Free A Gentleman of Means by Shelley Adina Page B

different from what I expected,” she concluded on a sigh. “I hoped you might tell me either that my expectations were wildly exaggerated and I should fit in as others have done before me, or that I ought to tender my resignation at once so that someone more fit for the post might have it.”
    “Well, there isn’t anyone more fit for the post that I can see,” Alice remarked. “There are probably many more less fit.”
    “I speak more of a fitness of the mind and temperament, I suppose,” Claire said. “Certainly there are many junior engineers graduating from the university who are perfectly capable of sweeping floors and making tea, and have most of the skills I possess.”
    “I doubt that last point.” Alice’s grin seemed to encompass their like-mindedness, and reminded Claire that the two of them had perfected the automaton intelligence system together without assistance of any kind from managing directors or memoranda.
    “So now you are on the horns of a dilemma,” Ian mused. “You have arranged your life, and that of the girls and Mr. Malvern, to support a career with Zeppelin, and now you wonder if you have made a monumental mistake.”
    The man did not mince words, even in his emotional extremity. “In a nutshell, yes,” Claire said with a fair approximation of grace. “Have I? What do you think? I value your opinions.”
    “What does Andrew say?” Alice asked. “For of course you must have discussed this with him.”
    “I have, yes. And he told me that to be in my situation would be insupportable. He has not the temperament to be happy in a hierarchy, preferring to be the master of his own ship.”
    “I cannot blame him there,” Ian put in.
    “What do you mean?” Alice demanded. “You work in a hierarchy yourself. More than one—first, the Royal Aeronautic Corps, and second, your own family and way of life.”
    For a moment, he seemed taken aback at being thus contradicted, but then Claire realized he was acknowledging the truth. “You are quite right,” he said. “It is strange I never thought of it in those terms before. Perhaps I am comfortable in the Corps because I am used to categorizing people according to rank—and therefore it is no hardship to categorize myself.”
    “But I come from the same background, and I do not,” Claire said. “So that is no indication of suitability.”
    “But how can there be only two choices?” Alice said. “One’s life isn’t like that path up there, with either a right turn or a left. Which will we take, by the way?”
    “Let us go to the right, through the copse,” Claire suggested.
    She was half afraid that Ian would turn back, but he was still grappling with the question Alice had posed, and passed under the branches without difficulty. “Of course there are not merely two choices for you,” he agreed. “To return to London or to stay and be unhappy—such cannot be your only options.”
    “Let me tell you what I thought, but did not want to consider further,” Claire told them. “I could do as Andrew does, and strike out on my own. Metaphorically speaking. Of course I would not leave my friends and my home.”
    “What’s wrong with that?” Alice said. “It seems sensible. Look at me. I would die in that place, even though it fascinates me in an odd way—rather like watching an enormous difference engine and wondering how on earth all those moving parts produce an answer in the end. But the problem with being on your own is that you tend not to know where your next meal is coming from. Just ask Jake.”
    “I could always fall back on cowboy poker if I were an utter failure.”
    “Let us hope it would not come to that,” Ian said. “So are you resolved, then?”
    “How can I be?” Claire asked in despair as they paced under the maples, red and orange leaves burning as they fell through the dappled, low afternoon light. “How can I renege on the bargain I made with Count von Zeppelin? How can I face his disappointment