Casper stopped me in front of the door and whispered into my ear. I froze.
“Listen.”
His breath tickled the exposed curve of my neck, and a little thrill ran through me. I held very still, waiting to feel it again and shiver. I missed the first part of what he said and caught just the tail end.
“If you think you’re going to lose control in here, just act like you’re going to be sick and run out. I’ll make your excuses. Niece.”
“Thank you, Uncle Casper,” I said sweetly and breathily in his ear.
He swallowed hard and stumbled toward the door.
I smiled. Two could play at this game.
The door swung open on a writhing mass of flesh. Feeling safe from the dangers of my kind, the whores and their customers were dressed to show as much skin as possible. One girl wore only a tight red corset and bloomers and boots, the bright scarlet plume from her tiny hat dipping all over the table as she laughed. The lady next to her had the tall white-powdered hair of the last century and was dressed in a gorgeous brocade gown fit for a queen—except for the fact that the front panel was missing, exposing her legs from ankle to thigh when she stood to reach for the wine. Another posed in an odd outfit of nothing but sleek black leather and shiny silver rings. Her hair was short and slicked back like a man’s, and there was actually a small piece of metal through each of her ears. I unconsciously licked my lips.
Those three caught my eye, but the overall impression was of temptation, glamour, costume, delight, and a massive amount of wickedness. The men lounged and laughed and ogled in a state of undress that was outrageous, according to my conservative upbringing. Cravats untied, shirts unbuttoned, no hats, and one gentleman appeared to be wearing some sort of plaid skirt with a furry purse. I blushed and looked away.
Casper’s hand tightened on my arm. We’d been standing in the doorway for all of three seconds, and no one had acknowledged us. I was sure my complexion was an unbecoming shade of mauve. Casper sighed and steered me to a chair in the far corner, placing himself between me and the fellow in the skirt. I looked around for Keen, but she was nowhere to be found.
“Bonjour, darling,” trilled the girl dressed like a queen, who was sitting on the other side of my corner. She gracefully pulled her long legs out of a stodgy-looking old man’s lap. “You aren’t a new girl, are you?”
“This is my niece, Anne,” Casper said. “A passenger. She’s to be a governess in Freesia. And you’re Jeanne.”
“Oui,” she said with delight, holding out her bare, bejeweled hand for his kiss. “I see my reputation precedes me, even in the pious Sangland.”
“I played for you once, in Paris.” Casper released her hand with a distant smile. “We performed a Franchian lullaby together.”
“Ah, yes. I remember now. We did other things, too.” Jeanne dimpled behind her fan. “With my scarf and a horse whip, non?” And she laughed, a sound both carefree and practiced, like gilt-edged leaves dancing in the breeze.
Casper cleared his throat and grinned at me, shrugging. I gave him a withering glare. He met my eyes for a few seconds longer than was necessary, until the look became something else entirely. I cleared my throat and searched the table for a napkin. There wasn’t one.
“I didn’t know we were getting a new girl.” An older woman leaned across the table. She was dressed smartly and in a modern fashion that I had to assume was very de mode, although her dress was hemmed above the knee.
“I’m just a passenger,” I answered for myself. “But your hat is exquisite. Where did you get it?”
She smiled, not the fake smile of a prostitute but the genuine smile of a woman whose genius has been recognized. “Like it, do you? It’s my own work, dear. I was a milliner before I took to the air.”
Her voice was refined and high London, and her manner told me she’d been raised properly. How had she ended up on the Maybuck, I wondered? I liked her instantly, and not just because of her bonnet.
“If she is new, I’ll take the first plunge,” the man in the skirt said with a heavy brogue, leaning behind Casper to run a hand up my arm. “She looks juicy as a plum.”
Casper leaned back, crushing the man’s arm. “She’s a passenger. Off limits.”
The man withdrew his arm with a jerk, rubbing the velvet sleeve of his fine coat. “Look, laddie. You needn’t be brash. I’ve a purse full of coin. There’s a price for everything.”
