The Iron Duke (29 page)

“Where is Scarsdale?”

“He’ll sleep the day,” Trahaearn told her.

“Damn. He is the only one who suffers fools like Fox.” She narrowed her eyes at the duke. “He suffers one every day.”

Trahaearn gave a bark of laughter. “And he’s told me that you read the magazine serials.”

“So I do.” Yasmeen smiled and lit a cigarillo. “That bounder gave me the first adventure to read. I only follow along now to see when Fox will be killed.”

“If he’s killed this time, you won’t receive your second payment.”

“Then perhaps I’ll take up writing. As much as he paid me, there must be something in telling ridiculous stories.” Turning her head, she called out, “Lower that platform slowly, Ms. Washbourne! I don’t trust that our passenger will have brains enough to move out of the way below.”

Truly?
Mina couldn’t yet read the other woman well, but she recognized bravado. And though she wouldn’t have wagered her life that the aviator captain had been struck by nerves, Lady Corsair almost seemed like a harder, sharper version of Sally upon meeting the Iron Duke.

When the chains rattled and the platform began rising, Mina glanced up at Trahaearn and saw his narrowed look. Also trying to make out Lady Corsair’s strange behavior, perhaps.

The woman sighed and crushed her cigarillo out in her palm. “Well, I’ll have to deal with him, then. There are few men who aren’t trying to fight me or to take my ship. I ought to be grateful that this buffoon has money enough to tread my lady’s decks.”

The platform rose into place alongside the airship. Mina could not be certain if Archimedes Fox was a buffoon, but surely he was an eccentric. He stood beside a large trunk, wearing a gliding contraption with wings strapped to his back, bright green breeches, and a yellow jacket. His shaggy brown hair was streaked with gold and hung over his goggles. Tall and fit, with wide shoulders, narrow hips, and a deep tan, Mina could believe that he was an adventurer. She estimated his age close to hers, but when he pushed up his goggles, he regarded Yasmeen with an eagerness that reminded her of a younger boy.

She was already finding it difficult to hold on to her dislike.

Beside her, Trahaearn went still. “Captain Corsair!”

Yasmeen turned and frowned when she saw his face. She sauntered back toward them, and Trahaearn moved to meet her halfway. Curious, Mina walked with him—and noticed the change that came over Fox when he saw the Iron Duke. All that was young and eager suddenly looked hardened and dangerous.

“That is not Archimedes Fox,” Trahaearn told her quietly. “That is Wolfram Gunther-Baptiste.”

Yasmeen’s lips curled—and then she was gone. Mina gasped. She’d never seen a person move so fast. In a blink, Yasmeen was at the platform, and had Fox on his knees with her fist in his hair and her knife at his throat. He held his hands out wide, as if in surrender.

Trahaearn caught Mina’s wrist when she stepped forward to intercede. He gave a small shake of his head. Quietly, he said, “Not here, inspector. Not on her ship.”

But they were still over English soil. She could not stand by. With her free hand on her opium gun, she watched—ready to stop them if necessary.

Yasmeen hissed into the man’s face. “Are you here to kill me?”

“No. Never.”

“I killed your father.”

“And I’ll thank you for it until I die. He wasn’t much of a father.” He suddenly grinned, showing white teeth. “Bad enough that I changed my name.”

“To Fox?”

“Yes.”

“Liar. Get off my ship.” With a snarl, Yasmeen shoved her boot into his chest and turned away. He tipped over, landing hard on the platform—and apparently onto his purse. A distinct
ching!
sounded.

Yasmeen’s eyes narrowed. She turned back. “Fox?”

He watched her carefully. “It has a nice ring, doesn’t it?”

“I haven’t changed
my
name. You deliberately sought the services of my ship.”

“I wanted to see what sort of woman destroyed him. I’m not disappointed.” Slowly, he got to his feet, and his carefree expression fell away again. “We have a contract, Captain Corsair. You’ve taken my money, and you owe me passage. Don’t make a decision you’ll regret.”

“I don’t regret anything, Mr. Fox.” Yasmeen sheathed her knife as she approached him again, but to Mina that only made her seem more unpredictable—and more deadly. “The moment you step from this platform onto the deck, never
suggest
a threat to me. Because I’ll toss you over the side and won’t look back.”

