Steamed (13 page)

I glanced to the end of the table where Mr. Francisco had emerged from the galley, his arms crossed. “You appear to have miscounted, Mr. Francisco.”

“I did not,” the Spaniard said, his eyes spitting black looks at Jack. “I will not to him give the food most extraordinary. He is the dirt beneath your feet. He is not worthy of sitting there, close enough to your divine body that he could reach out and touch your most glorious shining hair, the hair of the purest sunset, hair as bright as the fire that burns in my loins.”

Jack gave him a long look. “I may have to rethink my attitude toward violence.”

“That won’t be necessary,” I said, picking up my plate and placing it before Jack. “Mr. Francisco, I find myself without dinner. Would you please prepare a plate for me?”

Dooley sniggered as the volatile cook swore, tossed up his hands in a dramatic gesture, then stomped off to the galley, returning shortly with a plate for me. He managed to whack Jack on the back of his head while presenting me with the dinner, but after a few harsh looks, he returned to his seat.

“Before we enjoy this delicious meal that Mr. Francisco has made for us, I would like to introduce you all to our two unexpected passengers. Mr. Fletcher and his sister, Miss Norris, will be traveling with us to Rome. Without going into lengthy details, I will simply say that they did not anticipate being with us for this journey, and in order to protect them from bureaucratic difficulties, we will not be listing them on the ship’s manifest. I realize that such a procedure is highly unusual, but I assure you that it is quite necessary. I trust that no one here will have an objection to my decision?”

The seven crew members exchanged glances, but all of them shook their heads or murmured agreements with my plans.

“So they’re not stowaways, then?” Dooley asked from his spot at the end of the table.

“Not in so many words, no. Please, begin,” I said, gesturing toward the dinner awaiting us. I sat down and picked up my fork. “They were, for lack of a better description, placed on the ship without their consent.”

Hallie Norris snorted. I slid a worried glance her way. She’d been very subdued since her brother had brought her in for the evening meal, her eyes somewhat dulled, as if she’d been beaten into submission. A quick word with Mr. Ho relieved my mind as to Hallie’s mental health.

“It’s all right, Captain,” Mr. Ho had said shortly before the evening meal. “Miss Norris became agitated again, and I felt it appropriate to give her a tiny drop of laudanum. She’ll be a bit subdued for a few more hours, but will soon be herself again.”

Now Hallie stared glumly at her plate, making no move to eat.

“Eat, Hal,” Jack said, shoving a piece of bread her way. “This is pretty good, even if I don’t normally eat mammals. What is it?”

“Mammals!” Mr. Francisco leaped to his feet at the opposite end of the table. “You dare call my beauteous pie of the shepherd
mammals
?”

“Sit down, Mr. Francisco. A mammal is a warm-blooded animal, such as the cow that provided the beef you used to make the shepherd’s pie,” I said wearily.

“Hrmph.” He sat down with muttered Spanish invectives.

Dooley sniggered again.

“Mr. Francisco is quite a talented cook,” I said, both to smooth his ruffled feathers and to try to get Hallie talking. “Although I should warn you that we prefer simple fare on Aerocorps ships. I hope you do not mind that.”

“Eh? Oh. No. I’m not one for haute cuisine,” she replied, finally picking up her fork and poking it into the mound of food on her plate. She gingerly tasted a morsel. A look of surprise flickered in her eyes. “This is really good.”

Mr. Francisco eyed her critically, saying, “The lady, she does not have the hair of the blazing set of the sun, but she is smart, she is much smart. She may have the flan I have so carefully made for the sweet.”

“Whereas I am to go flanless?” Jack said, winking at me. “Perhaps the captain will take pity on me and share her sweet?”

I was a bit aghast at his flirtatious comment, but luckily, other than Mr. Mowen (who choked on his ale), no one seemed to understand the double entendre.

“You may have mine if there is not enough,” Mr. Ho said generously. “I don’t have much of a sweet tooth.”

I gave Jack a stern look that was completely wasted upon such a rogue, and settled back to let the conversation move along general lines, memorable meals claiming the discussion for some time. Although I was extremely aware of Jack sitting next to me, so close I could almost feel the heat of his body, I kept my mind firmly focused elsewhere.

I did not notice the fine blond hairs that grew along his forearms, which were visible since he’d rolled back his sleeves.

I did not dwell on that little lock of hair that kept falling over his forehead, driving me almost to distraction with the need to push it back.

I refused to notice it when his knee brushed mine as he leaned forward to answer one of Mr. Mowen’s questions about where in California he was from.

I didn’t care one hoot about the fact that his eyes, so different in color, and yet so intriguing, had an uncanny attraction for me.

“Captain?”

“Hmm?” With a start, I realized that I was being addressed. I cleared my throat and looked attentive. “Yes, Mr. Ho?”

“I asked if there was anything in particular you wished us to do with respect to the ground crew and emperor’s officials in Rome.”

“No. When we are close to arrival at the aerodrome, we will land for a few minutes in a remote location to allow Mr. Fletcher and his sister to disembark.” I told that lie without batting so much as an eyelash. “They won’t be on the ship when we land in Rome; thus, there will be no need for you to conceal anything other than the fact that they were on board the ship for a few days.”

She nodded and continued passing around cups of after-dinner coffee. Mr. Llama dropped his spoon under the table, and leaned down to pick it up.

“I know it goes against everyone’s standards to conceal even that, but I think that it’s for the best if—”

The sound of the door behind me gently closing had me whirling around in the chair.

“What’s wrong?” Jack asked, looking up from the flan that Francisco reluctantly produced for him.

“The door . . . where’s Mr. Llama?” I asked, looking suspiciously around the table. His place was empty. “Ratsbane! He’s done it again. Did any of you see him leave?”

