Such a fascinating place. The smell of lubricating oil and hot metal, the sound of pistons pumping. Celeste watched as Loveday took tongs and dipped the sheet of copper for the redesigned boiler into a vat of water to harden it, heedless of the steam that had made her hair crimp around her face. Perhaps when she returned to France, she could interest Marcel in visiting the Emperor’s steam works.
She dropped her gaze. Why did she persist in thinking about home? She would not be returning any time soon. She’d found no way to contact the smugglers.
“I’d be happy to explain the process, Miss Aventure,” Emory said beside her.
Loveday cast her an arch look. She knew Celeste had no need for tutoring, but Emory didn’t. Celeste brightened her smile and put her hand on his arm. “But of course, Monsieur Thorndyke. I am always delighted to learn more.”
Red climbed onto those sculpted cheeks, and he stood a little taller. “Steam from the boiler moves into this cylinder and causes the piston there to reciprocate.”
“Reciprocate,” Celeste said. “As a lady might reciprocate a gentleman’s regard?”
Loveday started laughing and turned the sound into a cough as she pulled the metal out of the water and set it dripping on the worktable.
Emory smiled at Celeste. “Not exactly. By reciprocating, I mean it moves up and down in a pumping action.”
“Fascinating,” Celeste said. “And have you applied this principle to pumping lifting gas, perhaps?”
Loveday eyed her. Emory blinked. “Do you mean hydrogen? Certainly not. Associating a flammable gas with a heat source could be dangerous.”
“Non, non,” Celeste insisted. “Not if the fire is placed securely inside a firebox and surrounded by an insulator—say, lambswool.”
He frowned. “You may have something there.”
Celeste laughed. “But of course I do. Did you not just instruct me in the matter?”
Loveday snorted, then smacked her hammer down on the metal as if to hide the noise.
He regarded Celeste. “I begin to believe you have no need of instruction, Miss Aventure. Is your father an engineer?”
“Really, Mr Thorndyke,” Loveday said, bringing up her hammer and thrusting it at him. “If you insist on hovering about, make yourself useful.”
“Happy to be of service,” he said, accepting the tool. Celeste met Loveday’s gaze and nodded her thanks.
But Emory remained standing beside them, turning the hammer back and forth in his hand. “You didn’t answer my question.”
Like a dog with a bone, this one. Still, she couldn’t help admiring his tenacity, or the way the muscles bunched under his sleeve as he brought the hammer down at last with a clang that made Loveday wince.
“My father passed away a few years ago after being paralyzed in a fall,” Celeste explained as he paused expectantly. “He taught me a great many things as I nursed him. One was to be thankful for today, as we are not promised tomorrow.”
“Very wise.” He gave the metal another bang. “And forgive me for bringing up what is obviously a distressing subject.”
Celeste had no trouble manufacturing a sniff. “I miss him terribly. But being here, among so many clever gentlemen I know he would admire, helps.”
“Doing it too brown,” Loveday muttered under cover of reaching past her for a turnscrew.
“You are always welcome here,” Mr Trevithick offered with a fatherly smile as he passed on his way to the boiler.
“Merci beaucoup, monsieur,” Celeste said with a dip of a curtsey. “Alas, I should spend no more time in your delightful company this morning. I promised Miss Penhale’s chère maman I would deliver a request to Madame Racine. I will hope for a moment with you all when I return.”
“We will await you eagerly,” Emory assured her.
Loveday rolled her eyes.
Celeste smiled and excused herself.
Mrs Penhale would likely have protested had she known that Celeste intended to walk from the steam works to the émigré’s home, but it proved to be but a short distance in the bustling town. She should have known Madame Racine would not live in the grand houses on Lemon Street or near the assembly rooms. The émigré’s comfortable little house was situated on a bluff overlooking the harbor. If Celeste craned her neck, she could see the slate roof of the steam works below.
A maid answered her knock and escorted her to a pleasing withdrawing room at the back of the house.
