Chapter Four

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The story so far: Isabelle and her mysterious new chaperone board the Aerial Express and have dinner with the airship’s unpleasant owner, Julius Beechcraft, and other passengers. During the night, she overhears Captain Miro fighting with Beechcraft, who fires her old friend. The next morning, a maid discovers Beechcraft’s murder. Charging into the scene, Isabelle realizes that (1) someone tortured Beechcraft before his death and (2) her chaperone, Mrs. Darling, knows the owner’s secretary, Mr. Notti.

Isabelle didn’t approve of murder, but there was an element of good-riddance to Julius Beechcraft’s exit from the world. However, the riddance would have been better elsewhere, somewhere far away from the Aerial Express and Captain Miro.

She abandoned her half-eaten breakfast — a disservice to the shakshouka — and stood, reaching over the desk to tug at the sash. It rose under protest, creaking with damp and disuse, but she pushed it wide. If she wanted, she could climb out onto the narrow window-walk. Had anyone checked the windows in the dead industrialist’s room?

Miro’s possession of a key would sound less important if the killer could slip into Beechcraft’s suite from outside. And what about Mrs. Darling’s friend, Mr. Notti? Had the deceased bothered to lock the internal doors, or was he cavalier about that, too? He let the maids enter while he slept. Why not his secretary? 

The speaker interrupted her thoughts. Its crackling voice thanked them for their cooperation and assured them the ship’s public rooms were again open to passengers.

Isabelle rapped on her chaperone’s door. Silence. “Mrs. Darling?” No answer. Had the woman fallen asleep?

There was something slippery about her chaperone, but she couldn’t protest the freedom. As she exited, she locked up, bending over to use the key dangling from her necklace.

She set off. The chatelaine rustled with each stride, joining the ship’s mechanical hum, but measured chain lengths kept the objects from clanking. It took years of experimentation, but she no longer sounded like a clumsy elephant in a junkyard when she moved.

Isabelle opened the door to the promenade. A gust tugged at her as she stepped outside. The sun filtered through a canopy of pipes and rigging, creating a world of gold infiltrated by shadows, which ebbed and flowed with the ship’s sway. The shine didn’t translate into warmth. She rubbed her arms and wished for a shawl.

Gazing down at the lower deck, she saw a large man with small silver charms threading through his hair. He waited as his wife approached him. The lady’s emerald skirts obscured her movements, but she hesitated between steps as if walking were difficult. She was tiny, and their physical differences emphasized one another’s exaggerated proportions. 

Isabelle neared the navigator’s domain, nestled at the head of the airship. Her friend Tess was outside on the surrounding balcony. She slowed as she realized Tess wasn’t alone. 

A short, heavyset man loomed over the navigator, an arm resting on the railing. Tess ignored her scowling audience, crouching to use the ground as a writing desk. The unshaven half of her hair swung over her goggles. With an impatient flick, she shoved thin black braids out of her face and finished her note. She thrust to her feet. The stranger stepped back, and his eyes widened at something she said. He pushed his spectacles up his nose with bruising force.

Isabelle drew closer.

Tess flung her hands wide. “I know you’re new to shipboard life, but when the captain and I both say that there’s no returning to London…” She saw Isabelle, and her expression warmed, welcoming one person while dismissing the other. “I have the matter under control — as much as it can be controlled. Go back to the engine room. When the storm hits, I promise you’ll be too busy with your responsibilities to worry about mine.”

The man huffed. He stomped past Isabelle, steps thunderous on the metal staircase that led to Tess’s office. Something about his face teased her memory, but she didn’t think they’d met.

Tess said, “It took you long enough to come see me.”

Isabelle ignored the complaint as she climbed. Neither girl was the hugging type, so they just smiled at one another. She twisted and tilted her head toward the retreating man. His shoulders hugged his ears, and his arms defied their natural swing, rigid at his sides. “Who was that?”

Tess’s gaze followed Isabelle’s before slipping off to the side. “The new chief engineer. Remind me to smack Bart when I next see him. I don’t care if my cousin is expecting. He should never have left the ship.” The former engineer was a red-headed Scotsman who’d married into Tess’s family. 

“You don’t like his replacement?”

Tess’s mouth twitched as she discarded her immediate response and tried to be fair. 

(Like the captain under whom she served, Tess could ill afford caprice. All her dreams depended on the world coming to its senses — not that she had any hope of such a miracle.)

“The fellow’s more than competent — overqualified even.” She sighed. “And he’s been perfectly civil these last few months. Perhaps he woke up in a bad mood.” 

