Steamlust (25 page)

He broke away, breathing hard.

“My lady,” he said, “Violet.”

“Quiet,” she said. “I am not paying you to talk.”

“I trust you are not paying me to make love to you, either.”

Violet held his face in her hands.

“I have spent my life paying people to do what I wish. I have never wanted for anything. Why should I stop now?”

“Because what you want can’t be bought.”

They stood with their faces inches apart, so that their hot breaths met and swirled together. Violet felt again the grip of his metal hand and this time she wanted him with a violence that almost overwhelmed her.

“What do you want?” she whispered. “What is your price?”

“Everything,” he said. “Everything you own.”

She searched his eyes.

“You think I’ll give up all that, to soothe the lust in my heart?”

“Not lust. The one thing you are really afraid to admit.”

“Which is?”

“Love,” he said, simply. “To live here, with me. As a free woman.”

Violet laughed. “It seems a veritable bargain.”

Gustav didn’t laugh back. Instead, he held onto her with his machine hand and started, with the other, to loosen her corset. The lacing pulled from the eyes with a little ripping sound.

“Give up your life,” he said, “and you will win me.”

“My flat?”

“Abandon it.” He tugged at the laces around her waist. As they came free, she exhaled noisily.

“Thirty servants. A steamtrap and driver.”

“Set them free.”

He pulled the shell of her corset away in two halves, as though he were removing the shell from some sea creature. Underneath, her bare skin was marked with lines where her underclothes had bitten into her skin.

“A place at court. Invitations to the very best parties.”

Gustav raised an eyebrow. He took hold of her petticoat and ripped it apart, tearing it from her waist to her knees. Violet shrugged, and stepped out of the ruined skirt. She laughed as though she had breathed in for the very first time.

“The proceeds of my trust?”

Gustav paused. “How much?”

“More than I need.”

He nodded; traced a line from her chin, down her collarbone, to the gentle curve of her breast, where he circled, as if entranced. Her eyes dropped to the twitching fingers of his metal hand.

“How did you lose it?” she asked.

“I was impatient,” he said, lifting his wooden-tipped fingers, as if to surrender. “I wanted to master the world. Be the greatest inventor that ever lived. And I refused to listen to anybody.”

“Sounds familiar.”

She took the hand and examined it. He held it still, not flexing the spring-loaded joints, not curling the delicate, beaten-tin fingers.

“I built it myself,” he said.

“That must have been difficult.”

“Yes. But now it works. It is part of me,” he said at last. Violet looked up at him, then bent to kiss the worn leather of the machine palm. She drew the hand down, to her drawers, and placed it between her legs, pressing against it through the slit in the cotton.

“It works?” she said.

Gustav nodded. He pulled her toward him, crushing the awkward metal of his hybrid hand between them, making her moan.

“Like any man, my body is weak,” he said. “Only I have been blessed with a hand of my own devising.” He interspersed each sentence with caresses, raining kisses down on her bare neck and shoulders like molten lava. “With it, I can create miracles.”

The blunt tips of his fingers pressed and pushed at her, the polished wood hard, but curiously supple too, so that it felt he was making love to her with a wondrous mix of urgency and tenderness, the sensation circling, rising and dipping to some intricate pattern of his own creation. Violet felt a scream build in her belly, low and urgent, as though her voice were not her own.

With his other hand, Gustav had freed his cock from his trousers and pushed her against the couch, lifting her buttocks so they perched on the curve of the headrest.

His first thrust was almost desperate, rushing her hard and deep so that she cried out involuntarily. At the sound, he lunged again, and bit down hard on his lip.

“Forgive me,” he started to say.

“Never,” she replied, and pulled him to her. This was what she had been seeking, she realized, as he sank into her, meeting the rock of her hips with the jut of his own. This unbearable proximity, this suffocating closeness; to be filled with him, to swallow him up: this was the prison she would never wish to leave.

He ground against her, and his mechanical fingers drummed a fantastic tattoo around her sex, thrumming there on the most sensitive part, the little screw that held it all together, as she thought of it.

