Hot and Steamy (29 page)

“He is my husband.” She curtsied and walked away, regal and unaware of the eyes following her.

Somerset started to follow but a hand pressed into his chest, holding him back.

“You are impertinent, sir,” said a mustachioed colonel. “Lady Kendall is not available for your trifling.”

“This is none of your business.”

“It is, sir. I am devoted to Lord Kendall. Without his scientific acumen, we would have fallen to the damned aliens.”

“Germs did them in,” Somerset said, distracted. He watched as Mathilda reached out to put her hand on Charles Kendall's shoulder. The man maneuvered his wheelchair and surged away, leaving her forlorn to simply stare after him. How he ignored her! How he mistreated her! And how could they possibly be married if the nuptials were not properly consummated?

“Lord Kendall turned their own devices against them and saved my entire regiment from destruction before they succumbed to God's will.”

Somerset felt a sting of conscience. He should have returned to defend his country, in spite of the mechanical problems he had experienced. If only he had quit Allan's expedition sooner! Let him hunt for his chimera on his own. Somerset had doubts King Solomon's mines would ever be discovered, let alone by Allan.

“What can you tell me of Lady Kendall?”

“That you should not distress her—nor speak to her again. Do so at your own risk.” The colonel puffed up his chest to show the Victoria Cross testifying to his bravery.

“I have no quarrel with you, Colonel,” Somerset said.

“Think twice about attempting anything foolish. Lord Kendall has installed devices both new and diabolical derived from those bloody foreigners' technology on the grounds of this estate. No place in all of England is better defended against intruders.”

“He has a precious jewel to guard,” Somerset said, watching as Mathilda disappeared, dejectedly trailing after her husband.

The colonel harumphed, made a point of pushing past Somerset, and then went to a cluster of other military officers. All glared at Somerset, but he was oblivious. The more he learned of the lovely woman, the more he felt for her. What life could she possibly have being sequestered behind a defensive ring of weaponry with a husband who ignored her and could not possibly tend to her womanly appetites?

He wended his way through the dancers as they began a new step, one of which Somerset was unfamiliar. It would not have been good to attempt dancing with Mathilda to this tune since he would have stepped on her dainty slippers. He stopped at the narrow corridor leading away from the ballroom. Servants glided here and there with silent efficiency, bringing trays of food from the kitchen to replenish that devoured by the hungry horde of revelers. Somerset stopped one, who looked at him with dull eyes.

“Lady Kendall, where did she go?”

The servant silently pointed to a door set flush with the wall. Somerset might otherwise have missed it in his hurry to once more speak with the object of his amorous interest.

“Thank you,” he said, but the servant had already turned and stalked away, his gait slightly askew. Somerset wondered if Lord Kendall hired veterans and this was a war injury. He pushed the notion aside as he pressed his fingers against the indicated door and slid it open. Quickly entering the dim corridor beyond, he found a ramp leading into the bowels of the mansion. Tiny rubber marks showed where Lord Kendall had taken turns in the ramp too fast as he descended.

He envisioned Mathilda dutifully following, a few steps behind as if she were some sort of Indian servant. Quick strides brought Somerset to the base of the ramp twenty feet underground. The sound of the orchestra above was drowned out by moans of pleasure from ahead that gave Somerset pause. He knew, as a gentleman and scholar of natural science, that he ought to retreat. The passion he overheard could be only the result of a husband with his wife.

But how? Charles Kendall was confined to a wheelchair that seemed propelled by some mysterious source, perhaps a small steam engine or more likely a new type of battery.

Hating himself, Somerset sidled forward to peer around a doorjamb into a spacious, well-lit laboratory. His eyes went wide at the sight of a comely maid, her skirts hiked high to reveal naked thighs. She perched on the edge of a black-topped laboratory table, propped up on her hands and her feet on the edge of the table. Her face was a mask of stark pleasure. Charles Kendall's head was thrust between her spread legs.

Somerset's hands balled into fists. Lord Kendall was a philanderer, having his way with the hired help while ignoring his own wife.

