Gossamer Wing Read online

  But sky blue? He couldn’t recall the last time he had received a custom order for anything in such a color. Dexter wondered if it was a particular favorite of the widow Moncrieffe, and it occurred to him that he had no real idea of her coloring other than “fair,” though he knew practically every dimension of her body from the sundry devices he’d custom-built for her. Perhaps she simply looked good in sky blue.

  “The color of a cloudless sky,” she had written. For her airship helmet, which she used to see things from very far away while her hands were otherwise occupied.

  Perhaps your Ladyship would care to review some swatches—Dexter began, then put his pen back into its stand and crumpled the piece of notepaper. Retrieving a fresh page, he stared at it for a long moment pondering what he knew of Lady Moncrieffe.

  In sum, it wasn’t much more than any member of the public might know, despite four years of correspondence with the woman over a variety of topics, sometimes only tangentially related to the commissions she’d sent him. Dexter had always enjoyed those letters, but had never gone out of his way to meet the woman who wrote them lest his fanciful picture of her be marred by a less-than-stunning reality. It was a game he played with himself, picturing the Charlotte Moncrieffe of his imagination, engaging in feats of derring-do most unbecoming a well-bred widow. From their letters he sometimes glimpsed a sly wit, a hint of cheek, and though the Charlotte in his mind had never worn a particular face, she had developed a bit of a cockeyed smile. Even, on occasion, a coquettish dimple beside rosy lips, as she swashbuckled her way through his mental landscape.

  Dexter laughed at himself every time he indulged in this fancy. He was no green boy, and he knew himself well enough to know it was probably best they never meet, as he would almost certainly be disappointed. The widows of his real-life acquaintance never derring-did much of anything, and he’d no real reason to think Lady Moncrieffe was the exception despite her penchant for odd contraptions. He was happier daydreaming on occasion about the mysterious woman with the intriguing commissions, content with only the few facts he’d learned through mutual associates.

  What he did know for certain was that she was young, and had been widowed very early in her marriage some years prior. An oft-discussed tragic figure, Lady Moncrieffe still wore mourning for her husband and showed no interest in seeking another spouse. She lived on a vast estate not too far north of New York City, and was rarely seen at society events either in her own county or in the city itself.

  Yet she had custom-ordered more than one weapon, an array of telescopic and sonic amplification devices, a small steam car and a velocimobile, and a set of equipment for use in mountaineering. And she apparently spent a certain amount of time on an airship, possibly at high altitudes given the need for added insulation. While riding that airship she required the means to view things over a mile away—things on the ground, in other words—while her hands were otherwise occupied.

  The color of a cloudless sky.

  Dexter realized Lady Moncrieffe was not being poetic, as he had first imagined. He should have known sooner, because she had never been poetic before. No, she literally wanted the helmet to be the color of the sky, and he suddenly suspected her reasons for that had nothing to do with fashion or whim. All Dexter’s fancies about what the lady did with his inventions—the ideas he’d always told himself were too far-fetched to be anything but fiction—began to coalesce into one undeniable possibility. There were really only so many reasons a person would require the equipment Lady Moncrieffe had ordered over the years.

  Dexter Chen Hardison did not like to do things halfway. To create something that would truly meet the lady’s needs, he realized he had a need of his own: information.

  The revelation made his return note much easier to write. Three words, in fact, sufficed.

  My dear Lady Moncrieffe,

  To what purpose?

  Yrs, D. C. Hardison

  By return mail the next day he received the answer he had already deduced, and it was even shorter than his own message.

  Hardison—

  Camouflage.

  * * *

  “PACKAGE JUST DELIVERED, ma’am.”

  “Thank you, Smits. Put it in my study, I’ll open it after luncheon.” Charlotte, Lady Moncrieffe, returned to her cold salmon and travel brochures, only to note that Smits yet stood his solemn, quiet ground at her shoulder.

