by Rebecca Diem
“But you never come out here.”
“I’m here now,” he said, casting his eyes around the ruins before meeting her gaze once more. “It’s not as bad as I thought.”
The stone foundation was streaked with soot and debris littered the ground. Only the hearth stood tall in the former kitchens, its chimney mostly intact.
“Captain—,” she said, reaching for his hand.
“Trick is healing. He may finally be ready to move forward. Perhaps it’s time for the rest of us to do so as well. I don’t know what the future holds, but it’s time we meet it. For me, it’s letting go of this place.
“We could rebuild it, somewhen.”
“One day,” he agreed. “But we’ve been exposed here. The Haven is no more than a name now.”
“We’ll need a plan,” she said, holstering her pistol.
He gave her a broad smile, “There’s the piratess.”
Clara was feeling like herself again. She reached up and tangled her fingers into his long red hair before rising on her toes to touch her lips to his. She wanted to see if it still felt like lightning, and her heart skipped as he welcomed her kiss. This was different from the night of the mutiny. This time felt like a slow, curling heat as the sensation spread throughout her body, and she pulled him closer. This time, she was patient, taking her time to savour the embrace, the feeling of his lips as they brushed against her own. The Captain wrapped his arms around her waist and held her against him as she rose to stand on her toes. They broke apart, but still she held on to him. She could feel his heartbeat twinned to her own, racing under the hand she held against his chest. Breathless, she met his eyes. There was a promise in them, and she felt his hands tighten about her hips before he regained his senses and took a deep breath.
“To the future,” he said, at last.
Clara felt the blush on her cheeks, but she was determined to shake off any sensibilities that would foil her enjoyment of such a tantalizing moment. But for now, they had work to do.
“Come,” she said, taking his arm. “Let’s find Nessa and start plotting.”
As they made their way through the manor together, Clara’s mind was whirling between the matters at hand. The kiss—she had feelings for the Captain, there was no denying it. But there was the Haven to deal with, the question of where to move the crew and how, so many details to be worked out. And then, of course, the matter of Trick’s recovery took obvious precedence over something so silly as a mere flirtation. But deep in her heart, she knew this was no simple crush. It needed the space and time to grow into whatever form it was meant to take. What would her family think if she ran off with a pirate captain? Although, she supposed she already had. She was a pirate herself now, after all, and a grown woman.
By the time they reached the entrance hall, Clara had worked out exactly how to bring up the issue of Archie’s perception of her. She would simply explain to her brother that his behaviour was an impediment to her reputation amongst the crew and ask that he kindly desist. It was only a matter of explaining the context of his behaviour. They found him by the entryway, with Mouse at his side.
“Clara, Captain, how lovely. Mouse was about to show me the grounds. Would you care to join us for a stroll?”
“Actually, we have a great deal of work to do. But if you have a moment—,” she began, before Archie interrupted.
“Goodness, are those father’s duelling pistols? Really, Clara, set them aside before you injure someone.”
Clara’s eyes narrowed. She briefly registered the Captain’s muttered “Oh boy,” as she marched over and twisted her brother’s arm behind his back.
“Ow! Clara!” he yelled, mostly out of shock.
“Right. We’re going to have a talk,” she said, pushing him outside and slamming the door behind them.
Chapter 5: In which our hero finds a moment of peace
“They’ve been yelling for a while,” said Mouse. He sounded impressed.
“Well, it sounds as though they have quite a lot to discuss,” said the Captain Duke.
Cat rested her chin in her hands, “Brothers. Honestly.”
“Hey!” shouted Mouse, but the Captain cleared his throat and they returned their attention to the scene outside the window.
