The Eiffel Tower was a smudge on the horizon as the Lady Penelope gained speed and distance away from Paris. Constance watched the edifice dwindle and disappear from the top deck of the airship’s baroque pink-and-gold galleon. Above, the pink, cigar-shaped gasbag bobbed against snowy clouds and an azure sky. Constance licked her lips and dropped her eyes back to the assembled crew on the lower deck. Eight of the people she held nearest and dearest to her heart sat on an eclectic collection of chairs. Shock, anxiety, and bewilderment had been painted with a broad brush across their faces.
Only the airship’s pilot, Mrs. Rani Singh, remained stoic at Constance’s side. The retired pirate queen of the West China Sea expertly spun the ship’s large oak steering wheel. Rani was a vision of martial splendor in a scarlet sari with a curved gold cutlass strapped to her hip and silver streaks flowing through her long black hair.
Constance shifted her weight from one purple ankle boot to the other as she waited for her announcement about RATT and Versailles to sink in. Freshly washed and clad in her most demure violet lace gown with a cinched indigo over-corset and coordinating tiny bowler hat, she hoped she cut a sympathetic figure to her audience. It now appeared that Mrs. Singh, Trusdale, and Boo were the only members of the crew not actively scowling at Constance. Then again, Boo was fast asleep, curled into a tan-and-black ball of fluff on a floral silk cushion next to Constance’s boots.
So, only Mrs. Singh and Trusdale aren’t upset with me. Not the most promising start to my escapade.
Constance cleared her throat. “So, there you have it. For all of us to avoid certain death at the hands of the British Museum’s Royal Antiquities Tactical Team, our grand tour must entail collecting enough Enigma Keys within the next week to open an interdimensional portal through which to bring back Haltwhistle Hall. Again, I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. Any questions?”
Cousin Welli pushed back his Byronic forelock and raised his hand. Welli’s legendary voice was rumored to soothe impatient horses and the cuckolded spouses of his many conquests with equal skill. In a tone dripping with sympathetic concern, he asked, “Not to be coarse, my dear, darling, cousin, but . . . has your sanity taken a leave of absence?”
She shrugged. “I’m not a physician. How would I know? The question is, will you, as a crew, pledge to assist me in this quest? Or would you rather toss me out at the next port of call and sail on your merry way, hoping that RATT doesn’t follow up on their threat to terminate each and every one of you? May I point out that foreign armies turn and flee rather than face the Royal Antiquities Tactical Team? They reputedly have no mercy for anyone who stands in their way of snatching the best artifacts in the world for queen and country. Not that I intend to influence anyone’s decision, of course. The choice is yours.”
Mrs. Singh said, “I choose to sail on my merry way, Lady Haltwhistle. No offense.”
“None taken.” Constance bowed her head to the retired buccaneer. “I don’t blame you one bit. It’s an awfully large palace to search for one tiny trinket. Honestly, by attempting to outrun RATT, your chances of survival are probably greater than mine at Versailles. I could be wandering the sixteen acres of the palace itself, never mind its hundred acres of formal gardens, for days, or possibly weeks!”
She turned back to focus her attention on her cousin. It was technically his ship, after all. “Imagine me, Welli, tiptoeing around, desperately trying to avoid being captured by the palace guards as I poke into every closet, cabinet, and treasure room. Although, with my luck, Louis XVIII probably keeps the Enigma Key secured in his pantaloons. I might have to pickpocket it right off his person. Won’t that be a fine story for the family dinner table this Christmas?”
Welli groaned. “Ugh, playing the jolly yuletide card. That’s low, Constance. And for the record, I doubt you’ll be able to get within pickpocketing distance of Louis. Before you go rummaging in a king’s drawers, can’t you locate an alternate Enigma Key?”
“Tell me how, and I will,” she said. “Father took his secrets with him to another dimension, and it’s not as if I own a tool that magically divines which pair of the King’s pantaloons hold a one-inch triangle of alien metal. Do you possess such a device?”
Welli shook his head, hair flopping back over eyes as green as Constance’s own. Sadly, his eyes were now tinged with despair.
Poor Welli. Should I survive this escapade, I must make this up to him.
Hearn, seated to Welli’s left, leaned over and murmured comfort to the young lord. The burly carriage driver’s muscular build strained to escape his modern-cut green tailcoat as he tested the physical limits of a folding deck chair. He hesitantly raised his hand. Cawley, seated beside him, kicked the champion wrestler hard with his buckled shoe. Hearn dropped his hand and folded his arms as his cheeks reddened.
