Penny Dreadful Takes Flight

Penny Dreadful Takes Flight

has been written as a standalone tale, however scattered through the text there are references to characters and events from other stories. If, dear reader, you wish to understand our heroine's backstory, please avail yourself of

The Adventures of Penny Dreadful,

and its follow-up,

Penny Dreadful and the Machines.

If not, do not worry, and please to enjoy.

* * *

"Woah, she'll do!" said Vice-Captain Sam Doubleday, raising his voice to compete with the hubbub as he went to hand the latest weather report to the grizzled Captain Julius T MacDonald.

The captain was lingering by the rail on the mezzanine, casting a proprietorial eye down over the busy passenger lounge at the Atlantic Aeroport, and hearing Mr Doubleday's exclamation he followed the man's gaze. His attention was soon snared by a radiant blonde of superior appearance wrapped in a halo of effortless elegance. As she sipped a Leviathan cocktail, named for the airship Leviathan, the pride of Express Airships, it was impossible not to scrutinise her. Her hair was piled up in the Gibson style and her tempting figure was properly covered, but yet only enhanced by her expensive ivory dress.

"Mr Doubleday," grunted Captain MacDonald, wresting his deputy's focus away from the lady, "I'll thank you to keep your eyes off the quality. And in particular, that gentlewoman. She is a shareholder and, I am reliably informed, is on speaking terms with half the British government. If you must leer, please confine yourself to the second-class passengers."

Privately, Julius MacDonald cursed the fates that had given him a Yankee for a second-in-command, rather than an honest to goodness, no nonsense Texan. And from New Jersey, no less! What did they know about piloting airships over vast uncharted spaces? Although, to be fair, Sam Doubleday had more than earned his ticket, and despite his relative youth had enough experience.

But... he was just too damned cheeky, and easy-going, and not stern like MacDonald was. He probably grew up poodle-faking heiresses on Long Island, whilst MacDonald's early years had disappeared in the dust of hard-riding cattle drives as he sought the funds to better himself.

He had a decent eye, mind, and Captain MacDonald could agree that the blonde, a Miss Penelope Dreadful, was indeed a beauty to turn heads. She was rich, too, by repute, but she knew not to gild the lily, dressing simply enough to highlight her natural, well, everything. What was a little surprising was the milksop she has hanging off. He was tall and angular, and blond of all things, and Captain MacDonald just couldn't see how the man could possibly satisfy a thoroughbred like Miss Dreadful. He left the ending, 'like a proper Texan could,' hanging, unconsidered. But it was there.

She wasn't the only belle to board that afternoon, and the captain cast his eye over the other first-class passengers. It behoved him, as the primary ambassador for the company, to know his business, and in particular his most valuable customers.

Amongst them were Russian nobility, in the graceful form of Countess Valentina Ignatiev, another beauty who could stop stampeding steers in their tracks. She was accompanied by her husband, Count Yevgeny, young and dangerous, and reputedly the best shot in St Petersburg. He would need to remind young Doubleday of that before the fool got himself into a duel. There was also a French armaments manufacturer, Xavier Grossjean and his wife Eloise, older maybe, but still quite well set-up.

"The loading is proceeding to plan?" he asked Sam.

"All departments on schedule," said his deputy, "gas fully pressurised, engines fuelled, the Navigator seems happy and everything we need to keep us fed and watered has been ticked off by the Chief Steward. Once the Purser has overseen the loading of the luggage our passengers will be ready to board."

"Very well," said the Captain, perusing the weather chart at last, "winds out of the north-west so we'll take the Western Approaches route rather than straight out over Ireland. Less for the passengers to look at, but it can't be helped. New York in three days, I think."

Handing back the weather report, Captain MacDonald dismissed Sam Doubleday, sending him off to supervise the last of the preparations for their departure. He himself gave one last glance down to the passenger lounge and his charges assembling there before likewise departing, thoughtful and surprisingly wistful for a gruff man from the Texas Badlands -- Miss Dreadful to the forefront of his mind...

Down below in the lounge, radiant was not the only adjective applicable to Penny Dreadful. She was also elated, enraptured, even rhapsodical as she gazed, beguiled, at the man on her arm. Not three hours before she had indeed been Miss Penelope Evelyn Dreadful, but now she was

Mrs

Penelope Evelyn

Patterson.

She had married her Freddie!