“She’s my niece, my lord, en route to Freesia as a governess,” Casper growled with barely contained rage. “And I’ve been charged with protecting her innocence. Surely a gentleman understands an oath of such magnitude?”
“Bonny, she is.” The man ignored Casper to lean across the table. He was ruggedly handsome and knew it, probably a good fighter, with broad shoulders and huge hands. Another predator. I batted my eyelashes at him, feigning naive curiosity. His long lips curled into a knowing smile.
“Freesia’s full of monsters, wee thing. You’ll go there to watch a Blud Baron’s spawn, and they’ll eat you right up. Wouldn’t you rather be a lord’s mistress? Nice little cottage in Glasgow, weekly allowance, pretty dresses? I won’t use ye too hard. Eh?”
I heard a cracking noise and looked over to find Casper’s hands flexing, his teeth bared. Before I could decide how to extricate myself from my first proposal, Casper leaned over and whispered something into his ear.
“Perhaps another time, lass.” The man scooted his chair back abruptly and found a different seat at the other end of the table.
“What did you say to him?” I whispered to Casper.
“None of your—”
“—goddamn business,” I finished for him with a sigh.
“Exactly, yes,” he said in a dignified voice as the table went quiet.
Miss May posed dramatically in the doorway. After slamming it shut, she swaggered into the room and to the head of the table. She was dressed as a lady pirate, with the most covering bits of her costume missing. She swung one booted foot up onto her chair, letting the fluttering petticoats drip from her knee and offering a view that made me cough and look away.
“Welcome, all, to the Airship Maybuck, the world’s first and best floating pleasure ship. Everything on this boat is for sale, at a price. You know the rules, or you wouldn’t have made it past the dock. Pay for what you take. Mind your manners. And no fighting. Break a rule, and you’ll find yourself in the brig or thrown overboard. Until then, enjoy yourself. We’re here for your pleasure.”
Her grin made it very clear that it was somewhat for her pleasure, too. Everyone cheered, and the men managed somehow to untangle their limbs from the ladies long enough to raise a toast of wine to the ship’s captain. She raised her glass in return, and the little girls in their white gowns filed in through the door with platters of food that I couldn’t identify. It was all meat or trash to me, but there was a lot of it.
Just then, I noticed that the pretty girl carrying a smallish pig was none other than Keen. In a diaphanous white gown, with her hair and face washed, she was like an angel, all huge brown eyes and long lashes and that mischievous grin that made me want to drain her and then strangle her for being so foolish.
Casper stiffened beside me, grabbing her wrist as she set down the piglet with a chaste curtsy.
“What are you playing at?” he hissed.
She yanked her arm back. “I make my own choices. And you’re not my dad.” She offered him a blinding smile and scampered out the door. A hand from the crowd reached out to smack her on the rump, and I felt Casper shaking with anger beside me.
“What’s a dad?” I whispered.
He put his head in his hands, speaking quickly and so low I had to lean close to hear him.
“Dad means father. She thinks I act too much like her father. But she forgets what a dangerous world this is. She’s too young to be here. I shouldn’t have brought her along.”
“Where are her real parents? Why is it your business, what she does?”
&nbs
p; “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I know that if she’s over fourteen, there’s nothing you can do.”
“There’s always something I can do.”
He reached into his waistcoat and pulled out a silver flask, which he slopped into his red wine in such a way as to obscure the contents. Stronger liquor, perhaps? Laudanum? A potion? But he didn’t have the eyes of an opium addict—our old butler had had that look, shortly before my mother staked him for incompetence. There were so many smells in the room, so much skin scent in the air, that I didn’t have a hope of puzzling out his secret ingredient.
“Oi, Maestro!” Miss May lounged back in her chair and grinned at Casper. She held up her own glass of deep burgundy wine. “To an excellent bargain.”
He toasted her in return and drank deeply before pouring himself another glass.
