Waistcoats & Weaponry (20 page)

Stubby whispered in his shaggy companion’s ear.

Shaggy hurried back to the airship.

“Is that wise?” wondered Sophronia. “You are now all alone with us.”

Stubby laughed. “I am under the impression that you boys are not armed. Out for a lark, you said, didn’t you? Childish prank, stealing a train.”

Sophronia cocked her head. “Did we say unarmed?”

Dimity and Sidheag turned to look back at their train. The implication being that someone with a gun might be covering their backs.

The flywayman swallowed.

Sidheag added, “More like
borrowing
a train.”

Felix said, “You do
know
about Bunson’s, don’t you, Mr. Flywayman?”

“Most assuredly, most assuredly. One or two of our number once trained there.”

Felix wrinkled his nose at the very idea. “Hard times.”

Dimity and Bumbersnoot lurked to the back of their group. Dimity’s was the shakiest disguise. Sophronia was beginning to regret having let her join them. Why hadn’t she asked her to stay with Soap?

The flywayman was focused on Sophronia, Felix, and Sidheag, who each commanded, in their own way, an aura of evil genius mastermind, junior level. Remarkable, thought Sophronia, how a girl intelligencer could so easily become a boy evil genius.

The other flywayman returned at a jog and the two conferred privately.

The angle was extreme, but Sophronia thought she could lip-read the second man saying something about Duke Golborne.

Stubby turned; his face was now closed and suspicious.

“It is not your style, we understand, Lord Mersey, to commandeer a train. And you still have not explained why you were intent on following us.”

“Pure coincidence,” said Sophronia. “After all, there are only two directions to go on any given track.”

“Who are you to know anything of my style?” snapped Felix at the same time.

Oh
, thought Sophronia,
he is so good at pompous.

Shaggy spoke for the first time, his voice a low growl. “We cannot allow our plans to be cocked up by a band of scruffy boys. No matter whose son they claim to be.”

The first man raised his hand for silence and said, “Have you any proof, young squires, that you are who you say you are?”

Felix stiffened. “I do not
need
proof. Show me any member of society and they will vouch for me. I am known well to anyone who is
anyone
! Besides, who are you to demand proof of
me
?”

Sophronia arched her eyebrows and watched him work. He might even be thought too good. It was so easy for him to be a toffy-nosed dunderhead. No wonder Soap didn’t like him. She wasn’t certain that she liked this part of him, either. However, it
was
working in their favor, so she allowed Felix to get more riled, prepared to rein him in only if he became careless with his information.

“You are but a schoolboy!” objected Shaggy, not so easily cowed by rank as Stubby.

“I do not need to be of age to have a presence in society!” Now Felix was genuinely annoyed.

Shaggy took offense at Felix’s tone of superiority. He removed a deadly-looking little gun from a pocket and pointed it at him.

Sophronia felt it time to interject. “Now, now, gentlemen, let’s not be impetuous.”

That statement made Shaggy angrier. “You’ve been stalking us. You got yourselves some pretty valuable equipment,
and some pretty valuable young men, and you think, what…? We just gonna let you boys continue trundling along on your lonesome?” This second flywayman was nastier than the first. Sophronia had thought Stubby the leader, but now she thought he was simply the speaker.

She appreciated Shaggy’s directness, and, to a certain extent, his nastiness. She considered a judicious reply.

Felix, on the other hand, did not. “That is
exactly
what I expect! You have no cause to interfere with our travels. Leave that to the authorities, if they can catch us.”

“I wonder what your father would say to that,” said Stubby.

“Father! Father! What do you know of my father?” Felix practically steamed, like an overwrought boiler.

“Lord Mersey,” said Sophronia, “that is
enough
!”

Felix turned on her, red about the ears.

Sophronia gave him a little wink and a small smile, trying to lighten the mood with flirtation. It worked. Felix clearly remembered not only their need for caution, but also the fact that Sophronia and the others were ladies in disguise, and
he
must needs behave like a gentleman around them, whether these flywaymen knew it or not.

His arms relaxed to his sides.

Shaggy came over all suspicious at this, perhaps because Felix, highest rank among them, had deferred to a winking Sophronia.

