by Grace Draven
Nettie sipped her brandy, licking her lips in approval of the taste. “More than a few mites have drowned in the Camberwell Death Trap.”
“Even more have been rescued from it by vigilant nannies and parents.” He raked a hand through his hair. “That’s a ridiculous rebuttal and not at all amusing.”
Her chortle echoed in the room. “It’s funny as hell, lad.” She set aside her glass and leaned back in her chair, arms crossed. “By my lights, you’re asking a great deal and giving nothing in return. You don’t want Lenore knowing you’re alive because you don’t want to what? Interfere? Hope she’ll forget and turn her affections to another? Yet you travel from London to Maldon just to tell me not to allow her on the Pollux. You’re sounding just like a husband—alive, well, and dictating what Lenore Kenward—not Gordon mind, Kenward—should be doing.”
Nathaniel scowled. “You missed your calling. You should have been a barrister.”
Nettie gave an unapologetic shrug. “Not likely. I look terrible in a wig.”
He might have laughed if he weren’t so frustrated. He leaned forward, forearms on his thighs, and sighed. “I wanted more than anything to have her as my wife. She rejected my suit.”
Nettie straightened in her seat. “I’ve a strong suspicion that had nothin’ to do with her not loving you.”
“But everything to do with her not trusting my character.” Five years earlier, he’d sworn to himself he’d return from his trip to the Redan and beg her to explain her rejection of his proposal. But he hadn’t returned, at least not as he’d left, and that chance was lost to him now. “Ours is a permanent estrangement,” he said. “I can accept that as long as I know she’s safe.”
Nettie scrubbed at her eyes. “Lad, any number of things can kill us at any time without ever leaving our doorsteps. The churchyards are full of people dead from consumption and the Irish fever. However, if it eases your mind, I’ll tell you what I told Lenore. I’ll think about it. The Pollux sails with the Andromeda to the Redan. I have time to make my decision.” She paused and frowned.
Curious, Nathaniel leaned closer. “What is it?”
Nettie shook her head. “I’d not be telling this to anyone else, mind. This request for a post? It isn’t a lark for her. Arthur was a fine man, but he left his family with crushing debt and almost no income except a pittance inheritance for that starched up widow of his. Lenore must seek out service. Governess, companion. Airship crewman.”
Nathaniel reared back in his seat, shocked. Nettie’s revelation cast a different light on Lenore’s request and his own stringent objections to it. The Kenwards were a middle class family of means. Their house in Camberwell, with its many rooms and spacious front and back gardens, was the envy of its neighbors. Arthur’s funeral had been a lavish affair. No one could accuse Jane Kenward of besmirching her husband’s memory on that front. What had Arthur done to place his wife and daughter in such dire financial straits?
“Her knowledge of design and repair would be wasted trying to teach a baronet’s brats their letters and numbers.” He ignored Nettie’s knowing smirk.
“Aye, it would. Besides, she’s a bricky girl and learned plenty from her papa about engine design. She’d be easy to teach the hands-on stuff, and apprenticeship under a good mechanic would make her valuable to any airship crew.”
Nathaniel closed his eyes for a moment, recalling those final moments aboard the Pollux before the whiplash of a barbed tentacle bit into his flesh and flung him off the deck. The shuddering ship. He opened his eyes and met Nettie’s steady gaze. “If you take her on board, would you take me as well?”
Her face drained of color, leaving her almost as pale as he was. Her blue eyes sheened with unshed tears. “Oh Nate, my boy,” she said softly. “I just got you back.” Her rueful smile made his heart ache for her. “A little peaky and odd looking for sure, but alive. I don’t think I can bear to lose you a second time. Besides, I’m not sure having a bonekeeper onboard will sit well with the crew.”
Nathaniel clasped the chair arms in a white-knuckled grip. “Please, Nettie.”
She glanced at his hands, then at him and blew out a sigh. “Like I told Lenore, I’ll think on it.”
It would have to do for now. He knew her well enough to know if he kept pushing, she’d flat out refuse and then bodily throw him out of her quarters to hammer home her point. He stood when she did. “I imagine you never thought I’d end up guarding a bone yard.”
