Chapter Sixteen
The next morning, Mina went above decks early, her uniform coat brushed and her new boots at a high shine. She read the tension among the men, stiff in their uniforms and hats, but also among the seamen in their everyday slops. For the first time in two weeks, the captain wore a blue waistcoat and jacket over his shirt, topped by a neckcloth knotted so high it looked ready to choke him. The white ensign had been hoisted to the masthead, declaring that Marco’s Terror was a Royal Navy ship. Aside from His Majesty’s jack, Mina didn’t know the significance of the flags that flew beneath it, but hoped they’d make all the difference.
The fleet was already in view, the rear squadron visible even without the spyglass. Peering through it, Mina’s breath almost stopped. The stern of Bellerophon appeared enormous, twice as wide as the Terror, and with three more decks above the waterline. Some of her sails had been reefed—the squadron was slowing to obtain a better look at the Terror, Rhys told her—but Mina imagined that they must comprise acres of canvas when full.
She looked to Rhys, aghast. “Burnett’s Vitruvian is larger than that?”
“Yes.”
Though she looked, Mina still couldn’t see anything other than a mast—her view blocked by a ship in the rear squadron. High above them, the dreadnoughts floated like great fat beetles. Though far ahead of the fleet when she’d first come above decks, the skyrunner had turned around, begun flying south.
“When will we be close enough to signal?”
“We have been.” He nodded to the colorful pennants hoisted on a halyard. “Those tell them we’re here by order of the king, and that we’ve requested communications with the fleet. Now that we’re close enough to read, we’ll soon have a response.”
It was an endless wait. Her heart pounding, she watched the other ship. Why hadn’t they responded? “What do you think is happening?”
“They’re relaying our signal to Burnett in the center squadron.”
And he must have responded. The dreadnoughts changed heading, as if intending to come round in a wide, slow circle. She spotted a flash of color from Bellerophon.
“We’ve been asked to hold our position while they verify our papers.” Rhys lowered the spyglass. “The skyrunner is coming.”
Not as quickly as Lady Corsair would have. Rhys called for the men to prepare the Terror for tethering to the airship. They raced about hoisting sails and dropping sea anchor, and then waited, ready, for an endless time. Finally, a young aviator captain came down with a small escort, all in blue coats and white breeches, and backed up by redcoats. They stayed on the cargo platform until Rhys invited them aboard; the marines remained topside and visible from the other ships while Mina accompanied Rhys and the aviators to the cabin.
Slightly plump and red-faced, with a short blond beard, Captain Seymour seemed the type who tried for severity, but whose amiable nature thwarted him. He read the regency council’s decree and carefully inspected the seal, lips firmed and nodding.
“This looks in order,” he declared in a flat bounder’s accent. “But I say, Your Grace, this is highly unusual. What of Captain Haynes?”
“He was killed and dumped from an airship onto my house.”
Mina read the man’s dismay. Not just surprise, she thought, but sincere grief. “Haynes was a friend of yours?”
“Yes.” Still staggered, he looked to Rhys. “What happened, sir?”
“Haynes was headed to the Gold Coast to meet up with the fleet. Dame Sawtooth found him first, and used him in a weapon demonstration. After he was taken to London, Lady Corsair brought us to the Gold Coast in search of Marco’s Terror.”
“I’ve just made the same run, though in both directions,” Seymour murmured, as if steadying himself with routine thoughts. He read the regency council document again. “He was killed by the weapon mentioned in this decree?”
“The same sort of weapon. Admiral Baxter was assassinated shortly thereafter—by a different party. And that is the Black Guard we’re pursuing.” Rhys stopped. “We’ll have Haynes tell you himself.”
Seymour kept firm as the wax cylinder began playing, except to verify that the voice was Haynes’s—but at the mention of Sheffield and Admiral Burnett, horror and disbelief passed over his face, and was mirrored by his lieutenants.
Recognizing that he was lost for words, Mina told him, “Endeavour is the auctioned weapon. And it is headed for England, where it will destroy everyone infected with nanoagents.”