He said, “Come to think on it, he doesn’t look much like the duke. Do we trust his story? These boys could be with the hive.”

Stubby did not agree. “In those getups? Never have I known
a vampire drone to be anything less than perfectly turned out.” His gaze shifted over Dimity. “That one is a positive
sight
.”

Felix bristled; now these criminals were insulting a lady friend.

“Who are you to judge?” he wanted to know.

“That’s enough out of you, lordling,” replied the second flywayman, pointing his gun with even more surety at Felix.

Felix had clearly reached his limit. Short tempers, reflected Sophronia, were a severe liability in her line of work. The young lord jerked in Shaggy’s direction. The flywayman was tenser than he seemed, for he shot Felix, right then and there.

The sound of the gun seemed particularly loud in the quiet countryside.

T
ime seemed to slow.

Birds in a nearby hedgerow took off in a small cloud.

Dimity screamed.

Sophronia leapt forward to Felix, her heart in her throat, absolutely terrified. “Felix!”

He was rocking around on his back, clutching the side of his thigh, his pretty face screwed up in agony. It must be bad, for he was getting his clothes all over dusty from the track. They were borrowed duds, but Felix was generally respectful of all clothing.

Sophronia skidded in to kneel next to him. “Where were you hit? Felix!”

The viscount took a short moment to look into her worried green eyes. His own blue ones were leaking tears of pain, even though he was patently trying to contain them. “Curses, that burns! God, you’re beautiful.”

Sophronia forgave him the bad language in fine company.
This once. She also forgave him the compliment. It couldn’t be too bad a wound if he was still able to flirt. Although the flywaymen were listening with interest and she was still dressed as a boy.

“Hush. Let me see,” she said.

Reluctantly, Felix took his hands away from his leg. “Kiss it and make it better?” he pleaded, winsome as an injured child.

“Are you delirious? They’re listening,” she hissed.

“Ria, my dove, I enjoy wearing kohl and favor well-tailored waistcoats. I already have somewhat of a
reputation
.”

Sophronia tsked and looked to his thigh.

Stubby said to his companion, “Supposing that actually is the duke’s eldest, do you think he knows his son is a prancer?”

Sophronia found the comment somewhat of a relief for her own part; at least her disguise held. Felix was remarkably untroubled by any questioning of his manhood.

She said, “See what I mean?”

He whispered, teeth gritted under her gentle ministrations, “All rumors will be put to rest once you agree to marry me.”

“Oh, of course,” replied Sophronia, “because it always works out exactly like that. You’re ridiculous. No wife ever cleared a man’s character, not without a great deal of trouble on the lower decks. So to speak. I should know, we’ve studied somewhat on the subject.”

“Ouch, darling, must you be so rough?”

“Just stoppering up your silly mouth.”

“I know a better way.” He pursed his lips at her. He was still writhing and crying, mind you. She was a little relieved—at least this meant he hadn’t been in league with the flywaymen from the get-go.

Sophronia finished her examination of the wound, and in the absence of brandy extracted her vial of lemon tincture—it was alcohol based, after all—and poured it over the gash.

Felix shrieked. And then, panting, said, “Thank you, fine physician. That makes it feel so much better,
and
all sweetly scented.”

“Stop your whingeing. It’s not serious. It only grazed the surface skin, see there.” Sophronia pointed, face free of worry. Underneath, however, she was thinking that it was bleeding rather much. He wasn’t going to be able to walk. She untucked her shirt and began tearing the hem for a bandage.

Behind her, Sophronia heard a faint sigh and a thud as Dimity collapsed in a faint. She must have caught sight of the blood. Wonderful.

Sidheag, bless her heart, held her position but had pulled out her sewing shears, which she now brandished in a threatening manner. It was odd for young Lord Kingair to be brandishing shears, but so much else was going on, and so much else was odd, this didn’t seem to clue the flywaymen into anything in any substantial way.

Stubby did not seem to be inclined to charge.

Shaggy was actually looking guilty at having shot a peer in cold blood.

Then from behind the flywaymen came a shout of rage. Someone had been watching their confrontation from the airship, probably through a spyglass. Now that someone climbed out of the dirigible and trotted in their direction with the sedate upright steps of a hound on the scent.

