Fields of Gold: A steampunk adventure novel (Magnificent Devices Book 12)

by Shelley Adina

“No.” It was all he could do to manage one word. So many questions crowded his tongue that he couldn’t manage another.

  “I’m building a submersible so we can blow up the dam—you may have seen it out at the quay. At the moment, it’s just a boiler, but give me a few days with it and I’ll surprise you. But what are you doing here?”

  Under this fresh shock, his powers of speech came back. “You’re alive! It is a miracle—I saw the Californios shoot down your ship. How did you survive?”

  “By the skin of our teeth, as usual. What do you mean, you saw it? Where have you been all this time?”

  “Attempting to rescue Gloria, and getting tricked by the Californios into walking their behemoth across the border. Being clapped in gaol. And being forced to work on the dam.” Where he might have related this with some bitterness before, now all he could say was, “Alice, I’m going to blow it up, with the help of the behemoth.”

  “Are you, now? Maybe we’ll both do it, one from each side. Is Gloria with you? She left here a couple of weeks ago with Captain Fremont. Have you seen them?”

  “Yes. And no, she is not with me, though the captain is. It is a very long tale that I promise to tell you. But just now I must get what I came for without delay. You will be here when I return?”

  “If I’m not, I’ll be down at the water, or in the room where Ian is recovering. One of the witches shot him a few days ago. He’s on the mend, but he’s at that stage where everything hurts and nothing is right, so I’m glad I have the submersible to work on.”

  Most of this went straight past Evan’s ears. “I will come find you as soon as I may.”

  Feeling rather as though someone had punched him in the belly—Alice and her crew were alive! And had saved themselves without his help!—he wrapped a cloth around the handle of the kettle and carried it into the stillroom, where Clara had finished administering the salve and was measuring ingredients for the tea into a trim brown teapot that would be at home in any English cottage.

  “How will we get him to drink it?” Evan asked. “He has not regained consciousness.”

  Clara’s brows were pinched, her eyes worried. “We must use a siphon once the mixture steeps and cools. His natural urge to swallow will assist us from there.”

  With gentle dexterity, she got the tea down the Viceroy’s throat using a siphon with a long hose that might once have been a part of a riverboat engine, while Evan held his head. Then they laid him down, Clara plumping the pillow as though he were a child.

  “Rest, mi’jo,” she murmured. “Rest and I will return in an hour to give you more.”

  Mi hijo. My son.

  “In the meanwhile, we must keep him warm.” She tucked another quilt around him, this one embroidered with cheerful flowers. “And I must check on my other patient, too.”

  Evan accompanied her out of the stillroom and into a room down the corridor, where Captain Ian Hollys was sitting up in bed looking like a very grumpy bear.

  “Devil take it, Clara, I must get up or I will simply go mad.” His gaze collided with that of Evan, and he added, “Well, I’ll be a swinging rope monkey—Mr. Douglas. Where did you spring from?”

  “Alice’s very words. I am very glad to see you alive, Captain.”

  “I am glad of it, too, though at some moments more than others. Can you convince this termagant here that I am perfectly capable of walking about, since she pulled the bullet out of my shoulder, not my leg?”

  “He does not need to convince me,” she chided him, checking his dressing with a no-nonsense skill that Evan envied. “You may get up for dinner, and not before.”

  “But—”

  “Be quiet, or I will reconsider.”

  Fuming, Ian subsided. “You will allow Evan to stay, will you not? I am sure he has a tale to tell, and I could not be more anxious to hear it.”

  “He may stay for an hour, at which time I will need him to help with my other patient.”

  “What other patient? Has that she-wolf Gretchen been shooting every man she sees?”

  “My translator,” Evan said, before the captain’s temper could get the better of him once more. “He has a brain fever. We have been carrying him on land, by train, and by riverboat for two days, all the way from San Luis Obispo de Tolosa.”

  Clara’s eyes widened. “So far! You value his life very much indeed.”

  “I do.” Best to keep it simple. “As do you, if I may be so frank as to say so.”

