The Aviator Read Free Page A

a gifted voice, Lady Sinclair,” the Duke remarked from his bench seat on the opposite side of the table, amusement playing in his gaze. He wore a simple rose colored jacket and round spectacles at the end of his nose, his fingers circling a lit cigarette in the air as he spoke. “One wonders what you do with it when it comes to your father’s company.”
    “I demurely withdraw, your grace,” Gilda said. “In thousands.”
    His eyes warmed, a private joke and a good one. He put his cigarette to his lips and drew a harsh breath. “Sorry to have missed so much. I came in about fifteen minutes ago. More tedious briefings, I’m afraid.”
    “The situation is serious?”
    The Duke blew smoke through his teeth. “My dear, uniforms require a great deal of seriousness. If you’re wearing one, or listening to one, you cannot avoid it.”
    “Well, you see? I came at the right moment to distract you.”
    He sighed, considering the tip of his cigarette. “And yet, I suspect you’re less interested in me than in your runaway business partner.”
    “Mr. Lanchard is here to meet with Navy officials. I came to deliver urgent medicine to the sick.”
    The Duke chuckled. “What a truly selfless creature you are.”
    “Has he met with them yet?”
    “Whatever do you mean?”
    “You know exactly what I mean.”
    The Duke cast a sidelong glance at Nathan, now talking with a pair of Naval officers, gesturing in repetitive arcs as he explained something of technical interest. “If he has, then he should no longer concern you.”
    “He owns fifty-one percent of Sinclair Airship.”
    “Well, of course, but if he has business with His Majesty’s Royal Navy, he will need to leave the running of things to you and the company managers. I doubt those withdrawals will be much affected.”
    “But he’s our designer, you know that. My father trained him.”
    “Hire another one. It’s an airship. It has a frame. It has a cloth hull and a collection of envelopes you fill with gas, a few propellers on either side. How hard can it be?”
    “He belongs to Sinclair, not to the Royal Navy.”
    The Duke looked confused. “My dear, one can never become too sentimental about people. Dogs, of course, and property too, but people invariably fail to understand who they belong to.”
    “It is more complicated than that.”
    “Ah…Now we come to the truth. I had heard that he was some kind of family member, some scandalous relative hidden from the light of day.”
    “He’s not a blood relative, not a relative at all, in any biological sense. Nathan’s mother was a pretty widow from Blackburn. His father died on the frontlines when he was three. My father hired the young widow Lanchard to look after his Northern estates and you can imagine the rest.”
    The Duke looked particularly disinterested. “I shall try not to.”
    “She played the part of a good mistress for years, then died heroically of some consumptive illness, leaving my father to mourn her ad nauseam for the rest of his life. He took Nathan in like a son, the son he always wanted. The son he never had, poor fellow.”
    “And left him fifty-one percent of your inheritance.”
    “Probably would have left him all of it, if not for the fact that my mother forbade it. Nathan has always been an extremely good fake son. He and my father spent years huddled over drawing tables together.”
    “A very good fake son,” the Duke agreed. “Tell me again why you don’t want him shipped out to sea?”
    “And leave me with the hideous investor?”
    “What hideous investor?”
    “Whichever one he finds, of course. He shall have to sell his shares to leave for such an extended period of time because, despite the modern movements of our day, a woman still cannot control a company with active government contracts, which means that I will be left at the mercy of the managers and a banker in a bowler, for certain.”
    “A grim thought.”
    “All so that Nathan can build airships