“Better that than lying in one.” Nettie reached up to cup his jaw. Nathaniel pressed his cheek into her palm. “If you need me for anything...” she said.
He held her hand and kissed her callused fingers. “Likewise.” He bowed and headed for the door, her goodbye to him eliciting a laugh.
“Quit robbing the barber and cut that mop!”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Two months earlier Lenore had prayed and crossed her fingers that Nettie Widderschynnes would see her way of it and give Lenore a chance to join her crew. When the airship captain returned from the Redan, she countered Lenore’s offer with one of her own. Her letter arrived in the post a week after the Pollux docked in Maldon, drafted by one of the fleet’s secretaries.
Dear Miss Kenward,
This post is addressed to you on behalf of Captain Nettie Widderschynnes of the HMA Pollux. Your request for a post aboard this airship has been reviewed and a counter consideration offered. Temporary post as cabin boy aboard the HMA Terebullum is currently available. Captain Widderschynnes will lead a training crew on a test flight of the HMA Terebellum to Gibraltar, Spain. Total flight duration is seven days to begin 12th of February, departing from Maldon Airfield. At the end of the stated flight, consideration for a more permanent post will be discussed.
She scanned the remainder of the letter, noting the deadline for a reply and immediately set to scribbling her acceptance letter. Cabin boy wasn’t quite what she’d hoped for, but it was the perfect post for someone with no experience aboard ship. Nettie could just as easily have said no and put an end to it. Lenore had no intention of questioning her good fortune. Temporary and of lowest rank it might be and on a ship not the Pollux, but she had a post.
Gaining Nettie’s short-term approval was the easy part, defying a furious Jane Kenward, a battle hard-fought and costly.
Jane read the letter, crushed the parchment in her hand and glared at Lenore over her spectacle rims. “I forbid it,” she announced in tones low and seething. High color scorched her cheekbones, and the jet beads draped over her collar juttered against each other from her rapid breathing.
“You can’t forbid it, Mama,” Lenore replied in what she hoped was a serene voice. “I’ve already posted my acceptance and received both my travel instructions and ticket. I leave for Maldon Tuesday next.”
Jane’s nostrils flared, her outrage palpable. “I am your mother,” she bit out. “I demand your respect.”
Lenore’s patience began to fray. “You have it, but this isn’t about respect. This is about survival. We must retrench.” The second wave of creditors had already cleaned out Arthur’s workshop down to the last gear and pencil.
“I’m well aware of our circumstances, Lenore. However, that doesn’t mean you abandon all propriety and expectations of your class to go sailing off with some ragged lot of Shoreditch outcasts.” Jane rose from her chair to pace before the parlor window. Her skirts swept the floors in an agitated swish. “There are many positions available for an unmarried woman of your station.”
“And they pay one-third or less the rate of an airship crewman.” Lenore had made some effort in seeking out other employment possibilities. Even were she not so eager to avoid the slow, stifling death as a paid companion or harried governess, the pay of an airship crewman offered its own attraction.
Jane retrieved her fan from one of the side tables, its many ribs snapping each time she opened and closed it. “It’s vulgar to speak of money.”
Lenore clenched her teeth and prayed for patience. “
It’s even more vulgar to starve.”
“A crewman’s pay is greater because the danger is significantly greater. As a governess, the most you might suffer is a recalcitrant child or his demanding mother. I doubt either of them will shoot at you, blow you up or try and devour you.”
Lenore couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped her lips. “Have you seen some of those children? Don’t be so sure.”
Jane bent a hard glare on her. “Lenore,” she warned.
Lenore exhaled a frustrated breath. “Mama, I love you with all my heart, but I am twenty-seven years old and capable of making independent decisions. We may argue this to death, but I’m not changing my mind. Let me help you.”
The two women clashed in a silent battle of wills, before Jane turned her back and found refuge on the nearby settee. She stared out the window onto the front garden washed in fragile morning light. “Were you married, we wouldn’t have this discussion.” Her voice had lost none of its edge, but Lenore sensed she’d given ground.
