“No,” the Lady whispered, but only Lizzie and Maggie were close enough hear her.
“The Canadas being a dominion of the Empire, all Her Majesty’s laws apply there, including the age of majority. Lady Claire and I will be married in Victoria, and spend our honeymoon traveling from there to Edmonton, as she had originally planned.”
The Lady forced her fingers to release Maggie’s and Lizzie’s shoulders, and Maggie let out a breath of relief.
“What are you saying, Selwyn?” Fremont boomed. “That I set this man free in exchange for this young lady’s hand? What kind of a bargain is that?”
“A fair one, I think.” His nibs didn’t take his eyes off the Lady for one second. “She and the Carbonator go with us on the demonstration run, safe from the depredations of my former partner, who, I’m afraid, will have to find his own way home—unless he runs afoul of the Rangers.”
“This is outrageous,” Lord Dunsmuir said. “You can’t treat Claire this way. Or Andrew. Or any of us.”
“She already said yes to me once,” Lord James pointed out. “And in any case, my affairs are none of your business.”
His lordship rode right over this insulting observation. “But Claire is under my protection and—”
“Yes, I’ve seen how effective your protection has been,” Lord James said. “So far she has been skyjacked, washed away in a flood, and left for dead. I believe I can keep her at least a little safer than that.”
Maggie would never have believed Lord Dunsmuir capable of violence, but she believed it now. Shaking with rage, he turned from Lord James to the Lady.
“Claire? What do you say to this plan?”
Maggie could distinctly feel her trembling, but whether it was from rage or fear, she did not know.
“If I agree to go with you,” she said in a voice that only shook a little, “Andrew will go free?”
“Yes.”
“And what of the children?”
Lord James’s dispassionate gaze swept lower, and Maggie shrank back against the Lady’s skirts. “I’m afraid there is no provision on the train for children.”
What?
Lizzie’s fists clenched. “We go where the Lady goes.”
The carpet might have spoken up and said so for all the interest he showed. “The children may stay here with the Dunsmuirs, or find a ship back to London, or set out across the desert in a pram, for all I care. But they will not be coming with us.”
“But we’re a flock!” Maggie cried. She looked up into the Lady’s face. “You can’t go wiv ’im and not take us!”
The Lady knelt so that they three were face to face, and spoke so only they could hear. “Would you have Mr. Malvern be executed instead? Because you know perfectly well there is no magistrate or law or any other thing in this wild place that will save him, if they are determined to do it.”
“I don’t care!”
“But I do,” she said softly, and behind her, even through her distress, Maggie saw Mr. Malvern’s face sag into lines of despair. “It is in my power to save his life. It may be the only thing I will ever be able to do for him.”
“But what about us?” she wailed. “You promised we’d always be together! That wiv that piece of paper, no one could separate us!”
“We will be together, back in England,” she said. “I will find a way to contrive it.”
“He’ll never let you go back.” Lizzie’s cheeks were wet, and her nose was running. “He’ll take you away and we’ll never see you again. You know he will.”
The Lady shook her head. “Impossible.”
“You said this would never happen.” Maggie clutched at a straw. “You said you’d never marry him. You have to do what you said!”
“Children oughta be seen and not heard,” Fremont remarked to no one in particular, and Maggie burst into tears.
“All right, all right.” Mr. Fremont turned to the lieutenant. “Until the happy couple are on their way, maybe the lockup is too severe for a man my new friends are in debt to.” He bowed to the Dunsmuirs. “Mr. Malvern will be comfortable in the peace and quiet of a pinnacle cell.” Baxter and Murphy’s eyes widened, and Maggie’s stomach turned over. “I don’t want to cause an international incident, now, do I?” He laughed his big laugh.
Maggie sat on the floor like she was only Willie’s age, and gave herself up to tears of utter hopelessness.
“I do not know what a pinnacle cell is, but I think Mr. Malvern would be much more comfortable here, among his friends,” Lady Dunsmuir said over the sound of her weeping. “May he not spend the night aboard the Lady Lucy?”
