Miss Minnie and the Brass Pluggit (18 page)

Dusk gave a short bark of laughter. “Goodness. Outspoken, is she? I’d never have guessed.”

“Go ahead and laugh, but I worry that she’ll let her quick mouth say something out of turn and make these people angry, Dusk.”

He hugged her. “We can’t control what she says or what she does, my dear. We can only do what we can to get her back.”

“I know.” Felicia buried her face in his chest for a few moments, nuzzling into him like a lost kitten. “I’m sorry. I’m trying to be strong, but I’m screaming inside.”

He held her tightly, a feeling of possessiveness sweeping from his head to his toes. He wanted to hold her like this forever. He wanted to protect her, to keep her safe, to tuck her away where only he could see her and touch her.

“Ahh, Felicia.” He stroked his hand up and down her spine, offering what comfort he could.

“Dusk?” She wriggled and slipped her arms around his body beneath his jacket.

“Yes?”

“I’m a fool.”

“You are?”

“Yes.” She snuffled against him, closing her eyes and resting her head comfortably on his breastbone. “I can hear your heart.”

“Ah.” He paused. “That doesn’t make you a fool.”

“I know.” She squeezed him. “What makes me a fool is that I’ve held back from believing either of us had one.”

“One what?”

“A heart.”

“Oh.” He frowned. He was getting muddled. “Can you clarify that for me?”

“Probably not, since I’m not sure it makes sense to me either. But what I’m trying to say is that being here with you, like this, well…I’m happier now than I thought I’d ever be again. I never imagined I’d find warmth and such pleasure in a man’s arms. That’s why I’m a fool. And if it wasn’t for Minnie being lost…”

Dusk tightened his grip in turn. “Felicia, you know I have feelings for you. Strong ones. And you know I’m scarred. But you also know I don’t have to hide who I am when I’m with you. At first it was because I knew you couldn’t see me clearly. That you wouldn’t get that horrified look on your face when you saw mine.”

“Oh, Dusk…” She reached for him.

“Wait, let me finish.” He stayed her hand. “I quickly found out that I had feelings for you that were nothing to do with what you could or couldn’t see. They leapt to attention when you walked into the room. I want to talk to you, to hold you, to touch you and I found out that kissing you is exquisite torture.”

“It is?”

“Yes.” He sighed. “Do you know you make a slight noise in your throat when I kiss you?”

“I do?”

“You do. It drives me mad. I want to hear it again and again.”

“I have wants too. Wants I pushed away. Far away. And I’ve learned that no matter how far you push them away, meeting the right man lets them all rush right back.” She stroked her palms up and down his back. “And you’re the right man, Dusk. You treated me like a woman first and a cripple second. You didn’t cater to my lack of sight or anything like that. You simply accepted me for what I am. Both you and Pierce.”

“Of course.”

“And now here we are, both ready to help, and I get to do my part. You can’t even begin to imagine what that means—that you’ll let me share, contribute what I can.”

He rested his chin on her head and smiled again at how perfectly they fit. Her slow stroke of his spine was doing things to his loins. Nice things that he’d like to pursue, but regretfully now wasn’t the time.

“Felicia. Ah, Felicia.” He sighed. “I want you. I want you in my bed. I want to make love with you, share it all, hold nothing back. I want my mouth all over you and your hands all over me. There. I’ve said it. I’m half-mad from wanting you and perhaps, just maybe, there’s something inside you wanting me back?”

She stilled in his embrace for a few long moments and then pulled her arms away from him, leaving him panicked as he lowered his gaze and tried to read her expression.

Then a strange little smile curved her lips and she put her hands back against his chest. “You know something, Dusk?”

“What?” His heart was almost leaping from his rib cage.

“I’m thinking…” Her hands began to slide down, down, until they reached his waist. And then they went lower. “I’m thinking I’d like to make love with you too.” She caressed the front of his trousers where he could feel himself growing hard, lengthening, pressing out and away from his body as she stroked.

“Ahh.” It was more of a groan than he’d intended, but what was a man to do when a lovely woman was fondling him through his trousers?

“I’d like to be naked with you. I know you won’t worry that I’m not a young and beautiful woman anymore. I know that we’re both experienced. That we’ve had others beneath us in bed. And that knowledge, those experiences? We will use all of them and maybe invent some of our own.”

Dusk cleared his throat of the lump of lust that had suddenly materialized there and almost choked him. “Yes. I’m certainly in favor of that idea.” He was hard, solid and eager for more than just a touch.

“But not now.” She regretfully let him go with a little pat.

