Oh, heavens. Here it came. In the rush of the day’s events, she had completely forgotten he would be incensed over her commandeering his airship, not to mention exposing her identity to Mr. Fairweather.
“Sit,” he said as he shut the door.
“Father, I—”
“Sit down, child. You are about to drop.” The kindness in his tone caught her completely by surprise. She sat. Before she could compose an apology, he said, “You have handled this trying situation very well.”
She looked up to find him sitting opposite, smiling. “I beg your pardon?”
“You did very well,” he said. “With limited resources, but keen application of your wits. Yes, identifying yourself to Mr. Fairweather was risky, but I let him know you had my full backing. Fortunately he had caught on immediately that you were to fly incognito. None of the crew got a good look at you. Now, to the future.”
“The future?” Maddie repeated, feeling like she’d fallen down an unnoticed rabbit hole to a world where nothing was as it seemed. Why was he not raging at her?
“It will never be safe for you to be known as my daughter while you are out in the world unprotected. You would be hunted, harassed, maybe even kidnapped or worse, by my enemies. I am rather surprised that Gatsby-Gauge had not already hired protection for his daughter. These negotiations would have made her a target if he’d been dealing with less scrupulous businessmen.”
Maddie could not argue with that observation. Emmeline had, unknown to the Steamlords, been in very real danger, and Lord Main-Bearing had already—two years ago and unknown to his daughter—faced months of worry over whether Maddie had in fact been kidnapped by the Russians.
He went on, “Madame Taxus-Hemlock swore you would be safe if I agreed to let you leave home a second time, and you have been so far. But I do not like to think of you tackling villains such as that countess without more resources. I suppose it would be useless for me to ask you to give up this dangerous work and simply write about hats and gloves and ribbons and lace?”
“Useless indeed, Father. But I will try to keep a distance from any business of yours in future. And I won’t identify myself to any more of your employees.”
He nodded, the bronze Main-Bearing curls gleaming in the lamplight. “As good a compromise as I can hope for at present. I will give you a stack of my cards before I go, ordering the recipient to give you any assistance you require in the pursuit of your investigations. That should eliminate the need to identify yourself in future.”
“I beg your pardon?” Maddie said again. “You’ll allow me to use Main-Bearing resources in my investigations, as long as I can do so without revealing my identity?”
“By the Great Cog, child,” he said. “I am trying to make it possible for you to do well the work you have chosen, and keep you as safe as possible at the same time. Is that so far beyond belief?” He held up a hand. “Don’t answer. I did not bring you here to scold you. Go to bed now. Your mother would be very worried to see you so pale and tired.” He checked the corridor to make sure it was empty and walked her to her bedchamber. He leaned toward her.
For a fraction of a second she thought he might, as he often had when she was much younger, kiss the top of her head. Then a pounding began on the wall opposite. A man’s hoarse voice begged, “Let me out. Please, let me out.”
“Reggie Badmin,” she exclaimed, and hurried across the hall to open the concealed door. The great detective’s leg-man was a sorry sight. His face was smudged with dusty sweat, his hands no better. His slick, black hair was frosted with cobwebs. “Have you been in there since early afternoon?”
Epilogue
THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON, after a long sleep and a good breakfast and a leisurely, luxurious bath scented with bluebells, Maddie went with Emmeline to the orphanage, accompanied by Emmy Gat’s suitcase and three heavy baskets from the Gatsby-Gauge kitchen. After the change of clothing, they strolled along the alley to the stable. Emmy Gat whistled and went in. Maddie followed. The place had been tidied and swept. In the middle of the floor was a squared-off pile of hay bales with an almost-clean gingham cloth over it. Emmy set down her basket and looked around.
“You done good by Miss Mad, and you done good by this place. Time for tea.”
Soon all the urchins were seated on old buckets, logs, and kegs around the hay-bale table. While Cat set out cups, saucers, plates and spoons from one basket, Emmy opened box after box of dainties more usually seen in the Gatsby-Gauge parlour. The children sampled everything, drank down a huge jug of milky tea they’d “stolen” from the orphanage, and talked over their adventure. At last, when Muffet was yawning in Maddie’s arms and Dormie’s head was on the table by the tea-jug, Emmy clapped her hands.
“Down to business now. You need better digs for winter. And you lot,” she pointed to Hare, Rabbit and Drink-me, who sat up alertly, “need to learn more trades than thievin’ and trackin’. You’re right good at those but they ain’t steady and they ain’t warm. If I can fix it for you three to go work in the giant Statue, will you?”
Three sets of eyes opened as on a promised land. “Aces,” breathed Drink-me. The Marches nodded.
Then Hare said sombrely, “Can’t leave the little’uns to do for their selves.”
Cat said, “I’ll stay in the orphanage with them until they’re settled. They’re too small for our life. They need warm beds and good food and learning to read and write.”
Hare nodded. “Better for ’em.”