Clara and her brother were doing battle on the front lawn, accentuating their various points of contention with emphatic gesticulation and raised voices. Clara crossed her arms and looked away as her brother made his plea, pointing toward the airship docks and to the ground he stood on. Then, Clara fixed a formidable glare upon her brother and stormed towards him. She stopped just short of the young man, forcing him to take a step back. Despite her smaller stature, she gave the impression of a far greater menace, and the Captain silently reminded himself to stay on her good side. Clara gave a wave of her hand encompassing all of the Haven, before turning with a hand to her head and walking away a few steps. Archie’s shoulders turned inward. Defeated, he followed, resting a hand on her shoulder when she turned. He moved his hands to hold both of hers in supplication as he pleaded with her. The Captain could see her smile grow as she wiped away tears. Finally, Clara nodded and wrapped her brother in a hug as the siblings reached some sort of agreement. The Captain Duke and his fellow spies ducked behind the curtains as the two of them turned back to the Haven, arm in arm.
“Well, I suppose that settles that,” said the Captain Duke, after they snuck into the library to avoid discovery.
“They’re just like us,” Cat giggled.
She tousled her brother’s hair before Mouse swatted her away. The young boy still had an expression of concern.
“Captain, what happens when Archie leaves? Is Clara going to stay?”
The Captain Duke made to dismiss such a silly idea, but the words stuck in his throat. Of course she would stay with them. This was Clara’s home now. But if they were to leave the Haven… He frowned as he considered the matter. The reasons for Clara’s hurried departure the night of her engagement party were many, but protecting her brother had been one of them. After she broke things off with her fiancé, that horrid Alexander Corring fellow, she said she’d feared that he might attempt to duel her brother. One of the traitorous Robbie’s revelations had been that Alex was carrying on with the pretense of their engagement to avoid his debtors. Sooner or later, Clara would need to confront him, though she seemed content to avoid the issue for now. What if her responsibility to her family outweighed her need for the crew? She was not the helpless sort. She had no need of their protection. So what reasons might compel her to stay?
Realizing that the children were now staring intently, he brushed off their concern,
“She’ll stay. Of course she’ll stay. She’s a pilot now.”
Cat did not look convinced, though her brother seemed content to accept his response for now. The Captain left the library in search of Nessa. He needed more information on this Alexander Corring, and there was also the matter of the Haven to discuss.
The Captain Duke found Nessa in the upper gallery, poring over the latest transmission from the wireless. She had set herself to the task of figuring out Robbie’s plans and tracking down his allies, channelling her fury to throw herself into the investigation with unmatched vigour.
“Ah, Captain. I’ve just had the latest come in from Marie—ah, Captain Buchanan.”
“What is the good Captain Buchanan saying?” he asked with a smirk, sitting in a nearby chair.
Marie Buchanan—dubbed the Black Widow in the common papers after her husband’s passing and the subsequent estate war—had become their greatest ally in the search for the origins of the gunpowder they had discovered on the airship they had found Clara on. Captain Buchanan was known to all and highly respected for her crew’s expertise in the cross-Atlantic trade routes. It was rare for a shipment to pass without her knowledge, and she had taken it upon herself to discover what kind of plot they had become involved in. It helped, he figured, that the formidable woman had a soft spot for
Nessa.
“Well, it seems that Robbie was in touch with someone at the London docks. I believe he had plans to deliver the gunpowder to its original destination—if his mutiny was successful. There are rumours of a hefty bribe.”
“How did he locate the destination of the cargo? We questioned the captain of that airship after we found Clara on board. He knew nothing.”
“Well, I’m not exactly sure. But I found half of a coded transmission that he failed to properly destroy in a waste bin by the wireless. I’m working on it. I think that the gunpowder might have been smuggled onto the Isle of Wight. Maybe by boat, or some other undiscoverable means. Whatever its origins, someone is bound to be missing it.”
The Captain gave a wry smile. Missing it indeed. He would have preferred a version of events in which the gunpowder had not been employed to destroy half of his home.
“I’ve started to wonder whether Clara’s presence on that ship was a coincidence,” he said.
“Captain, we’ve already been through this. Surely you cannot believe that she had any involvement in the scheme.”
