Zoe Archer - [Ether Chronicles 03] (12 page)

He slung the ether rifle across his back. “Doing my best not to decimate the animal population on the island. I’ve had to cut back my rations. Been dropping weight.”

Good God.
How much bigger had he been when he first crashed on the island?

“I can’t promise you a feast.” She rummaged through her satchel and produced two cloth-wrapped packets, then handed him one. “Fish pies,” she explained as he uncovered his bundle. “Cookery isn’t my area of expertise, but I’m fairly certain that’s edible.”

“You brought a picnic,” he murmured. The normal-sized pastry looked like a petit four in his hand.

“I imagined that shooting ether rifles would be hunger-inducing work. I brought this, too.” She held up a canteen. “It’s only water, but I purified it. And there’s an apple tree not too far from the cottage, so there are apples in here, also.”

She started to lower herself to the ground, though her artificial leg made the process a little awkward. Still, she waved off his outstretched hand, offering help. Finally, she situated herself on the grass, her legs stretched out in front of her in a way that would make an etiquette columnist faint. But etiquette columnists seldom covered the topic of women with prostheses attempting to eat luncheon on deserted islands, and Kali never gave a cobra’s spit what those fussy writers thought, anyway.

Fletcher remained standing, looking at the pie as if he’d never seen such a marvel.

“Didn’t you say you were hungry?” she asked. “Sit your arse down and eat.”

He did sit, and with far more grace than she’d shown, crossing his long legs. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been on a picnic. And even then, I didn’t have much experience with them.”

“That’s a shame.”

“In the chair factory in Wycombe, we had half days on Sundays. A little church. Time for a quick game of football on the tiny green in the square, then back to work. And before I met Emily . . . seamen on leave aren’t interested in picnics.”

She didn’t want to think of that incredibly stupid woman. But Kali couldn’t stop her face from warming when she thought of young Fletcher, fresh off a ship and eager for pleasure. “Too busy visiting museums.”

More than just her face heated when he chuckled, a low, raspy sound that stroked along her arms and down the center of her chest. “I’ve always had a love of culture.”

She grew up in a city filled with soldiers. The sight of groups of them ambling toward Nagpur’s pleasure quarters wasn’t unfamiliar. Still, it was different to talk about it with Fletcher. To imagine him in a courtesan’s arms. Imagine what it would be like were she to trade places with that courtesan . . .

“But I still don’t know much of picnics,” he added. “Emily wasn’t keen on them. And they weren’t part of my childhood, short as it was.”

For some reason, that saddened her a little. Perhaps she’d been spoiled with the gift of attentive parents, and the luxury of not having to work through her childhood and adolescence. Nagpur had its share of young workers, selling marigold garlands, serving as chai-wallas with steam-spewing carts, and children who crouched by the side of the road, begging.

She’d been lucky. Her father had actually fallen in love with and married her mother. Only a handful of other British soldiers did the same. Had it not been for her father’s romantic heart, Kali could have been one of those bastard children of mixed blood, their mothers cast out by their families. And so Kali got to have a family, attend school. Even go on picnics.

“Well,” she said, “the ground can be damp, and insects can pester you, or you drop your food and it gets covered with dirt. Picnics are more trouble than they’re worth, honestly.”

“The ground isn’t bothering me,” he answered. “The bugs are staying away, and there’s no way in hell I’m dropping this pie. So I might like this picnic business after all. But, ah, what do we do now?”

“The standard procedure is eating, remarking on the scenery, speculating about the weather. Children generally like to throw bread crumbs to birds.”

Though the owls stayed away, resting up for their nocturnal hunt, a trio of little brown birds did appear nearby. They hopped on stick legs and, peeping, turned bright bead eyes to the humans.

She snickered. “There must be some kind of bird telegraph so that even wild creatures like these know that humans sitting on the ground means they’ll get something to eat.” She broke an edge off of her pie and tossed bits of pastry at the birds. They quickly pecked them up, then looked to Fletcher for more.

“Sod off,” he rumbled. “This is mine.” The birds obeyed his command and fluttered away.

