Delphine Dryden - Gossamer Wing

The morning fog had long since burned off, but the day remained cool and pleasant. Perfect for walking, although Charlotte regretted the riding boots shortly into her journey.

For all her worry, she must have made a passable milkmaid. Nobody batted an eye in the tiny bakery when she bought a baguette, and the fruit seller in the market square winked at her and gave her two pears for the price of one. He also supplied a large cloth napkin that he cleverly folded and tied into a sort of carryall for her. She decided perhaps the French were not so bad after all, taken individually. Charlotte went on to secure a wedge of cheese and a bottle of cider before she decided she’d had enough of deceiving these gentle, unassuming and honest people.

She ate the first pear on the walk back to her spot by the creek. Bossie had wandered away again, leaving only deep hoof prints in the mud by the stream. An odd sort of wood sprite the cow made, but Charlotte still felt she’d been visited by a friendly spirit. She saved the second pear in case her bovine friend returned.

Half a baguette, a good deal of cheese and several swigs of surprisingly hard cider later, Charlotte felt like a new woman. The solitary walk, the charming little village, the sweet summery stillness of the wood, all seemed to fill her with an ease she hadn’t known in years.

Things had not gone according to plan, it was true, but for the moment she was safe and fed, and she had at least retrieved the documents. She could do no more that day, and there was a strange peace in accepting that simple fact and this quiet stretch of time it afforded her.

Charlotte slept most of the afternoon away in the quiet glade. She had to laugh when Bossie—or perhaps another cow who resembled Bossie—woke her in exactly the same way as before. It was her own fault, probably, for using butter as face cream.

“Needs must, Bossie. I didn’t have any other choice if I wanted to get away with a trip to town. Lucky for you, because I don’t think you’d like my usual night cream one bit. Have a pear, woodland spirit.”

The cow took the offering and ambled away, and Charlotte began to change clothes. It was sunset, and soon it would grow dark enough for her to fly.

MURCHESON’S MESSAGE REACHED Dexter in the late evening. A few short words, no specifics, enough for a shred of hope at best. No trace of a small dirigible or a small woman had been found on the factory grounds, the telegram implied. Nobody but one bystander injured, no other casualties known.

Dexter read it, repaired to the powder room and vomited, then returned to the sitting room to read it again. The flimsy paper had all but disintegrated in his hands by midnight, when Dexter finally gathered up a book, a blanket and a torch and left the room to take up his lonely vigil on the rooftop.

A few hours later, Charlotte nearly landed on Dexter’s head when a gust of wind tugged the Gossamer Wing astray as she alit on the rooftop of the hotel and cut off the gas feed.

He didn’t care. He wouldn’t have cared if she had landed feet-first in his face and concussed him on the way down, so long as she returned. He opened his mouth to say he’d missed her, he couldn’t live without her, he loved her. When she pulled her helmet off and he saw her grimy, weary face, however, all he could do was sweep her into his arms. Words weren’t enough, so he didn’t waste them.

After a time, Charlotte removed her face from where she had pressed it into his shirt. “Harness needs to come off.”

Dexter realized the Gossamer Wing was still attached to her, sagging slowly behind her as it cooled. Charlotte held up the rigging with one hand, clinging to Dexter’s coat with the other.

With quick, efficient motions he set the fuel assembly down away from the spent balloon, unbuckled the harness at Charlotte’s shoulders and feet, and simply lifted her out of the thing.

“I’ll come back for it,” he said when she pointed over his shoulder. He was halfway to the window that would lead them back inside, back to their suite, where he could bathe and feed and cosset her until she was in the right frame of mind to hear his declarations of devotion.

“Somebody could find it,” she murmured, sounding half asleep already.

“I don’t give a rat’s arse.”

“Hmm. That’s sweet.” Her head settled onto his shoulder, and Dexter’s heart soared as his mind churned out a simple refrain.

She’s alive. She’s alive. My Charlotte is alive.

MARTIN COULDN’T KILL Philippe, although the thought did cross his mind. He was out of the business of indiscriminate killing now, the Dominion rat had been his last. Now he took only the lives Dubois ordered taken; he would only take a life to save his own.

Martin sent orders for Claude and Jean-Louis to beat Philippe thoroughly, put the fear of death into him and advise him to leave the country and make a life for himself elsewhere.

“Perhaps he should consider apprenticing with a locksmith,” Claude retorted.

Martin chuckled, keeping the transmission switched off so Claude wouldn’t hear his mirth; he had a reputation to uphold. He had recovered fully by the time he thumbed the switch back to the open position.

“Advise him as you see fit, my amusing friend. As long as you advise him to be gone before I return to Paris.”

Get to the rooftop . Had that been such an unreasonable request? The others had managed it at their respective locations, but hours after Martin gave the order, Philippe had only just made it to the roof of the Palais Garnier. He was right on time to see the quarry escape with the documents, and the fool had only attempted a shot at the balloon after it lifted off and was nearly out of range. Philippe’s had been the only rooftop that mattered, and if anger and frustration were sufficient justification for murder then Martin would be halfway to Paris by now.

Instead he was still alone in Nancy, entering the glamorous old hotel through the service entrance. He hoped to strike it lucky rifling through the Hardisons’ suite for the bundle of documents while they dallied over brunch in a café down the street. For once, he might be able to use Dubois’s pathetically outdated perspective to his own advantage; if he brought the documents to Dubois—even after all these years—the industrialist might finally grant Martin the freedom he’d all but given up hope of attaining.

Depending on luck, rummaging through rooms like a two-bit burglar looking for a poor man’s life savings under a mattress. Sickening. Next, Martin supposed, he would be flipping coins to decide which mark to follow. He, who had been one of the finest agents in France during the war. Who prided himself on leaving nothing to chance.

Martin was dressed as a courier, carrying a large package and a clipboard and wearing the most apathetic expression in his repertoire. Nobody stopped him, though he passed a kitchen full of chefs, a room-service waiter and at least three chambermaids on his way in.

The rooms were fairly small and the Hardisons were tidy, so Martin thought he could do the job quickly and perhaps leave things looking as he’d found them, always his preference.

As it happened, however, not even that much effort was required. Two things happened at once. Martin spotted his long-lost leather pouch, in plain view on the console table in the sitting room. He also heard the squeaky wheel of the housekeeping cart in the hallway, not directly outside the suite he stood in but perhaps only a few doors away.

He could find a way to hide from the maid—a difficult prospect in rooms so small—and complete his search afterward, or he could snatch what he’d come for and walk away without risk of being spotted in the suite.