“Mademoiselle Aventure,” the older woman greeted her, rising to kiss Celeste on each cheek. “How delightful you would come to call on me.”
“I was in Truro, visiting the steam works with Miss Penhale,” Celeste explained, reaching into the little bag Rosalind had loaned her—a reticule? silly name—and handing the lady the note. “Mrs Penhale asked me to deliver this.”
Madame Racine accepted it eagerly and took it to the window, angling it to the light as she opened it. “She invites me to join them at the next assembly. How kind.” She refolded the note and looked up. “It will be probably more than I can manage, but you will be attending, I’m sure.”
“Very likely,” Celeste said. It wasn’t as if she was going anywhere else.
Madame Racine returned to the chintz-covered armchair and spread her skirts to sit. “But the Trevithick Steam Works, how exciting. I have heard it spoken of many times, but I do not understand what they do there.”
“All kinds of wonders,” Celeste assured her. “They hope to build a high-pressure steam engine that could help our lives in so many ways. Why, you’d never have to build a fire again with warm steam wafting through pipes in the walls.”
The old lady clapped her hands, then paused. “Oh, but they must have been teasing you. No one could do such a thing.”
“They will,” Celeste predicted. “They are determined. And this steam engine will do more too. Pumps to keep the sea from flooding the mines. Steam carriages that can carry us all over the country.”
She clasped her hands together. “Amazing! Perhaps I should request a tour.”
Celeste smiled at her excitement. “I’m sure they would be happy to oblige.”
“And you?” she asked, lowering her hands. “Are you feeling more settled in your new home?”
Celeste shifted on the chair. “In truth, I still think about France. But I know of no way to return.”
“Those who flee France seldom go back,” Madame Racine acknowledged with a commiserating smile. “And you are making friends here. They are not so different, these English.”
“Not so different at all. I find them easier to like than I expected.” Why did Emory Thorndyke’s face come to mind?
“And your maman?” she asked politely. “Have you found a way to tell her you are safe, with friends?”
Celeste shook her head. “No. As tight as the French defenses are now, I don’t know if any correspondence can get through.”
Madame Racine folded her hands in her lap. “Some of the émigrés have found ways to alert family, friends. If you give me your mother’s direction, I might be able to send word to her.”
She could not know the gift she offered or the danger it presented to them both. Celeste didn’t dare tell her the truth. Only Loveday knew her mother’s true name.
Yet Madame Racine was watching, eyes bright with hope.
“I cannot be certain of my mother’s location,” Celeste told her. “She travels, you see. But her niece, my cousin, works at l’École des Aéronautes in Paris. If you address the note to Amélie Aventure, it will reach her.”
“I will see to it this very day,” the old lady vowed. Then she leaned forward. “Now, tell me more about your trip to the steam works and why it put such a gleam in your eyes.”
Loveday spent two blessed hours at the steam works, then collected Celeste at Madame Racine’s cottage, where she changed out of her old, stained frock and back into the muslin in which she’d left home.
“I feel uncomfortable deceiving Papa,” she confessed as they climbed into the whiskey. She took up the reins and flapped them over Rhea’s back, and they bowled off down the street. “Even though I may truthfully say we have been visiting Madame Racine, it is only a half truth.”
“Perhaps I ought to coach you in French on the way home,” Celeste suggested. “Would your parents believe you have been taking French lessons?”
“They are more likely to believe I had taken up fencing,” Loveday said. “Oh, dear. Brace yourself. Here is a contingent of the coastal militia.”
But their experience this time was very different. Clearly the presence of two young ladies, dressed in summer colors, their bonnet ribbons snapping in the breeze, was enough to produce an abundance of politeness in the men. All six pulled their horses to a halt. Six caps with gold braid and plumes were swept from six heads. And murmurs of “Good afternoon, ladies,” followed them as they passed.
Clearly this was not the same company that had nearly run her off the road two weeks ago. Perhaps those ones had been sent to watch a lighthouse in Wales.
“How charming they were,” Celeste said, still smiling. “I wonder if they will attend this Midsummer Ball that Gwen never stops talking of?”