  But she only gazed at him for a moment in a most puzzling fashion before rising from the side of the bed. “One hour,” she reminded them both as she passed under the curtain hanging across the aperture in the rock.

  “If you see my wife,” Captain Hollys called after her, “please send her in. I am sure she would like to hear Evan’s tale as well.”

  “We will all hear it at dinner,” Clara called from some distance down the corridor.

  Even so, ten minutes later Alice pulled back the curtain and in came Jake and Benny Stringfellow with her.

  “Look who I brought,” she said, smiling.

  “Mr. Douglas!” Benny exclaimed. “Ent I glad to see you! We thought you were dead.”

  “So did I, many times.” He ruffled the boy’s hair. “You’ve grown two inches, I’m quite certain. And Jake.” He shook hands with Alice’s navigator. “I’m glad you all are well. I saw you shot down over the mountains and feared the worst.”

  “For a few moments there, so did we.” Jake returned his handshake with a firmness that surprised Evan. It was the grip of a man, not a boy any longer. A capable, quick-witted man whom Evan had no doubt could hold his own with anyone, whether it was in a room or a battle.

  “Have you seen Gloria?” Jake asked. The man fell away for an instant, revealing the boy who had always had a soft spot for a woman out of his reach. “They told us she was married. Is that true?”

  “Oh yes.” Then he corrected himself. “I mean, she was. She is not married now. She is going to marry the Viceroy.”

  “What?” Four voices rose and cracked in utter disbelief.

  “Come,” he said, and settled on a carved trunk for want of any other seat. “Let us hear each other’s stories, from the moment we last glimpsed each other during the Battle of Resolution. I am quite sure that there are parts on either side that we do not wish the entire village to hear.”

  Chapter 9

  It had been a long time since Alice had been struck speechless, but when some three-quarters of an hour later Evan finally got to the part where the Viceroy demanded the annulment of Gloria’s marriage as the price for stopping the war, she sat there like a frog on a log, her mouth open in astonished dismay.

  She was not alone. Jake had turned white, and then flushed a dangerous shade of red. “She ent going through with it, surely?” he croaked. “What did Captain Fremont have to say about this?”

  “We were not privy to that,” Evan said, “but wait until I tell you the next part.”

  “I don't think I’ll survive the next part,” Alice said faintly. What kind of man was this Viceroy to ask such a thing of a woman? Whether Gloria had married her riverboat captain as a means to an end or not, you just didn’t go about annulling people’s marriages to get your own way.

  “It was Gloria’s idea,” Evan began. “You see, my translator Joe—”

  “Yes, tell me about your translator Joe.” The cool voice from the door made every head swing to look at Mother Mary, who came in with Clara and Captain Fremont. The two women did not look happy, and the captain was clearly trying to communicate something to Evan with eyebrows and fingers, but the latter only gazed at him in confusion.

  “Go on,” Clara said in that same cool, dangerous tone, most unlike her usual warm practicality. Alice had spent plenty of time in this sickroom, and she figured she’d seen Clara in any number of moods. But not one like this. A woman in a mood like this could pick up a pistol and shoot you without even giving you a reason why.

  “I—I—why, you know, m
a’am,” Evan stammered. “Your son—we brought him across the country so you could treat him for ergot poisoning.”

  “My son.”

  Evan gazed at her helplessly. “He said he was your son. By the old Viceroy. Who took you against your will. Is that not true?”

  “Shut up!” Mother Mary snapped. “How dare you!”

  Poor Evan. He looked as though he was about to cry.

  “Madre, perhaps you could tell us what is wrong?” Captain Fremont said gently.

  “What is wrong is that you’re lying to us, and I won’t have it,” Mother Mary said, her cheeks flushed with temper.

  “Who is that boy in there?” Clara demanded of Captain Fremont. “Because he’s not my son. I don’t have a son. I have a daughter. You promised to bring both our daughters back to us, and you’ve broken your promise!”

  Now even Captain Fremont was at a loss for words. “But— Daughter? Joe said he was your son.”