The big man smiled and directed his reply to his lordship. “Well now, that would be a real fine plan, but I don’t want to put you good folks out.” He held up a hand as Lord Dunsmuir began to protest that it would be no trouble at all. “No, no, I’ll take responsibility for him. It would be a terrible shame if some … misunderstanding … occurred and the Lady Lucy continued on her voyage with my prisoner aboard, wouldn’t it? My sense of justice would oblige me to ask the lieutenant here to mobilize his Rangers in that speedy vessel moored next door. In the chase, it would be a terrible thing for your family to be put at risk of being shot down.”
“Sir, you speak in fabrications and impossibilities,” his lordship said through stiff lips. “I don’t know which is worse—the fact that you and Selwyn both are ruthless blackguards, or the fact that I did not recognize it until now.”
“Lieutenant, please,” the Lady pleaded, turning to him. “Surely you can see that this is unacceptable.”
The man in the uniform took her hand in both of his, but his eyes had gone hollow. Maggie could see that it required an effort of will for the Lady not to pull away. “Your friend will come to no harm on a pinnacle cell. He’ll be far more comfortable there than at the lockups, I’ll guarantee you that, and we will release him once the demonstration party and the Lady Lucy are away.”
“Claire, this is absurd,” Mr. Malvern said desperately. “You cannot even think of this. Please. I got myself into this—I will get myself out without you sacrificing yourself for me.”
Murphy batted him across the face with one beefy hand. “Shut up, you. Save your noise for the vultures.”
The Lady’s lips trembled as she asked Mr. Fremont, “What exactly is a pinnacle cell?”
“Why, simply one of those spires of rock that protrude out of the ground here and there about our city. They are seven hundred feet high, and once a man is imprisoned on the top of one, he cannot escape—not unless he wishes to save the executioner the cost of a bullet.”
The Lady’s face could not pale any further. It turned gray. “And will you guarantee his safety?”
“I will,” the lieutenant said. “Justice is swift here, but it is justice. No harm will come to him while he’s in our custody.”
How could he make a promise like that? It seemed to Maggie that all a man would have to do was roll over in his sleep, and so much for their harmless custody.
The lieutenant signaled Murphy to take his hands off Mr. Malvern. “If you will accompany me, sir, I will escort you off the ship.”
Maggie had never seen a look quite like the one exchanged between the Lady and Mr. Malvern. One part fear, one part apology … and two parts despair.
The party disembarked and her ladyship retired to her room in tears. His lordship followed her, so angry he could hardly speak.
Lord James approached the Lady and she held up a hand. “No closer, James, or I will spit in your face. How dare you?”
“It seems you dare quite a lot for my former partner. It is very touching. I look forward to the day when I inspire such emotion.”
Maggie caught Lizzie’s eye and cut her eyes toward the serving pantry. As the Lady faced his nibs, they drifted toward it a step at a time.
“I saved your life.”
“And now I am saving his. One would think you would be grateful.”
“I’m afraid you inspire no such ten
der emotions. I cannot fathom why you do not find another woman who cannot see through your falsity and who does not hate you with every fiber of her being.”
He smiled at her, though it did not extend to his eyes. “When are you going to understand that you are mine, Claire? You promised yourself to me, and Selwyns do not release what is theirs.”
“I am not yours. I will never be. I will throw myself from that train first.”
“Then I will have to keep a careful eye on you. Beginning now. You will accompany me back to my hotel, where I will have a room prepared for you. An inside room, preferably without windows. And in the morning, after I see the Lady Lucy lift, we will be on our way to San Francisco. I am sure you will waste no time in boarding the train, so that dear Andrew may have his freedom.”
The Lady’s jaw flexed as she ground her teeth. “May I collect my things from my cabin?”
“Certainly. I shall ascertain that it has no porthole, and then I shall wait outside the door.”
“And may I return to my friends to collect my belongings there?”
“How very careless of you to leave your property behind. I am afraid not. There will be no time.” He indicated that she should precede him down the corridor.
