Scarlet Devices (25 page)

The man frowned and turned to Orm. “My Lord, are you
quite
certain this is the person you mean to accuse? From the description given by you and the El Dorado Foundation workers, I was anticipating a painted Jezebel, and here we appear to have a little girl with her hair still in plaits.”

“I had to use up all my hairpins,” she explained. In truth, she was less than thrilled with her appearance, but for once perhaps looking younger than her age would work to her advantage. “Picking locks. While I was escaping Lord Orm's castle with Mr. Pence and Mr. Cantlebury.”

“You see, sir?” Orm said, pouncing on her words instantly. “She names them even before we do, trying to deflect suspicion. How did she know who we were accusing her of killing?”

“You're accusing me of . . .
I beg your pardon
?”

“Miss Hardison, please. Lord Orm has raised very serious accusation of multiple counts of murder, poisoning and arson. He's brought witnesses, evidence. I'm afraid we have no choice but to remand you into the custody of the guards and let them secure your person, pending a thorough investigation and trial.”

“But Mr. Pence and Mr. Cantlebury aren't dead.”
No. I left Matthew safe. He's alive, he has to be alive, because I love him. I need him. And Lavinia needs Cantlebury too. Please, please, let them not be dead
.

“Then where are they, Miss Hardison?”

“Hmph,” one of the other committee members grunted. “Fair question.”

The others took it up like a chorus. “Hmph.” “Quite right.” “Fair question.” “Quite right.”

“Mr. Cantlebury took ill with influenza and we had to find him a doctor. We took him to Belton. At least I think that's the name of the town. The doctor is also the mayor, and he's called Belton. And Mr. Pence is . . . well, to tell you the truth, I'm not sure, but I have the coordinates in my log. He's in a green silk tent on some hillside between Belton and Carson City.”

Along with my heart and soul and everything I hold dear in this world
, she nearly added. She tried to work out the timeline, to figure whether Orm would have even had time to find Matthew and Edmund, kill them and bring them here as evidence. It didn't fit. The pirates were fast, but not faster than the small dirigibles the racers flew. Their ship must have overflown Eliza and Matthew at some point, in order to make it to San Francisco ahead of Eliza. Orm must have left his castle shortly after he'd learned of the escape, and wouldn't have had time to double back. He hadn't found them. He was bluffing. Matthew was safe.

Relief washed over her, so powerful it made her dizzy. For a moment she was grateful for the large gentlemen holding her up by the arms. It wouldn't have done at all to go swooning to the ground just then.

“He crashed? Did you go to his aid?”

“The other way 'round. I had to land because of a tear in one of my ballonets, and he came to my aid. But he was running low on fuel and helium anyway, and didn't think he'd make it to Carson City. He made me use his balloon silk to patch my balloon, and I continued on.”

Orm pointed at her again. “Creating a story in case we ask her why her balloon is patched with parts cannibalized from one of her dead competitors' airships. Next she'll be pointing fingers and claiming one of us is the killer. Gentlemen, I've told you I can supply a ship full of witnesses who
saw
this scarlet devil-woman lead her two colleagues in the path of a toxic gas jet, then ignite the jet to incinerate them.”

“Oh, that's disgusting!” she exclaimed. “
That's
what you're saying I did? I didn't do anything of the sort, but I mean the very idea is appalling. How
dare
you! And you
are
the killer!”

“Aha! You see? Just as I said.”

“Where are these witnesses of yours, Lord Orm?” the committee chairman demanded. “Let them confront her here and perhaps she'll go along to her fate more quietly.”

Orm nodded, the smallest lift of his chin, and two men stepped onto the dais from the surrounding group of quasi-officials, timekeepers, medics and other race personnel. They were scruffy and thin, roughly clad, with the hard look of men who traded in death. Even among the rough-and-tumble citizens of San Francisco, their hardness stood out. Pirates, obviously. One of them even wore an eye patch.

