CHAPTER NINE
Lenore decided that despite being a few thousand feet in the air, tasks for an airship cabin boy were very much like those of a housemaid on terra firma—except for the four hour watches of course. Her lips twitched at the idea of Jane handing Mrs. Harp a set of field glasses with instructions to keep a lookout for apple thieves in the back garden at three in the morning.
She entered the Terebellum’s compact galley and spotted the cook in his usual place before the stove. No scent of wood, coal or gas filled the air in this kitchen. Airship stoves and ovens were fueled by empyrean, that almost mystical essence discovered by the British Mage Guild. Empyrean gave rise to the age of dirigibles and consolidated the Guild’s power and influence.
The galley was situated behind the control room and next to the telegraph room, with a breathtaking view of the eastern horizon from its starboard side windows. The sun, a blaze of volcanic orange began its steady climb in a sky still dotted with fading stars.
“Good morning, Mr. Smith.” She tucked herself into a corner to keep out of the way while the cook busied himself at the burners.
He nodded. “Likewise, miss. And how is the captain this morning?” He poured a dark stream of liquid into a vacuum flask. The smell of hot coffee filled the air.
Lenore inhaled an appreciative breath. “Not exactly in the sunniest of dispositions. I hope you brewed the coffee strong.” Lenore had quickly learned why several of her new crewmates had given her pitying looks and good luck wishes once they found out one of her many tasks aboard the ship included bringing “Dragon” Widderschynnes her morning coffee.
Mr. Smith closed the flask and snapped a cup on top. “Strong is the only way to brew it, miss. Otherwise, it’s not fit for drinking.” He handed her the flask. “Best step lively. You’ve learned by now, the longer her Nibs has to wait, the more dangerous it gets.”
“Indeed it does, Mr. Smith.” Lenore backed out of the galley. “I’ll return as soon as possible to help Clark serve breakfast.”
The Terebellum’s keel corridor bore a similar design to the Pollux, except bigger and more modern. Nettie’s temporary quarters were only a short jaunt down the gang walk from the control and radio rooms. Lenore exchanged morning greetings with crewmen changing watch or on their way to the crew mess for breakfast.
She knocked briefly on the captain’s door, easing it open at Nettie’s abrupt “Enter.”
“I have your coffee, Captain. Mr. Smith promised...” The rest of her sentence faded when she caught sight of Nettie’s visitor. Black garb and white hair. As with every other time she saw the Highgate Guardian on the Terebellum, her heartbeat doubled. Thank God she wore her corset looser than usual, or she’d probably faint from lack of breath. “Forgive my interruption,” she said. “Good morning, Mr. Whitley.” Lenore hoped the wide smile curving her mouth didn’t look as foolish as it felt.
He bowed, his features more guarded but his voice as warm as his hand had been on her waist when he kissed her in the abandoned rectory. “Always a pleasure, Miss Kenward.” The way he uttered the salutation heated Lenore’s cheeks and made Nettie’s eyebrows climb.
She passed the flask to Nettie without taking her eyes off Whitley. “My apologies. I didn’t know you’d have a visitor. I only brought one cup. I can bring another.”
“No apology necessary,” he said. “I was just leaving.” He glanced at Nettie who watched them both with a wry gaze. “If I see anything else, I will inform you.”
She toasted him with her flask. “I’ll pass that bit on to the gunners.”
Lenore had the very strong sense she had walked in on a particularly important discussion.
He bowed and doffed his imaginary hat. “Captain. Miss Kenward.” The action guaranteed to startle Lenore every time she saw him do it. He looked nothing like her Nathaniel, yet a great many of his behaviors and speech patterns reminded her of him.
Both women stared at the door after he left. Lenore jumped when Nettie snapped her fingers. “Ah damn! Lenore, catch him. I forgot to tell him to meet me after supper for a report review.”
Lenore saluted. “Aye, Captain.”
