Fourteen
“Curse these wretched skirts.”
Victoria struggled to descend the metal ladder after parking Elsie back in the hangar. Each time her boot heels touched metal, they took a bite of her skirt with them. She nearly fell twice.
The boy’s flat-heeled shoes lingered above as she paused to collect her torn skirts more fully in one hand. At this point she didn’t care how much leg she showed, as long as she made it down the infernal ladder without breaking her neck.
She stepped onto the concrete floor, sweat dripping down her back. She hoped the young man couldn’t tell through her corset. Despite his unusual clothing, he was handsome.
Victoria ran a hand over her hair, still tied into its bun. “Thank you for your assistance back there, Mr.—”
He hopped down, skipping the last few rungs and likewise ran his hands through his dark hair, which fell over his forehead. Something black winked at her from the crook of his elbow in the process. Had he gotten oil on him, perhaps?
He glanced up at Elsie, taking in the makeup of the plane’s metal underbelly.
“It’s Graham,” he said, adjusting his short-sleeved shirt. Victoria had never seen a boy’s arms to this extent before. It’s not as though they’re that different from my own, she chided herself, though she couldn’t help staring at him. He really was quite beautiful, for a boy, with large brown eyes that brimmed with amusement, strong cheekbones, and straight, white teeth when he smiled. And his lashes—were boys allowed to have such long, dark lashes?
The way he was looking at her made her flush. What must she look like right now? And in a too-small training corset, no less.
“So should I just call you my pilot?”
“Hmm?”
“Your name, Amelia Earhart. You saved my life back there, didn’t you?” The question was confirming more than inquiring.
“Oh.” Amelia, who? “Yes, I did. Save your life, that is.” Victoria strode to the hangar door, still unable to process the simple question. She reached for the rope to pull the door down. Mr. Graham, who was several inches taller than she, lifted an arm to assist her. This time she caught a more direct sight of the mark on the fullest part of his forearm. Not oil, but a tattoo? The image was a circle with points along its edges, almost like a star. She felt herself flush. Only sailors and pirates from stories had tattoos. Who was he?
“Thank you,” she said once the racket quieted and the door kissed the ground. “And my name is Miss Victoria Digby of Gingham Range.”
“Miss Victoria Digby, as I live and breathe,” he said, quirking the corner of his mouth upward. “Listen, Victoria Digby.” His hands delved back into his pockets. “You wouldn’t happen to know of an A.C. Starkey, would you? I kinda need to find him. ASAP.” He popped his lips in a strange fashion at the end of the odd word.
Victoria decided not to ask what it meant. She considered for a moment, skimming through names of the townspeople in her mind. Mr. Graham’s chocolate brown eyes fastened directly onto her face unabashedly, like she was a map he was trying to memorize. She heated under the penetration of that gaze. Charles Merek had never looked at her like that.
Instead of connecting a face with the name he’d given her, she found herself trapped in that gaze, her thoughts seizing. Who was this boy? Where had he come from? And what was he doing in the middle of the street during an attack?
“My uncle might know him,” she finally said, not wanting to bombard the boy with questions at the present. She was already uncomfortable around him as it was.
“Let’s do it, then,” Mr. Graham said, strutting forward a few feet in front of her. Several of the other Nauts leaving their hangars stopped and stared, leaning to speak with one another behind their hands. Graham jutted his chin in their direction, before he glanced back as if realizing Victoria hadn’t moved.
“Right. Sorry,” he said in self-chastisement. He made his way back to her. “Just had a really weird experience. A couple, actually.” He bopped his hands. How fidgety he was.
“I suppose I can see how flying on patrol with me could be classified as ‘weird,’” she said.
“Look, Tori, I’m in a place that I’m pretty sure doesn’t exist. I don’t know anyone here, and I’d just like to find my friend. Can you help me? Please?”
Utterly bamboozled, Victoria nodded. She decided to reply to his final comment, the only part of his words she’d been able to comprehend. “Of course. Of course you’d like to find your friend. My uncle Jarvis should be at Gingham Range by now. Why don’t you join me there?”
“Great. Lead the way.”
The entirety of the ten minute ride to Gingham Range was a mixture of whirring hovercarriage cogs—which Mr. Graham had dubbed to be awesome—awkward examination of the carpeted floor between the blue velvet seats, Victoria tugging at the base of her corset and stealing occasional glances at Mr. Graham, and Mr. Graham staring around constantly as though he were attending a county fair and was determined to take note of every booth on display.
“What did you say this place was called?” he asked as the Range came into view.
