“Hush. You know what Matthew said—we are to stay quiet until he or Octavia knocks on the wall to let us know the coast is clear.”

“I don’t hear anything,” Hallie whispered after a moment of silence. “And I’ll go crazy if I have to just stand here being quiet. It’s like being walled up alive.”

I grinned despite the fact that she couldn’t see it, carefully sliding my hand along the wooden wall to find her arm. I gave her fingers a little squeeze. Judging by the way she clutched my hand, I guessed she was a lot more nervous than she let on. “Afraid?”

“No. Yes. Just a little.” Her voice was thin as if she was close to panic. I gave her fingers another squeeze.

“Hang in there, Hal. Octavia said the inspectors are usually pretty quick, and hardly ever glance into the engineer’s rooms.”

“There’s only a thin sheet of wood between us and them,” she whispered back. “What if they discover the bookcase has a false back? What if they trigger the mechanism that opens it like a door? What if they go around behind us and find us?”

“Octavia assured me that no one has ever given the bookcase a second glance, and there’s a big boiler on the other side of us, so there’s no way anyone could shift it to find us.” The throb of the boiler, which had made the wall vibrate, had slowly died down as we landed, eventually falling silent.

“One of the crew could tell someone,” she persisted. “I talked to Beatrice Ho quite a bit yesterday—she said the bounty given for spies turned over would be enough for her to retire on.”

“That’s why Octavia set up that little scene with the two crates that were dropped off when we slipped in here—if one of the crew was going to turn us in, they’d find nothing but a couple of crates filled with barrels of salt beef.”

“The engineer knows we’re here. He could rat us out.”

That was a valid concern. “You remember that first night when we woke up to find ourselves here?”

She shuddered. “How could I forget?”

“Octavia told me that this ship was taken from a smuggler, and although all of the other smuggling spaces had been renovated, this one had escaped detection. She suggested then that we’d have to hide here when we landed, but that Matt would have to know. That’s why I spent the last few days palling around with him. He might have thought I was trying to learn about the steam engine systems, but the truth was that I wanted to have a chance to assess what sort of man he was. He doesn’t strike me at all like the type of man who’d take blood money.”

“You’re putting a lot of faith in a few days’ acquaintance,” she said, stiffening at the sound of a metal clang.

“Shhh. Someone’s coming. Just don’t panic, and for God’s sake, don’t make a noise. We’ll get through this all right.”

She was silent, although her fingers gripped mine with an intensity that was painful. The wooden backing to the bookcase might not have been thick—it had to swing outward in order to allow access to the narrow closetlike storage space into which we were currently packed like a pair of human sardines—but it did a great job of muffling sound. I strained my ears to pick up a clue as to what was going on out there, but all I heard was the rumble of male voices. A few minutes later and they were gone.

“See?” I whispered, letting go of her hand. “Nothing to worry abo—”

An explosion rocked the floor.

Hearing the intake of her breath, I slapped a hand over Hallie’s mouth before she could scream. “Quiet!” I ordered, listening for any clue to what was going on.

“We’re going to die!” she yelled, jerking down my hand. “They found us! Oh, God, I knew this would happen! We’re going to die on a strange, alien world, and no one from back home will know what happened to us!”

“This isn’t an alien world—,” I started to say, but stopped when the wall in front of us suddenly gave way.

“Hurry,” Octavia said as she yanked open the false back to the bookcase. “We must get you off the ship immediately.”

“What happened?” I asked, grabbing Hallie’s arm and following her. “Did they find us?”

“No. The inspectors were leaving the ship when—duck!”

I dived with her behind one of the boilers, pulling a squawking Hallie with me, my hand over her mouth as we froze.

“What is it?” I asked Octavia in an almost silent whisper. This necessitated me putting my mouth to her ear, a distracting event, since it allowed me to get another whiff of that enticing perfume she wore. Despite the danger of the situation, lust flared to life deep in my belly, spreading out a warm glow of desire that I was hard put to ignore.

“We’re under attack,” she said, turning her head slightly. Her mouth was suddenly close to mine, far too close for me to be able to think with any cognizance.

I stared into her lovely brown eyes, eyes that seemed to be simultaneously innocent and wise beyond their years. Her irises flared, showing she shared the attraction I felt, and I hate to admit it, but I might have just forgotten everything and kissed her right then if a shadow hadn’t flickered over us.

She ducked again, and instinctively, I pulled Hallie to the ground as I flattened myself. I peered through the feet of the boiler, catching sight of several pairs of shoes. “Who?” I mouthed at Octavia.

She held her finger to her mouth and slowly, cautiously pulled herself up behind the boiler, peering out in the small space made by a pressure gauge and the body of the boiler. I did likewise.

A tall, whipcord-thin man strode past us, his coppery hair shimmering in the gaslights. He was yelling an order in French, something about securing their prize. He gestured for a moment toward the stern, then hurried out of the room. The two other people with him, both men, followed.

“Etienne,” Octavia said almost inaudibly.

“Who?” I asked just as softly.

She hesitated for a moment, sliding me an unreadable glance. “Etienne Briel is the leader of the Black Hand.”

“The who, now?”

“They are the revolutionary group I mentioned a few days ago.”

“Oh, yeah. Them.” I gave her a long look. She blushed.

“Do I take it you know this Etienne?” I couldn’t help but ask.

Her blush deepened. That was all the answer I needed.

“OK, then. If you know him, why are you hiding?”

Her lips thinned. “He is stealing my cargo.”

“In other words, he’s using you?”

She didn’t answer, but her lips tightened.

Anger boiled in my guts. Octavia’s face was devoid of emotion, but she was a woman who valued her control, and I knew she had to be furious at a former lover just helping himself to her precious cargo. I also knew why she was crouched down behind a boiler rather than defending her cargo from an acquaintance—she was protecting Hallie and me.

Guilt added to the anger.

“I’m not going to hide here and let him treat you this way,” I said grimly, not sure how, exactly, I was going to stop them.

“Jack?” Hallie asked as I got to my feet.

“Mr. Fletcher, get down or you’ll be seen,” Octavia hissed, tugging my arm.

“I don’t care. It’s because of us that you’re in this mess, and I’m not going to stand by while someone ruins your first trip. I know how important it is to you. Hallie, stay here with Octavia. I’ll come back for you when the coast is clear.”

“Jack!” she moaned as I slipped around the side of the boiler.

“Mr. Fletcher, please!”

I ignored Octavia’s plea and peered out into the boiler room. It was now empty, but the door had been left open to the gangway, and I could hear men’s voices from the fore of the airship. I crept toward the doorway, peering around intently for any sign of a rope or cord, or something I could use to restrain the revolutionaries.

I paused at the door to pinpoint the location of the voices, and almost lost it when something bumped into me from behind.

“Octavia!” I whispered furiously as I spun around to see who had attacked me. “I thought I told you to stay with Hallie.”

“You told her to stay with me, and she is.”

I glared at my sister, who stood behind the captain.

“Don’t give me that look. We’re not weaklings,” Hallie snapped back. “We’re not feeble little things who have to cower in the back while the big, bad man goes out and saves the day. Stand aside, brother, and let me show you how a black belt deals with troublemakers.”

She pushed past me into the gangway in a burst of short-lived bravado.

“You don’t have a black belt,” I pointed out, grabbing her arm to stop her.

“I could if I wanted to.” She shrugged her arm out of my grasp, but I was faster and bolted ahead of her and Octavia.

“Fine. You can come with me, but I will go first. And don’t give me any crap about it.” I turned and marched down the gangway, realized what I was doing, and slid into a stealthy, ninjalike movement instead.

“Mr. Fletcher, this is not necessary,” Octavia said, tugging at my sleeve. “The revolutionaries are very dangerous. I would feel horrible if something were to happen to you.”

I tossed a grin over my shoulder at her. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I may not believe in lethal force, but I do know how to take care of myself.”

“No, you don’t understand.” She bit her lower lip, her hands wringing themselves. “Oh, it’s so complicated. . . . There are circumstances of which you are not aware, and they—”

Another blast shook the metal frame of the airship. Hallie screamed. I dashed down the spiral staircase to the level that held the entrances to the cargo holds, Octavia’s boots sounding on the metal steps behind me.

“Mr. Fletcher, please stop! There is no need for you to act the hero!”

I leaped the last couple of feet down the stairs and bolted down the hallway. One of the side doors flung open, and Mowen and the lecherous cook jumped out, two oddly shaped guns in their hands.

“You go via the forward passage. I’ll drop down from the rigging,” Mowen ordered.

The cook stared at me in surprise for a moment. Mowen shoved him toward the front of the ship. “Move, man! There’s no time to stand about gawking!”

“Mr. Mowen! Francisco! What are you both doing still on board the ship?” Octavia demanded, pushing around from behind me. “You were supposed to disembark earlier when the officials left!”

“Wanted to make sure all was well with our passengers,” Mowen replied hurriedly, shoving a gun into my hands. “You take this and guard the captain.”

“I do not need anyone to guard me!” she gasped, outrage visible in the fiery glare she gave him.

“I’m sorry, but I have a policy against guns,” I said, trying to give it back to him. “I make it a habit never to kill anyone.”

“Shoot them in the legs, then,” he snapped, and ran up the stairs we’d just come down.

Hallie, who had been descending carefully, clutched me when she reached the bottom of the stairs. “Jack, what are we going to do?”

I stared at the gun in my hand. Like the one Octavia wore strapped to her belt, it was of a rounded shape, with brass tubing and a small crystal set into the grip. The crystal glowed green now. I had a horrible feeling that indicated the safety was off it.

“We will do nothing,” Octavia said firmly. “There is nothing to be done. The revolutionaries will not harm you, I promise.”

“How can you promise that?” I asked, frowning.

She hesitated a moment, then grabbed my arm and pulled me into the mess. Hallie followed. “You force me into a very uncomfortable admission. I trust that it will go no further than this.”

“Does it have something to do with the people attacking the ship?” Hallie asked.

She hesitated again and a dim light of understanding dawned. “You aren’t at all surprised that they attacked, are you?”

She shot me an odd look.

“You expected it.” The dim light grew brighter. “You knew they were going to attack and take your cargo, didn’t you?”

“You’re a revolutionary?” Hallie asked, looking incredulous.

Octavia closed her eyes for a moment. “I was told that the revolutionaries would be attacking when we landed, yes.”

“Told by whom?” I asked.

She twisted a small garnet ring on a finger of her right hand. “Does that really matter? The fact is that we are in no danger from the revolutionaries. You, however, have shown yourself to Mr. Francisco, and although I have no reason to believe he would betray your presence, it would have been wiser had you stayed back as I asked.”

I watched her closely, noted how the pupils in her lovely brown eyes constricted ever so slightly. “Just how well do you know this Etienne? Is he another one of your boyfriends?”

I swore she ground her teeth. She certainly gave me a look that should have dropped me dead on the spot.

“Are you implying that I have carnal knowledge of every man whose name I know?”

“No, and you’re changing the subject. Is he one of your lovers?”

Her fingers twitched, like she wanted to throttle someone. “Was! Since you insist on knowing, I admit it. I hope that satisfies your rampant curiosity! Now will you give me that Disruptor, and go back to the boiler room, where it’s safe? I must go stop my crew from harming themselves or others!”

“That deranged cook of yours has already seen me,” I said, following her as she stomped out of the mess. Hallie squeaked something and ran after us.

“I have enough to do without ensuring nothing further happens to you,” Octavia answered as we hurried down the hall. She stopped to make shooing motions at Hallie and me.

“I told you I can take care of myself,” I said, then realized I still had hold of the gun. I stuck it in my pocket.

“And I can do it without lethal force. Let me go first and look to make sure the way is clear.”

“For the love of the moon and the stars,” she said, sighing loudly as I pushed past her. “Does the man not have ears? Mr. Fletcher, I told you that I will come to no harm with members of the Black Hand.”

She tried to pass me as she spoke.

“Look, I may not be much of a he- man, but I am a man, and I consider it my duty to put myself between potential danger and people I care about, OK? So let me do my job!”

She stopped, giving me a curious look. “You . . . care about me?”

“I don’t generally kiss women I dislike,” I answered, pausing at the door to one of the cargo holds.

“You kissed the captain?” Hallie asked, giving her a speculative look. “Well, now. That’s interesting.”

“It was an aberration,” Octavia said quickly.

“Like hell it was,” I said, tossing a grin over my shoulder at her. “It was hot and you know it.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but nothing came out.

I carefully opened the door a few inches and peered in. The far wall of the cargo hold folded back to allow access to the contents once the airship was landed. Sunlight and noise filtered in through the opened wall as a handful of men and women hurriedly removed the wooden crates filling the hold.

“You’re sure those are your revolutionary buddies?” I asked as we all ducked behind the nearest crate.

“Who else would be purloining my cargo?” she countered.

“You seem to have an interesting past, and an even more interesting collection of friends,” I said softly, close to her ear. I breathed in the scent of her, a light floral perfume that had overtones of honeysuckle. I’ve never been one for perfumes much, but this one tormented me, leaving me with an almost overwhelming urge to taste her. “I wouldn’t be surprised at all if there were any number of people who wanted to get into your cargo.”

She shot me a startled look, obviously not quite sure if I meant the innuendo. I let a hint of a leer curl up the edges of my smile.

“There really is no need for you both to endanger yourselves,” she said. “The Black Hand will not harm me, but I cannot guarantee your safety. If you insist on staying here, remain hidden behind this crate of uniforms while I go look for Messrs. Mowen and Francisco.”

“Not on your tintype,” I said cheerfully, following as she skulked over to another large crate. “Whither you go, so goest me.”

“You’re not leaving me alone, either,” Hallie said, grabbing the back of my coat as we crouched our way along the wall.

Octavia sighed heavily, but said nothing more. I beamed at her bustle as she clutched a crate and peered around it. What a smart woman she was. She knew when arguing would be futile. Smart, sexy, and fascinating—it was a heady combination, and I knew unless I watched myself, I would be a goner to her charms.

Octavia stopped, poking her head around a crate, hissing something. I peered around her. The engineer and cook had evidently been sneaking around the edges of the hold with the intention of ambushing the busy revolutionaries as they unloaded the cargo. Upon hearing Octavia, however, the pair crab-walked their way back to us, keeping their heads down.

“Captain! You shouldn’t be here,” Mr. Mowen said softly.

“My most luscious one, my beauty, my flame of the brightest sun. What Mowen says is true—you should not be here. You should be in the room of bedchambers, awaiting me to pleasure you as you have never been pleasured,” Francisco said, puffing out his chest even as he glared over her head at me.

“Look, I don’t know why you have such a hard time understanding that Octavia isn’t interested in you, but you seriously need to knock it the hell off. She’s not interested—got that?”

“I hear the flying gnat buzzing,” Francisco said, waving his hand in the air as if flapping away a fly. “Just a small, insignificant gnat of the most unwelcome.”