Her feet barely touched the ground still. They had married in a tiny ceremony in St Martin-in-the-Fields, only the vicar conducting the service present along with an avuncular Commodore St George and an unexpectedly tearful Roxanne Poule, her maid and erstwhile bodyguard, there as witnesses. Then a train from Paddington to the Atlantic Aeroport at Reading, and they were off to America!

Roxanne, County Kerry's finest, was standing to one side, her red hair piled up beneath a wide-brimmed hat. She had accompanied the Pattersons, though she was keeping her distance. Firstly, she was occupied by supervising the porters with their travelling trunks, but also she wanted to let the happy couple luxuriate in each other for as long as possible. Their nirvana would subside, eventually, but let them, for now, be the only presence in each other's orbit.

She smiled as she glanced over at them, and then she looked around at the other passengers. In particular, she was alert to who would be travelling in second class with her, but after a moment it was clear that only servants for the first-class passengers, and one or two salesmen with urgent business would be her companions. There was little inspiration there, sadly.

In first class, though, were some very interesting personages, and she scanned them with a professional eye. For she was not only an exemplary lady's maid, but in a strange dichotomy, she was also one of the finest secret agents British Intelligence possessed. A startlingly proficient assassin if the need arose, an expert in counter-espionage, able to kill a man bare-handed, or to charm him into divulging the secrets of his safe. She was bound to be reassigned soon, but whilst Penny was under the threat of the Waxed Moustache, she was to be by her exquisite side. For he, by report, had sworn revenge on her for foiling his plans.

The Waxed Moustache, and they knew him by no other name, was a genuine threat. A mastermind of damnable deviousness, he was behind every attempt to overthrow Britain's global supremacy, and the truth hidden from an unsuspecting public was that he had nearly succeeded. More than once. If only they knew more about him -- his name, his appearance (beyond a zealously cultivated moustache), his base of operations. But all was hidden from them, masked by his layers of organisation.

A uniformed man carrying a loud hailer drew the attention as he mounted a dais in the corner of the lounge. Calling out to the assembled, he invited them to pass through the double-doors to the side of him, and board the train that awaited to take them to the airship. Immediately, the noise increased and a ripple of excitement flowed through the passengers, most of them first-time flyers.

Penny caught Roxanne's eye and grinned, for they were old hands at airships, a whole four journeys apiece under their belts. Ah, what it is to be an expert...

Roxanne perused the quality as they boarded. She immediately noted the aforementioned Russian aristocrats, and whilst certainly beautiful they reminded her of the quote: mad, bad and dangerous to know. For his part, he was around the age of thirty, with dark hair and flashing eyes and well-muscled legs, and it was easy to picture him on horseback, sabre in hand, leading a charge of Cossacks. His wife was two or three years younger, a lustrous brunette with pale skin and blue eyes, and she reminded Roxanne quite exactly of the Snow Queen -- breathtaking, but able to freeze with a glance. They were, to Roxanne's mind, quite intriguing, though personally more than professionally.

The French couple were rich but, unusually for their nation, quite tasteless in their displays of wealth. They were older, approaching fifty, he a touch portly and with the air of a small- town mayor, she on the other hand, was taller, her bosom stout, and she gave the sense of being a little over-awed by her surroundings, as if she didn't quite believe she belonged.

They had fallen in rapidly with the Russians, and an animated conversation was taking place. Strange that the aristocrats had lowered themselves such as to engage in friendly relations with a bourgeoise armaments manufacturer. Unless... an armaments manufacturer and a nobleman with the ear of the Russian court? Roxanne made a note to pass what was probably merely a piece of routine intelligence to her superiors once the opportunity arose.

Roxanne took her place a little behind Penny and Freddie in the train which, now fully boarded, steamed out from the terminal building towards the giant airship shed half-a-mile distant. Many of the passengers now fell silent, contemplating the biggest building most of them had ever seen. Roxanne, though, was rarely interested in plain grey warehouses, and instead continued her evaluation of her social betters.

There was a German couple, reeking of social awkwardness and a virtue they evangelised, and she knew he was an eminent psychiatrist. They were older, nearing retirement, he sporting a greying Verdi beard, she severe, with plaited hair up on her head in the German style. They gave the air of never having laughed at anything, and Roxanne shuddered a little to think of being trapped in an elevator with them.

