The Iron Duke (34 page)

His detached gaze met Mina’s astounded one. “Yes.”

She stared at him, trying to take it in. He’d been bit. A healthy bugger wouldn’t immediately die and become a zombie; it took a few days. But if he’d been bit, he must have been infected when he’d made that suicide run for the tower—and when he’d blown it up, he’d intended to finish the job the diseased nanoagents started. So why wasn’t he dead?

“Not the ears!”

The angry hiss tore Mina’s gaze from Trahaearn. Across the table, Yasmeen had jerked up to sitting and was pulling the side of her blue kerchief down. Mina had the impression of a tufted point before the blue silk covered the upper half of her ear.

She glared at Scarsdale, who drew her fingers to his mouth for a kiss. “Sorry, love. I was distracted.”

Appeased, she settled onto her belly, and Scarsdale began stroking her back. They were almost hypnotic, those lazy circles—and not so shocking now. Instead, Mina was glad for the two of them. The affection between Yasmeen and Scarsdale was warm and unmistakable . . . and for people with something to conceal, and who probably held as little hope for acceptance as Mina did, at least they didn’t have to hide from each other.

But Mina still couldn’t relax, and now she felt like a voyeur, watching and wishing for something that wouldn’t be hers. She needed to leave. She couldn’t make herself do it yet.

A rustle beside Mina drew her gaze to Trahaearn. He’d moved close and regarded her with heavy-lidded eyes. Softly, he said, “Do you want that?”

So he’d been watching her watch Scarsdale and Yasmeen. And now she looked at them again, because she didn’t want him to read the answer in her eyes. Did she want someone to touch her, not just to arouse but to soothe? Because he cared and wanted to please her? Not just a lover. A friend. Someone who needed her for the same reasons she needed him. The type of man she would marry, if given half a chance.

She’d accepted long ago that chance wouldn’t be coming for her. But did she
want
it?

“No,” she lied, and finally found the will to go.

Long past dawn, Mina woke to a stifling cabin with her
nightshirt twisted around her waist, blinking away a dream of Trahaearn shagging her on the pillows in the captain’s cabin while Scarsdale and Lady Corsair watched and laughed. Disturbed, wet from sweat and arousal, she stumbled to the vanity and splashed water on her face.

She dressed to the endless huffing and puffing and rattling of the engines, making certain that the buckles of her armor and her short jacket were perfectly aligned. The damp hair at her nape refused to lie smoothly, until she used double her usual amount of pins and made a coil tight enough to pull at her temples. Above decks was just as hot, but at least the dry air moved past her face. She sat in the bow for most of the day, watching the landscape pass below her. The desert was not just sand, as she’d always imagined. There were flat rocks and cliffs and long stretches of bare, burned earth. All was yellow and brown, except for the patches and rivers of green where water pooled or flowed. She finally stopped sweating about the time that the desert gave way to grasslands that seemed to blur into one infinite field. She didn’t see any zombies or people, and the few trees that stood upright against the sun looked so very desolate and alone.

And despite the name it had earned in the New World and England, she could not imagine that anyone who’d actually visited Africa would call it the Dark Continent. As the day wore on, everything seemed to grow brighter and brighter, until even the blue skies hurt her to look at them.

It hurt to look everywhere. Trahaearn passed the day standing at the quarterdeck in his shirtsleeves, cigarillo always in hand and his expression more detached each time she turned around. And so she stopped turning around.

She was tired of the endless huffing engine. Home seemed very far away, and Andrew even farther. She missed them all so very much, and only her will kept her from weeping into her hands. Finally sunset neared, and she had reason to return to her room.

Splashing water against her face again, she found her skin was tender, as if burned. Not something to worry about—the bugs would take care of it. But they could not make her any less tired, or help her find an appetite when a cabin girl appeared at her door carrying a tray of melon and cheeses and a carafe of iced lemon water.

“Captain Corsair says that you’ll probably find her cabin too hot. She thought you’d be more comfortable here.”

Mina thanked the girl, and told her to thank the captain. Slowly, she changed into her nightshirt, opened the portholes, and climbed into her bed. The engines huffed and puffed. She stared at the orange sky, hot and tired, unable to sleep.

