Steamed (37 page)

“Yeah, it was a nice touch, huh?” Jack said as he followed me. “You’ve got to hand it to Matt—when he comes up with a rescue plan, he really does it whole hog.”

“Whereas my plans just fail miserably,” I said, panting slightly as we raced down the street toward two black carriages. Ahead, Mr. Christian was assisting Hallie into one of them. Mr. Mowen awkwardly jumped into the driver’s seat, taking the reins.

“Mi capitán!”
A man standing at the second carriage waved. “My glorious captain of the sunset hair! Hurry, oh, splendid one. I shall take you to the place of much safety, where you can lay down on your back on the grass, and spread out your so tingly hair, and I will roll around on it, pressing it to my naked flesh, and you will at last know the true depths of the desire that is mine.”

“Can we go in the first carriage?” I asked Jack.

“That sounds good to me—damn!”

The carriage took off as we ran past it, Mr. Ho being pulled inside by Dooley and Mr. Christian. Hallie waved as the horses sprang forward.

“Get out of me way, ye puss-filled boil on the underside of a gangrenous rod!” Mr. Piper bellowed as he heaved himself up into the driver’s seat of the second carriage, the one we were fated to take.

“I am driving the most glorious
capitán
,” Mr. Francisco argued, scrambling up to sit beside him and attempting to wrestle the reins from him. “It is to me the
capitán
will be most thankful and allow me to have my way with her hair.”

“Yer daft, do ye know that?”

“I may be daft, but I do not always talk of the peepees and walk like a so bent crab!” Mr. Francisco countered.

A man wearing a long black cape and tricorne hat stood at the side of the carriage, holding the door open. He gestured for us to hurry.

“This is too much,” I said, stopping, suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of failure. “I can’t, Jack. I just can’t.”

“Sure you can. Aw, sweetheart, don’t cry.”

“I’m not crying. I’m just upset because I failed,” I said, ashamed to feel the heat of tears in my eyes. I rubbed at them with the back of my hand. “I tried everything I knew how, and I still failed.”

“You did your best. That’s all anyone can ask for,” Jack said.

“Not if my best isn’t enough. Really, Jack, I’ve failed horribly in everything I’ve tried to do since I met you. My ship has been destroyed, I’ve lost my position as captain, William was ready to see me hang for something I didn’t do, and I couldn’t save your sister, let alone us. I don’t wish to doom you to that, too. You must go without me.”

“You always were a perfectionist,” the coachman next to the carriage told me before looking at Jack. “She never was happy unless everything went exactly the way she intended it to go. It looks like she hasn’t changed.”

I gawked at the man in the tricorne, outright gawked at him.
“William?”

He winked at me as he shoved me into the carriage. “A little bird told me you might need some help. And for the record, I do know a good thing when it bites my arse. Now stop complaining and get in before those blasted guards get free.”

“But—you left us—you said—”

“I promised my father a long time ago that I’d watch after you. He really was very fond of you,” he said with a little smile. “I’ve never been one to go back on a promise.”

“But at the prison, you said . . .”

Jack climbed into the carriage after me, slamming the door closed. William leaned in through the window, grabbed my hair, and pulled me forward into a quick, hard kiss. “Just kissing the bride,” he told Jack with a grin as he released me.

Jack narrowed his eyes. “
You’re
the one getting married today.”

“That’s right. But if you don’t make an honest woman out of Octavia, I really will have you hanged. Off you go!”

William slapped the carriage door as he stepped back.

I stared at Jack in bemusement when Mr. Piper, having pushed Mr. Francisco off the perch so he had to cling to the railing in order to avoid being dumped into the street, cracked his whip and urged the horses forward into a gallop. “That was William.”

“Yeah.”

“He helped us.”

“He also kissed you. I don’t think that was at all called for,” Jack replied, looking very disgruntled. “You don’t see me going around kissing his girl.”

“He helped us escape.” I couldn’t seem to get my brain to accept that fact.

“Who the hell does he think he is just grabbing you right in front of me and laying his lips all over you?”

“William helped us.”

“I always ask permission before kissing someone who is taken. That’s the way things are done. But no, Mr. Emperor evidently feels he can do whatever the hell he wants to do without any consideration how others might feel about their girlfriends being tongued in front of them.”

