Had anyone heard?
Curled up as small as she could make herself, Claire listened so intently that her own breathing sounded loud enough to bring the pirates running if the dumb waiter’s mechanism had not.
Nothing seemed to be stirring outside, though she could hear a ruckus below—one with a triumphant tone to it. Round two to Ned Mose, but they were not beaten yet. Claire now knew two things the pirates did not—the existence of the ceiling passages and the location of the weapons locker in the stern.
Slowly, she slid the door aside and wriggled out feet first. On her hands and knees, just pushing up from the floor, she froze.
A pair of boots stood in the doorway of the serving pantry. Boots she knew as well as her own.
“Hallo, Lady,” Jake said.
Drawing a deep breath, she rose to her feet. She must be calm. She must use her wits and perhaps he could be persuaded to abandon this madness and help them all.
He lounged against the door jamb, what looked to be an actual bullet-shooting rifle in the crook of his arm. “I figured I’d find you here.”
She had no idea where her aural detonator had gone. It had probably fallen down a shaft somewhere. “Did you? How is that?”
He shrugged. “It’s just wot I’d do. You’d best come wiv me quiet-like. Captain’d like a word.”
“Jake, just a moment.”
“Don’t have a moment if you value yer life.”
“Oh, stop talking like a pirate.”
“I’ll talk ’ow I like and there’s nowt you can do to stop me. I’m the one ’oldin’ the rifle now.” His posture was cocksure, his tone as insolent as she’d ever heard it. But something in his eyes, in the tension around their corners, told her he wasn’t completely comfortable in the role of ruffian.
He’d lost the talent for it somewhere along the way, and it was that which kept her tone gentle, and allowed the faintest shoot of hope to spring up where a rational person would find none.
“Only tell me why, Jake. Why did you throw in your lot with these men when his lordship has done so much for you?”
His face hardened, and the conflicted look in his eyes faded. “I make me own way in the world. I take handouts from Dunsmuir and I’m nowt but ’is lackey, then, ent I?”
“Certainly not. You have been earning your way. His lordship is not the kind of man to give handouts, in any case. He is fair. A gentleman. And worthy of your loyalty. As, I hoped, was I.” Her throat closed and made her voice fade to a whisper.
She turned away, unable to look at him. And there, practically under her nose, was a paring knife lying next to a pile of fruit, some peeled, some not.
She gripped the edge of the counter and hoped her skirts were enough to conceal what lay on it.
Jake merely shrugged. “Takin’ a gentleman prisoner is heaps easier’n regular folk. But you were harder. They needed me, and captain’s gonna give me a cut of the plunder. When we find it.”
“And yet you’ve said nothing to him of the Mopsies. Or Willie.” She reached down slowly, feeling for the knife.
He shrugged, and levered himself off the jamb. “Kids don’t interest the captain. I got nothing against the Mopsies. No reason to hand ’em over. Once we make port, they’re on their own.”
“That’s hard. They’re only children.”
He raised his eyebrows and nearly smiled. “A lot you know. Come on, enough lollygaggin’. Captain’s waitin’.”
As she pushed away from the counter, her fingers found the knife. Before she had taken a step, it had gone up her sleeve where once, in happier days, she had kept a spare handkerchief.
Her interview with Ned Mose went rather more poorly than the first one. The upshot was that they were all imprisoned in the crew’s quarters on B deck once again, leaving the pirates to make themselves comfortable in the family’s and guests’ quarters above.
Claire lay on an airman’s bunk, twitching and tossing and wondering how a man could possibly sleep on such a hard pallet. But she must not complain. She and Lady Dunsmuir had the only bunks, one above the other. The other pallets had all been requisitioned by the pirates for their greater numbers, forcing the men to take what rest they could on hardwood floors.
The sun rose and fell, from the limited view she could get out a tiny porthole, and still they flew steadily west, their progress slowed by the drag of the Stalwart Lass on the tow line. She wished she’d punctured the pirate ship’s fuselages while she had the chance. But it was too late now. Below them, the landscape changed from verdant tracts of trees broken by the occasional patchwork of farmland, to more farmland, to open prairie.
“We must be nearly to the Wild West,” she said to Lady Dunsmuir. “How long does it take to cross the Americas?”
“Days.” Her ladyship lay on the top bunk, one wrist across her eyes. “You will know the Wild West by the color of the landscape and its aridity. Do you suppose my poor darling has starved to death by now?”
“No, I do not. He is in the Mopsies’ company, and is likely in much better shape than we.”
“How can you say so? He is trapped in the ceiling.”
“He is not in the least trapped. We are trapped. If they have not been feasting on trifle and roast beef, I will eat my hat.” She paused. “If I had it.” Her lovely hat was gone, knocked off somewhere or whisked off her head by the wind during the escape from the gondola. Some lady in the Fifteen Colonies would come out of her farmhouse and find it perched in her garden like an exotic bird.
