“If you’ll knock on the door downstairs when you leave, the lady there will bring me some porridge.”
“I will. Thank you for your assurances. But I can think of at least one thing your son would prize over me.”
“What is that, dear?”
“If Rand told him he would reveal the science behind the Dr. Castle’s Man Management Automaton, I believe Ian would give him anything.”
“And would this Rand know the science?”
“I suppose not. They don’t use the spiders in Newgate Prison.” She turned and left the sickroom before Midwife Cavill could defend her son further.
Terrwyn walked back toward her cousin’s house, feeling unusually indecisive. Should she turn herself in at Newgate? No, she had the impression Rand would be happy to see her dead, once he’d secured Noelle. Was his child so important to him? No, she was missing something important. What did she really know about Rand Hardcastle? Tall, thin and blond, he reminded her a bit of Everard, the first officer of the Defender, who had been Ian Cavill’s chief tormenter. Hardcastle worked hard when he wasn’t whoring his way through the prison. Though he was married, that never stopped him from using the female prisoners. Beyond that, she knew nothing.
A crowd matted the lane in front of Owen’s house, all neighbors she recognized. As she came closer, she saw Cari, who pointed to her and shouted. Terrwyn lifted her skirts and ran. She pushed between two stout women who sold bread door to door and saw Ian on the stoop, his jacket missing, one sleeve torn, blood dripping down his cheek.
“Noelle?” she cried, stumbling forward. Where was she? Behind Ian? Inside the house? But Cari was outside. Nothing made sense.
Ian stared down at her, his bright eyes dulled, hollows under his cheeks showing a lack of sustenance over the past day. “They took her.”
She reached for his dusty jacket, knowing at that instant, from his posture alone, that he told the truth. He’d never been in league with Rand. But what had happened? How could she fix this? “Who? Where?”
He pressed his fingers to her cheek. His flesh was icy cold despite the June temperatures. “I brought her to a friend of my mother’s last night, a wet nurse. My brother reminded me about the woman. Noelle was fine, Terrwyn, I promise. But then this morning—”
Terrwyn ignored the unspeakable familiarity of a crewmate toward his captain and put her hand to his fingers to warm them. “What happened?”
He swallowed hard. “Three men. That man we saw in Brighton, Everard, and another BAE officer in uniform. I fought them best I could, even wounded the officer with my heater, but then Everard pulled out a small version of the automaton spider, and I couldn’t move!” He held up his human hand, callused by the hard work he did, shook it, then let it freeze as if to demonstrate. His gaze fell from her to his hand and he shuddered.
“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Terrwyn said, but she believed him. His horror was real. As was hers. How could she beat these people? Thank God all the tears one woman could ever cry in her life had salted the floors of Newgate Prison. She could bear up, even under this, and stay strong for Noelle.
“The man from Brighton backhanded Mother’s friend, and pushed Noelle out the cottage door in her pram. I watched, paralyzed, through the open front door as an airship landed right in the street. They climbed aboard and were gone.” He stared at her, his eyes flashing suddenly. “I’m so very sorry, Terrwyn.”
“The airship’s name?” Terrwyn asked, ignoring the familiarity.
“The Defender, my old airship,” Ian said. “I recognized it.”
“When were you able to move again?” She asked for the information so she could keep her mind off her daughter.
“As soon as the airship was out of sight range.”
“At least it didn’t electrocute you as you left its range.” She wondered how Everard and Rand had joined forces. Since both of them had been looking for her for months, it wasn’t a surprise they’d have met at some point.
Ian bent his head for a moment, then met her eyes. “You were right. I should have had the revision amputation.”
“No, you were right to try to learn more about its science, especially since the government is clearly continuing to develop it. I’d love to find that Dr. Castle and give him a taste of my heater, but we need to go after the Defender.”
A muttering in the crowd against the Blockaders told Terrwyn she’d probably have her complement of crewmen in an instant if she called for help, and on the streets of Hastings, no less. She dropped his hand and turned to the street.