I sighed. Octavia said, casting a swift glance at me, “That will be enough, Francisco. You will please both of you go back to your quarters.”

“But the revolutions! They are here to take your so-precious cargo!” Francisco protested. “I cannot allow my beloved captain of the flames to be robbed!”

“I understand and applaud your reticence to allow such a thing to happen,” Octavia said, her chin lifting. I loved that chin. She had a tendency to lift it when she gave commands, and the sight of it tipping up just made me want to kiss her. “But in this case, I will not have any of my crew’s lives put at risk. Return to your quarters at once.”

“What about you, Captain?” Matthew Mowen asked, giving first her, then me, an appraising glance.

“I’ll see that she comes to no harm,” I said, giving him a nod.

“I will follow shortly,” she said, shooting me an annoyed look. “I just wish to make sure that the revolutionaries don’t attempt to harm the ship. Then we will retreat, as well, and await the officials that are sure to come.”

Mowen stood his ground for the count of twenty, but eventually he succumbed to Octavia’s demands, and both men exited the cargo hold by the entrance we had just used.

“You lie very well,” Hallie said, her gaze resting thoughtfully on Octavia. “I hadn’t expected that of you.”

A faint flush of pink rose in Octavia’s cheeks. “I prefer to speak only the truth, but in this situation, I felt a lie was justified in order to save my crew members’ lives.”

“So no one else in the crew is a member of this group?” I asked as she crawled over to the next crate.

“No, of course not!” she whispered back. “I don’t suppose it would do any good for me to request, yet again, that you and Miss Norris return to your hiding spot?”

“None whatsoever,” I said cheerfully. She turned her head to glare at me and caught me ogling her ass.

“Mr. Fletcher!”

“Jack.”

“Might I remind you that I am the captain of this airship?” she said, sitting abruptly on her heels.

Behind me, Hallie giggled.

“I’m a man. You’re a woman, a damned attractive woman. Your ass was right there, demanding I give it the consideration due it. I couldn’t help it that consideration came in the form of an ogle.”

“My derriere has never demanded anything from anyone, not that you were looking at it in the first place, as the previously unwarranted discussion about bustles should have proven,” she said in that huffy tone that I was beginning to love. “Now, am I going to be able to proceed without you subjecting my person to inappropriate scrutiny?”

I thought about it for a moment. “I don’t think so, no. I’ll try to rein it back if you’re seriously offended, but as I said, I’m a man. I can’t help but admire the body of a woman who I . . . well, admire. And bustle or not, if you’re going to waggle your booty in front of me, I’m going to notice it.”

She gestured in front of her. “Very well. Since you are unable to control your manful lusts, you may precede me.”

“Manful lusts. I like that term. If Jack’s manful lusts get to be too much for you, Octavia, just whisper the phrase ‘sexual harassment’ in his ear, and he’ll stop. Probably.”

I winked at Octavia as I crept past her, moving as stealthily as I could down the far wall, running at a right angle to the wall that had been folded back for unloading. I was just about to ask Octavia what we were looking for when a muffled explosion sounded. We all froze.

“That wasn’t on the ship,” I said, not feeling any vibration in the metal floor.

“No. It came from the aerodrome.” Octavia clutched my shoulder as she peered around me, her face tight with worry.

“Are the revolutionaries blowing up the buildings?” Hallie asked, poking her head above mine to look. The workers who had been unloading Octavia’s cargo ran outside, shouting to one another. In the distance, we could hear other voices, people calling out questions, and, above that, a high, droning sound.

Octavia froze for a second, her head tipped as she listened intently.

“That sounds like . . .” I stopped and dug through my memory. “It sounds like the show some Bedouins put on when I was in Saudi Arabia. What’s it called? Ululation?”

“Not Bedouins,” Octavia said, leaping to her feet. Hallie and I followed suit. “Moghuls!”

“What on earth are moguls doing here?” Hallie asked.

“Not the Donald Trump sort of mogul, Hal,” I said. “The kind from the Moghul empire.”

Gunshots sounded above the screaming, but they were hollow-sounding gunshots, not the sharp bark I was used to. We ran as a group to the edge of the opened wall, and stared out at pandemonium.

Below us, the field of the aerodrome lay, grass and dirt spread out before us like a smooth carpet, edged on one side by small one-story buildings that were probably offices or terminals of some sort. Two other airships were parked on the field—one close to us, the other visible in one of three hangars that sat on the far side of the field.

“It’s Akbar,” Octavia said, clutching my arm. “The imperator’s son. Only he would be so bold as to attack a Black Hand raid.”

“Your raid is being raided?” I asked, wondering if she saw the irony in that.

She nodded, her face pinched with worry. Evidently she didn’t.

Dust rose thick and heavy in the air as madness consumed the people outside. Fifteen or so of the folks who had been loading up big wagons with the cargo had taken cover behind the wagons, and were shooting at the attackers. The Moghuls—I assumed Octavia was correct in identifying them—rode horses across the field in a wave that encircled both the hangar and the airship itself, their strange call rising high over the shouts and sounds of gunfire from the revolutionaries.

The Moghuls evidently had rifles, of a similar type to the handguns in that they made the same dull shooting sound, followed by a blast of reddish orange light.

“Akbar, huh?” I squinted through the dust, amazed she could see enough of the attackers to identify them. Their horses appeared to be wearing some sort of ornate leather and metal armor.

“Yes. That’s him, there, on the black horse.” She pointed as one of the galloping horses leaped over a wagon and spun around, charging the revolutionaries who had been hiding behind it. The man on the horse wore little armor, an odd choice, I thought, given the guns being fired toward him. He was dressed in some sort of a long tunic that reached to his knees, split up the sides so he could ride, with what looked like a yellow sweatshirt beneath it. His pants, also yellow, were tucked into ornately decorated leather boots, and he wore matching leather bracers on his wrists, the same type I’d seen on a friend who was heavily into archery. He had no bow, but did carry a rifle, and had a sword strapped to his belt. On his head he wore a pair of dark goggles, and a white turban, the end of which had been wrapped around the lower half of his face, no doubt to keep the dust out.

“Goggles,” I told Octavia.

“Eh?” she asked, looking confused.

I pointed at the man. “See? He knows how to do steampunk. He has goggles.”

She gave me a look that said she thought I was a few gigs short of a terabyte. While I watched, the Moghul whipped the rifle upward and began shooting at the revolutionaries, crying something at them as the dirt erupted at their feet. They scrambled backward, a few of them shooting at him, but he simply charged them with his horse. They turned tail and headed straight for us.

“Don’t worry—I’ll protect you!” I yelled, filled with the knowledge that I had to keep Octavia and Hallie safe from this latest threat.

“What?” Octavia said, her eyes round. “No—”

“Get back,” I shouted, shoving her toward Hallie. “Both of you—go hide!”

“Mr. Fletcher, I really must object to such high-handed—”

“You can yell at me about my manners later. Hold her, Hallie!” I bellowed, grabbing up a crowbar one of the revolutionaries had left lying behind. I didn’t wait to see if Hallie did as I demanded—she was a smart woman. I knew she wouldn’t insist on being in the thick of a battle when she was unarmed. I just prayed that Octavia would show the same sort of good sense.

I scrambled up on a crate, leaped across it to another one that stood in the center of the opened wall, and narrowed my eyes on the Moghul prince who Octavia had said was known for his ruthlessness. The revolutionaries wouldn’t hurt her, since she was obviously one of them, and I trusted her to keep Hallie safe from them. But the Moghul was another matter.

He charged toward us as the revolutionaries streamed into the hold. I felt, at that moment, in great need of a personal battle cry, something I could yell as I leaped off the box and challenged the Moghul prince, something that would summarize, in a few succinct words, both my personal attitude and beliefs, something dashing and inspiring, along the lines of the war cries that actors screamed so dramatically in period war movies. In the fraction of a second it took before the warlord reached me, I considered, and rejected, the motto of my alma mater, various Tolkien cries that were stirring, but meaningless in this context, and finally the motto of the US Army.

Akbar headed straight for me, his rifle spitting out splats of light on either side. I took a deep breath, raised my crowbar, and yelled in my best Bruce Willis impersonation, “Yippie ki-yay, motherfucker!” as I flung myself onto him.

I hit him with enough force that we both went over the back end of his horse, my arms and legs cartwheeling wildly as we fell. He was partly on the bottom as we struck the wooden ramp leading into the hold, his head making a satisfying thump on the ground as we hit.

He snarled something at me in a language I didn’t understand, shoving me off him as he scrambled to retrieve the rifle I’d knocked out of his hands.

“No, you don’t!” I yelled, tackling him. His head hit the ground again, leaving him dazed for a moment. I jerked him over onto his back, raising the crowbar in my hand.

From the hold, I could hear feminine voices. The gunfire had stopped, but not the screaming. I heard Octavia calling my name, and was warmed by the concern she obviously felt, but didn’t want to admit.

The dazed man beneath me coughed, his eyes fluttering behind the dark green lenses of the goggles. He must have seen the heavy crowbar in my hand directly over his head, because he froze. I stared down at him for a few seconds, a war waging inside me. Part of me wanted to bash his brains in for daring to attack Octavia’s ship, and possibly threatening her well-being. But I had always prided myself as having some sort of honor, so instead, I jumped to my feet, hauling him up with me. “I could crack your head open as easily as I could an egg,” I told him, shaking the crowbar at him. “But I’m going to let you go so long as you leave Octavia’s ship alone. Do you understand me? You are to leave her ship alone, or so help me, I’ll make you sorry you were ever born!”

“Jack! What are you doing? Let me pass, please!” Octavia’s voice was annoyed.

“It’s all right,” I called back, without taking my eyes off my captive. “Tell the revolutionaries to stand down.”

“To what?” Octavia asked.

“Stop shooting at him. I’ve got the situation under control.”

Akbar the Moghul’s eyes widened as I picked up his rifle.

“Go on,” I said, nodding toward his horse. “Take your band of thieves and get the hell out of here.”

Around and behind us, people emerged from behind crates, looking with disbelief as I waved the crowbar at him, more or less pushing him back toward his horse, which had stopped at the bottom of the ramp.

“For the love of the heavens!” Octavia yelled, bursting between two revolutionaries. “Jack, stop!”

“It’s all right, he’s not going to steal anything from you,” I called to her. She rushed up, and I half turned my head toward her, my eyes narrowed on Akbar. “Sorry I can’t comfort you, but this bastard looks like the type to carry a knife in his boot.”

“He does,” she said, taking the rifle from me.

Both Akbar and I glanced at her in surprise.

She blushed. “That is . . . I’ve heard he does. The newspapers are full of tales of his atrocities.”

“Well, he’s not going to be performing any atrocities here,” I growled, shoving him backward another couple of steps with the crowbar. “You heard me—get your buddies, and get the hell out of here.”

I thought for a moment that he was going to fight, and I braced myself for an attack, but instead he just made me a little bow, and said in a voice heavy with accent, “I will allow you to speak to me with such insolence for the mercy you have shown me, but do not expect such again.”

I slapped the crowbar against my hand in a threatening way. “Just remember that Octavia’s ship isn’t ripe for your picking.”

He said nothing, just leaped on his horse and, calling out something, rode off, his half-dozen followers on his heels.

Octavia turned to me, her eyes wide as she watched me clutch my hand and do a little dance of pain. “You stood up to Akbar the ruthless.”

“Dammit, I think I broke my hand with that damned crowbar,” I said, stopping the pain dance long enough to gingerly feel my palm. “Please remind me if I ever want to slap a crowbar on my hand that it hurts like hell. And yes, I did stand up to him, but someone had to. It was clear things would have turned into a bloodbath otherwise.”

She just looked at me as Hallie, making a noise of distress, took my hand and prodded at it.

“It doesn’t look broken to me,” Hallie said, giving it back to me.

“You challenged Akbar just because you didn’t want anyone hurt?” Octavia asked me, her gaze steady on mine.

“Well, no, not just because of that. I didn’t want your cargo stolen. Er . . . stolen by the wrong people,” I said, gesturing with a nod toward the revolutionaries, who stood clustered around us.

“I can’t believe you would endanger yourself for people you don’t know,” Octavia said, a frown suddenly pulling her brows together.

“I know you,” I said, nudging her with my arm.

“But you could have been killed,” she said slowly, little flecks of amber and black glittering in her eyes. Once again, I wanted badly to kiss her, but I figured she wouldn’t appreciate it in front of everyone.

“That could happen at any time,” I said, shrugging, and wishing we were alone. Clearly she wanted to express her gratitude to me for saving her cargo, and I was more than willing to have her do so, especially if that gratitude took a tangible form. I cleared my throat, ordered my groin to stop thinking about being alone with her, and arranged my expression into one of modesty. “I was happy to do it.”

“Yes,” she said slowly, her forehead smoothing out. She gave me a long, unreadable look. “I’m sure you were.”

She turned away to the revolutionaries, speaking briefly to one before marching into the hold without another word. The revolutionaries, with a last glance toward Hallie and me, continued loading the cargo onto the wagons.

I stared after Octavia as she disappeared into the depths of the hold.

“She seems pissed all of a sudden,” Hallie said, frowning after her.

“Yes, she does.”

“She should be happy that you saved her cargo for her revolutionary buddies.”

“You’d think so, huh?”

“Doesn’t make sense,” Hallie said, shaking her head, then shrugging. “Oh well. Where to now, brother mine?”

I pulled out a piece of paper that Octavia had given me. “There’s a pensione not far from here, Suore della Santa Croce, that’s kept by Swiss nuns. Octavia said we should be safe there.”

“Safe from what?” Hallie asked as I looked back into the hold. Octavia was gone.

“That is the question, isn’t it?” I said, but no one enlightened us.

“We’ll provide you with an escort to the pensione,” Captain MacGregor, the flight leader for this area, said as he gestured for a couple of Corps men-at-arms.

“That’s not necessary,” I told him, waiting for the rest of the crew to climb into the carriages that were waiting outside the main building for us. “We are prepared to take care of ourselves, and indeed would have been able to repel the Black Hand assault had the full complement of the crew been present.”

“I have no doubt that you would have,” Captain MacGregor said, his voice as warm as his eyes. I’d met him twice before, but was aware that there was a bit more admiration in his gaze than was purely proper, even given the situation. “You handled that attack by the barbarians quite easily. It’s just too bad that the revolutionaries overpowered you and were able to get away with the rest of the cargo.”

“Yes, it is quite upsetting,” I said, my gaze not wavering even so much as a smidgen.

“I’m sure the emperor will have nothing but praise for you, since you tried your best to fend them off. And then there’s the fact that we caught three of them. The emperor is bound to be pleased with you for that.”

Drat Etienne. Why hadn’t he posted guards to warn of possible reinforcements? He always was arrogant, and I had no doubt that he felt that his presence alone would guarantee the success of the raid. Now three of his men were imprisoned, and quite likely to be scheduled for execution.