Constance frowned. “Are you casting your vote, Hearn? Incidentally, I hope you’ve all noticed how incredibly democratic I’m being about this matter. Who knows, the Lady Penelope could become our very own republic!”
“I’m casting my vote to go to the flying palace,” said Trusdale, lounging on a gilded throne chair brought up from Welli’s cabin. The two men had agreed to share a double bunk room, with the proviso that Welli got the top bunk. “For what it’s worth, these RATT agents sound dangerous. May as well take our chances with the palace guards. I just hope the whole thing doesn’t come crashing to the ground, you know?”
Hearn cocked his head. “What, the mission or the palace?”
“Both,” said Trusdale. “I’m kinda curious, though, if anyone has thoughts about what it would take to bring down a flying palace?”
Constance held up her hand. “That’s not the mission.” Honestly, why was he making this already dire situation sound even worse? Couldn’t he try and help her a little less? “My Plan with a—”
“Capital ‘P,’” chorused Cawley and Hearn.
Constance beamed at her loyal retainers. “Correct. My Plan is to snatch the Key and depart as quickly as possible. If luck is on our side, no one will even know the key is missing until we’re well out of reach of the palace’s cannons.”
“One hundred cannons, to be exact,” said Dr. Maya Chauhan.
Constance nodded. Ugh. That’s an overkill of firepower to avoid. “But hopefully the cannons won’t be our problem, because—”
“It’s a sneak attack,” said the doctor, with a wry grin. Maya’s brown eyes twinkled with warmth for her onetime science student. As a child, Constance had adored attending Maya’s public science classes at the Royal Steamwerks military laboratory in Sheffield. Maya was in many ways her role model for inventiveness, intelligence, and when the situation called for it, sass.
“Exactly,” Constance replied, grateful for the support. “May I ask you and Dr. Huang for your votes?”
The two scientists were sitting with their thighs scandalously close on a rose-colored loveseat. Doctors Maya Chauhan and Zhi Gwan Huang were two of the brightest minds that had ever graced the hallowed halls of the Steamwerks. For decades, the two had worked side by side, developing cutting-edge technology for Queen Victoria’s vast redcoat army. Surprisingly, Queen Victoria had seen fit to allow the two to retire gracefully from the Steamwerks. Usually, scientists worked there until they dropped, but apparently the Queen admired Maya for her intellect and candor. The Delhi-born scientist had become a favorite confidante of Her Majesty in a court obsessed with scientific progress and world domination.
The sexagenarian couple had received Queen Victoria’s royal decree releasing them from her service while they were staying at the Grand Hotel du Louvre. Now framed, the decree hung above their four-poster bed in what used to be Papa’s shipboard laboratory. Old habits die hard, and the two were as happy in a room decorated with test tubes and Bunsen burners as they had been in the gilded finery of Paris’s finest hotel.
Maya’s gold and purple sari shimmered in the morning sun. She winked at Constance. “We vote for Versailles, don’t we, Zhi?”
Hong Kong-born Zhi pushed his glasses up on his nose. He wore a shoulder-button tan lab coat with the ease of a man who didn’t care a jot about fashion. “We do indeed. Versailles is a modern marvel of aerial engineering. We’d like to know what makes it tick. There’s not one schematic of the engine room anywhere to be found. We know that for a fact because we searched high and low for one. The Queen wanted Windsor Castle to take flight. We had to tell her we didn’t have the technology to levitate the palace. Let me assure you, she was not amused.”
“I hear she rarely is,” said Constance. “So, that’s four votes for Versailles—me, Mr. Trusdale, Maya, and Zhi—and one against. Let’s ask our second member of the Singh family for his vote.”
Welli’s longtime valet, Ajeet Singh, sat next to Welli’s right hand. His uncut beard was frosted with silver. He was immaculately turned out in a black turban, a white collarless shirt, and loose gray pants. A curved dagger in his black sash belt and an iron bangle identified him as a Sikh warrior. Mr. Singh bowed his head. “As my wife votes, so do I. I vote against invading Versailles.”