Why Nettie had to discuss such things with the Guardian of Highgate—or why he was even on this ship in the first place—remained a puzzle, but Lenore dared not ask. On this ship, social class didn’t matter the way rank did. Here, Nettie was Queen and Lenore a minion. To ask such questions broke a rigid protocol.
She caught up with him just as he climbed the ladder from the keel corridor to the hull. “Mr. Whitley, wait!”
He halted to peer down at her before descending the ladder back to the keel deck. Nettie had introduced him to the crew as an “official observer” on their flight. She didn’t elaborate beyond that short statement, and no one asked the question they all thought: why was a bonekeeper aboard an airship?
Lenore’s shock at first seeing him on the Terebellum had given way to excitement. The memory of his kiss still made her lips throb. She had lost count of the many times she’d replayed those moments in the empty rectory, held close in his arms as he made love to her first with verse and then with his mouth.
Despite the airship’s close quarters, she rarely saw him. Her numerous tasks as cabin boy kept her busy from the second she rose to the second her head hit the pillow on her bed. Whatever the Guardian observed, he did so in near invisibility. Rumors ran rife about him in the crew quarters, conjectures over why he was aboard this ship and if restless spirits followed wherever he walked, whispering forgotten tragedies and bitter deaths in his ears.
For now, he observed her. Closely. She shivered, not from the pervasive cold, but from the pleasure of his scrutiny. “Nettie...” She paused and started again. “Captain Widderschynnes asked that I deliver a message. She wishes to meet with you at three bells concerning a report review.”
He narrowed the space between them. The harsh overhead lights, so unflattering to everyone else, sharpened the contrast between the white and black of his visage. Lenore indulged in the fanciful notion that he looked like a revenant caught under a searchlight. The smile he held back in Nettie’s quarters blossomed across his lips. “How are you, Lenore? Or am I allowed the liberty of such address?”
She liked his face—ethereal, with a touch of melancholy. “It seems ludicrous that we use our surnames in private, considering my questionable and improper behavior with you last week.”
“I prefer the term iconoclastic over improper.”
Lenore chortled, delighted at his repartee. “You’re very charming,” she said. Charming, fascinating, bewitching.
Two pale fingers traced the air at the side of her upturned face. “And you are extraordinarily beautiful,” he replied.
She couldn’t help it; she leaned into him just as she’d done in the rectory. “If you recite Tennyson, I shall be lost,” she said softly.
A low sound rumbled in his throat. His hand lingered at her neck, fingertips teasing the exposed skin above her coat collar. “If you kiss me, I will be made whole.”
He was so close, so very close. Her body ached for him while her mind repeated words in the cadence of prayer. One kiss, just one. I’ll capture lightning for you for just one. She swayed toward him.
They jumped apart at the sound of a door opening and closing in the direction of the control room. Lenore gasped, amazed at how fast the Guardian moved. One moment he stood so near, his soft hair tickling her cheek when he bent to kiss her. Now he perched on the ladder he climbed earlier. He held out a hand, beckoning. “Come with me,” he whispered.
She sighed. “I can’t. I’m helping the steward deliver breakfast to the crew in the mess. I’m already late.” She backed away before the temptation to grasp his hand and climb the ladder overcame her.
His shoulders slumped in obvious disappointment. “Are you free this evening?”
Her task list was long and didn’t end after supper, especially this night. “I’m standing the lookout watch tonight.”
Footsteps sounded on the metal gangplank, coming closer. Lenore peered down the narrow corridor but saw nothing yet. When she looked back, Colin had disappeared off the ladder. Only a pair of white pinpoint stars above her hinted at where he stood in the clot of shadows gathered beneath a girder. “Another night perhaps,” he said in his sepulchral voice.
Lenore held up a hand. “Wait!” She lowered her voice. “I have last dog watch, eight bells. Join me. Please.”
The two bright stars faded along with his voice. “Until eight bells then. My Lenore.”
