Evermore (29 page)

Sir Magnus stared out the window at an
airship ascending into the clouds, its sails full and its engine
humming, the great iron wings tucked into the side of the hull to
minimize the disturbance over the city. It must have come from the
docks which could be pinpointed in the distance by the hundreds of
craft of all shapes and sizes hovering above it.

"Let's not beat around the bush," Grimshaw
said, turning to Tilda. "You have the skill of divination."

"Not true!"

He snorted a laugh. "Don't try to fool me,
Miss Upton, I can smell the magic on you." He sniffed the air which
was now pristine thanks to the filter she'd fixed yet again that
morning.

Ugh. "That is disgusting. I have no magic.
If this is about the dog, I told you I recognized the
collar--."

He held up a hand for silence. She swallowed
her retort. She didn't want to antagonize him. If he lived at the
palace he was most likely very influential. "I won't tell a soul,"
he said, "if you do one thing for me."

She swallowed. "Sit down, sir. Please avail
yourself of my maid's biscuits." She tried to smile. It was
difficult.

He flipped out his coat tails and sat. She
poured him a cup of tea and handed him the plate of biscuits. He
refused them and ignored the tea. He simply looked at her through
eyes as black and round as the buttons down the front of Tilda's
gown, and licked his lips.

"It's unusual to find a girl so pretty and
not yet married at your age, Miss Upton."

"Twenty-four is not that old," she said,
repeating an oft-said line. She was growing a little tired of the
comments concerning her marital state, or lack of it.

"Not for a hellhag."

She dropped her cup into her saucer with a
loud
clank
. "I am
not
a hellhag." It was all she
could do to get the words out through her tight throat.

"You can divine, Miss Upton. Is there
anything else you--?"

"Nothing else, I assure you! Most
determinedly assure you."

He seemed to relax. His wiry moustache
stretched as a fleeting smile passed over his lips and he nodded.
He had been afraid of her! If she truly were a hellhag then he
ought to be. But as a simple diviner, he had nothing to fear. And
now he knew it.

"I see," he said. "Very well, then it is
most fortunate you've come to me now."

"Pardon?"

"I wish to commission you, Miss Upton."

"Commission me? To do what?"

"Find someone. An Oriental man is traveling
on an airship called the
Adrienne
bound for France. The ship
belongs to the King of France and is heavily armed. I want you to
bring the Oriental to me and the machine he carries with him.
Understand?"

Tilda's head was spinning. Surely this was
all a dream. Sir Magnus could not possibly be serious. And yet he
looked quite serious going by the grim set of his mouth and the
challenge in his hard black eyes.

"Out of the question," she said. "What an
absurd suggestion. I can't simply drop everything to find a man for
you, Sir Magnus, no matter who you are."

"I am Her Majesty's Chief Royal Inventor."
It was said with a raised chin and pompousness that got up Tilda's
nose. "And you most certainly can and will drop everything to find
this man for me. If you don't, I'll make sure the relevant
authorities are alerted to your...unusual skill."

It was the moment Tilda had been dreading.
Her chest suddenly hurt and she felt a little weak all over. "I
see," she managed to say.

"Besides, it's not as if you have anything
to keep you here. You're not married and you don't work."

So he'd investigated her. "I'm a
gentlewoman," she said and winced. Now
she
sounded pompous.
"And I, I..." She couldn't think of a single good excuse not to do
as he ordered. "And I don't want to. You can't force me. I'm no
hellhag so you may say what you want to the authorities. Apart from
a little divination, you have no proof."

He shrugged. "If you think I need proof then
you are indeed naïve."

She sat back against the sofa's cushions and
concentrated on breathing and not shaking. It all felt so hopeless!
The more she tried to dig herself out of this, the more she seemed
to bury herself.

"How am I to get this Oriental?" she asked.
"I doubt the French will hand him over to me with a smile."

"I don't care how. Just get him. If you
don't, you will suffer the fate of all hellhags."

"Hanging!"

"And your aunt and sister with you."

"B, but they don't have any skill!" she
spluttered. "And I have so little."

"You have enough." He sneered, curling his
fleshy top lip into his moustache. "You hellhags make me sick, even
you pretty ones." He spat into his teacup. "What a waste of sweet
flesh."

