Dragons & Dirigibles Read online

  An impish smile quirked the corner of the child’s face. “I’m the crazy relative they hide in the attic.”

  Melody laughed. “Of course. How good of you to join me. Have you had breakfast?”

  The tiny nose wrinkled. “Porridge. Always porridge. Plain. I didn’t eat any.”

  “Well, that’s just nasty.” Melody gestured to the chair in the corner. “I don’t like plain porridge either. Pull that up and you can keep me company. Do you like scones with jam?”

  “Yes, please.” She dragged the chair over to the bedside and sat. “And bacon, if you’ve any leftover when you’re done.”

  “I think there’s enough to share.” Melody handed the girl half of her scone. “My name is Melody. What’s yours?”

  “Emma.” She spoke around a mouthful of scone.

  “That’s a lovely name. Is Lord Blackwell your father, Emma?” Despite her exotic coloring and tilted eyes, there was perhaps a trace of the man in the girl’s strong chin and wide forehead, and her clothes suggested quality under their wrinkles and dust.

  Emma’s lip quivered. “He was. Now my uncle is the earl.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Blast the man for not telling her about his niece before she stuck her foot in her mouth. Melody had no idea what to say next, so she simply handed over a rasher of bacon. After some silent chewing, she asked, “How old are you, Emma?”

  “Ten.” Emma chewed the bacon. “Can I see your airship? How fast does it go? What happened to the rest of your crew?”

  “The Zephyr was a new kind of ship, designed for just a pilot, and no crew or passengers.” Melody sipped her coffee and steadily fed her breakfast to Emma, who listened avidly. “She was fast, meant for taking messages or getting a single person quickly from one place to another, without making much noise.”

  “Why would you want to do that? Can’t you just teletext?” Emma helped herself to more strawberry jam for her scone, making the weight ratio approximately half scone, half jam.

  “Not every place has teletext cables,” Melody reminded her. “Like here, for instance.” Teletext was the predecessor to the telephone, sending small written messages back and forth over wires. In many places where the telephone hadn’t reached yet, teletext was still used.

  “Oh, we used to have text.” Emma licked a blob of jam from her fingers. “Then Mummy got mad at Daddy and he had them disconnected.”

  “Oh? Does your uncle know about that?” Melody snagged the last slice of bacon before her guest could filch it.

  Emma shrugged. “Don’t know. He doesn’t ask me about anything like that. Just tries to make me study embroidery and piano and watercolors.” She stuck out her tongue.

  “Don’t you like those subjects?” Melody would have gone insane at that age with only a traditional feminine curriculum in the schoolroom.

  “No.” Emma shuddered. “Have you ever been to the Americas?” Emma looked at her wistfully. “Or Africa? I want to go to Egypt and be an explorer.”

  “I haven’t.” Melody sighed. “I’d love to, though. Someday. I’ve been all over England, and even to Ireland. My mother has family there. One time, my mother and sister and I went to Paris. Most of the last few years, I was at university, though.”

  “You went to university? I didn’t think girls were allowed. Did you dress up like a boy?”

  “No. There’s a special section for girls now—girls who want to learn sciences. It’s called Lovelace College. I went there to study engineering.” Ada, Lady Lovelace, who’d developed the code for Lord Babbage’s analytical engine, had established the college in her will, to grant degrees to women in the sciences. Melody had been in one of the first classes, so the program was still new enough to be unfamiliar to those who didn’t follow advances in education. Just as Babbage had changed the world with his invention, so had Lady Lovelace opened the polite world to the idea of professional females.

  “I could go to university?” Emma sighed. “It doesn’t matter. My uncle would never let me go. He wants me to be a lady.” She spit that word out as if it was a curse.

  Melody chuckled. “You can be both, you know. Most people think I’m a lady when I’m at home and not in an airship. I wear corsets and go to balls just like everyone else. My sister, Lady Findlay of Torkholm, is a physician as well as a baroness. She went to Lovelace too.”

  “You’re bamming me.” Emma shot her a reproachful look. “There’s no such thing as a lady doctor.”

