Waistcoats & Weaponry (15 page)

Sidheag gasped.

“Oh, dear,” said Dimity.

Dimity didn’t know the half of it. Sophronia cursed inside. Was Lord Akeldama in on it, too? Vampires could be very tricky.

However, her tone was prosaic. “At least we are familiar with her methods.” She explained for Felix’s benefit, “You met her
on that trip to London. Older girl who was forced to sit at our table. Now she’s drone to Westminster Hive.”

Felix’s lip curled. “So sad.”

Sophronia, annoyed by Felix’s bias, found herself unexpectedly defending Monique. “It’s a valid option in our field, if perhaps not considered the most honorable. Not everyone has the same choices you have, Lord Mersey.”

Sidheag said, gruffly, “Unfortunately, she’s also had all the same lessons we have. So she knows all our tricks, just as we know all hers.”

Sophronia said, “Except that she doesn’t know we’re on board. Unfortunately, she also knows our faces. There’s no disguising ourselves from Monique.”

“When we stop, will she come check this coach, do you think?” wondered Dimity, glancing frantically around the interior. There was nowhere to hide.

“I don’t know. I couldn’t tell if there are any other drones on board. There’s a man asleep with the transmitter. Good looking enough to be a drone. Perhaps this mission is one of such secrecy they could only entrust it to the two.”

“Vampires always muck everything up,” grumbled Felix.

“You mean, just like the Picklemen do? Everyone has their own agenda, Lord Mersey. The key is to manipulate motivations without being sucked into them.” Sophronia looked hard at Felix, hoping he might take her words as a lesson, think about his own position for a change.

Unfortunately, he seemed mainly annoyed at her tone of voice.

“So much for our grand escape to Scotland,” said Sidheag,
slumping onto a bench. The lack of sleep was catching up to her.

“Of course it’s the vampires.” Felix didn’t seem surprised enough by Sophronia’s revelation. And she was pretty darn certain it wasn’t simply his bigotry talking.

Sophronia gave him a hard stare. “Felix, do you know something you’re not telling us?”

The young lord shrugged. “It’s only that I thought I recognized the writing on the freight carriage as we approached, but I couldn’t understand what it implied until now.”

“You didn’t think that might be relevant?”

“Not until I knew there was a vampire drone on board.”

“That’s not the point; the point is, you might have said something sooner if you had suspicions! What did it say?” Sophronia demanded. Blast his Pickleman secrecy. What had they landed themselves in?

Felix was sullen. “Well, I couldn’t
tell
at the time. I didn’t see much of it. But now, I believe it was the brand of the East India Company.”

“Bloody Jack?” Dimity was intrigued. She had a fancy to someday visit exotic lands. Most girls wanted to tour Europe after their weddings. Dimity had plans to visit
places with more color
. After she caught herself a sensible, tour-minded husband, of course.

“Indeed,” acknowledged Felix. “My father has always suspected they had vampire ties.”

Sophronia nibbled her lip in consideration. “Has the East India Company, by any chance, put in an order for crystalline valves recently?”

Felix sneered outright at that question. “How should I know?”

“Your father is a Pickleman,” pointed out Sophronia mildly, again, trying to make him understand his own bias.

“He’s also a peer of the realm, and would never deal in trade! That’s Cultivator rank responsibility.”

“Picklemen have a ranking system?” This was news to Sophronia. She altered her attitude to one of inquiry rather than instruction.

Felix winced. “I shouldn’t have said that.” After which he clamped his mouth shut despite Sophronia’s big, pleading eyes.

She inched closer and tilted her head, looking at him from under her eyelashes.
Perhaps if I’m winsome enough, he’ll tell me more and realize how misguided the Picklemen are.

Sidheag interrupted her tactics by asking, “Would Picklemen sell valves to the East India Company?”

Felix nodded. “Of course. We haven’t any
proof
of vampire backing.”

Another slip-up, he said “we.”
Sophronia genuinely liked Lord Mersey. He was, frankly, adorable. But if Piston membership really was a means for recruiting Picklemen, she and Felix were ill matched. Sophronia bit her lip, looking disappointed.

Felix tilted his head at her, inquiring, the corner of his mouth tilted up in a “forgive me?” smile.

