A Matter of Circumstance and Celludrones (13 page)

At first glance, Edinburgh appeared far smaller, more contained than
London. An endless tangle of narrow alleys fed off the main roads, winding
along the rocky ridges with houses stacked one on top of the other. They drove
directly north from the Central Terminus and the city seemed to lie in the
shadow of the great castle perched on the massive rock to the west. They were
well on their way along the Leith Road before it fell from view.

“What a pity we have to leave immediately,” Evelyn said wistfully.

“Was there anything in particular you wanted to see?” asked Greyston.

Lily pulled her attention from the window, surprised to find his gaze
on her.

“The underbelly, for one,” Evelyn answered.

His eyes went to Evelyn and stayed there as she went on, “Apparently
half the city lives in a labyrinth of tunnels built into the rock below the
streets.”

Greyston chuckled. “Half the city’s ghosts, perhaps.”

Lily folded her arms and leaned her shoulder into the window corner.
Their banter rolled over her as she watched Greyston through lowered lashes.
The first time she’d really looked at him, she’d thought a single smile would
crack that square jaw. He’d seemed so stern, unapproachable, she’d never have
guessed the creases at his eyes had settled in from that easy grin more often
that not lurking beneath the surface, even when things turned dire to the point
of deadly.

She’d given so much of herself to him in the few days they’d been
acquainted. Told him things she’d never shared with anyone else. Extended her
beliefs beyond the natural and into the realm of supernatural without a blink
of doubt. She’d given him her absolute trust. She’d left propriety behind to
put her life in his hands and…Lily inhaled deeply and released the breath
slowly, searching inside herself. But no, she had no regrets.

Greyston was as unruly as his hairstyle. He could be imperious and
intimidating when he chose, unpredictably charming and warm-hearted at other
times. Mostly, he was an impossible scoundrel who’d won her loyalty,
friendship, and possibly more.

It was that
possibly more
she struggled to define. Her blood
warmed over whenever she found herself in one of the many intimate situations
they’d shared, some more warranted than others. She’d gone to sleep last night
with the false promise of his kiss weaving into her dream world. And yet, while
she was disgruntled at his rejection, she wasn’t utterly distraught. Watching
that grin play on his jaw now as his gaze clung to Evelyn certainly wasn’t
shattering her heart. And maybe that’s what bothered her the most. Lily had
always assumed love would come first in a rush of intense emotion, and physical
attraction would follow. Or, at the very least, that they would arrive
together.

“Ana, have you been to Scotland before?” Greyston asked.

Lily’s eyes went to Ana, curious.

“Yes, m’lord.”

“Cragloden Castle?” He didn’t wait for her affirmation. “When was
that?”

“The year I was created, 1829, m’lord. I lived at Cragloden until we
left for France.”

The implication of his questions dawned on her. Ana might have all the
answers, if only they could find the right questions to put to her. Her gaze
flew to Greyston. Their eyes met and, in that connection, she saw her
realisation was nothing new to him. Another demonstration instead of simply
telling her?

Lily turned her gaze from him to the window. 1829. That was before she
was born, before she’d been conceived. Greyston had accused her of confusing
her own age. Was it possible her mother had lied about her birth date? Ana
would know, along with a host of other questions brimming in Lily’s head now,
but she preferred to ask them in private.

They’d left the city behind since she’d last looked out the window,
and turned off the main Leith Road onto a smaller, well-maintained track that
cut through a moor of gorse and scrub trees. A gusty breeze rippled across the
moor, bringing a tangy smell of salt and sea with it. The track curved sharply
to the left, leading them directly to a series of hillocks on the edge of the
flats and, Lily was quite sure, inland instead of toward the Leith Docks.

“Didn’t you say we would do the last stretch by ship?” she enquired.
Greyston’s home, Castle Forleough, sat on the Firth of Tay, apparently just an
hour’s ride from Cragloden Castle.

“Airship,” he supplied succinctly.

She whipped a frown on him as her stomach lurched.

At the same time, Evelyn released a gasp of pleasure. “You never
mentioned the air part, you devil.”