  “But there is. It’s hard, I’ll admit, and there are still some problems with acceptance, but it is possible now for ladies to have professions.” Melody knew several, many affiliated with the Order. “When you’re a little older, your uncle might be more reasonable about your education. Right now, I think he’s still figuring out how to be an earl instead of a captain. And he probably has a lot to learn about getting along with a little girl.” Actually, she thought he had a stick the size of a ship’s mast up his bum, but she wasn’t going to say that to a child.

  “Could you talk to him? Tell him what you just told me?”

  Melody shook her head. “He barely knows me, and what he does know, he doesn’t approve of. He isn’t going to listen to me.” Not unless she hit him with a wrench, which would be horribly rude, given that she was a guest in his house, albeit an uninvited one. “But perhaps when you’re a little older, it will have become more common for women to study. You never know. He may come around with time.”

  Emma nodded despite the doubt that filled her eyes. “Can you tell me about Paris? Or Ireland? The farthest I’ve ever been is London, and that was two whole years ago.”

  A lifetime, in child years. “Are you supposed to be upstairs at your lessons?” Melody didn’t want to have a governess searching the house for the child.

  “I’m supposed to be in my room, practicing stitches. Mrs. Cranston likes to nap in the mornings. She won’t be looking for me until noon.”

  “That’s odd for a governess.” Melody sighed and patted the bed beside her. “I’m happy for the company. Come up and let me tell you about my first airship flight.”

  * * *

  Victor shoved his hands through his hair. “Where the hell can she be?” He’d stopped in the nursery to see Emma, but she was nowhere to be found. The governess, the third in the past two months, was in her bed, nursing a hangover. His niece was enough to make anyone take to the bottle, but still, that was unacceptable. He’d dismissed her on the spot and fetched Barnaby. “She’s got to be somewhere. She’s just a little girl. She can’t have gone far. She couldn’t have gotten out of the house unseen.”

  Barnaby quirked an eye at Victor. “Just a little girl, eh? How old were you when your grandfather took you out to sea the first time?”

  “Twelve. Why?” Victor ground his teeth. Barnaby had a nasty habit of trying to teach Victor lessons about life at the most inconvenient times. He’d been a hand on that first ship and had been with Victor ever since.

  “And how old is the young lady?” Barnaby crossed his arms, clearly not moving until he’d made his point.

  “Ten.” It was an effort to keep his fingers from clenching into fists. “And don’t I pay your salary, old man? Aren’t you supposed to do what I tell you to?”

  “No, I’m supposed to do what’s best for you. Not the same thing.” Barnaby lifted a bushy white eyebrow. “Now. Two years before you went to sea, did you consider yourself a ‘little boy’? Could you have gotten out of the house with no one the wiser?”

  “Of course not and of course I could have. Hell, the secret passages alone—damn it!” He slammed a fist into a sturdy door frame. “She’s Dick’s daughter. He would have told her about the secret passages. She could be anywhere.”

  “Aye. She could.” Barnaby’s eyes twinkled. “But if you were her, and you were ten and mad to see the world, and an airship crashed onto your lawn, where would you be?”

  The light dawned and Victor nodded. “Either out inspecting the wreckage, or pestering the pilot.” H
e tipped his head at his mentor. “Will you go check the barn? I should stop in and pay my respects to our guest.”

  Barnaby bowed in a parody of a proper butler. “Very good, sir.” He smirked and clicked his heels before turning away. “You’ll find a stack of novels on the hall table outside her room. I liberated them from Mrs. Ritchie.”

  “Thank you, Barnaby.” He only hoped the woman wasn’t filling Emma’s head with nonsense. The girl was already incorrigible as it was—and now he’d need to find another governess. Dick had to be cursing him from the grave. If this dirigible pilot wasn’t involved with the smugglers, she was at the very least part of some hex.

  Jaw clenched, he picked up the stack of books and knocked on the guestroom door. Hushed giggles from inside allowed him to relax to an extent.

  “Come in.”

  He entered, somewhat surprised to find Emma on the bed, not hiding underneath it. “Miss MacKay? My butler thought these might help keep you entertained in your solitude.” He held up the novels.