“My home? Oh, you mean Chuzzlewit?”
“Bingo. That’s the one. You come up with that on your own?”
“I beg your pardon?”
He spoke in such a hurried manner, his words clipped and imprecise. His brows lifted, and that self-satisfied smirk played on his lips as though he were laughing at something only he knew. The sight infuriated Victoria, though she couldn’t explain why. What on earth would this boy have to find amusing? Was he laughing at her?
The hovney slowed to a stop, and the footman opened the door and lowered the small ladder currently tucked within the cab. Victoria rose from the bench when Mr. Graham continued.
“And don’t tell me. The creepy sea monster is just one of the many attractions of the town. You guys must get tourists here in hordes.”
“Mr. Graham.” Victoria paused, hunched over with one hand on the velvet interior of the hovering machine. It vibrated beneath her feet, bobbing up and down just slightly. “I’ll have you know that I’m unaccustomed to people speaking to me the way you have been.” Her blood boiled. She hadn’t missed the sarcasm in his tone that time.
His eyes reached to the ceiling, and he inhaled a deep, noisy breath. “Sorry. Remember what I said before about the whole weird thing? Still trying to adjust here. I don’t mean to, you know, dis on your town or whatever.”
She blinked several times. “How strangely you speak. Dis on my town? I find you rather hard to follow, Mr. Graham.”
“That makes two of us.” He kicked his heel against the seat, and Victoria found her vision dropping as well. She couldn’t begin to imagine what troubled him, or why he insisted on being so rude when she was only trying to help him. She had, in fact, wanted to return to her own bed at the Aviatory, not here at the Range, to speak with her mother and have a rehearsal of the previous evening’s events. But she was here on his behalf. The least he could do was show some appreciation.
Then again she wasn’t sure whether she was allowed to sleep in her own bed or was still confined to her bedchamber at home.
She placed a hand in the footman’s and descended, her feet crunching the gravel. Mr. Graham followed, hands back in his pockets. He paused and reared his head backward to take in the expansive home with its cream brick, elegant towers, and circular parapets.
“You live here?” he asked in obvious admiration.
“Sometimes.” Victoria could see where his fascination came from. It was rather decadent and grand to behold. She’d loved her home as a child, and though recent events and the falling out with her mother had made her despise the place as of late, she found herself seeing it anew, as this boy did.
“This is your uncle’s house?”
“It was my father’s. But when he died, my uncle inherited it.”
He scratched his jaw. “Shouldn’t it be your house now, if it was your dad’s?”
Her brows knitted together. “No, that isn’t how it is done.”
“If you say so,” he said.
She lacked the energy to wonder why this particular concept didn’t make sense to him. Who was this young man?
“Follow me,” she said.
“What did you say the name was?” Uncle Jarvis paced before the fireplace, a hand scrubbing at his chin. Mr. Graham lounged against the wall opposite from him, looking surprisingly at ease despite his rude posture and strange attire. He looked so out of place against the violet wallpaper and wainscoting at his back. Mr. Graham began fiddling with the doily on the table beside him.
“Starkey,” he said. “A.C. Starkey.”
Uncle Jarvis frowned. “A lost relative of yours?”
“No. I worked for him. He—” Mr. Graham hesitated for the briefest moment, long enough for Mama and Victoria to exchange glances. “He went missing. And if I want to make it back home, I need to find him.”
“And what is your full name, dear?” Mama asked. She sat in the chaise while Uncle Jarvis still marked the fireplace. “So I might use it when I make inquiries around town.”
“Graham Jefferson Birkley?” Again, he said this as though it were a question.
Victoria’s mouth fell open. “Wait a moment. Graham is your Christian name? But I thought—”
He grinned, bending backward at the knees with his hands once again in his pockets. “Ha! My name is Graham. Last name’s Birkley.”
“But you said—”
He shrugged. “I told you my name was Graham.”
Victoria felt ready to stomp her foot. Uncle Jarvis stepped in, giving her a look. She wondered if he knew what she’d done, not adhering to protocol with the other Nauts. Honestly, how could she? How could any of them continue the same method when the Kreak’s patterns were obviously changing?
“I’d like to help you, Mr. Birkley. Victoria tells me you were highly cooperative with her evasion of the Kreak this afternoon. I wonder if you might consider an exchange of sorts?”
“You want me to help you in exchange for you helping me? Like, work?” He shrugged again. “Fair enough. That thing is pretty freakish.”
