Captain Gravenor’s Airship Equinox (Steampunk Smugglers)

by Hiestand, Heather

  “There,” she said, sitting back on her heels as the sun climbed in the summer sky. “Does that look like the hand you lost?”

  He slipped off the bed and crouched next to her, letting his good hand hover over it.

  “Good idea. Let me make sure I made your wrist correctly.” She put her hand over his, maneuvering it into place.

  He jerked away from her light touch, shocked.

  “I do apologize. I didn’t mean to get plaster on you.”

  He shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. No one has touched me in a long time.”

  “With a face like that? You must have every barmaid for miles enamored of you.”

  He laughed, the sound coming out more harshly than he meant it to. “It’s been a difficult adjustment, losing my hand. I nearly died from blood loss and fever. Since then I’ve been desperate to earn my place with the Red Kites. I’ve worked during every moment of daylight and into the night if I could.”

  “The captain has shown no interest? A strong male like you?”

  “I’m not sure she likes men. Or at least, I’ve never seen the signs.”

  “Focused on her work. I can understand that.”

  “It’s why you’ve never married?”

  “I never met men, you understand. My parents died when I was young and Rand married soon after. His wife didn’t like me, didn’t want to pay money for parties or dresses with the limited funds available. I was happy enough with my work and my sister’s company.”

  “Do you think your sister is worried about you?”

  She nodded. “But it can’t be helped. Yet.” She poked at the arm-end, flattening it slightly, then cutting it with the edge of the spoon. “Can I see your stump?”

  He hesitated, then untied the laces holding his hook to his arm and pulled it free. She took it in her cool, dirty fingers.

  “You still have your wrist,” she observed. “I’ll cut down the base.”

  “Do you want to marry?” he asked.

  “Why? Are you proposing?”

  He pulled his stump from her arm, then jerked around and clumsily relaced his laces.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “It isn’t funny.”

  “I wasn’t poking fun!” she protested. “Why would you want me? Or is it my virtue that concerns you, with all this time spent in close quarters? I have no reputation in the world. It doesn’t matter.”

  “I wasn’t proposing,” he said through gritted teeth. “Nor did I offer insult. I was simply curious. I did not realize women of your class would automatically lend your thoughts to proposal from my simple question.”

  “My class.” She laughed sourly. “I have sunk to poverty and now to imprisonment. Whatever station I once held has quite been lost.”

  “That isn’t true of anyone with an education,” he said. “You can always be a governess or teacher. You’d never have to sink as low as many women must to survive.”

  “Unless I make a mistake of passion that has consequences.”

  “Do you intend to do so?”

  “In a cage? Certainly not.” Her cheeks were flushed.

  He liked the way the rosy glow made her eyes sparkle. “And if we weren’t in a cage? Are you trying to tell me I am attractive, for a working class cripple at least?”

  “You are attractive by any standard and you know it.”

  ~*~

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Brecon’s lips felt dry. He licked them, wondering how he should approach her, given they were trapped in an open cage. “Why, Miss Hardcastle, I believe you are flirting.”

  “I did not know I had the skill,” she said with a blush, poking ineffectually at her sculpture.

  They grinned shyly at each other, until the clanking of boots against the iron stairs sounded.

  “I must make some notes.” Her hands fluttered to his shirt, which she still wore. “Oh, I’m filthy. I must wash.”

  “There is more water in the bucket.” How did she think prisoners stayed clean?

  “Pour a little in the cup, would you?”

  The twins appeared with a midday meal of bread and cheese, and more water.

  “How about some ale?” Brecon suggested, but the twins rolled their eyes in unison at that suggestion.

  “That going to be your new hand, then?” said One, pointing at the plaster sculpture.

  “Once the blacksmith figures out how to make a cast.”

  “I need to make notes on the springs and battery compartment and the rest,” Philadelphia said, wiping her hands with the edge of Brecon’s blanket.

  Brecon saw a drop of water at her throat. Her beautiful, porcelain skin would take on a gray prison pallor if they were incarcerated here long.

  “Can we take this now?”

  “Yes, but be very careful. The blacksmith can cast the mold and then once he has a bronze made I’ll have the diagram of how to cut it up and reassemble done for him.”

  One unlocked the cage, set down the tray, and picked up the plate with the hand sculpture. “Should we take the rest of the plaster?”

  “No, leave it for now, in case something happens to the first hand.”

  Two nudged One. “She’ll need it to make the Man Management Automaton, idiot.”

  Philadelphia made a face and pushed a fist into her stomach. Brecon didn’t think she’d ever make that, frankly, and since neither of them had ever seen the infamous spiders, how could she?

  “Don’t loll around, like, this afternoon. Keep yourselves busy,” said the first twin. “The captain wants results for all this fine grub she’s feeding you.”

  Brecon’s hand balled into a fist and he took a step toward the man. One jumped back with a smirk and swung the door closed. It clanged into place and the second twin turned the lock.

  “Can I have lead wire then, and a battery?” She made a rectangle with her fingers. “About that large?”

  “What you going to do with it?”

  “Make the inner workings of the brass hand. I’ll make some drawings for items I’ll need for the motors.”

