Beneath a Waning Moon: A Duo of Gothic Romances (28 page)

He bowed, his features more guarded but his voice as warm as his hand had been on her waist when he kissed her in the abandoned rectory.
 
“Always a pleasure, Miss Kenward.”
 
The way he uttered the salutation heated Lenore’s cheeks and made Nettie’s eyebrows climb.

She passed the flask to Nettie without taking her eyes off Whitley.
 
“My apologies.
 
I didn’t know you’d have a visitor.
 
I only brought one cup.
 
I can bring another.”

“No apology necessary,” he said.
 
“I was just leaving.”
 
He glanced at Nettie who watched them both with a wry gaze.
 
“If I see anything else, I will inform you.”

She toasted him with her flask.
 
“I’ll pass that bit on to the gunners.”

Lenore had the very strong sense she had walked in on a particularly important discussion.

He bowed and doffed his imaginary hat.
 
“Captain.
 
Miss Kenward.”
 
The action guaranteed to startle Lenore every time she saw him do it.
 
He looked nothing like her Nathaniel, yet a great many of his behaviors and speech patterns reminded her of him.

Both women stared at the door after he left.
 
Lenore jumped when Nettie snapped her fingers.
 
“Ah damn!
 
Lenore, catch him.
 
I forgot to tell him to meet me after supper for a report review.”

Lenore saluted.
 
“Aye, Captain.”

Why Nettie had to discuss such things with the Guardian of Highgate—or why he was even on this ship in the first place—remained a puzzle, but Lenore dared not ask.
 
On this ship, social class didn’t matter the way rank did.
 
Here, Nettie was Queen and Lenore a minion.
 
To ask such questions broke a rigid protocol.

She caught up with him just as he climbed the ladder from the keel corridor to the hull.
 
“Mr. Whitley, wait!”

He halted to peer down at her before descending the ladder back to the keel deck.
 
Nettie had introduced him to the crew as an “official observer” on their flight.
 
She didn’t elaborate beyond that short statement, and no one asked the question they all thought:
 
why was a bone keeper aboard an airship?

Lenore’s shock at first seeing him on the
Terebellum
had given way to excitement.
 
The memory of his kiss still made her lips throb.
 
She had lost count of the many times she replayed those moments in the empty rectory, held close in his arms as he made love to her first with verse and then with his mouth.

Despite the airship’s close quarters, she rarely saw him.
 
Her numerous tasks as cabin boy kept her busy from the second she rose to the second her head hit the pillow on her bed.
 
Whatever the Guardian observed, he did so in near invisibility.
 
Rumors ran rife about him in the crew quarters, conjectures over why he was aboard this ship and if restless spirits followed wherever he walked, whispering forgotten tragedies and bitter deaths in his ears.

For now, he observed her.
 
Closely.
 
She shivered, not from the pervasive cold, but from the pleasure of his scrutiny.
 
“Nettie...”
 
She paused and started again.
 
“Captain Widderschynnes asked that I deliver a message.
 
She wishes to meet with you at three bells concerning a report review.”

He narrowed the space between them.
 
The harsh overhead lights, so unflattering to everyone else, sharpened the contrast between the white and black of his visage.
 
Lenore indulged in the fanciful notion that he looked like a revenant caught under a searchlight.
 
The smile he held back in Nettie’s quarters blossomed across his lips.
 
“How are you, Lenore?
 
Or am I allowed the liberty of such address?”

She liked his face—ethereal, with a touch of melancholy.
 
“It seems ludicrous that we use our surnames in private, considering my questionable and improper behavior with you last week.”

“I prefer the term iconoclastic over improper.”

Lenore chortled, delighted at his repartee.
 
“You’re very charming,” she said.
 
Charming, fascinating, bewitching.

Two pale fingers traced the air at the side of her upturned face.
 
“And you are extraordinarily beautiful,” he replied.

She couldn’t help it; she leaned into him just as she’d done in the rectory.
 
“If you recite Tennyson, I shall be lost,” she said softly.

A low sound rumbled in his throat.
 
His hand lingered at her neck, fingertips teasing the exposed skin above her coat collar.
 
“If you kiss me, I will be made whole.”

He was so close, so very close.
 
Her body ached for him while her mind repeated words in the cadence of prayer.
 
One kiss, just one.
 
I’ll capture lightning for you for just one.
 
She swayed toward him.

They jumped apart at the sound of a door opening and closing in the direction of the control room.
 
Lenore gasped, amazed at how fast the Guardian moved.
 
One moment he stood so near, his soft hair tickling her cheek when he bent to kiss her.
 
Now he perched on the ladder he climbed earlier.
 
He held out hand, beckoning.
 
“Come with me,” he whispered.

She sighed.
 
“I can’t.
 
I’m helping the steward deliver breakfast to the crew in the mess.
 
I’m already late.”
 
She backed away before the temptation to grasp his hand and climb the ladder overcame her.

His shoulders slumped in obvious disappointment.
 
“Are you free this evening?”

Her task list was long and didn’t end after supper, especially this night.
 
“I’m standing the lookout watch tonight.”

Footsteps sounded on the metal gangplank, coming closer.
 
Lenore peered down the narrow corridor but saw nothing yet.
 
When she looked back, Colin had disappeared off the ladder.
 
Only a pair of white pinpoint stars above her hinted at where he stood in the clot of shadows gathered beneath a girder.
 
