The Inventor's Secret by Andrea Cremer
From the copilot’s chair, Ash snapped, “Damn it all, Charlotte! Why aren’t you in your seat?”
Keeping a firm hold on the metal frame of the cockpit’s entry, Charlotte drew herself up. “I wanted to see the airship before we docked. I’ll be fine.”
“You’ve seen it,” Ash said coldly. “Now go back to the cabin.”
“No.”
“By Athene, I will drag you there.” Ash unbuckled his harness.
“You will not,” Charlotte snapped.
Ash started to rise, but Jack threw his arm out, knocking Ash back into his chair.
“Quiet, both of you.” Jack didn’t take his eyes off the dirigible. “I have to dock this ship, and you brawling won’t make it any easier.”
“Jack, she shouldn’t be up here,” Ash said.
“I don’t care where she is as long as she stops distracting me,” Jack answered. “That goes for you too. Besides, I’m a good pilot. If Charlotte has any grace at all, she’ll be fine.”
“I have plenty of grace,” Charlotte snapped, though she gripped the entryway tighter. There was no way in hell she would let herself fall after that remark.
Ash threw a withering look at Jack, who paid him no notice. Jack began tapping a thin brass lever rhythmically, and Charlotte’s gaze flicked out to the corresponding flash of lights in the sky. A minute later, an answering barrage of bright flashes shot toward them from the dirigible.
“We’re cleared to dock,” Jack told them. “Last chance to ditch.”
“Just fly the damn ship,” Ash growled.
“Aye, aye, sir,” Jack replied, adding, “Though technically I outrank you—so you should be calling me sir.”
Ash raised his hand as if to cuff Jack on the back of the head.
“No attacking the pilot, Ash!” Charlotte glared at her brother.
Ash shrugged. “I’m menacing the pilot, not attacking. Though he deserves it.”
“Of course he does,” Charlotte said. “But the rest of us don’t deserve to crash because Jack can be an ass.”
“I’m just trying to help you stay in character, dear man,” Jack objected, but he kept his eyes on the looming dirigible and his grip firm on the controls.
Dismissing Jack’s outburst, Charlotte leaned forward, observing the rapidly approaching airship. Jack guided the Dragonfly toward the larger ship’s underbelly, where large glass and brass columns protruded. Charlotte thought the design gave the dirigible a rather obscene resemblance to a bloated cow and its udder. The HMCS Hector lacked the grace and sleekness of the Dragonfly. Though buoyant, the craft looked as if it would only lumber through the sky, its bulk plowing a path across the clouds.
Their ship was closing in on the udder-like protrusions.
“You’re up, Ash,” Jack said without a glance at Ashley. “Remember what I told you?”
“Despite your doubts, I’ll stay in character.”
Ash unbuckled his harness and ducked out of the cockpit. Charlotte started toward Ash’s vacated chair, but hearing the rustle of her skirts, Jack shook his head.
“Sorry, Charlotte. Ladies don’t sit in the cockpit, and in another minute, you’ll be spotted by the Hector’s crew. Step back and stay out of sight.”
Charlotte felt the urge to cuff Jack like Ashley had, but instead she retreated to the holding bay and began to mutter about Jack’s character flaws under her breath. She was still compiling her list when the Dragonfly slowed until it was hovering. A rush of wind from the rear of the craft lifted Charlotte’s dress hem to her knees as the roar of the dirigible’s engines poured into their ship. When she reached down to cover her legs, the Dragonfly lurched and then shuddered, and Charlotte was sent sprawling onto the cargo bay floor.
The steady hum of the aircraft stilled, and Jack appeared in the cockpit entryway to find Charlotte on her hands and knees, cursing up a storm.
“Plenty of grace?” Jack grinned at her.
Refusing his outstretched hand, Charlotte stood up, grateful that she hadn’t scraped her knees in the fall. She doubted bloodstains on one’s skirts were part of current fashion in the city.
With a sigh, Jack let his hand drop to his side while Charlotte smoothed out the delicate fabric of her dress. When she looked at him again, he offered his arm.