They beat against each other as if locked in a struggle, both reaching, clutching hold, writhing as if climbing the ladder of each other’s body. She felt herself rise and grow furiously dizzy, calling out to him as she did so, slamming against him as if she could join their flesh by violence.

As the sensations grew ever more urgent, she dug her fingernails into the flesh of his back. He moaned and bit down on her neck. That moment, she wanted to be marked by him, wanted them to both be changed, irrevocably changed. As she milked his cock and wrung a climax out of his heated, struggling body, his mechanical hand worked at her and she felt herself tumble, a wound-up machine gone wild, spun out of control, overtaken by the exquisite and miraculous machinery of the body itself, fueled by blood and spit and desire, attracted irresistibly to this man by some inexplicable force, both damned and redeemed by this fabulous creation, this wonderful cage, this beautiful trap that she found herself, for once, glad to be contained in.

Their ecstasy split the moment in two, and they collapsed
onto the couch, knocking levers and bruising themselves on protruding parts. Violet lay across her incredible machine, overtaken by waves of laughter as Gustav rose and disentangled himself, reached for the bottle and returned to lie with her in glorious, foolish disarray.

“May we live long and never leave each other,” he said, his dark eyes locked on hers as he took a swig from the open bottle.

“And cherish our freedom,” she said, taking the bottle from him. “Us penniless outlaws.” She spilled whisky and he leaned forward to lick it from her arm, sending a fresh wave of laughter rippling through her.

“May we make our own miracles,” she said.

“And recognize them when we find them,” he said, bending to kiss the whisky from her lips.

T
he corridor connecting my private lift to the pleasure balloon
Ecstatica
sways, and Ruiz de Cortez places his hand on mine as though to stop me stumbling. The motion is so familiar no assistance is necessary but I don’t pull away. Indifference will mask that; for me, the contact of skin on skin is both pleasure and pain. The landward breeze blowing across the harbor and through the louvered walls ruffles my skirts and hair but does nothing to cool my fevered skin.

Glancing sideways at him, I note the changes time has wrought. When he first entered my parlor the familiar stride and proud carriage made my heart stumble. He looks the same now, albeit more prosperous. His flight jacket gleams with gold buckles, and not many can afford supple roebuck breeches or patterned long boots. However, this close, I see additional lines fanning out from the corner of his eye and bracketing his hawkish nose. At his temple a swath of silver threads through the straight, midnight locks, which are secured at his nape with an emerald-green ribbon.

The captain has aged but, God help me, in ways that make him even more beautiful.

And he has come to finally collect on a promise I now wish I had cut out my tongue rather than make. But how could I know, ten years ago, he would ask of me something that would destroy what was left of my heart?

“I cannot ensure I will be able to achieve what you want,” I warn, as we enter the airship proper. “Hardwick may not let her go, nor even allow me to take her from the room. Be that the case, there is nothing I can do.”

“Better to purchase her outright than steal her,” he replies, slanting me an unfathomable look. “But if you can do neither, I’ll be content with the effort.”

Had he approached me even three months before there would have been ample opportunity for him to whisk Angelique van Groot away from my city. But then it would have been me, Beatrix Morgan, rather than Griffen Hardwick blocking his way.

That knowledge and this man, both redolent of unfulfilled dreams, make me inexpressibly sad.

Pausing out of earshot of the guards, I give Ruiz my hardest stare, and one last chance to change his mind. “Are you sure this is what you want? After this my debt to you is paid.”

Is it love?
I want to ask, but the words stick in my throat.

The familiar sparkle is missing from his light brown eyes, and I never before saw him so grim. “Yes, your grace. If I had been there to help her bail her brother out of jail, she wouldn’t have fallen into Hardwick’s hands.”

I turn away, unsure of my ability to completely mask my ragged emotions. “So be it.”

The guard opens the door and we step into what will no doubt become my greatest nightmare.

People are scattered around the closed and stuffy room, indulging in myriad sexual acts—some in pairs, others in groups—many employing the mechanical devices still rare in the rest of the colonies. Here in Port Royal, the wickedest city in Christendom, nothing is forbidden and the automated fuckers, suckers, attachments and personal pleasure enhancers are a common sight.