This man was no flywayman but a gentleman. His suit was
of impeccable heavyweight tweed, perfect for floating over the countryside on a damp afternoon. He had paired it with a daytime top hat banded in green, and carried a cane with a spiked wooden top and a silver-tipped bottom, a sundowner weapon designed for killing supernaturals.

It was the band that caught Sophronia’s attention. She knew that the flywaymen occasionally allied with Picklemen; now she knew that
these
particular flywaymen were hosting a Pickleman of their very own.

The man approached at speed. He had silver hair and a very authoritative demeanor.

Sophronia knew him.

She finished tying up Felix’s leg. “My dear Felix”—she risked the intimacy of his given name as she whispered—“please don’t tell him too much. I fear this plot is bigger than any of us suppose, and our safety is in your hands. Do, please, be careful, for my sake?”

Then she calmly straightened to face the Duke of Golborne.

“What a surprise. Good afternoon, Your Grace.”

If Felix’s father recognized Sophronia from their two previous encounters, he was very good at hiding it. Of course, the first time had been during a fight, at night, in a gazebo, and she had been wearing a ball gown. The second time she’d been dressed as a dandy drone at a carnival. This time, she looked like a scamp, with her cap pulled down and her body language that of a schoolboy, rather than a fop.

Besides which, the duke was understandably distracted by his son’s being shot. Fathers were like that, even Pickleman fathers.

He strode forward and struck Shaggy hard across the face with his cane. Without waiting to see the flywayman’s reaction, he bent over Felix. He did not kneel at his son’s side. Dukes do not kneel on train tracks for
anyone
.

“Boy, are you alive?”

Felix blinked at him in genuine surprise. Perhaps it was true and he had never fully believed in the intimacy between his father’s secret society and the criminal element. Here, however, the duke had come popping out of a flywayman craft. He was either their hostage or their accomplice. And he had not wanted his son to know, or he would have been the one to contact them.

Felix seemed startled enough to forget that he had been shot, or perhaps to think it slightly less important and put on a brave face.

“Father? What are you doing here?” he asked, tremulously.

“Oh, no, no. What are
you
doing
here
? You’re supposed to be in school.”

“Technically,” answered Felix, “I’m supposed to be at a ball. Remember, I wrote you of the invitation?”

“Ah, yes, some two-bit country gentry. Odd acquaintance to cultivate, but you thought the father’s business interests valuable to the cause.”

Sophronia blinked, tempted to doubt all Felix’s attentions. Had he been courting her all along because of something Papa was up to in civil service? Then she realized—hoped, really—that Felix must have said this to get permission to attend the masquerade.

“Yes, but things change, as they do. It became necessary to borrow a train and head north.”

“Oh, it did, did it?” The duke did not look convinced. “And you interfered with our business why, exactly?”

“I didn’t know, Father. We took this train off a handful of drones.”

Sophronia risked a small squeeze of warning in the guise of checking his bandages:
Please don’t tell the duke too much!

Felix ignored her and went on, “And they happened to be at a station near the ball, and headed in the right direction. So we took their train and bumped them off.”

The duke nodded. “And what happened at that ball?”

Felix frowned at this sudden change of topic. “Well, the two-bit country gentleman, I don’t think he’ll be all that useful.”

“No, I mean to say, boy, did anything
unusual
occur?”

“You mean the mechanical failure in all the papers?”

“Ah, so you read about it. Did you see it in action?”

Felix came over suddenly quite still and suspicious. “Father, what are you up to? What’s going on? Did you…? Was it…?” He trailed off.

But Sophronia put
all
the pieces together at that moment. The Picklemen had chosen her brother’s party on purpose because they knew Felix would be there. They knew he would give them a full report if asked. Perhaps they hadn’t known how wide-reaching the effect would be, or that the papers would pick it up. Or perhaps they had run that test again in the Oxford area, to see what would happen. But Felix’s father, these flywaymen, they were responsible for all of it. And the drones, Monique and the train, they had been tracking them: gathering data, staying out of the way. Sophronia and her band had come in and messed everything up.

