Waistcoats & Weaponry (5 page)

Dimity swallowed. “That is
not
good.”

“Worse, she only has until supper to reappear. Matron’s coming by to check.”

“Then what will we do? Pillows in the bed won’t work on matron. None of us looks enough like Sidheag to pull a wig-and-switch, either.” Dimity wasn’t the best intelligencer, but some of the training had stuck.

Sophronia was out of options. “We have to hope she returns in time. Nothing else for it.” She sat down on her bed with a thump.

Dimity said out loud what they had all three been secretly wondering: “Do you think Lord Maccon has been successfully challenged?” It was a most delicate way of putting it. Lord Maccon was Sidheag’s great-great-great-grandfather, in truth the only father she had. He was also Alpha of the Kingair Pack, and Alphas had to fight for their position constantly. He was supposed to be the second-most-powerful werewolf in all of
Britain, but new werewolves did happen, and loners, those unattached to a pack like Captain Niall, could be strong. If one had challenged Lord Maccon and won, it meant the Laird of Kingair was dead.

Sophronia said, “I don’t like to think it, but it would explain Sidheag’s behavior.”

Agatha, who knew Sidheag better than anyone, began to cry.

“Hush, now, we don’t
know
that’s what happened,” Sophronia tutted at her. “It could just be war. Queen Victoria is always sending her werewolves to fight on the front lines somewhere foreign.”

Bumbersnoot butted up against one of Agatha’s slippered feet, his tail wagging a little less, his floppy leather ears wiggling sympathetically.

Agatha blubbered, “But she does love him so. I know she talks gruff, but he’s her one and only Gramps. If he’s been hurt or killed…” Great fat tears trickled down her round, freckled face.

“Now, now, Agatha, where’s your handkerchief? You’ll come over all blotchy, and Professor Lefoux will notice in our next class. Can’t have that.” Sophronia bustled about collecting one of her spares.

Agatha tried to recover her emotions. She was terrified of Professor Lefoux. Professor Lefoux had no respect for finer feelings, even when they were being applied with purpose. Gadgets, felt Professor Lefoux, solved any problem.

Agatha disposed of one damp handkerchief, and by the time she’d finished with another, her sobs had subsided.

“Good girl,” said Sophronia.

Dimity said, “Sophronia’s right. We don’t know the real truth of any of it.”

Sophronia added, “If Sidheag doesn’t return, our only hope is that Soap has uncovered something of merit.”

Dimity and Agatha looked uncomfortable. They knew it meant Sophronia was sneaking out later that night on one of her clandestine visits to engineering. They also knew it meant Sophronia had no means of protecting Sidheag’s reputation, because if she had, she would be doing that instead.

Matron would come and Sidheag would not be there.

So it turned out to be.

W
hile they nibbled a meal of baked cod, boiled aitch-bone of beef, carrots, turnips, and suet dumplings, Sophronia thought hard on which would be worse for Sidheag: being found missing on her own or having it known she was alone with a werewolf. After munching for a while in silence, Sophronia whispered, “We must try to hold off saying anything to anyone until tomorrow. Let me have a confab with Soap, see what he’s turned up. We can decide who to tell what before breakfast.”

Dimity blanched. “By which time Sidheag will have been out with
him
all night.”

Agatha added, looking down the table at Preshea, “And if anyone but us finds out, her reputation really will be in tatters.”

“Can’t be helped. At least we know Sidheag can handle a werewolf no matter his mood or form.”

Dimity put down the roll she was buttering. “Good thing we have Mademoiselle Geraldine after cards tonight.”

The other two nodded.

The headmistress was part of their training at the academy. She was kept in complete ignorance as to the clandestine nature of the lessons, so when they had a class with her it was
real
finishing. Mademoiselle Geraldine instructed them on manners, social niceties, tables of precedence, tea sipping, and the like. Any espionage techniques were assigned to them before they met with the headmistress, usually by Lady Linette. Luckily, tonight they already had instructions, so all Sophronia, Dimity, and Agatha had to do was avoid answering any uncomfortable questions as to their friend’s whereabouts during the course of the meal.

They managed all the way through to the sweets course, orange pudding with Naples biscuits and sherry. Then, by dint of running a boisterous and absorbing game of speculation after the pudding, they avoided any kind of private conference during cards.

They dawdled as much as possible while the mechanicals cleaned up, so that they had to glide with extreme rapidity on to Mademoiselle Geraldine’s class, on the far side of the airship. They utilized some of the lesser-known passageways, disturbing more than one servant mechanical. If she had known what was really going on, Lady Linette might indeed feel that she had trained her students too well. Or she might be proud. In any event, she couldn’t be too worried about Sidheag or they never would have gotten away with it.

Safely ensconced with Mademoiselle Geraldine, who was instructing them in how to flirt at a hunting party, tweed jodhpurs notwithstanding, they made it through to bedtime unencumbered.