He bit back a sob and manfully squared his shoulders. “No, not now. But later tonight. If Pierce can get Minnie home safe and we can end this thing, then tonight. You and me. Together.” He slipped his hands down her back and firmly grasped her bottom. “Naked.”

Her groan of pleasure was answer enough.

And then the telegraph chattered out Pierce’s signal. It was time to get to work and rescue Miss Minnie.

Minnie managed to keep her emotions in check during the trip from Yarmouth to the Godolphin caves, even though the old sailor indeed carried a gun. It hadn’t made it any easier when the three other men on the boat produced their own weapons as soon as they cleared the harbor. For one of the few times in her life, Minnie realized she was so scared her hands were trembling.

They could have been from India or any one of the surrounding countries. They certainly weren’t English and she couldn’t understand their language at all.

Not that she needed to. Apparently they were from a culture where women were slightly above dogs in the overall scheme of things, and not by much. A grunt and a shove pushed the women to a bench. A threatening motion with a rifle kept them there.

Damp from the rain, which had set in soon after they boarded, and irritated at her stupidity, Minnie seethed quietly. She took a look at her companions, wondering if any of them might be as furious as she was.

Sadly, they looked bedraggled and bored. One was clearly more nervous than the others, but once away from the crowds of Yarmouth, they left off any pretense of being other than what they were.

Sideways glances were being cast at the crew of the boat, measuring, calculating…Minnie sighed. These women had been working for longer than she could imagine. They weren’t ingénues, or recent recruits.

They knew their way around a bedchamber.

Minnie didn’t pity them or despise them. She felt little other than a need to make sure they stayed on British soil and didn’t end up in a foreign brothel. Would it be worse? She had no idea, but every instinct she possessed screamed
yes
.

She turned her head and casually spoke in a low tone to the woman next to her, who looked to be the oldest of the three. “My name’s Minnie. What’s yours?”

Tired blue eyes met hers then skittered away. “Dorothy.”

“I don’t like this, Dorothy. I’m going to see if we can get out of it.”

Dorothy snorted and quickly turned it into a cough when a dark sailor glanced her way. Then he returned to his job, which seemed to entail coiling a large amount of rope for no useful purpose Minnie could discern.

“Can’t get out of it. Bought and paid for, we are. Going someplace on the coast. Good money though.” Dorothy gripped her purse tighter as she whispered out of the side of her mouth. “Got fifteen pounds for coming down here. Gonna get more soon.”

“Ah.” Minnie absorbed the information. The girls didn’t know they were leaving England, which might make things easier. She wasn’t getting any feelings from them about their situation other than it was more money.

She shrugged to herself and turned away. There was nothing to be done at this point and since in all likelihood their next destination would be the caves, she’d just have to wait until they got there to evaluate matters any further.

She closed her eyes, tried to ignore the damp creeping down her spine and thought of the one person who could make her smile right now.

Pierce
.

She could imagine him flying around the Brass Pluggit, maybe in his laboratory trying to see if the little whatchamacallit was working. She slipped her hands around her bag and held tight, hoping it was. Hoping he could see where she was.

Hoping he might be able to come up with something creative, some way of rescuing her. And the other women too.

Hope
. Right now it was pretty much all she had.

Chapter Twelve

Taking a deep breath, Pierce turned on all the lights in the cave and walked to the end where his secret project was rocking quietly beneath a sheet of dark canvas. Whipping that off, he carefully stepped over the gunwale onto the sliver of deck. From there he easily opened the door and walked inside, closing it tightly behind him.

There seemed to be ten times as many settings, knobs and levers inside the Black Fish as there had been when Pierce built her.

And he felt like he had ten thumbs to deal with all of them.

As familiar with the interior as he was with his own hand, Pierce stepped down and sat in the pilot’s seat. Taking a nervous gulp of air, he inserted the key and turned while pressing a small button.

There was a growl, a pop and then a choking rumble, which soon smoothed out into a soft purr.

The Black Fish was ready to swim.

The ports which sucked in salt water were opening and closing and the steam engine beneath his feet hummed as gears engaged, pistons moved slowly and then with greater speed.

She was almost alive, this strange ship with her sealed hull. Her name was Black Fish and, from a distance, she could have been one.

There was nothing above water that wasn’t black or matte. The glass that encased the forward area was not polished to a high shine, nor was it framed by gleaming brass. No, this area was dull, barely transparent from the outside and not much better from the inside. The panes were set into muntins of dark wood, varnished for protection, not for beauty.

The rest of the boat was that same dark wood, absorbing light, never shining with anything other than the splash of the waves in which it nestled.