Casper and I spent the rest of the meal in our own pool of silence, a tiny island of tension amid the great, lashing waves of flesh and gluttony. He finished his glass of wine and swirled the last drops of deep maroon around and around in his goblet.
He never ate a bite.
The dinner didn’t come to an end so much as the food was sampled and abandoned for other needs. The wine still flowed, though, and the party only became more animated as Keen and the other girls carried platters out to make space. When an elderly gentleman with a curled mustache pulled one of the girls into his lap and yanked down the sheer fabric above her corset to expose pierced nipples, Casper bolted up from his seat.
“Leaving so soon?” Miss May murmured sweetly, her ruby lips against a flushed young man’s ear.
“My niece is unaccustomed to such goings-on.” Casper pulled me behind him, attempting to drag me around the table toward the door.
Without really thinking, I said, “But, Uncle, I think this could be quite educational.”
Quite honestly, I was intrigued. I knew that my mother had had her pets, that her marriage to my father was mostly a political alliance. And of course, that he truly had been my father was in question, if you believed certain circles. But what sport occurred at the Ice Palace occurred behind firmly closed and locked doors. I’d never seen a live naked woman’s body, other than my own. And I’d never seen what lay under a man’s many layers of clothes.
The old man shifted the half-dressed, laughing girl and fussed with his buttons, and I leaned over in amazement, angling to see more. With a snarl, Casper lifted me around the waist and carried me out of the room past the giggling, moaning guests and their quickly disappearing clothing.
He slammed the door and dropped me to the deck, steering me down the hall by my arm.
“Well, that was a little awkward of you, Uncle.” I tripped, trying to keep up with him. “Things were just getting interesting.”
“We may be hitching a ride on a floating whorehouse, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to stand around and watch you be utterly . . .”
I watched him wince, fighting for the right word.
“Debased? Spoiled? Scandalized? Ruined?” I smirked. “Informed?”
“Let’s just say that those men aren’t used to being told no, and that room is going to get a lot worse.” And then his face went totally white, and he ran a hand through his hair. “Keen. Dear God. I left the poor girl in there. We’ve got to go find her.” He started to walk back down the hall, but I didn’t move, and he soon turned back with worry in his eyes. “Ahna, come on. It will only be a moment.”
“I’m going back to the room. I can take care of myself.” I flashed my fangs and huffed. Being told what to do rankled, and I badly needed a vial of blood.
He stepped closer, one hand around my upper arm and his hair brushing my cheek. “That’s the thing, though. If they find out what you are, who you are, the worst won’t be getting thrown off this boat. They could ransom you, punish you, chain you up. Torture you.” He shook his head. “Anything. Please just come with me now. Don’t make me worry for you both.”
“I’m . . . you . . .” It was hard to concentrate, being so close to him. “You don’t have to worry for me. The men are all in that room and busy. There is nothing to fear out here.”
“You’re right . . . but you might be wrong. Just get back to the room and lock the door. I’ll hurry.”
He released me and stormed down the hall, already intent on his next errand. I took the rare chance to admire his backside in the tight breeches and the way his coppery hair floated behind him, lit by the orange lamps. He really was a fine physical specimen, whatever he was. What had truly captured my attention, though, had been the look in his eyes and the purpose in his stride. He wasn’t just protecting his meal ticket—he really was afraid for me, the predator who had promised to put his head on a pike. And the only reason he was willing to leave me alone was to go save the insolent young girl who had recently accused him of acting too much like her father. No matter what Casper’s sharp words might have said, he honestly cared about us both. I was annoyed—but oddly touched.
I turned back to creep down the long hall, taking time to read the plaques by each door. The Leather Room. The Brocade Room. The Silk Room. The Damask Room. All fabrics, and lush ones. Did each girl have her own room, I wondered, or were they at the mercy of any wealthy passenger who beckoned? And who would normally have used our chamber, the Velvet Room?
I was so interested in my surroundings that I didn’t notice the man waiting in the shadows until he was close enough to stroke my cheek.