  “Yes?” she asked after waiting a moment to see if he would ever clear his throat to gain her attention.

  “Beg pardon, m’lady, but the young gentleman who brought the package insists on delivering it personally. He says he’s to report back to the makesmith on its suitability.”

  “Oh!” The smith had sent a boy along with her helmet? Charlotte wasn’t sure whether this boded well or ill. “Well, take him to the study then, and offer him some refreshment. I’ll be along shortly.”

  Smits vanished on his errand, leaving his mistress alone at the little round glass table in the solarium. Charlotte yearned to dash to the study as soon as he was away. Instead she gave it all of five minutes before rising gracefully from her meal and gliding along to the study as elegantly as if all society were watching her to learn how to behave.

  The makesmith hadn’t sent a boy, it transpired. He had sent a young gentleman, as Smits said. With a voice as refined as if he’d been sent off to spend his formative years at Eton, the young man greeted Charlotte and presented his box with a flourish. She was still trying to sort out where on Earth he must have come from when she pulled the contents of the box free from a layer of cotton wool, and finally beheld the result of her commission.

  It was perfect.

  The helmet was indeed the blue of a cloudless sky, and more specifically the very pale and almost pearly blue of the sky on a clear winter day. The layer of fleece that lined it had been tinted to complement the delicate hue.

  The fittings astonished Charlotte almost to the point of breathlessness. She hadn’t thought to request anything other than the usual brass or nickel. It had never occurred to her . . .

  “What on earth has he done to the metal?” she gasped, running her fingers over the glassy-smooth matte surface.

  The young man chuckled, touching the rim of the ocular with evident appreciation. “Everything he could think of, I suspect. He started by enameling the original brass. But that was apparently too glossy, and added too much weight.”

  Every piece of metal, from the ocular device and controls right down to the row of tiny buckles fastening down the back of the headpiece, were the same dull, pale gray blue. No extraneous pieces impeded the helmet’s smooth lines, no decorative rivets or designs tooled into the leather. Only soft blue kid and cool, functional metal. Charlotte hefted the helmet, which seemed even lighter than the earlier model.

  “This doesn’t look enameled, and it’s very light indeed.”

  “Yes ma’am,” the young man agreed. “He tried a number of other processes before finally rebuilding the entire ocular frame from anodized aluminium. The matte texture took a few tries to accomplish, however. Still not sure how he did that and he isn’t telling, but I know he swore at least one of our metallurgists to secrecy on pain of death.”

  The man’s wink was cheeky but not offensive, and it looked naggingly familiar. But how could a young makesmith be familiar?

  “I’m sorry, have we met, Mr. . . . ?”

  “Pence, ma’am. Matthew Pence.” He sketched a little bow scarcely less cheeky than his wink.

  “Matthew—not Sir Paul Pence’s boy?”

  “The same.”

  “But I thought you were off at Oxford.”

  “I was. My parents certainly hoped I would return to the estate once I finished, ma’am, but I finally convinced them my time would be better spent right now working for Mr. Hardison.”

  It was not an entirely unprecedented move on Pence’s part.
More and more of the young aristocracy, second sons in particular, were turning to the new industrial trades. They didn’t all need the money, necessarily, but all who hoped to prosper in the new century knew that industry would soon outstrip agriculture as the primary business of the American Dominions. Especially now that the war with France had officially ended, and the manufacturers could turn their attention away from battle machines to consumer goods once more.

  Still, Pence’s father had inherited and built on a fortune in the import-export line, and one might have expected his only son to study some polite subject at university then return to take over the family business.

  “I’m . . . rather handy, you see,” the young man offered in explanation of his aberration from the traditional path.

  “Well, you’re certainly in good company. I’m quite sure Baron Hardison’s father never expected his son to become a makesmith either, but he seems to have done quite well in that vocation.”

  Matthew’s mouth curled up at one corner. “He doesn’t like us to use his title, ma’am.”