Isabelle’s voice was wry. “It has been an unusual morning.”

Tess acknowledged the point and changed the subject with a wicked grin. “How is your friend, the gorgeous genius?”

There it was, that creeping insecurity again. Isabelle had few enough friends. She hated the sense that her two closest might downgrade her to a mechanism in their romance. “Pippa’s well. I’ll tell her you asked.” 

Tess studied her friend’s face, thoughtful. Then, she hugged the battered logbook with one arm and swept the other wide in invitation. As Isabelle passed and entered the tiny office, Tess turned her scrutiny to the lady’s attire. She sniffed. The tight sleeves belonged to last year’s trends and lacked the height of the latest poufs around the shoulders. Even worse, the pine green bodice was front-laced instead of tucked at the side.

Tess’s first love was the sky, but her second was fashion, and she never understood how her wealthy friend could dress with such indifference. She designed and sewed her own clothes, never slavish to the current mode but adapting styles to flatter her. Today, she wore a stunning suit of red and black, loose enough for her to perform her responsibilities but made daring by a plunging neckline and jaunty hat. 

(If the captain coped with the world’s gaze by pretending to ignore it, Tess used her sense of style to command and shape the attention she received.)

The navigator’s domain had space for just two chairs, and the girls chatted about old times and friends. Isabelle learned that Tess and the captain had visited some of the old Cutlass crew during a recent stop in Valencia. Tess regaled her with a story about the onetime first mate, who had always been prim for his environment. After imbibing too much sangria, he challenged a statue of Napoleon to a duel. All witnesses agreed. The bronze Little Corporal won the engagement.

As Isabelle laughed, she lost her lingering reserve, relaxing into the comfort of being safe and seen. Not the reserved English lady of Constantinople or the standoffish scientist of school. Not the daughter of foolish pedants or the graceless gentlewoman. Just Isabelle.

The conversation turned to immediate concerns. “Tess, how bad is this for Miro?”

“The murder, you mean?” Her brow furrowed, and worry shadowed her eyes. “I don’t know. He’s given the order to change course for Venice, but keep it to yourself. He wants to hold the announcement until the passengers are calmer.” 

“Why not turn back to London?”

“We can’t. That’s what I was telling the new engineer. The storm would overtake us before we landed. In truth, I would rather descend sooner, in Paris, but Venice is the continental headquarters of Beechcraft Enterprises.” 

Isabelle wrapped her arms around her torso. “The captain mentioned something about bad weather, but it doesn’t look ominous. It’s even sunny.”

“Appearances can be deceiving.” She gestured to an eyepiece attached to a long tube that pierced the wall of the cabin to spy outside. “See for yourself.”

The small quarters forced Isabelle to angle herself over her friend, her spine protesting. She shut one eye and pressed her brow into the leather cushion. It took her a second, but at last she saw the knot of dark clouds.

“The real warning sign is the air pressure.” Tess nodded at a dial as Isabelle retook her seat. “It may not seem like a lot at this distance, but trust me, we don’t want to dance with the storm. It’s easy to forget how comparatively small and fragile the Aerial Express is next to such a squall.”

Venice was only a few days’ flight from their current location. That didn’t give Miro much time to investigate — and find an alternative suspect.

Gears to the side of the scope clicked in their brass casings. One eye on them, Tess remarked, “You have yet to tell me about your chaperone. I laughed when the captain told me about the last-minute addition to the passenger list. Has Sir Edward finally decided to rein you in?”

Isabelle scrunched her nose. “Hard to say. I want to know who put this idea into his head. I’d hate to think it indicates a policy shift in our relationship. Mutual non-interference is best.”

“What’s the woman like?”

“Not dreadful. A little strange.” She admitted, “Mrs. Darling is rather nice, but, well, she seems to be friends with Beechcraft’s secretary. There were multiple opportunities for her to mention the connection yesterday. She didn’t, but the two recognized each other this morning, after the murder.”

“That’s…an unsettling coincidence.”

“Yes.”

Tess clapped her hands. “Do you think they planned to meet on board? Maybe they even killed Beechcraft together.”

Isabelle weighed the gruesome possibility. It horrified her, but it was less insulting to imagine her chaperonage arose from an evil plot rather than social niceties. “They might have intended to rendezvous, but their behavior at the grisly scene…” She shook her head. “No. At least, not both of them. Not unless they’re exceptional actors.”  

Tess shrugged and soon began fidgeting, darting anxious eyes at her instruments. Isabelle allowed her friend to return to work. She promised to return that evening or early the next morning. 