“You must have been one of them Blockaders,” called a middle-aged costermonger. “With a hand like that.”
“I escaped in February,” Ian said. “I was impressed back in eighteen-eighty-nine. These hands are punishment, not badges of honor.”
The crowd rumbled again. “They took your hand deliberately?”
“The first time you escape,” Ian said, wiping blood from his cheek with his torn sleeve.
A tall form pressed between two older men. Terrwyn recognized a blacksmith’s son, rangy with youth.
“You going after them?” he said in a deep voice.
“Of course,” said Terrwyn. “They’ll have taken her to London, most likely, or to the Hardcastle family estate in Berkshire.”
“You’ll need crew who isn’t wanted, since it isn’t safe for either of you to ask questions,” said the costermonger. “My wife and son can manage our donkey cart while we rescue your daughter.”
“But Mr. Cavill said the man who took your daughter is her own father,” said one of the stout bread women.
A couple of the old ladies pursed their lips.
“He’s also the sheriff of Newgate Prison,” Terrwyn said. “And it wasn’t my choice for him to father my child, if you understand me.”
“You’re one of our own,” said the other bread woman, giving her companion a dirty look. “Your father would never stand for this, was it my daughter, or yours, Mary Jones. We’ll help your wife, Mr. Sellers, while you’re away.”
“No child should be raised in Newgate Prison with a despoiler of women,” said one of the old ladies. “I’ll send my grandson to that cave you park your airship in, Miss Fenna.”
Terrwyn didn’t like the idea that strangers knew where the Valentine rested, but she’d never quite been able to live an anonymous life.
She spotted Owen moving through the crowd. He stopped at Cari and put his arm around her. “Why, there he is. Where’s Noelle?”
“They took her,” Terrwyn said. Her voice had started to falter, but she forced iron into it. “You ready to pilot? We’re going now.”
He glanced at Cari and she nodded. “I’m ready.”
Terrwyn held her hand above her head. “Then follow me. We’re going to bring Noelle back to her people.”
Mr. Sellers, Owen, Ian and the blacksmith’s son, Thomas, all followed her out of town to the cave. They were joined by a youth who identified himself as Luke Penny, a boy of eleven or twelve years who’d caught up to them at the edge of town on his grandmother’s command.
“Owen, can you show our new crew around the airship? I need to speak to Ian.” Terrwyn nodded to her exhausted second mate and drew him to the back of the cave, where she kept a flight’s worth of supplies.
“Sit down,” she said irritably when she saw him stumble against a sack of potatoes. “Didn’t you sleep last night?”
“No.” His eyebrows rose in surprise. “I kept watch. I don’t underestimate my enemies. I wish I’d thought to bring my brother along to the wet nurse’s cottage.”
“A clerk? They’d just have killed him.”
“I had a babe to protect.” Ian said.
Terrwyn scrubbed her hands over her face.
Ian grabbed her wrists. “You’ll scratch yourself.” He brushed dirt and pebbles from her gloves. She hadn’t even noticed them.
She pulled away.
“Relax, Captain, I’m sure you didn’t sleep either.�
�
“I might have closed my eyes for a few minutes on the train,” Terrwyn admitted, folding her arms around herself.
“Good for you, conserving your strength,” he said. “Who knows what lies ahead of us?”
“How could I have left her with you? Just one man against someone who had government forces on his side?”
“You had no choice at the time. You didn’t know the sheriff wanted her and not you. You were trying to save her.”
“And instead I led her into a trap.”
“No, there was no trap, simply a chase that they won.” He patted her shoulders. “We’ll get her back. God wouldn’t be so cruel.”
She turned away. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”
“What other options do we have? When is the Christmas coming back?”
“I don’t need an Andrew to rescue my child,” she snapped, even though the captain had rescued her from Newgate Prison. “Or even Linet. I’m older than them, was crewing and stealing while they were picking daisies in the meadow.”
