Sophronia turned to say to the duke, lips trembling with simulated emotions, “I’ll do anything you say, Your Grace, only please don’t hurt him.”
The duke looked utterly disgusted by this. Whether it was the idea that he would waste a bullet on a sootie, or the idea that Sophronia might harbor real feelings for an underling, it was difficult to tell which.
Then Sophronia threw herself at Soap, wrapping her arms and legs about him in the apparent throes of some passionate fit. It was the final embrace of lovers about to be parted forever, worthy of Romeo and Juliet.
In the same movement, like a dance, Soap sank them to their knees. Then he leaned backward and with a shift of weight slid them both off the side of the moving train.
Though the hurlie did enough to slow their fall, it played out too swiftly, and the train had picked up enough speed that they tumbled hard to the track below. The moment they hit the ground Sophronia had out her bladed fan and cut them free of the hurlie. Soap curled himself protectively about her, because he was prone to being stupidly careful with her welfare, so that he took most of the fall—and that on top of his crash earlier.
They ended with Sophronia sprawled indelicately on top of him. She unwound herself, heart beating double, because Soap was lying so very still.
“Soap! Soap?”
“Just give me a moment, miss, gathering my wits back about me. Not every day a lad intentionally throws himself from a train. Not every day I get you on top of me, neither, could be the shock of both at once.”
Sophronia ran her hands over him for the second time in so many minutes, checking for injuries. Not that she was a trained surgeon, to know when a bone was out, but she could at least determine if he had any open wounds.
He shifted uncomfortably under her touch. “Whoa there, miss,” he almost squeaked, “that’s enough of that!”
“Oh, dear me, are you hurt? Have I hurt you more?” She’d never forgive herself if she damaged him further.
“I think most of me’s fine, miss. Just, please, leave off the touching.”
“I do apologize.” Sophronia was mortified. Of course, Soap’s dignity! He’d hardly want her pawing at him. “I was only checking.”
“Whoa, now. Not that I didn’t like it, miss. You can check me much as you like, only later. I think right now we needs must focus on those friendly fellows. They’ve chosen to stay with us and let the train go.”
Sophronia rolled off Soap and onto her back, looking into the sky.
The flywaymen and their military dirigible were sinking down to the berm at the side of the track.
The train was out of sight—Sidheag, Dimity, Dusty, and Bumbersnoot with it.
Sophronia stood and brushed herself off.
Soap unfolded himself slowly. He was shaken by the fall, bruised and scraped quite a bit.
At her solicitous look, he said, “I think it’s all working, but miss, knowing you sure isn’t kind to a body.” He turned to the open field, clearly thinking about the duke and his gun. “Should we make a run for it?”
“Ah,” said Sophronia, “I believe we have reinforcements.”
So it proved to be, for, as the duke disembarked from his new dirigible, two werewolves came dashing up.
Sophronia stood and, dragging a reluctant Soap behind her, went to join this new gathering.
The werewolves chose to face the flywaymen and the duke, rather than the girl and the sootie. Probably wise.
While Sophronia and Soap walked toward them, the wolves, disregarding all sense of propriety, shifted form right there, in front of the whole dirigible crew in the middle of an open field. They had their backs to Sophronia, but she nevertheless took in the sight with no little embarrassment.
Soap said, “I do believe they think you are a lad.”
“Or this is too important to care about my moral standing.”
The dewan was speaking as they ambled closer.
“… and firing on a train, Your Grace! I mean to say, this can’t be authorized by the queen, I should have known about it. And you know you can’t use cannon fire in a private matter on home soil. What were you thinking? The entire countryside reverberated with the sound. People will think we are at war!”
Duke Golborne said, “My dear dewan, there is no one around to hear. Had I known you were running nearby, I might have employed a quieter projectile. Only creatures with such well-developed hearing as yourselves would know to come investigate. I assure you, I was being quite circumspect.”
He had not, of course, answered the dewan’s accusations.
“What on earth possessed you?” the dewan demanded.