The eye patch man looked from Orm to Eliza, and seemed torn. His face looked oddly familiar, but it wasn't until he began to lift the eyepatch that she realized where she'd seen him before. He must have seen the recognition on her face, because a look of alarm crossed his and he shook his head at her, finger to lips, silently begging her not to speak. Then he raised his eyes to the sky and, with a relief that was visible, lowered the patch and backed slowly off the stage. Eliza told herself that what she'd thought couldn't be correct. It was simply too far-fetched. Ridiculous, a hallucination brought on by nervous exhaustion.

She looked behind her and up, and saw what had brought him such ease. Her own heart lifted when she realized what she was looking at. She had never seen a more welcome sight.

Oh, thank God, it's Matthew
.
It's my Matthew.

What the hell is he flying?

 • • • 

T
HE GLIDER NEEDED
more than a patch of grass to land safely, as was obvious to the crowd that scattered before the oncoming nose of Matthew's craft as he swooped down one side of the square. He finally coasted to a halt, using his feet to brake faster, and was unharnessed and running toward Eliza when the committee man wielded his megaphone again.

“Halt!” he shouted.

Matthew continued pelting toward Eliza.

“I said, halt!”

He finally stopped, gasping for air, and shouted back so the crowd could hear him, “Oh, sorry. Did you mean me?”

They were a fairly easy crowd, aside from the temperance group. They gave him a congenial, collective chuckle, clearly primed to get the maximum possible enjoyment from the day's events.

He waved, trotting the last few yards to join her. “Am I too late? Did I miss the ceremony? You're not wearing a medal or anything, so I suppose I'm in good time.”

“And who are you, sir?” the aggrieved committee chair asked.

Before he could answer, Orm leapt forward. “Her accomplice. He'll claim to be Matthew Pence.” He drew a revolver from his pocket and aimed it squarely at Matthew's head. “But he's only Miss Hardison's lackey.”

“Here now,” another of the committee said, irritation with Orm clear on his face. “You put that away. We don't do that sort of thing in the city, this isn't the wild frontier, you know.”

Another chorus of harrumphing assent backed him up, and Orm reluctantly lowered his firearm. Eliza noted that he kept it cocked and out of the holster, however, and wished they'd taken it from him entirely.

“Young man, what is your name?” The elderly gentleman who'd objected to the pistol came to the front of the stand and peered down at Matthew. Despite his age, his bearing spoke of his patrician lineage, as did his House of Lords accent.

“It really is Matthew Pence, sir.”

“Pence. Sir Paul Pence's boy, out of New York City? Your mother was one of the distant Vanderbilt cousins?”

“The same.”

“I know your father, lad. He was great friends with my son when they were at Oxford. Used to come to the country estate for holidays. We still lived in Norfolk then. Pretty country.”

“My Lord of Yarmouth? Your son is Winky Barrington? That is to say, Lord Barrington. My father used to tell the most amazing stories about your shooting parties, my Lord!”

“Ah, and my son used to tell me some humdingers about your father. The incident with the goldfish. How many was it? Fourteen? Sixteen?”

Matthew grinned. “Father now claims it was an even twenty, my Lord, but I believe the number has gone up over time.”

The old man paused, then nodded. “No, it was always twenty. And you are who you say you are, Mr. Pence. Which means Miss Hardison has probably been telling the truth as well. Guards,” he ordered in a voice that brooked no disagreement, “arrest Lord Orm!”

He stabbed his cane in Orm's direction, as if they might not know who he meant, but one of the men who'd been holding Eliza was already halfway across the dais.

He was barely in time to catch Orm, who'd seemed stunned for a moment, then darted toward the side of the platform as the crowd was still registering the new developments. He had no hope of escape, however. The burly guard caught him at the knees in a diving tackle, flattening him. A general scuffle ensued, and eventually a disheveled Orm was marched back to face the judges. The guard, whose ceremonial garb did not appear to include handcuffs, kept Orm from escaping by twisting one of the criminal's arms up behind his back at an angle that made even Matthew wince. Only a little, though.