She sat, facing Jane. “As I recall, you were at first against me marrying Nathaniel Gordon.”
Jane’s frosty gaze didn’t thaw. “Foolish boy tossing away his birthright as if it were scrap. I wish you had never met him.”
Lenore refused to apologize. “I’m so very glad I did,” she said softly. She rose and smoothed her skirts.
Her mother’s eyebrows rose, and she frowned. “Where are you going?”
“To visit Papa.”
“That’s the second time this week.”
And if Lenore had anything to say about it, it wouldn’t be the last. “I go for us both. You’re welcome to join me.” She knew Jane’s answer before she made the offer.
The older woman stiffened and turned away, her voice a little more hollow this time. “Not yet,” she said. “Not yet.”
Lenore clasped her shoulder briefly before rising to leave. “I will return by tea.”
“Take Constance with you,” Jane called just as Lenore curled her hand around the door knob.
Lenore raised her eyes to the ceiling. “Mama, Constance is taking deliveries today and waiting for the washer woman. She’s far too busy to play nursemaid to me. I promised her I’d stop by the markets and pick up supplies for her as well.”
A muttered “Stubborn girl” followed her into the hallway, and Lenore closed the door behind her with a relieved “whew.”
Despite the hints of sunlight breaking through the clouds, the day was brutally cold, the only blessing the lack of a wind to cut through clothing. Lenore wrapped warmly in layers of wool coat, mittens and scarves. She’d rolled on her thickest stockings and donned her heaviest petticoats in a futile bid to stay warm. Only the crowded omnibus that transported her and others from Camberwell, across London Bridge to Camden and Swain’s Lane offered some relief and a little warmth. She pitied those who rode on the open upper deck.
Most would think her mad if she admitted to the nervous anticipation that sent her stomach in a tumble once she stood outside of Highgate’s grand entrance. A visit to a cemetery usually elicited tears or in many instances, much appreciated moments of peace and reflection on a Sunday afternoon. Lenore had not lied when she told Jane she planned to visit Arthur. She simply didn’t mention the hope she dare not acknowledge out loud that she might see and speak with the Guardian.
She passed the Lebanon Circle vaults, following a narrow path to where Arthur’s grave lay undisturbed. No longer a target for body snatchers, his remains rested beneath bricks turning green with lichen. Sometime between now and her last visit, someone had placed a bench close enough to the grave so she might sit and chat with her father’s spirit in comfort. The butterflies swirled in her belly. Had the Guardian been responsible for the thoughtful gesture? Those otherworldly eyes revealed nothing of his thoughts, but he had always been courteous to her, and kind.
Lenore set the basket she carried on the bench alongside her ever-present umbrella. Constance had slid it onto her arm before she left. “A bit of lunch for you should you have need of it.” Lenore would also use the basket to bring home those items the grocer didn’t deliver to the house.
Sunlight filtered through the bare trees and thick ivy, golden and alluring with its false promise of warmth. The flowers she laid on the grave three days earlier were already a black slimy mess. She retrieved a new bouquet from the basket, scraped the dead one aside with her shoe and placed the fresh flowers in its place. Like her, they shivered in the cold.
Lenore returned to the bench and perched on the edge. Huddled deep in her coat, she listened for the footfalls of any nearby visitors. Only the silence answered. Her breath clouded before her when she spoke.
“Good morning, Papa. I have news. Nettie has not yet agreed to me joining her crew permanently, but she has allowed me to join them on a test flight. Not the Pollux mind, but a new one—the Terebellum. Do you remember her? A cargo lifter. We saw her plans four years ago. The Vickers Armament modified Sir Smithson’s design so the engines will generate more horsepower with the possibility of speed at 61 knots. They’ve installed them on the Terebellum. Nettie has been offered the chance to test-fly her before she’s formally assigned captain and crew. A short run to Gibraltar and back. No more than a week out. I’m to play cabin boy.”