When all outside turned to night, she finally closed her eyes.

 

 

The silence woke her. Mina sat up, listening. The airship
wasn’t moving. She reached for the lamp.

“No lights.” Trahaearn’s voice came softly out of the darkness. A shadow beside her bed, he touched her mouth. “No talking. Only whisper.”

When she nodded, he moved back. She climbed from the bed, her heart thumping wildly. “What’s happening?”

His hand found hers. He gave her a moment to pull on a wrap, then led her through the unlit passageway, up to the main deck, where the smooth wood was warm beneath her bare feet. The night lanterns had been extinguished. The sails were furled. Yasmeen waited on the quarterdeck in an untucked shirt and her hair loose, a kerchief covering the tips of her ears. Moonlight revealed only darkness below, darker than the grasslands would have been.

“Is it another airship?” she whispered when they reached the quarterdeck. “Pirates?”

“Worse.” He gave to her a spyglass, and pointed to the east, where the moon shone full. “Believers.”

She couldn’t make sense of the shape silhouetted in the dark sky. It looked like a cluster of grapes sitting upon a plate.

“William Bushke calls it New Eden—a city made of airships tied together. If he sees
Lady Corsair
, he’ll bring her in. Us, too. And there’s no ransom from New Eden.”

With narrowed eyes, Yasmeen was studying the distant floating city. “What’s Bushke doing so far west?”

“I can’t imagine.”

Mina lowered the spyglass. “Where is he usually?”

“He claims all of the Indian Ocean as his territory,” Trahaearn said. “He circles from Australia around north to Horde territory, and sometimes as far west as Madagascar. And he’ll take any airship he encounters.”

“Why?”

“He adds it to his city. They use the upper decks for gardens, the lower decks to live. He promises a paradise, and all that everyone does is attend the church services, work the soil, and live in peace . . . and Bushke doesn’t let them go.”

Almost like the Horde. “How can he capture an airship peacefully?”

“That’s the exception to his ‘peace.’ There are those he’s forced aboard, but he also has his devoted followers. And he has steam-powered flyers and firepower to back them up. They fly out, circle an airship like wolves, and keep it in place until the city arrives. The only choice is to abandon the ship or be taken.”

If given that same choice, Mina would abandon ship, no question. “If no one escapes, how do you know what the city is like?”

He smiled a little. “Because he promised me a fortune to smuggle relics out of Italy. Scarsdale and I used an autogyro to deliver them. And Bushke didn’t let us go.”

She looked at him doubtfully. “You’re here now.”

“Well, there is one way off—to jump. Between the worshipping and weeding, we made a glider out of the junk we found in the city.”

Yasmeen slipped a cigarillo out of her case, then scrunched her eyebrows together in annoyance, as if realizing she didn’t dare light it. “And that was the last time Scarsdale could climb any higher than he can jump without sucking on a bottle first.”

“Oh.” So that was it. Mina bit her lip in sympathy. “Was he hurt?”

“No. The glider began tearing apart halfway down, but we made it to shore,” Trahaearn told her. “Watching pieces of the wings come off as we flew in was enough to do it to him. Me, I was just glad we made it in to land. I sink like a stone.”

So would Mina, but only because she couldn’t swim. She didn’t have iron for bones. “And yet you’re a pirate captain?”

“As long as the
Terror
floats, I don’t need to.”

His grin flipped her stomach about, drew out her own smile. Where had his detachment gone? It wasn’t here now—and Mina no longer felt tired and sick and alone. Perhaps one had nothing to do with the other. She didn’t know. But she didn’t want to return to the stateroom yet.

Yasmeen looked through the spyglass again before lowering it. “He’s heading east now, but we’ll wait until dawn before we fire up the engines again. Our exhaust trail is too easy to spot in the moonlight.”

Mina glanced up at the white envelope. “And the balloon isn’t?”

“If we were south of him, or between him and the moon, we’d be easier to see. But there’s a few clouds, so we ought to be all right.” Despite that assurance, Yasmeen apparently wouldn’t leave it to chance. To Trahaearn, she said, “I’m ragged for sleep. You’ll watch her?”

He nodded. “I’ll take care of her.”

