Waistcoats & Weaponry
Page 40“Has she always been this bossy?” Felix asked Dimity.
“Imagine being her best friend,” replied Dimity.
“Crikey.”
“Dimity, am I really? That’s so sweet.” Sophronia was distracted from bossiness by affection. She thought of Dimity as her best friend, but they had never talked about it, and she’d no idea Dimity felt the same. After all, Dimity was more popular and gregarious, and had lots more friends than Sophronia. Possibly because she wasn’t so bossy.
“Of course. Sorry, Sidheag,” Dimity answered with a grin.
Sidheag made a face. “You two are attached at the hip, everyone knows that.”
To Felix, Sophronia said, “I only get bossy when it’s important. Speaking of which, you should let Dimity go first, she has more training. Besides, and I do apologize, Dimity, but the shock value alone of your outlandish appearance might give you the edge.”
Dimity’s resigned expression, combined with the oddball clothing, gave her a marked resemblance to her brother in his younger, portlier days.
“Definitely bossy,” said Felix, resigned.
“Oh, hush up, you like it,” said Sophronia.
Felix grabbed her hand, and before she could protest, pressed a swift kiss to her arm above the hurlie. It was shockingly forward and very daring. Of course, Sophronia was delighted.
“I do,” he murmured against her skin, letting her go just before she would have felt it necessary to jerk away.
Soap hissed a little, like an offended cat.
“Oh, I say,” huffed Felix, glaring doubtfully at Dimity.
So they left Felix crouched behind Dimity, ready to climb down and enter the freight carriage. They could only pray the drone had no gun. Sophronia hated to think her friends were going into danger on her orders. The price of bossiness, she thought.
But she had to trust in Dimity’s abilities; it needed to be a coordinated attack. So she led the other two onward, over the two passenger coaches, hopefully empty, and then over the tender to the cab. The cab had open doorways on both sides. She crouched on the right and Soap on the left, ready to swing down and in. Sidheag held position on the roof behind them, to follow as soon as possible, whichever side seemed necessary.
Sophronia waved her arm back at Dimity.
Her friend signaled acknowledgment. Then Dimity and Felix disappeared from sight.
Sophronia looked over and was about to nod to Soap when he pointed up. Ahead and above them, through a break in the clouds, was that same dirigible. The one Soap had spotted before. No time to think about that. Sophronia spread her hands in mystification and then nodded at him, once.
They each crossed their own arms, grabbing on to the top edge of the cab roof, then swinging out and twisting around feet first through the doorway to land inside the cab proper. Sophronia, trained in acrobatic execution, had had ample opportunity to practice as she climbed about the school. In trousers, it was easy as buttered crumpets. She had no idea why Soap knew the maneuver, but sooties were universally fit and Soap very athletic. He did get a bit tangled up in the doorframe, being taller than she, so his landing was one knee down.
A good thing, too, for Monique had taken a swing at him with a wicked-looking dagger. Her arm swooshed right over his head.
The driver with the huge mustache, who happened to be near Sophronia, was concentrating on the controls and only half noticed the intruders. It helped that the noise was deafening so close to the engine—the hiss of steam and roar from the firebox combined with clanging cables and pistons.
Monique hadn’t noticed Sophronia yet. Her attention was on Soap.
Sophronia wasn’t really a killer. She’d never particularly enjoyed the assassination part of her lessons, but she couldn’t have the driver messing things up, either. So she simply tapped the man on the arm. “Pardon me, sir?”
“Ho, there, lad, what are you doing…?”
“You what?”
Sophronia grinned at him, very cheeky, in the meantime sliding around to his other side so he was near the open door and she was not.
He was very confused.
Meanwhile, behind them, Monique and Soap grappled, Monique hurling some very unladylike profanity at the sootie—what had she been learning among vampires?—and telling him he had no right, and to keep his dirty, nasty guttersnipe hands off her!
A small young man tended the stoker’s box, the train’s equivalent of a sootie. Hard to tell if he was a hireling or a minion, but he turned to face the fray, attracted by the noise. He seemed befuddled into inaction, but he was armed with a large shovel. No time to think on him further; Sophronia spun in against the driver, bumping him.
“What?”
“Oh, my god, what’s that!” she screamed, pointing out the open cab door. There was real fear in her face, as if she were seeing a poltergeist.
The driver turned to look.
Sophronia shoved him with all her might. It shouldn’t have worked—she was too slight and he was too large—except that Sophronia nipped one foot out and behind his leg, tripping him up. The SOS maneuver—startle, obstruct, and shove—was a classic tactic in which Captain Niall had trained them well.
Sophronia had never made it work before. When one was practicing, one’s opponent always knew the startle was coming. But the driver reacted perfectly, and as a result tumbled out of the train.
She stuck her head out after. He seemed to have fallen harmlessly to one side. The train was moving just quickly enough that even a fit human couldn’t catch up.
She yelled up to Sidheag. “Room for you now. Waiting for an invitation?”
The girls turned to face the stoker.
He looked from one to the other.
Sophronia looked mean and scruffy and had just shoved his boss from a moving train.
Sidheag was awfully tall and imposing.
The stoker put down his shovel and put both his empty hands out in a pleading manner. “They hired me, young masters. I’m only along for the pay and the ride.”
“Sidheag, if you would deal with this?” asked Sophronia.
Sidheag looked the young man up and down. “Delighted.”
She said, in her most commanding Lady Kingair voice, “You know, friend, I’ve always been terribly interested in the running of trains. If you wouldn’t mind continuing to shovel? I’m sure we can match your pay. In the meantime, if you could please tell me everything you know about everything, that would be topping.” And, because Sidheag knew well how to recruit a willing participant, she added, “Would you like a bit of kidney pie? We happen to have brought a few on board with us.”
Sophronia went to help Soap with Monique.
It was an awkward scrap of a fight. Soap was very conscious of his position in society, or lack thereof, and he was never one to strike a lady regardless of station. Therefore, he was trying to apprehend Monique without actually touching her anywhere indelicate or injuring her in any way. Monique was not correspondingly delicate. She had several more years of training than Sophronia and wasn’t half bad, even if she had left Mademoiselle Geraldine’s in disgrace. She was giving Soap a very challenging time of it, and she was armed.