The low superstructure gave it a minimal profile and Pierce had spent many hours shaping the top of the Black Fish into curves that would blend with an ocean’s surface.

He hoped he’d come close. It looked as if now he was about to find out.

Putting theory into practice was one thing. Doing it when lives were at stake was another.

He began the laborious process of activating the innards, charging up the electromagnetic equipment that was designed to be his eyes and ears. And his compass, not to mention his voice to the rest of the world outside the Black Fish.

He knew they all worked. The many hours he’d spent over the last couple of years were not about to go to waste. He’d had the Black Fish out on the water several times, in preparation for her final sea trials. He’d intended to get around to that at some point. That point hadn’t actually materialized—there hadn’t been any hurry.

Now
there was. Not only would this be the ultimate sea trial, it would—fingers crossed—rescue Minnie.

Over the next minutes the interior began to glow with a blue tinge as the visual indicators came to life on the command console. There was a large screen, similar in style and content to the one in his laboratory. The landmarks and vessels showed blue against a black background, instead of green but other than that, they were identical.

Pierce heaved a sigh of relief. The size of the experimental apparatus in the Brass Pluggit virtually guaranteed the success of the process. Here on the Black Fish everything had had to be scaled down to a portable size. He’d always worried that he’d lack sufficient energy to run everything with a smaller version of his power source.

As she came alive around and beneath him, he rested a hand on the ship’s wheel and offered up a prayer of sorts that he had the equipment and the skill to rescue Minnie. He asked for help in piloting his fish out onto the sea and above all he asked for a helping of luck.

He knew that was the one element over which he had absolutely no control. It was going to be required, since his plan was to intercept Minnie’s transportation to the ship and get her into the Black Fish without incident. After that? It was all a bit vague. The sort of thing that gives a scientist nightmares.

However, Pierce didn’t have time to sleep, let alone have nightmares. So with a final “Amen”, he gave the wheel a pat and reached for the telegraph.

On board. Ready. Status go. Please confirm.
He thought the words in his mind as he tapped them out on the little key.

There were a few agonizing moments of silence, a stillness barely broken by the muted sound of the water kissing the hull. He had the eerie sensation of being encased in a marine life form, a human oyster in a steam-driven shell.

Shaking away the fanciful notion, he breathed again as the response came through.

Status green confirmed. All systems go. God speed.

He smiled, a tight crease of his mouth as he went out once more to untie the ropes securing the Black Fish to her private quay. Dusk and Felicia were on the job, so his HQ was manned and ready.

The smile turned into a chuckle as he realized he’d slipped back into military terminology with frightening ease. He supposed any exposure to that machine left an indelible mark and he’d been exposed for several years.

The Brass Pluggit was indeed his HQ. His Headquarters. His lifeline in many ways, connected to him and able to assist where necessary.

The rest would be up to him, with a helping hand from Minnie.

And an impossibly large dose of good luck.

With that thought pushed to one side of his mind, Pierce began the cautious process of moving an almost-invisible black shadow through the darkness of his private cave and out into the fussing waves of the Solent. The weather had definitely worsened—rain spattered the glass and pattered on the superstructure. The clouds were low and blended with the horizon, cutting visibility down significantly.

The waves didn’t seem to have much energy to do anything other than tumble around and show off their white caps. Pierce’s dials showed a westerly wind but barely at two or three knots. This wasn’t a storm that would churn up the ocean and burst dramatically overhead. This was one of those typically British weather events that could, and often did, settle in for days, drenching everything before quietly leaving.

The Black Fish responded eagerly to Pierce’s directions, slowly backing her way out of the cave, rocking happily as she turned her beam to the current and then bobbing as her bow hit the waves and she moved forward, knifing her way quietly out of the darkness into the murk of the low clouds and rain.

Pierce smiled and settled down into his seat, realizing that he needed to get quite a bit closer to the target before his smaller unit could detect Minnie’s little whatchamacallit.

So far, so good.

Maybe it would help pass the time if he could come up with a better name than whatchamacallit.

But right now, it really didn’t matter what it was called.

As long as it worked.

A harsh and guttural exclamation from one of the foreign sailors disturbed Minnie’s reverie and she opened her eyes to realize they were nearing the caves already. Perhaps she’d dozed…she wasn’t sure. But it would be good to get out of the rain and the fog, which was lowering now, blanketing the water with grey smudges and making everything damper and more miserable.

The old sailor, who had disappeared into the small captain’s cabin to keep dry, emerged with a scowl and watched as the boat nosed beneath the opening to the cave and alongside the long quay Minnie recognized from her nighttime foray.