  Her lips twitched. “Thank you, my lord. I’d invite you to join us for breakfast, but we seem to have cleared the tray.” Victor looked over the visitor, relieved to see that while she seemed pale and drawn, she didn’t appear to be ill or in dire circumstances. She also seemed somewhat curvier than she had yesterday, which must be the fault of wearing his grandmother’s ugly bed jacket. Why hadn’t someone burned that monstrosity years ago?

  Emma giggled again, then caught herself and looked up at him, wide-eyed. “I’m sorry for leaving my room, Uncle Victor.”

  He mean to drag her out of here to discuss the governess, but he could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen her this relaxed and happy with anyone but him. He drew in a breath and indicated the chair beside the bed. “May I?”

  “Of course.” Miss MacKay did have impeccable manners when she chose to use them. As the daughter of a baronet, she was probably better bred than he was, come to think of it. “What can we do for you?”

  “I have a question for you, Emma. Does Mrs. Cranston often sleep late in the mornings?” He kept as much censure out of his voice as possible. “And what are you supposed to be doing when she does?”

  “That’s two questions.” Emma slapped her hand over her lips as soon as the pert comment came out, and hung her head. “Sorry.”

  He ought to take her to task, but the MacKay woman glared at him and Emma bit her lip as if she was about to cry. He settled for, “Don’t worry about it. Just answer both, please. Does she always sleep until noon?”

  “Most days.” Emma shrugged. “She says she gets headaches and I make them worse.”

  Of course a boisterous child would aggravate hangovers. “I see. And who is supposed to be minding you when she’s asleep?”

  Emma shrugged again. “It used to be Sarah, the nursery maid, but she went away last week—Mrs. Cranston sacked her.”

  “Did she? And who replaced her as nursery maid?” A small tic formed in Victor’s cheek.

  “Nobody. Mrs. Cranston didn’t want anyone else in the nursery.” Emma seemed to think these were perfectly ordinary occurrences. She licked a drop of something—jam?—off her thumb.

  “So who cleans up the nursery?” Victor had been up there—it was tidied on a regular basis.

  “Me, mostly. I like things shipshape, like Daddy taught me before...”

  “Before what?” Victor’s jaw clenched.

  Emma winced. “Before...he started yelling all the time. Mama said he drank too much.”

  “Dear God.” Victor dropped his head into his hand, but not before he saw Miss MacKay wrap an arm around Emma’s waist and hug her close. “Well, Emma, it looks like you get to spend today with Mrs. Ritchie. Perhaps you can read one of your books in the kitchen or something.”

  Emma bit her lip and leaned into her new friend. Her chin quivered and her eyes opened even wider. “Can’t I stay here? Mrs. Ritchie doesn’t like me.”

  “Nonsense. She’s staff, and you’re a daughter of the house. It’s her job to like you.” How had Victor overlooked the fact that his niece was afraid of the housekeeper? This day just got worse and worse.

  “If it wouldn’t be too big of an inconvenience, perhaps Lady Emma could stay with me? We can keep each other company while we read our books.” Miss MacKay spoke softly, over the child’s head. Her soft brown eyes drew him in, luring him into agreeing just so he could see her smile again. “Just until you get the staff situation sorted out, of course.”

  “Yes, please, Uncle!” Emma bounced, causing Miss MacKay to wince in pain. It also made her chest jiggle nicely. He quickly looked away. Emma went on. “Miss Melody is ever so interesting. She went to university and everything and her sister is a lady doctor.”

  “Emma, I think the lady has just been spinning tall tales for your benefit.” He narrowed his eyes at the annoying female.

  She glared back, not giving an inch. “No, it’s true. I realize you’ve been at sea, but things have changed in the last decade in England. Ask someone about Lovelace College, Oxford. They can look up the name MacKay—Geneva in medicine and Melody in engineering. I may be an unusual sort of lady, my lord, but I do not spin tales.”

  “Very well, then, but that is not the life ahead for Lady Emma. She’s the daughter of an earl. She can look much higher than a profession, and I won’t have her encouraged to ignore the subjects she needs to know in order to be accepted by society.” He held out his hand. “Emma, come along.”

  “But Uncle...” She kept her hands in her lap and stared down at them.