“I thought you’d appreciate the surprise.” The look he slipped Lily’s
way indicated that he knew she
wouldn’t
appreciate it and that’s the
real reason he’d misled them.

Lily bit down on a caustic retort and turned it into a smile. She’d
always considered herself more pragmatic than timid, but then she’d never had
to measure herself against the challenges she’d been facing of late. Well, she
was tired of being the frightened weakling while everyone else charged forth
into the fray. Even William’s eyes had lit up at the prospect.

Stuff and cockles to that. She’d already been killed once and heaven
only knew when Lady Ostrich would put in another appearance. It was high time
she laced steel into her marrow. A clot of bile stuck in her throat at the
thought of taking to the skies, but no one had to know it. “How absolutely
delightful.”

Greyston cocked a brow at her.

Evelyn reached across the bench to grasp her hand. “It won’t be awful,
you’ll see.”

“I said
delightful
, not absolutely awful.” Lily rolled her eyes
and managed a small laugh that dislodged the clot in her throat. If she kept up
the pretence long enough on the outside, it might just permeate inside and become
real.

A narrow pass wound in between the band of hillocks, taking them
almost to the other side before coming to an abrupt dead end. A massive wooden
gate, approximately twenty feet high and studded through with iron, blocked
their passage. Engraved along the top in giant letters of bold orange and blue,
read,
The Baston & Graille Dirigible Company
.

A man wearing the company’s colours stepped from the guardhouse built
into the slope and Greyston climbed out to address him. The tension in Lily’s
gut eased. Baston and Graille had established a few regular routes in the last
two years, including their Trans Atlantic Mainline to New York City, and she’d
never heard of any unfortunate incidents.

Her relief, however, didn’t survive past Greyston’s return to the
carriage. The gate swung open to let them pass into an enormous expanse of
packed soil, the ground littered with mooring hooks and chains that the
carriage had to navigate around. A lone Company dirigible was berthed off to
one side, its deflated balloon draped over the body. The only other ship in the
yard, and the one the carriage pulled up in front of, was like nothing Lily had
ever seen before. The sleek black hull, dotted with a row of portholes, looked
like a sealed elliptical capsule bluntly dissected along the horizontal. Black
sails were furled on numerous squat masts spread across a flat deck that
rounded off at the edges with no railing.

“The Company provides private docking and launching services,”
Greyston informed them as he pushed open the carriage door.

“That’s your ship?” Lily asked with a sinking feeling.

Greyston nodded. “She’s a beauty. In a calm sky, I can handle her
without a crew.”

She didn’t doubt it. The black ship could fit into the dirigible twice
over and there’d be room to spare. Unfortunately, when it came to floating
devices, she tended to think the bigger the better.

“Why would you take the train to London when you have an airship at
your disposal?” she asked suspiciously as they all piled out. Had the ship been
docked for repairs? Had it broken down midair?

“We’re not exactly welcome in the British Aether.”

“It’s illegal to fly a privately owned air ship over England,” Evelyn
chimed in.

“There’s that, too,” Greyston said, shrugging.

“Baston & Graille have a special licence,” Evelyn continued, “but
other than their small fleet and the two dirigibles owned by the Customs
Department, no air machines are welcome. Devon says it’s a matter of state
security.”

Lily listened with interest. The concept of air travel was fairly new
and she’d assumed the absence of private traffic was due to expense and
impracticality, not government legislation.

“The Scottish law sanctions personal use, so long as the ships conform
to regulation and size,” Greyston said. “Our countries may be united, but thank
God the politicians realise we’ll never see eye to eye.”

“You can take a Scotsman out of the wilds…” Evelyn let her words
dangle on a teasing smile.

Greyston chuckled, making no attempt to defend his nation.

A wiry man approached them from the boarding plank. Red hair curled
wildly to his shoulders and his beard was just as fierce.

 
“That’s Jamie, my
second-in-command,” Greyston said just before the man reached them.