Seymour shook his head. “Burnett’s always been zealous in his protection of England—sometimes uncomfortably so.” His lieutenants were nodding, as if they’d also experienced the admiral’s passion firsthand and too close. “He wouldn’t do this. Captain Haynes must have been mistaken.”
“And so we might be,” Rhys said. “And that is why we must speak with him.”
With an abrupt jerk of a nod, Seymour said, “Yes, well. Everything here is in order. And so I will signal to the fleet.”
Before he could turn to go, Mina asked, “Captain Seymour. The run you recently made between London and the Ivory Market—were you carrying a civilian passenger? Mr. Sheffield, perhaps?”
Seymour didn’t answer. His face pale, he bowed stiffly to her, and took proper leave of the captain. Mina exchanged a glance with Rhys; he’d also thought Seymour’s nonanswer was confirmation enough. And it wasn’t difficult to guess that Admiral Burnett had ordered the skyrunner to carry the man back to England.
They followed the aviators topside, where Seymour had halted beside Scarsdale on the quarterdeck, both men looking out over the bow.
“The admiral’s ship is coming round.” Seymour frowned and glanced at Rhys. “Perhaps concerned by my having taken so long listening to Haynes’s recording. I’ll scramble, sir.”
Yes, scramble, Mina thought, watching the ship. Rather than directly approaching the Terror, the wind forced the vessel to come round on an arc, cutting through the calm seas at speed and displaying a stomach-dropping view of the enormous ship’s decks and gunports. Smoking hells, the Terror couldn’t stand against that—Mina would have more luck trying to take a hit from the Iron Duke.
“She’s moving into position to fire,” Scarsdale said.
Rhys’s gaze rose to Seymour’s airship. “He’s signaling now—telling Burnett that all was in order.”
That didn’t bring Mina any relief. “Then why are Vitruvian’s gunports opening?”
Seymour shouted over the airship’s side. “Sir! Hold fast! We’re signaling again!”
Rhys nodded—but apparently he had little confidence that the signal would do any good. He called to an older man standing amidships. “Mr. Smiegel, is the furnace burning?”
“Yes, sir. Low, as you said.”
“Stoke her up, then. Be ready to fire the engines on my signal.”
“Yes, sir.” But he paused, as if uncertain whether he’d misheard. “Fire them, sir?”
“Yes.”
Smiegel gave a tight nod. “Right, sir.”
He vanished down the ladder. Rhys caught Mina’s gaze. As if to reassure her, he said, “It’s too warm for kraken or megalodon.”
“So was the Gold Coast,” Scarsdale said in an undertone that wouldn’t carry past their ears. “And the sharks in these waters are big enough.”
“Yes. But we’ll have to take that risk.” Rhys’s mouth tightened as he marked Vitruvian’s progress. The sea smashed into white plumes against the onslaught of her heavy bow. “Mr. Charles!”
The gun captain who ran up to the quarterdeck couldn’t have been much older than eighteen, but years under the sun had already leathered his face. “Sir?”
“How quickly can your men mount the full complement of rail cannons?”
The gun captain’s chest filled up. “They’re ready to fire in forty-five seconds, sir.”
A time that must have been worthy of the man’s obvious pride. Rhys smiled a little, nodding. “All right. Have your men ready and standing by for my orders. Forty-five seconds later, I want Vitruvian ’s waterline looking like a sieve.”
“Yes, sir.”
Charles left the quarterdeck. Mina tried to catch her breath. The rail cannons had a greater range than a traditional cannon, but were usually used as a last resort rather than the first option. But if Rhys was planning to fire them against Vitruvian, to stop the great ship from coming within range, then the rail cannons must be their only option.
Scarsdale looked uneasy. “If you fire first, captain, then the whole fleet will have no choice but to—”
“I know.” He raised the spyglass. “She’s coming around broadside.”
To fire on the Terror full on with more than sixty cannons. Mina squeezed her fingers together as Rhys shouted to the men in the rigging. Two sails dropped and filled, and the ship began to drift around the sea anchor, keeping the bow pointed toward Vitruvian—preventing them from using the Terror’s side as a target. Looking at the number of gunports, Mina doubted that it would matter. From the front or the side, they’d still be blown apart.