He took a big bite of his pie. His eyes closed as he chewed, and he sighed.

Like a nervous newlywed, she studied his expression. “It’s terrible.”

“It’s the most delicious thing I’ve eaten in months.”

“That’s not much of a compliment,” she said, “since you’ve been probably subsisting on plain rabbit, fish and roots.”

“It’s good, damn it. And don’t angle for compliments. You’re better than that.”

She never wanted to be the kind of person who begged for approval. But she hated to think that his first bite of food not cooked by his own hands would be barely palatable. Up until today, she hadn’t tried making pies—only the stews and curries her mother had taught her. But a curry didn’t travel well over the moors.

She bit into her own pie. And was pleasantly surprised to find it rather tasty, if a little over-salted.

“See?” he asked, watching her face. “No need for false modesty.” Three more bites, and he finished his pie.

It was impossible that he could be sated. But before she could break the remainder of her pastry in half, his hands closed into fists.

“I’ll ruddy leave if you try to give me that,” he growled.

“You can’t have had enough—”

“The day I take food away from a woman is the day I throw myself into a vat of molten steel.”

She glanced around. “I don’t see any vats of molten steel nearby, so you can’t refuse.”

“I can and I do. Don’t press me, Kali,” he rumbled when she started to object.

“Bloody obstinate man.” But seeing that he wouldn’t be moved, she finished the rest of her pie.

He reared back when she stretched a hand toward his face. Like a wolf unused to touch.

“You’ve got crumbs in your beard.” Slowly, she reached for him again.

He looked at her hand, then at her. And held himself still.

She brushed the crumbs away. Her movements were halfway between caution—afraid he might snarl or bolt at her touch—and pleasure. As she tidied his beard, her fingers grazed his lips. They were soft and firm, and his breath was warm against her skin.

The urge to trace his lips with her fingertips surged through her. She wanted to glide her finger into his mouth, then put that same finger into her own mouth so she might taste him.

Instead, she snatched her hand away. Curled it up and pressed it tight to her thigh. Why hadn’t she just told him about the crumbs and let him take care of them, instead of acting like a woman eager for an excuse to touch him?

Because that’s exactly what you are.

At least he looked as befuddled as she felt.

“I think we’re supposed to talk about the scenery, now,” she said.

He blinked. “Not much to say about moors,” he finally said. “Empty stretches of land. A few bits of scrub. That’s it.”

Her school years had been spent studying the mechanical world, not the natural one, so she had no interesting facts about moorlands. “It’s pretty, don’t you think?”

“Pretty? Hadn’t thought about it.”

Something about the way he spoke, a slight edge in his tone, told another story. “No denials. I can hear it in your voice.”

He frowned. “Man O’ Wars and sea captains don’t think about whether a place is
pretty
or not.”

“But
you
have.”

He swore, then exhaled. “Fine. Yes. I think it’s pretty.”

“Why?”

Another florid curse from him, then, “Hell, woman. You’re trying to spin my head like a globe.”

She didn’t understand the reason she needed to know why he thought the moors were pretty. Only that she did. That she wanted inside his mind, his thoughts. That itself shook her. She’d tried to fashion a haven for herself, a place where she could exist in cold nothingness, like an automaton. Yet the more time she spent with Fletcher, the more she became aware of things like movement and thought and the feel of brisk island air against her face. Things an automaton would never want or know.

He raked his hands through his hair, and it stood up in tufts that ought to be ridiculous, but instead made him appear piratical. Wild.

“Because,” he finally said through clenched teeth, “it looks like the sea. Like someone had turned the sea into land. The hills are the waves and the gorse is the foam on the waves.” He glared at her. “That damn well better satisfy you, because I won’t say another bloody word.”

Appreciation for natural beauty didn’t seem to be cultivated in the navy. Neither were poetic notions. But his spare, resentfully-given thoughts still touched her. Buried beneath layers of gruffness and strength, he did have a bit of a poet in him. And that pleased her.

“We’ll make a picnicker out of you, yet,” she said with a smile.

