Scarlet Devices Read online

  But if I win, it really would spite Pence so very, very well. It would show him he was wrong all along.

  Then, clear as a bell, it occurred to Eliza that she didn’t have to choose one reason. It could be both. Or rather, she could do it for herself, as a rare adventure per Charlotte’s urging, and just accept wiping the smug look off Matthew’s face as one more happy consequence of victory.

  • • •

  IF MATTHEW WAS surprised to see Eliza Hardison approach him at the ball that night, he hid it well. At least he hoped he hid it well. He suspected he might have gaped, at first, at her overall appearance. She was breathtaking in a pale pink, shimmering gown that would have looked bland and insipid on most girls. On Eliza, it looked like she had blushed, and the seamstress had dyed the fabric to match that delicate glow. Her snowy skin was luminous, the contrast with her black hair astonishing.

  Lovely as she was, however, he didn’t quite trust the sweet smile she bestowed upon him. He hadn’t completely forgotten the girl he’d known four years ago. In fact, in this light, he thought he could even make out a freckle or two. Though he’d have to look closer to know for sure.

  “Miss Hardison, you look beautiful this evening,” he said with a nod.

  Demure as a girl in her first season, Eliza fluttered her eyelashes and gazed bashfully at the parquet floor. “Thank you, Mr. Pence.”

  “I’d still be honored to claim that first waltz if it’s available.”

  She handed over her dance card with no complaint, and Matthew caught a whiff of jasmine as he bent to write his name on the flimsy page. He was just straightening when she spoke, stunning him to silence.

  “Matthew, I know we’ve had our little disagreements in the past, and for my part I just wanted you to know that I don’t bear you any ill will at all. I’m sure you only had my best interests at heart all those times you kept me out of the workshop. We should consider this a fresh start. Pax?” She offered him her hand, surprising him with the strength of her handshake. It was all business, in distinct contrast to her dainty appearance.

  “Of course. We’ve both grown up a bit since then. I think we can let bygones be bygones.” The strains of a waltz floated over to them and Matthew crooked his arm, leading Eliza to the dance floor with a growing sense of surreality. This beautiful creature on his arm, agreeing to dance with him, encouraging a new perspective on their relationship . . . was it possible this was the same girl he’d seen as a pesky little sister for so many years? He could barely reconcile this Eliza with the one he’d known four years ago, freckles or no freckles.

  “You’re right,” she murmured once they had started their dance. She leaned in so he might hear her better over the music, and her perfume wafted toward him again, enticing. “We have both grown up since we saw each other last. It’s funny, Lady Hardison and I were just talking about that earlier, in the garden. About how part of growing up is learning who we’re meant to be.”

  “And who are you meant to be, do you think, Eliza?” Matthew could hardly feel his feet crossing the floor. This afternoon’s confession to Dexter had gone better than he’d ever hoped, and Eliza’s offer of a truce had stripped away another source of tension he hadn’t recognized until its absence. Now the dance seemed charmed, the night itself seemed charmed. Everything in the world felt promising.

  “That’s just the thing,” she said, flicking a glance at him then quickly looking away once more. He tightened his hold at her waist just a fraction, then reminded himself she was Dexter’s cousin, and loosened his fingers again. “I don’t quite know who I’m meant to be. Charlotte says it’s time I found out.”

  “Lady Hardison is wise beyond her years, I’ve always thought. You should follow her advice.” He thought that Charlotte would make an excellent role model for Eliza: beautiful, unassuming, ladylike and comfortable in the role of administering a large, if unconventional, estate. She’d always been lovely and gracious, even as a young widow, but since marrying Dexter she’d gained a whole new, vibrant energy. The glow of impending motherhood made her even more appealing. She was everything a woman should be.

  “Oh, I intend to,” Eliza assured him with a smile. “That’s part of why I sought you out.”