As Isabelle walked, she reflected on how Beechcraft’s murder changed the atmosphere of the ship. Tight, whispering clusters of people dotted the decks and hallways. Her fellow travelers gave her wary nods, and she heard one woman mutter to her companion. Isabelle’s impulsive rush into the scene of the crime brought her into the story the strangers traded. Their eyes followed her, prickling the skin over her scapula.

She entered her cabin and shut out the world. Isabelle seldom bothered to lock her room when she was inside, at least not during the day, but she breathed easier once she’d turned the bolt and heard it slide into place.

Isabelle threw herself into her work. She was determined not to waste the voyage.

She discovered a new evil of her displacement. Unlike the desk in her usual quarters, this one was too small for her purposes. She tried to improvise an extension, but the side tables were bolted to the floor. Retrieving the vials and burner from her alchemy kit, she settled herself on the rug. 

Isabelle reviewed her notes from the article on bonding aether to hydrogen and checked the tube of distilled aether. The volume was low. The school’s headmistress restricted student access to the expensive substance. Why hadn’t she resupplied from one of the London shops? There was only enough here for two or three trials.

She took a deep, calming breath, unclipped the fire starter from her necklace, and tipped a few flakes of aluminum into the flask where it joined a diluted solution of potassium hydroxide. She lit the burner with Pippa’s gift, eyes glued to the thermometer. When it hit the right temperature, she added the drops of aether and waited.

It didn’t work. 

At all.

In an absolutely-nothing-happened way.

If something had gone horribly wrong, Isabelle would have learned more.

The closest she came to an interesting outcome was when she leaned forward. She’d forgotten to remove her chatelaine, which swung toward the flame, but Isabelle jerked back in time to avoid catastrophe.

She gazed at the stubborn flask in despair. 

A noise at the door yanked her from contemplation. She rose, skirting her floor laboratory, and discovered Reimund Fitzwilliam waiting in the corridor.

“Corrosion.” He clutched his chest. “Don’t make that sad face, my Beau monde blossom. It’s heartbreaking.” 

Isabelle’s cheeks heated with either anger or embarrassment. She couldn’t tell which.

“That’s better.” Reimund rested one hand on the jamb, peering over her shoulder. “What is all this?”

“An experiment.”

“How interesting.”

She tried to close the door but couldn’t without slamming it on his fingers. Exasperated, she shook her head.

“It isn’t interesting?”

“Only to me.”

Reimund didn’t move. “And if I said that I found you interesting?”

“I would disillusion you. I am a boring individual who spends her time studying. Alchemy, mostly.”

He held her eyes. “You mean to tell me that, while most people are content to skim along the surface of things, you explore the secrets of the universe? You prospect for gold in waters that are often rough and always deep? That doesn’t sound boring, my gentle princess of pulchritude.”

Halfway through Reimund’s comment, Isabelle stopped wanting to shove him away and started thinking about pulling him closer. Over Christmas, she had kissed a friend of Pippa’s brother. She couldn’t dismiss romance without at least one experiment, but she wondered if a second might be necessary. For science.

And then he ruined it. 

“Pulchritude?” 

“It means ‘beauty,’” he explained. 

(An English friend of his abused the word and its even-worse relative, pulchritudinous. Reimund liked to think it was his Irish heritage that made him delight in the sound of words, but knew what it really was. )

“It sounds like vomit.” 

His eyes lit up, but before he could call her his radiant moonbeam of bodily functions or something equally absurd, Isabelle asked, “Why are you here, Ragnar?”

The mis-name delighted Reimund. “I come on a mission to invite you to a game of cards in the green parlor. Your companion, Mrs. Darling, is already there.”

“I’m busy.”

“Take pity on me. Our American friend, Mrs. Jones, instructed me not to return without you.” His voice softened. “And you have the distinct look of someone who needs a break.”

He sounded like Pippa. Maybe he had a point. At the very least, trouncing him at cards would cheer her up.

“Very well.”

He didn’t move.

“I know where to find the green parlor. I need to put my equipment away.”

He still didn’t move.

Isabelle was too aware of the boy. She didn’t want him to watch her clean up, overseeing the work from his current position. “Please tell the others I will be there presently.”

“As you wish, my sovereign sprite.” He stepped back and let the door close.

Isabelle tidied, fiddling with her possessions until she realized she was stalling. The delay assigned Reimund too much power. She opened her shoulders wide and marched out of the room, determined to bear the horrors of small talk and flirtation with fortitude. 

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