“The emperor is always gracious,” I murmured, thinking frantically. I’d have to contact Alan—he might be able to help with the captured revolutionaries. He wouldn’t like it, since it could threaten his cover with the imperial forces, but he would just have to see the necessity in aiding me with the matter.

“I have asked the vice-provost if I might be present when he questions the revolutionaries,” Captain MacGregor continued, his voice fat with satisfaction. He held open the door to a third carriage for me, his hand on my elbow as he assisted me into the vehicle. “He said that under the circumstances he thought it would be allowed.”

“Really?” I paused on the top carriage step, turning around to face him. “Would it be possible for me to go with you?”

“You?” He laughed and gave me a little push into the carriage, closing the door and leaning casually against the opened window. “My dear Captain Pye, that would be the height of impropriety.”

“How so? It was my ship that was attacked, my crew that was forced to undergo hours of interrogation regarding the event. I believe we are owed something for that inconvenience. I agree that it would be unreasonable for my entire crew to appear at the questioning of the revolutionaries, but surely it would be fitting for me to be present.”

“On the contrary,” he said, his fingers lingering on mine until I withdrew my hand. “It is out of the question. As for the so-called interrogation—surely you must realize that the present time of unrest in the empire demands that both the Corps and the emperor’s officials investigate such events as what transpired today.”

“Yes, of course, but—”

“You have not been in Rome in several months,” he said, taking my hand again and giving it a squeeze. I was briefly thankful I had donned a pair of gloves before departing his office. “Much has changed since you were last here, my dear Captain Pye. Rome is a battleground between the barbarian Moghuls and the emperor’s forces. Daily attacks are not at all uncommon, and the streets are not safe for a lady such as yourself to pass through unescorted. I would, naturally, see to your safety myself, but I promised the vice-provost that I would attend him promptly. I’m sure you will forgive me.” He released my hand and gestured. Four armed men on horses moved into view, clearly there to escort our carriages to the pensione that was used by Aerocorps personnel when they were in Rome.

“You will, I hope, grant me the pleasure of your company for dinner tomorrow evening? I will call for you at eight o’clock.”

“I’m afraid I will be unavailable. Another time, perhaps?” I was forced to call out as the carriage suddenly jerked forward. I sank into the cushioned back, my stomach in my boots as I considered what a horrible mess had been made of things.

I was dwelling on that, and what steps I could take to try to free Etienne’s people, when we passed by the storehouses that were used to hold cargo until it could be distributed. As we passed the first one, a man emerged from the side, stepping back immediately into the blackness of the shadows between the two buildings. He wasn’t fast enough, though, to escape me noting the white turban that graced his head and lower face.

I waited until the last of the carriages carrying my crew had passed the storehouses before calling to the coachman to stop at the gate.

“Is there a problem, ma’am?” he called back to me as the horses trotted smartly onward.

I glanced back toward the storehouses, slowly shrinking in the distance. “I believe the Moghuls are planning another attack on the aerodrome.”

“What, again?” The man’s voice was incredulous. “Well, I’ll tell the guard at the gate, but I think you’re mistaken. No one could get through our defenses now that the imperial troops are here.”

We stopped at the guardhouse at the front gate long enough for me to insist that the man in charge send a note back to the Corps headquarters to check the storehouses. No one seemed inclined to worry.

“Now, then, Captain Pye, ye’re just a bit fashed,” the guard said with the same soothing tone one would use with a truculent child. “Ye’ve had a day, and that’s no lie, but ye jest go on yer way, and leave it to us to keep the cargoes safe.”

“Just do as I ask and notify Captain MacGregor,” I said, returning to the carriage.

“The captain was leaving for the vice-provost, ma’am,” the driver reminded me.

“Nonetheless, a message can be sent to him,” I said, then told him to proceed.

The ride to the pensione was uneventful, although I saw signs on the streets of the recent attacks by the Moghuls. Several blocks had been burned, and were in disarray, while there were few people on the street who did not have an armed guard accompanying them.

I had read reports, of course, of the attacks on Rome by the Moghuls—and occasionally the revolutionaries, although they concentrated their energies on the emperor’s troops—and how William, in response to a plea by the Italian king, had doubled the troops in the area. Supplying those troops was the very reason the Tesla had been sent out. But I had been in Rome four months before, and it had been very different then.

“Because of the incident today, we have been asked to remain available for interviews by the imperial forces,” I told the crew some ten minutes later as they disembarked in front of the Hôtel d’Europe et des Îles Britanniques, a grand name for a modest pensione that was made up of a main building, a stable block that had been converted to rooms, and a small walled garden, all of which butted up against the back of a convent. It was quiet and clean, and the owners, Signore Vittorio and his wife, were most obliging and attentive to Aerocorps members. “However, I have been granted permission to give you all twenty-four hours of leave, so you may consider yourselves free from duty until tomorrow evening.”

“Hurrah! I can’t wait to try them Italian ices I’ve heard so much about,” Dooley cheered, and was immediately squashed by Mr. Piper, who cuffed him on the back of the head.

“Ye’ll be stayin’ with me, ye will, lad. Ye’re likely to end up on the end of a barbarian’s sword iff’n I was to let ye run free.”

“Welcome, welcome,” Signore Vittorio said as he emerged from the building, wiping his hands on a large green apron as he greeted us. He was a round man, with little hair, but a broad smile. “You are most welcome. Ah, Miss Pye, is it not? I have not seen you for many months. You look well.”

“It’s Captain Pye now,” Mr. Christian said, looking over the front of the pensione with a critical eye. Although he’d flown on the Tesla for over a year, this was, I knew, his first visit to Rome.

“Captain, eh?” Signore Vittorio showed blackened teeth as he beamed at me before herding us all inside the pensione. “I will tell my signora. She will be pleased, eh? She always liked you.”

It took some little while to get the crew settled. Mr. Francisco took offense to having to share his room with Mr. Llama, declaring loudly, “It is the one thing that I must share on the ship. It is small and space is limited. I am a steward most accommodating there. But here? There are many rooms and I will not share!”

“I’m sorry, but Signore Vittorio says that the Babbage is in town, and its crew is here, as well; thus there are limited rooms available to us. We’re all sharing because of that. Not even I have a room to myself,” I said, hoping to end his drama scene before it worsened. “I have full confidence that everyone will be able to enjoy their leave regardless of the accommodations.”

“The room, she is the bull most unbear,” Mr. Francisco grumbled as he stomped into the room that had been given over to him. It took me a moment to figure out what it was he meant.

“Your room is quite delightful, and not at all unbearable—where is Mr. Llama?” I glanced around the room in growing annoyance. Not half a minute before, I’d seen the mysterious engineer’s mate slink into the room, his case in hand, and now there was nothing in the room but two beds, a wardrobe, two chairs, and a stand holding a basin and ewer. The window was open, but we were on the second floor, and I doubted if he would have exited the room that way. “This is too much! I saw him come in here. I saw him!”

“Saw who?” Mr. Mowen asked as he strolled past the opened door, a towel over his shoulder, obviously on his way to have a bath.

“Mr. Llama. He’s done it again!” I pushed past Mr. Francisco and flung open the wardrobe, expecting to see the man there, but it was empty of everything but an extremely startled mouse. “Damn!” I yelled, uncaring that I was swearing in front of the crew. I whirled around and glared at the window, rushing over to it.

“Did you see him?” I heard Mr. Mowen ask Francisco as I thrust my upper body out of the window, searching for signs that someone could have left that way. The wall was smooth, with no ledge or balcony, nothing but some climbing bougainvillea that led down to the small garden area, which was also empty of people.

“See who?”

“Llama.”

“I am not the keeper of the engineers,” Mr. Francisco said haughtily. “If you lose him, it is your head it is on.”

“I haven’t lost—oh, never mind.”

“One of these days,” I muttered to myself as I withdrew back into the room, my gaze darting hither and yon looking for a secret hiding spot. “One of these days I’m going to catch him in the act, and then we’ll just see!”

“Captain be talkin’ to herself again?” Mr. Piper asked under his breath as I stormed out of Mr. Francisco’s room, and down the hallway toward mine. “Mayhap she be in need of the leave more’n we are.”

I closed the door of my room on Mr. Mowen’s thoughtful agreement. Mr. Ho had changed out of her uniform into a dark blue dress, and was just pinning a hat on her head. “I might not be back until late, Captain. I know you don’t expect us to report in while we’re on leave, but as we’re sharing accommodations, I wouldn’t want you worrying if you noticed I was absent.”

“What you do while you’re on leave is certainly your own business,” I said, pulling off my wool jacket and flopping down unceremoniously onto one of the two beds in the room.

She raised an eyebrow at the priggish tone the words were spoken in.

“Oh, go on, have a good time, and enjoy yourself with whoever it is you’re seeing,” I said, smiling and shooing her to the door.

“It’s not what you think, but thank you nonetheless.”

She left and I sagged back against the wall for a moment, the events of the day swirling around me in a miasma of confusion. What was I going to do about Etienne’s men?

“First things first, old girl,” I told myself, reaching for my jacket. I hesitated a moment, then instead grabbed the big old leather bag that I’d had since I had been given over to Robert Anstruther’s care. Quickly I stripped, had a fast wash at the basin, and pulled on a gold walking skirt, light lawn blouse, gold and Wedgwood blue rose-patterned waistcoat, and a matching moiré outing jacket. I studied myself in the mirror for a moment, tucking in a strand of hair that had come free, wondering if Jack liked the combination of blue and gold.

“Bother,” I growled when I contemplated changing my clothes. I grabbed up my bag and tucked the Disruptor into it. “It doesn’t matter what he likes. You have business to attend to, Octavia. Get to it.”

I think it had been my third trip with Robert when he showed me the break in the tall laurel hedge that served as a boundary between the convent and the pensione.

“It will be good for you to have a way out of the pensione without detection,” he had told me at the time as he pulled aside a heavy overhang of laurel and indicated a small gate that was invisible unless you knew where to look for it. “This leads to the cloister and convent gardens. If you are careful, you can escape both without being seen by the nuns in residence. The road at the front of the convent is distant enough from the entrance of the pensione to allow you to slip away unseen.”

I had cause to use the hidden exit once or twice, and blessed Robert’s foresight each time I did so. I added yet another blessing now as I skirted the nuns’ garden, emerging at the corner of the road. I had to wait a few minutes for a patrol of the emperor’s troops to pass, but they did not glance twice toward the garden, or its very climbable fence. A few minutes later I was in front of the Pensione Suore della Santa Croce, greeting the nun who answered my ring. “Good evening, Sister. I believe some friends of mine, Mr. Fletcher and his sister, Miss Norris, are staying here. Might I see them?”

The nun murmured acquiescence, moving back to allow me to enter into the pensione. The profits from it no doubt helped fund the convent, and although the pensione was small and not overly popular, it was clean, if a bit austere. I sat on an uncomfortable horsehair chair in the visitors’ room, plucking a bit of laurel from where it had stuck in my collar.

“I thought you’d never come!” Jack was suddenly there in the room, and my heart lightened at the sight of his scowl. He rushed forward and took my hands, pulling me to my feet. I thought, for one giddy moment, that he was going to take me into his arms and kiss me, an act that I knew would draw censure from the nun who hovered uncomfortably in the background.

“Please, Mr. Fletcher,” I said, disengaging my hands, my gaze on the nun. “We are not alone.”

“To hell with that,” he said, much to the nun’s shock. “I tried to get hold of you, but no one would tell me where you were staying.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake . . . let us go to the square,” I said, apologizing to the little nun as we passed. She had one hand over her mouth, her eyes large, as I led Jack back out into the street, taking his arm and urging him forward even as I looked up and down for signs of potential trouble. “There is a small café in the square where we can have a glass of wine and—”

“Hallie’s missing,” he said abruptly, stopping.

A chill gripped my heart. “Missing how?”

“Missing! Don’t you understand? Gone!” He ran one hand through his hair in a gesture of agitation that I found so endearing, it made my heart contract. “One minute she was there, and the next minute, she was gone.”

I glanced up and down the street, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. Still, we would attract attention sooner or later if we just stood outside the convent in intense conversation. “Walk with me, Mr. Fletcher, and tell me what happened.”

“Jack,” he said absently, his forehead furrowed as I took his arm.

“You made it out of the aerodrome without difficulty?” I prompted.

“Yes. Your directions were spot-on, as were the ones to the hotel. We kept a casual pace, as you told me to, in order to avoid notice, and made it to the hotel without a problem. Hallie wanted to take one of those horses and carriages that run all over the place, but I didn’t know how much money you had, and I felt bad enough you had to give us some to stay at the hotel, so we walked.”

The muscles in his arm were tense and tight. His steps had a tendency to lag, as if he was reluctant to leave the vicinity of the pensione.

“What were the circumstances of her disappearance?” I asked.

“I’m getting to that. We made it to the hotel, took our rooms, and I told her that you’d said you would come by later to check on us. I said she should lie down for a bit, but she wanted to look around.” He gave a half grimace, half smile. “I know I should have stopped her, but you have to understand—this is all a tremendous experience for us, seeing your world. It’s like being transported back a hundred years, only there are things you have that we’ve never had. Like the hybrid bus we saw a few blocks from here—it looked like a cross between a horse-drawn bus and a steam paddler.”

I frowned. “A horse-drawn bus . . . Do you mean a steam trolley?”

He shrugged. “I suppose that’s as good a name as any for it. It was long like a bus, and filled with a bunch of soldiers, with a big steam engine on the back that chugged like a train.”

“That sounds like a steam trolley. They are used for industrial and imperial purposes, since the engines are costly to run.”

He flashed me a one-sided grin. “If I was smart, I’d invent the combustion engine, and make a fortune.”

I looked at him, confused.

“I’ll explain it later,” he said, his grin fading as memory returned to him. “Hal and I wandered around a bit, taking in the sights, and the next thing I knew, we were in a big square.”

“Rome is full of squares. Do you know which one?”

He frowned. “There was no sign, so no. There was some sort of a church on one side, a big building on the other, and a fountain with a guy blowing into a horn in the center.”

“Probably the Fontana di Tritone,” I said thoughtfully. “Which is in the Piazza Barberini—oh!”

My hand covered my mouth as I realized just what that meant.

“What’s wrong?” Jack asked, quick to notice my distress.

“The Palazzo Barberini is the emperor’s headquarters in Rome.” My stomach contracted with sudden fear. “Go on. I must know what happened.”

“Great, we walked right into the nest of vipers we were trying to avoid,” Jack muttered to himself, his gaze on the distance, but turned inward.

“Jack,” I said, squeezing his arm to bring him back to me. “What happened to Hallie?”