“Then you are the last person to be looking behind you when you need to look forward. How are we going to get Noelle back? I came to Owen’s house to get him to pilot the Valentine. I’m glad you arrived in time to join us.”
She ignored the suggestion that they’d have left without her. Her, the captain, her, the baby’s mother. They wouldn’t have dared. She hoped. “We have to find the Defender in order to rescue her. Which isn’t your problem. You aren’t coming with us.”
“Don’t be daft. I’m the only experienced crew you have.”
She glared at him. “And the only crew that Rand can paralyze with technology. You’re worthless to me.”
When she saw a mulish expression instead of hurt, she finally understood he was as stubborn as she was.
His eyes blazed. “Maybe I’m worthless if the Blockaders get too close, but I’ll be useful until we find Noelle. If they get me, well then, push me overboard and get on with it. I’ll have died for a good cause.”
“Daft,” Terrwyn said, echoing him. He was actually willing to die for Noelle. Her heart skipped a beat and she pressed her hand to her chest, desperately missing the sweet bundle usually lodged there. “What about your mother?”
“My brother has a position now. And I’m sure you’ll help if necessary. But I need to do this, Captain. I owe you a life.”
Terrwyn felt her lips tremble, and wanted nothing more than to throw her arms around him, but she was his captain, not his woman. “I’d rather you kept your life.”
His cheeks flexed in an almost-smile. “We’ll discuss my life if it’s still intact after we find Noelle.”
She put her hand to his chest, as if feeling his heart thump could be a momentary substitute for feeling Noelle’s heartbeat against her own. “Agreed. There’s a crew that needs training, and you’ll have to do it in the air. Grab that crate there, we’ll need supplies.”
“Aye, aye, captain.”
~*~
CHAPTER FIVE
Two hours later, in the skies outside London, Ian pushed thoughts of baby Noelle out of his mind and focused on that blasted automaton spider as he scanned the horizon. If only he could figure out how it worked, he could be of more use to Terrwyn at the critical moment. Had he seen Everard do anything with the palm-sized version? He couldn’t remember—his vision had been full of the man’s flawless white grin as he pulled the thing out of his pocket.
Had Everard touched any part of it in some special way? Ian tried to remember. Everard had reached under his jacket. The automaton had been in his waistcoat pocket, based on where the BAE officer had put his hand. Did it have the same glowing eyes as the larger shipboard automaton?
Ian thought the spider’s eyes had flashed as Everard flourished it. Had he switched it on in some fashion? Where had the officer’s fingers been? Ian moved the spyglass to his brass hand and mimicked the motions he’d seen Everard use. His fingers had been under the spider, his thumb on top. So if he’d turned it on somehow, the switch or button was on the body, not the limbs or the head. He couldn’t be any more precise than that without looking at the automaton.
He felt a small surge of hope. Maybe one of the crew, or Terrwyn herself, could fiddle with it even if he was paralyzed or possibly dead, assuming they got it away from Everard. His goal of saving the other Brass Hands could be fulfilled by someone else. To think lives might be controlled or freed by something so simple as a switch or button.
He blinked as he sensed some change in the atmosphere. Something white and puffy danced across his vision. He swore, realizing the spyglass had sensed a Blockader airship.
“Blockaders!” he cried, cupping his good hand to his mouth.
Owen, on the bridge, held up his hand in acknowledgment. In the stern, Terrwyn held up her spyglass too as it emanated the telltale puffs of smoke. Ian had seen smoke first, so the enemy was either above or to starboard. When he had to grab onto a ratline with his hand to prevent himself from falling, he knew Owen had realized the same thing and turned the wheel to steer the airship portside.
He heard an excited squeak on the other side of the fabric envelope and knew Luke was reacting to his first experience of seeing another airship in the sky. Soon would come his first battle, and with any luck, the urchin would survive.
Ian watched Terrwyn ordering Sellers and Thomas down the ladder to where the new cannon waited below. That left only her to feed the coal burner, which wouldn’t do. One advantage of a brass hand was he couldn’t feel pain in that rough appendage, which meant he could work with fire much more closely than the average crewman.