No one paid the least attention to Maggie and Lizzie. Which is why it was so easy to slip out of the serving pantry, down the gangway, and out into the night.
Chapter 23
They hadn’t gone two steps when a thin, wiry shadow detached itself from behind the wheel housings of the embarkation tower. “Mopsies.”
“Jake!” The last they’d seen of him, he’d been telling Mr. Malvern what the Lady was up to. Then they’d heard a sound and he’d dived behind a huge machine with arms as big as a building, evidently used for moving things on and off trains. “Where are Luis and Alvaro?”
“Hightailed it back to the village. Ent nothin’ they could do to help, and getting’ caught wouldn’t do us any good. Wot ’appened?”
Catching him up as they went, they ran deeper into the shadows until they were on the edge of the airfield near where the steambus would stop.
“D’you mean t’ tell me the Lady is goin’ off with that blackguard? To San Francisco? Is she mad?”
“She’s tryin’ to save Mr. Malvern’s life,” Maggie panted, “but that devil’s goin’ to hurt her somehow, I know it.”
“Simply lookin’ across the breakfast table at ’im would ’urt,” Lizzie observed.
“We ’ave to stop it,” Jake said, but this was so obvious that neither of the girls bothered to answer. “Hey. Where’s our Tigg?”
“On Lady Lucy, I think.” But Maggie did not know. “Liz? You see ’im?”
“He was supposed to go wiv the Lady. If ’e’s anywhere, ’e’s in the engine room.”
Jake stopped dead. “You silly gumpies. They’re goin’ t’ lift tomorrow, ent they? We can’t leave wivout knowin’ for sure where ’e is.”
In the distance, the steambus huffed and chuffed its way toward them. Lizzie planted her fists on her hips.
“He’s a fair sight better off than we are. The Lady’s sendin’ ’erself to the noose wiv that rascal, Mr. Malvern’s to be trapped on a pinnacle ’e’s like to roll off of before daybreak, we’re standing in the road miles from anywhere, and where’s Tigg? Prob’ly tucked up nice and safe in ’is bunk, wiv a good breakfast waitin’ for ’im come morning.”
The conveyance spewed steam everywhere as it pulled up next to them, and they clambered aboard. Jake grumbled and grumped, but really, Lizzie had the right of it. Someday soon they would all be together again, but if anyone had to leave with the Dunsmuirs on their lovely ship, Tigg would be the happiest to do so.
They, on the other hand, had to think of something, and quick.
They would have got to the village sooner if their steambus hadn’t had a ticket collector on it. They were forced to jump down two stops ahead of the end of the line, which meant they had to ride shank’s mare for more than a mile. It was another two miles out to the village, and then the sick-inducing spiral rock stair … by the time Maggie staggered onto the flat top of the mesa, she was gasping for breath and every muscle felt as though it was made of iron.
Lizzie and Jake hadn’t fared much better. They rested for a moment at the top of the stair, neither one inclined to rib the other about their powers of endurance. In fact, when Lizzie finally spoke, it wasn’t about the climb at all. “D’you think she’ll really go through wiv it?”
Jake chucked a rock into the whispering darkness. Several long moments later, they heard a distant clack. “I think she’ll fob ’im off wi’ what ’e wants to ’ear, and then choose ’er moment to scarper.”
“He’s going to lock ’er in a room. We ought to spring ’er like we sprung Doctor Craig out of Bedlam.”
“The lightning rifle,” Maggie said suddenly. “She didn’t take it to dinner. Said it weren’t proper. That’s why she wanted to come back ’ere.”
“He said no.” Lizzie chucked her own rock. “We gonna try to get it to ’er again? It worked last time.”
“That train’s going to be crawlin’ wiv black coats,” Jake said. “If ’e’s got ’er locked in a room, then under guard when she gets on the train, we won’t stand a snowball’s chance.”
“We could get on the train now. Tonight.” That was our Lizzie. Always thinking.
“What train?” That was our Jake, always finding the holes in a perfectly sound plan. Which was good, Maggie supposed, but it did tend to be demoralizing. “There must be a dozen trains in Stanford Fremont’s railyard alone. We got no way to know if they’re goin’ on one o’ his, or on a proper one, where you pay a fare and all.”