It was longer and larger when seen in daylight and with its lamps illuminated. There were quite a few crates, but only two as large as the one Pierce had tagged with his gadget. They were both still there, obviously waiting to be loaded.

Their boat passed the front of the dock and slowed, heading back and around a curve where the cave had been hollowed out to accommodate larger boats. It was truly an impressive mooring place and Minnie wondered who had first taken a look at the cave and thought
Hmm. I should put my canoe in here.

Whoever he’d been…well, it was a really good idea.

Sad that it should be so corrupted by the villains who thought human lives were little more than a bottom line on an accounting sheet.

Unable to come up with a useful plan of action at the moment, Minnie simply lay low and did as she was told, all the while watching, observing and trying to mentally note everything she could in case it might be useful.

There was what she’d call, for lack of a better word, a pen at the rear of the cave. A fenced-in area with a bench in it and a bucket at one end. It gave Minnie a rather nasty feeling, especially after the boat had tied up and they found themselves being herded toward it.

“Oh gawd.” One of the women slipped and Minnie’s hand went out to help.

Somebody called out a rough command and she felt the hard impact of a rifle butt to her side, making her gasp in pain. She stumbled herself, spun and glared at the seaman who’d hit her. “Stop that. Right now.”

He sneered and motioned to the pen, his cohorts pushing and shoving as the women slowed. Before Minnie realized it, she was locked inside what was best described as a small jail. Dank and ripe, it
stunk
…probably from the previous occupants. The bucket had a lot to do with it, and Minnie gulped down nausea, moving as far away from it as she could.

The men locked them in and left. Nothing could have indicated their attitude towards women better.

Animals. Useful for one thing only.

Minnie sighed and clenched her teeth. She sat on the bench, grateful there was room for them all, and looked at Dorothy and her cohorts.

“I plan on getting us out of this, you know. Before they take us out to the freighter.”

“What freighter?” The youngest one’s eyes grew round. “We gotta go on another ship? Nobody told us that.”

Minnie leaned forward, urged the women nearer, and proceeded to tell them everything she knew in a low voice.

When she’d finished, three scared faces looked back at her.

“What can we do?” Dorothy whispered the words through bloodless lips. “I don’t wanna die in some foreign hellhole.”

“Me neither,” the other two, whose names were Violet and Jane, agreed.

“We’re going to make a plan, ladies.”

Minnie suddenly felt the weight of what she’d just said crash down on her shoulders. A plan? A
plan
? They were surrounded by hostile and armed seamen who couldn’t speak English and who thought women were little more than a commodity. They were locked inside a makeshift jail with one bucket between the four of them, and trapped by the ocean.

And Minnie thought she could come up with a
plan
? Who the
hell
did she think she was kidding?

Pierce drummed his fingers on the wheel, hating the slow crawling speed of his vessel but knowing it was his wisest course.

He hoped Minnie was coming up with some sort of a plan and that he could figure out what it was before anything drastic happened. If she was in the cave, he would be pleased, since
his
plan was to use the Black Fish to ram the tender and sink it before it reached the ship.

That would certainly foil the villains, but it might drown the heroes. Or, in this case, the heroines. Not the result he was after. No, ramming would be a last resort. The Black Fish had a few tricks up her mechanical sleeve and he hoped he’d get the chance to use those first.

He tapped the telegraph key with a question for Dusk and Felicia.

Status?

He held his breath for a moment or two, then sagged with relief as the message came back.
No change
.

They were still getting a signal from Minnie.

A look at his screen confirmed that he was now well past the headland and would be at the cave before too long. He shifted the viewer to confirm the freighter was still anchored where he’d last seen it.

It was, but he leaned closer, observing a small smudge moving away from it toward the coast. The tender? Maybe. But this screen wasn’t good enough to clarify the shape or answer the question.

Fortunately, Dusk was watching from the Brass Pluggit and the telegraph key chattered once more.

Tender moving from freighter toward cave. Speed estimated at three knots.

Pierce knew that at some point when this was all said and done, he was going to sit Dusk down and find out how the hell he managed to estimate speed from a large screen with green blips on it.

But that was for later. Right now, he had to reduce his own speed so that he wouldn’t intersect the course of the tender.

Surprise was about the only weapon he could actually use at this moment. He wasn’t about to surrender it immediately.

Dot moving
.

Pierce’s guts tightened. Logically, he knew what that meant. They were getting ready to load the women on the tender.

He cursed luridly and bit down on the urge to thrust his engines into full and blaze to Minnie’s rescue.

Stealth was a bitch sometimes, but a necessary one.

Movement in cave.

Back and forth.

Now still
.