Brass Skies vol 2 (Draft)

A Little Charity for the Future Queen Part 1

The carriage ride was miserable. The four horses that pulled the ridiculously gilded contraption along seemed to find every rut, bump, stick, pothole, puddle, and pebble along the road, causing the carriage to jostle every few seconds. The meager padding in the upholstery did little to soften the hard benches, and nothing at all to lessen the impact against the hindquarters that came with every aforementioned jostle.

Worse, the tiny steam powered air conditioner, the coach's one concession to comfort, simply was not up to the job. This meant, of course, on a hot and humid day like today one's hair and clothes alike to oneself in a limp, sticky, damp mess and Charity did not like messes. Which, in turn, left Charity wondering how she managed to get into her current predicament in the first place.

She risked a glance over at her fellow companion seated across from her. The young man who silently stared back at her resembled his father in everything but his temperament. Considering that his father had issued an order for her death and he had decided to spare her life for reasons unknown, this made things awkwardly uncomfortable. The fact that he was on her list of targets of opportunity, and he knew it pushed the awkwardly into the range of absurdly.

When George first approached her from the shadows of a dark street corner on her way home from her new job as a bartender it had frightened her for three reasons. First, because she had not seen him there and in her line of work—well her real line of work—a mistake like that was often fatal. The second reason she was scared is because she had gone to great efforts to change her appearance, her identity, and to keep her current residence and employment a secret, and yet it had done absolutely no good. This meant he, or someone else had been observing her closely despite all her precautions.

The third reason, and the one that scared her most, was that she realized she had underestimated him. While he preferred to just go by his first name, or occasionally under the ironically fitting moniker "George the Bastard" and he played himself off as a meddler of barely average intelligence, Charity now realized he was at the very least her equal in terms of skill and cunning. It did not comfort her any to know that he had not only played her, but had also played two of the best that she knew of.

When she had taken on her current identity, she had only intended on using it long enough to move onto one of her other already prepared roles. In fact, she had already moved onto that role, and that name when George had found her. Given the circumstances and the ties of this identity to the one she was using the first time she had meant George, she was surprised that he insisted on her resurrecting it. She was even more surprised when he offered her information she was seeking in exchange for her agreeing to perform a mission for him, and more surprised yet when she learned what that mission was.

"I need you to work as a personal maid for my cousin. She is staying at an undisclosed estate," George had told her.

"Which cousin?" she had asked.

"Victoria," was the reply.

Charity perked an eyebrow. "You want her dead, then?"

"You misunderstand me. I don't want you to kill her. I want you to keep her alive."

"Why me? Surely you realize that my superiors would expect me to take advantage of an opportunity like this to eliminate her," Charity stared at him incredulously.

"I would hope you, and your superiors would realize that if you want things in Ireland to improve, ensuring Victoria survives to take the throne is in your best interests," George countered.

"Why on earth would we want to see her on the throne?" Charity crossed her arms, unconvinced.

"Because the same men that want to see me on the throne want her dead more than you do," was the answer. "These are the same men that have brought the worst atrocities upon the empire, including in Ireland. Victoria thinks and acts for herself. She fact that she refuses to be anyone's pawn scares them and rightfully so."