That was certainly not the case. She had been enormously lucky. Blessed, even. They had simply come to the end of the resources left from the previous stages of their journey. She would visit a bank, and then repair as quickly as possible to the high street to resolve this most immediate problem. Small difficulties like this certainly beat her most recent ones—like having to invent an engine from scratch in the middle of a wilderness.
How she had changed! She recalled clearly the burden that visiting a dressmaker had been even six months ago. But that had been a time when clothes appeared magically in her closets and she never gave a single thought to stockings or 0">tockingcoats—or to money, for that matter.
By now darkness had fallen, but the airfield was illuminated by lamps on every mooring mast. The Mopsies and Tigg set off at a determined jog for the warmth of Lady Lucy’s salon—where Claire hoped they would be received with open arms and not a lecture upon the evils of abandoning ship. Jake and Andrew followed, and when Claire looked back, she saw Alice lingering at the gondola, pretending to check their repairs to its bow.
“Alice, are you coming?”
“I—well, sure. Maybe later. I just want to make sure things are buttoned up here.”
“I’ll wait for you, if you like.”
Alice hunched her shoulders. “Naw, you should go join your fancy friends. And Mr. Malvern. I’ll see what I can rustle up with the ground crew. They’re usually good for some news and a laugh.”
Claire took in the poor posture, the hands jammed into the pockets of her pants, the scuffed toes of her work boots.
“Alice, you do not need to be ashamed of who you are. John and Davina certainly aren’t, and neither am I.”
Alice snorted. “An earl, a countess, and a lady. ’Course you’re not.”
“You are the woman who saved my life,” Claire reminded her fiercely. “Who helped us put the cell in the Lass, which, as Andrew pointed out, has never been done before. You are the woman who flew across I don’t know how many territories to get us here safely, when you didn’t have to. You could have gone to Texico City and spent the rest of your life being nice and warm instead of risking your life to stand here in this cold airfield arguing with me.”
“That all might be so, but it don’t mean I can go shake hands with an earl looking like this.”
“He will not hold it against you. Looks are irrelevant, Alice, and I should know. The earl is a man of perspicacity. He will see a lady of resources and bravery when he looks at you.”
“Is that what Mr. Malvern sees when he looks at you?” Alice lifted her gaze to meet Claire’s. “Now, don’t go all huffy on me. I’ve seen him.”
“I hope he does,” Claire said a little stiffly. Really, Andrew’s looks or lack of them were none of her business. “And I am not huffy.”
Another snort. Really, it was a most unattractive sound.
“Do you—” Alice swallowed. “Do you think he sees those things when he looks at me?”
“Who, Andrew? Of course. He owes you as much as I do.”
“Not because he owes me. He don’t. But because—because—”
“Claire! Alice!” came a distant shout from the object of their discussion. “Are you coming?”
Claire grabbed Alice’s hand and dragged her along the hard-packed ground, the fuselage of a neis aage of ghboring airship forming a darker shadow above their heads against the starry sky.
Perhaps it was just as well that Alice had not finished that sentence.
*
The only reason the Mopsies did not get a stern lecture on the subject of what happened to little girls who abandoned ship was because the countess fainted dead away at the sight of all of them.
In the ensuing ruckus, Maggie and Lizzie made themselves helpful, snatching the towels from around the wine cooling in silver buckets and applying them to her ladyship’s pale cheeks while Claire cleared the nearest sofa of its embroidered pillows and instructed her frantic husband to lay her upon it.
By the time Davina had come to herself, sat up, and tossed back a tiny glass of brandy supplied by Andrew, the opportunity for lectures had passed in the general joy of being reunited again.
“And you are all alive, and well, and oh Claire, I am so sorry we fell for the stories those rascals in Santa Fe told us,” Davina said breathlessly. “Mr. Malvern, I