Brilliant Devices (25 page)

She turned her back on him and laid a hand on Captain Hollys’s arm. “I wonder if we might walk over to the windows, sir? I thought I might
lift in the morning and would like your opinion of the sky.”

Since it was pitch black, apitont>
too much of a gentleman to say so. He tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow and led her away, leaving Andrew standing there gaping like a barn owl.

Alice’s spine straightened with satisfaction, which had the added effect of making her corset sit more comfortably. Her skirts whispered across the Turkish carpet and Captain Hollys cut a tall, debonair figure next to her in his dress uniform.

Very satisfying indeed.

“Are you really planning to lift tomorrow?” he asked. “We’ve had reports of weather on the way, but not for a few days yet.”

“Who do you get weather reports from? Are there other mines further north than this?”

“No. I mean, there are other mines, but they are scattered to the south and east. We obtain our reports from the Esquimaux.”

“But I thought—the miners—”

“You’ve seen the tension between them.”

“I understand some think the Esquimaux are responsible for the sabotage,” she said as delicately as she could, considering Isobel Churchill, resplendent in green-and-gold brocade and a train you could make a set of drapes out of, was talking in low tones with one of the journalists not ten feet away.

“That is a mystery her ladyship is determined to solve,” he said softly. “The Dunsmuirs have excellent relationships with the Esquimaux in thes
e territories. Did you know the latter have thirty-five different words for snow?”

“I did not. But what that tells me is that they know it intimately.”

“Quite so. They know weather just as intimately, and many of the young men have shown an aptitude for mechanics, to the point that they operate a fleet of pigeons themselves. Pigeons, and many other marvelous devices.”

“So they do more than hunt and fish?”

“As do we all, my dear. The trappings change, but one must still eat and drink and protect oneself from the weather. The Esquimaux have honed all three skills to a fine art—among many others. Her ladyship encourages as many of the crew as are able to spend a winter with them here. It is a hard winter, mind you, but the ones who survive it have the ability to read skies that cannot be replicated anywhere else. One of my engine masters can practically feel a storm two days before it hits.”

Alice was silent a moment, taking this in.

“So the bad blood between the miners and the Esquimaux … is it a fabrication, then?”

“I cannot say for certain. Only that her ladyship is distressed by it and is determined to get to the bottom of it. Such fabrications, as you say, would tear the
substance of what we have built here—and I do not mean mines and such.” He looked across the room, where Lord Dunsmuir was offering his wife his arm. “Dinner is served, I see. Will you join me at my table?”

For a moment, Alice thought he was joking. “Are all the captains put together?”

“No indeed. But my opportunities to dine with a young lady are few and far betww as peen, and if you lift tomorrow, I shall not get another chance.”

Alice hardly knew which way to look. And here she’d thought the captain was sweet on Claire! Well, maybe he was, but he was also a gentleman who would not leave a lady
in the lurch. Claire had told her in Edmonton that people paired off to eat according to some confusing set of rules of precedence. He was a captain. She was a captain. He was handsome and interesting and she’d be gosh-darned if she let Andrew Malvern see how much his treatment bothered her.

“I would be delighted and honored, sir,” she said. “May we include Jake?” She took two steps over behind a potted palm and snagged
the boy’s arm. “Otherwise the poor git will hide back here all night and not get a single bite.”

“Nothing would please me more.” Captain Hollys smiled, and for a wonder, Jake grinned back.

“Someone’s got to look after our Alice,” he said. “Some days it takes two.”

“Says you, you rascal,” she told him with no small amount of affection, taking the captain’s arm and offering the other
in a more ladylike fashion to Jake. “Just for that, you can dance the first waltz with me. Then we’ll see who’s looking after who.”

Which shut him up properly until they were well into the second course. By the time dessert was set out—a flaky pastry filled with apples that made Jake’s eyes roll back in his head with
ecstasy—Alice was feeling much more at ease.

So much so that she didn’t even mind when Captain Hollys responded to a glance from Lord Dunsmuir and left her to her coffee with a murmured apology.

“This ent so bad,” Jake said, relaxing on a settee next to her as the stewards cleared the tables, pushing the chairs back against the wall for the dancing. “Even Count von Zeppelin’s speech. Hard to b’lieve a toff like ’im could be so funny.”

“I’m finding folks aren’t often what we thin
k,” she agreed. “I wonder what—”

“Is this seat taken?” Glor
ia Meriwether-Astor sank onto the settee next to Alice as though the weight of the world lay on her lace-covered shoulders. “You’re the Texican, aren’t you?” she said, and when Alice nodded, she sighed so deeply her stays creaked. “What a relief. Talk to me. I long for the accents of home.”

Alice couldn’t think what to say. This girl had insulted her friend to her face, and now she was sidling up to her? “Have you been gone a long time?”

“A year and a half. It feels like forever. I swear, when we put down in New York I nearly fell to the ground and kissed it. I was highly tempted to simply run away. It’s only a day on the train home to Philadelphia.”

“Why didn’t you?” Jake wanted to know.

Gloria’s gaze inspected him for flaws, or so it seemed to Alice. “You’re not Texican.”

