“If he hired mercenaries,” she said, “then he had a job in mind.”
Eyes cold, Thom glanced back at her. “Yes.”
A job that he didn’t want his regular crew to be involved in . . . or to know about. Such as boarding a salvage ship and shooting her captain.
“Whatever his purpose, he needs to keep you alive for it,” Georgiana said. “And he will keep me alive to see that you perform it. While he does that, we’ll watch for a chance to escape.”
As she spoke, the engines started again, the thrum humming through the airship. The boards vibrated under her feet. Flying away from home.
She fought the panic that fluttered in her belly. They would come back home. Alive.
As if seeing her distress, Thom returned to her side. Earlier when he’d looked down at her, his face had been gentle. Now determination hardened each bold feature. “I won’t let any harm come to you. We will escape.”
Nodding, she desperately tried to think of how they would. Her gaze fell to his gloved hands. “You put bullets in your arm—do they function as guns?”
His lips twitched. “Among other things.”
His humor sparked her own, and she grinned up at him. Her husband was a man of surprises. Of course he couldn’t shoot anyone now, just as she hadn’t dared to fire her pistol. They would have to wait for the right moment. When the time came, however, hopefully these mercenaries would be surprised by her husband, as well.
A sharp knock sounded at the cabin door. Before they could respond, it opened and the pale-haired woman in trousers came through carrying a bundle of Georgiana’s clothing. A mercenary, too, most likely, though it wasn’t the daggers or gun tucked into her belt that made Georgiana think so. It was the flatness of her gaze and the firm set of her mouth. Georgiana had seen that look in the mirror. This was a practical woman who would do what was necessary when it needed to be done, but who never forgot her own interests. Georgiana and Thom wouldn’t find any help here.
“Mrs. Winch?” Georgiana recalled that Lord Pinchpenny had said the woman’s name. “Can you tell us where we’re headed?”
“Out to sea.” She dropped the bundle on the bed. “I won’t tell you more.”
That was enough for now. “Thank you.”
Out to sea. Escape might be more difficult, but it could have been worse. She looked to Thom when Mrs. Winch closed the cabin door behind her. “Well, it is better than flying to the continent and trying to salvage among zombies. You’re a good diver.”
Thom nodded, but she knew what he was thinking: the sea held dangers just as terrifying as zombies were. But he truly was a good diver. He knew to be careful beneath the waters.
She was more concerned about the dangers on this airship.
“Which of your friends does he believe will come for us?” But even as Georgiana asked, she realized the answer. Lord Pinchpenny had known about Thom washing up on the beach, so he’d obviously talked up someone in Skagen. He’d have heard the same rumors in town that she had. “Mad Machen? Lady Corsair?”
Thom shook his head. “They’re not friends of that sort. Even if they were near enough to hear that we’d been taken, I don’t imagine they’d rush to a rescue.”
“But they are acquaintances?”
“Yes.”
“Such company you keep, Thom.” So surprising. But as much as she would like for him to continue surprising her, they couldn’t afford to miss any opportunity to gain an advantage. Ignorance of any sort could only harm them now. “So tell me of this treasure, and why he believes that the most notorious of pirates and mercenaries would come for you.”
Thom moved to the porthole, keeping an eye on the sun’s position and trying to estimate their heading. North by northwest, for now. Nothing lay ahead of them but the sea and the gray clouds piled up on the horizon.
He glanced back at Georgie, who was waiting for him to speak—and hanging up her dresses in the wardrobe. Even with all of this pressing on her, she did what needed to be done.
Thom was the same. But everything he’d ever done seemed like a fool’s path now. Leaving England, to start. He hadn’t even known what he’d wanted then—he’d only known what he didn’t want.
He didn’t want to live under the Horde’s boot. He didn’t want to work for nothing. He didn’t want to be an animal, or anything less than his own man.
Then he’d met Georgiana, and he’d known. He wanted to be in her bed. He wanted to be her husband. He wanted to be a man for her, the only man she’d ever need.
And if Thom hadn’t wanted her, if he hadn’t made her his, Georgiana wouldn’t be here now.
But she was. Now the only thing that needed to be done was seeing her make it safely away.
Thom wouldn’t be doing it alone, though. He’d rather have her anywhere else, but he was grateful for that. Georgiana was clever and practical—and she was right. They needed to figure out exactly what advantages they had and why this bastard had come after him, so it’d be easier to spot lies that might get them killed.
So he started at the beginning of it all. “Two years ago, Mad Machen came to Oriana looking to borrow a diving suit. His blacksmith was going down in a submersible she’d built, retrieving a lockbox of Lady Corsair’s that had ended up in the bottom of the harbor at Port Fallow. He wanted someone under the water to help out if she got into trouble.”
“That was Ivy Blacksmith?”
An odd note in her voice made Thom glance back. She’d stopped beside the bed, holding a pink dress and looking at him.
“You sound fond of her,” she added softly.
“I am.” But he shook his head. “Whatever you’ve heard, it wasn’t more than that.”
“What was it?”
A weight settled in his chest. How much of this should he reveal? They were separating. None of it mattered now.
And he might soon be dead. Nothing mattered at all now except for Georgie.
“She was the closest I’d come to staying with you.”
Her dark eyebrows pinched together. “What?”
“Ivy was like me. Born under the Horde. Given a sweeper’s arms instead of a hauler’s apparatus, but the same. And she left England when she could, but now she has arms of mechanical flesh.”
A frown creased her forehead. “I still don’t understand.”
“I wanted arms like that. I couldn’t afford them.” Salvaging was hardly a lucrative business, and the one man who could create flesh made out of metal fibers and nanoagents charged a small fortune for each limb. “But seeing those arms on Ivy made getting them seem more possible. And that made the possibility of coming back to you seem a little closer.”
“Why would you need those to come back to me?”
Anger and hurt dug into his heart, sharp and hard. “You asked me to hold you in my arms every night, Georgie. I had iron bars.”
And he’d never thought much of it until leaving England. Prosthetics were as common as noses there. But not around the North Sea—and he’d known that she hadn’t envisioned a man holding her in an iron cage.
Yet he’d promised. He hadn’t cared if it meant getting newer, better arms. That suited him. Making her happy suited him even more. He just hadn’t known it would take so long.
But Georgiana damn well shouldn’t pretend that she hadn’t asked him to do it.
Now she stared at him, her face absolutely still. After a long second, she whispered, “I did say that.”
“You did.”
“And that’s why you kept leaving?”
He gave a sharp nod. “I promised to make you happy.”