The train hadn’t fortuitously been at Wootton Bassett, and the mechanicals hadn’t spontaneously chosen the Temminnicks for “Rule, Britannia!” As Lady Linette always said, there were no coincidences, certainly not with Picklemen, simply an endless stream of increased probability.

Because she wanted confirmation, and because she hoped Duke Golborne thought her one of Felix’s Piston cronies and thus safe, Sophronia asked, “You caused that entertaining malfunction, didn’t you, my lord?”

The duke focused his attention on her. And because he, too, had training, he didn’t give her the outright answer she wanted. He wasn’t loose lipped enough, or he didn’t have that kind of hubris. “Who are you? You’re not one of my boy’s regular associates. You do look awfully familiar, though.”

Sophronia said, “I have that kind of face.”

The duke’s eyes turned to Sidheag and the prostrate Dimity. Bumbersnoot had righted himself and was nosing her in the side in a worried manner. “None of your usual companions, boy,” he said suspiciously. “Are they even Pistons? You know I don’t like you fraternizing with the hoi polloi of the aristocracy.” He seemed genuinely angry about it; did he go so far as to control Felix’s friendships?
How awful for Felix
, thought Sophronia, briefly distracted from concerns over her immediate welfare.

Stubby stepped in at this juncture. “Sir, there is definitely something funny about those boys. Particularly that one.” He pointed at Dimity.

The duke glanced again at her fallen form. “That one is the
least of my concerns—he’s got himself a mechanimal. He has all the
right
connections. No, it’s these other two I don’t know.”

Sidheag said, “I’m Scottish,” as if that would explain everything.

The duke nodded, as if it did. “Yes, well, we can’t all be from the right side of the country. Would I know your family?”

Sidheag looked uncomfortable. The duke was probably aware of the Kingair scandal. She scrabbled for the right kind of family to call her own, but Scotland was a funny place, progressive as a rule, mostly not in favor of the conservative referendum. So she dodged the question. “Probably not, Your Grace.”

That didn’t mollify him, since he had practically demanded an introduction. He turned wrathful eyes on Sophronia. “And you, little man?”

Sophronia said, “I’m one of those two-bit country gentry, Your Grace.” She bowed. “Mr. Temminnick, at your service.”

At that precise moment, Monique decided to start screaming.

The duke looked at his son. “And what
exactly
is that?”

“One of the vampire drones. We kept her for collateral,” explained Felix, happy for a change of subject.

“Is she always that noisy? Seems hardly worth the bother.”

Sophronia was growing uncomfortable with this encounter. It was getting beyond her control. She wandered over, with the pretext of checking on Dimity. Dimity seemed perfectly fine, although deep in her faint.

Sophronia pulled out her smelling salts.

Dimity sneezed herself awake.

“What?” she sputtered.

“You fainted and Felix’s father, the duke, has turned up.”

“Oh, dear,” said Dimity, accurately.

“Felix is well, thank you for asking, a scrape to the leg.”

“Oh, good.”

“But I think it is time we extracted ourselves.”

Dimity nodded. “And?”

“I’m sending you back to the train, with the pretext that you aren’t well. Tell Soap he needs to charge the dirigible.”

“What?”

“Oh, keep your voice down, do. They won’t let us actually crash. That ship must be full of some very valuable equipment. Just tell him to head at it full throttle.”

Dimity nodded and stood shakily.

Sophronia helped her up, all solicitation. She took Bumbersnoot for herself. If the mechanimal was going to confer credence, she wanted to keep him with her.

Dimity began trudging back toward the locomotive.

The flywayman with the gun, Shaggy, his face welted from where Duke Golborne had struck him, was having none of it. “Oh, no you don’t, young master!”

Dimity froze, then turned slowly back.

“He needs to recuperate,” objected Sophronia. “I suggested he return to the train for a snifter.”

“He can recuperate perfectly well right here,” answered the duke, turning back to Felix.

“Now what?” hissed Dimity.

Sophronia wasn’t entirely certain Felix could get them out. Or even if he wanted to. And she was under no illusion that,
if they were taken hostage by flywaymen
and
Picklemen, their female natures would remain hidden.