“It is likely. If you listen closely—which I never do—you will hear her likewise lamenting the shortage of gentlemen in the neighborhood. I suspect that Lady Boscawen has been thoroughly briefed on the necessity of inviting them.”
The journey home was a pleasure. Celeste was such good company, with a wicked sense of humor that gleamed out at unexpected moments. When they handed the whiskey over to Pascoe, she touched her companion’s arm before she crossed the yard into the house.
“Celeste, I must show you something. I was working on it yesterday and I should like your opinion before we go in.”
Obligingly, Celeste followed her into the workshop, then stopped short on the threshold. “Qu’est-ce que c’est?”
The old carriage had been disassembled and now took up most of the space in the workshop, reposing on the curve of its belly. The doors on both sides were open, stripped of their velvet padding and brocade shades, and all the upholstery had been torn out of the walls and ceiling, leaving only a thin layer of padding on the seats. Ragged bits of blue velvet hung dispiritedly from nails that had been overlooked.
Loveday clapped her hands. “Excellent! How quick they have been.”
Her companion turned, disbelief in every line of her face. “You wanted this? It is not a joke?”
“I did, and no, indeed. Come. I will show you.”
The sideboard had moved to the wall next to the door, for all the world like someone backing away from a large and most unwelcome house guest.
“It is all right, sideboard. The carriage is going to be the basis for an experiment. We will take it outside again as soon as may be.”
The sideboard did not look convinced.
“Loveday,” Celeste said, “it is disturbing that you speak to the furniture in that manner.”
“At least it never argues with me.” She opened its topmost box. “That’s odd. I put it right here.” She let down the fronts of the other boxes, and finally located the piece of wrapping paper with her drawing in the second row from the bottom. “Of course,” she said. “It moved, so it has reconfigured itself. I shall have to remember that in future.”
“Instruct it to keep things where you put them,” Celeste said dryly.
“That is a good idea. Sideboard,” she said to it, “I shall keep things only in the topmost right box if you endeavor to present them to me the same way.” She glanced at Celeste. “If I find a use for all the boxes and fill them, we shall be in complete confusion. But that is a puzzle for another day.” She spread the wrapping paper on the bench. “Here is what prompted the disassembly of Grandpapa’s carriage.”
Celeste bent over the drawing, her intent gaze tracking from one end to the other. Finally she turned to what was left of the carriage. “And this is to be your gondola.”
“If somehow we can come by some of that lifting gas you mentioned, we will not have to use the steam engine to heat it. The engine can go where the luggage rack is, and you and I will have the controls at our fingertips.”
“You and I?” Celeste echoed. “You wish me to assist you? To make an ascent in this—this—”
“Air coach. Ship. It must be in working order to compete for the prince’s prize.”
Celeste caught her breath. “You do not do things by halves, do you? But look. Do you mean to operate the steering paddles manually?”
“Not paddles. Vanes, with sails like the windmills in Norfolk. They will extend and retract using a lever.”
“We must have additional steering,” Celeste said with the authority of someone who had flown and discovered this herself. “Vanes in the stern, like the rudder of a ship.”
“Yes, indeed.” Loveday sketched them in, along with the ones on the sides.
“I take it there is enough of the carriage remaining to provide the pilots shelter from weather?”
“Yes. We will sit in one half, and the other half will contain the controls for the engine and steering. And there are the windows, particularly in the rear, for easy access to the engine.”
“It could almost work,” Celeste breathed. “Except for one thing.”
“The gas.” Loveday’s good spirits deflated. “I cannot solve that. I thought you might.”
Celeste passed her fingers over her lips, deep in thought. Then she shook her head. “I do not know how one could obtain it in England. And even if one could, I do not think purchasing a barrel would be as simple as your subscription schemes here, for balls and libraries and such.”
“Nor do I. But until we do obtain one, this design is useless. We will be forced back to the old way, with the steam engine used to produce hot air. Two engines, plus water and coal for both, will make the air ship too heavy to lift.”