Jack’s words finally penetrated the thick fog of bemusement that had wrapped me up so firmly. My lips twitched with the need to smile, but one look at his glower had me trying my best to keep my expression neutral. “Just so you don’t demand we turn around so you can challenge William to a duel over the kiss, I’ll point out that there was no tongue involved. It was a farewell kiss, Jack. Nothing more.”

“A duel,” Jack said thoughtfully, his fingers twitching. “Now, there’s a thought. . . .”

“No, it isn’t a thought. Jack, are you always going to be this jealous?”

“Jealous? Me?” He looked honestly surprised at such an accusation. “I haven’t a jealous bone in my body. I’m a very reasonable man.”

“Yes, of course you are. My mistake,” I murmured, struggling to keep from laughing. “Well, I still don’t quite know how it happened, but we’re alive, Jack.”

“You thought all along that the emperor would help us. You were right. It just took a different form from what you expected.”

I flopped back in the carriage and lifted a feeble hand. “Yes, but after what he said . . . well, it took me completely by surprise.”

“Me, too.” His lips twisted in a wry smile as he finally stopped frowning. “I figured he was an idiot, like you said.”

“I said he was an ignoramus, not an idiot. Good heavens, and I told him I wanted to blow up his airships. Jack, what’s going on? Why is everyone helping us?”

He pulled me onto his lap. “Because you’re their captain, and you’re adorable, and the look in your eyes when you want me to make love to you would bring anyone, man or woman, to their respective knees.” His lips were as sweet as marmalade as he gently kissed my mouth, and the sting along my neck. “Mowen’s trick with the noose was clever, but I can see a mark it left on you. I’ll have to tell him he’ll need to be more careful next time.”

“There will be no next time,” I said firmly, tilting my head to allow Jack better access.

“No? We’ll discuss that later,” he murmured, his fingers busy on the buttons of my blouse before they slid inside the material to stroke my straining flesh.

“I’m just overwhelmed by it all.” I bit his ear and licked away the sting. “The crew saved us. They really saved us.”

“Mmhmm.” His mouth moved lower, to my breastbone.

A thought struck me, one that had nothing to do with the warm waves of desire that were slowly rippling out from my belly. “Except Mr. Llama! I just bet he—”

A loud slapping noise from behind me had me jumping in surprise. I stared in stark disbelief at the shade that had been pulled down to cover the rear window. Of its own accord, it had rolled itself up, revealing the smiling face of Mr. Llama. He must have been clinging to the rear of the carriage. Even as I watched, he waved and disappeared from the window.

“Did you see that?” I asked, wondering for a moment if I had just imagined seeing the man.

“See what?”

“Mr. . . . never mind.” I looked down at the head that nuzzled my bosom, and smiled. “It doesn’t matter.”

 

I rose from the bench as Jack and Mr. Mowen emerged from the darkness of the inn into the shaded garden where the crew and I had been reposing for the last hour or so, enjoying unusually balmy weather for February. Both men’s faces wore identical grim expressions. My stomach lurched and tightened into a leaden ball. “You weren’t successful?”

Jack took my hands in his, his thumbs sweeping over my fingers in a gentle caress meant to reassure and comfort. “We tried everything we could to get a message to him, but the security at the cathedral was impossible to get through. We looked for Alan, but couldn’t find him, either.”

“The ambassadors are sure to be almost as protected as the emperor,” I said, the feeling of dread in my gut growing. “Jack, we can’t let him die. Not after everything he’s done for us.”

“We gave your message to the guard and told him to give it to the emperor as soon as possible, that it was most urgent and it had to do with his safety and security.”

“But will he get it in time?” I asked, leaning against Jack, my spirits mourning the potential disaster. “Etienne and the Moghuls could attack at any time.”

“Which is why we need to get moving,” Jack said.

I hesitated. It didn’t feel right to run away from the attack when I wasn’t sure that William would get the information about it in time to save himself and as many people as he could.

“Captain, you did all that was possible,” Mr. Mowen said.