  “Of course. Mister Hardison. Excuse me, I had forgotten. You may convey my compliments to him, Mr. Pence. The helmet is exactly what I needed.”

  * * *

  IN THE SKY, things were quiet. Cold, and sometimes uncomfortable, but blessedly quiet except for the intermittent rush of the gas feed and the occasional radio transmission.

  When Charlotte had first seen the tiny dirigible called Gossamer Wing, she hadn’t understood how it could possibly do all its inventor claimed. It looked more fantasy than machine.

  Indeed, she thought as she made a minute adjustment to starboard and began the steep climb to cruising altitude, the miniature airship was her fantasy embodied, for all it was a technological marvel. One of her fantasies, at any rate.

  A pity it must remain invisible to all but a few, and unknown to most. That was its purpose, however: high-altitude surveillance, nearly undetectable to the naked eye or even the average spyglass. That, and undetectable second-story work. Charlotte hoped to become the first field agent to use the vehicle in France, gathering information in an entirely new way, going where others could not. And then, assuming her superior in Le Havre approved the final mission, she might even use the Gossamer Wing to help prevent the French from developing a weapon that was almost guaranteed to bring war back to the globe.

  Charlotte’s ears clicked and she glanced at the altimeter, knowing she was near five thousand feet up even before the gauge confirmed it. Easing her angle of ascent, she smiled at the soft chime that marked another thousand feet of altitude above baseline. Her new inner ears were no less a wonder than the Gossamer Wing, and they allowed her to enjoy this part of her work in a way she’d never anticipated.

  Silence. It was so rare, so precious. Even an empty house was never truly silent. There were always servants, guests, the nagging voice of one’s own determined conscience. There was always the overwhelming absence, roaring at her by omission, reminding her the house she lived in had been meant for a family. That it was her husband’s house, and he had died before she even learned to be a proper wife to him.

  Reaching for the valve to her left, Charlotte cut the gas feed to the silken blimp and relaxed her legs within the rigging. Floating suspended, easy as a cloud, like a waking dream of effortless flight. The chill air swept through her, swept her clean, swept away all the doubts that gathered like so much dust while her feet were on the ground.

  “Shhhhh-ch clear today but shhhhhh-whoosh-ch-ch-ch devil are you, Charlotte?”

  She chuckled as she toggled the microphone switch. For all his many years of experience in the field, her father was still terrible at radio communications, always forgetting to hold the transmitter button down as he spoke.

  “I’m directly over your house, sir. In fact”—she swiveled her jaw to the right, nudging the ocular control to zoom in on the ground below, raking her gaze over the scene until she found what she was looking for—“you’re wearing that red cravat I like. Very dashing, but you have crumbs in your beard.”

  “Bloody chhhhhh-shhhh.”

  Her laugh overloaded the microphone, creating a moment of sharp feedback. Charlotte cursed and jerked her head at the sound, ruining her focus and causing her to bobble downward. The ringing vibration and sudden shift in position made her head and stomach swim for several moments, and she had to clench her teeth to keep her breakfast kippers from making an unwanted reappearance.

  “Remember thou art mortal,” she chided herself. An airship, particularly one as tiny and responsive as this one, was no place for tomfoolery.

  “Godlike aspirations, my dear? Perhaps it’s time you came down to earth.”

  That had come through loud and clear, at least.

  “Presently. I’m still testing the controls on the new helmet. I need my mouth for that. I’ll speak to you when I’m down.” After toggling the radio off, she put the proof to her words by gripping the flat leather tab between her teeth and giving an experimental tug. A whirr sounded and a gray-violet filter snicked into place over the ocular’s primary lens. The world jumped into sharp contrast below her. Another tug, and a glare filter darkened the view. Charlotte thought such a filter might be especially welcome when flying over water.

  Whirr . . . snick. A moment’s confusion resolved as she realized she was seeing a version of the world filtered to show only red.