Why does he have to be so pretty?
“You know, Lord Mersey, so far as I can tell, supernatural creatures come some good and some bad. Just like everyone else.”

Felix bristled. “And the fact that they hunt humans for food doesn’t bother you at all?”

“On occasion. But I’m not one to judge anyone’s character based on diet. I myself have an unacceptable love of mincemeat.”

Felix couldn’t seem to help but smile at that. Sophronia could be awfully charming when she was self-effacing. “And the fact that we are apparently stuck on a vampire train doesn’t trouble you?”

“Of course, but we aren’t supposed to be here. Anyone would be in their rights to get annoyed.”

“And the fact that the hive kidnapped Dimity?”

Dimity looked up, startled at being suddenly dragged into an argument. “Oh, now, see here.”

“To counter a Pickleman monopoly. Frankly, it struck me as something the Picklemen themselves might do, were circumstances reversed.”

“This is ridiculous. No matter what I say, you will always give them the benefit of the doubt. Even now!” Felix was losing much of his simulated boredom under Sophronia’s pointed remarks, but he didn’t seem to be losing his opinions.

“Just as you will always see them as less than human and unworthy of trust, or even decency.”

“They are monsters,” hissed Lord Mersey through gritted teeth.

That raised Sidheag’s hackles because of the implied slur on werewolves.

Fortunately, a voice interrupted them before it could descend into an all-out fight. “Um, pardon me?”

“Soap?” Sophronia was grateful for the distraction.

“It’s not that I don’t find this conversation fascinating, miss. I most assuredly do. I never seen you tongue-lash a lordling afore.”

“Soap!”

“It’s the clouds, they’s lifting a bit, and up and ahead of us there’s a ruddy airship.”

“What?”

“Midsized, kinda disreputable looking.”

“Is it attacking?” asked Sidheag.

“No, I think
we
may be following them.”

“What?” Sophronia and the others rushed to the window and forced it open, craning their heads to look up.

Just as Soap said, there was a dirigible. It was a bit scruffy, like a fur muff left too long in the attic. If the train hadn’t been on tracks, Sophronia would have agreed that they were following it. They chugged along in its wake until the tracks inevitably steered them one way and the dirigible drifted in another.

“That was odd.”

“Coincidence?” suggested Sidheag, not sounding confident.

“I don’t believe in coincidences, not in our line of work,” replied Sophronia.

“Escort?” Dimity wondered.

“Could be that’s the reason we have so few drones on board—they’re all up there,” Sidheag said.

“In which case we’re in trouble because they’ll have spotted the airdinghy.” Sophronia looked hard at Felix. “Did you recognize that ship?”

Felix shook his head. Sophronia wanted to trust him but wasn’t sure she could anymore.

After a pause, Dimity said, “What have we landed ourselves in the middle of?”

Sidheag looked guilty. “Sorry, everyone, you’re all here because of me. If I didn’t want to get home…”

Dimity said, “Nonsense. Be fair to yourself, Sid, we all insisted on coming with you.”

The two boys nodded.

Dimity grinned and added, “Besides, did you forget? It’s
always
Sophronia’s fault.”

Sophronia nodded. “Too true.”

They made it safely into Oxford. Although the train paused several times, no one ever came to look into their coach, or noticed the airdinghy on top. With the others diligently on watch, Sophronia and Soap finally napped. Soap took the floor, scooting partly under the bench on which Sophronia slept.

“I’m used to it,” he said when the others protested.

Sophronia’s hand fell over the bench side as she dozed. She woke to find it resting gently on the top of Soap’s head. His cap had fallen off. His hair was short and rough to the touch. Like the autumn heath of the moor, warmed by the sun. She liked the texture, her fingers stroking it without meaning to. Quickly, guiltily, she stopped herself and looked around. Dimity was staring out the window. Sidheag was stationed at the door. Only Felix had seen the caress.

Felix narrowed his eyes and looked away, clearly uncomfortable.

Guilt washed over Sophronia. She snapped back her hand as if burned and sat up.

In silence she began to lay out breakfast on the bench opposite. When she woke Soap, he had a small smile on his face.