The other crew members, who had been lounging around the small garden in various attitudes of celebration as they enjoyed the innkeeper’s prized ale, slowly gathered around us—all but Mr. Llama, who was seated in the shade of a small lime tree.

“The emperor isn’t stupid,” Jack said, sensing my continued reluctance to leave. “You said that yourself. He will have standing orders that any information that might have an impact on him would be given top priority and passed along immediately.”

“That’s right,” Mr. Mowen agreed. “And his guards recognized your name.”

“They will give William the message as soon as possible,” Jack finished.

“Listen to my brother. He knows about intelligence stuff,” Hallie said from where she lounged on a chaise, availing herself of the rarely seen February sun, and sipping an exotic beverage.

“It’s true that William always did value his network of information,” I said, hope beginning to flare to life in the wasteland of despair. I looked up, into Jack’s lovely eyes, and was overwhelmed with a feeling of gratitude. How lucky I had been to find him. How lucky I was to have a crew . . . no,
friends
who risked everything to save us. “All right. We’ll trust to fate that William will be told about the attack in time to do something about it.”

“There’s . . . er . . . something else.” Mr. Mowen looked at Jack.

Jack avoided my eye.

“What?” I asked.

Jack sighed and reached into his coat to pull out a white sheet of paper. He held it out to me. I read it with growing indignation.

“That . . . that . . . he put a bounty on our heads?”

“So it would appear.” Jack considered the paper. “I assume five thousand pounds is a lot of money. You should be flattered.”

“Flattered that the man who informed me he had sworn to watch over me now has plastered the city with notices that we are—what did he say?” I snatched the paper from his hand and read through it again. “Ah, here it is. ‘Crimes of a most heinous and appalling nature against His Imperial Majesty, his guards, and the respected warden of the Newgate Prison . . .’ That he would dare do that after he had me convinced he really meant what he said! Oh! The nerve of him!”

“You attacked an entire prison in front of witnesses,” Jack pointed out. “What did you expect?”

I wadded up the paper and wished I could set William’s head alight. “I don’t know. I assumed he’d come up with some sort of a story.”

“I think even he has limits to the sort of whitewash he can pull off,” Jack said mildly. “Even if an attack by the Moghuls wasn’t imminent, I think it would be best for us to get out of town.”

“I agree, but the question is, where are we to go? The
Tesla
is destroyed, and the Corps isn’t going to give me another ship, not after the
Aurora
’s captain finally overcame his drug-induced haze to realize that it was I who attacked them. And then there’s the question of the crew. Once we get you all to safety, there’s still the issue of dealing with the Aerocorps. We can’t let the recent events adversely affect your careers.”

“We’ve been thinkin’ about that,” Mr. Piper said, blatantly scratching himself.

“Aye, we had a long discussion on our way to England,” Mr. Mowen agreed, taking a pint of ale from Dooley. He took a long pull on it before sighing in relief, wiping his mouth, then continuing. “We agreed that since we were your crew, we’d let you decide what direction our careers would take.”

My jaw wanted to drop, but I had myself well in hand now, and I would not allow it to do anything so feeble-minded. “I am beyond flattered, beyond honored by your faith and trust, not to mention the fact that you all risked your lives for those of Jack and Miss Norris and myself, but I cannot let you throw away your careers like that. My actions can be interpreted in no other way by the Aerocorps, but you all have not been so damned.”

“Damned, me scaly-lipped foreskin,” Mr. Piper snorted, belching loudly as he slammed down his empty glass. “A crew sticks together. Where the captain goes, we go. Ain’t that right?”

The crew, to a man, nodded. “We don’t mind a bit of adventure,” Mr. Christian said after clearing his throat. “So long as it’s not too rough, and doesn’t involve disgusting things, like bodies and entrails and severed limbs.” He shuddered.

Mr. Piper eyed him. “Ye’ve not lived till ye’ve slipped on a deck wet with guts and blood and brains and bowels, lad.”

Mr. Christian weaved and turned green. Mr. Ho, sitting beside him, hastily moved out of the way and took up a position on the other side of the table.

“I am very flattered,” I said, feeling a change of subject was in order lest Mr. Christian embarrass himself. “And if you are all sure you wish to toss away your sterling careers at the Aerocorps—”