“No, no, nothing like that. It’s that Alexander Corring, her former fiancé. We know he has debts and we know he’s desperate to avoid paying them, enough so to carry on the ruse of an engagement to Clara. An airship filled with illicit goods leaving on the same night as their engagement party… something is missing here. I want to know if he was involved in some way.”
“Are you sure you’re not just after a report on the man who broke Clara’s heart?”
“She’s hardly heartbroken,” the Captain scoffed. “And if she sees him again, I’d bet on her doing some breaking of her own thanks to your training.”
Nessa laughed, “It’s not that I don’t agree with you. I’ll look into Corring and see what I can find. And I’ll see if Captain Buchanan can learn anything more about Robbie’s contact in London.”
“Good. There’s another matter I want to discuss…”
Nessa turned and crossed her ankle over her knee, leaning back in the chair.
“Yes?”
“We need to leave the Haven.”
“I know.”
“I figured as much.”
“I was going to give you another week to come around to it. Trick’s been making progress and I didn’t want to upset him any further.”
“He may take it roughly, yes.”
“Well, here’s what I’ve drawn up so far,” she said, pulling a stack of papers from beneath a ledger.
The Captain smiled as he looked over the rough arrangements. His crew never let him down.
“You’ve been planning this for some time.”
“We all needed time to recover. I knew you’d see the need for it, eventually.”
“Have you shown this to Clara? To Peg?”
“Of course not, Captain. I wanted to get your thoughts first.”
“Yes. Yes, you’re right. Nessa, I—well, thank you.”
She gave him a long look, “We’ll follow you anywhere, Captain.”
Nessa could read his moods nearly as well as Trick could. In his dozen or so years as the Captain Duke, he had never faced a mutiny of that scale, and it shook his confidence. He sighed, and gave a nod in gratitude for her understanding.
“I’ll go check in on Trick.”
The Captain Duke left the room and went down the hall to find his friend. There was some larger scheme in play here, and he wanted to know more before planning their next move. He was growing tired of this game, ever trying to stay a step ahead of the Tradists and their machinations, or whoever this new player was. The landscape was changing much faster these days. This was no simple matter of raiding the Tradist ships and pushing the goods into the black market. Someone was getting greedy and it was his intention to find out who.
He rested his forehead on the doorjamb of Trick’s chambers before entering. The Captain held onto a vision of a calmer life, of standing before the window of a great house with lawns stretching into the distance. In his daydream, he turned to see Clara, comfortably ensconced in an armchair by the hearth, setting down a book to smile up at him. The Captain Duke shook his head to clear it. If there was to be such a future, it was a long way off. Still, he was smiling as he entered the room.
Chapter 6: In which our heroine finds puzzles in the past
The morning light shone into the ballroom through windows that stretched to the second story. Dust motes danced through the sunbeams, illuminating the inlaid parquet flooring. Once upon a time the scuff marks had been left by dancers as the walls reverberated the sounds of revelry and life. Now, the sound of Clara’s footsteps echoed back to her as she entered the room.
Clara picked a warm bun off the sideboard, buttering it as she crossed to the table to join Nessa and the children. She had just seen three of the small crews off for long-range tours, and had time to spare before the afternoon raids were sent out. Cook had taken to setting out breakfast buffet style after the destruction of the kitchens and dining hall, easier to manage with the pilot crews coming and going at different times. Cat and Mouse were already tucking into their food. Nessa’s plate was untouched as she looked through a set of old logbooks. Clara sat across from her friend and poured out some of the strong coffee she had taken a liking to, ever since they acquired the beans on a raid the month before. She added a dash of milk and paused to inhale the rich aroma, sighing happily as she took the first sip. Nessa gave her a brief smile before returning to her task.
“Nessa, you really must eat,” Clara admonished. “You were up before dawn this morning. The work can wait.”
“The days grow shorter, it’s not difficult to beat the sun.”