“That’s right observant of you.”

“Jake,” Alice said in warning.

“It’s all right.” Gloria waved a hand. “Who mighd. "2em">

“I’m navigator aboard the
Stalwart Lass
.” Jake nodded at Alice. “This ’ere’s ’er captain, Alice Chalmers.”

“That’s right,
I remember now. You were with Claire when we landed.” While Alice marveled at the sudden resurrection of her memory, Gloria gazed out across the room to where her father was engaged in a lively conversation with the
Margrethe
’s first officer. “And my father made a fool of himself and me.”

“Does he do that a lot?” Maybe that had been rude. But Gloria didn’t look offended.

“I’m afraid so. Goodness knows what he’s saying now—probably some burble about how much money he has.”

“That’s the first officer
’e’s talkin’ to,” Jake said. “Might be he’s talking sense, like ships and guns and such.”

Gloria touched her forehead delicately with the back of her
hand in its fine kidskin glove. “Save me from more talk of guns,” she sighed. “It’s pressure rifle this and steam cannon that until I swear I’m fit to scream.”

“Ah, the Meriwether-Astor Munitions Works?” Alice inquired, as if she hadn’t made up the term
out of thin air not an hour past.

“The very same. Papa’s pet project, and one I’d cheerfully blow up myself if I thought it would do any good.”

“Wot’s a steam cannon?” Jake asked in a tone that almost sounded social.

“Heavens, don’t you start.
Because of the wretched thing, we could not bring the second landau—the one that
I
should have had use of. If I hear its name again I swear I
shall
scream. On the other hand, maybe that handsome captain would come back to rescue me. Do you think I should try it?” And she straightened so gracefully that it took Alice a second to realize she was craning her neck to find Captain Hollys in the crowd.

“
Don’t think so,” she said through her best smile. “Captain Hollys, if that’s who you mean, isn’t much for fragile flowers. He seems to prefer the strong and sensible type.”

“That will never be me.” Gloria subsided, her brief spurt of energy gone.

“Why not?” Alice asked her. “This room is full of strong and sensible types. Why shouldn’t you be one of them?”

“Because strong and sensible types don’t land titles, you ninny,” Gloria snapped, her company manners peeling back abruptly
to reveal what might be the real person underneath.

“More to this world than titles,” Jake observed.

“Not when you have the father I do.”

Jake shrugged. “So leave. Go do summat sensible yer own self.”

She glared at him gl"2em. “Mind your manners, you young scamp, or I’ll have you put off this ship.”

He grinned at her. “I’d like to see you try. You ent no fine lady.
I know a few, and you ent one. Yer just content to sit and whinge about yer lot. There’s a pair of eleven-year-olds ’ere got more spine than you.”

“How dar
e you!” Two spots of color appeared in Gloria’s porcelain cheeks, and she looked almost ready to get up. “Do you know who I am?”

“I
’spect you need the answer to that worse than me,” was the laconic reply.

“Well, I never.” Gloria stood and turned on her heel so swiftly
that Alice felt the breeze from her train. She stalked across the empty space in front of the orchestra, heading for the bluster in the corner where her father seemed to be holding court.

“Nicely done, Jake.” Alice toasted him with her
china coffee cup. “We’re about to get tossed off this boat thanks to you.”

But he only shrugged. “I got no time for whingers, whether they’ve got a fat purse or not. If I c’n make summat of meself, then so can she. You don’t
’ear the Lady orderin’ people about and moanin’ about ’er lot, nor you neither.”

Rough-and-tumble though they might be,
those few words from her young navigator made Alice feel better than any number of compliments could have.

“Jake, about tomorrow. I don’t think it’s fair to ask you to leave all your friends to go gosh knows where with me.”

She would have to figure out the location of
gosh knows where
pronto. Now that she’d found Pa, she didn’t really have a destination in mind once she got herself away from him and his infernal pigeons. It was one thing to ask a young man to help a girl in her quest. It was another thing altogether to drag him around the skies while she figured out what to do with the rest of her life.

Jake
dragged his gaze from Gloria, who was now propped against a table while she tried to get her father’s attention. “But I’m yer navigator.”

“I know, and a fine one, too. But—but I’m not sure you’ve thought this through. If you go with me, what are the odds you’ll see them all again?”

“When I play cowboy poker, I stack the odds in me own favor by rememberin’ the cards.”

“That’s all very nice for clever-boots with memories like cameras. But I’m talking about wind currents and continents and many miles between friends.”

“Them wind currents blow east as well as west. And wiv a stout ship that don’t leak, one continent is much the same as another. I say we gets to choose our course, Alice Chalmers, not be blown about like thistledown.”

“You sound like Claire.”

He snorted.

“So you wouldn’t object to the occ
asional voyage to, say, England—” An idea swooped intoa s width="2e her head like a cliff swallow to its nest. “—if we could pick up a proper cargo?”

“I wouldn’t. There’s a field hard by t’cottage. Lewis and Snouts c’n
do some pickin’ at t’scrap yards and rig up a mooring mast there in jig time.”