By the time Lady Linette came around to check that lights were out at two in the morning, they were all three solidly asleep.

Sidheag’s bed was empty.

After Lady Linette closed the door to their parlor, Sophronia was out of bed with a glass to the jamb so quickly she managed to catch Lady Linette saying to Sister Mattie in the hall, “Unfortunately, Sister, I believe we have one missing—Lady Kingair. It’s going to be messy if we’ve misplaced an aristocrat. Even if she is Scottish.”

Sister Mattie, who had been checking on the debuts, said something sympathetic in a low tone. They moved down the hallway, out of eavesdropping range.

Sophronia’s nightgown was so voluminous she could pull it on over her preferred after-hours attire—a pair of her brother’s old breeches, with a corset under a gentleman’s shirt and a waistcoat over the top. Sophronia didn’t like to dress as a boy, not the way her friend Vieve did, but it was awfully practical for climbing. She scooped up Bumbersnoot, dressed in his frilly reticule disguise, and slung him over one shoulder. Bumbersnoot usually came with her to engineering. He liked to eat fallen bits of coal, and Sophronia thought it only right he go down to the boiler room and visit the mechanical gods. As Dimity had once said, “I wonder if engineering, for Bumbersnoot, is like church. Or am I being apocryphal?”

Sophronia was on her own. Dimity, after a few ill-fated jaunts, had elected to leave that dirty, smelly, greasy place to Sophronia and Sidheag. It was too rough for a
real
lady, she claimed. Dimity wanted to be a lady rather more than she wanted to be an intelligencer. She liked the idea of practicing charitable works on the sooties, but gave that up in favor of filching nibbles at tea and sending them down with Sophronia to the unfortunates, as she called them, with her regards. Thus she did not risk smudges on her gown or crude language in her delicate ear.

Agatha simply hadn’t that much of an interest in anything covert. Also, given the option between sleep and pretty much anything else, Agatha would
always
rather sleep.

The hallway outside was dark. The teachers turned off the gas after inspections. Sophronia, hurlie on one wrist and an even more illegal gadget, the obstructor, on the other, navigated with ease. The hurlie handled climbing and swinging from balcony to balcony, and the obstructer froze into six-second stillness any mechanical before it could raise the alarm. As a result, Sophronia was in engineering in under a quarter of an hour. She considered timing herself with a pocket watch next jaunt—how fast could she get around an airship if she really tried? When Professor Braithwope fell, Sophronia had risked life and limb swinging at speed, but that was almost a year ago, and she was better with the hurlie now. She could probably do it safer and faster. She flinched, thinking about that incident.
Poor old Professor Braithwope.

Soap was waiting for her behind their customary coal pile.

Sophronia was a lot less conspicuous fraternizing with sooties dressed as a boy than when she’d first come down, stirring
up dust in full skirts and a silly hat. She settled on the coal pile next to Soap’s lanky frame.

“What ho, miss?”

“Good evening, Soap, any word on Sidheag’s pigeon?” There was no point in shilly-shallying about with pleasantries. Sophronia and Soap were close enough to have done away with social niceties a long time ago. Besides, he was common born and didn’t care for such folderol. Sensible man, Soap.

“I didn’t get a peek at the message itself—either Sidheag still has it with her or they burned it right quick. But I did overhear a few things while tinkering with a dodgy boiler in Lady Linette’s parlor. The human staff sure gossip.” Soap’s dark eyes were grave, but he managed to exude warmth and welcome.

Sophronia relaxed into the comfort of his familiar affection. “Go on.”

He leaned in toward her, unconsciously intimate. “Well, miss, it sure seems to be a matter of pack. Things are unsettled in Kingair.”

Sophronia shifted; he was a little too close, not preserving the space most gentlemen leave in the presence of a lady. “So we gathered. Is Lord Maccon dead?”

Ever attuned to her moods, Soap registered her discomfort and slumped back into the coal pile, as if it were an armchair. This instantly reassured her. “No truck on anyone dying. So I think we’re safe in assuming it’s no challenge. But it does seem like to be concerning Lord Maccon.”

Sophronia frowned—if he wasn’t dead, what could possibly be the problem? “How do you mean?”

“Word is that he’s maybe losing control.”

“Of his clavigers?” This time she leaned in to the conversation, struggling to make herself heard against a new din in the boiler room.

“No, of his pack.”

Sophronia thought back to everything Sidheag had told her about the Kingair werewolves. “Lord Maccon? He’s supposed to be the strongest Alpha in England, with the exception of the dewan.”

Soap smiled as though they were in on a joke together. “And some would say even the Queen’s Werewolf would lose three out of five challenges. It seems that it’s not Lord Maccon’s strength in question, it’s the behavior of the rest of the Kingair Pack.”

