Delphine Dryden - Gossamer Wing

“This is part of the original house, isn’t it? The room, I mean, not . . . this thing here.”

“Yes, sir. The first Baron built it shortly after the Colonial Uprising. His was one of the first Dominion titles.” Those titles had secured land for a growing body of restless gentry in Britain, who were happy enough to swear new oaths of fealty to the Crown—and agree to forego the usual seats in the House of Lords, as they wouldn’t be present to vote—in exchange for the prospect of nobility and wealth in the newly subdued American Dominions.

“I wonder what he would think of this, your ancestor?” Now Darmont was talking about the wall.

Dexter smiled, feeling much more at his ease discussing this than he had the surreal prospect of marrying Lady Moncrieffe in order to go help her spy on the French in violation of an international treaty. “I suspect he would be amused that I’d left it exposed, but I doubt he would mind. He did build it, after all. Or at least he started the process.”

He enjoyed the Viscount’s expression; the man was clearly startled. Dexter always enjoyed telling this tale.

“He was a suspicious old curmudgeon, you see, and after he was widowed at age fifty or so he married again to a much younger woman. She was very beautiful, and he was predictably jealous despite her being, by all accounts, the most virtuous creature ever born and quite in love with the old fool.

“He couldn’t bear to be apart from her, and she did like to take a solitary ride every fine morning. It preyed on his nerves not to know where she went, but he dreaded the thought that she might catch him spying and think ill of him, or think he didn’t trust her. So he rigged a sort of spyglass on the roof. The stairs were hell on his rheumatism, though, so next he developed a periscope in order to watch her while remaining in his own study.”

“I think I see the direction this will take,” quipped the Viscount.

“These things never end well, do they?” Dexter agreed. “From there it became a fixation, and then an obsession. He couldn’t see past the row of trees after she entered the lane from the south gate, but she would certainly question the removal of such a fine old row of elms. So he put a crude sensor in the gate, that tripped a bell if the gate was opened. The system grew in complexity, and he guarded his study as closely as Bluebeard guarded his wives’ heads.”

“We all know how that turned out. Can I assume this tale had an unhappy end?”

“Unhappy, possibly,” Dexter allowed with a smile and a shrug, “but at least not grisly. He did get found out eventually, of course, and she was furious. Nevertheless, she went on to bear him five children that looked too much like him to doubt their parentage, so one can only assume some sort of treaty was arrived at.”

“Based on the evidence of the children?”

“And on her journal. She was alternately horrified and flattered by his intensity.”

“The first Baron Hardison was not a stable chap, I take it.”

“Mad as a hatter, I suspect. But a dab hand with the gadgetry.” Dexter took a moment to appreciate the wall of delicate machinery in front of him. “Of course his devices were mostly glorified trip wires and the like. Levers to pull at bells, essentially, with a few extra steps in between. But the second and third Barons added their own fillips, most notably the clockworks. All the clocks in the house are synchronized by this system here. It’s still wound from a central location in the kitchens each morning. My grandfather added fans and thermostats. Centralized temperature control. I’ve contributed intrastructural communication devices. And this is a cross-section of the entire system. Remarkable, really.”

“Your grandfather was the one who married Eliza Chen.”

“Yes, sir.” He couldn’t help the note of pride that crept into his voice at the mention of his famous grandmother, who’d been a formidable political activist.

Lady Moncrieffe’s father turned that oddly calculating gaze on him again. “And two generations later, her crusade for workers’ rights and the destruction of the class system is honored posthumously by your habit of styling yourself Mister Hardison?”

Dexter stared back, suddenly feeling all the potential danger of this man. He heard, in Darmont’s pointed questions, the equally sharp intelligence of his daughter. At least if her letters were any indication. He wondered again what she looked like, and vaguely hoped she took after her mother.

“I don’t denounce my heritage, and I don’t forego the use of my title out of any altruistic notions about the populace, Lord Darmont. One day I may take up the title and wield it for the public good if I can, but at the moment my business interests here and elsewhere aren’t well-served by reminding people of my ancestry. You know it takes a great deal of money to maintain one’s estate. The French and the Spanish buy all sorts of equipment from my workshops. They don’t mind dealing with an American inventor, but I suspect they might be less sanguine about negotiating with the Makesmith Baron.”

He threw the epithet out and waited for a response.

“But it’s the Makesmith Baron who would make such a convenient husband for my daughter. You would need to use your title, foster the notion that you’re a typical blithe aristocrat. Play the baron to Charlotte’s baroness.”

They both knew the truth of that. What other single man could fulfill all the necessary roles for this particular political ploy? Who else had the technical expertise to advise the Agency’s engineers and work on the dirigible if necessary, the conveniently public disinterest in politics and the perfect credentials of gentility to marry the widow of a baronet, daughter to the eminently respectable Viscount Darmont?

Serendipity.

And Matthew, upon his return from delivering the “funny hat,” had waxed rather lyrical regarding the physical charms of the widow Moncrieffe. He had met her a few times before, he said, but had clearly been too callow a youth at the time to appreciate the qualities of such a subtle blossom. He was no longer too callow, apparently. Dexter supposed the woman took after her mother, after all.

“Pocket Venus,” Matthew had extolled. “Chilly as a winter day, and black isn’t her color, but still. Fire under all that ice, you know? You forget she’s tiny while you’re talking to her, then all of a sudden it strikes you that you could break her in two if you weren’t careful. Although . . .”

“Although?” Dexter had tried to pretend he wasn’t interested in Pence’s prurient gossip. He’d remained bent over his workbench, pencil in hand, sketching a design that wouldn’t leave his mind’s eye.

“She wouldn’t break, I suspect. There’s steel there.” Hardly the thing to say in compliment to a delicate lady. But he said it with admiration.

Dexter hadn’t risen to the bait. He hadn’t asked for more detail about the potential charms of the interesting widow with her inexplicable need for esoteric devices. For camouflaged devices.

Now that he knew the reason for the camouflage, he had more difficulty concealing his desire to learn more, and to meet her face-to-face at last. She was intriguing, this Lady Moncrieffe, with her mourning turned to espionage and her father who was willing to pander her to him on a temporary basis if necessary. Not that her father seemed happy with the idea.

“Did you mean for her to be the inducement, sir?” Dexter asked him. He was politely horrified by the very notion, and mortified to have to ask, but he thought it best to have it out in the open either way. “I would have taken this on for Crown and country. Even if nothing comes of it, you can depend on my discretion. Title or no, I think my reputation and my family’s honor are insurance enough of that.”