Jake and his escort had barely cleared the ladder when a flat, tinny voice emanated from somewhere about the pirate’s person. “Captain! You’re needed urgently aboard ze Lass. Trouble in ze engine.”
Ned Mose flicked a tiny brass lever on his shoulder. “Fix it, you dolt. Do I look like a mechanic?”
“Oui, monsieur. You’re wasted as a captain. Ze assembly of ze arm proves it.”
“I didn’t yank you out of that Montreal prison to give me grief. You’re aboard to see to the engine. Do yer job, Andre.”
“Even I cannot fix what le bon Dieu has done. Ze engine, she is struck by lightning, mon capitaine. Wizzout ze Lady Lucy, we shall be adrift.”
Mose slapped the lever the other way and roared like a frustrated beast. Then he glared at Ian Hollys. “You. Tell someone to go astern and prepare a tow line. If what he says is true, I’ll command from here.”
“Where do you plan to take us?” the earl asked.
“I’ll take you where I take you and not after askin’ your permission!” Mose snapped, and climbed the ladder. Moments later his bulky figure careened past on a zip line that had been rigged between the two vessels.
“Where is my crew?” Captain Hollys asked the two pirates left to guard them. “I must give your captain’s orders.”
“You’re staying here. The crew’s confined to quarters under guard. Zeb, you go.”
“Me?” the other pirate said incredulously. “Why does it have to be me?”
“Because I’m senior. Do you want the captain to keelhaul you for not taking his orders astern?”
Evidently Zeb did not, for he slunk grumbling up the ladder and the sound of his boots receded in the distance.
“I’m going to get me some of that fine grub I’ve heard tell of.” The second one climbed halfway up. “No funny business, you hear? I’m locking you hoity-toities in.”
No sooner had the hatch clanged shut than Davina embraced Claire again. “Have you seen Will?” she asked urgently, as if the question had been blowing up inside her the whole time. “Is he all right?”
“Yes, he is perfectly well, as are the Dunsmuir diamonds.”
“I don’t care so much about those,” said the earl. “We’ve been beside ourselves.” He struck his forehead. “I don’t know what I was thinking, putting him in the ceiling. What a mad idea. He’ll probably fall and—”
“Willie is not in the least likely to fall,” Claire said in bracing tones. “He found me and the girls, and it was such an excellent idea that I boosted them up there as well.”
Lady Dunsmuir let out a breath as though she had been holding it all morning. “So he is well and as yet undiscovered. I feel as though I can go on now. Oh, Claire, you can only imagine my feelings. If he was snatched from me now that I have him back at last …”
“He will not be snatched from us, not in the near term, at least. I have made certain that we shall all stay on the Lady Lucy for now.”
“Tell me you didn’t have something to do with that lightning strike?” Lord John’s face brightened even further.
“I did.” She did not elaborate, merely smiled. “The Stalwart Lass must be docked somewhere for repairs. Our company will not be divided between two separate ships. At least now we have a chance to recover.”
“But what do you make of Jake?” Captain Hollys touched his forehead and seemed surprised when his fingers came away smeared with blood. “I do not understand it.”
“I do not know, nor do I wish to.” The pain of betrayal and the loss of trust hurt her deep under her breastbone. “Captain Hollys, are you quite all right?”
He nodded. “Of course. These are scratches. Of no consequence. I have a ship to retake, and that fool thinks he has locked us in.”
“Ian, you will not do anything brave,” Lady Dunsmuir told him. “I could not bear it if something happened to you.”
“It is my duty to see to the wellbeing of this family, my lady. Every man Jack aboard has the same duty, and we all know the contingency plans. It is simply a matter of putting them into action, now that we know everyone is accounted for.”
“Tigg is not,” Claire said. “I am hoping he is with the crew in Mr. Yau’s care and will be considered necessary to the ship’s operation. They would not harm him, I hope.”
“Hope is well and good, but I prefer certainty.” The captain crossed the gondola and cranked a wheel with a handle protruding from it. “This way, before those miscreants come back. If you have a fear of heights, I will assist you.”
Claire had discovered there were many things in the world to fear, but heights, in her opinion, were among the more benign. That said, she still felt a sick swoop in her stomach when she realized that the captain meant them to climb out onto the roof of the gondola and into a hatch set in the fuselage of the ship. The curve of the great rigid structure did not conceal them entirely from the view of anyone in the pirate bridge. But there was no time to think of that.
The wind was like liquid ice this high above the earth, and as she tried to gasp for breath, it cut into her lungs as though it had actual physical form.
“Quickly.” The captain lifted Lady Dunsmuir bodily through the hatch, and her husband pulled her through the rest of the way. “There is not enough oxygen in the air to sustain us long.”
Claire scrambled through, and the captain closed both hatches behind him, spinning the wheels until they snugged tight. “That will keep them guessing for a few moments, at least, when they find a locked room with no one inside. Come.”
Lady Dunsmuir was as white as her own Brussels lace waist. “Where are we going?”