“Are you lost, little snowbird?”
It took every ounce of self-control I had not to hiss, let my shaking hands curl into talons, and rip into him. Instead, I stepped back and put my hands in front of me in a gesture of supplication that I’d seen frightened maids use when my mother was on a rampage. I blinked, opening my eyes wide, and simpered at him.
My immediate impression was of an ermine in the summer, small and dark and deft. But his smile was after something more carnal than meat, and his sharp teeth matched my own. A Bludman—but for some reason, I couldn’t smell him, and that scared me even more.
“Please, good sir. I am a maid and a passenger here, not one of . . . not a . . .” I stumbled over the word. What would a girl call a whore if she didn’t know what a whore was?
“Not a lady of the night?” His snicker was teasing, but I could hear an accent under the words. I looked more closely.
He wasn’t dressed like the other men on the boat, in clothes that showed status and wealth. Aside from eyes so light they were nearly white, everything about him was shadowy, down to the leather that held all of his weapons and the kohl ringing his eyes. He didn’t seem to belong there at all, and that’s what made unfamiliar fear trickle down my spine.
“Ah, but you are a different sort of lady, and it is the night, and we are alone. And I think you won’t want to scream now.”
One black-gloved finger moved toward my face, and I pursed my lips to keep from biting it. I was a roiling storm of emotions. My natural instincts to maim and kill and drink raged against my self-control with every thump of my hungry heart against the tight leather corset. And my ingrained behavior, the princess in me, was insulted that this man would dare to touch me and make pretty, lying words at me as if he was offering candy to an innocent Pinky child.
I began to understand the bone-deep fear of prey. This man wasn’t a soft duke or an aging baron. He didn’t belong on the Maybuck, which meant that no one knew he was there. Would it be anything close to a fair fight? He was bristling with weapons, and I was sorely hampered by leather and canvas and lace. Even if I managed to kill him, I would expose myself as a Bludwoman and follow him over the side to the sea far below.
So that left me in the position of any other young girl: I was in his power. I had to find a way to escape him before he hurt me or drove me to a killing fury. Or both.
He took a step toward me, a knowing smile on his lips. I took a step back, hands still up.
“Please,” I said again. “
My uncle will be back soon. He’s the Maestro. He’ll be most upset if my person is assaulted in any way.”
“He’s not your uncle, little flower. And whoever he is, if he brought you on the Maybuck, he didn’t have much concern for your honor.” Quick as a whip, he swung around, one hand on either side of my face, trapping me against the wall. So I played prey. I cowered.
“Besides, I’ll return you in good shape,” he whispered in my ear, the scent of blood and wine heavy on his breath. “I’ll get you warmed up for your future husband. Do the hard work. You’ll thank me for it. For warming you up.”
I gulped and turned away as he nuzzled my neck where I’d unlaced the thick collar of my shirt. One of his hands fumbled with the cloth of my skirt, as the boy’s had the night before. No wonder women wore so many layers of clothes. My hands slapped his away, but his fingers only dug harder into my flesh.
My breathing sped up, my chest straining against the corset. The more I fought him, and the more he fought the cloth hiding my scent, the more I realized that I was truly in danger. Even without unleashing his sharp teeth, he was besting me. His beast was stronger than my beast, and I began to push him away in earnest.
“I like it if you fight me a little, vixen,” he murmured, his voice husky.
Left with little choice, I sighed and jerked away from his hand. And then I head-butted him.
I heard the crack and saw stars, but it bought me only a moment of mercy.
“You nasty little bitch.” He touched the split skin on his forehead and snarled, snagging both of my gloved wrists and pinning them painfully against the wall over my head. He tucked his blud-covered forehead into my shoulder, beyond the reach of another head-butt. Shoving his hips hard against me, he said, “You owe me your maiden’s blood now, little flower, and I’ll have it.”
His tongue darted out to slide up my face, until he pulled back in surprise.
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