“We weren’t expecting you back so soon.” Jamie slapped a hand on
Greyston’s shoulder. “Hob is aboard, but Ian and Ferdie went a-taverning in
Leith last night and we haven’t seen hair nor hide of them since.”

Greyston rattled off a quick round of informal introductions, then
added, “Fire up the engines and prepare to launch, but we’re only going as far
as Forleough. You can return for the others this afternoon.”

Chapter Ten

L
ily
was relieved to discover the ship was as different from a dirigible on the
inside as it was on the outside. The body was, indeed, a sealed capsule and
they boarded directly into a large cabin that must have comprised at least a
quarter of the ship. The inside walls were of a similar black, metal
composition as the outer shell with no added décor to soften the harsh effect.
There was a scattering of hardback chairs and stools, a single table bolted to
the floor and a long padded bench built into one wall beneath a row of
portholes. Most importantly, there was no viewing deck. Evelyn would have
insisted on enjoying the experience from that vantage and Lily would’ve had to
admit defeat before her new philosophy on embracing life-defying acts had taken
its first step forward.

The door leading off toward the rear was firmly closed and Greyston
hadn’t offered a tour before heading off to the pilot cabin with Jamie. Not
long after, a humming sound shuddered through the hull and Evelyn, perched on
the bench with her face glued to a porthole, announced, “We’re rising.”

William rushed over to the adjacent porthole.

Lily briefly considered the merits of remaining seated in her chair
against the inner wall, but decided advance warning might be preferable if they
were about to drop from the sky.

She dragged Ana with her to the portholes along the opposite wall.
“This isn’t nearly as bad as I’d imagined. It feels as if we’re hardly moving
at all.”

The ground dropped away rapidly as they lifted, rising above the
dockyard and higher still, until the isolated formation of hills spread out
below them and the ocean extended endlessly to the right. They stopped climbing
and the ship did a slow turn, then shot forward seamlessly in a motion that
caused a tingling sensation low in Lily’s abdomen.

Across the chamber, Evelyn’s giggle was partially muted. The humming
of the ship’s engine wasn’t intrusive, Lily realised, but it diluted the transmission
of other sounds. She drew closer to Ana and asked the question tormenting her.
“In what year was I born? What is my birth date?”

Ana brought her gaze in from the window. “1831. The 21
^st
of
December.”

Lily put a hand to the wall, her legs unsteady as she did the
calculations. Greyston had been right all along. Her mother had died the
weekend following her fifteenth birthday. She was one of the Cragloden
children, as she’d come to think of them. Her age fit, which meant she was
supposed to have been there that day…the day everyone had died. “Why didn’t you
ever tell me?”

“You never asked,” Ana said, her gaze steady and unblinking.

“But every birthday, you never said a thing. You never thought to once
mention—” Lily cut herself off. Celludrones didn’t truly think. Not even Ana
would offer explanations when no one else was challenging the situation. “Why
would my mother lie to me?”

“I don’t have that answer.”

Lily shook her head in frustration. But there was only one reason
anyone lied about the birth date of a child, wasn’t there? “Were my parents
already married when you met them?”

“Your mother married Lord d'Bulier the same week we arrived in
France.”

“When was that?”

“September, 1831.”

“And I was born four months later,” Lily whispered. So, her parents
had moved to her father’s country estate in France to cover the scandal of a
premature birth. It could be worse, she told herself, and instinctively knew
that it
was
worse.

Too much didn’t add up.

Her father had been somewhat of a recluse, seldom leaving his home in
the years before his death. Her mother had said they’d met while she was
touring France. Her father had been elderly, sickly, he’d died of natural
causes before Lily had turned three years of age. While she’d always hoped her
mother had married for more than his title and wealth, she couldn’t stretch her
imagination to unrestrained passion before the marriage ceremony.

“Was my father out here in England with my mother? Were they engaged?
Did they know each other before they got married?”

“I cannot be sure.” Ana shook her head. “I’d never seen Lord d'Bulier
before we reached France. Your mother did not confide in me, but they did not
act as if they knew each other well. I cannot be sure, Miss Lily.”