“I suppose we should be thankful for small mercies,” her ladyship sighed. “These could be pirates from the Spanish Main, in which case we would be dead. They have no patience for ransom and a distaste for witnesses.”
“The Spanish Main?”
“Yes. Everything south of the Fifteen Colonies—the Bermudas, Florida, Louisiana, all the way to the South American coast. A lawless anarchy of a place which all good society avoids.”
“Dear me. I had no idea.”
“It is not something spoken of in the drawing rooms of London. But in the homes of the railroad barons and shipping people, particularly those seeking trade in the southern hemisphere with the Royal Kingdom of Spain, it is a concern. One cannot fly safely through those skies at all. Hence the vigor of the Texican economy—everyone is forced to fly their way and east again.”
“But our captors are … local?”
“There is no shortage of lawlessness in the Texican Territory, my dear. The Rangers do what they can, but the country is simply too big.”
“I wonder where they are taking us.”
“I do not know. Usually we travel further north than this, from New York to the Canadas, so my usual landmarks and little familiarities are leagues away.”
Claire gazed out of the glass, wishing she could at least open it. The room was tiny to begin with, and two women crushed into the space without even a breath of fresh air was beginning to make her a little crazy. If she could only see enough of the country to—
The floor dropped ever so gently out from under the soles of her boots.
Lady Dunsmuir sat up. “Did you feel that?”
“Are we descending?”
It happened again.
“I believe we must be. I don’t know whether to be glad or terrified.”
“One thing we can be glad of,” Claire said. “The children have not been found.”
“I hope they have the sense to remain concealed,” Davina said. “When we escape, we will return to the ship. Do you suppose they will think of that?”
“I hope so.”
They had dropped about a thousand feet by now. Outside, the two women heard a ruckus and in moments the key turned in the lock.
A pirate stood in the doorway. “Nearly there. Out with you.”
“Where are we going?” Claire asked.
“You’ll see soon enough.”
They were herded, along with the officers and Lord Dunsmuir, down to the embarkation hatch where normally a set of steps would be rolled up to let the passengers on and off. But now there was nothing but the large boarding area and the open hatch, through which Claire could see the landscape sailing past several hundred feet below them.
Trees. Rolling hills. And now, water. A lake? Or the ocean? Oh, if only she knew where they were!
The captain strode up to his lordship, his neck outstretched like a rooster challenging a more powerful one. “I’ve had about enough of this nonsense. I’ve asked nicely. I’ve looked myself. And now I’m about done with being nice.” Practically nose to nose, he demanded, “Where are those jewels?”
“I have no idea, sir,” his lordship said with the conviction of one who tells the truth. He did not, after all, know where Willie had gone with them.
“You’re lying!” the captain roared. He reached out one long, apelike arm and grabbed Jake by the shoulder. “Boy, tell him what you told me last night.”
“They got to be in the ceiling,” Jake managed, as the captain shook him.
The blood drained from John Dunsmuir’s face, and Captain Hollys started forward, only to be yanked back so roughly he fell to his knees on the deck.
“He was tellin’ the truth, at least. I sent him and a team of my men up to comb every inch of them passages. Found a nice cache of weapons, but no jewels. Now, once and for all, you tell me where they are, or this boy takes a long walk.”
“Wot?” Jake jerked away, to no avail. The captain had a grip like a grappling hook.
“What does that mean, exactly?” Lord Dunsmuir’s color had not improved.
“It means exactly this—you tell me what I want to know, or Jake here goes out that hatch. Simple.”
His lordship searched his wife’s face, the full horror of his dilemma in every line of his own. It was clear Jake had not told them about the children. If John Dunsmuir revealed where they were, the pirates would take the jewels and Willie’s life would be in mortal danger along with their own. As long as the children remained concealed, there was hope for the desperate parents. But if he did not speak, there was no hope for Jake.
All three Dunsmuirs could be held for ransom by the threat of death. But what of the Mopsies? Their lives were worth nothing to these men. If they were discovered, would they be deemed useless and pushed out the hatch, too? And what of poor Rosie? She would last only as long as it took someone to whip out a butcher knife.
For the first time, Claire felt the sheer terror that parents feel when the children they love are threatened.
My lord, you cannot make this decision. Claire reached out a hand in entreaty. Who to, she hardly knew. Ned Mose? John? The Lord looking down from heaven?
Ned Mose roared in utter frustration. “That’s it! I’ve had enough of you! If you weren’t worth so much, I’d toss you out myself. But he’s worth nothin’.”
With that, Mose whipped around and before Jake could brace himself or grab something or so much as take another breath, the pirate captain had given him a mighty shove.
With a shriek that Claire would hear in her nightmares for years to come, Jake tumbled out of the hatch and fell like Icarus into the empty sky.