“I’ve put three of the crew on watch, two in New Eden’s direction.” She waved toward the aviators standing at the side rail. “They’ll give a shout. But if they close their eyes to do anything but blink, throw them over. I’ve got crew bedded down by the engines. If Bushke changes heading, yell down the pipes to them before you wake me. Then try to outrun the flyers.”

“Aye, captain,” he said.

Her laugh turned into a yawn. “I’m off, then.”

And Trahaearn was, too, making a round of the deck and speaking with the aviators on watch—and checking the weapons stations, she noted. Mina took her seat at the bow, curling her toes against the deck. For the first time, she didn’t need her goggles. The night was warm, and only a faint breeze stirred the air as the airship hovered over the dark below.

She listened to the murmur of the aviators, Trahaearn’s low voice. Heavy steps marked his approach. Mina wasn’t used to hearing anything on this ship but the engines and the wind. Now, she only heard those footsteps and the pounding of her heart.

He stopped beside Mina’s wooden chest, his dark eyes shadowed. “At dinner, Yasmeen’s girl said you were sunsick.”

Sunsick. She’d never heard of such a thing, but she must have been. “I’m fine now.”

“Yes. But I watched you all damn day. I should have—”

“I’m well.” Strange, that she had to reassure him. But here she was.

Nodding, he sat beside her. She followed his gaze to the airship city. Without a spyglass, it only appeared like a speck of darkness beneath the moon.

“What happens if they come? Do we use the emergency gliders?” She’d seen them all over the airship, folded and tacked against the bulkheads.

“Yasmeen wouldn’t leave her,” he said. “She’d blow it all to hell first. And we’re over the Niger River marshes. If we took the gliders, we might live two minutes after landing.”

A chill ran through her. “Zombies?”

“Not as bad as the Congo, but still thick as fleas. Farther west and south—at least some of the people made it aboard the rescue ships to South America. Not here.” He fell silent for a moment. Then, “If Bushke comes, I’ll protect you. And I’ll make a better glider for our escape.”

“I’ll stay close to you, then.” She tilted her head back, looked up at the balloon. “If they come, why not just fire on their balloons with the rail cannon?”

“Three thousand people live in New Eden. Children, women.”

“Oh.” And all of them killed if it came crashing down. “Yes. Better to make a glider.”

“Yes.” Beside her, Trahaearn’s weight shifted as he withdrew a small folded paper from his watch pocket. He pressed it into her hand. “I want you to have this.”

Even before she unfolded the note, Mina knew what it was. Her neat writing stared up at her.

She swallowed past the unbearable ache in her throat. “You lied about receiving it.”

“You lied about sending it.”

“And now? I haven’t . . .
performed
as you liked, so you will bring this back between us to find my brother? What should I do first, Your Grace? Should I be on my knees?”

He captured her face between callused palms, made her look at him. Dark emotion burned in his eyes. “No. I showed this to you so that you’d know I didn’t want that. I
could
have had it. I could have let the acceptance in this note stand. But I don’t want you to come to me like that. Not forced. I didn’t mean to force you two nights ago. I won’t now.”

Her heart thudded, pounding against her ears. “I know you won’t.”

“Two nights ago, you wanted me.” His hands tightened. “Have I destroyed that?”

No.
She closed her eyes, but he must have read her face. Relief seemed to pour through him. His voice softened.

“Was it so much like the Frenzy?”

“Yes,” she said, but thought: He’d wanted
her
. She thought that she didn’t want to return to her room alone. That she didn’t want to return to London without knowing, without
trying
to change the damage the Horde had done with their tower. And that she didn’t want to be afraid. So she admitted, “But not all of it. Just at the end.”

“Mina . . .” His gaze searched her face. “Tell me straight out.”

So he wouldn’t make an assumption. She took a deep breath. “You said that we could be together on the airship and the
Terror
. I want that. To try, at least.”

“Try me.” His thumb stroked down her cheek. “And I’ll stop when you’re frightened.”

“Yes.”

“Good.” He dropped a kiss to her mouth, hard and brief. Before Mina could react, he lifted and settled her over his lap, his shoulders braced against the rail. “You control it.”