Her Sky Cowboy (7 page)

Doc frowned. “You didn’t say she was hurt, Marshal.”

“She said she was fine.” Tucker crouched to inspect her ankle. “What the…”

“Boot’s soaked with blood,” StarMan noted.

Light-headed now, Amelia grasped the rail. “It’s my thigh.”

Tucker lifted away the hem of her duster. “Ah, Christ.”

Doc leaned in, then just as quickly pushed off. “Take her below. I’ll get my bag.”

“My cabin!” Tuck called after the man.

Amelia tried to look but couldn’t see. The injury was on the back of her thigh. “I thought it was a bruise.”

“That ain’t no bruise,” Axel said, his unlit cigar dangling from his lower lip. “Damn, girl.”

The other men whistled and shook their heads.

Panicked a little now, Amelia swallowed hard. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Nothin’ Doc can’t fix,” Tucker said. “Hush now, darlin’, and don’t fuss.”

When Tucker rose, he lifted her up and over his shoulder. Before she could argue, he ordered the men to attend to Bess, then, toting Amelia like a sack of flour, carried her toward the stern and down a ladder. She tried to absorb her surroundings, but her upside-down vantage point was most disconcerting. From what she could tell, though, the
Maverick,
unlike the
Flying Cloud,
was in top form. Wood and brass gleamed, and the scents ranged from lemon polish to grease to engine fumes, coffee, and leather. At one point she thought she smelled fresh hay and licorice.

She tried not to think about the bloody awful pain in her leg, about what those men had seen and why they’d looked disconcerted. Surely it couldn’t be that bad. She thought about poor Jules and how his leg injuries had resulted in a permanent limp.
There are worse things,
she told herself. She could fly with a limp. Although maybe not the kitecycle. What if she could no longer pedal?

“Is Doc really better at fixing food than people?” Amelia asked, cursing the wobble in her voice. “Not to offend, but he doesn’t appear old enough to have much experience in the medical field.”

“Doc’s an enlightened soul and a man of many talents.” Tucker kicked open an ajar door and moved into a dark-
paneled room. The last light of day streaked through the windows in tandem with the artificial light beaming from at least three lamps. She pondered the brightness and realized the halls had been illuminated as well, though she hadn’t smelled kerosene. Electricity?

“Put her on the bed,” Doc said.

She spied a massively large mattress covered with an exquisite bone-and-black woven coverlet and several pillows. “Is that your bed?” she asked Tucker. “I cannot—”

“You can and you will.”

“Need access to that wound,” Doc said as he rifled through his black bag.

“Hold tight to me when I set you down, Flygirl, and don’t put weight on your injured leg.”

Amelia blanched as Tucker set her gingerly to the floor. “I’m not taking off my trousers.” No man had ever seen her in her bloomers, and these particular homespun bloomers were somewhat snug and sparse in material—as was needed when wearing her formfitting flight pants.

“Then I’ll have to cut away enough leather for Doc to work,” he said.

She mourned the potential loss of her flight pants. “So be it.”

Feeling woozier by the minute, she held on to the lapel of Tucker’s coat, using one hand to aid him in ridding her of her scarves and coat. Beneath she wore her unconventional leather breeches and a wool brocade corsetlike bodice over a loose white blouse.

The Sky Cowboy’s gaze fell to her bountiful cleavage but did not linger. She knew not whether to be insulted or impressed. Feeling exposed and vulnerable, she couldn’t think straight—although she knew for certain that her mother would condemn her for lying upon this virile man’s bed. Inappropriate. Scandalous. Amelia almost smiled.

He indicated the mattress, which sat quite high on an ornate frame. “Do you need help or can you manage?”

“I’ll get blood on your coverlet.”

“I don’t care—”

“But—”

“Dammit, woman.” He swiped away the quality piece and replaced it with an ordinary green wool blanket.

Doc turned and she noticed he had traded his tinted goggles for blue-tinted spectacles, although they resembled goggles, given their thick frames and wraparound fashion. “Do you prefer laudanum or chloroform?” he asked.

“Neither.”

“Whiskey then.”

“No.”

This time Tucker got in her face. “It’s gonna hurt like hell, Flygirl.”