The thought of Mathilda struck him like a hammer blow. He stepped back, his heart threatening to explode in his chest. Pressing against the wall, he struggled with the moral dilemma of informing her. He had only seen her for the first time that evening and yet it had been love at first sight. Somerset had never experienced such a powerful feeling before, yet recognized it for what it was. He would lay down his life for Mathilda.

He started back into the laboratory where the maid was giving voice to even more intense passions, all generated by the man in the wheelchair.

Somerset stopped when movement seen out of the corner of his eye froze him. Coming down the corridor, a tiny smile curving her bow-lips, was the object of his infatuation.

Not infatuation, love!

He motioned her away, not sure what to do. She came on, her steps short and precise, unhurried, inexorable.

“Please, no!” He dared not call out loudly, but his words carried.

“I am glad to see you once more, David.”

He stepped to block her view of her husband and the maid. Whether through tardiness or some unconscious desire, he failed. Mathilda looked past him to the amorous scene inside the laboratory. Somerset grabbed her shoulders and propelled her away.

“I cannot believe he treats you in such a scandalous fashion,” he said, emotion causing his voice to crack. “Let me take you away from this, my darling Mathilda. I know it is sudden, but my feelings for you are true. Tell me you share my affection. Say you do!”

“I do,” Mathilda said softly. Her eyes remained dry, but she did not look away from where Lord Kendall and the maid continued to wrestle about in their ardor.

“He is a cad. You must admit it. You see how he . . .” Somerset could not continue to torment the lovely woman. The evidence of her husband's faithlessness was manifest.

“I see. She is new. Not like the one before.”

“Before?”

“He seeks to replace me. I do not want that.”

Somerset impulsively grabbed her hand and pulled. Her flesh was cool and for a moment she was nonresponsive. Then she allowed him to tug her along the corridor, away from the laboratory where the maid cried out in one last convulsive spasm of pleasure. Immediately thereafter came curious sounds that drew Somerset back.

“No, don't,” warned Mathilda. “He is chaining her down.”

“What!” Somerset could not believe his ears. “The bastard!” He stared hard at Mathilda in disbelief. “Has he done this to you?”

“He has only chained me to his work table. Never has he done all else he has to Yvette.”

“Yvette is the maid?”

Mathilda nodded slowly. This decided Somerset. He had felt pangs of guilt stealing away the wife of another man, subverting her affection for her husband, but no more.

“Come with me. My zeppelin is not far away, at the corner of the estate. We can leave, go away, fly to the other side of the world where no one can ever find us. We can go to Australia and find a lawyer to file for a divorce.”

“Your zeppelin is on the grounds? Oh, no.” Mathilda put one slender-fingered hand over her mouth in horror.

“The
Good Queen Vickie
is a staunch airship. He will not be able to stop us once we launch.”

“The grounds are outfitted with diabolical weapons Charles invented. For the crown, of course, but he tests them here.”

“I've flown through aerial barrage and even fought off air pirates along the Moroccan coast. My zeppelin is an aerial dreadnought. Do not fear on this score.”

“His weapons are advanced. Charles is so very clever with his mechanisms and rays.” Mathilda looked back over her shoulder when they reached the foot of the ramp leading up to the ballroom. “Yvette . . .”

“She must endure his perfidy, just as you have. It is vital to escape him. He is a madman! How dare he insult and humiliate a woman such as you?”

“I was here first,” Mathilda said. “He has no right to replace me with . . . with her.”

Somerset tugged harder and got the woman walking at her steady, imperturbable pace. She would not be rushed. They reached the top of the ramp, and then retraced their way to the ballroom. Many of the guests had already departed, but not the colonel who had accosted Somerset earlier. The officer spotted the pair and immediately made his way through the remaining dancers, a stormcloud of anger turning his face florid.

“How do we get to the south lawn?” he asked. “I would avoid that gentleman.”

“Colonel Sanderson? He is Charles' friend and often tests the weapons invented below.” Mathilda turned back in the direction of the doorway leading to the underground laboratory.