He gave a little shake. “We were looking at the fountain. She was fascinated by it, and was saying it was a shame we hadn’t a camera to take our pictures at it. I wanted a closer look at that steam contraption, so I went to have a quick gander while she was admiring the fountain. When I was done looking, I started back across the square toward her, but I was too late. A couple of men had been passing by, and the next thing I knew, they had suddenly grabbed her, and hustled her off. It happened so fast, I didn’t have time to get to her.”

“Oh, no,” I said, my stomach dropping to my feet.

“They sucked her into the big building,” Jack continued, his hand gripping mine now. “The one with guards outside the doors. I was about to demand they release her, when another of those big steam contraptions showed up full of soldiers. A couple of them started after me, and I figured I’d better get you to help rather than end up inside with Hallie.”

“Imperial soldiers chased you?” I asked, astounded, although I didn’t know why I should be. Jack had shown nothing but courage ever since I had met him. Still, no one but revolutionaries had ever escaped imperial soldiers.

He shrugged. “They started to, but I lost them quick enough.”

I stared at him.

“I was in the army,” he said by way of an explanation. “In a ... well, a special branch. We learned a thing or two about ditching tails.”

“I don’t know what a tail has to do with the situation, but that is not important now,” I said, thinking furiously. “If your sister is being held by the emperor’s officials . . . merciful heavens. Alan is going to be furious with me.”

“Alan?”

“Alan Dubain. He is a friend whom I must call upon to help with . . . with another problem. Come.” I did an about-face and took Jack with me. “I must find a messenger. Alan holds a position in the diplomatic corps. He will simply have to help us find out what happened to your sister.”

By the time I located a messenger service and wrote out a plea for Alan’s help, the city was in darkness. When we stepped out of the messenger office on the heels of the messenger, the sky to the east was lit with a dull orange red glow. Distant sounds of explosions drifted across the still-warm night air.

“Go straight to the palazzo,” I told the messenger as he climbed onto his velocipede. The young lad cast a nervous glance over his shoulder toward the colorful skyline, but nodded, and adjusted his goggles before turning the velocipede key a few revolutions.

“A clockwork bike,” Jack said softly as the boy kicked off and set on his way into the night. “And I thought I’d seen it all. If you don’t mind me asking, what exactly is the purpose of the clockworks?”

“They turn the wheels, of course,” I answered. “Jack, we do not have time for idle discussion. Evidently the Moghuls are making yet another assault, and we should return to the pensione to await contact by Alan.”

He was resistant when I took his arm and tried to steer him toward a cab. “I was thinking that maybe we should go back to that palace and try to get in to see Hallie. She must be scared.”

“Unfortunately, we wouldn’t get far, not by ourselves,” I told him, stopping a cab that appeared empty. “We need Alan to intervene. Can you take us to the Pensione Suore della Santa Croce, please? Via di San Basilio.”

The cabdriver didn’t seem any too pleased to receive us. He complained in Italian that it was dangerous for him to be out when the Moghuls were attacking, and that he was on his way home. “The sooner you take us there, the sooner you will be able to return to the safety of your home,” I told him firmly, climbing into the cab.

Jack followed, his face pensive as the driver’s. After the driver unburdened himself of a few opinions on my ancestry that I chose to ignore, he slapped the reins on his horse and set off at a smart trot.

“I don’t like this, Octavia.”

“I know you don’t, but there is nothing we can do without assistance.”

“What if this Alan friend of yours is gone? Or doesn’t want to help us?”

“I can’t imagine Alan refusing my request for assistance,” I said with composure. I could feel how anxious Jack was to be doing something to free his sister. I well understood that restless need to be acting, but to act without Alan would be sheerest folly.

“Oh?” He shot me a sidelong glance, just barely visible in the dimly lit cab interior. “Is this yet another one of your boyfriends?”

“He’s hardly a boy,” I said, smoothing down the material of my skirt over my knees. “And before you pepper me with wholly inappropriate questions, yes, at one time Alan and I had an intimate relationship. That has been over for years now.”

“So there’s William the emperor, Etienne the leader of the revolutionaries, and now this Alan the diplomat? Aren’t you ever interested in a common Joe?”

“I don’t know anyone named Joe,” I answered, deliberately misunderstanding.

“You know what I mean. Seems to me like you’ve had some pretty colorful lovers.”

“And what about you?” I was irritated enough to lash out when I should have kept my tongue behind my teeth. “Why don’t you detail the seven women with whom you’ve had relationships?”

His teeth flashed in a grin. For some reason, that irritated me even more. “Jealous, my sweet?”

“Hardly,” I said, tamping down on something that felt very much like that emotion.

“Turnabout’s fair play, then? OK. I’ve been ribbing you, so I guess it’s only fair to take my medicine. I’ve had four girlfriends. The first two were heartless bitches who dumped me for better opportunities: one was with a stockbroker; the other ended up with a pitcher who made it into the big leagues. The third girlfriend, Samantha, was nice enough, but she was ready to settle down, and I had just gotten my job with Nordic Tech, and I wasn’t up for the whole wife-and-kids scene. That was seven years ago, by the way,” he said, just as if that mattered.

“Indeed,” I said, curling my fingers into fists to keep from touching his leg that leaned so casually against mine.

“My last girlfriend was named Kim. She was also an engineer, worked just down the hall from me, as a matter of fact. We stuck together for a couple of years, but just kind of drifted apart.” He shrugged. “I still see her occasionally, but we both know the spark is gone.”

I ground my teeth at the thought of the woman continuing to cling to him. “I have always believed that one should clearly delineate the end of a relationship when it is over, so that both parties can continue on with their lives without a perpetual feeling of obligation.”

“I suppose,” he said after thinking about that, then proceeded to add, “I guess it’s really just a matter of convenience. Sometimes . . . well, I am human. Sometimes if Kim isn’t busy that night, we hook up, no strings attached.”

I stared at him, shocked, appalled, and so angry I could spit.

“What?” he dared ask, having the nerve to look confused over my reaction to his appalling confession. “You look upset about something.”

“I don’t know of what you speak,” I said, gathering my dignity and looking out of the window. “If you wish to bare your debauched soul with tales of your licentious, lustful habits, then it is not for me to judge.”

He was silent for the count of ten, which was all I could hang on to my temper. I turned back to him, my ire a truly awesome thing to behold. “Although I will say for a man who has made repeated comments about my derriere, and kissed me freely and without my permission, and made overtures that would be clear to a blind nun, you certainly seem to have the morals of a tomcat. One who keeps several she-cats handy just in case he desires their sexual favors!”

He laughed at me, the cad. He had the unmitigated gall to laugh at me. Not only that, he wrapped an arm around me and tried to pull me onto his person. I fought him, naturally.

“Octavia, stop! That’s my kidney,” he pleaded, still laughing that odious laugh as I elbowed him in order to get free.

“It is not,” I said, jerking my skirt out from under his leg, and straightening my waistcoat. “Your kidneys are in the back.”

“Well then, it was my spleen or something,” he said, chuckling. “When you get jealous, you really get jealous. I’ll have to remember that.”

“I am not jealous,” I said somewhat huffily as I brushed out my skirt.

“You’re positively pea green with jealousy, and all because I was being honest with you.” Slowly, his laughter faded as he leaned over me. “Sweetheart, I figured you would prefer honesty to polite deception.”

“Of course I prefer honesty,” I said, lifting my chin and attempting to gaze serenely out of the window. Damn my errant heart and its telling reactions. “You are reading far too much into plain condemnation for what is a lecherous lifestyle.”

“Oh? So you’ve never gone back and done the nasty with William or Etienne?”

“Certainly not,” I said, slapping his hand when he tried to turn my face to his.

“What about this Alan you want to help Hallie? Don’t you think he’ll expect some sort of payment for going out of his way for us?”

There was a tight note in his voice that I found extremely interesting. “Alan is a gentleman,” I said, finally looking at him. I was correct—there was a starkness about his mouth that pleased me. “He would never demand sexual favors for services rendered.”

The starkness relaxed slightly. I decided that a wee morsel of revenge could be allowed.

“That’s not to say that I wouldn’t feel it’s appropriate, but that, Mr. Fletcher, is neither here nor there to you.”

“Oh, it’s not, is it?” he growled, his eyes glittering with a look that made me warm down to my toes. Before I could truly enjoy his fine show of spirit, he wrapped one arm around my waist, and pulled me onto his lap.

“You really don’t play fair, do you?” he said just a second before his mouth closed on mine.

I was very much aware of the open front to the cab that would allow anyone to see in to us. I was also aware that in the distance the Moghul forces were attacking the city, that my crew were probably out despite that attack, and that somewhere, buried elbow-deep in work, my former lover sat, no doubt at that moment reading my plea for his assistance.

I was cognizant of all that, and yet at that moment, I didn’t care. I was honest enough with myself to admit that I wanted Jack. I wanted to taste him and touch him and lie draped across his heaving chest, fulfilled with a sense of completion that I suspected would be most gratifying with him. I kissed him back, allowing his tongue entry into my mouth, welcoming it, teasing it, tasting him even as he tasted me.

And when he growled into my mouth, “Dear God, woman, you’re driving me mad,” I smiled and nipped his bottom lip, soothing the sting with a long, slow rasp of my tongue. His eyes were molten with desire. “If this is the sort of reaction I’m going to get from you, I’ll have to talk about Kim a lot more.”

“I think once was enough,” I said, sliding my hand down his chest.

“I want to sleep with you, Octavia,” he murmured, his lips moving along my jawline to my ear. I shivered when he found a sensitive spot, clutching his shoulders to keep my balance on his lap. “I can’t believe it’s all I can think of when Hallie is in danger, but it is. Does that shock your Victorian sensibilities?”

“Not particularly. I think it’s clear that I desire you, as well. I have ever since I first saw you.” My back arched as his hands slid around to the front of my blouse, my breasts suddenly sensitized beneath the thin lawn of the material.

He pulled back enough to give me a jaded look. “That’s not true. You wanted to toss me off your airship. You thought I was a pirate.”

“Well,” I allowed, kissing the tip of his nose. “Perhaps it was after I realized that you weren’t a pirate that I desired you.”

He grinned. I gave in and pushed back the lock of hair that lay on his brow.

“It was my Indiana Jones-ness that got you, right? Oh, wait—you don’t know who that is. How about this—it was the sense of adventure and danger that gave you the hots for me?”

“I have enough adventure and danger in my life without seeking that in a bed partner,” I said, tracing the curve of his ear down to his jaw. “That’s not attractive to me.”

“No? Then it’s my ability to make you shiver when I kiss you here?”

He bit my earlobe, then kissed the spot behind my ear, moving down in a path to the expanse of cleavage. I moaned and arched my back again as his hands swept over my breasts, the combination of that and his mouth making me burn.

“That is definitely a plus,” I gasped as his tongue snaked into the valley between my breasts. I fought to hang on to my cognizance. The cab had only a few more blocks to go, and I couldn’t let myself go entirely until some things were settled. “I think it’s your sense of being lost that calls out to me. I was lost once, too, you see, and I know the feeling. It’s as if you need me, Jack, really need me. I’ve never truly been needed before.”

He lifted his head from my chest and looked at me with a curious expression. “Oddly enough, I feel the same thing about you—that there’s a sense of kinship, just like we were strangers together. I guess it’s because you were orphaned so young, and you know what it’s like to have the rug yanked out from under you.”

I bit my lip as I gazed down at his bright green and brown eyes. When I was very young and just come into the care of Robert Anstruther, he had warned me against ever speaking of the time before I was found in the emperor’s garden. And yet now I had an overwhelming desire to do just that. “Jack—”

The carriage stopped before I could speak more than his name.

Jack eased me off his lap, leaping out and holding his hands for me. I let him assist me down, pointed out the correct amount to give the driver, and allowed myself to be pulled across the street to the entrance of the pensione.

“I have just one question,” Jack said, giving me a look that came close to melting my stays. “Your place or mine?”

“Yours,” I said without hesitation. “I told Alan to send word here, rather than my pensione.”

“Mine it is, my fair little squab,” he said, holding open the door for me.

Now look what you’ve done, I told my rampant desires. This isn’t going to end well!

“It’s addressed to you,” he said when I peeked out of the wardrobe into which I’d flung myself at the knock.

“Lock your door, then read the message for me,” I said, grabbing his shirt from where it had been tossed unceremoniously onto the chair. I tsked at myself as I slipped into it. I wasn’t normally the sort of woman who threw clothing willy-nilly.

“I assume it’s from your friend—it’s just signed A at the bottom. It says: My very dearest Octavia.” He frowned and shot me a look. “You did say everything was over between you two?”

“Mr. Fletcher!” I said, adopting a suitably shocked expression on my face as I slid into the rumpled sheets of his bed. “I would not be here now in an advanced state of disarray if everything, as you put it, was not over.”

“Sorry,” he said, his frown clearing somewhat. “It’s just that the my very dearest was a bit over-the-top.”

“Alan has a very loquacious manner of speech,” I admitted, settling myself against the pillows. “Go on.”

“Loquacious, my ass . . . ,” he murmured, then cleared his throat, and read out in a clear voice, “My very dearest Octavia. I have received your alarming communiqué, and although I am due at the Ambassador’s ball, I take pen in hand to address this matter of the gravest moment. I fear there is little I can do for your friend if she has been taken by the imperial guards, although I know you will not be content until I see the vice-provost myself and ascertain on what charges the lady is being detained. I cannot do that, however, until morning. My schedule is busy, as you are no doubt aware, but for you, my sweet Octavia, I will visit the provost’s office as early as is reasonable. I must now make an appearance at the Ambassador’s ball—if you have further need of me tonight, you know where to find me. Hastily, but with much regard and affection, yours, A. I suppose I should be grateful he didn’t close with hugs and kisses, eh?”

“I didn’t expect there would be much he could do tonight,” I said thoughtfully, hugging my knees as Jack tossed the letter onto the nightstand. “I’m sorry, Jack. I know you hoped that we would be able to see your sister tonight, but Alan is very trustworthy, and he will be at the provost’s office at the first opportunity.”

He frowned again, staring at nothing in particular. “You don’t think . . . they wouldn’t torture her, would they?”

“No! Oh, no, Jack. You must not torment yourself with such thoughts.” I crawled across the bed to where he stood, wrapping my arms around his bare torso and offering him what comfort I had. He was clad only in his trousers, since I had not yet gotten to stripping them off him, but his chest, lightly bedecked with dark blond hair, was warm and inviting. “They would have no reason to do so. She did not resist them, and the provost would not have had time to see her. They likely put her in one of the nicer cells, since she is a woman, and although I’m sure she’s frightened and not very comfortable, I don’t think there is any reason why she should be abused.”

He let me hug him for a few minutes, his tense stance finally relaxing as he accepted the fact that there was nothing more we could do. His arms went around me, and he said into my hair, “I’ve only known you three days, and already I’m beginning to think I can’t do without you.”