  “What subjects are those? Embroidery? That’s a pleasant hobby for some, but not every woman enjoys it. Watercolors or pianoforte? Again, useless if there’s no natural talent or inclination. You’re doing her no favors by trying to stifle her intellect and curiosity.” As the MacKay woman’s voice rose, her burr thickened.

  Victor found himself almost smiling at her fierce defense of the girl. She seemed to mean well, even if she was wrong. After all, what could a woman who wore trousers know about society?

  Except according to his steward, who’d placed the call to the Marquess Lake, the man was not just familiar with her as an employee, but had seemed personally concerned for her welfare. Was she his mistress? The idea left a bad taste in his mouth. Even more reason he should keep her away from Emma. Meanwhile, he had to figure out what to do for the rest of the afternoon.

  “Please, Uncle? Just for today?” She wriggled on the bed again.

  “We’ll leave the door ajar, if that helps,” Miss MacKay added. “I have a young nephew, and numerous friends who trust me with their children, including Lord Lake. I’m not going to drop her out the window, I promise.”

  “All right. Just for today, mind you.” He couldn’t think of where else to put the girl. “But Emma, get down from the bed. Your jumping hurts Miss MacKay’s leg.”

  Aghast, Emma scrambled over to the chair and into Victor’s lap. “Thank you, Uncle Victor.” She planted a smacking kiss on his cheek.

  “Behave, sprite. I’ll send a maid down with some of your schoolbooks. He ought to make her work on her stitchery, but he supposed one day off wouldn’t hurt. The MacKay woman’s words rang in his head. Did Emma truly hate needlework? He didn’t much care for mending nets or sails himself. “Is history acceptable? Or literature?”

  “Yes, sir.” She kissed him again, then slipped off his lap so he could leave the room.

  “What the hell did I ever do to you, Dick?” he muttered as he went downstairs. “Or is it Father cursing me from beyond?” That made more sense, he supposed. His rakehell father had never much approved of Victor and his serious, deliberate nature. Seeing him inherit probably had made the old man turn in his grave. Especially if what Emma said was true. Had Dick turned into a drunkard as well? Maybe his family was cursed, indeed.

  * * *

  By late afternoon Melody was ready to crawl out to the barn to see her ship if that was what it took to get out of this room. Even w
ith her chatty companion, the day had dragged on in relentless tedium. True, her ankle throbbed and would heal faster the more she rested it, but she had begun to think about chewing the damn thing off. A day after the crash, all the little scrapes and bruises were making themselves known, but she was still bored to tears. Emma had gone with Alex Bates to take Birch for a walk, so Melody allowed herself to doze.

  A sharp rap on her door startled her awake, making her jump, which made her yelp.

  “Are you all right in there?” Dr. Farnsworth called through the door.

  “Yes, Doctor. Come in.” She straightened the bed jacket and endeavored to sit up without mishap. This time, Mrs. Ritchie hadn’t come along, leaving the two of them alone in the room. Melody felt a little thrill of scandal at the thought. The doctor was an attractive, eligible man after all, and he didn’t seem to think she was a freak. She gave him her best smile. “It’s so nice to see you again.”

  “You too, Miss MacKay.” He lifted her hand and kissed it. “I must say, you look lovely for someone so recently injured.”

  “I’ve survived worse.”

  He shared her smile and got down to business. His examination was quick and competent and told her nothing she didn’t already know. She would mend and she needed more rest. She couldn’t quite tell if his assurance that she couldn’t travel had more to do with his flirtation or with sound medical theory. Either way, Melody accepted that she wasn’t going anywhere today. Tomorrow, however, was a subject on which she reserved judgment.

  “What I’d really like to do is study the ship here, before I move it,” she said in response to his query about her plans. The thought had occurred to her while she rested. “The sooner I can see what went wrong, the easier it will be to correct the problem.”

  “That’s a brilliant idea,” Farnsworth said. “I’m sure you could stay at the inn, if Lord Blackwell proves a reluctant host. Particularly since you’re unchaperoned.”

  Melody folded her arms across her chest and looked down so he wouldn’t notice her blush. She hadn’t bound her breasts today, and it felt odd to be without either corset or bandeau, particularly since the doctor’s gaze kept straying in that direction. “Birch is sufficient chaperone in my mind, not to mention his lordship’s young niece.”