He wrapped his arm around a ratline and slid to the deck, holding out his spyglass. “Captain, I respectfully suggest you give this to Luke and head up yourself. I can man the burner.”
She squinted though the goggles she wore around the engine. “You seemed overjoyed before to hold a spyglass of your own, Ian.”
“That was personal. This is battle.”
She nodded and took his spyglass, tucking it under the broad black leather belt nestled into the curves at her waist. At some point in their journey, she’d gone into her cabin and changed into wide-legged white trousers with red piping along the seams, which would blend against the balloon of the Valentine. He held his breath for a moment as she turned and he caught the ghostly image of her limbs underneath the flowing fabric. If her coat had been shorter he might have seen the outline of her lush derrière underneath too.
“Stop staring, crewman,” Terrwyn ordered, even though her back was to him as she climbed nimbly up the ladder to the closest ratline.
Despite the grim situation, Ian had to grin. “How did you know?”
“Your breathing changed.” A moment later, she was too far up to talk to him.
Why Terrwyn, you flirted with me. He felt naked without the hard-won spyglass, but it didn’t really matter now. He needed to stoke the burner and be ready for anything. Mentally, he traced his path across the deck to the hold below, in case he needed to help with the cannon.
His thoughts drifted to Terrwyn. He hoped he meant something very special to her. But now wasn’t the time to dream, not when a babe’s life was at stake.
As he quickly scooped coal from the bin and climbed up the short ladder to the burner, he inventoried supplies at the stern. Tub of sand for unexpected fires, or for throwing at enemies’ eyes during close fighting—check. A barrel of paraffin for the lamps aboard, or for carrying aboard an enemy airship to be used as a bomb—check. A box of wicks, an extra coal scoop, a jug of water. He knew a couple of spare heaters were in the cabin, but his was holstered on his belt and he knew everyone was armed. As a backup weapon, he had two knives as well, though he’d probably be immobilized during any fighting with the Blockaders.
He swore when he realized he hadn’t told Terrwyn about his automaton switch theory, but it was too late now. The Blockader airship was so close that even without a spyglass he could see their three cannons poking thr
ough the openings.
Was the airship they were about to battle even a part of their mission, or just a random patrol vessel? He didn’t want them to waste their lives. Could Terrwyn see the airship’s name?
Just then, he heard her scream. “Evade!”
The Valentine swayed as above him Terrwyn and Luke opened gas valves to lower the pressure in the balloon. The first cannon shot whirred overhead, uselessly high in the sky as they descended. Owen steered the airship with great skill over the Thames, staying lower than any airship normally would. As the Blockader airship pursued out of range, they flew over Newgate Prison. The airship had never been close enough for their new carronade to be employed.
“No sign of the Defender around the prison or in the Blockader yard,” Terrwyn yelled through cupped hands to Owen. “Take us west.”
Newbury, the Berkshire town near where Terrwyn said the Hardcastle estate was located, was about an hour’s flight from the prison, halfway between London and Bath. It was a popular overnight stop for coaches back when the trip between the city and the seaside resort town took two days. Perhaps Hardcastle had joined the prison because his family fortune had suffered once the railroads decreased travel time. Certainly he had the entitled attitude of a gentleman of leisure.
When they were safely out of London, and the other, slower airship had given up the chase, Thomas poked his head out of the hold and waved to Ian.
“Could you show us how to use the cannon proper-like?” the blacksmith’s apprentice called out. “Mr. Sellers and me weren’t sure quite what to do if we were needed.”
Ian climbed down the ladder into the hold. The Valentine was too small for a proper gun deck, but it had room to turn the carronade so that it could be fired out of the gun port on either side, though he wasn’t sure if it could be turned with only two men. And they needed a lad down here for gunpowder, but since they didn’t have an armory either, the barrels were simply in a corner.
“Did you mop out the barrel before Owen showed you what to do?”
Captain Fenna's Dirigible Valentine Page 6