Tilda recoiled. Her insides twisted and her
mouth went dry. She needed to be very, very careful. Grimshaw
wasn't a man she could charm or trick into leaving her alone.

So what was she going to do?

Grimshaw cleared his throat and flattened
his moustache with his thumb and finger. He dug into his inside
coat pocket and handed her an envelope. "This letter belongs to a
man traveling on the
Adrienne
. Not the Oriental, another. It
will direct you to the airship."

She stared at the letter and with a sinking,
sickening feeling she realized she had no choice.

***

A week passed in which Tilda and her aunt
and sister tried to think of ways to get out of Sir Magnus's
clutches. But they were trapped. They had no one to turn to and
nowhere to go. The authorities held tight control on population
movements so they could not flee London. It would instantly raise
suspicions if they were to turn up in another city or even a small
village in the middle of the moors. To travel without triggering an
investigation required new identities to be made, false papers to
be drawn up and other people to aid them. No, there was nothing to
be done but find a way to fetch the Oriental and his machine.

It was after listening to Mary's story about
the latest exploits of Black Jack Knight the sky pirate that Tilda
had decided he was the man she needed.

"They say he captured the trading vessel The
Eagle and stole all the cargo," Mary said over breakfast one
morning.

"I heard he tortured the crew," Letitia
said, tearing up her toast.

"Torture!" Aunt Winnie flapped a hand at her
breast. "That man's a beast."

"So they say," Mary said, teapot poised over
a teacup. "I heard he once kidnapped a cousin to the French king
and ransomed him for a thousand pieces of gold."

Letitia, eyes bright, leaned over her plate.
Everyone else leaned closer too. "And I heard he kidnapped the
entire family of the Russian ambassador."

Mary nodded knowingly. "While holding off no
less than three navy airships. Three! He may be a beast but he's a
mighty strong one."

Aunt Winnie sniffed. "Strong or not, he has
no morals," she muttered. "Not that I'm surprised, considering what
he did to his poor brother."

"Aye," Mary said, pouring the tea.

"The authorities would have his head if they
ever caught him," Letitia said, somewhat wistfully.

Tilda swirled the tea around her teacup,
thoughtful. A man with legendary fighting skills, no morals and no
incentive to go to the authorities—he was perfect.

"They say he's terribly handsome," Letitia
went on. "And can charm the skirts off--."

"Letitia!" Aunt Winnie snapped.

"All I meant was, everyone says he prefers
charming women to..." She dropped her gaze and her voice became a
whisper. "To killing and raping them."

"Letitia! Don't speak that disgusting
word."

"But it's true!"

"I've heard the same thing," Tilda said. She
cut her boiled egg into slices, careful not to meet anyone's gaze.
"That's why I'm going to hire him."

Letitia gasped. "Really? How thrilling."

"I think I'm going to faint," Aunt Winnie
said, flapping her hand faster.

"Is that wise, miss?" Mary asked. "He sounds
barely civilized."

"I don't require him to be civilized, I
require him not to...you know."

"Kill or rape you," Letitia offered.

Aunt Winnie whimpered.

"Quite," Tilda said. "Entering into a
business arrangement with a pirate who prefers charming women to
hurting them is certainly a point in his favor." She stabbed a
slice of egg with her fork. "Besides, I've never met a man whose
charms I couldn’t resist."

***

For someone with Matilda Upton’s unique
talent, finding England’s most infamous sky pirate had been easy.
Catching him, however, was proving more of a challenge. Black Jack
Knight darted like a cat through the deep shadows of the taverns
and brothels crammed as close to London's old docks as possible.
For a tall man he was surprisingly nimble. Tilda and her aunt
struggled to maintain the same swift pace.

“Curses,” muttered Aunt Winifred between
bosom-heaving breaths. She stamped the point of her closed parasol
on the flagstones. “We lost him.”

