Delphine Dryden - Gossamer Wing

She frowned at him for a moment then leaned forward, clasping the frame of the communicating window with one hand for balance while she addressed the driver. “Let’s pull over, just to be on the safe side.”

Dexter apologized to the driver and to Charlotte, but he was relieved when the car rattled to a halt at the nearest stretch of empty curb.

“It’s probably nothing,” he said to Charlotte as he handed her down and led her to stand under the awning of the closest storefront. “But I’d like to have a look. Come over here and wait with Lady Hardison, if you would,” he instructed the driver, who nodded and shut the engine off before he leaped down, swinging the door closed behind him.

His foot touched the pavement just as a whoof of pressure and superheated steam blew the bonnet from the car. The explosion swept the driver straight into Dexter and Charlotte as the sound ripped the night apart. Dexter threw himself between Charlotte and the steam car, but the unfortunate driver floundered into the gray stone wall of the nearest storefront. One half of the bonnet flew straight into the large display window next to them, and as his ears stopped ringing from the blast, Dexter heard a brassy alarm bell jangling from inside the store.

“Charlotte!” He rolled off her, patting her frantically all over. “Are you all right? Darling, are you hurt?”

“I’ve been better,” she admitted. “Dear god, you’re heavy. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. I think.”

Charlotte was already crawling past him to get to the driver, who seemed to have knocked himself unconscious when he was flung face-first into the wall. He’d crumpled to a heap below the shattered display window, but as they watched he groaned and pushed himself to a seated position.

Then he saw the remains of the car and began cursing in French that Dexter didn’t understand and Charlotte pretended not to understand. Dexter saw the shock on her face as she looked from the driver to the car, which was burning white-hot. A scrape high on Charlotte’s cheekbone started to bleed, one drop seeping out and finding its way down her cheek. Her elaborate coiffure listed to one side, the ribbons and pins yanked out of place by the fall; the hair was starting to slide free one soft, golden curl at a time. She was beautiful, and she was simply the thing he held most precious in life. It suddenly all seemed very clear to him.

“You saved us all.” Charlotte returned her attention to Dexter, running her hands down his chest, reassuring herself he was unhurt. “If you hadn’t heard that something was wrong—”

“I love you.”

She blinked, hesitated, then stared into his eyes intently as though she were searching for the truth written on his soul. A long moment, saturated with potential, passed between them before she spoke again.

“Your pupils are equal, it doesn’t seem to be a concussion. We should have a doctor examine your head, just the same.”

She stood up gracefully, all at once, backing away from the heat of the burning steam car and brushing herself off as if her satin opera gloves were any sort of use against the devastation the explosion had wrought. The skirt of her gown was torn, and splinters of glass sparkled on her cloak.

“Mr. Murcheson’s steam car has blown out the window of Cartier’s,” she remarked, nodding toward the broken display pane. “I wonder who pays for the damage in cases like this?”

The subject, it seemed, was officially changed.

Dexter rose more slowly, making a few passes over his clothing with his hands then giving it all up as a loss. Sirens were already nearing, and the gathering crowd pressed closer as the fire began to die down. The seats of the ill-fated vehicle didn’t burn nearly as hot as the engine had.

Looking behind him, Dexter offered a hand to the still-muttering driver, who took it and wobbled to his feet.

“What caused it, monsieur?” he asked Dexter, as if by predicting the explosion, his passenger had proved himself an oracle of the first order.

“That remains to be seen,” Dexter said, though he had his suspicions. To Charlotte, he murmured, “There’s nothing wrong with my head.”

He felt irritated, cross with himself and Charlotte, and he knew that was a ridiculous emotional response to having just had a steam car explode and nearly kill three people. Later, he expected, he would need a great deal of liquor and suffer many nightmares before he was rid of the trauma. For the moment, though, it simply hadn’t hit him yet. It was all too unreal. His mind was apparently only capable of dealing with one minor detail at a time, and it had chosen to concern itself with Charlotte’s less-than-ideal reaction to his unplanned declaration.

Dexter felt nominally better when Charlotte tipped her head back to study his face, lifting a hand to brush the hair back from his forehead and whispering, “I know there’s nothing wrong with your head, my delicious slice of coconut cream pie.”

“That one needs work,” he said automatically, feeling a glimmer of giddy happiness even less appropriate to the situation than being irked.

“It was the best I could do on the spur of the moment,” she replied, nestling into the crook of his arm as the first wave of police arrived on the scene.

PARIS, FRANCE

“NO. IT’S ABSOLUTELY out of the question!” Dexter insisted.

Charlotte clenched her fists, wanting to strike out at something and vibrating with the effort to restrain herself. How dare he?

“Out of the question for whom, precisely?”

“This has gone well beyond any reasonable expectation of danger you might have encountered flying about in a balloon .” Dexter’s face had turned fierce and hard. Charlotte thought his jaw looked as tightly bunched as her fists, and made a mental note not to punch him there if she decided she simply couldn’t hold herself back. She’d be more likely to hurt her hand than his face.

“You do realize it was a spy balloon? And that I was using it to gather vital documents and conduct covert surveillance on potentially deadly enemies? I understood you were aware of all that.”

Dexter dug his fingers through his hair, gripping it so tightly Charlotte was surprised he didn’t pull out two handfuls. “Charlotte, be reasonable!”

“I am being reasonable,” she said, forcing herself to calm down. The situation called for education, not rage. “I’m being a very reasonable agent of the Crown, still on an assignment. That’s why we’re here. Besides, stowing me at the embassy for safekeeping would be pointless. We’re not in any more danger today than we were yesterday, Dexter. We weren’t the targets.”

“I’m sorry? We nearly got blown to bits.”

“In Murcheson ’s steam car. A steam car nobody expected us to be in,” she reminded him.

“It would have been easy for somebody to—”

“No. The driver was only away from the vehicle for fifteen minutes during the middle of the first act. He left it to pick up some tobacco for Mr. Murcheson, as he’d been instructed to do, and when he returned he didn’t notice anything amiss. Whatever was done to the steam car was done very quickly while he was gone. Well before Murcheson volunteered his car to take us back here. That implies advance planning. So unless you suspect Murcheson or his driver of plotting our demise . . .”

Dexter shook his head and sat on the end of the bed with a grunt. “Damn. I feel like I’ve been run over by a tractor.”

“Me too. You should try a warm bath. I left some Epsom salts for you.”

“That won’t help my ears to stop ringing, I suppose?”

“Only time will help that, I’m afraid.”