She paused for a mouthful of egg, then continued reading as she washed it down with a sip of tea.
Cat rolled her eyes and exchanged a look with Clara before continuing her discussion with Mouse. Clara listened in on their happy chatter comparing various flight manoeuvres. The two of them clearly missed life aboard the airship. She smiled as Archie entered the hall and joined them, taking a seat beside her after filling a plate of his own.
“You know, Mouse,” Clara said as he finished extolling the virtues of a dual versus single wing glider. “My brother here knows a thing or two about the mechanics behind the construction.”
“Oh? Well which do you prefer?” the boy asked.
Archie looked around, “Well, I’ve dabbled yes. It depends on whether you seek greater stability or agility. The trick lies in how to incorporate elements of both designs into a single contraption to build upon the necessary strengths.”
Mouse held a spoon halfway to his mouth, “Can you show me? Is that what you did for yours?”
“Can you build me one?” asked Cat.
“I do have some books on the theory behind their development I could lend you…”
The three of them launched into a debate on the finer mechanics of aeronautical engineering. Clara was happy to receive an education of sorts just by witnessing their enthusiasm. Her expertise lay in people, not machines, but she followed along as best she could, ignoring the deep sighs from Nessa that peppered the discussion. Finally, scrutinizing the stack of books, her curiosity could not be contained further.
“Really, Nessa. I will have the Captain ban logbooks from the table.”
Nessa placed her elbows on the table, resting her chin on folded hands, “There’s something bothering me about this report but I can’t place my finger on it.”
“Let me see,” said Clara, reaching over. She studied the log while Nessa ate, turning the pages over.
“Nessa, this isn’t one of ours.”
“Is that not Robbie’s handwriting?”
“No, but it’s a similar sort of chicken scrawl. See? The dates don’t match up. I swear I already transcribed ours from the summer.”
“You’re right,” said Nessa, after examining the page in question. “The airship was nowhere near these ports. Let’s go and compare.”
She s
tarted to rise from the bench, but not before Clara snatched the book away again.
“First, we eat. Then I’ll assist you.”
Nessa considered the offer for a moment, eyeing the logbook Clara held aloft as though determining the merit in fighting her for it. The matter was resolved when, in between a sip of coffee and a mouthful of biscuit, Archie plucked the logbook from Clara’s hands, with no interruption in the stream of his conversation, and sat on it. Nessa’s mouth dropped in shock, but Clara calmly returned to her meal, trading a sidelong grin with her brother over her cup. Nessa sighed and turned to her meal in earnest, and the lively conversation continued as they broke their fast.
With Archie and Mouse off to entertain themselves with glider schematics, Nessa and Clara spread out the logbooks in the study with Cat’s help, matching the dates and cargos. All were bound in plain leather, made to handle the wear and tear aboard an airborne vessel. The Captain Duke was not one for embossing his books with a crest or name—Clara had begun to doubt whether the airship had a proper name, it currently bore the mark Aurora’s Tempest—and they quickly determined that the extra logbook must have come from another vessel. As they traced its route and cargo, they soon realized it belonged to the airship that had carried the gunpowder.
“This is brilliant! I was certain it must have been destroyed with the ship,” said Nessa.
“The final entry is the false grain shipment, the one they used as a cover for the gunpowder,” pointed out Cat. “The 24th of July, the day before we found you, Clara. But they came into the tallport of the Isle of Wight on the 21st and weren’t due to leave until the 28th.”
Nessa frowned, “What was it that led you to choose that particular airship, Clara?”
“I’m not sure exactly, it all happened so fast. I knew they usually went straight to London so I just picked the one that looked as though it was leaving first.”
“And this was after or during the party? Or when it was supposed to be happening?” asked Nessa. “I wonder why they would have left in the evening. The illicit cargo probably spooked the captain, he must have had knowledge of it then and feared discovery. Or perhaps they were trying to avoid an unexpected complication.”