  “It is? Did she suggest any particular course of action?” His brain misfired at the sudden influx of ideas about possible courses of action Eliza might take with him. None of them were appropriate for him to contemplate taking with Baron Hardison’s maiden cousin. In fact, none of them were appropriate to think about in relationship to any maiden. He used the physics of the next turn to swing Eliza a little wider than necessary, putting another few inches of propriety between their swaying bodies.

  Eliza shook her head. “It wasn’t really that sort of talk. Well, she did, but that wasn’t the important part. The main thing is she made me see that I’ve cast myself in a certain role for most of my life, but that role is still a product of the expectations placed on me. Charlotte said I should find a way to escape those preconceptions about myself. Allow my life to take its natural course.”

  “Lady Hardison is a perfect example of that right now, I dare say. I gather she did some sort of government work prior to marrying Dexter, but having seen her then and now, I don’t think anybody could argue with how well this more natural role agrees with her. She’s clearly much happier.”

  Eliza looked taken aback for a moment, making Matthew wonder if he’d inadvertently said something offensive. Then she coughed, sounding almost as though she were choking, but waved him off with a satin-gloved hand when he asked if she’d like to sit down. In a moment, with a slightly strained expression, she spoke again.

  “You know, you’re absolutely right. It was so foolish of me to struggle against my nature all this time. All that talk of monographs and so forth. It’s time I stepped forward and accepted the cards destiny so clearly wants to deal me. If I do, will you congratulate me, Matthew?”

  “Con-congratulate you?” He could tell she was being oblique and had an uneasy feeling he ought to be aware of her meaning. How had he lost track of the conversation so quickly and thoroughly? “I suppose so. It’s not every day a young woman reaches out to grasp her destiny, is it? Congratulations for . . . your new endeavor.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean now,” Eliza said. She met his eyes at last, the triumphant gleam in her own setting off alarm bells in every corner of Matthew’s psyche. “I meant in San Francisco, after I’ve beaten you out to win the Sky and Steam Rally.”

  FOUR

  THE HARDISON STEAM car was a clear, bright crimson. As soon as Eliza had seen it, she’d declared she wanted a ball gown in exactly that shade.

  “It’s . . . pink,” Matthew pronounced when he arrived, along with his vehicle, at the dirigible hangar being used as a pre-rally staging facility. Eliza waved him reluctantly past the security detail guarding the velvet rope that cordoned off their area of the hangar. Unlike Eliza, who was clad in a practical coverall over her walking dress, Matthew was cool and crisp in a finely cut spring suit of pale linen with an impeccable blue watered-silk waistcoat. Eliza thought he looked far too buttoned-up and proper to be loitering in a garage. Suddenly she felt frumpy, not dashing at all, in the shapeless coverall.

  “It’s a light shade of red,” Dexter corrected Matthew sharply, peering out from behind the boiler.

  “Amaranth,” Eliza suggested, smiling a little too sweetly. “I think it’s a beautiful color.”

  “Runs like a top,” Dexter said, “and that’s all that really matters.”

  Eliza ran a proprietary finger along the driver’s side door. “It will get me where I’m going.” She let a hint of skepticism color her expression as she glanced toward Matthew’s steam car. A team was just unloading the sleek, gunmetal gray vehicle from a trailer, their job complicated by the fact that one of the tires had apparently gone flat during transport. A small thing, and irrelevant to the car’s functio
nality, but Eliza couldn’t resist a snicker when Matthew cursed.

  “You’ll need a realignment,” Dexter remarked.

  At least he was in the right place for such a thing. The vast hangar had been designed to accommodate several dozen luxury air yachts, and it could have housed a hundred steam cars with room left over. There was plenty of space for the eighteen rally cars and all the equipment it might possibly take to ready them, and the swarming attendants looked insignificant in the cavernous building.

  Eliza took a deep breath and released it slowly, trying for the hundredth time to calm the nerves that had her stomach in knots. It was no use. Excitement filled the air she breathed, a buzz of anticipation that had greeted her on her arrival that morning had never ebbed. The press were not allowed into the hangar itself, and for that she was grateful; Dexter had warned her they would mob her whenever she left the hangar, and more would probably be waiting outside the hotel.