“Her Grace, the Duchess of Palisadoes, and Captain Ruiz de Cortez,” intones the major domo, and almost everyone stands, except those immobilized on the larger machines, and one woman who has been caught at the moment of climax. As we walk across the room toward our host I am saluted on all sides by erect cocks and nipples and accompanied by the high-pitched cries of the writhing spender.

Hardwick cannot stand, paralyzed as he is, unable to move anything but one hand and his oversized, balding head. A skull with flesh, sunken eyes and a bony nose, he is the stuff of nightmares and, watching our approach, a small smile tips the purple-hued gash that is his mouth. His lap is lightly covered by a cloth, leaving the rest of the emaciated, vaguely gray form bare. Beneath his feet, as a footstool, Angelique dares not lift her head to acknowledge us, deference to her owner trumping all protocol. Hardwick dips his head toward me, the degree of incline calculated to be within reason and yet still slightly insulting.

“Well met, your grace. Good of you to finally accept one of my invitations.” With a flicker of a glance, he acknowledges my companion, “Captain.”

The rasping voice sets my teeth on edge. He would, of course, recognize Ruiz’s name, for everyone knows the story of how he found and took me to England to claim my inheritance. Many hate him for it, either for his luck or for instigating the turning
over of one of the world’s greatest fortunes to a woman, worse yet a mulatto.

I return Hardwick’s meaningless smile with one of my own. “My friend has not been in Jamaica for upward of five years, and I would have him enjoy himself…in whichever way
he
chooses.”

Hardwick’s eyes narrow, but it is the tightening of Ruiz’s arm beneath my hand that makes me realize my mistake. Insulting Hardwick means nothing to me. He, and others like him, will always resent my place in the world. Slavery may have been abolished, made pointless by the advances in mechanization, but it still lingers, insidious and unmistakable. My rise to wealth and power has left a bitter taste in many mouths. It is my duty to turn that bitterness to bile at every turn.

No, it is allowing Ruiz to know I have tracked his movements that is my greater error in judgment.

“Well,” Hardwick replies, his gaze moving around the room and then lingering on Angelique’s crouched form before returning to my face, “I hope you both will feel free to indulge with us tonight, Duchess. After all, it is only with your kind auspices this party can occur.”

With a lift of my eyebrows, I too glance around the room. The participants are still standing, awaiting the signal to recommence their orgy. They all stare, no doubt wondering at my attendance, for although I own the entire floating city I never mingle with those who come to indulge their peccadilloes.

I shrug, and allow Ruiz to lead me toward a chaise lounge. “Parties like this would occur whether Port Royal existed or not,” I reply, sitting and fanning out the silk of my skirts, knowing the white velvet upholstery is a perfect foil for my red dress and chocolate skin. “In fact I wonder at your making the journey here, rather than entertaining at home.”

Another dig, and Ruiz, in the midst of sitting beside me, sends me a sideways look. Hardwick’s mother, a woman of impeccable and unassailable rectitude, would have a conniption should he hold such a gathering in London.

“Ah, but where else can I find such convivial company and delightful weather?”

And where else could he try, in every way he can, to seek my weaknesses and hopefully a way to blunt my power?

If not for my ingrained suspicion, he would have already succeeded. Believing Angelique my friend, I harbored hope she would be the companion and lover I so yearned for. On learning she was his slave and spy I thought my heart shattered. Now, seated beside the only man I ever loved, in the company of the woman I still hunger for, I know I have but sipped at the cup of pain.

As though reading my thoughts Hardwick gestures and, as the entertainers return to their activities, one of his lackeys lifts his feet from Angelique’s back. She does not move, but remains on elbows and knees, legs drawn up beneath her, face tilted down, hidden by a swath of golden hair. Although still keeping my gaze on Hardwick, from the corner of my eye I glimpse the pale, enticing skin, the beautiful curves of arse and planes of back. I refuse to look more closely.