Her nails dug into her palms as the Terror began a different motion beneath her feet, a deep side-to-side rather than the forward up-and-down that had grown so familiar the past two weeks, the low waves moving against their side instead of their bow.
If the waves had been any larger, the alignment could threaten to capsize them. But even the low swells had the crew tense. The captain, too.
And Vitruvian had appeared enormous from a distance. As she closed in, the ship was simply terrifying. “Has the admiral’s ship given any signal at all?”
“No.”
Then what was the admiral waiting for? Mina stared at the ship, trying to imagine. She had no mental picture of the man, couldn’t guess whether Burnett stood on Vitruvian’s quarterdeck, anticipating their demise with manic glee, grim determination and duty, or without any emotion at all, as if they were nothing but bugs. What went through such a man’s mind as he bore down on a threat, intending to crush it?
Finally, colors flew from Vitruvian’s bow as they hoisted the signal pennants. But the starkness of Rhys’s face told her that it wasn’t the response they’d hoped for. “What is it?”
Almost drowned by the sudden whine of the airship’s generator, Scarsdale called to her, “He ordered Seymour to fire on us!”
Boots pounding the deck, Rhys raced to the stern, where the airship hovered thirty yards behind the ship. He roared over the noise. “Stand down, Seymour!”
Mina’s hands flew to her mouth. The aviator captain himself had manned the airship’s rail cannon. The long barrel swung down, aimed for the Terror.
She was jerked off her feet as Scarsdale yanked her against him, crouched over her, shielding her with his body. An explosion of splintering wood sounded to her right. Scarsdale’s grip loosened. She looked up, heard his disbelief.
“He only clipped the rail. He missed. Impossible from that distance.”
“He saved our ass.” Striding across the deck, Rhys hauled Mina up. “We’ve been fired on. We’re justified firing back. Mr. Smiegel! Mr. Charles! Now!”
His shout had barely faded when the rumble of engines shook the boards beneath her feet. Generators screamed to life. Men raced to mount the rail cannons.
With no recoil, no sound, she couldn’t tell when they fired them—except for the implosions in Vitruvian’s hull. Timber exploded in a rough pattern along the waterline, shattered wood splintering and flying into the sea. Smoke puffed from the first-rate’s gunports. Geysers erupted between the Terror and the admiral’s ship, cannonballs falling far short of their mark. Vitruvian faltered as she took on water through her shattered hull, slowly tipping to port.
“Another round to her engine deck!” Rhys ordered.
Mina looked to him with wide eyes. Was that necessary? The ship was doomed.
Scarsdale must have read her face. “She’ll go down slow. The captain can’t allow them time to fire up their own rail cannons. So he’ll take them out. Their only option left is abandoning ship.”
“Sharks coming in astern!” The shout came from the crow’s nest.
Mina spun around, and her heart dropped through to her knees. Three metal-plated, razor-edged fins knifed through the water, each half as tall as the captain. Beneath the surface, sleek shadows arrowed toward the Terror at shocking speed.
Rhys didn’t look. “How big?”
“Thirty-five feet!”
He shook his head. “She’ll survive them. Another round at her engines, Charles!”
More timbers shattered—and that must have been enough. Rhys ordered the engines off. Vitruvian sat low in the water, the waterline almost at her second deck. Her men poured into small boats. Seymour’s skyrunner fired its propellers, lowering its platforms and ropes as he flew toward the men abandoning ship.
“Strike the colors!” Rhys shouted. “The rest of the fleet will know we’re done.”
Mina glanced astern, looking for the sharks. Red water seemed to boil almost two hundred yards away—and there were far more than three sharks now.
“Yasmeen took one out with her rail cannon,” Scarsdale said from beside her.
And the blood had started a frenzy. She watched in horrified fascination, until a shout from the crow’s nest sent ice sliding down her spine.
