“Yes.” Steadily, she held his gaze. “If you believe that I’ll trust your air hose and pump to any other person, then you’re absolutely mad.”
“Taken in that light, I would prefer it, as well,” Southampton said. “Accidents would not serve any of us, and no one has a more vested interest in your life and your success than your wife. I had intended for two of my crewmen to assist with the pump on the platform, Big Thom, but your wife will replace one of them.”
Thom could see the sense of it. And he would feel better knowing that it was Georgie watching over his air pump. But he didn’t like it.
By the bloody stars, he didn’t like any of this.
He felt the faint pressure of canvas against steel—Georgiana had touched his arm as she passed him. Reassuring him again, as if to say everything would be well.
Southampton stepped back from the door as she left the cabin. Four mercenaries stood in the passageway behind him, parting to let Georgiana through. “If you’re ready, then, I have men waiting to take the air hose up.”
“I’ll do it.” Thom hefted the heavy coil with one arm. The bulk made it awkward to carry, but he didn’t trust Southampton’s men not to snag it while stumbling their way up the ladder. He tucked the brass diving helmet under his other arm and started down the passageway after Georgie.
Though cold, the wind wasn’t as sharp as it had been the previous day. A few seagulls squawked around the balloon. The sea below rolled in smooth swells. Standing at the side of the airship, Thom scanned the water’s surface. No dorsal fins in sight. But megalodons rarely announced their presence until it was too late.
“We did as you asked,” Southampton said beside him. “No food scraps thrown over.”
And her engines had been quiet since the previous evening. No sounds or scents that might attract the sharks. Thom nodded and moved to the gangway, where the hull of the ship opened to the cargo platform.
Georgie was already there, crouching on the deck with her blue skirt pooled around her, putting his brass guards in order. There was nothing unsure in her movements, no hesitation or confusion as she looked at each piece. And though she’d helped Thom with his equipment the night before and this morning, until this moment, he’d never thought how strange that was. She was a strong and capable woman, so it never surprised him when Georgiana proved herself knowledgeable. But maybe it should have. Her father had been a whaler, not a salvager. Thom had only taken it up because he’d had experience diving while working on the Horde’s boats, going under to make repairs or untangle nets, and because he’d tired of the smell of whale blubber and fish guts.
Thom set the air hose on the platform and sank to his heels beside her. Softly, he asked, “Where did you learn this?”
“Learn what?”
“Diving.”
“Oh.” Without looking at him, she fiddled with the buckle on his chest guard. “When you left the second time, I got it into my head that if you wouldn’t stay, then I’d go with you. And I didn’t want to be useless while on Oriana.”
So she’d learned what she could about his job. But the next time, he hadn’t even stayed long enough for her to suggest it. He’d left in the middle of the night, after leaving her whimpering in their bed.
His heart twisted. Never had it occurred to him that she might go. Her rightful place had been at home. His rightful duty was to bring something back to her.
But it was hard to care about what was rightful now. “I’d have liked that.”
“Well, I don’t know if I would have.” She gave him a wry glance. “On a boat for years on end? But perhaps a few months now and then.”
Which would have been better than what they’d done. But he couldn’t go back and change it now. He couldn’t change any of it. The long years he’d been gone. Her parents dying and Georgie being alone. The messages he’d never sent and the nothing he’d brought home. Everything that had led to her agreeing to a separation. None of it had changed. And when they returned home, she’d have no real reason to change her mind about the separation.
His throat an aching knot, Thom nodded—though he couldn’t even remember what he was responding to.
“But that was then.” Georgie’s gaze returned to the brass guards, and she gave a heavy sigh. “Now I’m just glad that I can help you.”
Gruffly, he said, “I’m glad of it, too.”
Standing again, he helped her position the guards that would protect his back and chest. Against a full-sized shark, his entire body wouldn’t even be a mouthful. But the brass plates might prevent a bite from any smaller predators in the sea—or stop Thom from gouging himself on splintered wood and twisted iron when he found Oriana. Anything to keep blood out of the water.
When Georgiana picked up the brass bracers for his arms, Thom shook his head. With a faint smile, she bent to buckle a pair of long guards around his thighs.
Standing at the rail, Southampton watched with interest—and a growing frown. “You’ll be able to swim back up carrying all that weight and the gold?”
Thom could, if necessary. But it wasn’t. “I won’t swim. I’ll haul myself up along the tether. Did your men mark off the distance along the cable?”
“A flag every twenty feet, just as you asked. Why is it necessary?”
“So that Thom knows how quickly he’s ascending,” Georgie said, fastening more brass around his lower leg. “If he comes up slowly, the divers’ disease might not affect him as badly.”
“Yes, but why?”
Thom shrugged. “I don’t know. I just know it’s true.”
“Fair enough.” Southampton glanced as a bundled-up mercenary joined them at the gangway. “You’ve both met Mr. Blade, my chief crewman. He’ll be watching over Mrs. Thomas on the platform.”
The prick who’d prodded Thom’s back with his pistol—and apparently the leader of this mercenary band. At his feet, he saw Georgie’s mouth tighten and her tug on the strap between his shin and calf guards was a little sharper than the one before. She hadn’t liked Blade any better than Thom had. None of the mercenaries had been friendly, and he wouldn’t expect them to be. They were doing their job. But none of the others had gone out of their way to poke at him, either.
“That all right with you, Georgie?”
She huffed out a breath. “Does it matter?”
“Not really, no,” Southampton said easily. “Mr. Blade will have the same instructions that I would give to any of my crew, which is to eliminate all obstacles that might prevent us from recovering my gold and to ensure that nothing unexpected returns from your ship with you.”
Blade opened his coat, exposing the pistol at his waist. There could be no mistaking Southampton’s meaning. If Thom brought up weapons from Oriana, Blade was under orders to kill them both.
But Thom didn’t intend to bring anything up. Not yet. And he already had his weapons with him.
Finished with the brass guards, Georgie rose. Anger brightened her eyes and flattened her mouth, but she only walked onto the platform. His body weighed down by brass, every step that Thom took after her felt like wading through a current.
Blade joined them, standing in the one corner of the platform not taken up by equipment. Thom hooked the airship’s tether to his belt, then pulled to make certain the cable unspooled easily. He glanced at Southampton and nodded.
With a clank and rattle, they began to descend to the water. But there was still more to do before he went in. Holding the brass helmet under his arm, Thom connected the air hose to the back of the dome. The pump sat near the front edge of the platform. Kneeling beside it, Georgie cranked the handle, testing the flow, then glanced up at him.