She spent the remainder of the day in a fog, absurdly eager for the late-hour watch and the brutal cold that came from standing at an open gondola window two thousand feet in the air with ice frosting the glass. In the interim, she delivered messages for Nettie, made notes in the official log book, inventoried medicines and surgical instruments in the surgery compartment, ironed sheets for the crew bedding and helped the steward deliver meals to the crews’ quarters from the kitchen. Lenore hoped that by the end of the trip, she might get a chance to visit one of the engine gondolas to see the newly modified engines at work.
She didn’t see her Guardian until she’d taken up her post at the watch, bundled against the freezing temperatures, field glasses clutched in her stiff fingers. The land below was a wide shadow of valleys and hills, broken periodically by clusters of yellow lights—towns and villages gleaming in the darkness like fireflies in summer. In the distance, the jagged line of the Alps marched across the horizon, dark silhouettes against a night sky layered in shades from velvety indigo to mourning black.
They were alone up here, no other beacon light flashing amongst the stars to indicate another ship. “I wish you could see this, Papa,” she said. “It’s magnificent.”
The door to her watch post slid open, and an umbra shape slipped in on silent feet. Unlike her, the Guardian wore his usual garb, without coat or scarf or gloves. He held a metal flask that gleamed dully in the low light of an empyrean torch. His hair fluttered in the draft swirling through the window until it lifted away from his face, a white banner offering surrender.
He passed the flask to her. “Tea,” he said. “Still hot. Courtesy of the boatswain’s mate, though she doesn’t know it.” He winked.
Lenore placed the field glasses on the ledge in front of her to wrap her hands around the flask. “Mrs. Markham, bless her. And you for bringing it to me. It’s chilly tonight.”
He leaned casually against the gondola frame, pale mouth curved in amusement. “That’s understating it a bit, don’t you think?”
Content to simply hold the flask and let the hot tea inside thaw her fingers, Lenore shivered. “A little.” She envied his imperviousness to the temperature. “No tea for yourself?”
“I’m more partial to a good brandy on a cold night.”
She frowned. Another small detail that reminded her of Nathaniel. Stop it, Lenore. Many men prefer brandy over tea. You’re seeing a ghost in the guise of a bonekeeper. A beautiful bonekeeper with a sorcerer’s touch but not Nathaniel.
“Such burdensome thoughts. What are you thinking, Lenore?” He uttered her name with a priest’s reverence for the sacred.
“You’re not bothered by cold or rain. Do you hunger or thirst?”
He straightened away from the window. A bright moon plated one half of his body in silver light. “For food or water, no, though I can eat and drink if I wish. But I’m like any other man regarding certain things. I crave friendship, comrades...” He reached out to tug the edge of her scarf closer to her cheek. “Affection.” His voice was deep, soft, as was the half smile he offered her. “The dearly departed who speak tend to be a little repetitive, with limited topics of conversation.”
The scarf muffled Lenore’s tut. “Trust me when I say the living can be just as afflicted by such character weakness. That or everyone who visits my aunt’s drawing room hasn’t yet realized they’re actually dead.”
His laughter warmed her far better than any coat. “And there you are, trapped in the drawing room with the walking dead until all the tea is gone.”
What a delight it was to laugh and tease with this man. Not since Nathaniel’s courtship of her had she been so enthralled.
“I shouldn’t be so harsh,” she admitted. “I’m certain the boredom was mutual. Many of them dreaded engaging me in conversation, terrified I’d rhapsodize over the efficiency of a Daimler engine design or how Sir Hugh Carver once again improved the impact shields on the ships. I, however, will restrain myself from falling into that trap tonight. I’ve no wish to lose my intrepid companion who can withstand the cold but possibly not the ennui of my company.”
Colin’s expression sobered. His fingers glided over her gloved hand where it rested on the ledge by the field glasses. “You have nothing to fear on that score, Lenore. Trust me.”
She laced her fingers with his, regretting the barrier of her glove between his skin and hers. Once more they stood only inches apart, the space between almost shimmering with tension. Lenore met his gaze, a Shakespearean dichotomy of dark and bright.