Lenore didn’t mention her argument with Jane or the fact that creditors had seized everything of value from his workshop and were now eyeing the furnishings in the house. Such things were the burdens of the living, not the dead. She spoke instead of the latest scandals posted in the scandal sheets and conjectured over what the secretive Guild mages might do to strengthen the barriers at the coast.
A faint whine interrupted her one-sided conversation. Lenore went silent, listening. Another whine followed the first, and she peered into a cluster of ivy to her left. A dog, thin and quaking, emerged from the foliage, wary but no doubt drawn to the scents wafting from her basket. Its fur, dark with caked mud, did little to hide its bony hips and ribcage.
Careful not to cause a scare, or worse, have her fingers bitten for the kindness, Lenore broke off a small bit of cheese from the wedge Constance packed and tossed it to her visitor. The mongrel sniffed before wolfing down the tidbit. It didn’t come any closer, but there was no mistaking the pleading look on its canine features. Just one more bite, please.
Lenore reached further into her basket and pulled out the rest of the cheese, slices of cold, boiled ham, a bun, still warm in its wrapping and a square of moist parkin. “Poor dog,” she crooned to the pathetic creature. “When was the last time you ate?” By the look of it, a long time ago. She tossed more of the cheese along with pieces pinched from the bun. The ham and the cake soon followed until there was nothing left of Constance’s carefully packed meal.
“I’m sorry, friend,” she said in response to the expectant look it gave her, along with a timid tail wag. “You’ve eaten everything. Hopefully, that will last until your next meal.”
She blew on her fingers, frozen even in the mittens she wore. “I’ve sat too long,” she said aloud. “My blood is turning to ice chips.”
She looped her umbrella over her forearm, grabbed the empty basket and rose from the bench. The dog lingered nearby, too shy to approach but unwilling to leave this newly discovered source of food. Lenore shooed it gently away with her umbrella. “I’m sure you’d make a fine companion, but I cannot take you home with me. My mother would get one look at you, and we’d both be on the streets hoping for handouts from strangers.”
The umbrella worked as a deterrent for two seconds at most. The dog simply skittered out of the way, only to return as Lenore’s tail-wagging shadow.
She sighed. For years, she had begged her parents for a pet, specifically a dog. Jane couldn’t abide them, and in this matter, Arthur bent to her wishes. Now, when Lenore was older and far more in control of her life, the timing didn’t suit. She had no doubt that were she to leave a rescued street mongrel with her mother while she went sailing off to Spain, she’d
return to find the animal had mysteriously vanished.
Woman and mutt gazed at each other for a moment before Lenore gave in. “Care for a walk among the dead?” she asked. The dog cocked its head to the side as if considering her proposal before trotting a little closer, tail snapping back and forth even faster than before.
The unlikely pair traveled an ordered path through the cemetery, pausing periodically for Lenore to read the various headstones or admire the lavish memorials sculpted in marble and granite commemorating various people wealthy or famous or both. At each pause, she glanced over her shoulder or sought the shadows that played behind penitent angels in the hopes of seeing the white-haired, black-garbed Guardian. She refused to admit her disappointment to herself when he made no appearance.
She gave a start at the sudden rise of voices and clink of metal. The dog, her silent companion, laid back its ears and retreated farther behind her. Alerted by the animal’s wary behavior, Lenore crept softly toward the sounds and peeked around a marble cross.
Two men, dressed in ragged coats and tool belts bent to their work over a small grave. Mangled wreathes of fresh flowers lay strewn in haphazard chaos, pelted by the dirt the men shoveled off the new mound.
Lenore clapped a hand over her mouth, frozen in horror . Resurrectionists! In full daylight. The realization of what they dug for made blood roil in her veins in a red fury. They were defiling a child’s grave.
One of the body snatchers spoke. “I don’t like it. We shoulda done this at night.”
The second thief flung a shovel full of mud at his compatriot. “Shut your gob and dig,” he snarled. “Daylight means the bonekeeper won’t be watchin’ for us.”
Lenore’s anger made her careless. “You vile bastards,” she said aloud before freezing in place.
Both thieves spun to face her, shovel handles gripped in dirty fingers—weapons as a last resort to be used on anyone unfortunate enough to witness their crime.