Apparently, the idea wasn’t entirely unpleasant—he grumbled at her words, but she caught the flash of his own smile. At that same moment, the haze in the sky broke apart, and golden sunlight flooded the moor.

“Now you can’t begrudge me thinking
that
is beautiful,” she said.

“Aye, it is,” he rumbled, looking at her. “Beautiful, indeed.”

T
he days fell into a pattern. She worked until noon, then walked to the pond, where she’d find Fletcher. Sometimes he’d be fishing. Other times, he’d be whittling. And sometimes he did nothing, only seemed to be waiting for her. He didn’t always smile when she appeared, but his shoulders straightened and he stood taller. Her heart would kick every time she saw him, no matter how much she’d come to expect to find him there.

Neither of them had said anything specific. They’d made no plans after parting ways on the day of their shooting practice and picnic. But from that day forward, they met at the same place, at the same time.

Anticipation would build from the moment she woke, and there were times when she discovered herself simply staring out into nothingness instead of working on her latest designs, or checking her timepiece to see if it was noon yet. The hands on the clock moved with glacial sluggishness those days, and she could’ve sworn there were times the hands actually moved backwards. She’d even disassembled the timepiece to make certain it worked properly. It did. But time moved slower and slower each morning.

They never wasted time on meaningless pleasantries or inane conversation. No inquiries into each other’s evening—though she did wonder what he did at night, all alone in that airship—or breakfast, or discussions of the weather. They’d nod at each other and then, in silent agreement, walk. The destination wasn’t planned. Wherever their legs took them, they’d wander.

Together, they explored the island. Its eastern coast, with its two-hundred foot bluffs that sank into the sea. The moors of the north, and the small wooded areas at its fringe. Fletcher showed her the graves he had dug for his crewmen, the rough wooden crosses marking their resting places and their names carved into the wood. He must’ve used the ship’s register, because the crosses bore the fallen men’s full names, dates of birth, and death. One of the dead had been only seventeen. She’d placed wildflowers on their graves—she hadn’t been able to bring herself to do the same at the mass graves in Liverpool, and flowers had been in short supply—so she honored the fallen now.

He’d watched her do this, his expression stony. But he’d nodded in approval, and they’d moved on.

They traversed the whole of the island together. Sometimes in silence, sometimes talking. Pointing out birds or animals or plants. Or even discussing their lives before they’d come to Eilean Comhachag.

He asked of her life in India and why she’d moved so far away, all the way to chilly Liverpool. She hadn’t wanted to leave Nagpur, but in some ways, India hadn’t embraced modernity. Work for female engineers was scarce, and those positions that were available offered no room for advancement. She’d had to make a choice: her family, or the chance to truly make developments in technology.

“Still hurts,” she said on one of their rambles. “Sometimes, my leg pains me, even though it’s not there anymore. It’s the same with my parents. It’s an ache in me, their absence.”

“Yet you left them. Left your home.”

“Because I knew I had more to offer the world than acting as some engineer’s glorified amanuensis.”

“Not everyone’s got such a sense of purpose,” he said admiringly. “Most people are full of fear.”

She snorted. “Oh, I was afraid. Terrified. Booked my ticket to sail from Bombay. Three times I changed the date of my departure. I kept finding excuses not to go. I needed to stay for a cousin’s wedding. Maa’ wasn’t feeling well and I ought to help around the house while she got better—never mind that we had servants who loved her and would do anything to help her. I was a hairsbreadth away from consulting an astrologer who could tell me not to leave. All the while, I hated the work I was doing for a civil engineering firm, if you could call fetching tiffins and tea
work.
”

“The fact that we’re here now means you did leave,” he pointed out.

“My father.” She smiled at the memory. “He took me aside and said,
I love you, my dear, but if you don’t get your arse out of Nagpur and show the world what you can do, you’ll taste regret for the rest of your life. And it’s a bitter flavor.
”

“Wise man, your father,” Fletcher murmured, pushing aside a patch of overgrown gorse so she could pass through.

She emerged on the other side of the shrub, and they continued on their walk toward a stream. “Usually. But this is also the man who tried to invent a device that sounded an alarm whenever a baby’s nappy needed changing.”