“Endeavour’s firing her engines, sir!” The man pointed toward a column of steam rising from the center of the fleet. Mina turned, stomach trembling. No generator’s whine, not yet.
“She’s out of our range,” Scarsdale said.
“But not theirs.” Rhys strode to the rail, calling orders to the crew. “Get on those flags, signal to Seymour! And tell the fleet to blow her out of the water.”
Mina would liked to have seen the dreadnoughts destroying the ship, but the Iron Duke ordered every bugger on the Terror into the steel-plated cargo hold—including her and Scarsdale. They waited there until Rhys came down to tell them that Endeavour was nothing but a few floating planks barely visible through the clouds of gunpowder smoke.
Sitting by Andrew, she threw her arms around him before running to Rhys and letting him sweep her up into a sweet, victorious kiss. The giddy relief lasted through endless questions as Bellerophon ’s rear admiral and the van squadron’s vice admiral boarded the ship. Vitruvian was lost, and although much of her crew had been rescued, Mina wasn’t surprised to learn that Burnett had gone down with the ship. But even with a king’s decree in hand, an admiral’s death couldn’t be pardoned without rigorous examination. When the admirals opted to continue their questioning on Bellerophon, Rhys left with them on Seymour’s airship. Mina spent the rest of the afternoon writing out a long report to Hale. At sunset, Yasmeen and Scarsdale joined her for dinner at the captain’s table—and as they’d made an early start on their celebratory drinking, Mina was well entertained until midnight approached, and Rhys finally returned.
With him were Captain Seymour, several lieutenants, and warrant officers who would fill the positions of the men the Dame had executed. While the officers left to claim their quarters, Rhys and Seymour came into the cabin. With a greeting to the airship captain, Yasmeen stood and stretched in a long sinuous arch. Seymour returned her greeting, his face deeper red than usual.
She grinned and looked to Mina. “I’m leaving for Venice in the morning. I could have you back in England within five days.”
Aware of Rhys’s sharp gaze, Mina shook her head. “I’ll stay on the Terror for the remainder of the journey. But if you would deliver a report to Hale, and a message to my parents? It would relieve them to know that my brother has been found.”
Yasmeen nodded, but Seymour spoke up. “I say, I could deliver them within two days. I’m flying ahead to take the vice-admiral’s report to the Admiralty Board, and to inform them that Vitruvian has been lost.”
Two days was even better, and Yasmeen didn’t look put out at being passed over as messenger. Almost dizzy with relief and happiness, Mina handed over the envelopes. She smiled and nodded as they all took their leave, and spun to face Rhys as soon as they were alone.
He stood in the middle of the cabin, watching her with a lazy grin. “So you’ll stay?”
“Yes,” she said, and gasped out a laugh as he hefted her up against his chest, until their eyes were on level.
“Two more weeks won’t be enough for you, either.”
Sudden sorrow squeezed the laughter in her throat to nothing. He was right. But it hardly mattered. “It has to be,” she said.
“Why? How can I ruin you, your family?” His dark brows lowered over his searching gaze. “I will protect you both. And a connection to me can only raise their status—politically, socially, financially.”
Her heart hurt. “No. It won’t.”
Setting her heavily to her feet, he pushed away to stare out the gallery windows. “Why won’t you try?”
“You always attract the notice of the newssheets and the public. If I’m with you, then so will I, and that will ruin us.”
“So you said.” Frustration hardened his jaw. “Why assume that?”
“Because I’ve already seen it.” And she didn’t want to show him. But she braced herself, and dug the flyer from the bottom of her valise.
He frowned when she passed it over to him. “What is this rubbish?”
“That’s me.”
“The hell it is!”
His gaze shot to hers, burning with sudden fury. Tears started to her eyes. She turned away before they spilled over.
She’d imagined many reactions, had seen them all, from laughter to horror to a shrug of dismissal, as if the drawing shouldn’t matter. But anger didn’t seek to smooth or dismiss hurt feelings, as if she’d simply been a victim of a thoughtless joke. His anger said that she’d been wronged.
And she loved him for it.