The hardness in Uncle Jarvis’s eyes belied his friendly smile. “I’m glad we can see eye-to-eye on the matter.”
Victoria wondered how her uncle could be so calm about this. He couldn’t be pleased she’d flown, or that this strange young man had appeared out of nowhere. Then again, he had given her his word.
“How dreadful it all is, losing your friend,” Mama said, holding her teacup in her lap.
“You have no idea,” said Mr. Birkley.
Uncle Jarvis nodded. “Urgent indeed. I can’t say I’ve ever heard the man’s name, but I shall inquire of the others at the workroom. In the meantime, Mr. Birkley, I insist you board here with us.”
Victoria’s head shot up. “What?”
Mr. Birkley looked askance at her and then back at Uncle Jarvis, discomfort riding his features. “That’s really nice, but—”
Jarvis raised a hand to silence him. “It will be no trouble. Perhaps we can find this missing friend of yours. And I’ll use your hand around the Aviatory in exchange for room and board.”
Mr. Birkley nodded, apparently taking it as an excuse to plop himself onto the other end of the chaise Victoria sat on. She swallowed and straightened, nervous at his proximity.
He pulled at the collarless neckline of his short-sleeved, blue shirt. “Yeah, I’m good at working with stuff. When you say Aviatory,” he said, as though trying to figure the word out. “You’re talking about those flying taxi things we came here in?”
“Hovercraft, Mr. Birkley. I run the Chuzzlewit Aeronaut Hanger—or the Aviatory, as we refer to it here. We have the only factory that builds hovneys for miles, and the demand is higher than we can produce at the moment. We’ve had to use every available male to build them, and we can always use more. I employ the workers who design and build the craft, as well as train the pilots.”
Mr. Birkley’s eyes slid to Victoria with the look of being impressed. She lost herself in their color for a moment, until prickles of heat made their way up to her cheeks. She cleared her throat and placed her teacup on the tray. Her hand trembled, making the china tinkle. Mama narrowed her eyes.
“I must dress for dinner,” Victoria said, standing. Her skirt still reeked of fuel, but that wasn’t the only reason she wished to be anywhere else but here.
Uncle Jarvis inclined his head to acknowledge her, but Mr. Birkley slouched on the red couch as if testing his own flexibility. His brows furrowed when Uncle Jarvis cleared his throat.
“A gentleman stands when a lady leaves the room, Mr. Birkley.”
Graham’s brows arced. “Oh. Okay, sure.” He clumsily stood, tugging at the bottom of his button-less shirt.
“Where did you say you were from?” Mama asked, setting her teacup on the table without making a sound, just the way a lady should. Halfway to the parlor entrance, Victoria paused, curious about the answer.
“We can discuss all of that later,” Jarvis interrupted. “I’m sure the lad would like to be shown to his room. Although, I wonder about this Starkey of yours. What did you say his vocation was? His name doesn’t belong to anyone in aviation.”
“Remember, Jarvis. The boy isn’t from here,” Mama reminded.
“But you have reason to believe this Starkey is here now, yes?” Jarvis prodded.
“Yeah, I do.” Even Mr. Birkley’s tone sounded overtly casual.
“Well, then,” said Uncle Jarvis. “What is the man’s vocation? That might help us know where to start.”
“He’s an architect.”
Mama’s lips pursed, and Victoria tried to suppress the satisfaction at knowing something more about this boy. If Graham worked for this Starkey, that meant he designed things as well, or perhaps he drew.
“Come now,” Mama said. “You must be fearfully tired.”
Graham, seeing that she’d risen to her feet as well, bowed to her in a bizarre forward lunge that made Victoria mask a snigger behind her hand. The movement was so endearing, she couldn’t help but smile. He had been acting peculiarly since she’d found him, but from the sound of things he was feeling as lost about the whole ordeal as everyone else was.
“Victoria, ring the bell for Linny,” Mama added, fighting a sniff of dismay at the boy’s actions.
Poor Linny, Victoria thought. She hoped the room was in order, or Mama would be displeased. She gave herself a reminder to thank the servant girl for holding her tongue about Victoria’s escape earlier. The fact that she’d returned didn’t seem to bother her mother. Lost in thought, Victoria realized too late that Graham and Mama were heading toward her. She turned on her heel, nearly stumbling into Myer.
“My apologies, Miss Digby,” said the butler kindly.
“It is nothing,” Victoria said with a grimace, knowing he covered for her clumsiness. She wasn’t sure what had come over her, but she made for the stairs and closed herself in her bedchamber, heart pounding in her chest.