Somerset interposed himself between her and the hurrying Colonel Sanderson, then used his full weight to move Mathilda away. The shock of what she had seen slowed her. He had to admire her courage to this point, seeing her husband's infidelity and accepting a stranger's succor.

If only she would accept his love. From the way she looked at him, he thought it would not be long before her passion matched his own.

“There,” she said. “We can go out onto the veranda, around the grounds and find where your airship is grounded.”

“I say, stop there. Stop, you blighter! Unhand Lady Kendall!”

The colonel ran now, his highly polished knee-high boots reflecting light. The click-click of his heels drew near as Somerset herded Mathilda ahead of him through the French doors onto the quiet veranda. Barely had they stepped outside when the officer overtook them.

“Unhand her, you bloody git,” he exclaimed.

Somerset turned, took in the situation instantly, and acted. The colonel reached for his ceremonial sword but drew it only a few inches, stopped by a sharp, hard right uppercut to the chin. His eyes rolled up in his head and he fell backward, at attention, his hand still gripping the hilt of his dress sword.

“This way,” Mathilda said, slipping lithely over the low stone railing to the ground. She began walking in her unswerving fashion. “I hear it.”

Somerset strained but could hear nothing but the music from inside. Some gay laughter echoed out, but less now than before. When the colonel was discovered or came to from his thrashing, all hell would be out for lunch.

He hurried to catch up with Mathilda. The wind blowing across the damp lawn was chilly, but when he put his arm around her shoulders to hold her close and keep her warm, he found her delightfully unaffected by the wet breeze. As they rounded the corner of the mansion, he heard the low hum of the idling engines aboard his airship. Along with the low hum he heard a louder clanking.

“Here, climb aboard,” he urged, handing her up into the gondola to his pilot, Zellick. When she stepped onto the folding stairs, the zeppelin tilted slightly under her added weight. Somerset wasted no time following her. He kicked away the steps, not wanting to take the time to pull them inside.

“We goin' for a midnight ride, Skipper?”

“Mr. Zellick, prepare to launch immediately.” His pilot caught the tension in his voice.

“Might be a problem,” came the warning from the back of the gondola.

“What is it, Cochran?” he asked querulously. Somerset wanted to get aloft quickly. He saw strange black mounds at the corners of the mansion he could not explain. On the lawn itself were other devices, with protuberances that might be barrels. It never paid to jump to conclusions, but both the colonel and Mathilda had said Lord Kendall used the grounds as a test range. Escaping from air pirates or even the small arms fire from the ground in Africa had turned him wary. The hydrogen in the bags was not easily set afire thanks to special baffles he had installed. A bullet would cause leakage but not necessarily an explosion.

But a tracer round? The
Good Queen Vickie
would explode like the sun coming up over the Sahara. One instant it would be dark, the next there would be dazzling brightness.

“His name's Corrigan,” the pilot said. Then he frowned. “Or might be Cadigan. He never gives me the same name twice.”

“He just came aboard a few days back,” Somerset quickly explained to Mathilda, who stood looking at the engineer curiously.

“He is missing an eye,” she said.

“But he is a wizard with the electromagnets,” Max Zellick said.

“I know electricity,” the engineer said, adjusting his eyepatch and studying Mathilda closely to the point that Somerset considered tossing the man overboard, expert engineer or not. “And I know mechanical things. We got problems with the reduction gears. Stripped off a few cogs along the way.”

“We can repair later,” Somerset said. “Launch now.”

“You aren't hearing me,” Corrigan called out, over the revving engines. “We try to launch and the gears will end up curls of brass.”

“It doesn't matter,” Somerset said. “Now, launch now!” The colonel had been discovered and brought back to his senses. His bull-throated roar assembled lesser officers and brought them racing toward the zeppelin.

“David, look. We must avoid those,” Mathilda said, pointing. The dark lumps mounted on the corners of the mansion were not gargoyle decorations—he had not dared hope that was all they would be. Cannons with curious twisting barrels were revealed.“Never seen the like,” Zellick said, “but I don't think they mean anything but harm to us.” He continued to apply power to the engines. The motors hummed, but the grinding of gears grew louder.