“Our first task is to arm ourselves. Then free my crew. Then retake the ship and cut her free of the Stalwart Lass.”
Such was the captain’s confidence that Claire could almost believe it was possible.
Apparently the coaxial catwalk was not the only way to travel the length of the ship. “We are between the B and A decks now,” Lord John said in a low voice, speaking over his shoulder to Claire, while Captain Hollys brought up the rear, herding them closely so no one fell behind. “The false ceilings were designed to lead up here so that if we were boarded, the family had a means of escape and concealment. I was not aware of the hatch out of the gondola. That anything escaped my brothers and me in our explorations quite surprises me.” He touched a metal strut as he passed it. “I thought I knew the old girl inside and out.”
“We could find Will in here, then?” Hope had brought color back to the countess’s face. “May I call him?”
“No!” both men said at once.
“The walls are thin,” Lord John said more gently. “And he is in the A deck ceiling, a floor above.”
“We must be quiet and take them by surprise,” the captain added. “No more talking, now.”
Moving swiftly, they reached the stern in a few minutes, evident by the narrowing of the fuselage and the increase in the sounds of men’s voices. At a niche in the wall, the captain paused, selected a key on his ring, and turned it in a lock. “They must be under guard, or Jack and the other officers would already have been up here to retrieve these.” He reached in and took a rifle, handing three of them back in rapid succession.
But it was not a rifle—at least, the kind that fired either bullets or current. There was no means of loading it. Claire turned it over. A trigger. Well, that was something.
“It is called an aural detonator. It fires sound waves,” Lady Dunsmuir said, indicating the bell of the barrel. Suddenly Claire realized where the barrel of her own rifle might have originated. “We cannot use anything else aboard ship. Fired straight at a person, the wave it emits will knock a man senseless but will have no effect on the fuselage.”
Clearly Lady Dunsmuir had not been as gently reared as one might have expected.
“Brilliant,” Claire said.
“Here is our plan,” the captain said. “We come out of the ceiling, we disable the guard, we release the crew and move forward. Questions?”
Claire needed clarification on one point. “Are we—Davina and I—to stay behind?”
Davina looked at her incredulously. “Certainly not. Can you fire a gun?”
“Yes.”
“Then what purpose would it serve for you to stay up here?”
To which, of course, there was no answer.
Captain Hollys and the earl moved a panel aside, and then dropped to the carpet below. Davina went next, then Claire. As soon as possible, she was going to possess herself of a rope and grapple, if this climbing in and out of ceilings was going to become a regular practice.
The crew’s quarters were guarded by two pirates, who whooped and raised their weapons. But the earl and Captain Hollys beat them to it. Claire felt a curious sensation, rather like the popping in one’s ears when one descended to a landing field too quickly, and the pirates fell in a heap. A trickle of blood seeped from the ear of one of them.
The captain dragged them out of the way and pounded on the door. “Gentlemen! It is Hollys and the earl. We are coming in.”
It was fortunate he had given a warning. As he opened the door, someone jumped down from a wardrobe pushed up next to it, and put away what appeared to be a candlestick. It was the first officer, looking enormously relieved. “Sir! Is the family all right?”
“Quite all right, thank you, Mr. Andersen,” her ladyship said, stepping into view. “We must retake the ship and then locate Lord Will and the young ladies, who are in the A deck ceiling.”
“Right ho. Middies, look sharp. First opportunity you get, scamper up into the A deck rafters and find his lordship and the girls.”
The captain nodded. “The rest of you, arm yourselves. I want four men posted on the gangways to A deck. No one but our crew is to pass alive, is that clear? This is no time for Queensberry rules.”
Claire had no time for more than a glance at the men in the room. Tigg did not seem to be with them—but she could be mistaken. Mr. Yau was not present, either, so perhaps they were still at the engines.
They divested the pirates of a considerable number of weapons and locked them in the wardrobe. Then they headed forward, to the closest gangway up to the A deck, which was between the galley and the crew’s and officers’ mess.
Two more pirates went down, a third caught halfway down the steep stair.
The first officer went up and kicked the unconscious body aside. Before he could clear the gangway, however, a pair of objects clanked onto the stairs and bounced down them two at a time.
They looked rather like pine cones, only made of metal. One rolled to a stop and the end of it popped open.
A wisp of green mist puffed out, then a stream, then a cloud.
“Gas!” the captain shouted. “Retreat!”
The first officer plummeted to the deck before he could finish the word. Two of the middies collapsed toward each other in a hug, then landed in a pile.
The second bomb puffed and her ladyship went down.
Claire dove through the galley doorway, tripped over a silver coffee pot lying on the floor, and fell headfirst into the dumb waiter.
A hiding place!
She yanked her feet in and slammed the door, then let out a squeak of dismay as the floor rose up under her posterior.
Good heavens. She would be deposited in the serving pantry, not ten feet away from where she had begun the day, in the dining saloon facing a roomful of pirates.
Only now they had much more reason to be angry with her.