  “Where is she?” Clara practically shrieked.

  “Who?”

  “My daughter! The child of the old Viceroy, may his soul rot in hell for all eternity! The stepchild of that San Gregorio murderer, may he join him in his agony!”

  “I … I don’t know any daughter.” Both Evan and the captain looked about them, as though they wanted to take a step back, but in a room this small, there was nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. Nothing to do but weather the storm of maternal rage—the most potent, unpredictable kind of all.

  “Oh, for the Mother’s sweet sake,” Mother Mary said, clearly attempting to control herself. “Honoria is Clara’s daughter. She was shanghaied in Santa Croce a year ago, where she had been masquerading as a man in order to stay alive while she spied out the land for us. The first we heard of her in months was a letter from Ella a few days back saying that she was calling herself Joe and acting as your translator.”

  Now Evan looked like the frog on the log. His mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out.

  “Honoria?” Captain Fremont whispered. “That was Honoria? I have not seen her in a couple of years, but still, I would have known—it’s—”

  “Impossible,” Evan finally got out. “There must be some mistake. I lived in the same cell with Joe and two other men for weeks. I would have known if he—if she—if it was a woman. For heaven’s sake, he relieved himself into a bucket in the corner, right in front of me!”

  Clara marched out and came back a minute later with a device that looked like a fine leather cucumber attached to a hose. She was in such a state of emotion that it trembled with the force of her grip. “May Lin made this for her, so she could go into the country as a spy and pass for a man. She has done it before—my warrior daughter, who can wrestle a man to the ground with one hand and shoot a deer with a pistol in the other.” She flung the device into the corner. “Now, tell me once and for all where my daughter is, and who that boy is in my stillroom. Because I have a guess, and I for dang sure don’t want to be right.”

  Evan and Captain Fremont exchanged a glance, and this time it seemed as though the message was communicated clearly. “That boy in there is Carlos Felipe, the Viceroy of the Royal Kingdom of Spain and the Californias,” the captain finally said.

  Mother Mary seemed to sag as all the breath hissed out of her lungs. “You’ve kidnapped the Viceroy?” she gasped.

  Sitting on the bunk next to Ian, Alice fumbled for his hand and gripped it as though it was her only anchor in a fierce current. They were all about to be swept away. What in the name of heaven had Evan and the captain done?

  “And Honoria? Ella?” Clara croaked. “If he is not in his palace where he belongs, and they are not here in the village where they belong, then where are they?”

  The captain took a deep breath. “They are with Gloria, at the house of the Borreagas in San Luis Obispo de Tolosa. My wife and your daughter are very likely getting ready to announce their engagement and stop the war.”

  “I cannot do this,” Joe moaned for the third time, his forehead on the cool pane of the window. He even banged it a little in his distress. “How can I carry off this bamboozle? How can I fool anyone? And how can I announce our engagement when it is the last thing either of us wants?”

  “Both of us want to stop the war,” Gloria reminded him, also for the third time. “Courage, my friend. It is lucky you are supposed to be so ill and can retire early without saying much. But still we must put on a good show—still we must dance.”

  “I am a terrible dancer.”

  “I am not,” she assured him. “Never fear, I will not allow you to put a foot wrong.”

  “Neither will I,” Isabela put in, having given up the lessons in protocol for the time being. She knew an astonishing amount for a girl so sheltered, but not everything that a prince could be expected to know. The rest—politics, dealing with the Privy Council, military maneuvers—he would learn on the fly, much as the Viceroy had likely been doing for the months he had been on the throne. “But I must say that there will be many more ladies who will require your notice this time. The invitations have gone out to every rancho in the kingdom by train and fast rider, and I cannot imagine that much but illness or death would prevent everyone’s coming. Such a fiesta has not been seen in two generations.”

  Joe groaned and scrubbed his face with both hands. “I will never remember them all.”

  “You are not meant to. That is why your majordomo will be at your elbow in the receiving line, whispering the names of the families. Just be glad this is happening at short notice. If you had to sit through the cuento that the singers are no doubt composing for the occasion on top of it, you might fall asleep—and that would be dreadfully bad manners.”