So it was settled, and the tea party drew to a close. After they’d packed up the empty dishes and returned to the orphanage office for Emmy to transform back into Emmeline—for what Maddie devoutly hoped would be the last time—she asked, “Did you sneak out and meet Cat to set all this up?”
Emmeline shook her head. “She came to me this morning, while you were sleeping late, and we agreed the general plan. I got Papa to speak to the Director of Works for Staten Island, and the boys will be taken on as live-in apprentices. They’ll even go to school.”
“If Cat’s only staying at the orphanage until the little ones are settled, what will happen to her then?”
Emmeline grinned. “Oh, we’ve got a plan for that, too.”
After supper that night, a quiet affair with only Mrs. G-G in the formal dining room, Maddie in her nightdress sat in Emmeline’s green-and-pink bedchamber with her feet on an ottoman and a last cup of tea in her hand. Emmeline, in a ruffled and ribboned nightgown set that matched the magnolias on the wallpaper, lounged on the sofa with her legs stretched along its cushions. TD perched on the windowsill, watching for owls along the dim-lit boulevard. The moment of truth had come, and Maddie knew what she could say. She pushed back her hair, exposing the bronze streak.
“Your European social history lesson for today, Emmeline. See this metallic hair? That’s a heraldic sign. All the noble Steamlord families have one. Gold, Silver, and Bronze for the first generation of Steam peerages, simple colours for the second generation. One of my friends has hair of the most delightful shade of teal, and you saw Countess Olga’s red sides. They mark her as a Romanova, a relative of the Russian Tsar although not in the direct line.”
Emmeline fingered one of her own amber curls. “Your streak is bronze, like Lord Main-Bearing’s. Does that mean . . .?”
“Yes. I am a Main-Bearing relation.” Rather than explain the exact relationship, she went on, quite truthfully, “Lord Main-Bearing is the head of our entire clan, and normally must never be disobeyed. He was furious when he first saw me here. He ordered me to pack up and leave lest I compromise his negotiations with your father.”
“But you didn’t.” Emmeline’s topaz eyes were wide. “You stayed, and tried to stay out of his sight.”
“I refused to leave. To his face.” Maddie shivered at the memory. “I thought for one moment he would summon his men and have me carried off without another word. But when I explained that I was here on a job that had nothing to do with his, and reminded him that nobody
here knew I was his relation because I don’t use the family name, he agreed I could stay until my work for you was done.” She held up one hand. “No, I didn’t tell him what my real work was.”
“Or anything about me, or Emmy Gat, or the kidnappings?”
“I stuck to the social-secretary story. Whether he believed it or not, he was mighty pleased with me for catching up to Gnave.”
“So he won’t punish his airship crew for taking us to the Statue?”
“Not at all. In fact,” Maddie whipped out a card from her pocket and flicked it onto Emmeline’s blush-pink lap. “He gave me his card to show if I need help from his people again. Next time, I won’t have to depend on running into a crewman who knows me personally.” She laughed out loud, relief and joy flooding through her, and finished, still with perfect truth, “The head of my family has given his blessing to me having a job instead of an arranged marriage. None of them can stop me now.”
Emmeline laughed too. “Well then, can you work for me a while longer? I shall need a companion if I’m to visit Ulysses’ revolving mansion on the Shenandoah River.” She grinned. “I have no intention of marrying Ulysses, although I’m quite sure he’ll ask eventually. I still intend to visit Europe next year, but I’m easing Mama into my independence by travelling within the United States first. Suitably chaperoned, of course.”
“Of course.” Maddie could write fashion columns from all across America, and who knew when—or where—the next adventure would spring up in her path?
Nefarious Deeds in New York City
Special to the London Fog & Cog
Editor’s Note: On a recent sojourn in America’s most bustling city, the Kettle Conglomerate’s traveling investigative reporter, W.Y. Knott, had a ringside seat as international industrial espionage spilled over into kidnapping and theft. Herein lies a cautionary tale for British Steamlords, whose inventions are surely the equal of any in America, and whose children are equally dear.
W.Y. Knott: The most convoluted tale of this reporter’s career began in a most unlikely fashion. Having breached the portals of New York’s finest Parasol Academy in search of an interview with an esteemed duelist, this reporter chanced to meet the debutante daughter of an American Steamlord (whose family permitted me to use her story but not her name, for reasons that will soon become clear) . . .
About the Author
Jayne Barnard is a founding member of Madame Saffron's Parasol Dueling League for Steampunk Ladies and the author of the Aurora-nominated Maddie Hatter Adventures. Her crime stories, set anywhere from the real past to several alternate futures, have seen print and prizes across Canada; Fuelled by love of the wild, she’s at work on a trilogy of mystery novels set in the forested foothills of the Rockies. The first, WHEN THE FLOOD FALLS, won the Dundurn Unhanged Arthur in 2016 and is slated for release in 2018. She divides her writing year between Calgary, Alberta with an orange cat, and the rocky shore of Vancouver Island, where her only regular companion is an owl.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Epilogue
About the Author
Maddie Hatter and the Gilded Guage Page 18