“In the city, you’ll be expected to take a gentleman’s arm if offered, Charlotte,” Jack said, heading off her objection.
Charlotte sniffed. “You’re hardly a gentleman.”
“Usually I’d agree.” Jack’s laugh was cold. “But in New York, I am a gentleman. And no matter what you actually think of me, while we’re here, you have to play along.”
His voice was laced with resentment that drained any impudence from Charlotte, and she slipped her arm through Jack’s. He led her into the cabin. Meg and Grave were unbuckling themselves from their seats.
“Go get the luggage,” Jack told the pair, but kept guiding Charlotte toward the rear of the craft.
At the point where the cabin tapered toward the Dragonfly’s tail, Ashley had opened a portal in the roof. Now he watched an extension of the glass and brass column that Charlotte had seen on the dirigible telescope its way into the Dragonfly. The tube’s segments stretched all the way to the floor of the aircraft. Other than the brass fittings, the column was transparent and hollow, except for what appeared to be a brass capsule hovering just inside the tube. It was also large; wide enough for Charlotte to stand beneath with her arms outstretched. The last segment of the column featured a brass wheel about the size of a man’s fist. Another blast of air swirled around Charlotte’s ankles, and a moment later, a length of slender brass-plated tubing snaked its way down the column. Ashley grabbed the end of the tube and screwed it into a soundbox on the Dragonfly’s wall.
Removing Charlotte’s hand from his forearm, Jack approached the tube. He gave the wheel a half-turn and one panel of the tube hissed open, revealing an oval door in the side of the capsule.
“Nice work,” he said to Ashley, who merely nodded.
Jack glanced back at Charlotte. “Come on, Charlotte. Etiquette demands that the most esteemed passengers board first.”
Charlotte joined Jack and her brother beside the telescoped column.
Peering at the glass tube and its resident, person-sized capsule, she said with a frown, “What is this?”
“Just step into the capsule,” Jack answered. “You’ll get where you need to go.”
The way he seemed to be barely containing laughter did little to encourage Charlotte.
A tinny voice piped from the soundbox. “Please embark.”
Jack opened the door and shoved Charlotte into the capsule, which afforded her enough room to stand up straight, but that was all. “Don’t keep ’em waiting.”
Before she could turn to scold him for his ungallant behavior, Jack smiled wickedly, slammed the door shut, and turned the brass wheel.
Charlotte heard a whoosh of air and then yelped in surprise as suction from above jerked the capsule up the glass tube. After a short but violent journey, the door sprung open and Charlotte popped out of the entry valve into the arms of three waiting butlers, who quickly ushered the startled young woman to a settee upholstered in emerald velvet.
“Will you require smelling salts, Miss Marshall?” one of the butlers asked. The men were dressed in uniforms that struck Charlotte as a cross between military and domestic service: knee-high, glossy leather boots, a formfitting jacket with bright brass buttons left open at the throat to reveal a scarlet silk kerchief, and white kid gloves.
Embarrassed that she’d been caught off guard, Charlotte tried to compose herself, but just as quickly remembered that she was playing the part of a pampered heiress. She placed her hand at her throat and took deep breaths, all the while feeling the rapid pace of her pulse beneath her fingers.
“Thank yo
Thus assured, the trio of uniformed men hurried away.
“Oooo-ohhhh!”
The cry drew Charlotte’s gaze to the left side of the room, where a stout woman shot up through the floor from another tube. Apparently she was familiar with the arrival process, because she thrust her arms out the moment the capsule door opened as if expecting to be caught. Her generous figure had been stuffed into a frock of stiff violet silk, and the butlers staggered back when she fell against them.
There were four valves, one in each corner of the room, while the central space was crowded with velvet settees and overstuffed silk pillows. The butlers shuttled the woman, who moaned all the while, to Charlotte’s side.
“Salts, Lady Ott?” a butler inquired as the large woman swooned. There was a dry note in his voice that made Charlotte suspect Lady Ott was a regular passenger and that the butler thought her distress an affectation.
