Fire & Frost (22 page)

One thing was certain, however: jumping wasn’t an option this time. The fall would kill her. And even if she used one of the emergency gliders stored near the lifeboats, the zombies would kill her shortly after she landed.

If Caius meant to hand her over to her father, she would have to let him do it—then escape as soon as she could. Until then, she would ally herself with Caius, and prepare to run again at the first opportunity.

God. She was so tired of running. Just the thought suddenly exhausted her, and a heavy ache settled in her chest when she imagined Caius betraying her after promising to help.

Could she trust him? She shouldn’t.

But she desperately wanted to. Probably because he was her only hope of escaping her father.

No other reason.

SHE HADN’T BELIEVED HIM. CAIUS hadn’t expected her to. But his throat was tight and his heart pounding as he watched her struggle with his declaration.

Because I love you.

Emotions chased wildly across her face. Her expressive features were an open plain, concealing nothing—and after years of trying not to see her, he didn’t want to look away.

Finally she tore her gaze from his. Doubt settled into her furrowed brow and wariness haunted the shadows in her eyes. Still uncertain of his motives and afraid he would hurt her.

As he had so many times before.

After entering her father’s service, every time he’d returned to the sanctuary he prayed she would be there—and he prayed she wouldn’t be. Her face had been as transparent then, sweet and earnest, but he’d never trusted what he’d seen. He’d never let himself trust it.

In turn, Caius had hidden everything he’d felt for her. Elizabeth was the woman he’d wanted from the day he’d first understood what wanting was. Not just arousal or an erect prick. It was needing not just anyone, but
someone
.

But he couldn’t have her.

The law would have allowed it. He’d been in service to her father, but an employer couldn’t prevent his indentured servants from marrying or living as they chose, as long as they fulfilled their duties. Indentured servants weren’t owned; they weren’t slaves. But with a shackle around his wrist that would poison him if he didn’t return to her father at regular intervals to have the clockwork counter rewound, Caius hadn’t seen the difference. He hadn’t been his own man—and until he was, Caius couldn’t call a woman his.

And the woman he wanted had been right in front of him.

So her sweetness had angered him, because he wanted to hate her, wanted her to be shallow and cruel and use her status as a weapon. Every breath she took angered him, a breath he wanted to feel on his skin and never would. Her attempts to flirt angered him, because he wanted everything her smiles promised.

But Caius hadn’t understood any of that then. At the time, he’d only been angry with her—and angry with himself for wanting her even though anything between them was impossible. She’d had to know it was impossible, too. She was beautiful and wealthy, and he was bound to serve her father for thirty years. So he’d told himself that she was playing with him.

When she’d run away, Caius had been glad of it, because he thought she’d finally demonstrated that she was everything he’d told himself she was. A flighty, capricious, stupid girl, running into danger when she had love and security at home. He’d thought she was a fool for tossing it all away. For so long, he’d tried to make himself believe she was spoiled and selfish, and she’d suddenly proved him right.

Five years ago, his anger—and his shame that he’d ever wanted her—fueled his chase. He’d been determined to take her back to the sanctuary and wipe his heart clean of her.

But it hadn’t been so easy. Tracking her meant seeing the places she lived and speaking with the people who’d known her. None of them described her as thoughtless or capricious or haughty, but friendly and quiet and sad. Just as she’d often been in the sanctuary.

Just as he’d told himself she couldn’t truly be.

By the end, it hadn’t been anger fueling his chase, but a desperate need to see her again. Yet he’d still tried to hold on to reasons to think less of her. So when she confessed the story behind her conception and birth—and that she wasn’t truly her mother’s daughter, but her mother’s duplicate—he’d told himself that she lied. He’d thought it was a clever story, based on just enough truth to be plausible. Caius had known of her father’s machine. He’d seen tintype photographs and painted portraits of her mother. Aside from small differences in their hairstyles and weight, she and Elizabeth looked exactly alike. But he’d already made up his mind about her, and so he’d believed her tale was a ruse to persuade him to let her go.

