And after they did, Georgiana was determined to win her husband back.
If she could. He’d wanted to stay—but he’d intended to leave her, anyway. He’d thought himself a failure as a husband. That hadn’t changed. He probably still intended to leave; and maybe he would. But whether he stayed or left, Georgiana would do everything she could to prove that he hadn’t failed at anything.
Thom let the mattress flop back to the frame. “There’s nothing here, either. But looking at you, I don’t doubt we’ll figure out something.”
Her determination must have been apparent on her face. As well it should. She was determined to get through this.
Her gaze fell to his arms. Thom and she weren’t completely without weapons. And Thom wore gloves, sleeves. Lord Pinchpenny probably knew of the prosthetics, but he likely didn’t know that they weren’t the typical skeletal sort, or what was hidden beneath.
Even she didn’t completely know. “But you have a gun?”
“Yes.”
“What else?”
“Anything I might need underwater or hauling sail alone. A diving knife. Cables. Grapples. Clamps.”
All useful, but Georgiana’s mind couldn’t work past the initial part. “Hauling sail alone? What of your crew?”
Not a large crew. Just two other men. If their trip into town had gone as planned, Thom would have given their names to the magistrate, listing them lost at sea—though they might both still be on Oriana. A pirate would kill a captain, but he needed someone to sail a stolen ship.
Thom shook his head. “About two years ago, I rigged her so that I could handle her alone. With no crew to pay, I could send more of my earnings to you.”
And he’d thought that amount wasn’t a lot, but it must have cost him so much more than the money he’d sent. The past two years, as alone on his boat as she’d been at home—but sailing and diving were far more dangerous. Anything could have happened to him and there’d have been no one to help.
Her heart twisted. She could have changed that. She’d sent out messages to Thom when her mother and father had died. Not knowing where he was, she’d sent them to towns and harbors where she knew he’d been. But when he hadn’t replied, she hadn’t tried again.
She could have. A few more messages, a few months later. Eventually, he’d have received one. But she’d been so angry and stubborn and hurt.
Thoughtless and cruel. Angry and stubborn. Georgiana was not liking this new view of herself at all. He had not been a failure of a husband, but she might have been a failure as a wife. And she understood why, feeling this way, he’d want to leave. Because now Georgiana wasn’t certain that she deserved to keep a man like Thom, either.
But she had to try. And also try to be something that she’d thought she was: just a little bit clever. Because she wouldn’t lose him again. Not like this.
The vibrations under her feet changed subtly, the thrum of the engine deepening. Frowning, Thom crossed the cabin.
“We’re slowing,” he said.
She joined him at the porthole, looking out. Only water. No ships. “We’re going to need a boat when we escape,” she said. “He said that you’d be able to retrieve your belongings. I’d hoped that meant wherever we were going, we’d see Oriana there.”
“I did, too.”
They both turned at the knock. This time, the door didn’t open until Thom answered it. Blade stood in the passageway. Not leering now. Perhaps he wasn’t brave enough to do it in front of her husband, just as he’d only prodded Thom in the back behind the safety of a loaded gun. If so, he was the worst kind of coward—a mean one.
“His majesty says to come on up. But the missus stays here.”
Thom glanced back at her. Georgiana nodded.
“I’ll be fine. You’d best find out what he wants.”
A cold wind scraped across the upper deck, whistling past the cables tethering the balloon overhead. Coming off the ladder, Thom turned up the collar of his wool coat. Blade pointed him to the starboard side, where the nobby gent stood, looking down at the water. Thom started across, his gaze sweeping the deck. Near the stern, two clinker-built cutters hung on pulleys beneath the balloon. Lifeboats, capable of holding twenty. Thom only needed to seat two.
He looked south, squinting away the tears the wind whipped from his eyes. No land on the horizon.
Bundled in a thick scarf and wearing goggles, his nose red from cold, the nobby gent glanced up when Thom reached the side. “There you are. Have you settled in comfortably, then?”
Comfortable? What the hell did that matter? “What do you want with me?”
With a sudden grin, the bastard nodded. “You’re a direct man. I trust that I can be as well.”
He already had been. “There’s nothing more direct than a bullet.”
“I suppose not. But I should have taken a few moments before pulling the trigger to ask where you’d hidden the chest. I assumed—falsely, as it turns out—that I would have an opportunity to search your ship and find it. But at the time, I was more concerned with sailing your ship away from the coast, where it might be recognized.” He sighed and looked down at the water again, and Thom saw a round buoy rolling on the swells. “My men didn’t know how to handle your rigging. She capsized and went under right here.”
He’d stolen Oriana, only to sink her the next day? Thom’s hearty laugh rang across the deck.
“I’m not insensible of the irony, Mr. Thomas,” the bastard said, still smiling. He paused. Behind the clear lenses of his goggles, his eyes narrowed. “No. It’s not Mister Thomas, is it? Just Thomas. No one in the Horde’s laboring classes knew their family names.”
They didn’t know any family, either. “We didn’t.”
“Your single name is refreshing, in truth. So many of the others take such ridiculous names. Strongarm. Screwmaster. Blade.” His lip curled. “Longcock.”
“I think they’ve earned the right to call themselves whatever they damn well please.”
“Perhaps they did, at that.” He regarded Thom thoughtfully. “Your wife took your name as hers. How did you earn that, I wonder? An infected man with no education, no history, no family. No arms.”
“I have two right here.” He’d always had arms. They just hadn’t always been made of flesh and bone.
“Arms that the Horde gave you? I’ve seen their like.”
No, he hadn’t. But Thom didn’t bother with an answer.
The gent smiled faintly, as if amused by Thom’s silence. “You haven’t asked me who I am.”
Because it didn’t matter. “You’re the man who’s holding my wife hostage in exchange for gold. That’s all I need to know.”
Being shot, losing Oriana—Thom could let those go. Not the threat to Georgiana.
“Fair enough. Especially as the name I’ll have will depend on those coins.” All trace of amusement fled his face. “And all that I need to know of you? You’re a man who can haul and dive. I want those coins back. You’re going to get them for me.”
And so now Thom knew something else about the nobby bastard. This man would look at him and his arms and anyone else who’d lived under the Horde, and think they were all lower than shit. But he’d use them, anyway, if they served his purpose.
So Thom was back to being under someone’s boot. But he wouldn’t be working for nothing. This would be for Georgiana’s life.
And it might take his own life. His gaze scanned the horizon again. No telling how far out they were. But it was farther out than he usually dove. “Did you plumb the depth?”