It hurt like bloody hell now. “Why?” she asked, swiping off her flight cap and pivoting on her good leg to lie across the bed. “What is it? A cut? Do I need stitches? I’ve had them before. I assure you I can stand the prick of a needle.”

She was blustering a bit with that last part. Times before the physician had dulled the pain. Just now she needed her wits about her. Lord forbid she slip about her true mission due to a drug-induced stupor. She did not trust Tucker Gentry and his gang—or any man, for that matter—not to rob her of her invention of historical significance. Surely they knew about the jubilee contest and prize.

Tucker rounded the bed, shrugged out of his overcoat, and stooped so he faced her eye to eye. “You’ve got a metal shard lodged in your thigh, Amelia. Doc’s gonna have to extract it. Then he’s going to disinfect the wound and stitch it closed.”

“Oh.” She swallowed hard. “Right then. Be done with it.”

He swore under his breath, then moved behind her. The mattress sagged with added weight, and her cheeks burned at the thought of sharing his bed. Next she felt big hands—Tucker’s hands—on her leg, felt him cutting and ripping the
leather. She squeezed her eyes shut, mortified and more than a little nervous.

She heard someone else enter the room.

“Your instruments, Doc. Fresh out of boiled water, as requested.”

From the slight Asian accent, she assumed that was Birdman Chang.

Her mortification mounted. “Please go.”

“Stay,” Tucker commanded. Next thing she knew he’d rounded the bed once again. He took her hands, squeezed. “Look at me, darlin’.”

The endearment was inappropriate, although, at this moment, oddly comforting. She should dissuade him from such intimacy, and she would. At some point.

“Hold her steady,” Doc said to Chang.

She felt strange hands upon her person and wanted to die. The need to live, however, was much stronger. She needed to save her family from financial ruin, to resurrect their reputation, her papa’s name.

“How’d you come by those other injuries?” Tucker asked. “The ones that required stitches.”

She knew he was striving to distract her and blessed him for it. “Flying incidents.”

His lip twitched just as she felt a painful tug at her leg. She bit back a yelp, and breathed deeply. “Tell me about the engines on deck. Do they power the blasterbeefs? Supply the ship with electricity? How did you…How does it work?”

She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth as Doc Blue pulled metal from muscle. Never had she felt such blinding pain. She jerked and moaned, but she did not scream or cry.
Show no weakness
. She focused on Tucker’s steady words—something about steam turbines—but then Doc bathed her wound with something that stung like a thousand wasps.

“Blooming hell,” she hissed, wondering how big and deep the cut was, how long it would take Doc Blue to stitch
her wound, anticipating the needle piercing her skin, the thread tugging, tightening….She felt ill.

She opened her eyes to stem the nausea, mortified that damnable tears blurred her vision. She thought she saw Tucker nod at either Doc or Chang. Light-headed with pain, Amelia felt a swift tap at her temple, then blissful peace.

B
RITISH
S
CIENCE
M
USEUM
L
ONDON
, E
NGLAND

“It is settled.”

“Dismal business, this.”

“A small and necessary price for the reformation and salvation of mankind.”

Nine men. One goal. Or so eight of them thought.

The Viscount Bingham, odd man out and referred to in this covert society as code name Mars, noted the others’ grim expressions with morbid humor. Men of peace, yet they plotted to assassinate the queen.

Hidden away in a secret room, seated around a table once owned by Sir John Flamsteed, a seventeenth-century astronomer and Britain’s first astronomer royal, nine titled men of science and industry raised their crystal goblets to seal the treasonous pact.

“To the Age of Aquarius.”

“Aquarius,” they all repeated, vowing their silence and commitment with the mention of the society’s name, the clink of glass on glass, and a swallow of port.

An astrological cycle of change revered by the Mods, Aquarius ruled electricity, flight, freedom, modernization, astrology, rebellion, and—among other things the Vics had yet to experience—computers. Though the precise year of
arrival was in dispute, to those in this room, and many outside these walls, the Age of Aquarius was now.

Unfortunate that Queen Victoria, a woman ruled by staunch morals and bitter heartbreak, seemed intent on halting progress. As if she could go back in time by slowing time. All in the name of love. Damn her royal eyes. Were she to lift the ban on building and perfecting time-traveling devices, she could reunite with her deceased beloved, or perhaps save him in some fashion by time traveling herself. But that would involve altering history—something Briscoe Darcy and then the Peace Rebels had already done. Something she was very much against.