“It was necessary. That train was carrying something valuable of mine. I wished it returned.”
“And may I ask what?”
“You may ask, of course.”
Sophronia and Soap pitched up.
“Good evening, my lords, Your Grace,” said Sophronia.
All eyes turned to her. It was uncomfortable. Sophronia was suited to life as an intelligencer because the one thing she really didn’t like was everyone’s attention on her. That, plus full-frontal werewolf, was challenging even for a girl of her acumen.
Captain Niall, standing a little to one side of the dewan, but equally unclothed, swore softly and said, “Miss Temminnick, what on earth?” He grabbed the top hat from his head and held it to cover his privates, mortified that a student should see him in such a state.
The dewan had no such scruples. Even knowing this odd-looking young lad was a girl did not deter him from his annoyance at the whole situation. He was not a man who tolerated being waylaid on a trip.
He frowned at Sophronia. “You again! We are due up north now, and yet you, young lady, seem bent on interfering with everything. What is it this time?”
Sophronia debated how much information to reveal and to what end. Her primary goal still had to be getting Sidheag home, and then getting herself and her companions safely back to Mademoiselle Geraldine’s and out of Pickleman clutches. Best, she thought, to throw herself on his mercy.
“Oh, my lord,” she said, eyelashes fluttering, “I am so grateful you have come! What would we have done without you? This duke has been so wicked. First he tried to steal this train, so we had to keep it away from him, and then he fired his big gun at us. It was very scary.”
“Oh, yes? And why do you think he wants the train?” The dewan was only partly taken in.
“I believe it has something that belongs to the vampires.”
“Oh ho, does it indeed? You mean besides those gold streamers? And which vampires would that be?”
“Westminster Hive.”
“And you can prove it how?”
Curses, we shouldn’t have pushed Monique overboard. “Oh, well, we accidentally tossed the evidence. But I can assure you it does not belong to this man.” Sophronia gave the dewan her steady gaze of pure honesty.
The duke said, “This is preposterous. You can’t possibly take her word against mine!”
“Can’t I?”
“It hardly matters, the train is gone now,” pointed out Captain Niall.
“True, but we could catch it easily enough,” answered the dewan, speaking of their supernatural speed.
Sophronia brightened. “Oh, could you? Good. Lady Kingair is on board.”
“What!” Neither the dewan nor Captain Niall was pleased to hear that.
Sophronia said, “Why do you think we snuck on in the first place? The train was headed north and she wanted to go home. I know she isn’t furry, my lord, but she considers herself a werewolf. That’s her family you’re going up to reprimand, and she wants to be with them. You can’t blame us for trying to get her there.”
Captain Niall recovered from his embarrassment and actually chuckled at that statement. “I did warn you, sir. They aren’t ordinary girls. Unless you lock Lady Kingair up, she’ll keep trying.”
The dewan looked inquiringly at Sophronia.
Sophronia nodded. “And w
e’ll keep helping her.”
“Why?” demanded the dewan.
“Because she’s our friend.”
The dewan was frustrated with the whole mess. He looked at Soap. “And what have you to do with any of this?”
“Oh,” mumbled Soap, embarrassed under the direct glare of such a rich and powerful man, “I’m only a sootie.”
Sophronia said, stalwart, “Who else do you suggest we get to drive the train?”
“This is all quite ridiculous!” stated the duke. “They’re feckless mischief-makers. You must see that.”
Captain Niall, although much lower in rank, took offense at that accusation. “Your Grace, Mademoiselle Geraldine might train her girls to no good, but mischief for mischief’s sake is strictly forbidden. They are not evil geniuses, after all, that’s Bunson’s sphere.”
The dewan looked back and forth between Sophronia and the duke. “I am tempted to agree with the captain. These two have a satisfactory explanation as to why they are involved with a train. On the other hand, if there was something valuable of yours on that train, Your Grace, why were you firing a cannon at it? Your explanation seems a little wanting. Either you want the train destroyed because of what it contains, or you are after these two. And since you let the train go and stayed with these scamps, I must suppose it is them. Why?”