And it had been too difficult to believe her father would make Elizabeth take her mother’s place, to step into her mother’s role as his wife. Willem Jannsen loved his daughter. Caius had seen evidence of that so many times—and he’d seen the man’s heartbreak when Elizabeth had fled. So it had been easier for Caius to believe that she would discard that love and impugn her father’s name during her silly flight around the world.

He’d
wanted
to believe it.

But after he’d caught up to her, her panic and desperation had been real. So Caius had spent the last half of the journey talking to her, using every word to remind himself why he had to take her back to her life of ease and luxury.

Never for one moment had he believed that she’d toss herself off the side of a mountain—and that leap had destroyed him.

He’d driven the woman he loved to her death.

The wall of anger he’d put up around his heart had shattered when she’d jumped. Nothing protected him after that. For days he’d searched for her body, a broken man. But losing her hadn’t been the only devastating blow. When he’d returned to the sanctuary to report her death to her father, Caius had learned everything she’d told him was true.

No pain could compare to watching her jump. But realizing how determinedly he’d clung to his illusions about her had wrecked him again.

Even now, with Elizabeth standing beside him and his hand holding hers, he was still wrecked. Two years of agony had receded in the joy of seeing her alive, but her jump had torn a jagged wound through his heart that he didn’t think would ever heal.

He’d been such a fool. From the day they’d met, he’d systematically destroyed every opportunity to win her trust, her friendship…her heart. Two years before, he’d had a chance to help her. Instead he’d tossed away everything he knew about her, and had chosen to chase after the woman he’d wanted to believe she was.

After she’d jumped, he’d tried to make amends. Not to Elizabeth. That would have been impossible. But he’d given a toddling young girl the help that he’d never given Elizabeth, and he’d fallen in love all over again.

Now he had a chance to make amends to Elizabeth. Not to earn her forgiveness, and with no expectation of love; Caius knew he was too late for that. But he could help her now—and make certain she remained free.

He watched her search through the storm behind them. By the clench of her fingers, he knew when she spotted the
Mary Elizabeth
’s lanterns again. She glanced up at Caius and tugged him closer.

His body stiffened as he bent his head toward her. She couldn’t know the exquisite torture of her heated breath against his ear, the lavender scent of her hair.

She raised her voice over the noise from the engine and propellers. “How long until my father’s airship has caught up to us?”

Caius could have answered her by raising a few fingers to indicate the hours left, but he turned his mouth toward her to speak. A knitted cap covered the shell of her ear. Dark curls nested in the hollow between the curve of her jaw and her blue scarf, dotted by tiny drops from melted snowflakes that sparkled in the lantern light. God, he wanted to kiss those glittering beads away, taste her coppery skin.

With need curling a tight fist in his gut, he told her, “Two or three hours.”

She drew back to look up at him, as if seeking confirmation. When he nodded, she cast her worried gaze into the falling snow and the darkness beyond. Then determination flattened her lips, her brows drew together, and suddenly she was pulling him away from the airship’s stern toward the ladder leading below. She let go of his hand in the companionway. Reluctantly, Caius released his hold on her. He didn’t fear now that she would jump—her posture and expression told him that she was prepared to fight rather than run—but the longing ache in his chest was a continual reminder of how few of these small touches he would have. Whatever occurred with her father would probably happen tonight. Afterward he and Elizabeth would continue on to the Ivory Market, but on that journey Caius would have no more excuses to hold her hand, to lean close as he spoke.

He would be fortunate if she spoke to him at all.

So he glutted himself on the sight of her, trying to memorize every detail as he followed her down the dim passageway to her cabin. At the threshold, he hesitated. He’d pushed his way in earlier to stop her from running before he could tell her of his intention to help. He wouldn’t usually enter a woman’s bedchamber uninvited.

It was a rare occasion when he entered a woman’s bedchamber at all. Aside from Elizabeth’s, he hadn’t been in one for seven or eight years. And before that, a few taverns and alleys, with the image of her face burning on the backs of his eyelids whenever he closed his eyes.