“Is a post on an airship what you thought it might be?” He spoke in tones reserved for lovers, as if the innocuous question was meant to be asked while he nuzzled her breasts or drew invisible murals on her bare belly with his fingertips.
He held her mesmerized. Only a blast of icy wind through the window cleared her head. She blinked but didn’t let go of his hand. “Yes and no,” she said, waving her free arm to indicate the wide sky. “This. This is beyond the ability of the most eloquent poet to adequately describe. Great men dreamed through the ages to fly like birds, and here we are above the world, counting falling stars.”
She gave a rueful shrug then. “Mostly, it’s like home. There’s tea to be made and supper to cook, laundry to wash, accounts to settle and beds to tuck in.” She winked at Colin. “The adventurous life of a cabin boy. Or girl if that better suits your sensibilities.”
“It’s how many captains started and rose through the ranks. You learn the ship’s language and her song until she becomes more familiar than the mother who bore you.”
There it is, she thought. A hint of the life before his transformation. “You speak as if this isn’t your first time on a ship.”
A wistful expression played across his elegant face. He tapped his chest. “Before I became this, I served aboard an airship.”
His admission didn’t surprise her. For a “guest” and observer, he moved with surprising ease and familiarity aboard the Terebellum, as if sailing high above the earth were an everyday thing. She still gazed at her surroundings in open-mouthed wonder, unspoiled by the drudgery of chores. “No wonder you seemed so at ease and unafraid of great heights or the Terebellum’s movements,” she said.
“Some things you don’t forget.”
She wanted to ask him more, but a flash of light caught her attention. She grabbed the field glasses and peered through the eyepieces. She passed the glasses to Colin and pointed to the light. “There. Do you see her?”
He looked through the glasses before returning them to her. “If I’m not mistaken, that’s the Danika, a Russian skyrunner. Likely on her way to the Redan.” He slipped behind her and tucked her gently against his body. “Now this,” he said, “is resoundingly improper.”
“I should strike you in outrage,” she agreed in a mild voice and leaned back against his tall frame. No coat or cloak, and still he radiated a delicious heat that seeped through her woolens to warm her from the inside out.
“And I should beg your pardon and release you,” he replied, his arm sliding around her waist until she stood snug in his embrace.
“We won’t do any of those things, will we?”
“I certainly hope not,” he whispered against her temple.
Were she not at her post, she’d turn in his arms and bring his head down to hers for a kiss.
They watched the Danika for several moments, Lenore noting her flight pattern and that it vectored safely away from the Terebellum. Once more the sky curved empty around them except for the moon and stars and those they watched as well.
Were it up to Lenore, they’d stay like this for hours, silent, unmoving, content to relish each other’s nearness. Colin’s warmth, however, worked better than a sleeping tonic, and she fought off a warning yawn.
Colin’s blunt inquiry snapped her wide awake. “Why aren’t you married, Lenore?”
Had he pushed her head out the window for a bracing blast of icy wind, she doubted it would have worked any better at obliterating her somnolence. Lenore stood silent in his arms for a moment, remembering the surprise visit from a dignified marchioness with a kind face and sad eyes. The tea had been bitter that day, almost as bitter as the choice presented to her.
“You need not answer if you wish.” He was strong and lithe against her back, a literal pillar of strength.
“I don’t mind,” she said. “I was almost married. Well, almost engaged.” A shooting star arced across the sky before disappearing into the horizon. “Unbeknownst to me, the man who courted me was the youngest son of a marquess, a lord. Because there was already an heir and to the title and another brother in line after the heir, his family tolerated his ‘eccentricities’.”
As aware as she was of his every touch and breath, Lenore didn’t miss the slow stiffening in Colin’s body as she spoke. “Like you, he served aboard an airship. The Pollux to be exact. He loved it, embraced it, risked scandal over it.
“You understood his passion.”
She nodded. “I did. I think we’re born with a love for a particular thing that calls to our souls. To ignore it reaps unhappiness.”