Because I know too much, thought Sophronia.
The duke still had his gun and was staring hard at Sophronia. She had not revealed his plot to the werewolves. She had mentioned nothing about mechanicals or crystalline valves. She had held her peace regarding his evil plans, whatever those plans were. Did he trust her to keep them hidden? Or did he realize that she was not talking because the whole thing sounded preposterous? She was trained to know that the best explanation was always the simplest. They both knew that the childish whims of a group of girls, worried about their unhappy friend, made a plausible excuse. A countrywide Pickleman plot for mechanical uprising did not.
But what could the duke say to counter her, without revealing that plot himself?
Sophronia was betting on the duke’s not being as quick as she.
The duke glared. “My boy should have warned me about you sooner.”
Captain Niall said, “Now, now, Your Grace, Miss Temminnick is a little precocious. There’s no cause to insult the lady.”
“Lady?” snorted the duke.
There was a scuffle from behind him, on board the dirigible. It looked as if Felix was taking some exception to his father’s tone. But Felix had a bullet wound to the leg, and several large flywaymen appeared to be dragging him back from the railing. Obviously, they had been instructed not to let him join the conversation.
“Unhand me, you brutes!” he yelled, batting at grasping hands. And then, “Sophronia! Sophronia, there are more—” He was cut off by a massive hand.
In the interim, the duke decided on a new tactic. “Please excuse my son, he is overwrought. Well, my dear dewan, if you remand the young lady here into my custody, I will see that she gets safely back to school. I’m heading in that direction myself, I must take my boy back to Bunson’s, after all.”
The dewan looked as if he might jump on this plan, just to relieve himself of the responsibility of determining what was going on. A matter that, no doubt, seemed petty when compared with an entire Scottish werewolf pack running amok without an Alpha.
Captain Niall, however, was still thinking like Sophronia’s teacher. “I don’t know, Your Grace. You did fire a cannon at her.”
“At her train,” corrected the duke.
“So you acknowledge it was her train?” said Soap.
Everyone stared at him as if they had forgotten he existed, which they probably had.
“Who cares for your opinion, sootie?” demanded the duke.
The discussion might have gone on for a good long while, except that behind them came a deal of hollering and yelling, and over a small hill marched Sidheag, Dimity, and Bumbersnoot, armed with coal shovels and determined to come to the rescue.
Sophronia said to Soap, “They probably ran out of fuel just the other side, then found us gone. They should have stayed out of this.”
Soap said, stalwart friend to the end, “They didn’t know what we were up to—taking the tumble intentionally. They’re only doing what you would do in their position.”
Sophronia nodded. “True.”
The dewan said, “Is that Lady Kingair? Oh, good, she can help sort this out. Sensible female, for a mortal girl.”
No one had noticed, but the duke was backing toward his dirigible. A dirigible that was casting off, preparing to float away.
No one except Soap. “Uh, sirs?”
“Now!” yelled the duke, his gun swinging to point at Soap.
Only then did Sophronia realize that Duke Golborne wasn’t the only one with a gun. Perhaps Felix had been trying to warn her about that, not protect her honor.
Three of the flywaymen and the duke all shot at the assembled party.
Captain Niall, acting on supernatural teacher instinct, leapt to protect Sophronia. A bullet hit him broadside and the force of it thrust him over so that he landed fully on top of her.
The dewan moved equally fast. Disregarding the guns, which the men reloaded, he charged for the airship. It was already a few feet off the ground. It was military issue, after all, designed for this kind of maneuvering.
The duke tumbled over the edge of the gondola and back inside, displaying the fact that he favored yellow hose—I knew there was something funny about that man!
The dewan made a gigantic leap to grab the side of the dirigible, but even supernatural strength wasn’t enough. His grip slipped and he fell back to earth with a thud. Had he been in wolf form, he might have made it, but then what? Werewolves weren’t able to float.