“Another night perhaps,” he said in his sepulchral voice.

Lenore held up a hand.
 
“Wait!”
 
She lowered her voice.
 
I have last dog watch, eight bells.
 
Join me.
 
Please.”

The two bright stars faded along with his voice.
 
“Until eight bells then.
 
My Lenore.”

She spent the remainder of the day in a fog, absurdly eager for the late-hour watch and the brutal cold that came from standing at an open gondola window two thousand feet in the air with ice frosting the glass.
 
In the interim, she delivered messages for Nettie, made notes in the official log book, inventoried medicines and surgical instruments in the surgery compartment, ironed sheets for the crew bedding and helped the steward deliver meals to the crews’ quarters from the kitchen.
 
Lenore hoped that by the end of the trip, she might get a chance to visit one of the engine gondolas to see the newly modified engines at work.

She didn’t see her Guardian until she’d taken up her post at the watch, bundled against the freezing temperatures, field glasses clutched in her stiff fingers. The land below was a wide shadow of valleys and hills, broken periodically by clusters of yellow lights—towns and villages gleaming in the darkness like fireflies in summer.
 
In the distance, the jagged line of the Alps marched across the horizon, dark silhouettes against a night sky layered in shades from velvety indigo to mourning black.

They were alone up here, no other beacon light flashing amongst the stars to indicate another ship.
 
“I wish you could see this, Papa,” she said.
 
“It’s magnificent.”

The door to her watch post slid open, and an umbra shape slipped in on silent feet.
 
Unlike her, the Guardian wore his usual garb, without coat or scarf or gloves.
 
He held a metal flask that gleamed dully in the low light of an
empyrean
torch.
 
His hair fluttered in the draft swirling through the window until it lifted away from his face, a white banner offering surrender.

He passed the flask to her.
 
“Tea,” he said.
 
“Still hot.
 
Courtesy of the boatswain’s mate, though she doesn’t know it.”
 
He winked.

Lenore placed the field glasses on the ledge in front of her to wrap her hands around the flask.
 
“Mrs. Markham, bless her.
 
And you for bringing it to me.
 
It’s chilly tonight.”

He leaned casually against the gondola frame, pale mouth curved in amusement.
 
“That’s understating it a bit, don’t you think?”

Content to simply hold the flask and let the hot tea inside thaw her fingers, Lenore shivered.
 
“A little.”
 
She envied his imperviousness to the temperature.
 
“No tea for yourself?”

“I’m more partial to a good brandy on a cold night.”

She frowned.
 
Another small detail that reminded her of Nathaniel.
 
Stop it, Lenore.
 
Many men prefer brandy over tea.
 
You’re seeing a ghost in the guise of a bone keeper.
 
A beautiful bone keeper with a sorcerer’s touch but not Nathaniel.

“Such burdensome thoughts.
 
What are you thinking, Lenore?”
 
He uttered her name with a priest’s reverence for the sacred.

“You’re not bothered by cold or rain.
 
Do you hunger or thirst?”

He straightened away from the window.
 
A bright moon plated one half of his body in silver light.
 
“For food or water, no, though I can eat and drink if I wish.
 
But I’m like any other man regarding certain things.
 
I crave friendship, comrades...”
 
He reached out to tug the edge of her scarf closer to her cheek.
 
“Affection.”
 
His voice was deep, soft, as was the half smile he offered her.
 
“The dearly departed who speak tend to be a little repetitive, with limited topics of conversation.”

The scarf muffled Lenore’s
tut
.
 
“Trust me when I say the living can be just as afflicted by such character weakness.
 
That or everyone who visits my aunt’s drawing room hasn’t yet realized they’re actually dead.”

His laughter warmed her far better than any coat.
 
“And there you are, trapped in the drawing room with the walking dead until all the tea is gone.”

What a delight it was to laugh and tease with this man.
 
Not since Nathaniel’s courtship of her had she been so enthralled.

“I shouldn’t be so harsh,” she admitted.
 
“I’m certain the boredom was mutual.
 
Many of them dreaded engaging me in conversation, terrified I’d rhapsodize over the efficiency of a Daimler engine design or how Sir Hugh Carver once again improved the impact shields on the ships.
 
I, however, will restrain myself from falling into that trap tonight.
 
I’ve no wish to lose my intrepid companion who can withstand the cold but possibly not the ennui of my company.”

Colin’s expression sobered.
 
His fingers glided over her gloved hand where it rested on the ledge by the field glasses.
 
“You have nothing to fear on that score, Lenore.
 
Trust me.”

She laced her fingers with his, regretting the barrier of her glove between his skin and hers.
 
Once more they stood only inches apart, the space between almost shimmering with tension.
 
Lenore met his gaze, a Shakespearean dichotomy of dark and bright.

“Is a post on an airship what you thought it might be?”
 
He spoke in tones reserved for lovers, as if the innocuous question was meant to be asked while he nuzzled her breasts or drew invisible murals on her bare belly with his fingertips.

He held her mesmerized.
 
Only a blast of icy wind through the window cleared her head.
 
She blinked but didn’t let go of his hand.
 
“Yes and no,” she said, waving her free arm to indicate the wide sky.
 
“This.
 
This is beyond the ability of the most eloquent poet to adequately describe.
 
Great men dreamed through the ages to fly like birds, and here we are above the world, counting falling stars.”