Astor was coming from the Americas, not Paris? On the one hand, whatever they were planning had to be more than a mere smuggling job. On the other, she had a little time to figure out how to get herself and Claude out of this mess.

Maggie didn’t give two figs about Texican cigarillos. But her cousin must not be used as leverage against two old people who were probably quite justified in not letting this lot use their beach to illegally import whatever it was. Once she got them away from here, they’d make a brief stop at the cemetery and prove once and for all that it was Michael Polgarth’s story that held the truth, and not the horrid tale that the Seacombes believed…. Well, maybe Claude had resources here in France that she didn’t know about. She’d welcome even that snobby Arabella de Courcy if the girl came with an airship.

The moment Jean-Luc bowed himself out of the room, Maggie leaped upon Claude and shook him the way a terrier shakes a mole. “Claude! Claude, wake up!”

“Mmph? G’way. ’Smiddle of the night.”

“Claude, it’s Maggie. We’re in desperate trouble and you have to wake up!”

One eye slitted open, then closed again as the light of dawn on the sea outside pierced it painfully. “Maggie? D’you have the key?”

“What key? Honestly, Claude, you have to sit up and listen.” She cast around the room, spotted a pitcher and ewer on a side table, and tossed a cupful of the contents in his face.

“Bless me!” He sat up, scrubbing his face with his sleeve. “What’d you do that for?” Then he got a bleary look around. “Didn’t I leave the tavern?” With a groan, he fell back. “Be a love and ask the maid for a good strong coffee, would you?”

“There isn’t a maid, there’s only me. You have to listen. We’re in France, Claude. You’ve been kidnapped.”

He snickered. “Bollocks.”

A second cupful of water in the face got his full attention. “Steady on, old girl. No need for violence.” His right sleeve being soaked, he wiped his face with the left.

“There
is
need. You have to sober up and listen. We are in captivity. Our grandparents have refused to let a lot of French and Colonial smugglers land cargo on their beach, so they have kidnapped you in order to force our grandparents to do it.”

He goggled at her. “The devil you say. You, too?”

“No, they think I’m someone else. Their boss’s daughter, whose name is Gloria Meriwether-Astor—and don’t you dare forget it. My life depends on it.”

“Gloria who?”

“Never mind. Just Gloria. We’re supposed to be friends. Can you remember that?”

“Righto. Gloria.” He squinted at her, the light still obviously paining him. “France, really?”

She filled the cup a third time and ignored the way he flinched as she handed it to him properly this time. He drank it down as she said, “Yes, really. A place directly across the Channel from Penzance, called Baie des Sirenes.”

“Never heard of it.”

The door opened to admit a young girl bearing a tray with a coffee pot, cups, and a plate of croissants.

“It
is
France,” Claude said on a sigh of happiness, and heaved himself out of the chair.

“Can I get you anything else, m—” The girl stopped, and the tray tilted at an alarming angle.

“Watch out!” Maggie dove for it and stopped the coffee pot from taking a header onto the carpet just in time. The girl did not move, only stared at her, so Maggie gently removed the tray from her hands and put it on the table next to the half-empty ewer. “Are you quite all right?”

“Do I know you?” the girl asked in the accented French of Cornouaille.

Just in time, Maggie remembered who she was supposed to be. Would Gloria have gone for the tray, or just let it fall and demanded that the maid clean it up? She would never know.

“I think not,” she drawled. “I’ve never been here before—and if I had, it’s unlikely we would have met socially.”

“I say,” Claude said to the maid between gulps of coffee. “Jolly kind of you.
Café au lait
is excellent.”

The girl retreated, never taking her gaze from Maggie’s face. “
Pardon, mademoiselle
,” she said. “I must have made a mistake.”

When the door closed behind her, Maggie murmured, “That was odd. I hope to goodness Gloria hasn’t been here before, or that girl will be haring off to tell the powers that be that I am an impostor.”

“Nice bit of acting, step-cousin mine,” Claude said, having moved on to the croissants. “Like watching a different person.”

He offered her a pastry and she took it. “I
am
a different person. What’s my name?”

“Gloria.
In excelsis deo
.”

“And I’m not your cousin, step or otherwise.”