But his fury also said that someone needed to pay . . . and that he didn’t understand that there was no one to do it. He thought that this wrong could be righted with a sweep of his mighty iron hand. And so he wouldn’t understand that she couldn’t be protected from this—or why, no matter how much she wanted to stay with him after they reached London, she couldn’t.
His voice came from behind her, low and dangerous. “Who did it?”
Mina lifted her hands. “Most likely one of the ladies at the meeting. Not that she intended this. But she probably mentioned to her husband or to her brother that you’d accompanied me home, and he mentioned it to another man at a club, and by the morning these flyers were being passed out on the streets.”
“Who passed them out?”
“Street urchins. Do you want to know who drew it? I don’t know. Do you want to know who asked him to draw it? I don’t know. Do you want the name of the man with the printing press? I don’t have that, either. And what if I did? Would you burn down the printing shop? Ruin every man who had a finger on that flyer?”
“I’d do a hell of a lot more than that.”
She believed him. But he still didn’t understand. “And the newssheets, too?”
Like a cold razor, rage passed over his expression again. “This was in the newssheets?”
“Not that. But there was another caricature. There would be almost every day.”
“No. There wouldn’t.” A statement of determination, ground out through clenched teeth.
“How will you force them to stop? Will you control what rubbish they write, what they report? If you do that, whatever sway you have over them will disappear, along with the power of your name. Because by forcing them, by censoring them, you’ll be no better than the Horde.”
He apparently couldn’t refute that. So he took a different tack. “If it’s rubbish, why do you care? They constantly print rubbish about me.”
“And it’s easy for you not to care! My friends will be outraged. But that won’t protect my job. It won’t protect my family. People who know us will cry out against it at first, but then there will only be embarrassment. And eventually, they won’t want to associate with us. Not with someone who is that.”
She flung her hand at the flyer. He crushed it in his fist, face darkening.
“You’re not this. Don’t ever say you’re this.”
“I know! But no one else will. That will be what they see when they see me. They will already think that they know me. All they will know is that hideous . . . thing.”
He raised his fist to his temple, as if struggling for control, and let it drop to his side again. “And that is why you won’t continue with me?”
“Yes.”
“So you’re afraid of these people who mean nothing to you. You’re caring about what people think, even if they’ll turn from you for this rubbish. You’re running in fear from the stupidity of people who aren’t worth your time.” His face closed up, hardened. “You’re a coward.”
Coward. The word struck like spit on her face. She stared at him with bile in her throat and a knife through her heart. “You don’t tell everyone that you were born with nanoagents.”
“Because it’s not their concern! I don’t fear their reaction.”
“And what concern is it of theirs that the Horde raped my mother? But everyone sees the evidence of it. Everyone has an opinion of it, judges us for it. Unlike you, I don’t have the privilege of hiding that I’m something everyone hates and fears. And so for all of my life, that rubbish is what will be said of me. And if I am with you, it will be said every day, by practically everyone in England!”
“And I won’t let—”
“You can’t! You can’t control what they think!” She approached a scream. Chest heaving, she battled the rage and pain and frustration. She tried again, though still not completely steady. She tried to tell him in a way he could understand. “If I stay with you, Your Grace, you’ll have your possession. But I’m the one who will pay for it.”
But she couldn’t pay any more tonight. While he stared at her, Mina turned her back on him and walked out of the cabin—and made it to the ladder before she began to cry.
Rhys slammed into Scarsdale’s berth and shoved the flyer into the bounder’s face. “What is this?” he demanded.
In his bunk, Scarsdale weaved up to sitting. When he focused on the flyer, dismay and resignation closed his eyes again. “Where did you get this?”
“Mina. It came out the morning we left London.”
He put a hand to his head. “Good Christ, they’re faster than the newssheets.”
“You saw the newssheet?”
“Everyone does.”
Everyone but Rhys. Jesus. All these weeks, everyone had carried around a disgusting image of Mina in their brains, and he hadn’t known to rattle it out. “How do I stop it?”
Brow furrowed, Scarsdale shook his head. “Come again?”