He landed, swearing a blue streak.
Two flywaymen leaned over the edge and fired down on him.
He merely tilted his head back and bared his teeth.
Sophronia worked to lever herself out from under Captain Niall. He was bleeding from a shot to the shoulder, which seemed to have passed through and out his back.
“Captain Niall?”
“It’s not silver, Miss Temminnick. I’m in for a bit of a rough few hours but should be shipshape in no time.” He sounded more annoyed than hurt.
The dewan walked back toward them, looking very put-upon… and very hairy and, well, dangly. Oh, dear, and Dimity was running over to them. How on earth was Dimity going to react to dangly bits? Will she faint? She’ll probably faint.
Sophronia righted herself and looked over Captain Niall’s equally naked body. “Captain, would you mind shifting a little to the…” She went perfectly still; horror hit so hard it felt as if her skin would crawl off her flesh.
Soap?
Soap was lying, fallen and still, a surprised look on his face, clutching at the side of his chest, where a great deal of blood was pouring out of him and onto the grass. A very great deal indeed.
Strangely, Sophronia’s mind kept on with her previous thought. Oh, dear, that amount of blood will certainly make Dimity faint.
She let out a raw scream, like that of an animal at the slaughter. It was coming out of her own mouth, but she couldn’t control it. And then she was moving, shoving away poor Captain Niall, her arms no longer weak from shoveling coal. She threw herself across the distance separating her from Soap and knelt next to him.
“Miss, what a noise,” reprimanded Soap, his voice a whisper.
Sophronia stopped screaming. “Soap,” she said hoarsely, “I forbid you to die.”
“Now, miss, that’s not fair. You know I always try to do as you ask. This time it might not be up to me, and I hate to disappoint you.”
Sophronia placed both her hands over his, pressing against the wound. But there was so much blood. It was a litany in her head, so much blood. She couldn’t do anything. For the first time in her life there wasn’t a single action Sophronia could take,
no information to discover, no trick to pull, no climbing to do, no action to turn about and bend to her ends.
Captain Niall came over. Captain Niall could save Soap. He was trained on the battlefield, accustomed to bullet wounds.
“Let me see, child,” he said, not unkindly. He pulled away her blood-covered hands.
Soap looked pale. Sophronia hadn’t thought that possible. Normally her Soap was dark as Christmas cake and just as full of nutty goodness. He seemed flat and empty now.
The dewan was there, standing a little back. “Goodness’ sake, what’s wrong now?” He was not intentionally unkind; at the sight of Soap’s wound his gruffness turned soft. “Ah, dear me.”
Soap’s eyes were emptying. There was no twinkle there anymore.
I’ll take serious and longing over empty. “Oh, please, Soap, please don’t die. What’ll I do without you? Who’ll keep me grounded?”
“Now, now, miss, don’t be silly, I never was all that…” His voice faded off. Then he said, as if surprised, “Burns a bit, that does.”
Captain Niall looked up from his examination. “No good, I’m afraid. Even if we had a surgeon to hand, looks like it’s gone through to the gut, nothing fixes that. I’m so very sorry.”
Sophronia barely registered that Dimity and Sidheag had joined them. Her mind had no thought in it but blood.
Sidheag knelt next to her. Reserved, austere Sidheag was weeping openly. Tears carved rivulets down her soot-covered face. Dimity stood back, her hand covering her mouth, her eyes wide in horror.
“You’re not fainting?” Sophronia inquired, dumbly. Her voice sounded as if it came out of a mechanical—tinny, distanced, unemotional.
“This is too serious for fainting,” replied Dimity. And then, because they’d been friends for so long, “What are we going to do?”
Sophronia felt her face tingle. I’m supposed to be able to fix things. She wanted to scream again, and vomit, and cry all at once. It felt as if the skin around her eyes would split open under the strain. And there was so much blood, and nothing she could do. There was nothing she could do.
“Well,” said the dewan, “at least it’s not someone important.”
Waistcoats & Weaponry Page 23