Lady Ott kept her eyes shut and shook her head. “Just faerie fans, good man. Be quick about it.”
The butler snapped his fingers, and one of his peers hurried away, only to return a moment later bearing a gilt box. He placed the box at Lady Ott’s feet and set about turning the minuscule crank that protruded from one side of the mysterious container. When the butler released the crank and stepped back, the box’s golden lid sprung open. A tinkling melody typical of a music box filled the air, but so did whirring and clicking noises.
Charlotte managed to stifle her gasp as four mechanical faeries emerged from the box, their gold mesh wings holding them aloft before Lady Ott’s face while slender golden chains tethered the tiny creatures to the box. Charlotte went still, enthralled by the faeries, as Lady Ott sighed and leaned toward their beating wings.
Her astonishment waning, Charlotte’s eyes narrowed. The four little mechanical beasts couldn’t be creating any real sort of wind—their wings were much too small to generate serious air flow—clearly these faerie fans were more spectacle than practical.
Charlotte clucked her tongue in disapproval, giving Lady Ott occasion to notice there was another person, besides the butlers, in the arrival bay.
After taking a few minutes to scrutinize Charlotte’s appearance, and apparently liking what she saw, Lady Ott smiled and said, “Horrid, isn’t it, my dear? These men and their contraptions. They simply don’t understand how important it is for a woman to arrive with unmussed hair and smooth skirts.”
The plump woman continued to bask in the light breeze created by the faerie fans. “What sort of transport did you take to the Hector?”
“A Dragonfly.” Charlotte’s cheeks went cold with dread. She may have been trussed up like a noble lady of the Floating City, but now she’d have to act the part as well, and her tongue wanted only to tie itself into a knot.
Casting a curious sidelong glance at Charlotte, Lady Ott said, “A military craft. Much too cramped for my taste, made for war rather than comfort. My husband and I came in a Scarab. Even so, I was more than ready to be off that small craft and onto the Hector, as is proper for ladies. Glories of the Empire, they call these airships. I’ve found it to be true. I’ll travel no other way. The seafaring versions just aren’t the same. Don’t you agree?”
Charlotte didn’t know if she agreed, but she nodded.
Fortunately, Lady Ott was happy to keep talking.
“It can’t be helped,” the plump woman continued. “We can’t keep to our country halls during the social season, now, can we?”
“No?” Charlotte supplied, with some hesitation.
Taking Charlotte’s uncertain tone as a jest, Lady Ott tittered with laughter, making her ample but constrained bosom quiver like jelly. Charlotte was a bit nervous that the woman’s stays would snap if put under too much stress.
“Of course we can’t,” Lady Ott agreed. “But I haven’t seen you at any of the balls or tourneys, my dear. Surely you haven’t been neglecting your social duties?”
Trapped by the question, Charlotte could only think to say, “Perhaps I have been. I’m afraid this is my first visit to the Floating City. I’m from the islands, and until now I haven’t been away from my father’s plantation estate.”
Lady Ott pursed her lips, and Charlotte worried she’d said something wrong, but suddenly the older woman’s face lit up.
“By Athene’s grace, you’re being presented, aren’t you?” Lady Ott beamed. “Such a demure young lady to keep quiet about it. Ah, how well I remember my own debut into New York society. What house has sponsored you?”
Charlotte forced her mouth into a demure smile and nodded with as much shyness as she could manage. Before she could reply, however, a voice answered.
“The House of Winter.”
Charlotte startled; her silk skirts nearly made her slip from the settee. As she half turned to look at Jack, he placed his hand on her shoulder, steadying her. Jack must have emerged from the arrival valve while Charlotte was distracted by Lady Ott and her faerie fans.
Lady Ott gasped. “You can’t mean Admiral Winter’s estate?”
“The same,” Jack answered, a bit stiffly.
The noblewoman’s gaze returned to Charlotte. “Wherever have they been hiding you? What a coup this is! All of New York will be aflutter when they hear of this.”
It was clear Lady Ott was thrilled that she would be the source of such juicy gossip. Charlotte lowered her eyes as if reluctant to answer, but in truth it was the best way to avoid having to carry on a conversation with this ridiculous woman.