“Who do I pay? Who do I kill?”
The bounder stared at him. “Every bugger in England? You were too quick to destroy Endeavour today.”
Christ. Rhys ripped his hands through his hair. Slammed the flat of his palms against the bulkhead. Nothing helped.
“Captain, you could marry the bearded lady out of a carnival tent. You could pull a woman out of a brothel with warts on her face to match the ones on her arse. Liberé, Lusitanian, me. And in the newssheets, they’d make us look beautiful. Not the inspector. They’ll only see the Horde, and a jade whore. Hell, they’ll applaud you for screwing one, because it’ll mean that you’re still fucking them over. But if she’s a nobody—”
“An earl’s daughter isn’t a nobody.”
Mina wasn’t. Born in a crèche, she still wouldn’t be a nobody. She was everything.
“She’s near enough to one. London society isn’t like Manhattan City. If she’s no one, she can get by—and just coping with what she faces every day is surely more than anyone should have to.”
Every day. He knew that. Yet he’d called her a coward.
He couldn’t reply. He couldn’t think.
But if he didn’t think of something soon, he was going to lose her.
Looking at the flyer again, Scarsdale sighed. “But this . . . This wouldn’t just come from the people she meets. And those, at least she can change. They can come to know her, or they’ll pass on by and forget her. But the people she doesn’t meet, she can’t change—and those people will see her every day, and they’ll see her like this. And soon her family and everything they work for becomes a joke.”
And that would destroy her.
Rhys closed his eyes. “Is there nothing?”
“Maybe she’ll think you’re worth it. Does she love you?”
No. But he fought bleak truth with the memory of how she always turned to him. Of how she slept, wrapped around him. “She needs me.”
“Ah, yes. Because she hasn’t gotten along for almost thirty years with a family and friends who adore her—and who’d die for her.” Shaking his head, Scarsdale passed the flyer to Rhys. “Even if it was true and she needed you, do you want to make her pay that?”
He looked at the paper, but didn’t see the caricature. He saw the ink, smudged and splattered with dried tears. This thing had hurt her. It didn’t matter that the drawing was rubbish. It had still torn her apart.
Rhys wouldn’t let it happen again. On one flyer, or from the people she met every damn day.
“She said I can’t control how they think. So I’ll change it.”
Scarsdale tilted his head consideringly, as if Rhys had made a suggestion rather than stating how it would be. Slowly, he nodded. “As the memory of the Horde fades. And you’ve a big voice. You could persuade them that this would be an unacceptable depiction of anyone—not just someone with Horde blood—and do it without singling her out.”
“How long will it take?”
Scarsdale’s sigh said that it would be too long. So Rhys couldn’t have her now. And he wouldn’t stop until he could. But he had to let her go until then.
“I’ll have the men signal Yasmeen.” Rhys opened the door. “She’ll take Mina aboard.”
Taken aback, the bounder said, “I say, captain—you don’t have to send her away now.”
“Yes, I do.” Or he wouldn’t be able to.
As it was, stopping himself from begging her to stay would take every bit of control he had.
The salty mist wafting up from the bow cooled Mina’s face, washed away the damage the storm of her tears had left. Feeling empty, she stared out over the water, watching the silvery path of reflected moonlight without seeing it.
She wanted so much. She almost hated him for bringing it within reach. For asking her to take it. No—for telling her to take it, when she’d never even let herself imagine having him.
Now, imagining it was all that she could do.
The public reaction would be a terrible blow to her parents. And they’d already withstood so much. Yet if Mina chose to stay with Rhys, they’d fight every whisper, every caricature, everything that caused her pain. They’d fight together and stand firm, because they loved her . . . and because she loved him.
And every day would be difficult. But if Rhys loved her, they could fight together, too. Everything she gained would be worth the pain.
But if she was only a possession, only someone he loved shagging . . .
She couldn’t guess. She needed to find out.
