Magnificent Devices 07 - A Lady of Integrity by Shelley Adina Read Free Book Online Page B

said brokenly, her throat closing up. “I cannot bear to disappoint you … and yet I cannot bear to stay behind while others risk their lives.”
    “I am the last man to say that a woman cannot prove herself in laboratory and manufactory,” he said heavily. “Mrs. Bertha Benz—to say nothing of my own dear wife—would never let me hear the end of it if I did. But this is not the first time you will have to make this choice, Claire. Tonight it is young Jake. Tomorrow it may be Elizabeth, or Marguerite. Five years from now it may be a youngster with your eyes and Mr. Malvern’s smile. How will you choose then?”
    “How did you?” she had the temerity to ask. “How did the Baroness?”
    “I raised our family while the count was in the army and the government,” that lady said quietly. “My place was in the home—and in my office here in the palace.”
    “Times have changed since then,” Claire said. “A woman may employ her talents outside the home.”
    “And is that fair to her family? You see, Claire, these are difficult questions. But you must ask them of yourself—and when you know the truth, you must act upon it.” The count paused, his eyes at last softening to more resemble those of the man she had come to know since she and their friends had saved his life in the Canadas. He seemed to remember that, too, for he said, “I owe you my life and am the first one to say so. I will repay my debt … but you must be willing to take up the responsibility I give you.”
    He rose, and offered the baroness his hand. “We will wish you a good night, and will see you in the morning.”
    Claire kissed them both, and the door closed behind them.
    She sank onto the sofa, her lips trembling, her back straight now that she was alone.
    The Mopsies came in, murmuring quietly between themselves, and hesitated on the threshold. Then they crept away to the bedroom they shared.
    When the suite was silent and a very terrible hour alone with her conscience had passed, she crossed the room to the writing table and got out paper and ink. She wrote one letter to the girls, and took it into their room. Lizzie was a sound sleeper, and Maggie only murmured as she kissed them both. The second letter she addressed to the count, and left it propped against the vase of flowers on the mantel in the sitting room.
    Then she went out and crossed the vast darkness of the park, the glowing lamp on Athena ’s mooring mast guiding her back to the one place on earth she needed to be.

Dawn lay upon the horizon, a line that might have been drawn in watery gray ink if one had been on the ground, but up here, it was a sky-wide glow in the viewing ports that promised a clear day and good flying.
    “Nine, continue on this course, and I will take the helm when we approach the Alps,” she instructed the automaton intelligence system that she and Alice between them had invented. She had never flown over mountains so high, but they could not be higher than the Rocky Mountains of the Canadas. Claire had rebuilt Athena ’s engine from cell to screws over the last several years, with Andrew’s assistance, and had complete confidence in her ship’s ability to manage, no matter what was demanded of her.
    “What in God’s name have you done?”
    Claire turned in some surprise at having her communion with the skies interrupted in such a manner. “I have lifted,” she told Alice calmly as the latter came into the gondola, tying her hair up with a ribbon that had seen better days. “I acted as my own ground crew—no easy feat in the dark, I assure you. I’m glad you’re up. I shall likely need your help with wind currents and altitude as we cross the Alps.”
    Alice checked the viewing port, as if she needed the proof of her own eyes that yes, there were the Alps rising blue and serrated in the distance. “But the count—last night—he seemed adamant. Did he relent and allow you to go?”
    Claire busied herself with charts and general tidying