“What happened?”
Five years on, and it still hurt to recall that meeting and the events which followed. “I didn’t know it at the time, but my almost-fiancé had lost both brothers to cholera in the space of a week. He became the heir to the marquisate. His duty was to the estate and providing the next generation of heirs to succeed him.”
“And you were an inventor’s daughter.” Colin’s voice sounded clipped and cool, even as his hand stroked a comforting rhythm along her ribs.
Lenore swallowed, willing down the clot of tears trapped in her throat. “Indeed. A mésalliance not to be borne. Once they discovered his intention to propose, his mother paid me a visit. She presented a sound argument. Accept his offer and consign myself and any offspring we produced to the status of outcast.” She sighed. “I would have suffered it gladly. I have no interest in or fondness for the nobility. My children, however, and their children as well would be burdened by our selfishness, ostracized from Society the moment they were born.”
“You refused him when he asked.”
She wondered at the odd flatness in Colin’s tone. “I did and will regret it all my life. We parted on bad terms. He was killed while fighting at the Redan.”
Colin’s arms tightened around her, his embrace both comforting and strangely desperate, as if he sought solace in her nearness as much she found it in his. They held each other for a long time, Lenore lost to her memories.
Her creeping melancholy threatened to cast a pall over this lovely but oh-so-brief time with the Guardian, and she resolutely shook it off. It was best to speak of other things, lighter things.
“I was at first disappointed that my inaugural voyage would be on a ship other than the Pollux,” she said. “But I think now it was for the best. Adjusting to my role aboard ship is much easier when it’s a peaceful journey on a cargo lifter. I’m not certain how well I’d do on a skyrunner in the midst of battle.”
Colin pressed his cheek to the side of her head. “Every crewman feels that way on their first flight,” he whispered near her ear. “I think you’d learn quickly enough to hold your own if put to the test.”
Either Fate played some great joke on her or had chosen to bestow some great beneficence. Colin Whitley might look like a ghost himself, tethered to this earthly realm by the most gossamer of threads, but to her, he was almost too good to be true. He heard the dead speak and protected their remains by means both mysterious and sometimes violent. People ran from the sight of him, even if dogs didn’t, proving what she’d always thought—man’s four-legged companion was often a lot more insightful regarding another’s character than the its master.
That last thought made her recall the intrepid little dog who’d tried to rescue her from the resurrectionists. “What happened to the hound who kept me company when I was unconscious?”
Colin exhaled a slow breath. “She’s currently in the care of the rector’s wife who spoils her relentlessly. She, however, fancies herself my dog.”
The news lightened Lenore’s heart. “And why wouldn’t she? I imagine you make a wonderful master.” No doubt, he’d make an equally fine spouse. The thought startled her almost as much as the peal of the bells that signaled the end of her watch.
She did turn then, still held in the cove of Colin’s arms. “My watch is over,” she said and wondered if any watchman ever regretted departing his post as much as she did.
The Guardian brushed his lips across hers in a tantalizing hint of a kiss. “I must go before your relief arrives.”
She traced the arch of his eyebrows with her finger. “Thank you for your kindness in keeping me company.” One eyebrow twitched under her touch.
“It wasn’t kindness, Lenore,” he said in that low, sensual voice. “It was selfishness, and temptation, and need.” He kissed her a second time with the sweep of his tongue across hers before setting her from him.
Lenore’s breath streamed from her nose and mouth in small clouds. For the first time since she’d boarded the Terebellum, she wanted to shed her layers of clothing and cool off her overheated skin. “I don’t know why you’re on this ship,” she told him. “But I’m glad of it. So very glad you’re here with me.”
He gazed at her in a way that made her heart pound as hard as his kiss did. “I am always with you, Lenore.” A pause. “Good night.”
He was gone before she had a chance to raise her hand in farewell, a wraith embracing the darkness beyond the door.
“Good night,” she whispered to the empty room.