With a shuddering breath, she wiped her eyes and stood. At the other end of the ship, the crew worked by the light of the lanterns, tethering Lady Corsair to the Terror’s stern. Mina climbed down the ladder, bracing herself with every step toward the captain’s cabin—and so was almost prepared when she pushed through the door and saw her valise on the bed, already packed. Rhys, pulling a cigarillo out of a silver case. The awful detachment in his expression.
Mina had plenty of experience pushing away pain. She hadn’t known it could grow so enormous that it pushed away everything else. No room for grief. No room for denial. No room for anything. So big, it left her numb.
She wondered how long it would take to recede. And when it did, how much everything else she felt would begin to hurt, too.
Lifting her gaze from the valise, she said, “So I’m to return on Lady Corsair?”
“Yes. I’m done with you.” His gaze raked over her, landing on her face. Thank the blessed stars she couldn’t feel anything—she wouldn’t give anything away. “As you’ve said, continuing into London wouldn’t be worth it. So we’ll end it now.”
“I see.” She forced her reply past an aching throat.
Done with her. Not forced to part in two weeks by something Mina couldn’t fight, by something that even the Iron Duke couldn’t overcome. Not leaving him, yet holding on to the sweet, impossible knowledge that he still wanted her. Just . . . done with her.
His lids lowered, and he exhaled on a cloud of smoke that made his voice sound hollow and rough. “Unless you’ve changed your mind?”
She’d come so close to doing exactly that, though it would hurt so many people she loved—one of the most difficult decisions of her life. But this hadn’t been difficult for him. He just had to exchange one need for another, and he was rid of her . . . and looking as if he didn’t care whether she lived or died.
She had her answer, then.
Unable to speak, she simply shook her head and collected her valise. His heavy steps sounded behind her as she left the cabin. She was glad he was behind her. The pain wasn’t receding. But other emotions were filling her up now, too, overflowing past ragged edges, as if she’d been ripped up the center. And with one look at her face, he would see them.
Head down, she remained ahead, passing Scarsdale as she walked to the stern. Rhys’s boots went silent on the quarterdeck. Not even escorting her to the platform. Just watching her leave from a distance.
Her head came up at the sound of quick steps, chasing after her. Not heavy enough to be his.
“Mina! Bevins said that you’re—” Andrew broke off when he caught sight of her. “Mina? Are you—”
“Don’t ask.” She barely heard her own hoarse whisper.
Though his face was blurring, she saw his grin. “All right, then, you slatternly wench! Go on back home where you belong, having babies and singing the praises of marriage reform!”
Mina choked. Not a laugh, not a sob. Both. She stepped onto the platform.
“That’s right! We don’t need your type around here. Any decent jade would be wearing a skirt . . . so that the crew could have a look as the platform goes up.”
Mina managed a smile for that one, shaking her head. Her smile lasted only as long as the platform rested on the Terror’s decks. Lady Corsair met her at the side of the airship, frowning.
She studied Mina for a long second, then sighed. “This is what happens when you go soft. Do you want opium or wine?”
Not soft, Mina thought. A jagged stone existed where her heart had been. And she didn’t want to feel it. Didn’t want to feel anything, all the way back to London.
“Wine,” she said.
Rhys saw her laugh, saw her smile. Leaving hadn’t touched her—or the relief of not being forced to stay with him after they reached London had been stronger than her regret. The platform lifted. The boy turned, his face as stricken as Rhys felt. Andrew’s eyes met his. Rhys recognized the anger and hatred in them. Her brother wanted to kill him for making her leave early.
Too late. By making her leave, Rhys had killed himself.
Scarsdale’s gaze followed the rise of the platform. “I’m damned sorry, captain.”
Him, too. And he couldn’t watch her go. With a shake of his head, he tossed away the cigarillo. It wasn’t any kind of substitute. Now, the only thing that drove him was having her back—and he’d do that by taking away the fear that she lived under every day. “When we return, I want the name of every man in Parliament. I want to know what he believes, why he believes it. The newsmen, too.”
“You’ll have it.” Scarsdale paused as the clank of the platform docking sounded through the night air. “It might take all of your life.”
That didn’t matter. He didn’t have much of one without her.