One would think, at the very least, that given Prince Albert’s voracious appreciation of science, the queen would honor her husband’s memory by allowing Mod technology to flourish. Instead, she denounced the development and sales of marvels, including rocket packs, telecommunicators, and advanced weaponry, to name only a few. Unlike her husband, she had never embraced the fantastical futuristic knowledge of the Peace Rebels. She was not surprised when that advanced knowledge and a few corrupt Mods ignited a war and divided society. And she was famously bitter when that advanced knowledge had failed to save Prince Albert’s life. Unlike the men in this room (and much of the altered world), Queen Victoria saw no advantage in cultivating twentieth-century technology—technology that, according to the Book of Mods, had steered mankind toward the brink of destruction.

New Worlders were of a different mind. Knowledge was power, and, knowing what could be, they would choose an alternate path, using technology only for good.

As a Flatliner, Bingham cared only about what futuristic knowledge could do for
him
. He saw himself as a visionary and entrepreneur, and as far as he was concerned, this assassination was long overdue. The difference between Bingham and the other eight plotters was that they approached
this “elimination” with trepidation. In order to soothe their consciences, they’d adopted the noble mind-set that they were sacrificing the regal one for the good of the many. Bingham wanted the deed done, period. No regrets. Only a promise of a brighter future.
His
shining future. Rather than risk his freedom and life by orchestrating the assassination on his own, he’d sought out progressive souls (and potential scapegoats), tripping upon this society.

Jupiter set aside his goblet and initiated talk of possible locations for the unsavory deed. The attack would take place during the Golden Jubilee, a monumental event honoring the queen’s fiftieth anniversary of her accession. There would be much pomp and circumstance over the two-day period, and in some instances chaos due to the clamoring masses—some adoring, some disenchanted.

But where did Aquarius stand the best chance of success? Where could they do the most harm and therefore the most good? Where should they strike? The train en route from Windsor to Paddington? Buckingham Palace? Westminster Abbey? Or perhaps the procession through London? They were privy to the chain of events and closely guarded details, thanks to having a man on the inside—a boon that had come at substantial cost. Now to use that information wisely.

Bingham listened with interest and disgust as his cohorts bickered. Their utopian mind-set was frivolous, but their objective—to unleash and embrace the advanced knowledge of several brilliant and reclusive Mods—served his purpose well. That advanced knowledge included specifics on how to construct futuristic wonders in the realms of transportation, weapons, and communications—knowledge that would make him a man of enormous wealth and power. He had finessed his way into this secret society with one goal—to monopolize the technological market worldwide. The British Empire would make a fine start.

Still, he did not trust these knobs not to falter in
the moment of truth. To ensure his goals he’d set an additional plan into motion: the Royal Race for Rejuvenation—an event that he’d secretly coordinated with the Jubilee Science Committee. As the anonymous benefactor, Bingham would have full access to progress reports and discoveries pertaining to legendary inventions. He had cast a wide net in order to disguise the narrow scope of his intent—to locate the designs, prototype, or key component connected to a working time machine.

Because of his rumored close connection to Briscoe Darcy, Lord Ashford had been an obvious source of information. Yet fraternizing with that eccentric bumpkin and his idiotic wife had not produced the desired results. As for their daughter, though she was a tempting bit of flesh, Amelia Darcy’s temperament proved a barrier. If she possessed valuable knowledge pertaining to time travel, she would not willingly share it with Bingham. Forcing information out of her might prove morbid fun, but what if his efforts proved unsuccessful? That particular venture struck him as risky and unwise; therefore he’d devised the Triple R contest.

Broadening his horizons had been crucial in his inspired quest. Were he to possess a working time-traveling machine, such as the one devised by Briscoe Darcy and copied by the Peace Rebels, futuristic intelligence would be his for the taking. Unfortunately, the construction of time machines had been outlawed. Of the two successful models, Darcy’s was rumored to be stuck in the future and the Mods’ destroyed, the engineering designs of both hidden or lost…unless someone recovered them. He cared not who, but Bingham’s money was on a Darcy. To ensure that all three of Ashford’s offspring participated in the global treasure hunt, he’d issued personal, albeit anonymous, invitations.