“That’s because you’re a sensible man despite your extremely unlikely circumstances.”

He pulled back to eye me with those disconcerting mismatched eyes. “Circumstances which you seem to accept with more than the usual aplomb—nnrng.”

My hand, which I had placed on the buttons of his trousers, caressed the bulge that lay therein. “If you have grown tired of seducing me, I would be happy to reciprocate.”

“Dear God,” he moaned, his beautiful eyes closing as I slowly undid the buttons. “Octavia, you are full of surprises.”

“More than you can ever guess,” I murmured, sliding his trousers down over his hips. His drawers soon followed, and I was left kneeling on the floor, cheek to jowl (so to speak) with a sight that gave me pause for measure.

Literally.

“You appear to be larger than I expected,” I said, wrapping one hand around him, and noting how much was left over.

He moaned again.

“Not grossly larger, mind you,” I said, bringing my second hand into play. “Not inhumanely large. Not like an animal, for instance. Just a bit more than I expected.”

Harsh breathing was the reply.

“You’re not quite two hands, in case you were wondering. That is good—two hands’ worth would be excessive. I could not approve of two hands’ worth. But one hand and slightly more than a half of a second hand—that is reasonable. I approve of your dimensions, even if they are a bit more robust than I had anticipated.”

“Flang,” he said.

I frowned at the word. “Flang?”

Above me, his chest rose and fell in a rapid movement. His hands were fisted, lying not very relaxed against his bare hips. His eyes, I was interested to note, were closed. “Do that movement with your fingertips again.”

I stroked the fingers in question across the underside of what was evidently a very sensitive spot.

“Flang,” he repeated, his entire body trembling.

“I see.” I considered that part of him that overflowed one hand, but did not fill both. “So you enjoy my fingers around you? How interesting. The other men I’ve been with have preferred me to use my mouth, but if you receive more enjoyment this way . . .”

“Mouth?” he said, his eyes opening quickly. Hope was in their depths, a profound hope and a pleading, desperate need. “You do that?”

“Of course I do. It is part of the act of loving, is it not?” I asked, looking back at the part in question. “Unless you have some sort of disease that would prevent me from doing so.”

“No disease,” he said quickly, a hint of desperation entering his voice now. “By all means, if you want to use your mouth, go right ahead. I wouldn’t want to deprive you of any pleasure.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, flicking my fingertips again.

His body tensed. “Yes, yes, quite sure. Full steam ahead.”

“Steam?” I paused as I was about to take him into my mouth. “Mr. Fletcher—”

“Jack.”

“Surely you are not going to bring up your silly conjectures about this being a society of steambumps again.”

“Steampunk, sweetheart.”

“Now is not the time to demand goggles, or quiz me about the use of a steam abacus, or whether or not electricity is truly as dangerous as we know it to be. I am about to pleasure you. You will please attend to that, after which you may pleasure me, and then we will proceed onward to other, equally enjoyable activities.”

His eyes opened again to pin me back with a look of purest male impatience. “Do you always talk this much during sex?”

“We are not engaged in intercourse at the moment, sir,” I said in my most quelling voice, emphasizing the point by shaking that part of him to which I still held on. “I am in charge of this section of the oral pleasure, and as such, it is within my right to speak when and how I choose. Now, are you done asking questions so that I might continue?”

He nodded his head rapidly, his eyes pleading with me.

“Excellent. We will proceed.” I glanced at the clock sitting on the nightstand. “I shall time you, if you don’t mind. I recently read of some techniques that promised to increase a man’s pleasure while shortening the duration of the time needed to reach that point, and I’m curious to know if it works.”

“You want to time me?” Jack asked, his voice filled with incredulity. “You want to time how long it takes you to bring me to an orgasm?”

“Yes. The book I purchased was very expensive, naturally, given its illicit nature, and I’d like to know that I received my money’s worth from it. It promised that I would be able to speed up the act by as much as ten minutes, so if you don’t mind, I shall time you.”

“You are the strangest woman. . . . Whatever. Knock yourself out,” he said, closing his eyes again. “But I warn you—knowing you’re watching the clock is going to have the opposite effect on me than what you’re shooting for.”

I swirled my tongue around him. He froze solid for a second, then jerked me upward and flung me onto the bed, tearing off the shirt that I wore as he rose over me.

“That was much faster than I expected,” I said, blinking as his hands and mouth possessed my now bared breasts. I arched back into him, my legs sliding up the outside of his. “Much, much faster. Oh yes, do that again.”

His teeth nipped ever so gently on one nipple, causing streaks of fire to radiate outward.

“Octavia, I . . . oh, Lord, you’re so soft all over. You’re like satin. I’m sorry, sweetheart, I know it’s my turn to do you, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to last.” His hips bucked as he laved his tongue along the underside of my breast, the light stubble on his jaw providing a pleasant friction. I felt proof of his impatience against my belly, hard and hot and demanding.

“That’s all right, Jack,” I said, kissing him as he slid upward. His lips were sweet, so sweet, and his mouth so hot, it made me burn inside for more. “There will be other times when you can reciprocate the attention. Oh!”

“Oh?” he asked, sliding his hand along my thigh to spread me farther, nestling himself at the source of my heat. “What oh? Or rather, oh what?”

“French Preventative!”

“What?”

“A French Preventative! I’m sorry, but I forgot about that. You don’t happen to have one with you?” I asked, aware that my own voice was now rather hopeful.

“A French . . . you mean a condom? Oh, Lord.” He quivered at my private area, his muscles tense and tight and poised to plunge inward. My muscles were trembling in anticipation of just such an event. “No, I don’t have one.”

“Damnation,” I swore, wanting to cry with frustration. “I’m sorry, Jack. I didn’t think to ask you before we arrived at the pensione. The men I’ve been with have always had them, so I just didn’t think. . . . But all is not lost.” I slid out from under him, grabbing for my petticoat. “There is a chemist a scant two blocks from here. I will simply demand that he open up his shop and sell me some French Preventatives—”

“Get back into bed,” Jack said, his voice grim as he picked me up and set me back onto the mattress. “I’ll get the damned things.”

“But you don’t know where it is—”

“I’ll find it,” he said in a voice that was almost a snarl. He yanked on his pants and boots with short, jerky motions.

“But—”

“Stay there, and keep your motor running,” he growled, pulling on his shirt.

“My motor? Jack—”

“It’s a euphemism,” he said, snatching up a handful of coins. “Don’t move one muscle. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”

He was gone before I could protest any further.

“What a very odd man,” I said to no one as I settled back into the bed. “Keep my motor running. Ha!”

I had just enough time to worry about what might become of a man who was found on the streets of a city under siege before he eventually returned, out of breath, panting, and perspiring. He leaned against the door, his chest heaving, and just as I was about to ask him if he was all right, I heard sounds coming from the street.

“That sounds remarkably like several people running down the road,” I said, eyeing him as he doubled over, his hands braced on his knees. “And that sounds like the whistles that the emperor’s guards use when they are chasing someone. Say, perhaps, a man who let himself be seen by them?”

He grinned and straightened up, his breathing still rough and fast as he held up a small cardboard box. “Or one who was caught breaking into a drugstore for some emergency condoms.”

“Oh, Jack, you didn’t break into that nice Signore Martelli’s chemist shop,” I said, disapproval filling my voice even as I smiled at the sight of the box of French Preventatives. “I’ll never be able to face him again.”

“I left him all the money I had, so I’m sure that’ll reimburse him for damage on the window. Besides, he refused to come down and open up the shop, so it was break the window and get them for myself, or return here and stare at your luscious breasts knowing I can’t do anything else. And Octavia, there are many more things I want to do to them than just look.”

His voice dropped significantly on that last sentence, which, coupled with the look of molten passion he was giving me as he stripped off his clothing, caused me to shiver in delight. “Yes, but, Jack, this is serious. If the emperor’s men find you here—”

“They won’t find me. I told you I have some skills in losing tails,” he said, crawling slowly up the bed toward me.

I shivered again, and my breasts, impudent beings that they were, thrust forward to him.

“You see?” He paused as he crawled up my legs, his head dipping toward one breast. “Even your tits agree with me. They aren’t worried at all about some idiot guards who are out on the streets chasing shadows. They want me to lick them. They want me to hold them, and squeeze them, and rub myself on them.”

“Jack!” I squealed as he lay down on top of me. I was under the sheets, with only my breasts bared. “That word is not appropriate.”

“What word?” he asked, nuzzling the underside of my left breast. “Oh, tit?”

“Yes. You should refer to a woman’s upper parts as a bosom, or, if you must be specific, breasts. But never tit. That word is offensive when not referring to a small bird.”

“Ah, but you are a small bird, are you not?” he asked with a decided leer before he turned his attention to my right breast. “That is the vernacular, isn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t know. I am not the sort of person who hangs out in bars in Marseilles, where such words and terms are bandied about,” I said with dignity, moaning only a little when he nibbled on my breast. “Jack, I don’t wish to complain, but you are not proceeding properly.”

He looked up. “I’m not?”

“No. For one, I’m trapped beneath this sheet, and you are above. For another, we left off with you needing a French Preventative, and now you have one, so you should put it on and we should proceed from where we left off.”

“Did it occur to you that a midnight run through a strange city in search of condoms might take the steam out of my engine, so to speak?”

I glanced at the part in question. “Your engine looks fully primed to me.”

“That’s just because I have you naked in my bed,” he said with another leer. “That’s enough to stiffen any man’s piston.”

“Thus you should proceed along the lines we were engaged upon before you left,” I pointed out.

He leaned back on one elbow, looking down at me with a curious expression. “You like to be in charge, don’t you?”

I blinked at him a couple of times. “I . . . I’m not sure what to say to that. In charge? I like to have things proceed in an orderly fashion, yes, but I don’t think I’m domineering or selfish, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“But you do like to call the shots,” he said, sliding his hand down my breastbone, pushing the sheet down as he stroked lower, over my belly. “That’s a new experience for me. The women I’ve been with have all been content to let me set the pace.”

I felt hurt even as I squirmed under the influence of his questing fingers. “I’m sorry if I am not as passive as your other bed partners—”

“Oh, they weren’t passive,” he said with another of those devilish grins. This one, however, I wanted to slap off his face. “A couple of them left scratch marks. But they didn’t try to give me directions. No, stop looking so offended and outraged. It’s nothing bad, Octavia,” he added, leaning down to kiss me. “It’s just a bit different. Tell you what—we’ll take turns. You let me take the lead this time, and you can have it the next time, OK?”

I was momentarily distracted by the heat of his mouth, the sensation of his chest against my breasts, the gentle tickle of his chest hair causing goose bumps to prickle along my arms. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Jack.”

“I know,” he said, his head dipping down to suck my lower lip. “But that’s all right. I’ll show you, shall I?”

“Show me what?”

He pushed the rest of the sheet off me, his hand sweeping down my hip, to my thigh. He stared down at my person for a moment before saying, “Thank God you don’t wear your corset so tight it damages you. You truly are beautiful, Octavia. You’re round and soft, and so silky, I just want to rub my entire body on you.”

“I wouldn’t be opposed to that,” I said, hoping he would stop staring at me and get to the business at hand. Perhaps he needed some encouragement. I wrapped my hand around the aroused part of him.

“Oh, no. You had your turn. Now it’s mine,” he said, pulling my hand free.

I frowned. “I thought we discussed this earlier? You said you couldn’t wait. I can see that you are quite anticipatory right now, so why don’t you put on the Preventative, and we can indulge in the natural conclusion of the evening’s events.”

“Oh, we’re going to indulge,” he said, moving to sit between my legs. He slid them upward until my knees were over his arms. “Rather, I’m going to indulge you. Just relax, Octavia. You’ll enjoy this.”

“I always have enjoyed it,” I said, watching as he nuzzled private, secret parts of me.

A slightly irritated look crossed his face. “Right, then, we’ll get started. Er . . . what time is it?”

I glanced at the clock before looking back at him. “You mean to time this?”

“Why not? You were going to time me.”

“Yes, but I had an expensive treatise that I was going to explore with you, not that you gave me much time to do so.”

“And how do you know, my fair little pigeon, that I don’t have a few tricks up my sleeve?” he asked, his eyes twinkling with lecherous delight. I raised my eyebrows at him. “So to speak,” he amended.

“I have no doubt that your numerous acquaintances with women have lessoned you in many ways,” I said coolly. “However, unlike you, I will not be so easily pleased. It takes me much longer to reach satisfaction. I don’t wish to tell tales, but in the past, it has taxed the stamina of my lovers to get me to that point, and then only after we had known each other for some time. I do not wish to stress you unduly, however, which is why I was—and still am—happy to proceed to the main course, if you will.”

“Is that a challenge?” he asked, rearing back, an outraged look on his face.

“What? No! Jack, no, I’m not challenging you, or impugning your masculinity,” I said, soothing his obviously ruffled feathers. “My intention was to simply warn you that I am not quite so easily aroused as you obviously are. I didn’t wish for you to be disappointed in what is lacking in me.”

The angry expression faded until all that was left was heat. Pure, masculine heat. “I don’t find you lacking in any way, my little squab of delight. And you haven’t had me at the reins. I think you’ll find I know what I’m doing.”

I was about to tell him I had no doubt of that, but at that moment, he lowered his head and addressed himself to the matter at hand. Instantly, my body was suffused with warmth, a deep, burning warmth that started in my nether parts, and spread in big, rolling waves of pleasure outward to the farthest points on my body. At first, events proceeded as I expected, but then he began using his fingers, stroking me, teasing me, tormenting me until I writhed on the bed in a fever of desire. But when he curled them into me, touching me inside, finding magic parts of me that I had no idea existed, I cried out his name in wonder and amazement.

“Four minutes and twenty seconds.”

Slowly, ever so slowly, I drifted down from the cloud of ecstasy and returned to the mortal coil. Jack’s laughing eyes and adorable grin were there to greet me.

“Eh?” was all I managed to say. My brain seemed to have ceased functioning, and was having difficulty starting back up.

His grin became even cheekier. “Less than four and a half minutes, my delicious Octavia. I don’t mean to cast any slurs on your previous boyfriends, but if they couldn’t hang on that long, then they definitely have issues.”

“Oh.” Cognizant thought finally returned. “That was . . . four minutes, you say? I’ve never done that in four minutes before. Perhaps it’s an anomaly. Perhaps I’m overly tired. No, that would affect me adversely, wouldn’t it?” I frowned as I puzzled over this new experience. “Four minutes. I can’t believe it. It’s always taken me much, much longer to get to that point. Something must be wrong. I wonder if I am ill?”

“You don’t feel sick to me,” he said, stroking his hand down my hip. My entire body hummed and quivered in response. “You feel like a woman who’s been pleasured within an inch of her life.”

“You’ve done something to me,” I accused, narrowing my eyes on him. “You’ve done something odd and foreign to me because you’re from elsewhere. That must be it.”