The problem seemed insurmountable.
“Maggie? Lizzie?” Alice’s voice floated out of the darkness between the square mud buildings. No matter that she looked like a miner or a stevedore half the time, Maggie liked her voice. It was like honey with toast crumbs in it, and just as sweet.
Alice!
“Alice will know what to do.” Maggie scrambled to her feet. Her legs felt wobbly, but at least they’d got moving again.
“Aye, best person to fox a villain is another villain.” Goodness. Jake actually sounded like he might be smiling.
“Our Alice ent no villain, even if she’s a villain’s daughter,” Maggie told him. “She saved our lives, out there on that blasted velogig in the middle of the desert.”
“I know, I were there, remember? An’ I might’ve had a bit to do with savin’ yer cantankerous hide.”
He was smiling.
Maggie took heart.
In the little mud cube that was Alaia’s home, the boys were back and she was feeding them prodigious amounts of black beans and cheese and those little green chiles that she fried on a flat piece of iron. Maggie still could not fathom how they could eat the little beggars with apparent enjoyment while tears and sweat streamed down their faces.
Alaia had them seated and was dishing up grub in a matter of moments.
“I hope you plan to tell me what happened,” Alice said urgently, “or you’ll hear a scream that’ll reach clear over to Santa Fe. Claire gets all gussied up to go have a fancy dinner with the man she’s not engaged to, and she doesn’t come back. Mr. Malvern goes to steal the power cell and he doesn’t come back. What in tarnation is going on?”
So they told her, in fits and gulps between great mouthfuls of food. Raiding was hungry work, particularly when you failed miserably at it and came home empty-handed and hopeless.
Alice stopped eating right about the time Maggie said pinnacle cell.
She put her bit of flatbread down, as if she’d lost her appetite. “They’re going to put him on a pinnacle?”
Maggie nodded. “That Ranger lieutenant said ’e’d be safe, but ’ow can he when all ’e ’as to do is roll over to be killed?”
“And people called my pa inhuman. At least he never used Spider Woman for such a thing.” She took a breath and looked away fr
om her flatbread as if it made her ill. “Mr. Malvern’ll have to kick aside the previous prisoner. I hope he’s got a strong stomach.”
Maggie stopped chewing.
“What do you mean?” Lizzie demanded. “Don’t one person get a pinnacle to himself?”
“One live person does,” Alice said grimly. “They don’t bother to clear off the dead ones.”
It took a moment for the macabre picture to sink in.
“That Ranger man,” Lizzie said. “He promised Mr. Malvern would be let go soon’s the Lady were on the train an’ Lady Lucy were in the sky.”
“He may have promised that,” Alice conceded. “He may even have meant it. But that’s what they do with the really bad criminals. The lucky ones get a single shot. But the ones they really want to punish—murderers, kidnappers, extortioners, and the like—they put them in a pinnacle cell. They sit up there and you ain’t ever heard anything more pathetic than those men up under the broiling sun, callin’ for mercy.”
“What if you tried to help one?” Jake asked.
“You’d be shot, same as if you tried to spring someone out of lockup.”
“But if they can get ’em up there, they can get ’em down again,” Lizzie objected. “We’ll just steal whatever device they use and—”
“—and you’d be stuck up there with him,” Alice finished. “They use a balloon with a puncture in it. It has just enough lift to get ’em up there, but if they stay in it, it’ll outgas. The fall kills ’em. Some stay in the basket, of course. The optimistic ones, they climb out, hoping for mercy or help.” Sadness and hopelessness pulled at her mouth, turning its corners down.
And suddenly Maggie, who left the losing of tempers up to Lizzie as a general rule, lost hers with a vengeance.
“So you’re just gonna leave Mr. Malvern on his pinnacle to die?” she demanded, pushing away what was left of her food. “Yer just gonna give up and wait for the vultures to come and finish ’im off like they nearly did us?”
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