  “I’ll see what the captain says,” said One.

  “She wants the hand.” Brecon pointed to it. “How can the doctor make it without these items?”

  The twin shrugged. “I don’t know and I don’t care.”

  The brothers turned in unison and stomped their way out of the room.

  “Such charming men,” she said.

  Brecon sighed. “Work on your drawings. Eventually we’ll get what we need.”

  Twenty-four hours later, the twins arrived with a crate full of materials. Brecon watched as Philadelphia pawed through the straw, pulling out bits of wire and metal.

  “Could I have some sailcloth, thread, and a needle?” he asked the twins.

  “Why?”

  “So I can make a pillow from the straw.” He had seen Philadelphia rub her neck. He’d insisted she take the cot again, but it was hardly comfortable. He felt a dozen small bruises from lumps only his flesh could find when he slept on the bench.

  One shook his head and laughed. “Ah, Gravenor, I might almost feel sorry for you if you weren’t such a bastard.”

  “Rhys Thomas took your little airship for a test flight yesterday,” the other said with a studied casual air. “He enjoyed the ride.”

  Brecon found his hand had furled into a fist again. “That’s my airship.”

  “No, lad, it’s the captain’s and that’s the truth. She can do whatever she wants with it. You’d best get this little hand project moving along if you want to reclaim it.”

  Six months ago, he’d have slammed his fist into the iron bar. But now, he was too protective of his remaining flesh to do it. Instead, he gritted his teeth and turned back to Philadelphia. “If you don’t want to bring me the sewing stuff, bring me a pillow for the lady instead, and another blanket for me,” he said, no longer looking at the twins. “It’s bitter cold down here at night, even if it is summer.”

&
nbsp; “It’s not meant to be pleasant.”

  “We aren’t common prisoners. The lady needs enough rest to think clearly.”

  “I need more water,” she interjected.

  One sighed loudly. “I’ll fetch another bucket.”

  When the twins stomped out, Brecon turned to the bench, where she had everything laid out. “Did you get what you need?”

  She muttered under her breath, then looked up. “Yes, perhaps. I think so.”

  “I’ve never seen a battery so small.” He examined the tiny zinc can.

  “I’m sure it cost the captain a pretty penny.” She pulled out a magnifying glass and some pieces of wood, and fashioned a stand for the glass over a board.

  “What are you going to do first?”

  “Make the motors for the fingers. The way I planned the cow milking machine. Human muscles and nerves will start the process, and then the motors, running on the battery, take over to perform the task.”

  While she worked, he sorted parts for her, laying them out on the bench. When she called for something he handed it over. In between requests he drew modifications to his two-people airship idea. Somehow he needed to add firepower without manpower.

  Surprisingly, One arrived with his requested sailcloth and trimmings the next day. Brecon abandoned his sketches for sewing comfort items for the cage.

  “Doesn’t it bother you to sew while I work on an invention?” Philadelphia asked as she stretched her neck from side to side, late that afternoon.

  He glanced up from his work. “Your invention is the key to us leaving the cage. I can set my ego aside for now. Besides, I am used to sewing balloons. That much is simply part of my trade.”

  “No women to do the sewing for you?”

  “My mother helped as she had time, but I only had brothers. I am the third of four and my father was successful enough to take us all into his shipbuilding business.”

  “No one had other desires?”

  “There are enough challenges to suit us all. I hope to go back some day, if possible.”

  “Why did you stay away?”

  “Worry that I’d bring the Blockaders down on their heads. I don’t know if I was recognized during the Valentine’s Day battle.”

  “Couldn’t you send a letter?”

  “What if it was intercepted?”

  “By hand, then?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know anyone who has gone into Cardiff recently.”

  “It’s probably a good place to hide from the Red Kites, if they stay so local.”

  He stabbed his needle into the cloth. “Soon enough I’ll be on the run from everyone.”

  “If we could get some money we could go to the south, then find a way to get to Italy.”

  “I’d go to Marseille, now that I’ve thought about it some. Your sister-in-law might have sold the family house in Italy, after all.”

  She made an irritated noise. “Do you speak French? I imagine it is a good place for someone with your skills to find a position.”

  “With the shipping trade, I expect they speak all kinds of languages there.”

  “I speak French,” she said, making an adjustment with tweezers before inserting a wire into a miniature motor. “I had a French governess for five years. I went to Paris on holiday once, for a month. But my governess met her husband there. Married him very quickly. Then I had a German governess.”

  “And you learned German.”

  “Some. Enough to read scientific papers. They have some strange ideas for war machines there. I expect my brother and his ilk would have fit in.”

  “But not you.”

  She tightened her lips. “No. Not me.”

  Early the next morning, Brecon woke to the sounds of boot heels on the metal staircase. One marched in holding a platter. Brecon blinked and saw that it didn’t hold their morning watery porridge, but a hand. A brass hand.

  Philadelphia yawned and rose from the cot. A piece of straw stuck out from her braid. She rubbed her eyes with her fists. He found it adorable and noticed her first gesture hadn’t been to rub her neck today. His pillow had done some good.