He laughed, and kissed my belly. The heat that had been simmering there began to spread again. My legs moved restlessly. “Sweetheart, much as I would like you to think I’m some sort of sexual superhero, I’m just a man who knows what women like. And you aren’t the cold fish you seem to think you are—you were moaning and thrashing within seconds of me touching you, so I think you’re going to have to let go of that claim, and move on to the one where you beg me to plant myself deep inside you, and make you scream out my name again.”

I am a woman who does not take to being ordered around. I prefer to think of my sexual companion as a partner, rather than someone who feels it appropriate to treat me as a mere sexual plaything to be commanded and dictated to. For that reason, I was going to give Jack Fletcher a piece of my mind.

I opened my mouth to do so, and said simply, “Yes, please.”

“Yes. Don’t you think it gives you a kind of dashing look? Somewhat devil-may-care? Something that says you’re not a slave to convention, that you set your own trends?”

“I think it tells more of a state of mind so confused, I would be safer locked inside an asylum than left to wander the streets with my clothing worn inside out.”

“I don’t know,” Jack said, his head tipped to the side as he considered the bizarre sight I made. “All the steampunk ladies I met wore their corsets outside their clothes. I never once saw one hide hers.”

“Whereas I and every other woman of the empire prefer to keep our undergarments hidden,” I said, undoing the hooks along the front busk of the corset so I could remove it and redon it in the appropriate manner.

“At this time, there are only two people whom I have approved to see me in my corset. You are one.”

Rather than give me one of those endearing grins, as I expected, Jack made a face. “And this fabulous Alan who can do anything is the other?”

“Certainly not,” I said, pausing for a moment. I decided Jack needed a little reward after having been true to his promise the evening prior. I had yelled out his name again—twice, both times the most amazing experiences of my life. I’d never before thought of myself as a particularly responsive woman, but with Jack, I seemed to go up in flames the minute he touched me. I pulled off my blouse, and handed Jack the corset. “I can do this by myself, but it’s easier with a second person. Help me?”

“Who’s the other person?” he asked, taking it.

I smiled to myself as he moved behind me, his arms coming around me as he wrapped the corset on my torso. “My corset maker. No, it goes beneath my bosom, not on it.”

“Ah. Poor little boobies. Did I squash them?” His hands immediately moved to comfort my breasts, dropping the corset. I leaned back against his bare chest, a little chill of pleasure zipping up my spine at the warmth of his breath on my ear as he caressed me.

“I believe they will forgive your ignorance on the proper method of donning a corset,” I murmured, amazed at the speed of my reaction to his touch. One moment I was perfectly myself; the next my mind was full of the most detailed intimate thoughts . . . thoughts of Jack splayed out in front of me, all of his delectable flesh just lying there waiting for me to touch and taste and slide upon it.

I turned my head, letting my lips nibble along his jaw. “Jack—”

He understood the warning. “We don’t have time for this.”

“No. Not if we are going to have time to reconnoiter before we meet Alan.” I turned in his arms, intending on giving him a consolatory kiss before continuing to dress, but somehow, the second my mouth touched his, I lost all thought but one.

“Octavia?” he asked as I pushed him backward, toward the armless chair that sat next to the narrow wardrobe.

“We’ll take a cab,” I said, my hands on the buttons on his trousers. “It’ll save fifteen minutes’ walking time.”

His eyes lit up. “A quickie? You want a quickie? Right now?”

“I don’t know that term, but assuming it means what I think it means, then yes, I want a quickie,” I said, pushing him on the shoulder. He sat down abruptly, his trousers gaping open, his hands on my waist as I hoisted up my skirt and petticoat, and settled myself on his thighs.

“Dear God, woman, you don’t know what this means to me. I’ve always been a big fan of quickies, and ever since we got out of bed, all I could think about was making love to you againnrn.”

His eyelids flickered shut as I sank down on him, my intimate self embracing and welcoming his intrusion. “Too much talking, Jack,” I said, gasping as I felt him deep inside me. “Thank heavens you are so quick to arouse. I wasn’t sure if you would be ready for me, but there you are, quite obviously so. A bit more ready than I expected, to be honest. Merciful saints, I can’t believe you can do that. Do it again!”

He flexed his hips again, his head lolled back so I could kiss his throat and adorable face, his fingers gentle but persistent on my breasts as they teased and stroked them. “You’re trying to take charge again, Octavia.”

I bit his lip as I moved on him, the rhythm neither slow nor gentle, but one driven by the intense need inside me that I knew he shared. “You said we would take turns. I am having my turn. Do it again.”

He laughed, but flexed again, touching me in that magical way he had that made my eyes cross with pleasure. “You had your turn earlier this morning. Now we’re back to my turn to be the boss, and I say do that swivel thing you did earlier.”

I rose up until just the tip of him was gripped, then slid down him again, swiveling my hips and gripping as hard as I could with intimate muscles. He sucked in his breath, his eyes snapping open, his breath coming hard and fast. “One more like that and it’ll be all over.”

I tightened my thighs around his hips, the rough material of his trousers rubbing against my sensitive flesh, our bodies moving together in a way that was familiar and yet foreign to me, as if he were a stranger that I had known in a previous lifetime. He pulled my head down to capture my cry of completion in his mouth, his fingers urging me on as he found his own moment of ecstasy.

It was at that moment I realized that we had forgotten the French Preventative.

I pulled myself out of the reverie that had claimed me and looked across the cab at Jack. “You’re sorry about what?”

He frowned. “What do you think? You’ve been sitting there pouting because I forgot the damned condom earlier, and I don’t know what else to say other than I won’t leave you if you get pregnant because of it.”

“Pregnant? Oh. I suppose that’s possible, yes,” I said, considering that idea. “I don’t think it’s likely to happen, though.”

“You’re not worried about getting pregnant?” Jack asked, looking confused. He ran his hand through his hair, a gesture that always threatened to make my knees turn to jelly. I realized then that he had taken my silence as condemnation regarding the earlier comment I made about the Preventative. I moved over to his seat, tenderly pushing back the lock of hair he had dislodged down onto his forehead.

“No, although I appreciate the fact that you thought I was. I am very au courant with scientific studies, you know, including those by female doctors. I do not believe that I am currently in a fertile time of the month, although I’ve heard it is best to be safe, thus the Preventatives. Also, they are beneficial in guarding one’s health in other ways. I thought you understood that. They are for your protection, as well, you know, although I do not have any illnesses that I’m aware of. Still—”

“You don’t have to give me a birth control lecture,” he interrupted, pulling me across him for a fast kiss. “And I can assure you that I’m STD free, as well, although I suppose we should probably keep using those condoms, even if it is strange seeing ones with little ribbons on the ends to tie them on. I shudder to think what they’re made of, though.”

“Sheep gut, I imagine. What are your Preventatives made from?”

“Latex,” he said, a slow smile coming to his face. “Now, there’s another fortune waiting to happen. I wonder if I could manufacture some here?”

I said nothing, my thoughts returning to the upcoming meeting with Alan.

Jack prattled on for a few more minutes, before suddenly squeezing me. “You’re doing it again.”

“I am not worried about becoming pregnant,” I said.

“Then why are you ignoring me? You’ve got a distant look in your eyes like you’re trying to forget I’m sitting next to you.”

I was about to make a sharp retort when I saw the uncertainty in his eyes. I leaned over him, instead, licking his lips. “I assure you, Mr. Fletcher, I very much enjoy you sitting next to me.”

His lips curled into a smile as I nibbled on the corners of his mouth. “I love how your eyes go all soft and shadowy when you flirt with me. If you weren’t being pissed at me, what were you thinking about?”

I sat back, sighing ever so softly. “Alan.”

“Oh. Him.”

“Don’t even think of doing that,” I said, pointing my finger at his face.

He rearranged his expression from one of martyrdom to that of outrage. “Doing what?”

“Pretending that you’re inferior to him. You are my lover, Jack, not him. Not anymore. If I had wanted Alan, I would still be with him, but I don’t. I can’t help that he’s still a very dear friend, one who is in a position to help us.”

Jack struggled with his pride for a moment, but eventually he slumped back against the seat of the cab. “Dammit.” He suddenly stiffened up again, his eyes narrowing. “Just so he knows that you’re with me, and that he’s not looking to start anything with you again.”

“I’m sure he won’t give me a second thought beyond doing what we ask him to do,” I said, turning my attention to the streets as we drove toward the square where earlier that morning we had arranged to meet Alan. I bit my lip, mentally going over the things I could say, and what would best be left unspoken.

The rest of the ride was thankfully in silence, Jack refraining from asking me exactly what I was mulling over. I was growing increasingly uncomfortable with the fact that there were secrets to be kept from him, necessary secrets, but still, my emotions concerning Jack were beginning to take on a depth and breadth that I had not anticipated.

It is the sheerest folly to have anything for him but mild affection, I lectured myself as we rolled along the now-quiet streets of Rome. To feel anything else will only cause heartache and ultimately sorrow. Be content with a physical relationship, and don’t look for anything that cannot be.

I was still warning myself against the folly of errant emotions when we reached our meeting point. Alan’s carriage was waiting, the imperial insignia on the door alerting all who saw it that the occupant was there on the emperor’s business.

“Jack,” I said as we paid off the cab. I eyed him, unsure of how to put into words that which I wanted to say.

Alan stepped out of his carriage and waved. I waved back.

Jack took my hand, glowered for a moment toward Alan, then, out of the blue, confused me by grinning. “This is kind of like meeting your parents, huh?”

“What is?” I asked as he tugged me forward, toward where Alan awaited us.

“Meeting the former boyfriend. Don’t worry, sweetheart. I won’t embarrass you. I won’t growl and snap and be all he-man around your buddy. What happened before we met doesn’t matter, does it?”

“I wouldn’t go so far as that,” I said, casting a worried glance at him, quickly rearranging my expression to be one reflecting more pleasant thoughts as Alan greeted us.

“Octavia, my dove, you look exquisite as ever,” he said, bowing low over my hands.

“So that’s how it’s going to be, eh?” I murmured softly as he kissed my knuckles.

The look he shot me was filled with purest mischief.

“Yes, she does look exquisite, every blessed inch of her,” Jack agreed, wrapping one arm around my waist and pulling me up to his side. “As I noted this morning, when I was helping her put on her corset.”

“Subtlety isn’t your strong point, is it, Jack?” I asked, giving him a gimlet eye.

Alan looked from me to him for a moment, before bursting into loud and very amused laughter. “I can see it’s not. Jack, is it? How d’ye do. Alan Dubain.”

Jack took the hand Alan offered and shook it. “Jack Fletcher. And you were worried we weren’t going to be civilized about this, Octavia.”

I narrowed my lips at him.

“I am frequently very uncivilized when it comes to Octavia, but I am pleased to know she has found a lover at last. I have been worried about her these last three years. She has been working so hard, she has not had time to enjoy herself in that way.”

“God grant me patience,” I murmured, casting my eyes upward, and indulging in a general damnation on lovers old and new.

“That’s a long time for a woman to go without a man to keep her happy,” Jack said, nodding his head in agreement.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake—,” I started to say.

“Especially a woman of Octavia’s appetites,” Alan said in a conspiratorial tone.

“Right. That’s enough! Cease this conversation immediately. We have more important things to do than discuss my sexual well-being. This just encourages Jack in possessive behavior, and I think we can all do without that.”

“Thus sayeth the woman who knows nothing of possessiveness?” Alan asked, his dark eyes lit with a teasing light I knew well.

I glared at him.

“Is she really?” Jack asked, considering me. “I had no idea. So, what would you do if I walked over to that flower seller and kissed her?”

“Bid you good riddance,” I growled, ignoring the two men to climb into Alan’s carriage. I gritted my teeth against their manly laughter, cursing the ill luck that not only threw Jack and his blighted sister into my lap but entangled me with the former in ways that I was beginning to fear.

Alan sat across from us as the carriage drove to the palace, his gaze alternating between Jack and myself. His appearance was as familiar to me as my own, his bronzed skin just as warm and glowing as I remembered it, his laughing eyes almost as black as the crown of shining black hair that he wore just a smidgen too long for a gentleman. His grin was not as infectious as Jack’s, but it held a true warmth that I never failed to appreciate. He spoke in a drawling, languid manner common to the upper classes, but there was nothing slow about the mind behind the eyes that danced with secret mirth.

“He seems nice enough,” Jack said fifteen minutes later when we stood in the lobby of the palace while Alan was speaking with a tiresome official who refused to let us pass. “I retract my earlier concern about him wanting to make a play for you. It’s clear that he is what you said he is—a friend and nothing more. He doesn’t seem very diplomatic, though. Not at all what I expected from someone on an ambassadorial staff. You sure he’s going to be able to get Hallie free?”

“Don’t allow yourself to be misled by his lighthearted appearance,” I said slowly, watching Alan as he first reasoned, then joked with the official. “There is substantially more to him than what you see on the surface.”

“Wise words in general,” Jack acknowledged, taking my arm when Alan turned toward us and waved us forward.

“I have the utmost confidence in you, Octavia, but I think in this situation it would be best to let me handle the vice-provost,” Alan told us a few minutes later as we walked down the long hallway to a suite of offices. “I am equally confident that Jack will understand the necessity to allow me to be the one to make inquiries about his sister, since I gather his presence here is not with any form of official sanction.”

“What did you tell him about us?” Jack whispered in my ear as Alan strode ahead of us.

“Nothing other than you do not have official status within the empire.”

“An outlaw, do you mean? Well, that’s certainly close enough to the truth. Although—you don’t think he’s going to think I’m one of your revolutionaries?”

I hushed him, giving the guards at attention nearest us a worried glance. “It doesn’t matter what he thinks you are so long as he helps us.”

Jack had nothing to say to that, so we proceeded after Alan in silence, waiting patiently while an officious secretary fussed over Alan’s request for a few minutes before sweeping open a set of French doors and gesturing us into a grand office where an equally officious man sat dwarfed by a huge white-and-gilt desk.

“Your Excellency, Ambassador Dubain seeks an audience with you,” the secretary said, bowing and groveling as we entered.

“Yes, yes, I know all about that,” the doughy man behind the desk said, his bare head shiny with perspiration despite the early hour. “I have the ambassador’s letter here. It is a matter of state, I believe you said?”

“A trivial matter, I assure you,” Alan said, donning his most persuasive voice. “But one, alas, that I must trouble you with.”

The vice-provost barely cast a glance toward us, his shiny red face expressing dyspepsia and irritation as he gestured loftily toward Alan. “The ambassador will understand that my time is limited, what with this royal wedding almost upon us.”

“The matter concerns Captain Octavia Pye,” Alan said, waving a hand toward me. “Captain Pye is the commander of one of His Imperial Majesty’s airships, and was the ward of a great favorite of the late emperor. She is of much value to Emperor William, as well as to the empire as a whole.”