  “Buck up, Joe. It is time to dress.” As Gloria and Ella left the room, the majordomo and his staff streamed in, ready to dress and lecture and inform poor Joe of the protocol of such a momentous occasion—one that had not taken place in the kingdom in twenty-five years.

  Following the announcement to the family, Gloria had been offered a staff of her own, but she had gratefully declined. The fewer people who had close access to them, the better, and Ella’s skills as a lady’s maid were not to be discounted. All those hot afternoons playing dress-up were certainly standing them both in good stead now.

  The one thing she had accepted was the offer of the skills of every single seamstress connected to the rancho, the mission, and the village below. No more secondhand dresses for her, no sir! It had only been a matter of a few days, but already she had enough ball gowns, day dresses, riding habits, blouses, and underthings to fill six leather-bound trunks. She had taken the reins there, bringing the fashions of London and Philadelphia into the Royal Kingdom with a sheaf of sketches and strict instructions as to décolletage, length of trains, appropriate fabrics, and trims.

  The fiesta dresses were lovely, but one could not wear ruffles and ribbon trim every hour of every day. A linen skirt notable more for its stylish cut than its embellishment said a lot about a woman’s opinion of herself—and thus influenced the opinions of others.

  Tonight, for this momentous occasion, she had chosen a midnight-blue silk cut low in the bosom to accommodate the royal sapphires, trimmed in lace and illusion so fine it looked as though a cloud had settled about her shoulders. Ella set the sun tiara upon her hair and pinned it in place, then gently turned her around to face the cheval glass.

  “If anyone was born to be a princess, it is you,” Isabela said with admiration. “How I wish I had golden hair!”

  Gloria stared at the stranger in the mirror with her uptilted chin and breathtaking jewels.

  “But you and I both know I was not,” she said softly. “I am simply the daughter of an arms dealer, attempting to deceive your family and all these well-meaning and honestly happy people.”

  “But you’ll look wonderful doing it.”

  “I cannot go out there like this. Not without my roses, to remind me of who I am.” She passed an arm about Ella’s shoulders. “How can we ac
commodate both roses and diamonds?”

  There was a question she’d never thought she would ask in a million years. Until this moment, she had never worn diamonds—her mother had always said they were only for engaged or married women. Pearls are suitable for girls, whispered her long-ago voice in Gloria’s mind, and then faded.

  For she was not a girl anymore.

  Ella gazed at her thoughtfully. “We could tuck them in the back.”

  “But I wish them to be seen. They are part of us. They mean something—and when I lose my courage, I need to be able to see them.”

  “We could paint up.” Ella grinned audaciously, and Gloria believed she half meant it.

  But Isabela was cut of more practical cloth. “As far as everyone knows, you will be Vicereine. You could wear a canvas coat and riding boots to your engagement party and they would accept it. And at the next fiesta, everyone would be wearing canvas and leather.”

  “So then … how many people among the rancho families are aware of what the roses mean?”

  “All of them—the women, at least,” Isabela said, to Gloria’s astonishment. “Men do not pay attention to the adornments of women. Have you not seen our embroidered blouses?”

  “Of course.” Most of the women wore them for everyday, with bright sashes and the ruffled skirts, in a constantly moving panoply of color. “But what does that have to do with—”

  “It is our language of flowers,” Isabela said. “It is how the women of the various families identify one another—and how we find our friends. It is how we speak to one another when words may not be used. Red roses mean love unto death, which I expect is why the witches wear them.”

  “But the rancho women? Surely they do not think themselves witches.”

  “You might see more than you think if you look closely at the embroidery,” Isabela said. “You might find women loyal to the witches’ cause, though of course to say so aloud means treason.”

  Gloria turned to Ella. “Why did you not tell me this?”

  “I thought you knew. You borrowed my blouses, all embroidered with roses and other flowers. If roses mean something in our hair, then of course they mean something on our clothes.”