“You must be Mr. Wilson of Wilson Airships,” said a distinctly American voice. “Beautiful craft you have here. The only one I’ve seen to rival the Lasher ships.”
Charlie and Effie turned to see a man in a crisp, black suit standing side-by-side with a woman in a dashing, knee-length purple dress.
“Evan Tagget,” the man introduced himself, extending his hand.
Charlie’s jaw dropped, but Effie didn’t appear to care in the slightest that one of the wealthiest men in the world had just introduced himself.
“My dress!” she exclaimed. “You’re wearing my dress!”
“Which means you are Euphemia Werrington Wilson of Werrington Designs,” the woman replied, spinning to show off her ensemble. “I love it. And Evan paid a fortune for it.” She gave Effie a conspiratorial wink. “But if you really want to see something, come with me. The new Queen of Norway is wearing another creation of yours.”
Effie teetered as if she were about to swoon. “Is she really?”
“She looks like a cloud, dotted with tiny embroidered airships.”
“I can’t believe it. I know I was told she would wear it, but I can’t believe…” Effie clutched Charlie’s hand and bounced. “Can you believe it?”
He gave her a squeeze. “Yes, love. I absolutely can.”
Five minutes later, Effie stood before the fashionable and sporty Queen Maud, pink-cheeked from the praise of her dress design. Charlie missed most of the conversation, too wrapped up in his own discussion with Mr. Tagget about the potential of internal combustion engines. Hardly off the ship and already this day was a smashing success.
By the end of the gala, Charlie and Effie were clinging to one another, exhausted from hours of meeting and mingling with the world’s elite. They scampered up to their ship and pushed the stairs away, ready for a moment alone.
“If Halston could see you now,” Charlie laughed. “He’d be sorry he ever said a word against either of us.”
“He’d never be invited. Not with Drusilla flaunting all her scandalous affairs. Which she might be doing just to spite him.”
Charlie nodded. Effie’s stepsister had married Lord Daycroft, Effie’s ex-fiancé, and by all accounts the couple despised one another.
Charlie put an arm around his darling wife, grateful as always for the blessing of a true, loving partner and companion. “As incredible as today’s adventure was, I don’t need parties full of royalty to consider my life a full and happy one.” He bent and pressed a kiss to the place above her heart where she’d tattooed their entwined initials between a pair of wings. “All I need is you.”
Effie’s fingers unfastened his shirt buttons, exposing the ink that matched her own.
“Us,” she corrected.
Need more Sass and Steam in your life? Grab Eden’s Voice for football, mechanical dragons, industrial espionage, and of course, sexy romance!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07W5D6R3Z/
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About the Author
Award-winning author Catherine Stein believes that everyone deserves love and that Happily Ever After has the power to help, to heal, and to comfort. She writes sassy, sexy romance set during the Victorian and Edwardian eras and full of action, adventure, magic, and fantastic technologies.
Catherine lives in Michigan with her husband and three rambunctious girls. She loves steampunk and oxford commas, and can often be found dressed in clothing that was purchased at a Renaissance Festival, drinking copious amounts of tea.
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Also by Catherine Stein
Eden’s Voice (Sass and Steam, book 1)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07W5D6R3Z
Football, mechanical dragons, industrial espionage, sexy romance. Welcome to fall in Ann Arbor.
Eden Randall has her life under control. Sure, people call her weird for having a mechanical dragon with her at all times, but she’s content. All she needs are her studies and her sports—and for the football team to have another undefeated season. What she doesn’t need are nosy men from out-of-town poking into her business.
Spending months in a tiny town shadowing the football team is the last thing Boston reporter Bruce Caldwell wants to do, but the tedious job could be his ticket to something bigger and better. When he meets a sports-mad spitfire on the sidelines, he realizes the town may hold stories far more interesting than he expected.
With dragons running loose in the laboratory and a ruthless New York industrialist threatening their budding friendship, Eden and Bruce find themselves players in a game far more dangerous than the one on the gridiron. Never ones to quit, they know the only way to emerge as The Victors is to become a team. This football season, winning might mean losing their hearts.
How to Seduce a Spy (Potions and Passions, book 1)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HM7RK1X
2019 PRISM award winner for best steampunk book
A barmaid with a rare talent.
Paris, 1882. Barmaid and potions expert Elle Deschamps knows a worrying secret: the supply of the magic serum that gives her potions their potency is running dangerously low. When a mysterious gentleman hires her to help search out new sources for serum, she jumps at the chance to earn her way to a life of less drudgery
A spy on a mission.
Agent of the British crown Henry Ainsworth has a simple directive: end the potions crisis, by any means necessary. Posing as a bodyguard, he joins the beguiling potions expert on her continent-hopping expedition, determined to protect her from the unknown foes who wish to thwart her.
A love neither can resist.
With time of the essence, Elle and Henry must rely on one another to avert disaster. As enemies close in, they find the greatest danger of all may not be to their their lives, but to their hearts.
The Earl on the Train (A Potions and Passions Novella)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07M59R9VK
An earl with a problem.
Nicholas Masterson, Lord Sharpe, has a problem with potions. He won’t drink them, he craves them, and they’re getting weaker by the day. When his spymaster uncle requests that he travel from London to India to investigate, he reluctantly agrees and hops on an early morning train.
A woman with a plan.
Ida Quimby has set herself a goal: begin a new life as an elite perfumer, selling potion-based perfumes to the highest tier of London society. But when her good-for-nothing brother reneges on his promise to supply her with the magic serum for her potions, she takes matters into her own hands and sets out for India to confront him.
The journey of a lifetime.
A chance meeting on a train brings Nick and Ida together, starting them down a path of mystery and intrigue that could get them both killed. Or lead them to a love for all times.
Not a Mourning Person (Potions and Passions, book 2)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QGKC2XL
A determined widow.
Rachael Fasching doesn’t shy away from scandal. But living her whole life with the name of her murderous late husband? Intolerable. Her solution: find the most passionate, romantic man in all of England and marry him. When she discovers that “dull and disagreeable” historian Avery Cantrell is the secret author of warrior love poems, she takes the risk and sets out to woo him.
An ancient curse.
Avery has spent his entire life researching, in the hopes of finding a cure to the ancient affliction that has made potions deadly to every male of the Cantrell family line. He needs to marry, but he wants the matter addressed efficiently
: no fuss, no delays, no timid virgins. Beautiful, enigmatic Rachael seems the perfect candidate.
Crime and passion.
When news of a murder interrupts their wedding plans, Rachael and Avery stumble upon a mystery of long-forgotten magic and deadly secrets. Plots and poisons threaten their marriage-of-convenience, but as they delve into the intrigue together these unlikely heroes might discover they have what it takes to hunt down a killer—and to find true love along the way.
Love Is in the Airship Page 4