Jack spoke again. “Miss Marshall is the heiress to her father’s plantation in the Bermudas.”
Maintaining her meek pose, Charlotte nodded at Jack’s statement. When procuring papers to give Charlotte an appropriate background, Jack had assured her and Ash that New York society had long since lost interest in the goings-on in the Empire’s “quaint” island holdings, so that while her fictional identity supplied the necessary status to join the elite of the Floating City, no one would be surprised they’d never heard of a Lady Charlotte Marshall from Bermuda.
“Well, well, well.” Lady Ott flicked her hand dismissively at the hovering faeries, and a butler instantly swooped in to collect the box. “The young men will be clamoring for your attention, my dear. And more than a few tongues will wag in the galleries, I’ve no doubt.”
Charlotte shivered at the thought of anyone taking note of her presence in the city. Had Jack and Ash thought this plan through? She’d been assured that pretending to belong in society would keep her hidden. Hiding in plain sight, Jack had said. Maybe that meant something other than Charlotte thought.
Another whoosh of air announced Ashley’s appearance on the arrival deck. The butlers acknowledged his embarkation but, seeing his porter’s garb, made no move to assist him. When Meg and Grave appeared in sequence a few minutes later bearing luggage, the butlers didn’t even bother to greet them.
“My, my, my,” Lady Ott was saying. Charlotte turned to see the stout woman gazing at Jack admiringly. “Flight Lieutenant Winter! What a pleasure this is. You’ve been missed in the city.”
Jack’s smile was little more than a grimace. “You’re too kind.”
Lady Ott’s overbright smile didn’t waver. “But of course you’re so young, you would be disappointed to be pulled away from the excitement of battle for these social niceties.”
Jack replied with a polite nod. He turned to Charlotte and offered his hand. “My lady, you’ll be wanting to refresh yourself after our voyage, I’m sure?”
Charlotte took Jack’s hand, knowing she gripped his fingers a little too hard when she stood.
“Of course, of course.” Lady Ott smiled at them. “But I insist you join me for dinner. I’ll have the invitation sent to your cabins.”
“You honor us.” Jack smiled, tugging Charlotte away from Lady Ott.
M
Charlotte leaned in to Jack. “We’re not really having dinner with that woman, are we?”
“I’m afraid we are,” Jack whispered. “Her husband is Roger Ott—one of the most prominent financiers of the city and a friend of the Resistance. Besides, Lady Ott will be full of news that might prove useful. He will as well; Lord Ott is known to trade on the black market as well as in more seemly forms of commerce.”
“And I suppose I’ll have to answer all her questions,” Charlotte murmured.
“Play the game right, and she’ll give you more answers than you have to offer her. Just keep up that shy-girl pose you’ve been assuming,” Jack replied. “I can do most of the talking, if you like. Actually, I’m fairly certain Lady Ott will talk enough for all of us.”
13.
WHAT DO YOU mean I have to change my dress?” Charlotte protested, but Meg had already turned her around, pulled her jacket off, and begun to unbutton her gown.
“You’re wearing traveling clothes. They’re meant for daytime only,” Meg explained. “You can’t be seen in the same gown at dinner. Now lift your arms.”
Charlotte complied, but was aghast at the impracticality of changing clothes for the sake of a meal.
“How many times a day do I have to change?” she asked as Meg lifted the dress over Charlotte’s head.
“It depends on each day’s particular activities— No, don’t put your arms down yet,” Meg admonished. “We’ll have to put you in a finer petticoat as well.”
Charlotte’s brow crinkled as Meg pulled the petticoat off. Even that plain undergarment was finer than any piece of clothing Charlotte had ever owned, and yet it wouldn’t be fine enough for dinner aboard this ship. She shivered, uneasy in her own skin.
“Shhh, Lottie.” Meg came around to stand in front of Charlotte and gave her shoulders a little squeeze. “I know it’s cold in the stateroom, but we’ll have you dressed again in a moment.”