Jean-Luc was as good as his word. He returned for them in the company of the two bathynauts who had assisted Claude off the ship, both visibly relieved that their burden had recovered his wits and they would not be required to repeat the performance.

“I’ve received permission to show you about,” he told Maggie, ushering them out the door of the inn and into the sunshine. “Monsieur Seacombe will not be locked in a room in the inn, as I had been led to believe, but he will be in the company of
mes amis
Serge Lavande and Gilles Gilbert at all times.”

Maggie’s heart sank, but she did not allow it to show in her face. “How considerate of you. I very much appreciate an escort—especially in these exciting times.”

“Consider me your
personal
escort, mademoiselle,” Jean-Luc said. He would have bowed over Maggie’s hand again if she had not wrapped both of them around his elbow in a convincing imitation of a fragile society flower.

“Do show us
Neptune’s Fury
,” she pleaded. “I wish to be as informed about her as possible when Papa arrives. He would expect no less, as I am sure you can appreciate.”

Maggie kept a smile upon her lips and did her best to suppress the uneasiness in her stomach as they proceeded back down to the subterranean caverns. She was not afraid of water, nor of dark, enclosed spaces, but there was something about the aura of hidden power, of a concealed threat, down here in the dark and damp that made her scalp prickle and goose bumps rise on her arms.

Neptune’s Fury
was easily the size of
Athena
, that former Meriwether-Astor transport which, five years ago, had been used to ship weapons from one end of the Americas to the other in hopes of provoking an international incident and possibly even a war. And from the hints that Jean-Luc had dropped, Meriwether-Astor had not changed his spots despite the severe crimp the Lady of Devices had put in his plans at that time. But unlike
Athena
, the crew’s quarters and navigation gondola were of minimal proportions, leaving the vast remainder of her carrying capacity for cargo.

The captain of the
Fury
was pleased to escort them below, and Jean-Luc surrendered her arm with great reluctance. Maggie kept the conversation light and full of admiration, and to her enormous relief, Claude played along, acting the utter flibbet with such success that even the stoic and watchful Serge cracked a smile.

The more their captors underestimated them, the better Maggie would feel.
Wise as serpents and harmless as doves
, the Lady said, and it had become a strategem that had served her well.

The possibility existed that Claude was not in fact acting. He was very convincing, though, and that was all that mattered.

“And here is the heart of
Neptune’s Fury
,” the captain said, ushering them into an enormous cargo hold—so big that the ceiling was obscured in darkness. It needed to be big. For concealed in the heart of the
Fury
was a machine of such size that Maggie wondered how on earth they had got it in here short of building it on the spot.

It was easily the size of
Neptune’s Maid
, with giant circulating treads on iron wheels. Its engines lay in pods to either side, and above that was what Maggie could only describe as a rotating gun fortress, with small glass windows set about it so that gunners could operate the firing mechanisms. Below that was a separate edifice that housed a cannon, its barrel so large that the projectiles must be the size of fishing boats.

It took a lot to silence Maggie, but this massive war machine—for that was what it must be—did it. Horror fought with despair inside her, and if it had not been for the eerie green light in the cargo bay, the captain would have seen instantly that she had been stricken speechless by fear, not admiration.

Claude whistled as he examined one of the circulating wheel assemblies. “Big as a volcano and just as dangerous, what?” he said. “But what’s it for?”

The captain smiled. “Can you answer your young friend, Mademoiselle Meriwether-Astor?”

Maggie waved a hand that only trembled a little and struggled to control her emotions. “Why, I assume this is what Papa plans to land on the Seacombe beach, is it not?”

The captain laughed, clearly pleased at her grasp of the situation. “It is indeed.”

Claude leaned back to try to see past the wheel assembly, but could not. “What—is he declaring war on Cornwall? For this jolly great thing doesn’t strike me as being meant for fishing.”

“You are quite correct on both counts, Monsieur, but your scope is much too limited. Your presence here not only guarantees that the beach will remain clear for the landing, but that the Royal Aeronautics Corps will not be mobilized to stop it. With this war machine, France will launch its campaign against both England and Prussia, and reclaim the kingdoms for our King that were stolen in centuries past.”