The vice-provost, whose oily glance had barely touched me, returned, this time with a glint of speculation in it. I lifted my chin and endeavored to look of great value.

“Just so,” the provost said, his gaze flickering back to Alan. His fingers drummed impatiently on the table.

“Captain Pye has unfortunately lost one of her crew members, a lady, in what can only be described as a farce of miscommunication. The lady in question was mistakenly detained by imperial guards yesterday afternoon—”

“Name?” the provost interrupted, shuffling through a stack of cards.

Alan smiled. “Hallelujah Norris.”

“Charged as a spy. Trial is two days hence. Deportation to England for execution on the following day,” the man said in a bored voice before casually tossing the cards down onto the desk and picking up a sheet of paper.

“Execution!” Jack said, starting forward. I grasped him firmly by the arm, tightening my fingers in silent warning to let Alan handle the situation.

“That’s what we do with spies,” the provost said without looking up from his paper. “We don’t normally send them to England, but the emperor wants a big display to be made the day of the wedding. Just more work for me, that’s what it is, but does anyone think of that?” He looked up at that, narrowing his eyes on Jack. “Who’re you?”

“This is another of my crew,” I said quickly. “Mr. Jack Fletcher is an engineer. He came out on the Tesla with us, and is naturally very worried about his fellow crew-mate. I can assure you that Miss Norris is not a spy.”

“No more than I am,” Jack growled.

Both Alan and I shot him a look of warning that thankfully he took to heart.

“You can understand how distressed Captain Pye and her crew will be to hear of this travesty,” Alan said smoothly. “Since there is to be a trial, perhaps we will be able to speak on her behalf, and clear up any misunderstanding there has been regarding the identity and purpose of the lady in question.”

“Trials are closed to the public,” the sweaty man replied, picking his teeth for a moment before glancing up, his face tight with irritation. “As you ought to know. If there’s nothing else, Ambassador, I’m a very busy man. I’ve nothing but work to do while you lot gad about at balls and routs, having your way with Italian princesses and such. Some of us have to work, you know! I’ve got all those trials to get through, and a half-dozen prisoners to ship back to England, all on the emperor’s whim.”

Beside me, Jack tensed.

“Sir,” I said hastily, fearing what Jack might do or say. “If we could just speak with Miss Norris, it would relieve our minds—”

“Out of the question,” he answered, sourly shoving away from his desk and yelling for the secretary. “Ben-son! Where the devil is my brandy?”

“Don’t,” I murmured to Jack as he strained toward the man. “You’ll just end up in gaol with her, and then where will we be?”

I could feel his hesitation as I tugged him out of the room while Alan, in true diplomatic style, mouthed pleasantries and thanks that were certainly not deserved.

Jack managed to hang on to his temper until we reached the relative safety of Alan’s carriage, at which point he exploded in a veritable cloud of profanity and outrageous demands.

“We have to go back in there and get her!” he repeated after the worst of the storm passed. “I’ll be damned if I let my sister be executed just because she was standing in a square looking at a fountain! I’ll be damned if I let her be executed for any reason! Dammit, Octavia, we have to do something.”

“And we will,” I said in my best soothing manner. “Alan, do you think it’s worthwhile going over that repulsive man’s head?”

“No. Tewksbury is a slimy slug on the underbelly of the empire, but there’s nothing I can do to force him to give us access to Jack’s sister.”

“What about the trial?” I asked, a sick, damp feeling clutching my belly. “Can you pull diplomatic strings to speak there? Or allow me to do so?”

“I’ll look into it, but I don’t hold out much hope,” he said, shaking his head.

Jack’s expression turned mutinous. “I am not going to sit by and let your precious emperor kill my sister as part of his wedding celebrations. We have to do something! What if we got that Etienne and his people to help us storm the palace?”

Alan’s eyebrows went up.

I thought about Jack’s suggestion for a moment before sighing. “No, there are simply too many guards even for the Black Hand.”

“Maybe we could get in touch with that Moghul guy, the one who tried to steal your cargo. I bet he could bring down the palace.”

Alan laughed. “Don’t think he hasn’t tried. Emperor William is well aware that the palace is a target of both the Black Hand and the Moghuls, and has seen to it that it is well protected.”

“Damn.”

“If we can’t get her out of the palace because it’s too well guarded,” I said slowly, “we’ll just have to free her after she’s taken out of there.”

“You don’t want to wait until she’s taken into prison in Newgate, once she’s in England,” Alan mused aloud. “It’ll be just as impossible to get her out of there as it would be the palace here.”

“We’ll have to get her out en route,” I agreed. “No doubt they’ll use one of the troop-transport airships to take the prisoners back to England for the wedding executions.”

“There is that,” Jack said slowly. “Do you think you could get a job on the ship, Octavia?”

“It’s doubtful. Not only will the transport ship likely have its full complement of crew already; the Southampton Aerocorps is still investigating the incident at the aerodrome yesterday, and I will not be allowed to fly in an official capacity until my status has been cleared.”

“Damn.”

“Alan, is there any way you could get me on the transport ship?” I asked.

He shook his head almost immediately. “Not in any way that would be useful. Besides, it would be dangerous for you.”

“Dangerous? Oh . . .” I stopped, not daring to look at Jack. Unease rose again within me at the deception I was keeping from him. I sent a pleading look to Alan, but his expression was inscrutable as ever.

“That was a loaded ‘oh.’ What did you mean by it?” Jack asked.

I looked at him, mute, wanting to explain, but unable to risk exposing Alan if he felt the situation was not wise.

“I see,” Jack said, withdrawing from me. Hurt flashed in his eyes, and I wanted to reach out and reassure him that it was nothing to do with him personally. “There are things you can say to your old friend, but not a new lover. Got it.”

“Jack—” I stopped, impotent. Ire swept through me as I glared at Alan.

Alan said nothing, just watched us both.

“That’s fine. Don’t worry about me,” Jack continued, looking out the window. “Clearly you have things to talk about that you can’t say in front of me. I’ll get out as soon as the carriage stops and let you have some privacy.”

“Alan!” I growled, narrowing my glare on him until it could have cut iron.

He sighed and made a half shrug. “Very well, but let this be on your own head. The reason it would be dangerous for Octavia to go on the transport ship in order to rescue your sister is because she—your sister—is suspected of being a member of the Black Hand. If Octavia attempts to free her and fails, her involvement with the revolutionaries will be uncovered.”

“You know Octavia is a member of the revolutionary group?” Jack asked, his pained expression thankfully fading. I took his hand, uncaring if Alan saw the gesture.

Alan said nothing. Jack turned from him to me. I raised my eyebrows.

“Holy shit. You mean he’s a member, too?” Jack pointed at Alan. “But he’s an ambassador!”

“There are people in all walks of life who desire to see an end to the current status of the empire,” I said nonchalantly. “Naturally, Alan’s involvement is known only to a very few people.”

“I hope your trust is not misplaced,” Alan said, giving me a warning look.

“I’d be offended by that, but I’m all too aware of the fact that you don’t know me like Tavy does,” Jack said, squeezing my hand. “I can keep a secret. And yes, I agree she can’t go on the transport ship.”

“Which means we’ll have to get her off it by some other means,” I said, drawing my attention away from the stroke of Jack’s thumb along my fingers, and on to the issue of his sister. “We could target the confusion that happens during takeoff or landing, but there are bound to be too many guards around at either time.”

“You’ll have to do it en route, then,” Alan said.

Jack looked up, his eyes bright. Something that I can only describe as an unholy glee lit within them, making both the green and brown eyes shine. “You know what that means, don’t you, Tavy?”

I slumped back against the plush leather cushions of Alan’s carriage as I realized just that very thing.

“What?” Alan asked, looking from him to me and back again.

“Octavia’s just a bit disconcerted because she’s about to become that epitome of steampunk adventurers.”

I sighed heavily, and wished I was a good thousand miles away from this spot.

“And what’s that?” Alan asked, puzzled.

Jack grinned.

“Don’t say it,” I snapped. “There has to be another way.”

“There isn’t. You said yourself that there wasn’t.”

I sighed again. Brought low by my own words—how mortifying.

“What are you two talking about?” Alan asked, leaning forward to pin us back with a questioning look.

“Mr. Dubain,” Jack said, making a bow from where he sat next to me, donning the air of one presenting someone to an august personage. “Ambassador to the emperor William whatever-number-he-is.”

“Oh, God,” I moaned, and dropped my forehead to my hands. “This can’t be happening.”

“What is happening?” Alan demanded. “Why is Octavia groaning?”

“May I present to you Miss Octavia Pye, captain of the prestigious airship Tesla . . .”

“Octavia, has your lover gone mad? What is he blathering about?”

“Just kill me now and be done with it,” I moaned.

“. . . and now, beloved to steampunk fans the world over, that most dread of all persons . . .”

I looked up and glared at Jack as he leaned to the side and kissed the tip of my nose. “I’m not going to forget this. Just so you know.”

“. . . a bad-to-the-bone, genuine, one hundred percent pure airship pirate.”

“Gah!” I yelled.

Alan looked thoughtful.

Jack looked up from where he sat at the small desk that was bolted along one wall of my cabin. He raised a sandy eyebrow. I had an almost overwhelming urge to stroke the brow. “You don’t sound very happy.”

I considered my hands. “I don’t like lying to my crew.”

“Which is why I suggested you let me do it.” Jack set down his pen. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. When we first talked about this plan, I didn’t think about what it would mean to you. We don’t have to go forward with it. We can find some way to save Hallie once she’s in England.”

“It will only be harder there,” I said, shaking my head. “Infinitely harder. And I appreciate you offering to speak to the crew on my behalf, but I am still the captain of this ship—at least, until the Corps discovers that I have falsified flying authorization, stolen one of their airships, and turned to piracy—and I will perform my duties to the best of my abilities so long as I have them.”

“You’re throwing away your career because of Hallie,” he said softly. “You won’t be given a command of your own after this, will you?”

“The Black Hand has a couple of airships they’ve stolen. With luck, I will take over control of one of them,” I answered. “Much as I appreciate your sympathy, I don’t see any real sense in dwelling on the decision—it was necessary, and I made it.”

Jack’s face was filled with guilt, the knowledge that I was giving up my career showing as stark pain in his eyes. “I should never have allowed you to go ahead with this plan.”

I got to my feet, dusting off my skirt, which was a bit smudged with dirt after I had scaled the scaffolding that surrounded the envelopes. “Now you are being presumptuous and arrogant. I am in control of my life, Mr. Fletcher, not you. Have you finished with your tasks? I have only the autonavigator to deal with; then I will be able to help you with anything else that needs doing.”

“Almost. I was just going over the to- do list. You said you saw to the boilers?” he asked, his pen poised over an item on a lengthy list.

“Yes, both checking and filling, although Alan and I were almost seen pumping the water into them. Luckily, we saw the guard before he saw us, and we pretended to embrace in order to throw him off.”

The look of pain faded slowly. One side of his mouth curled up. “Is that supposed to make me jealous? Because if it is, you’re going to have to work harder than that. You’d have to say something like he had his hands down your corset and was tweaking your nipples the way that makes you squirm and beg for more in order to get a rise out of me. Or if he suddenly realized what a delectable hunk of woman he let get away from him all those years ago, and decided to fix that by pinning you against a wall, hoisting up your skirts, wrapping your legs around his hips, and plunging deep inside your heat, burying himself over and over into you, feeling every single one of your muscles tighten around him until he lost all control. Something along those lines might do it.”

I stared at him, the images he was painting dancing in my mind—but with an obvious substitution. “Against the wall, Jack? One can . . . that is, I suppose there is no reason not to, but it strikes me as a wholly uncomfortable . . . with my legs around your hips? While standing? Goodness. The treatise never mentioned that.”

He grinned and dropped the pen he was using to cross off an item on a long list. “I’m glad you automatically put me in there rather than Alan. Yes, it can be done that way. Both parties have to have some strength and flexibility, but it’s doable. Would you like to try it?”

“Now?” I asked, glancing around the cabin, my brain a whirl of desire and need and the realization that I was fast losing all control of my baser self when around Jack. “This moment?”

“Tempting as you are, I suppose we should wait until I’ve finished my work with the engines. But when I’m done, my fair Octavia, then I shall show you a few things that your precious treatise didn’t think of.”

“The treatise was supposed to be comprehensive,” I said, frowning. “If there are indeed gaps in its coverage, then I shall request my money back.”

Jack laughed and gave me a look that made me feel as if he’d laced my corset too tight that morning. “There’s nothing like hands-on experience, I’ve always said. Not that I want to change the subject, but is Alan staying on board tonight?”

“No. He has an embassy dinner to attend, and then he will meet with Etienne and confirm the plans for tomorrow. He also wishes to stay close to the vice-provost in case the prisoner-transport plans change.”

“They’d better not, not after busting our respective asses for the last two days covertly getting your ship ready to fly. What time did you tell your crew to meet you here?”

“Six bells.”

His forehead furrowed.

“Seven o’clock in the morning,” I translated the time. “I told them to be prompt, as we would leave as soon as possible. They will not expect to be ready for immediate takeoff, but I’ll simply tell them that the Aerocorps had the ship readied.”

“You’re sure there are no ships coming in at that time?”

I shook my head. “I asked the director of the aerodrome most specifically, pretending I was interested in a ship leaving for England, and he said there were no arrivals expected until after the wedding. There won’t be but a few Corps members about at that time in the morning. The chances that one of my crew will find anyone to mention our departure are very slight.”

“Excellent. All is going according to plan, Octavia. Now if I can just finish up the items on my list, I can turn my fullest attention to showing you that in matters of lovemaking nothing can beat practical experience for learning opportunities.”

My body warmed at the look he gave me. “I will just go check that the rest of the stores are in place.”

“That’s a mighty pretty blush you have going there, sweetheart. Can it be that you’re indulging in a few fantasies about me?”

“About you?” I paused at the door, straightened my shoulders, and gave him my most quelling look. “Sir, you flatter yourself. You are a scoundrel and a rogue, and I would never waste a blush on someone of your ilk.”

“While you’re the sexiest airship pirate who ever planned a daring midair rescue, and I can’t wait to spread your thighs and—”

I shut the door rather abruptly, fanning myself for a moment before proceeding down the walkway, the muffled sound of Jack’s laughter following me.

“I have never in my life met such a man as you,” I murmured as I entered the mess, heading for the galley beyond. “The things you do to me . . .”

“Glorious one! You wish for your Francisco to do the things most extraordinary to you? Madre de Dios! I thought the day would never come, but me, I am patient, and for you I knew it must not be unneeded that your hair of the most flaming color was for me.”

I whirled around at the first sound of the voice, clutching my Disruptor. “Mr. Francisco! What on earth are you doing here now? Didn’t you understand that we are not leaving until tomorrow morning?”