The crew all shared an unreadable look, six heads shaking in unison.

“Do you have a rule or something about people not being able to leave the table without your permission?” Jack asked as I pushed back my chair, hoisted up the edge of the tablecloth, and got on my knees to peer under the table.

“No, of course not. It’s just that the blighter . . . er . . . gentleman has the habit of disappearing without anyone seeing.”

“It wouldn’t be a disappearance if you were watching, now, would it?” Jack said with infuriating reason.

I glared over the top of the table at him. “You don’t understand—the man is positively uncanny. One moment he’s here, the next he’s gone. And no one ever sees him leave!”

Jack glanced over at Mr. Mowen. “Have you seen him leave a room?”

Mowen shook his head, watching me curiously as I dusted off my knees and retook my seat. “No, but then, I don’t watch for folks to leave rooms.”

“There you go, then,” Jack said, just as if that explained everything.

“That doesn’t mean anything,” I argued. “The fact remains that no one has seen Mr. Llama actually in the process of leaving a room.”

“I haven’t seen Dooley leave the room, and yet he’s gone,” Mr. Christian said from farther down the table, waving his sticky spoon toward Dooley’s chair.

“That’s different. He probably went to use the convenience,” I said, aware I was sounding grumpy. “Dooley can’t sit still for more than ten minutes. And we are not discussing him—we’re discussing the mystery that is Mr. Llama.”

Jack pursed his lips slightly. “Does anyone else feel that this Llama person is mysterious?”

The crew, blight them all, shook their heads.

“That is misleading!” I told them before focusing my attention on Mr. Francisco. “Didn’t you tell Dooley that Mr. Llama doesn’t sleep in his bed at night?”

“
Sí
, but I wouldn’t be in my bed if there was another for me to lie in,” he said with a lecherous waggle of his eyebrows.

“Oh. You mean he spends the night—” I stopped, not wanting to put it into words.

Mr. Francisco had no such sense of propriety. “He has the mistress of love he visits.”

They all looked at me.

“You can’t possibly think that I would—I’m the captain!” I said, outraged.

“Aye, but ye’re a right looker when ye want to be,” Mr. Piper said, subjecting me to a thorough once-over. “Ye’ve a nice plump arse, and a pair o’ ripe titties that fair make a man’s cods tighten.”

“That’s my bustle, and you will please refrain from commenting on my chest,” I said, grabbing the front edges of my jacket and jerking them closed over my blouse.

Jack grinned at me.

“You aren’t helping matters,” I told him.

“I’m sorry, but he’s absolutely right. You do have a nice ass. And your breasts—”

“Don’t say it,” I said through clenched teeth.

“Aye, it could be your bustle,” Mr. Piper said meditatively as he casually picked his teeth, making wet sucking noises as he did so. “But I’m of a mind that there’s a fair bit o’ paddin’ beneath the bustle, else it wouldn’t be so round.”

I sent the glare down to him, then spread it amongst the other crew members as they continued to eye me speculatively. “We have left the subject of Mr. Llama and his nighttime perambulations. I assure you all that he is not visiting me. So where is he going?”

Mr. Ho calmly sipped her coffee, seemingly unaware of everyone’s sudden scrutiny of her person.

I cleared my throat. Crew fraternization wasn’t encouraged, but neither was it prohibited. “Oh. I . . . indeed. Well, then.”

“Are there any other mysteries you’d like me to clear up for you?” Jack offered as I rose to my feet. “How the ship stays aloft? Why the sky is blue? What the meaning of life is?”

“No, thank you,” I said, thinning my lips at him as he grinned at me, his eyes glittering with enjoyment.

Damnation, I would not fall for him. He was no better than any of the other rogues in my life, and if I hadn’t learned by now just how bad for me such a man was, I might as well pack up my things and retire to a convent.

“
S
o really, the boiler is just a big water tank that has some tubes running through it that contain air heated from a constantly burning fire.”

“That’s an oversimplification of it, but yes, basically, that’s correct,” Matt Mowen said as we squatted next to an emergency release valve on the number three boiler.

“And the boilers produce steam that goes from here—” I stood up and visually followed the long metal pipe as it snaked up the metal girder to disappear into a gigantic pillowy shape above us that I had been informed was technically called an envelope—“and fills the envelope, which keeps the
Tesla
floating.”

“Yes. Boilers one and two feed the fore and middle envelopes. Number three, here, feeds the aft envelopes, and the propellers. She’s twice the size of one and two, as you can see.” He gestured toward the second pipe that led down into the floor, assumably running to the back of the airship where a giant propeller gave the ship its forward thrust.

“Gotcha. And you use coal for the boilers?”

“Coal?” He scratched his head, looking puzzled. “Why would we use that?”

“I thought that’s what the folks in Victorian times used.”

He just stared at me.

“Sorry, that’s probably not going to make any sense to you since you didn’t have a Victorian age. Or did you?”

Matt gave me an odd look. “Was there something in particular you wanted with me, Mr. Fletcher?”

“Jack.”

“Jack, then. You said you were an engineer yourself, so I’m confused why you would be wanting an explanation of how a simple steam engine works.”

“I’m a nanoelectrical engineer. That’s sort of a specialized engineer, and I didn’t learn anything about steam power in college. If you don’t use coal for the boilers, what do you use?”

“Aether.” He frowned at a valve on the back side of the boiler.

“Er . . . that would be . . . ?”

“Aether is aether,” he said, tapping the glass front of the valve. The needle inside dropped a couple of points. He nodded at it and went back to the small, rickety desk that was bolted to the floor.

“It’s the same stuff used in your guns, isn’t it? Some form of heated plasma or something along those lines?”

He shook his head as he picked up a small toolbox and started for the door. “I don’t know what this plasma is. Aether is what’s all around us.”