Frowning, she glanced back and gestured him inside. Intended for a single passenger, the layout of her narrow cabin mirrored his. Darkness filled the porthole opposite the door. A wardrobe cabinet had been built into the corner at the foot of the narrow bed. Warm yellow light shone from a gas lamp atop a small vanity.

Her cabin was as empty as Caius’s was. Even to go up on deck, Elizabeth hadn’t left any of her belongings behind. Though her ever-present satchel had been slung over the bed when he’d forced his way in earlier, now it hung across her chest again.

Caius passed her at the door and crossed to the porthole in three strides. Not a thing to be seen outside. He removed his hat before facing her. His long coat was stifling in the warm cabin but he didn’t unbuckle it. He wasn’t here to make himself at home.

Elizabeth swung the door closed. Tugging her scarf from her neck, she eyed him warily. “I can’t trust you.”

Though Caius already knew she didn’t, hearing her say it was an unexpected punch to his stomach, leaving him sick and shaken. But he didn’t react; he only nodded.

Because he knew she had little choice except to trust him now—at least for a little while. Elizabeth knew it, too. She dragged off her cap and tossed it onto the bed, her eyes haunted. “So what do we do now?”

“You don’t have to do anything. You’ll go to dinner and return here to sleep. If they come aboard, I’ll stop them—and by morning you’ll be free.”

“That simple?”

“Yes.”

Unease slipped across her expression, her teeth briefly catching her lower lip before she asked, “How will you stop them?”

By killing them—or getting near enough to it that they wouldn’t pursue her or Caius’s daughter again. But he said, “I’ll have the advantage of surprise. They don’t know I’m here and an injury that incapacitates their legs or arms will force them to retreat. After you’ve reached the Ivory Market, they won’t find you again.”

“And you think
that
will be simple?” Sudden, wry humor lifted her dark brows. “I should have lain in wait five years ago and maimed you.”

That wouldn’t have stopped him. And even if it had, she wouldn’t have been safe. “Your father would have just sent someone else.”

“But he wouldn’t now?” Realization darkened her eyes. “You don’t really mean to injure them.”

Caius didn’t answer. Uncertainty tore across her features. She looked away from him, shaking her head.

“I don’t want anyone to die.”

Neither did he. But he wasn’t just doing this for her. As long as Willem Jannsen lived, neither Elizabeth nor his daughter would be free.

“That will be up to your father,” Caius said.

Still shaking her head, she sank onto the edge of the bed and rubbed her arms through the sleeves of her coat as if cold.

Or as if afraid. Maybe of him. Many people were. They didn’t meet his eyes in the street and went out of their way to avoid crossing his path. He couldn’t remember when the change had come—whether it had been while he was an apprentice or after he’d become a huntsman. He couldn’t recall any change in himself. One day he’d just realized that no one looked at him as they once had.

Except for Elizabeth. The way she’d looked at him had never changed. Always hopeful and earnest when she first saw him. And always hurt by the time he left her.

It had been the same when he’d caught her two years before. Earnest and hopeful the first week on the airship. Then devastated by the end.

Now she looked troubled and defeated, her voice dull. “How did he find me?”

“By chance.” Her father hadn’t been looking for her; everyone had believed her dead. “He was pursuing me through Norway when he met with an acquaintance of your mother’s, who mentioned that she’d seen a woman who could have been your mother’s twin coming out of a boarding house in Brighton.”

And when Jannsen had abruptly abandoned his pursuit in Norway, Caius had backtracked the man’s path to discover why. The same fear that led people to cross the street to avoid him had helped Caius quickly extract the information from the woman. Within the hour, he’d hired an airship to Brighton.

Elizabeth closed her eyes. After a long second she glanced up at him. “My father was pursuing you? He hadn’t sent Amelia and Matthias?”

“No.”

Confusion creased her brow. “Why? Even if you’re a fugitive…why would he come after you himself?”

“Because you jumped, and I would sacrifice anything to make sure it never happened to anyone else,” Caius said bluntly. “So I destroyed his machine.”

Though that wasn’t the only reason her father pursued him. But Caius didn’t know how Elizabeth would react to the news that her father had created another duplicate—or that Caius had abducted a child that wasn’t his.