“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 Reginald 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.”