And when Claire wasn’t hatching her own escape plan, all she wanted to do was to be there to watch Beatrix soar.
“The time?” Beatrix was considering, head cocked to one side. Her goggles were perched on her forehead, giving her the look of some blond-haired, many-eyed fly. “Judging by the sun—”
“Please, let’s not judge by the sun,” Claire said, rubbing her face.
“Then remember to bring your watch,” Beatrix said, laughing, and bent her head to continue tracing out a line. “What happened with that redcoat? The one you were fondling at Perpetua’s? Wasn’t like you. Thought you didn’t want romance.”
“Who says?” Claire asked, basking in the banter. She would miss this. “My fun’s a bit more subtle, that’s all.”
“I say so,” Beatrix said, “and you do too. Remember that poor stockyard boy who kept leaving you candies at the door? He was handsome as hell, and you kept turning him down.”
Claire shrugged. She’d never been much for love. “I’m meant for marriage,” she said. “And romance has nothing to do with marriage.”
She didn’t know if she believed that, but she also didn’t have the luxury to debate it further. Her family was in debt; her mother was dead; her father was, at best, unpredictable, and at worst the kind of man who’d slit a suitor ear to ear. No one would carry away his blessing, even as a bridegroom.
I’ve done it correctly, she reminded herself. Arranged a marriage by mail, and by the time my father knows, I’ll be someone else’s property. And if he’s Ambrose’s friend, he’ll hopefully at least be my friend too.
“Don’t go all tough on me,” Beatrix was saying. “I was happy to see you flirting. Well. I didn’t quite see it, Perpetua told me.”
“Jonathan,” she said, plucking the name from the recesses of her brain. “Jonathan . . . Lee? Livmonian boy. I only touched him for a lark, and for . . . an experiment. He had some plan, he and his friend were grousing about wanting to take apart my father’s Barrage.”
Beatrix glanced up. “Aren’t you going to that? Better yet—didn’t your father want you there hours ago, to prepare?”
Claire coughed a little; the smell of the stockyard at work turned her stomach. “Let him wait.”
“I admire this new leaf you’re turning,” Beatrix said, pulling the goggles off her head to better squint out the window. “That said, aren’t you planning on kidnapping yourself tomorrow? Do you really want him locking you away in your room?”
Somehow Claire hadn’t thought of that. She swore. “Oh. I—I really have to go.”
“Yes,” Beatrix said, “you really have to go.”
“Why did I follow you home last night?” Claire moaned as she clambered to her feet. Her trousers were wrinkled; one foot was bare, the other in a delicate sock. “A dress, I need a dress. Do you have one?”
“I do,” Beatrix said. “But I don’t know if it will pass Jeremiah Emerson’s muster.”
“Nothing does,” Claire said. “So let’s have it, or my head on a platter.”
Beatrix stood and stretched. “You haven’t forgiven me yet,” she said, leaning to pull a trunk out from under her desk. With a creak of its hinges, it eased open.
“Forgiven you? For the D.A.C. meeting?” Claire shifted her weight. “Is that terribly urgent? Can we do that later?”
“What later? Tomorrow you’ll be gone.” Beatrix was tossing things over her shoulder: a feather boa, a slide rule, a stack of tissue-thin pamphlets that fluttered and spun. Claire plucked one from the air. STOP FRENCH TYRANNY. WE WANT MONROE. A woman in a long white dress, white ribbon in her hair, delicately holding her husband’s arm.
“You didn’t know that I was reporting on your father’s activities,” Beatrix pointed out. Without looking, she shoved a wad of yellowed cloth into Claire’s arms.
Claire unfolded it and held it up. “Bedsheet?”
“Bedsheet.” Beatrix grinned over her shoulder. “Early glider wings. See the stitching?”
“Good God. No wonder you crash.”
“Pish. What were we talking about?”
“I was forgiving you for spying. And you were fetching me a dress,” Claire said. “From that trunk that seems to go down to the center of the earth.”
“I was spying for a very good cause, you know. The D.A.C. has plans—”
“End ‘French’ rule? Hand our province over to Livingston-Monroe?” Claire felt her mouth twist. “Wage war with our neighbors? Though maybe they deserve it, closed-minded as they are.”
“Name one thing you’ve ever done to help St. Cloud. Besides leaving it.”
Claire snorted. “How about I name a couple of compromises you’re making to get a person in a skirt into office. Like, say, shutting down the American experiment a hundred years in.”
“I am not against immigration. When I’m a bit older, I’ll run for a position in the D.A.C., changing things from the inside. But I’m not abandoning the movement to rot.” Beatrix passed her up a box of cigars, then a second. “That’s how you do it, you know. Change it from the inside! And for now we’ll drag that whelp Duchamp out of office. We’ll put a woman in charge of St. Cloud. A woman, Claire. How can you not want that?”
“This woman?” Claire asked, juggling her armload to pull out the flyer. She thrust it out between them: WE WANT MONROE. “Looks here like she’s standing next to a man.”
“How else would we have her rule? Charles Monroe is a milksop, and Abigail uses his money to further her causes. She’d be the true power behind the throne. It’s opportunity like none I’ve ever seen.”
Claire looked at the blueprints tacked up along the workshop wall. She let the flyer fall to the floor. “I didn’t know you to dream so small,” she said.
“Claire—”
“Another shadow government. All these meetings, this skullduggery, these machinations to put up another figurehead, one who doesn’t believe what you believe. As for the strength behind the throne—do you think the General would go quietly after you deposed Duchamp?”
“Trust that we have a plan,” Beatrix said grimly.
“I don’t understand why you do it when it’s nothing close to what you actually want. What about a woman Governor? What about a woman King?”
Beatrix stopped digging through the trunk. She sat back on her heels. “Well, I reckon you have a plan, then.”
“What?”
“What are you doing to get us all the way to a woman King?” Spots of color rose in her cheeks. “Other than complain, other than run away from your problems?”
“My father—”
“You’re of age,” Beatrix spat. “Stay. Don’t run off to marry some stranger, in a strange town away from everything you know, just to be with a brother who couldn’t be bothered to help you stand against your father. Stay here. Find a job, rent a room, help your fellow elizabeths. Work for the betterment of others who have suffered like you, and those who have suffered far worse! You think you can tell me I’m wrong for making compromises? At least I’m making something!”