Gossamer Wing Read Free

swashbuckled her way through his mental landscape.
    Dexter laughed at himself every time he indulged in this fancy. He was no green boy, and he knew himself well enough to know it was probably best they never meet, as he would almost certainly be disappointed. The widows of his real-life acquaintance never derring-did much of anything, and he’d no real reason to think Lady Moncrieffe was the exception despite her penchant for odd contraptions. He was happier daydreaming on occasion about the mysterious woman with the intriguing commissions, content with only the few facts he’d learned through mutual associates.
    What he did know for certain was that she was young, and had been widowed very early in her marriage some years prior. An oft-discussed tragic figure, Lady Moncrieffe still wore mourning for her husband and showed no interest in seeking another spouse. She lived on a vast estate not too far north of New York City, and was rarely seen at society events either in her own county or in the city itself.
    Yet she had custom-ordered more than one weapon, an array of telescopic and sonic amplification devices, a small steam car and a velocimobile, and a set of equipment for use in mountaineering. And she apparently spent a certain amount of time on an airship, possibly at high altitudes given the need for added insulation. While riding that airship she required the means to view things over a mile away—things on the ground, in other words—while her hands were otherwise occupied.
    The color of a cloudless sky
.
    Dexter realized Lady Moncrieffe was not being poetic, as he had first imagined. He should have known sooner, because she had never been poetic before. No, she literally wanted the helmet to be the color of the sky, and he suddenly suspected her reasons for that had nothing to do with fashion or whim. All Dexter’s fancies about what the lady did with his inventions—the ideas he’d always told himself were too far-fetched to be anything but fiction—began to coalesce into one undeniable possibility. There were really only so many reasons a person would require the equipment Lady Moncrieffe had ordered over the years.
    Dexter Chen Hardison did not like to do things halfway. To create something that would truly meet the lady’s needs, he realized he had a need of his own: information.
    The revelation made his return note much easier to write. Three words, in fact, sufficed.
    My dear Lady Moncrieffe,
    To what purpose?
    Yrs, D. C. Hardison
    By return mail the next day he received the answer he had already deduced, and it was even shorter than his own message.
    Hardison—
    Camouflage.
    * * *
    “PACKAGE JUST DELIVERED, ma’am.”
    “Thank you, Smits. Put it in my study, I’ll open it after luncheon.” Charlotte, Lady Moncrieffe, returned to her cold salmon and travel brochures, only to note that Smits yet stood his solemn, quiet ground at her shoulder.
    “Yes?” she asked after waiting a moment to see if he would ever clear his throat to gain her attention.
    “Beg pardon, m’lady, but the young gentleman who brought the package insists on delivering it personally. He says he’s to report back to the makesmith on its suitability.”
    “Oh!” The smith had sent a boy along with her helmet? Charlotte wasn’t sure whether this boded well or ill. “Well, take
him
to the study then, and offer him some refreshment. I’ll be along shortly.”
    Smits vanished on his errand, leaving his mistress alone at the little round glass table in the solarium. Charlotte yearned to dash to the study as soon as he was away. Instead she gave it all of five minutes before rising gracefully from her meal and gliding along to the study as elegantly as if all society were watching her to learn how to behave.
    The makesmith hadn’t sent a boy, it transpired. He had sent a young gentleman, as Smits said. With a voice as refined as if he’d been sent off to spend his formative years at Eton, the young man greeted Charlotte