“They
are
Scottish.”

“It’s worse than that, miss.”

Sophronia cracked a small joke. “Is there something worse than being Scottish?”

Soap declined to play. “Being a sootie, and having the wrong color skin to boot?”

In his eyes was something like the longing look they had practiced in class earlier that evening. Sophronia didn’t like it coming from Soap, and she didn’t know how to defuse it. Lady Linette hadn’t taught them that tactic yet. She hadn’t told them what to do when one was on the
receiving
end of unwanted longing.
Perhaps that’s something I should ask about next class.

“Behavior of the pack? Aren’t they all instinctually bound to follow him until another challenges and wins? I do wish Professor Braithwope were available to consult. I suppose Professor Lefoux might have some insight.”

But strangely enough, Soap had further to offer on the subject. “It’s not that simple, miss. Beta supports, Gamma objects, loners challenge, and the others fall about the scale. Alpha is not an easy position to hold. I wouldn’t want it.”

“Soap, how is it you suddenly know so much about werewolves?”

Soap shrugged. “I take an interest. Not all sudden, you just never asked. I’ve been thinking… if I went out for anything long term, claviger might be it. I’d sooner indenture to a pack than bind to a hive.”

Sophronia had never even considered that Soap, of all people, might hunger for immortality. “Pardon? You’d rather be a werewolf than a vampire?”

Soap’s eyes, in the flickering light of the boiler, were almost hungry looking. “I don’t want to suck blood, although I’d take the rank that came with either and be grateful. But werewolves have fewer restrictions; even a sootie can make claviger. Plus, I like the idea of a pack, don’t you?”

“Sort of like collecting a bunch of grown-up hairy sooties?” guessed Sophronia, feeling somehow hurt the more she considered it.
How could I not know this about Soap? My Soap? Stupid not to realize he wants more out of life than shoving coal in boilers all day long
. He had seemed eager for her reading lessons, but she’d suspected it was an excuse to spend more time with her. Now she thought there might be more to it: social climbing. Soap had his own plans, which he hadn’t confided and which—worse—didn’t include her.

Soap smiled at his fellow sooties rushing around. “These old
cusses, my pack?” Many of the sooties regarded Soap as a kind of unofficial mayor of the boiler room. There were firemen and greasers, adults ranked far above them, but if one wanted to mobilize the sooties, even the head of engineering knew it was best to get Soap to do it.

He nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, I suppose they are. Don’t you like the idea of a pack, miss? You kinda got yourself one, what with all your projects.”

“Projects” was what Soap called Sophronia’s various female friends.

Sophronia tried to be fair and consider life from Soap’s perspective. It was jolly hard to imagine, since he was a different class, color,
and
sex. Still, if he hadn’t any opportunities to further himself, and if that was what he wanted? Not to mention the chance of immortality?

“So that’s why you’ve learned everything you can about werewolves?”

“Indeed. Miss Maccon’s been bonny good with that.” Soap and Sidheag preferred to pretend he didn’t know she had a title, made everyone more relaxed. Sidheag enjoyed being lowly Miss Maccon when she smeared around with the sooties.

Sophronia felt almost compelled to change the subject, but the more she thought about her dear Soap pursuing something so dangerous, the more the ache of worry in her stomach expanded. She tried to stay calm. “But Soap, indenture as a claviger? You’re little better than a warden against moon-madness. You serve the pack’s whims with no guarantee that they’ll let you try for metamorphosis. It could take
years
.”

“At least there’s a chance of clean, honest work in the interim. Better than being a sootie, and better than being food, like a drone.” He sounded serious about the scheme.

Sophronia’s stomachache expanded into fear, clogging up her throat and thickening her voice. “You do know how rare survival is and how dangerous?” She barked the words, her panic blossoming into anger. Statistics weren’t published, but everyone was aware that few could withstand metamorphosis. It was a huge risk!

Soap’s gentle tone did not rise to match her stridency. “I know the odds.”

“And you’ll wager your whole life on them? That’s idiotic!” She switched tactics, forcing her voice to mellow. “If, by some puny chance, you did survive a bite, then there’s military service. Even werewolves die in the front lines.”

“And others come back war heroes and are granted a holding. Can you imagine, I’d be landed gentry?”

“You could be decades in some foreign land!”

“It’s a chance to travel.”

“That’s a stupid reason to risk werewolf!”
I wouldn’t see you. You’d be gone. You’d leave me behind.

Soap was clearly startled, perhaps even hurt by her rage. His posture altered, tense in the arms and shoulders.

Sophronia pressed her eyes with her hand and sensed Soap calm in response to her worried gesture. His slight slouch returned. She couldn’t say that she would miss him, because she was afraid it might work and hold him back. And if this really was his dream? It would be as bad for her to hold him with empty promises as it would be for him to do this for the wrong reason.