“I’ve been deserted once for less.” His boyish grin appeared again, and he looked to Trahaearn. “Isn’t that right, captain? Though I’ve heard you’re called something loftier, these days. Have you blown up any towers lately?”

“No. Have you and Bilson?”

“Bilson’s dead,” he said without a change in his affable expression. “And I had a change of heart . . . in more ways than one.”

His gaze returned to Lady Corsair. She stared back at him, her green eyes cold and assessing.

“All right, Mr. Gunther—”

“Fox.”

She continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “—Baptiste, Mr. Pegg will show you to your cabin. You are free to move about
Lady Corsair
, but I prefer to see you as little as possible.”

His jaw hardened. He watched her walk back to the quarterdeck before turning to Trahaearn and Mina. Faint surprise crossed his face. “You must be Detective Inspector Wentworth. I read an account of your insubordination this morning.”

The duke frowned. “What account?”

“In the newssheets. They reported the Lord High Admiral’s version,” Mina said, relief sliding through her. If he hadn’t seen the newssheet, he hadn’t seen the caricature.

Fox obviously had. His gaze settled on her face. “Yes, they seem to have got a lot of it wrong. Perhaps you’ll share the real tale over dinner?”

“I doubt it,” Trahaearn said.

With a smile, Fox grabbed hold of his trunk. “Until then, inspector.”

A flirt. Mina watched him follow Pegg to the ladder leading below decks. But a flirt who moved lightly, and carried the heavy trunk without any awkwardness.

She looked to Trahaearn. “You deserted him for less than a threat? Why?”

“He and Bilson obtained the explosives I used on the tower, but once they’d boarded the
Terror
, he demanded to know what I wanted to do with them. I didn’t know him well enough to gamble that he wouldn’t stab me in the back, and I couldn’t let him tip anyone off.”

“I see. And so?”

“I threw him overboard.” When she stared at him, he added, “We weren’t far from shore.”

“
Which
shore?”

“Galicia—on the northern coast of old Spain.”

Which teemed with just as many zombies as France’s coast did. Mina shook her head, but found it very hard to criticize him for any action that led up to his destroying the tower. And besides . . .

“That story sounds familiar,” she said. Tossed from a pirate ship by a sinister captain, and forced to hike through treacherous forests to stop the pirate from using explosives to demolish the last medieval cathedral still standing in Spain? It
was
familiar—it had been the first serial adventure,
Archimedes Fox and the Blasphemous Marauder
.

Oh, blue skies.
Her shoulders began shaking. The pirate captain had been eventually slain, after Fox tricked him into entering a dark cavern where he’d been gored by a zombie boar.

“What story?”

Mina could only shake her head. And it took her twenty minutes more before she could catch her breath long enough to tell him.

When Mina left her cabin to join the others for dinner,
Scarsdale was waiting in the passageway. He offered her a lovely greeting and his elbow, which she took with a smile. A glance through the open door of his and Trahaearn’s cabin didn’t reveal the duke . . . but Mina didn’t intend to ask.

“Yasmeen’s cabin is only one deck up.” Scarsdale stared straight ahead as they walked. “If I don’t see a porthole and pretend that I don’t hear the engines, I can fool myself into thinking I’m on a real ship.”

“I could lead you blindfolded, next time.”

He gave a short laugh. “I’ve done that before.”

Yasmeen must have known about his fear. The windows of her cabin had all been covered. Mina entered with Scarsdale, and only his forward motion prevented her from stopping to stare. The room could have been lifted from a seraglio painting. Red curtains draped the walls. A small fountain bubbled in the corner, and yellow canaries chirped in a hanging cage. In the center of the room, a round teak table stood only a few inches above a thick woven rug, and was surrounded by tufted ottomans and enormous pillows covered in sapphire and emerald silk.

In billowing shirtsleeves and a blue kerchief, Lady Corsair lounged beside the table, smoke curling from her mouth. Next to her sat Archimedes Fox. The adventurer had traded his yellow coat for peacock blue, and watched the aviator captain with hooded eyes and a set jaw. Whatever conversation had passed between the two before Mina and Scarsdale arrived apparently hadn’t been a pleasant one.

A cabin girl took Mina’s overcoat, and she sank into the pillows across from Yasmeen, with Scarsdale on her right and Fox on her left.