The other first-class passengers were less noteworthy - some gentlemen from Pittsburgh who seemed keen to extol the virtues of their home city, only to find everyone else less enthused to be boosted to, and three or four unremarkable couples. Though perhaps they would relax once the stresses of boarding were past.

More interesting, in fact, from Roxanne's perspective were the two airship officers who had scrutinised them all in the lounge. They were very smart in their dark blue uniforms, and the younger one, with three gold stripes on his cuffs, was exceedingly well set-up, with far seeing grey eyes and a jaunty countenance. Aye, he could pass the time of day with her, and perhaps it would be to both their profit.

"Oh my..." Freddie murmured, drawing her attention, and she followed his gaze to see they were steaming past the side of the airship shed and the tail of the Leviathan was coming into view. It stole the breath away, and as the train chuffed onwards more of the airship was revealed. And then more, and then still more. The Leviathan, a giant silvered cylinder tethered above them, went on and on for a quarter of a mile, though it seemed like forever.

Penny and Roxanne shared a glance, both of them, too, over-awed, this vessel exceeding anything they had travelled aboard. Roxanne tore her eyes away for a moment and looked at her fellow passengers, flabbergasted all, and then saw an older steward, standing by the carriage door ready to open it when the train halted. He was hiding his smile and Roxanne understood -- he served people who had more wealth and privilege than could be dreamt of in his world, and here they were struck dumb by this colossus that signalled the shift from Victorian to Edwardian. And for him, this wondrous technology was work-a-day.

Roxanne turned back to gaze at the airship. Fore and aft, great propellor engines stuck out from either side on gantries, and it was these that would drive them forward. Otherwise, the whole was streamlined, unlike the smaller, short-range airships, bedecked with gondolas, that plied the European routes. Here, there was only one gondola, forward, and this housed the bridge, everything else was streamlined, modern, the accommodations built into the keel.

The train drew to a halt, and then the busy boarding commenced. It proceeded smoothly and, for the first-class passengers, particularly those like Penny and Freddie in staterooms, as deferentially as one would expect. There were four such staterooms, with Count and Countess Ignatiev, the Grossjeans, and the German psychiatrist, Herr Gelerht and his wife in the others. Roxanne began to bustle, in her usual 'soonest begun, soonest completed' fashion, unpacking Penny's trunks.

"Please, Roxanne," said Freddie, "we can attend to it. Take some time for yourself."

It only took a moment and the penny dropped, Roxanne inwardly cursing her stupidity. Of course...

"Sure, now," she said, "I'll attend to my own. Will you be needing me later?"

"Oh yes," said Penny, excitedly, "I shall want to discuss the particulars of the Leviathan with you, and..."

"Oh, I think we should let Roxanne relax, darling," said Freddie, "don't you? Tomorrow will be soon enough, surely..."

With that he gently closed the stateroom door on the retreating Roxanne, who swallowed her mirth as she strode away along the corridor, stepping to one side to let the Ignatievs pass, both of them blatantly taking the measure of her. The nerve! Although... perhaps it might be interesting to wait upon them for an evening, just to gauge their tastes (which she estimated to involve copious nudity, for the waitress at least, and probably some spanking with a hair brush before a session of rough exercise bent over the dinner table). To be permanently employed by them, however, would surely be a nightmare.

Left alone in their stateroom Freddie turned to Penny, one thing uppermost in his mind and a devilish glint in his eye. Penny smiled at him, puzzled, and for one so naturally gifted and expensively educated, and indeed, so deeply in love, she seemed oddly slow in understanding his intentions. At which point there was, to Freddie's intense irritation, a knock upon the stateroom door.

Upon answering Freddie found a steward clad in the smart blue livery of the Express Airship Company, physically unremarkable but for a most meticulous Hungarian moustache, the ends waxed to points that Vlad Dracul himself might have used to impale his boyar prisoners. The steward drew himself up and gave a formal half-bow, clicking his heels as he did so.

"Henschel, sir," said the steward, a north German accent to his English, "I am the night steward. Please allow me to enumerate the various assistances I may provide..."

"Err..." began Freddie, desirous of finding a different time for this particular interview.

"It is of no great difficulty, sir," continued Henschel, "for anything available aboard can be conveyed to your stateroom, at any hour, though the captain insists I inform you that smoking is strictly forbidden anywhere on board except the smoking room, adjacent to the bar, which is provided with double doors and is kept..."