Now, that was a surprise. Constance had presumed that Mr. Singh wouldn’t mind a bit of invading. After all, he’d served with Welli when the young lord was a Captain in Her Majesty’s Fifth Foot and Mouth Brigade. Perhaps Ajeet’s new comfortable quarters had made him soft? He and Rani shared the largest cabin on the ship, next to the engine room. After the airship’s original three-man engine crew resigned back in Paris to crew one of the big European pleasure cruisers, Doctors Chauhan and Huang had whipped up a groundbreaking clockwork automaton in Papa’s laboratory. Now, the engine room ran without human supervision, resulting in unprecedented space and privacy for the Singhs.
It was excruciatingly embarrassing that she’d managed to bring the wrath of the RATT down upon her quirky household. And overall, they were being so very nice about the whole matter. If the situation were reversed, would she be as reasonable about a crew member bringing doom down upon their heads? Probably not.
Despite Mr. Singh’s no, Constance calculated that her odds of getting to Versailles were good. Including herself as a yes, she had Trusdale and the two scientists on her side. Four against two, with three votes yet to go. She almost had this in the bag.
“Welli, your vote, please?”
Welli slumped in his overstuffed blue armchair. “I’m sorry, Constance, but I can’t condone taking this ship to Versailles. My father was furious that I supported you in keeping the Hall when he desired to burn the place to the ground. He’s cut me off from my trust fund. This ship is the only home I have until I get my townhouse’s bills paid off. Not to mention the fact that I believe there’s a very good chance you’ll be captured or killed. Probably both. I recommend we all try to outrun RATT, together.”
Constance’s stomach churned. “You don’t understand how dangerous the militant-scholars can be.” She reached back into her bustle and drew out the clockwork scarab to oohs and aahs from the crowd. “A mechanical messenger, a simple enough device to create. But consider the wealth and power of the organization that made this scarab. Where redcoats fear to tread, RATT agents—”
Welli held up his hands. “Spare me the amateur dramatics. I’m positively certain that palace guards take a dim view of uninvited guests. I vote for a graceful retreat. I hear Australia is nice, and I doubt the British Museum can find anything down there worth mounting an expeditionary force to retrieve.”
Constance bowed her head to hide her disappointment and brushed at an imaginary wrinkle in her gown. She’d always assumed that Welli would take her side on any public matter. His independence here was troubling. She took in a deep breath, exhaled, and lifted her head. “Thank you for your candor and clear-headedness, Welli. That’s four votes for Versailles, three against. And finally, Cawley and Hearn, your votes, please.”
She waited patiently for their inevitable yes. Thank heavens for loyal retainers. Her victory here was assured, if less one-sided than she’d hoped for.
The two servants glanced at each other.
“Well?” asked Constance.
“We’re abstaining. Aren’t we?” said Cawley to Hearn. The champion wrestler squirmed.
Constance gaped. “You can’t abstain.” If they did, she lost, and she’d find herself dropped off at the next European port with RATT on her tail. And that would make getting into Versailles even more problematic. Or even worse, Welli would drag her off to Australia. What on earth would she do in a land of koala bears and kangaroos?
Hearn cleared his throat. “The thing is, Miss Constance—’’
“Don’t you dare. We promised him,” snapped Cawley.
Hearn continued, “We made a promise to your father not to discuss certain things. And this seems like a situation where some of those certain things seem uncertain. I’m certainly not saying that there might be a device to help track down Enigma Keys on this airship . . .”
Cawley groaned and put his head in his hands.
“. . . but then again, I’m not not saying that. If it would help you to pinpoint the Key that may or may not be in the King’s pantaloons, surely that would be a good thing?” Hearn gently placed his tattooed hand on Cawley’s shoulder. “I mean, come on, Cawley. If we don’t help, her ladyship will go charging off by herself. She’ll either get herself killed by these museum thugs, or she’ll sneak around a sixteen-acre palace until she gets caught. Baron Haltwhistle wouldn’t want either of those things to happen, now would he?”
Cawley shrugged. “Who can say? He always was an odd bird, the Baron.”
“What device? Where is it?” asked Constance.
Hearn held up his hands. “Now, don’t get too excited, miss. Your father took a vital part out of it so that no one could start it accidentally. And he entrusted that part to the most sensible person he knew.”
“The most . . . who’s that?”
Hearn licked his lips and glanced between Constance and Welli. “Your godmother, the Countess of Benchley, Lady Margaret.”
Oh lord, no.
Anyone but Auntie Madge.