“Oh, by the way,” Matthew called up to the Earl of Yarmouth, “Lord Orm has cornered the illegal opium market in the Dominions. That's why he tried to stop us, and discredit Eliza. He has a huge growing operation up there in the mountains. Enormous, really. Mind-boggling. With slave labor. He held us hostage in his castle compound. Which was actually quite impressive, to give credit where it's due.”

The Earl blinked and nodded. “This explains certain things.”

The words
opium
and
slave labor
began to rustle through the crowd, a wave of shifting public opinion traveling audibly across the broad square.

“You'll regret this,” Orm said to the group at large, then yanked out his strange poppy gadget and blew into the stem, producing a piercing whistle. He stared at the pirate ship, clearly expecting something of it, but the ship and its occupants failed to meet that expectation. Before he could whistle again, the guards had his free arm. The gadget flew from his hand and off the stage, landing near Eliza's feet. She picked it up and spun it in her fingers, examining it from all sides. It wasn't so bad, if one wasn't using it as a lapel pin. The workmanship was beautiful.

To the general delight of the audience, another tussle broke out between Orm and the guards who had stepped up to assist their comrade. It ended with four of the largest enforcers carrying Orm from the stage, one securing each limb, while the spectators hooted and catcalled at the villain.

“To the jail!” the cry went up. The refrain was echoed until the square rang with it, and at least half the audience followed the guards away. In their absence, the huge space seemed relatively empty and quiet, though it was still well populated.

Eliza fiddled with the poppy, trying to calm her frantic heartbeat and sort through all that had just occurred. The gadget truly was beautiful, as long as one ignored the source.

“It might look very fetching on a hat,” she commented to Matthew, holding up the flower. He shrugged, not seeming to have a strong opinion either way.

The temperance ladies were milling around the square at a loss, baffled by the seeming downfall of their benefactor. Signs began to slip sideways and fall to the ground, followed by a litter of brass pins.

“Did they ever pronounce you the winner?”

Eliza shook her head, dizzy with relief once again. Probably with exhaustion too. “I expect they'll remember in due course. It doesn't really matter anymore, does it?”

“Well, the money would have been nice.”

“I suppose. But it doesn't really
matter
.”

“Still.”

She turned to him and put her hands on his shoulders, clenching, trying to squeeze the understanding into him. “No. Matthew, when Orm started accusing me and I realized what he meant, for a brief time I thought he'd found you somehow. That he was going to produce your body, and Cantlebury's, to back up his claim. It only lasted a moment before I realized the timeline didn't work, he had to be lying, but that moment was enough to show me what I truly cared about. You survived. Orm didn't kill you. And that is the
only
thing that matters.”

She rose up on her toes, pulled his head down to hers and kissed him soundly. Titters and scattered applause broke out in the crowd, but she didn't care. Matthew bent down enough to pick her up by the waist, lifting her and spinning her around once. When he set her down, she refused to let go. He shook his head and smiled, leaning down to rest his head on hers.

“You've just ruined me, you realize,” he told her. “Everyone has seen me compromised. My virtue is indelibly stained.”

Eliza nodded, returning his gaze with all the mock solemnity she could manage, though her heart was soaring and she felt like her entire being was made of smiles. She'd decided in Orm's office, really. The rest was just details. Her heart knew what it wanted, and when everything else seemed lost, her heart had yearned to be with this man.

“I suppose I'll just have to marry you, then.”

“Make an honest man of me.”

“Yes.”

“I think that's my line. So . . . yes.”

After a breathless, ecstatic moment, he kissed her again, scooping her off the ground and doing a thorough job before finally setting her down and nuzzling his nose against hers. And all was right with the world, which consisted of Eliza and Matthew and nothing else.

A gentle harrumphing from the dais drew their attention, and Eliza blushed when she realized the Earl was still standing there at the platform's edge. Now, however, he dandled a gilded medal from one hand and held a large faux check in the other.

“They remembered after all,” Matthew whispered in her ear.

“Thank God,” Eliza said. “It really is quite a bit of money, after all.”

“But it doesn't matter?”

She winked at him and unwound her arms from his neck, striding eagerly toward the platform.