  A barricade and a line of policemen secured the open hangar door, but Eliza could sense the crush just beyond them, the babble of reporters and flash of camera bulbs at the fore, the sea of spectators pressing in from behind. The “door” was really the whole end of the hangar, slid to the sides on tracks. It had to be that wide and tall to admit the largest of the dirigibles usually housed there, but the opening gave the space an oddly unprotected feeling.

  “They’re like sharks,” Matthew said, following her gaze to the wide wedge of light spilling in from outside. “Circling at the first scent of blood.”

  “Has there been blood already? We haven’t even started off.”

  “Of course there’s blood. Don’t you know anything about your competition? Look over there,” he said, nodding in the direction of a long cream-and-white steam car with an elaborately filigreed copper boiler housing. “Whitcombe and Sons, out of Manchester. That’s the fourth or so son in the light gray. He’s the driver.”

  “He’s twice your size, and three times mine,” Eliza whispered. “How can he hope to compete for speed in the dirigible leg?”

  “The second smallest son is the one standing next to him. They’re like a race of giants. But they didn’t want to hire a driver. Rumor has it their company is close to going under. They need the win, and they need to keep the proceeds in the family.” Matthew sounded more thoughtful than coldly speculative, but Eliza reminded herself that whatever information he had gathered on the others, he’d also sought for tidbits to use against her.

  Eliza studied the even larger man next to the one in dove gray, then considered the whole Whitcombe family. They seemed to be assembled in force around the lovely rally car, apparently arguing the finer points of boiler maintenance, if their gestures were any indication. Not a happy crew, on the whole. And large, to a man.

  “No women in the bunch, I see.”

  “Mother Whitcombe is dealing with the press outside. I passed her on my way in. Now, you see the white steam car behind me with the red and blue racing stripes? That’s Moreau, the driver for the French consortium. All he has to do is show up to have reporters crawling over him, of course. But he’s also brought an outrageous number of mysterious packages with him, and you can see his car is loaded to the gills. Rumors abound as to what might be in those boxes and hampers.”

  She stole a look around Matthew’s shoulder at the steam car in question. The canvas top was down and the car was tightly packed, just as he’d said, with bundles and baskets galore. As she watched, the mechanics raised the roof, hiding the curious cargo. “It looks like he’s going on a very extravagant picnic.”

  “Aye, perhaps. But I wouldn’t put it past him to have something far more sinister in mind.”

  “You’re just prejudiced against the French,” she scoffed, turning back to her own vehicle. Dexter was fastening the boiler hatch with an air of satisfaction.

  “Of course he’s prejudiced against the French,” Dexter told her. “He’s also trying to scare you. She won’t fall for it, Matthew. Charlotte and I have given her all the information she needs to win the race handily. And I’ve told her all she needs to know to keep this engine in tip-top condition, isn’t that right, Eliza?”

  She snorted. “I could teach you a thing or two about that engine, and you know it.” But the truth was, if Matthew had been trying to worry her, he’d succeeded. This infuriated Eliza, but she couldn’t help peering around at her adversaries, wondering what other secrets lay waiting to be discovered and exploited. And what had they learned about her in turn, that they might try to use against her? Matthew couldn’t be the only one utilizing the psychological approach.

  “You and Charlotte would have done better to spend the time finding another driver,” Matthew said, reminding Eliza why she was so determined to beat him. “I still say this is insanity. You won’t be safe, Eliza. Your parents are mad to let you participate in this.”

  “Matthew—” Dexter started in a warning tone.

  “No, Dexter. Let Mr. Pence have his say.” She turned to him. “You were expressing your concern, sir?”

  He eyed her warily. “You’re well aware of my concerns.”

  Eliza nodded. “You’ve certainly made no effort to keep them to yourself. Let me address them yet again. I’m past the age of majority, sir. My parents may not be thrilled, but there’s no question of them ‘letting’ me do anything. I’ll be exactly as safe as any of the other competitors, which is to say not very. And you do realize I’m not the only female driver? There are three others. Shouldn’t you be making the rounds expressing your sentiments to them as well?”