  Whirr . . . snick. Green, blue.

  Clever.

  She had been very specific with her requests in the past, and what she had received from the Makesmith Baron had been meticulous, beautifully crafted, and precisely what she had asked him to build.

  But when he asked the purpose and she gave him no further guidance than “camouflage,” he had given her all this. Options she hadn’t even known existed, tools she would never have thought to ask for.

  “I may never give him more than one word of direction again,” she mumbled to herself around the mouthful of leather. The movement of her jaw triggered the sensitive device, sending it clicking through several filter changes before it stopped. Disoriented, Charlotte clutched too hard at the airship’s pitch control, skewing sharply downward several yards before she could correct. She very nearly lost her stomach’s payload again. And again, she knew she had nobody but herself to blame.

  Two

  UPPER NEW YORK DOMINION

  “IT’S FINALLY READY, then.”

  Neville, Viscount Darmont, sounded more resigned than pleased at the news as he led the way inside the stately manor house.

  “I believe so.”

  “You’re resolved to do this, Charlotte? It’s not too late for them to assign somebody else, you know.”

  She whirled on him, snapping her gloves against her thigh. “This is my project, Father. Mine.” Then, more gently, “Do I ask for so much? I only want to serve the Crown as you do. As Reginald did. You of all people should never question my motivation.”

  “Oh, you hate the French, I’ve no doubt at all of that, and I won’t say you’ve no cause.” He rushed on when Charlotte opened her mouth to interrupt. “But I might well question your objectivity as well as your fitness for such a dangerous assignment. You have doubts of your own, or you wouldn’t have gone behind my back from the start to volunteer your field services with the Agency. You knew I would object, and you knew why.”

  “You’re my father, of course you object. It’s dangerous. I didn’t go behind your back, though. I merely waited until Lord Waverly had approved my participation and I had completed initial training before informing you of my plan to follow in your illustrious footsteps, sir.”

  The deliberately applied charm, the hint of a dimple at the end of her statement, was a rare glimpse at the impish Charlotte of the past. She knew it would distract and soften her father. He had always been helpless before the dimple.

  “My dear, I would tell you that Regin
ald would have hated to see you risk yourself, but the truth is I’m sure he would have found you every bit as enthralling in this as he seemed to find you in all other things.” They had reached her father’s study, and he took his usual chair with more than his usual sigh of relief to be off his feet.

  Enthralling? Reginald had always seemed so controlled, so determined and deliberate. Enthralled sounded like such an undisciplined, hapless state of being. Charlotte’s skepticism must have shown, because her father smiled and shook his head as she seated herself opposite him. “I forget how short a time you really knew him as an adult. As his friend, I assure you he was more captivated by you than he ever let on.”

  Despite all the secrets their lives held, Charlotte and her father had never sought to conceal their thoughts and memories of her late husband, Darmont’s protégé. She found it a relief to talk about Reginald openly, fondly. Most people were painfully delicate about it, though, including her mother who still treated her like a Tragic Young Widow.

  “He did let on, in his own way. But thank you.”

  “There’s a more pressing problem. Can you really spend weeks, perhaps months, effectively hiding how much you despise the French, even under this new Égalité government? You will tend to encounter a fair number of them in France.”

  “But Father,” she said, dimpling again, “J’adore Paris au printemps. Et Honfleur est tout a fait charmante!”

  “This isn’t a game or a masquerade ball. Nor is it the office work you’re accustomed to doing for the Agency. It could be months, Charlotte,” he reminded her. He apparently had some selective immunity to her charm, or perhaps her demeanor was simply not as charming in French. “Yet another matter presses. In addition to recovering the documents and determining whether the French have started building their own device yet, Murcheson still wants a professional consultation on-site regarding some of the equipment at the new facility. He agrees with me that we can kill several birds with one stone by bringing in somebody from the outside, and Whitehall has approved a plan that will provide the perfect cover for you both.”