A shadow from the galley formed into that of a man. His eyes examined me in a leisurely fashion that more or less stripped my clothing from my person. “Sí, but me, I am the steward most fabulous, am I not? You say that you arrange for the stores to be brought on board ship for me, but there are many little things, spicy things, things that will make you sweat and moan with pleasure when you taste them, these things only I can see to.”

“I told you earlier today that I would be happy to attend to anything you needed for the trip home,” I said sternly. There would be fewer guards with all airships but the Tesla and the transport ship gone, but I did not want to take a chance that one of those left to guard against attacks saw stores being delivered to the ship. Alan and I had worked very hard all day making sure that the copious deliveries that had been made had not drawn attention. If Francisco went and ruined everything now, I would have his hide. “I thought I made it quite clear that all of the crew were to enjoy one last night of leave before we hurry home for the emperor’s wedding.”

He shrugged. “But you are here, my most fiery one. And now you want me in the manner of the bull to a cow, yes?”

I blinked for a couple seconds and was about to disabuse him of such a notion when a voice behind me said, “If I am de trop, I will be happy to leave.”

I whirled around, glancing at the door directly to the side of me. I pointed at it, glaring. “Mr. Llama! That door did not open!”

Both men looked at the door for a moment before returning to me.

“Don’t give me that look! I know it didn’t open. I’m all of two yards away from it, and I would have noticed if it opened. And it didn’t. And there was no one in the mess when I entered it. So just where, my elusive Mr. Llama, did you come from, hmm?”

Mr. Llama had the nerve to look surprised. “Where did I come from, Captain?”

“Yes! Where? As in, how did you get into this room without me seeing you enter?”

“What’s all the noise about, Tavy—oh . . . uh . . .” The door opened and Jack stood in the doorway, looking startled. “Er . . .”

Mr. Francisco spat out a word that was not at all polite. “What is he doing here, beloved capitán of my hair? I thought we had left him behind, but then he is here with the revolutionaries. Why did they not take him? Why did they not cut out his heart and cook it in a tomato sauce with garlic, olive oil, and just a hint of bacon?”

“I’m back. And for the record, Octavia’s hair and all the rest of her is mine, so you can just keep your lecherous eyes and whatever else is bulging out of you to yourself,” Jack said, looking askance at Mr. Francisco’s very tight, completely nonregulation breeches.

“I would object to such a wholesale dismissal of my personal rights, but I have more important battles to fight at the moment,” I told him with a little frown before turning back to Francisco. “As it is, you must leave the . . . where is Mr. Llama?”

“Who?” Jack asked, looking around.

“Dammit!” I whirled around, grinding my teeth at the audacity of the man. “He’s done it again!”

“Sweetheart, I think you’re starting to get a fixation on the poor man,” Jack said, giving me a long look.

By some miracle, I held my temper, but I swore to myself that I would get to the bottom of the Mr. Llama mystery by the time we landed in London. “Mr. Francisco,” I said, breathing heavily through my nose. “Please leave the Tesla. Return here tomorrow at six bells. I will take care of any foodstuffs that you require.”

“Why should I leave?” he asked, pouting even as he glared at Jack. “The one who claims your hair most fabulous is his, he will stay, but I, your most devoted servant, your slave, your worshipper, I must leave? No. It will not be. I will not allow it.”

“You will leave, because I say you will,” I answered, shoving him toward the door.

He resisted, his gaze narrowing on Jack. “I will not leave you with that one. He is not to be trusted. You set him down, and he returns! It is clearly that he has bad thoughts on his brains for your hair. I will not forsake you, my glorious one.”

“Not only will you forsake me, you will do so right now,” I said even more forcefully, putting all my weight into the act of shoving him out of the mess.

He grabbed at the doorframe. “But why should I leave when the others stay?”

I stopped shoving. “What others? Don’t tell me more of the crew came on board early?”

He shrugged. “It is not for me to become the tail of tattling.”

“Damnation,” I swore, then slammed shut the door to the mess, and slid the bolt home before looking at Jack. “Others have come on board.”

“I heard. There goes double-checking the engines.”

“And setting the course for the autonavigator.”

“And having wild, unbridled sex up against the wall.”

My breath got caught in my chest at the look in his eyes. I cleared my throat and tried to focus on what was important. “Indeed. Well. I suppose I should go see who ignored my orders and came on board a day early. And then if there’s time, I will check the autonavigator in case Mr. Christian decides to attend to his duties. He means well, but he’s appalling when it comes to plotting a course and directing it to the navigator. I asked him to oil the navigator’s engine shortly before you and your sister came on board, and had to spend three hours correcting the course and slipping the gears back into their proper channels. Are you sure that people do it standing up? What about balance?”

Jack grinned, and took a step toward me. “Want me to show you?”

My brain, recently having proven itself unreliable where Jack was concerned, agreed most emphatically with his suggestion, but luckily the rest of my person realized that there were more important things to do, and I unbolted the door and slipped through it before he could make good his offer.

A slight figure disappeared down the end of the corridor. “Dooley! What are you doing here?”

The lad popped his head around the corner. “Hullo, Cap’n. Mr. Piper sent me to the ship to check that all the stores were tidy-like in the hold.”

“He’s not here?” I asked, relieved. That would be one less person to get out from underfoot.

“No, Cap’n. He said he was going to his favorite brothel to bend one of the ladies over his capstan, and have her scrape the rusticles off his bollocks.”

I absorbed that news with the silence I felt it was due.

Dooley picked his ear. “He sent me here, instead.”

“Indeed. Well, at least someone had the good sense to do as I asked and not come to the Tesla early,” I grumbled as I caught the lad by his jacket and shooed him down the passage ahead of me. “Go back to the pensione. The stores are all properly assembled in the rear hold. You may assure Mr. Piper of that when he is done having his rusticles scraped.”

“But, Cap’n,” the lad protested as I shoved him one step at a time down the gangway to the ground.

“Shoo. Begone. Go enjoy your last evening in Rome. I will see you at six bells.”

“Cap’n, Mr. Piper’ll have my dillywhacker if I don’t—”

I gave him a look that probably frightened a good three years off him. “You’ll lose more than your personal equipment if you don’t do as I say!”

His shoulders slumped as he nodded, and shuffled off. I reentered the ship, my gaze honed to razor sharpness as I hunted down the other members of my crew. Mr. Ho I found in her cabin, putting away her clothing in a foot-locker. “Mr. Ho,” I said in my most disappointed tone.

She gave me a level look. “Captain Pye.”

A silence grew, a rather uncomfortable silence.

“I am sorry to see you here. I had assumed you would be cherishing your last night in such a romantic city.”

“I fully intend to avail myself of the city as soon as I’m through setting my things to right,” she said evenly. There was a pause that was even more uncomfortable than the previous one. “I realize it is none of my business, Captain, but I could not help but notice that your bed in our shared accommodations has not been disturbed since we arrived.”

“Oddly enough, I was about to remark the same about your bed,” I said, lifting my chin.

She nodded an acknowledgment of that, and allowed herself a little smile. “I have greatly enjoyed our leave here.”

“As have I.”

“Then we are in harmony on such matters,” she said rather stiffly.

“We are. You will leave the Tesla as soon as you have finished here?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“I had wanted to make myself available to you,” she said slowly, her eyes curiously examining me. “But if you have no need of me, then I shall do as you suggest.”

“Everything is under control. Enjoy your last evening here,” I said, closing the door and releasing a breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding. There was something about Mr. Ho that simultaneously relieved me and worried me, but I couldn’t for the life of me pinpoint just what.

Mr. Mowen was just coming on board when I headed for the forward cargo hold. It took some doing, but I managed to convince him that all was well with the ship, and that he needn’t check anything before the morning.

I poked my head into the now empty hold after getting rid of him, just to double-check that nothing was awry, and was startled to find it occupied.

“Titties of the virgin!” Mr. Piper exclaimed as I popped into the room. He clutched his chest and staggered a couple of feet to a chair that was bolted to the floor next to the door. “Ye damn near scared the hair right off me balls jumpin’ in on me like that!”

“Mr. Piper,” I said, hands on my hips. “I thought you were off having your rusticles scraped! What are you doing here?”

His startled expression melted into one of smug masculine pleasure. “Aye, Captain, that I was. I went t’see Two-Guinea Tandy, finest whore in all of Italy. She’s got muscles in her Suez Canal that can grip a man like a pair of hands. Fair stripped the foreskin right off me rod, they did, the first time I had her. Scared me ’alf to death until she told me that she’s known far and wide for her ability to milk a man without layin’ so much as a finger on him.”

“Mr. Piper,” I said firmly, straightening my shoulders and giving him a look that I hoped he read with great accuracy. “I am not interested in your leisure- time activities except so far as they concern you being on the Tesla when you are supposed to be elsewhere. You have the rest of the evening free, so I suggest you go back to your friend and allow her to . . . er . . . grip you again.”

“But, Captain,” he said, lifting a wan hand. “Once ye’ve been milked by Two-Guinea Tandy, yer cods is drained dry. There be’nt any use in me goin’ to see her again. Not until twenty-four hours has passed to allow me sacs to refill.”

“Surely a man of your lusty appetite can find something to do with Tandy,” I said, pulling him to his feet.

“Nay, Captain. ’Tis the truth I’m tellin’ ye. Look, I’ll show ye—here’re me tallywags. See how they just hang there, swayin’ ever so forlornly in the wind, like a pair of empty plums?”

Before I could stop him, Mr. Piper dropped his trousers and pulled up the front of his shirt, gesturing toward his groin. I averted my gaze immediately, but not before getting sight of that which I hoped never to see again.

“Have ye ever in yer life seen a pair of cods as drained?” he demanded, prodding at himself. “I couldn’t mount a flight of stairs, let alone a whore as demanding as Tandy be, not without givin’ me clappers time to recover.”

“How goes the—what the hell is going on here?”

I whirled around at the sound of Jack’s outraged voice. “Oh. Jack. Um . . . I found Mr. Piper.”

“So I see,” Jack said, glaring at the bosun. “What’s he doing exposing himself to you? That’s what I’d like to know.”

“The captain didn’t believe me when I told her that Two-Guinea Tandy had drained me oysters dry,” Mr. Piper said, gesturing once again toward his crotch. “But ye be a man of the world, and ye’ll be able to tell her the truth in what I say. Er . . .” Mr. Piper thankfully hiked up his trousers, squinting at Jack as he did up the buttons. “If ye don’t mind me askin’, didn’t we leave ye off outside of Rome a few days ago?”

“Yes. I’m back.” Jack gave me a look that had me clearing my throat. “I assume you are finished showing the captain your nuts? Good. If you don’t mind, I need her to look at something.”

“Oh, aye?” Mr. Piper looked speculatively at me before leaning toward Jack and saying in what was supposed to be a confidential tone, “I wouldn’t be showin’ her yer middle leg and baubles just yet, lad. She looks to be in a right mood, and the ladies, they need a bit of sweet-talking before they welcome ye to fix their plumbin’.”

I rubbed my forehead as Mr. Piper, with a wink at Jack, and a leer at me, staggered off to parts unknown. “In a way, I shall miss the crew. But on the other hand, the thought of having a normal crew, one that does not possess individuals who can disappear and reappear at will, and a bosun obsessed with all things sexual, is strangely attractive. What is it you wanted to see me about? I assume it wasn’t to show me your—” I waved toward his fly.

“Not until later, no. Your chief officer is here. He . . . uh . . . took exception to finding me in the navigation room, and seemed convinced that I was holding you captive, and that it was his duty to alert the authorities.”

“Oh, no.” I bolted from the room, heading down the corridor to the spiral stairs leading up to the small navigation room housing the machinery that piloted the airship, Jack right on my heels. “You didn’t let him leave, did you?”

“You should know me better than that,” Jack said, grabbing my arm as I charged up the stairs and reached for the door to the navigation room. “Tavy, I should warn you—it looks a lot worse than it really is.”

I opened the door, looked in, then closed it quietly again.

“Jack.”

He winced at the expression in my eyes. “I can explain.”

“I should hope so.” I took a deep breath, then asked, “Why is my chief officer hanging upside down, naked, with my best corset strapped to his chest?”

Jack opened the door. “I couldn’t find any rope. You’d think that an airship would have great big coils of rope lying around, but no, I couldn’t find so much as a ball of string, and I had to have something to immobilize his arms, Tavy. Your corset was the only thing I had, so I used it to strap him down so he won’t be able to escape.”

“Today seems to be my day for seeing members of my crew sans clothing. He appears to be unconscious.”

Jack rubbed his chin. “Ye-es, I thought you’d notice that, too. He put up a bit of a fight, so I used the Vulcan Neck Pinch on him. Or the real-world equivalent.”

The naked chief officer swayed ever so slightly as the ship moved with the wind. “I believe I’ll forgo inquiring about this Vulcan Neck Pinch, and instead ask you why you felt it necessary to strip Mr. Christian.”

The look he gave me was pitying. “I forget you haven’t seen MacGyver, but you can take it from me that it greatly increases your chances of escape if you’re fully clothed. But string someone up naked and hang them by their feet, and you’re just about guaranteed to keep them where you want them.”

I sighed, and gestured toward the man, entering the small room. “Get him down.”

“He was pretty violent, Octavia. Punched me in the jaw, as a matter of fact, but I didn’t hold that against him, since he thought I was abducting you. Maybe we should keep him up there for a bit until he wakes up. You wouldn’t want him to escape to warn the authorities if we were distracted, would you?”

“For a man who professes to follow the doctrine of doing unto others as you would have them do unto you, you’re rather imaginative with your methods of restraint,” I said, gesturing toward the chief officer again.

Jack hauled a chair over and stood on it, pulling out a small penknife to slash what appeared to be a pair of my best wool stockings that bound Mr. Christian’s feet to the framework that ran over our heads. “Just because I’m a Quaker doesn’t mean I’m a wimp, sweetheart. I don’t kill people, but I don’t have a problem restraining someone who will cause us grief. And it wasn’t easy getting him up here on my own, you know. Took some doing. Watch out below.”

I managed to grab Mr. Christian’s head so it would not strike the floor with the rest of him. “I have every confidence that I will be able to reason with him when he wakes up. Until then, we will leave him bound on the floor. Will that suffice for security measures?”

“MacGyver would escape in about ten seconds,” Jack said, shaking his head.

“Then let Mr. MacGyver’s captain worry about him. I will just see to the autonavigator while we’re here.”

“And I’ll go off to finish checking the engines in the boiler room. That sheet of start-up procedures you found in Mowen’s room was very detailed. I’ll have the engines primed and ready to go. Oh, and Octavia?”

I consulted the navigation charts, making note of the course I would need to enter into the navigator. “Hmm?”

His eyes positively danced with pleasure. “My engine will be primed and ready to go, as well. If you’re up to seeing a third set of genitalia for the evening.”

I smiled. There really was nothing to be said.