They ate out of the picnic baskets. Soap had filched mainly meat pies, a smart decision as they were self-contained and nicely filling. There were jars of barley water to drink, the only thing he’d found quickly transportable. No one liked it—who did?—but it was better than nothing. The stores were generous but weren’t going to sustain them forever. When they arrived at Oxford station an hour or so later, it was with considerable relief.

Unfortunately, the station was crowded with morning business. The unexpected private train was shunted off to the last platform. As they pulled in, window still open, they heard a station call boarding for the Deft Twelve Star bound for Glasgow.

Sidheag nosed out the door, excited, but they were too late. Four platforms over, the train in question pulled out before they could even come up with a plan to sneak off their own train. Sophronia grabbed her friend and yanked her inside just as Monique jumped down from the engineering cab.

Monique, as ever, was dressed to the height of current fashion, her carriage gown one of tiered lavender taffeta with black satin ribbon edging around the bottom of the wide, full bell. It was exactly suited to the climate and the conditions of winter travel. Her blonde hair was perfectly done and she looked beautiful. She must have had very little sleep herself. It didn’t show, which Sophronia found highly annoying. Monique was probably accustomed to being up all night, living among vampires.

The handsome man from the aetherographic receiver joined her. He signaled at someone down at the end of the vacant
platform, and a human porter pushed through the gate and hurried toward them. Money changed hands and the porter scurried off again.

“No mechanicals,” said Sophronia, squinting into the distant crowd in the station proper.

“There’s track down for them,” responded Sidheag.

“Yes, but not a one is running.”

Felix nosed in. “Pardon, ladies, if I might have a look?”

They allowed him space. He slid in next to Sophronia, warm and sweet smelling.
Figgy pudding
, she thought again.

“That is odd,” he corroborated, but offered no other explanation.

Minutes later the human porter returned, carrying two cups of tea and a copy of the
Oxford Whistler
. Monique and her companion, secure in their solitary state on the platform, made their way to a long bench under an overhang and sat with the paper and the tea. Their discussion seemed civilized, but despite Sophronia’s ear trumpet and Dimity’s lip-reading ability, they could not make out the topic.

Sophronia said, “Soap, now that I think on it, does Monique know you by sight?”

Soap replied, “Nope. Not one for fraternizing with sooties, that snotty Miss Uppity.”

“Perhaps if you climbed out the off side and nabbed one of those big brooms? If they don’t have mechanicals working to clean, they’ll be hurting for human staff.”

Soap followed her reasoning exactly. “Platform sweeper? Good notion. I can brush on past them; with my skin and these duds, no one would know me from the scenery.”

He climbed out the window on the far side of the coach, lowered himself down to the track, and dashed off.

Felix seemed troubled.

“What is it, Lord Mersey?” asked Dimity.

“I just realized how little I notice my household staff and the human servants all around me.”

Dimity grinned. “Scary, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “Very. I think I shall impress upon Father the necessity of raising their wages.”

Sophronia tipped her head at him. “You think loyalty can be bought?”

“Don’t you?”

Sophronia thought about her friends; money had never yet been exchanged between them. It made her feel sorry for Felix.

“Sovereign, sovereigns, or seduction,” said Sidheag calmly, before Sophronia could stop her.

Dimity nodded in agreement. “It’s our second lesson after the school motto:
Ut acerbus terminus
.”

Felix looked confused. “What does it mean?”

“‘To the bitter end,’” said Sophronia.

“Not that. I do speak Latin, thank you very much. I’m not a complete imbecile. I mean to ask, what does ‘sovereign, sovereigns, or seduction’ mean?”

“The three possible ways to turn a man to a cause,” explained Dimity.

“What cause?” Felix was unsettled. His eyes on Sophronia.

“I see Soap,” said Sophronia, wondering if Felix was afraid she could turn him away from a Pickleman future.
I’m trying
, she thought.
Is it working?
Self-consciously she shifted so the
whole length of her side was pressed against him. His breath hitched in a most gratifying manner.

They watched as Soap appeared at the edge of the platform near the front of the train and jumped up. He’d found a big broom and pushed it about, his cap pulled down over his eyes, whistling softly, until he was right behind Monique’s bench. He slowed and did a bit of extra sweeping.

“Don’t do overmuch,” hissed Sophronia, her nose pressed to the glass in worry. “Monique will notice. Move off now, move off!”