“Perhaps Mr Thorndyke might shed some light upon the problem.”
“Emory?” Loveday shook her head. “I’m not going to bring him in on this. You know how men are—always so anxious to take the credit for what a woman has done. Here, anyway,” she said hastily. “It seems to be different in France.”
“Not so different,” Celeste admitted. “But some skills are—”
“Miss Penhale,” Pascoe called. “You’re wanted up at the house.”
“Ohhhh, bother,” Loveday said to Celeste. “What is it, Pascoe?”
“The mistress and your sisters are out and you have a caller, Mrs Kerrow says.”
Loveday groaned. “I suppose I must do the honors. Let us hope it is not Lady Tregothnan.”
She put the drawings back in the topmost right box of the sideboard, and Celeste followed her out. A yellow and black curricle she did not recognize stood in the sweep, looking practically new. Mrs Kerrow met them at the door.
“I’m ever so glad you’re back, miss,” she said. “I’ve put Captain Trevelyan in the drawing room. I’m so glad he hasn’t come all this way for nothing.”
Captain Trevelyan? Calling upon them when it was they who ought to have called upon him long before this? She and Celeste exchanged a guilty glance.
“Thank you, Mrs Kerrow. Would you bring some tea, please?”
“Aye, miss, straight away.”
They found Captain Trevelyan by the doors to the terrace, looking down the lawns as though remembering the pain they had caused him. He held no cane, only a parcel wrapped in oilcloth in one hand.
“Good afternoon, Captain,” Loveday said, curtseying. Celeste did the same, her attention on the parcel.
“Good afternoon, Miss Penhale, Miss Aventure.”
“Won’t you sit down? Mrs Kerrow will bring some tea, and some cakes, I hope.” Loveday was suddenly hungry.
She and Celeste sank on to the sofa, while the captain took Papa’s chair, declining to rest his leg on the ottoman in front of it.
“You are making progress, I hope?” Loveday ventured. “It seems you may find walking less uncomfortable?”
“I brought my curricle, as you no doubt saw. I find that driving gives me no discomfort. When I am able to ride, I shall consider myself recovered. But strangely, all my urgent movement across the lawns the day we rescued Miss Aventure seems to have set me ahead instead of back. Doctor Pengarry is quite perplexed.”
“This is good news,” Loveday said. “I am glad.”
“I may not be much good for dancing, but at least I may walk into a house like a gentleman,” he said. “Speaking of rescue, I have brought a curiosity that washed up on the beach below Gwynn Place.”
“A creature?” Celeste had barely taken her gaze from the parcel enough to exchange pleasantries.
“No. Something much more strange and unusual.”
From the oilcloth pouch, he slid a slender, leather-bound book, sea-stained around the edges but otherwise unharmed.
Celeste drew in a breath so quick it was almost a gasp. She wrapped her arms around herself as if she were cold, though the room was pleasant.
“Our groundskeeper’s daughter was down on the beach hunting for mussels and found it cast up by the tide. Heaven knows how long it has lain there. We are only fortunate it was not taken out again. She brought it to her father, who brought it to me. Look.”
He opened the book on the low table between them and turned it toward Loveday and Celeste.
Directional headings. Wind speed. Temperature. Landmarks.
Paging farther back, Loveday saw sketches. Drawings of balloons in close-up, technical drawings of engines that showed size and weight of parts to the last detail.
Estimations of silk needed to construct an envelope, with lengths and weights.
Paddles that could be controlled with the feet to adjust course.
Paddles.
Not ten minutes ago, Celeste had mentioned steering paddles.
She sat back. Gazed at Celeste, whose face was as white as her frock, eyes swimming with tears.
“I am no expert, but in my work for the army, I have had some experience in staving off invasions,” Captain Trevelyan said into the silence in a conversational tone. “If I were to venture an opinion, I would say that someone has been trying to determine the feasibility of invading England by air.” He closed the book and returned it to its oilcloth pouch. “Would you not agree, Miss Aventure?”