  “Do you have everything you need now?” Two unlocked the cage door and One handed Brecon the platter.

  He noted it was tin, not strong enough to knock down the twins if he swung it. But he couldn’t help planning the trajectory of the disk from his hands to Two’s bulbous nose.

  Philadelphia put her hand on his arm, as if guessing his thoughts and discouraging them. She picked up the hand and flipped it over. “Am I to do the cutting? I sent up a diagram. I cannot use it like this. Also, I need a length of silk.”

  “You aren’t making a hand for a princess.”

  “I know what I need. Will you bring me cutting tools?”

  One snatched the hand from her. “I’ll have it cut up proper-like for you.”

  She turned away. “Have him follow the diagram. Please fetch more water as well.”

  Two made a rude noise and clanged back up the steps. Philadelphia’s back went rigid, but she remained facing the outer wall.

  “What was the point of waking us so early?” she asked when One had left as well.

  Brecon peered out the window to see the sun had not risen more than an hour before. “They do not care that you like to work late. I can’t imagine the strain your eyes must be under.”

  “I am used to electric lighting,” she admitted. “Moonlight is not so effective.”

  He stepped closer and saw her eyes were bloodshot. His fingers moved into her hair and pulled out the straw.

  She wrinkled her nose. “I have never been so filthy.”

  “Hazards of the trade, darling.” He grinned.

  “You must be looking forward to having a hand. Do you think the captain will let you keep it?”

  “I am not looking forward to being electrocuted,” he countered.

  “Oh. Yes, I see. The testing I shall have to do. Perhaps once we show a working hand, it will be enough to allow us proper accommodations?”

  He wasn’t so eager for that. Proper accommodations meant separate ones, and he’d already become used to the sound of her soft breathing at night, the way the space filled with some indefinable feminine scent. All he needed was a second cot and perhaps a fireplace for perfect comfort. But women could never go without bathing for long. He understood that, sisterless or not.

  Well into the afternoon, the twins appeared with water and the cut hand pieces, along with a remnant of cherry red silk. They sneered automatically and departed.

  With a mug of water in hand, Philadelphia told him how to sew an inner lining for the hand while she began to insert motors and wires and screws to piece the hand back together again.

  The next morning, she inserted the battery.

  He peered at it. Though the daylight was dim as of yet, it seemed the brass hand had a special glow. What she had created was elegant, with a stocky palm and long, tapered fingers. It fascinated him to see his hand molded in brass, with the knuckles held together by tiny screws. Now he knew all that went inside, he marveled anew at her creativity.

  “You did all this to milk cows?”

  One side of her mouth tilted up. “We were losing farmhands and needed to do something. The mere fact that Rand held a position should tell you how close to impoverished we were.”

  “By the standards of aristocrats.”

  “Country gentry,” she said. “I think you’d have to go back two hundred years to find a title in our family tree, maybe more.”

  “I am impressed with your skill, if not your relations.” He stared at the thing, both what he’d most longed for and dreaded, as he never thought he’d acquire one without being impressed into BAE service, and they’d be as likely to hang him as bring him aboard as a sailor if they knew who he was.

  Her smile changed the planes of her face, taking a decade from her flesh. “I am pleased. You know I’ve never made anything this fancy. I’ve seen them of course, when Rand or Everard
would land an airship on our property.” She yawned.

  “Perhaps we should wait until full light to test it?”

  She yawned again. “I should be getting used to these conditions by now, but I’m holding onto my irritation. I want out of here.”

  He wasn’t quite sure he agreed.

  *****

  Another day later, Brecon found himself staring at the brass hand from his pallet, wondering if he’d slept at all. But sun rays were already heating the cage, and he found he didn’t need his blanket any more. He’d lost track of the days down here, but felt them in the stiffness of his fingers as he opened and closed his hand. Sometime today he’d get a new hand, one that would never tire, at least until the battery wore out.

  Philadelphia slept on, in the cot across the cage. He didn’t want to wake her, so he crawled over to the bench and stared at the hand. Could he put it on himself? Since he still had his arm, it attached by a tightly laced sleeve that fit over what flesh he had left. She had made the lacing yesterday, showing him where it was attached inside the hand so he could replace it when it became worn.

  The movement of his wrist would give the hand its instructions, and his nervous system would receive some feedback so that he’d be less likely to injure his arm. She had admitted she didn’t know if this was how the Blockader models worked, but her version of the brass hand would be controlled by a delicate dance of wrist movements that he’d need to learn.

  He found a page containing diagrams of movement and studied it, trying to memorize the positions. The sooner he mastered the device the sooner they could leave the cage. She didn’t deserve to be down here in the dark. He knew they couldn’t stay alone here forever, as much as he had learned to enjoy her company. Already, she had developed a slight cough.

  Surely as soon as she proved herself, the captain would find them suitable accommodations. Philadelphia enjoyed her work so much, she and the captain could come to an agreement, just as he had a few months ago, to continue projects that would benefit the free traders. How could such an independent life not appeal to her?

  Yes, he had quite a rosy future imagined by the time the clanging of boots on the stairs woke up the inventress.