Brilliant Devices by Shelley Adina Read Free Book Online

from her, all he would find in it was a few silver coins.
    Then she sallied forth to rejoin Andrew and Alice.
    Who were no longer at the airmen’s table.
    Well, goodness, this was no time to be left on one’s own. She sidled up to the table and propped her hands easily on the chairs of two airmen.
    “Excuse me, but do you know where the two mechanics who were just here might have gone?”
    The nearest crewman pushed his goggles higher on his cap and looked her over with appreciation. “No, but if you’re looking for one, will I do the job?”
    His friends laughed, and she smiled into his eyes. “I have no doubt you would, but it’s rather urgent I fi nd them. You see—” She leaned a little closer, and hoped he didn’t hear the crackle of paper under her blouse. “—I confess I was rather insulting to Sherwood Leduc over the matter of the pot, and I’m very much afraid he intends to take it back … by force.”
    “You don’t say.” The smile went out of the airman’s eyes. “What’s a little rose like you doing insulting a coyote like him?”
    “I did not know he was a coyote,” she said. “And he refused to give me the chance to win back my property, as a gentleman might. I rather lost my temper, I’m afraid, and he took offense.”
    “We ain’t all like that, missy,” someone else piped up from across the table. “There’s plenty here who would hand over a pot for the chance to insult Leduc. George, walk her over to the Tiller to find her friends. And don’t try no funny business, neither. It’s obvious to a blind man she’s a lady, not one of yer prairie partridges.”
    George the airman straightened and gave his companion a hard look. “What do you take me for? Contrariwise to what some might think, I’m a gentleman.”
    “Thank you, sir,” Claire breathed, with such a gaze of admiration that two others left their drinks to join the little party.
    As they stepped out onto the hard-packed gravel of the airfield, Claire’s gaze swept from left to right to take in her surroundings—equipment, the gentle, swelling curves of airship fuselages, mooring masts, the occasional crewman tightening ropes and inspecting landing wheels. Nothing out of the ordinary.
    But she had not dealt with the dockside bullies who worked for the Cudgel without learning a thing or two.
    “Gentlemen, I appreciate your protection,” she said softly, which had the effect of making them close up around her in order to hear. “How far is it to the Tiller?”
    “Half a mile or so,” George said. “Ten minutes if you don’t dally. We might catch your friends if we pick up our pace.”
    Claire obligingly matched his long stride, and the two others hustled to catch up. “So, missy, this here’s Elliot and I’m Reuben,” one of them told her.
    “And you may call me the Lady.”
    “Lady? You don’t got a Christian name?”
    “She’s from the old country, you dope,” George said. “Can’t you hear it? That’s a title, not a name.”
    “Oh. A real ladyship? I ain’t never met one of those before.”
    “ Title notwithstanding, I am honored to be among your company,” Claire said warmly. “But with the likes of Sherwood Leduc about, perhaps it would be best to keep my real name concealed for now.”
    “Not meaning to alarm you or n othin’, Lady, but ain’t nobody gets away with insulting Leduc,” Reuben said in a low tone. “We got a couple of his brutes on our tail right now, matter of fact.”
    “I saw them,” Claire said. “ They are lurking under that enormous fuselage with the Iron Cross upon it, are they not?”
    “ More fool them,” George said with a snort. “Ten to one the count’s men bag ’em before we go another hundred yards.”
    Claire put crest and title together. “That ship belongs to Count von Zeppelin?”
    “Yep. Never seen him, myself, and his crew don’t mix, but that ship arrived two days ago.”
    “Why would they not mix?” Claire felt a little breathless at the