Scarsdale was all smiles. “Gunther-Baptiste! Fancy seeing you here.”

With a curl of her lip, Yasmeen said, “He is Archimedes Fox now.”

“Fox? No.”

“Yes,” Fox said, his expression lightening as Scarsdale laughed until his eyes watered. The adventurer glanced over as Yasmeen nodded to the cabin girls, and they began setting trays on the low table. “But the lady’s not pleased.”

“Few men please me.” Yasmeen smiled at Scarsdale. “Where’s Trahaearn?”

Scarsdale shrugged. “You know the captain. A table’s for eating, not talking. And he’d rather eat his own hand than sit chatting with . . . and I’m proven wrong.”

Mina glanced over her shoulder. Trahaearn stalked into the cabin, his dark eyes sweeping the room. Without a word, Scarsdale moved closer to Yasmeen, and the duke took up all of the pillows next to Mina, and half of hers. She frowned at him. With a half smile, he held her gaze until the absurdity of it all struck her and she had to look away from him.

A girl filled her glass with a deep burgundy wine. Before Mina could say a word, Yasmeen said, “You can be certain that I don’t stock wines that are made with sugar.”

Grateful that she hadn’t needed to ask first, Mina sipped. She closed her eyes in pleasure. The bold flavor was unlike any of the watered honey wines her family sometimes bought during the New Year holidays. This spread through her, warm and spicy, and seemed like it could serve as a meal itself. She took a deeper sip, and had to conceal her delight when one of the cabin girls refilled the glass almost as quickly as she set it on the table.

Scarsdale and Fox carried the conversation around them, with an interjection now and then from Yasmeen. Mina focused on her plate and her wine, savoring every unusual dish that the girls set in front of her: yogurt and cucumber, some kind of beige, garlicky paste, and fluffy round pieces of white bread. But above all, she took her time over the rice. Yellow and fragrant, it was unlike any rice Mina had eaten at home, but she was still glad to see it. Since the Horde’s supply ships no longer came into London, rice had become too expensive to buy except for special occasions. And although her family had tossed out many Horde traditions after the revolution, food had not been one of them.

Mina was feeling stuffed, sleepy, and warm when she finally sat back against the pillows, her still-full wineglass in hand. She couldn’t contain her sigh of contentment, and it brought Fox to a halt midsentence. With a laugh, he turned to look her over.

“You wear your armor even to dinner, Lady Wilhelmina?”

“Inspector.” If he could demand “Fox,” then Mina would demand the title she preferred, too. When he nodded, she said, “Of course I wear armor. I am sitting with a pirate, a mercenary, an adventurer, and a bounder. If a shot is not fired tonight, I daresay that your reputations are nothing but lies.”

It was a silly thing to say, of course. Her armor wouldn’t stop a bullet at this close range. But their laughter seemed to rumble through her, leaving her strangely giddy. She dared a glance at Trahaearn, who wasn’t laughing, but watching her with a heated intensity that was really quite attractive. His gold earrings winked at her like cheeky little bastards . . . and his muscular thigh looked the perfect place to lay her head and have a nap.

Blinking rapidly to clear the image from her mind, Mina took another drink. She must have eaten too much. Never before had she been quite this sleepy and fuzzy after a meal.

When the laughter quieted, Scarsdale lifted his glass to Mina before looking to Yasmeen. “I say, where are we headed to? We’re flying south by southeast. The Market’s a bit more west.”

“Braggart,” Yasmeen said.

He batted his eyelashes at her. “And handsome, too.”

Handsome, yes.
But Mina frowned, trying to understand how he was a braggart.

Trahaearn’s voice came low near her ear. “You can spin him around in a fog blindfolded, and he’ll know the direction he’s facing at the end of it.”

Ah!
“Now that is a fine trick.”

Amusement deepened the duke’s reply. “And a useful one on a ship.”

“And in London, too,” Scarsdale said. “But I still am wondering why we’ve taken a detour.”

“After your declarations of love, now you’re in a hurry to be off my ship?” Yasmeen nudged Scarsdale’s thigh with the toe of her boot. “We’re taking Mr. Fox to Venice, first.”

“Ah, and he will have another adventure that we shall soon see in the magazines. Which is probably the best way to hear them. It pains me to say it, Fox, but you’re much cleverer when you write than when you speak.”