"Yes, that's very good, but I don't smoke..."

"Ah, yes, well, as to our vessel. The Leviathan is given its lift by hydrogen, the total lift capacity is a touch in excess of 300 imperial tons, and..."

"Yes, yes, very good," said Freddie, impatience creeping in to his usual moderate tones, "thank you, Henschel, we will be sure to ring if we require your services..."

"As you wish, sir. The day steward is MacNair, who will be along presently, but I am happy to..." Henschel was still talking, even as Freddie closed the door on him, not seeing the steward's eyes closing to slits as he stood in the passageway, contemplating. How rude...

Freddie turned, but any comment he might have made on the nature of the tenacious steward died somewhere between brain and larynx. In front of him, standing by the large bed, was Penny, dressed now (or rather undressed now) in only sleeveless chemise and drawers. Freddie gulped and his eyes widened at the sight of his wife as she laid out an evening gown, ready to change.

In a single step he was behind her, his arms enveloping her as his breath caressed her neck. She gasped a little, the sound of her stifling her surprise enough to drive strong men to their knees.

"Freddie, what are you doing?" said she, knowing very well.

They had come to a moment Penny had not been dreading, but in one respect neither had she been rejoicing in its approach. For men of a certain class desired prior modesty in their new wives, and Penny, notwithstanding her peaches and cream complexion and the innocence that radiated from her clear blue eyes, had a 'past.'

How to navigate the extensive experience she possessed when she should possess none had vexed her not a little over recent days, despite her own quickening urge to be at this point. And now they were come to the moment. For want of a better solution she determined to fix on brute ignorance. Happily, it would be wasted.

"You know very well what I'm doing," said Freddie.

"Well, your embrace is welcome, but..." she said, instinctively relaxing into his arms.

"You attended the Frau Aufguss Academy for Young Gentlewomen in Lucerne, did you not?"

"From the ages of eighteen to twenty-one," said Penny, suspicious of where the conversation was progressing.

"Then don't come the innocent with me," Freddie chuckled, and now his hands commenced to rove, most pleasingly.

"What do you know of...?" she said, but his palm caressing her buttock was distracting.

"My sister had friends who attended that establishment," said Freddie, though his words were now a trifle muffled as he began to kiss her neck, "and they were keen to practice their skills upon me."

Penny sighed in pleasure as his lips moved up to her ear, and she relaxed more into his grasp. For if he already knew, well, that saved much explanation. For Frau Aufguss was a New Woman, and believed that her charges should have a complete education. Thus, besides the usual deportment and etiquette and languages, that education included the young gentlemen from the Officer Training College in the valley below, and the bed of Frau Aufguss herself. And Penny had excelled.

"Oh, Freddie!" said Penny, and her voice was now consumed by desire as he brought his hands up to her breasts, and fondled them through the thin material of the chemise.

"I would like to rip this off you," said Freddie, a surprising thing for a polite young professor to say. Penny, though, drank in that new aspect of her husband like cream to a cat. This was going to be fun...

"Well," she said, all unassuming, "I suppose I can afford another..."

At this, Freddie growled, and a moment later there came the music of the material rending, the linen giving way to his strong hands. Penny giggled in erotic bliss as her breasts fell free, and then Freddie spun her to face him, controlling her and kissing her deeply, wrapping her in his aura.

He pushed her back, then, and her knees reached the mattress, and he kept pushing, firm but not quite rough, until she fell back on the bedclothes. In another swift movement her bent down and grasped her drawers. She lifted her bottom to help, and he yanked them down her legs and off her, tossing them aside and leaving her clad in only the torn remnants of her chemise and the white silk stockings she habitually wore. Freddie stood above her at the edge of the bed, breathing heavily and drinking in the sight of her, for all the world a caveman, and not the cultured modern technician he was in the wider world.

Penny gazed back up at him, letting her legs fall apart a touch, and she smiled inwardly at the galvanising effect it had on him. He reached up and began to savagely pull off his tie, and followed by wrenching at the buttons on his jacket, and now it was her turn to enjoy the performance. He was direct, as men can be when they have a mission, and he seemed to view his clothes as antagonists. First, he rid himself of his jacket, and then his shirt, and now she could see he wasn't the milksop the captain thought him for the muscles in his arms were quite defined, toned, strong...