Tilda could think of more appropriate words
than “curses”, most of which she’d overheard earlier while waiting
for Knight outside The Noose tavern, but she refrained from using
them in her aunt’s presence. Instead, she rubbed the pocket
chronometer clenched in her fist. The brass felt smooth against her
thumb and the gears whirred to life where moments before they had
been silent. The case grew steadily warmer until it branded her
skin, but Tilda didn’t let it go. If she did, the connection
linking object to owner would be severed and the best chance she
had of finding the one man able to help her would be lost. Like a
mist consumed by morning sunshine, the way to Knight suddenly
cleared and she moved off down the damp, narrow lane, signaling her
aunt to follow.

“Matilda--”

Tilda signed for silence and Winnie obeyed,
although with much reluctance and a lot of tongue biting on her
aunt’s part Tilda suspected.

Her senses, taut as a stretched rope,
directed her to the pirate. Where a wolfhound used smell to seek
out its prey, Tilda used something less tangible but just as
accurate to locate Black Jack.

He had stopped around the corner. He
waited.

She turned into the street and as she did so
one of the dirigibles hovering overhead moved, plunging them into
near darkness. The light was bad enough in a city choking to death
on its own soot but the old docks area was a notoriously dingy
place with the hulls of the airships always blocking what little
sunshine managed to pierce through the gray miasma.

Even though she knew exactly where he stood,
backed into a recessed doorway nearby, Tilda’s heart, already
tripping over itself like a child learning to walk, lurched when he
jumped out in front of them. Much less prepared, Aunt Winnie
screeched.

Black Jack Knight, silent and quick, clamped
his hand over the wide open mouth. Winifred’s wild eyes, round with
fear, appealed to her niece.

Tilda swallowed and shifted her gaze to the
man she had decided two weeks ago to seek. He towered above her and
his broad shoulders stretched the stitching of his black leather
coat. He possessed an imposing silhouette, but she had waited
impatiently for his return to English airspace and wasn’t about to
be frightened away now. They were, after all, in full public view.
Although the public in the old docks area seemed as foul and
slippery as the lane in which they found themselves. Adding
credence to her thoughts, miserable faces turned away without
offering assistance.

Squaring her shoulders, Tilda gave her full
attention to the pirate. The first thing she noticed was that his
name was inappropriate. Captain Black Jack Knight had hair the
color of sand and eyes as blue as the sapphire set into the ring on
his little finger. Unlike most people of that coloring, his skin
was tanned a golden honey from the warmer regions where he
reportedly committed most of his crimes. He was also distractingly
handsome. His lips were wide and full but not thick, his nose was
straight, his cheeks defined without being sharp and his brow
untroubled with lines. But more than the sum of his features, he
had a presence about him, an aura that pulled Tilda in so that she
found it difficult not to stare at him.

“Well, well,” he said cheerfully. “It seems
you have caught me.” His arm flexed as Aunt Winnie tried to speak
beneath his hand. “Or have I caught you?”

“Let her go,” Tilda said. “Please,” she
added as an afterthought.

“Please? Such manners.” His blue gaze took
in her tight bodice, gold and pearl drop earrings and matching
necklace. Tilda willed herself to be still under his bald scrutiny.
“You are a long way from home, Little Chick. Or do London’s whores
dress like ladies now?” A smile flicked the corners of his lips but
vanished when Aunt Winnie bit him. “Ouch!”

He let go and she bustled to Tilda’s side.
Belatedly remembering that she was the chaperone and her niece the
virginal lady of only twenty-four tender years, Winnie pushed Tilda
behind her broad skirts and tossed her head. “We are not
whores!”

Inspecting his bitten hand as if checking a
bucket for holes, he said, “In your case, Madam, there was never
any doubt. But to the young lady, I humbly apologize for the
mistake.”

Winnie frowned. Before she could realize he
hadn’t paid her a compliment, Tilda moved out from behind her aunt.
“And I apologize for following you, Black
Ja...Lord...ahem...Captain. But if you had stopped when you first
heard our approach, this cat and mouse game would not have been
necessary.”

“Ah, but it was fun.” He flashed a brilliant
grin that Tilda didn’t trust. “Now, who are you and what do you
want?” The sudden change in his voice, one moment playful, the next
as cold and sharp as the hidden dagger strapped to her forearm,
sent a chill through her despite the oppressive thickness of the
laneway’s air.