coast to the borders of the Russian Orthodox Empire. Our nation has intimate ties with the Esquimaux and the Athabasca, making ours the largest united peoples in the Canadas.
“I met his lordship when I was a guide on a hunting trip. I taught him how to handle the new Sharps lever-action repeating rifle.” Her eyes took on a focus and intensity that were rather like those of an eagle stooping upon its prey, and Alice found herself pushing up against the back of the chair. “I did not grow up in the ballrooms of London, Alice Chalmers. I learned to take my place there, and if you are afraid to do what I have done, then I am ashamed of you.”
Alice glanced at Claire, whose jaw hung open as far as her own.
“But—but your speech,” Claire stammered. “Your accent—it’s Belgravia to the last vowel.”
“I have a good ear and am an excellent mimic. You ought to hear my northern loon.”
“I knew there was more to you than met the eye!” Claire was beginning to recover from her astonishment. “A woman could not be so good at weaponry and be so comfortable in the wilderness who had grown up in the drawing rooms of London.”
Davina smiled and turned back to Alice. “There are those in said drawing rooms who made an attempt to turn a cold shoulder to me because of my birth. They soon learned it is not safe to offend my husband—or Her Majesty, who recognizes a princess whether she is arrayed in diamonds or deerskin. I can assure you, Alice, my dear, that if you accept my guidance and his protection, there will be no opportunity for the embarrassment you fear.”
Alice felt a little winded. “Another blasted clairvoyant. Between the two of you, I ain’t got a chance.”
Claire smiled, a hint of wickedness in the corners. s in thners. “Among the three of us, neither does Edmonton.”
*
Claire and Andrew walked back to the Lass with Alice, since Claire could not be permitted to cross the airfield alone on the return walk. Such silliness, really, but the fact remained that, if she was to submit herself to the chaperonage of the Dunsmuirs, she would have to reaccustom herself to old-fashioned ways of thinking. The Mopsies, dead to the world in one bunk in their shifts, would stay, so Davina felt her battle half won. If she had it her way, Andrew would stay on the Lass and the two young ladies on the larger ship, as was proper, but Claire doubted very much that Alice would be talked into leaving her vessel. In any case, Claire needed to return for her much-abused valise.
Alice ducked past a set of mooring ropes and emerged into the lamplight again, shaking her head. The French braid that Claire had fashioned in her hair was beginning to come apart at the end where she had lost the ribbon. It seemed that Alice’s hair would be more of a challenge than she had first supposed.
“How about that Davina?” Alice said, apropos of nothing. “A Na’nuk princess. Who would have thought?”
“Even more astonishing is how little it is talked of in London. Her Majesty and the earl between them must have been quite … firm.”
“I doubt Her Majesty’ll be giving me the same backup.”
“The earl will,” Andrew said. “And that counts for quite a lot.”
Alice stopped walking. “Claire, Mr. Malvern, it’s no use. I got something I have to do here tonight, and once that’s done, I’m going to lift and head north, to the mines. And maybe after that I’ll head out west and get a gander at this ocean you and Davina were talking about.”
Two thoughts combusted simultaneously in Claire’s mind. The first was that Alice intended to search for her father, all alone. And the second was that no woman who would set off into the sky all by herself to undertake a journey of at least a thousand miles nurtured any hopes whatsoever of catching the eye of a certain engineer.
Claire did not want her to catch his eye. She liked his eyes trained in the direction they were presently, thank you. But neither did she want her friend, to whom she owed so much, to head out into the unknown, unprotected and alone.
“Please don’t go.” She put a hand on Alice’s arm, and to her relief, was not shaken off. “I am as much a stranger to Edmonton society as you. We must stay together.”