  “You’re the only one I know. And besides, they’re all older, and you’re so . . .” He looked miserable but determined, and for a heartbeat Eliza felt pity for Matthew.

  “So . . . ?”

  He gestured toward her, then vaguely at the rest of the vast hangar. “So . . . well, dammit, you’re the only one I know!”

  Something stayed her automatic response, which would have been to snap at him. After a moment, Eliza said, “Part of me truly appreciates your obviously genuine feeling on this matter, Matthew. Truly.”

  “However . . .” Dexter murmured. Both of them glared at him, and he shrugged with an unrepentant look.

  Eliza turned back to Matthew. “It is the same small part that will enable me to maintain a sportsmanlike demeanor when I accept your congratulations on my win a few weeks from now.”

  “If that should occur, Eliza, no one will be more relieved than I.”

  With a stiff little bow, Matthew turned and stalked away, leaving Eliza feeling slightly embarrassed.

  “He’s behaving as though I’d deliberately set out to hurt his feelings,” she told Dexter with a frustrated sigh. “I can’t even enjoy a little competitive banter.”

  “Don’t let it spoil the win for you.”

  “Do you think I have a chance to win?” She knew Dexter would tell her the truth, which was probably why she had resisted asking him this question until now.

  He leaned back against the fender, making no effort to hide his scrutiny of the other competitors. Seventeen steam cars, each as brilliantly turned out as the Hardison entry. Competitors from the American Dominions, England and Scotland, France and Germany and a handful of other countries. Eliza knew she was by far the youngest driver in the field.

  “If it came down to skill at driving a steam car and dealing with any emergency maintenance that arises,” Dexter finally said, “I’d give you an unqualified yes. Charlotte says you’re a natural with the dirigible too. Nobody is a better judge of that than Charlotte, so I think your skills will serve you well in that leg of the race. And of course I wouldn’t have asked you if I didn’t think you had a chance. But there’s more to the rally than driving and flying.”

  “True.” She leaned next to him, echoing his posture, arms folded across her chest. “You don’t think I rate as well at navigation and so on?” Her mind fl
ew to the case of maps, the compass and other equipment she planned to rely on to get her safely across the continent.

  “You’re just fine at navigation. No, I’d say if you have a weakness, it’s the intangible part. You’re determined to win, but you’re not interested in your competition. Well, not in most of your competition.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Pence wasn’t wrong. You have sixteen other people to outdrive and outsmart, Eliza. Not just Matthew. Most of these drivers won’t even make it to San Francisco. They’ll be lucky to reach Colorado Springs. Car problems, illness, exhaustion, those mythical poisonous gas clouds or snow monsters in the Sierras, any number of things might happen. But until they fall by the wayside, you still have an entire field to contend with. You might not have studied their weaknesses, but they’ve certainly studied yours. Psychology plays a large role in a race like this. You do have one advantage though.”

  She frowned at him. “What is that?”

  Dexter tapped her nose, giving her an unusually impudent grin and suddenly looking like a young boy, for all his size. “You’re an unknown quantity and they’re almost certainly underestimating you, just like Matthew.” He uncrossed his arms and fiddled with his socket wrench. “You know, your race against him really begins on the last day, assuming you each make it to the checkpoints within a reasonable range of one another. Until then, you ought to consider forming an alliance with Matthew. Help him if he needs it, let him help you. The others have already started making friends, aligning themselves together. Most of them know one another from previous races. This is an endurance test and they know that. They’ll be pacing themselves, enjoying the event and sizing things up, not cutting throats right from the start.”

  Eliza could see he was right. Even as Dexter had spoken, the French consortium driver had wandered over to the vehicle of another Englishman, a man of exceedingly short stature whose virulent green steam car had been famously custom-modified to allow him to drive it. They were chatting like old friends while the shorter man patted the glossy enamel of his car’s fender as though stroking a beloved pet. The consortium driver was opening a bottle of wine, which he apparently meant to share.