Delphine Dryden - Gossamer Wing

“They’re worried about having enough warning to get the crew evacuated if there’s a danger of being cut off. I know how to make a seismograph to detect vibrations, but I haven’t a clue how to rig any sort of long-range sensor array that doesn’t use some form of telegraphy.”

“I thought you were planning to use the little spider-cars to help with that.”

“I considered it,” he sighed, “but they’re not fast enough to be of much use, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, I see. Well, why can’t it use telegraphy? Or radio signals, like the emergency lamps on the ship?” Charlotte clenched her skirts more firmly in hand as they approached the surf. Her toes dug into the sand with each step, and despite the chilly damp numbing her feet, she found it an oddly luxuriant feeling. Sensual. She had never thought of anything as sensual before the voyage from New York, but now it seemed she was running into sensuality everywhere she went.

“No sound. No vibrations. It has something to do with this new device they’re working on that they think the French may be developing as well. To detect sound or motion underwater.”

She nodded. She’d heard rumors. Indeed, she thought a gadget like that would be uniquely useful in her own line of work. She could hardly blame the French for wanting it. Nor could she blame the British military for trying to suss out the secret and beat them to building it.

“What do you know about Murcheson?” Dexter stopped to roll his trousers up before proceeding, and Charlotte lingered until he was finished.

“Not very much. I know his wife is French,” she relayed. “But she’s said to be above suspicion, on what basis I have no idea. She grew up in England. Gossip has it she’s a great beauty, and they’ve a daughter about to debut who looks exactly like her. I don’t suppose that was the sort of information you were interested in, however. Let’s see . . . he was one of the first Englishmen to move his business across the channel following the treaty, as you probably know, and he’s been by far the most successful. His contacts in the Égalité government range wide and deep. Right to the top.”

“They’ve never found him out as an agent of the Crown?” He frowned, looking up at the moon as though studying it for an answer. “I’d think they would suspect him, at the very least. It seems so risky, having the tunnel extend from this side, and right from beneath his factory.”

“Risky, yes. But I think it’s brilliant precisely because it’s so improbable. They may suspect him, but suspect something on that scale? And because he’s building everything from curio boxes to steamrail coaches in his factories, any equipment would be so easy to bring in. He wouldn’t even have had to disguise it. Even his own workers don’t have to know what’s going on. I mean look at the things you’re doing to his toys, but the people who make them had no idea they’d end up as gadgetry for spies.”

She paddled one foot at the wave that trickled toward them, slapping the top of the water with her toes as it swept over their feet. Moonlight and starlight glimmered on the water like so many metaphorical diamonds. It was hard not to be dazzled, and even harder to ignore the playful pull and slide of water and sand beneath her toes, but Charlotte reined herself in. Poetic thinking would not help her.

“They wouldn’t be looking for an entrance on this side of the channel,” Dexter continued her train of thought. “They can search on the English side until the cows come home and never find it, because it isn’t there to find.”

“Risky but brilliant,” Charlotte repeated.

“Tomorrow you’ll be taking the submersible out alone, I hear?”

She nodded. She was already convincing herself she could learn to enjoy it. A bubble, slipping between the waves, and she would be safe inside it. Safe and quiet and solitary. Exactly her sort of thing. She was practically giddy with anticipation. Giddiness often caused one’s palms to sweat.

Dexter startled her when he spoke again. “You know you don’t have to, Charlotte. It isn’t an official part of your mission, is it? Murcheson hasn’t reassigned you.”

“Are you worried for me?” she asked with wry amusement. “I assure you I can manage the sub. It’s no more dangerous than the Gossamer Wing , at least.”

“But in the Gossamer Wing , you’re not closed in. Genuine phobias can do strange things, cloud the mind, even when you think you’re in control of your emotions.”

She clenched her fists tightly, then made herself release the tension in her hands. “I don’t have a genuine phobia. It’s under control.”

“I see.”

He sounded indulgent, but also a little preoccupied, as though his mind had already moved on to some other topic. From the corner of her eye, Charlotte saw Dexter stop his slow ambling at the water line and frown down at his feet. She could see nothing unusual, only the sand and water flowing back and forth with the tide, over his feet and his ankles. The bottoms of his pants were damp despite being rolled, the cream-colored linen dark with moisture.

“What?”

He shook his head. “Nothing. Just . . . silica.”

“Silica?”

“Mmm.” He crouched and rubbed a bit of wet sand between his fingers, staring off across the water. “Tomorrow morning you’ll try out the submersible again if you feel you must. But after that, since Murcheson has grounded the Gossamer Wing for daytime flight, I think it’s time we moved along to Paris.”

“To Paris? But we’ve only just arrived, we’re supposed to have another three days here. Why do we need to go to Paris already?” She could sense a growing excitement and restlessness in him.

“Because it’s only a few hours’ steamrail ride from Paris to Metz or Nancy,” he explained, standing and flicking the grains of sand from his fingers.

Charlotte suppressed a frustrated growl. “And what is in Metz or Nancy?”

Dexter grinned and started back toward the street with a swing in his stride, not waiting for her to follow as he called back over his shoulder.

“Glassmakers.”

ATLANTIS STATION, BENEATH THE ENGLISH CHANNEL

DEXTER WAS ANXIOUS.

Charlotte should have been back fifteen minutes ago.

He stared at the self-contained docking tank, as if he could conjure the submersible back by sheer force of will. A dozen different scenarios played through his head, ranging from simple engine failure that might leave her stranded and unable to return, slowly suffocating to death, to an elaborate scene involving Charlotte taken captive by a rogue French agent who interrogated her using the most appalling torture methods imaginable. In between the two lay the all-too-realistic fear of her succumbing to panic from her claustrophobia and becoming disoriented, unable to pilot the sub back to safety.

He hadn’t pressed because he hadn’t the right. He wasn’t really her husband, so he wasn’t able to put his foot down. Nor was he quite a friend, because he hadn’t known her long enough to get away with saying the things a friend might say. Now he was not even her lover.

He had been a fool. Such a fool. He thought he’d been giving her time to come to him on her own. Instead, he’d only wasted the time they could have been spending together.

“She was very eager to try it out, sir. Determined, I would say. She was a quick study learning the basics yesterday, and she has plenty of air and fuel. Probably just taking her time.”

“She should be watching the time more closely than that,” Dexter snapped.

“Yes, sir.” The young midshipman manning the tank clearly knew when not to push a point.

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Dexter allowed gruffly. But by the time Charlotte’s vessel broke the surface of the water some five minutes later, he was practically vibrating with a combination of fear and relief that translated into an unfocused rage when he finally saw her face.