Salvage

by Meljean Brook

  But not this time. “If something goes wrong—”

  “It won’t.” She tried to stop him, shaking her head. “Don’t even say it.”

  This had to be said. “If something goes wrong, I’ll unhook the tether and my hose. They won’t have a body to pull up. And after I put the brass on, between that and my arms I’m heavy enough that I won’t start floating. Then you’ve got to stay alive. You don’t cry. You don’t do anything to make them think we didn’t plan it. You tell them that I got into the submersible and I’m heading to Skagen for help. And that if you aren’t brought to town alive by sunset, I’m going to find Mad Machen and Lady Corsair, and we won’t stop until we hunt every single person on this airship down.”

  Georgiana bent her head, hiding her face. Her breath shuddered. Finally she looked up, her eyes glistening. “And I’ll tell them you took the gold with you, and you’ll use it as a reward for any man who brings you Southampton’s head.”

  “That’s good. You’ll turn what he hopes to use those coins for right around on him.”

  Biting her lip, she nodded. Then said, “You should do it in truth.”

  “Do what?”

  “Take the submersible and gold. And I’ll use that as leverage to—”

  “No.”

  “But Thom—”

  “No.” He couldn’t even think it. “I’ll never leave you alone again.”

  She swallowed hard and looked away. After a long second, a faint smile curved her lips. “I suppose it didn’t work so well for us the last time—with the steamcoach and the shed.”

  “No, it didn’t.” Leaving her had never worked well at any time. “So just get that thought out of your head.”

  “It’s gone.” Georgiana sighed and tugged on his belt again, then tested the carabiner’s spring gate. “And you’ll be all right. Nothing will go wrong.”

  Thom didn’t know if she was reassuring him or herself, but her tone said she wouldn’t accept any other outcome. He wouldn’t, either.

  The knock at the door came then. The bastard Southampton stood in the passageway, smiling.

  “Ah, very good. You’re almost ready.” He glanced deeper into the cabin. “Are you certain you wish to go up, Mrs. Thomas? It’s quite brisk this morning.”

  “I’m certain. But I’m not only going up on deck. I’ll be on the platform while he’s under.”

  Frowning, Thom looked back. Georgiana had put on her coat. In her gloved hands, she held Thom’s hat and scarf—neither of which he’d be using in the suit. But she’d still be cold and uncomfortable and wet.

  He shook his head. “Georgie, no.”

  “Yes.” Steadily, she held his gaze. “If you believe that I’ll trust your air hose and pump to any other person, then you’re absolutely mad.”

  “Taken in that light, I would prefer it, as well,” Southampton said. “Accidents would not serve any of us, and no one has a more vested interest in your life and your success than your wife. I had intended for two of my crewmen to assist with the pump on the platform, Big Thom, but your wife will replace one of them.”

  Thom could see the sense of it. And he would feel better knowing that it was Georgie watching over his air pump. But he didn’t like it.

  By the bloody stars, he didn’t like any of this.

  He felt the faint pressure of canvas against steel—Georgiana had touched his arm as she passed him. Reassuring him again, as if to say everything would be well.

  Southampton stepped back from the door as she left the cabin. Four mercenaries stood in the passageway behind him, parting to let Georgiana through. “If you’re ready, then, I have men waiting to take the air hose up.”

  “I’ll do it.” Thom hefted the heavy coil with one arm. The bulk made it awkward to carry, but he didn’t trust Southampton’s men not to snag it while stumbling their way up the ladder. He tucked the brass diving helmet under his other arm and started down the passageway after Georgie.

  Though cold, the wind wasn’t as sharp as it had been the previous day. A few seagulls squawked around the balloon. The sea below rolled in smooth swells. Standing at the side of the airship, Thom scanned the water’s surface. No dorsal fins in sight. But megalodons rarely announced their presence until it was too late.

  “We did as you asked,” Southampton said beside him. “No food scraps thrown over.”

  And her engines had been quiet since the previous evening. No sounds or scents that might attract the sharks. Thom nodded and moved to the gangway, where the hull of the ship opened to the cargo platform.

  Georgie was already there, crouching on the deck with her blue skirt pooled around her, putting his brass guards in order. There was nothing unsure in her movements, no hesitation or confusion as she looked at each piece. And though she’d helped Thom with his equipment the night before and this morning, until this moment, he’d never thought how strange that was. She was a strong and capable woman, so it never surprised him when Georgiana proved herself knowledgeable. But maybe it should have. Her father had been a whaler, not a salvager. Thom had only taken it up because he’d had experience diving while working on the Horde’s boats, going under to make repairs or untangle nets, and because he’d tired of the smell of whale blubber and fish guts.

  Thom set the air hose on the platform and sank to his heels beside her. Softly, he asked, “Where did you learn this?”

  “Learn what?”

  “Diving.”

  “Oh.” Without looking at him, she fiddled with the buckle on his chest guard. “When you left the second time, I got it into my head that if you wouldn’t stay, then I’d go with you. And I didn’t want to be useless while on Oriana.”

  So she’d learned what she could about his job. But the next time, he hadn’t even stayed long enough for her to suggest it. He’d left in the middle of the night, after leaving her whimpering in their bed.

  His heart twisted. Never had it occurred to him that she might go. Her rightful place had been at home. His rightful duty was to bring something back to her.

  But it was hard to care about what was rightful now. “I’d have liked that.”

  “Well, I don’t know if I would have.” She gave him a wry glance. “On a boat for years on end? But perhaps a few months now and then.”

  Which would have been better than what they’d done. But he couldn’t go back and change it now. He couldn’t change any of it. The long years he’d been gone. Her parents dying and Georgie being alone. The messages he’d never sent and the nothing he’d brought home. Everything that had led to her agreeing to a separation. None of it had changed. And when they returned home, she’d have no real reason to change her mind about the separation.

  His throat an aching knot, Thom nodded—though he couldn’t even remember what he was responding to.

  “But that was then.” Georgie’s gaze returned to the brass guards, and she gave a heavy sigh. “Now I’m just glad that I can help you.”

  Gruffly, he said, “I’m glad of it, too.”

  Standing again, he helped her position the guards that would protect his back and chest. Against a full-sized shark, his entire body wouldn’t even be a mouthful. But the brass plates might prevent a bite from any smaller predators in the sea—or stop Thom from gouging himself on splintered wood and twisted iron when he found Oriana. Anything to keep blood out of the water.

  When Georgiana picked up the brass bracers for his arms, Thom shook his head. With a faint smile, she bent to buckle a pair of long guards around his thighs.

  Standing at the rail, Southampton watched with interest—and a growing frown. “You’ll be able to swim back up carrying all that weight and the gold?”

  Thom could, if necessary. But it wasn’t. “I won’t swim. I’ll haul myself up along the tether. Did your men mark off the distance along the cable?”

  “A flag every twenty feet, just as you asked. Why is it necessary?”

  “So that Thom knows how quickly he’s ascending,” Georgie said, fastening more bra
ss around his lower leg. “If he comes up slowly, the divers’ disease might not affect him as badly.”

  “Yes, but why?”

  Thom shrugged. “I don’t know. I just know it’s true.”

  “Fair enough.” Southampton glanced as a bundled-up mercenary joined them at the gangway. “You’ve both met Mr. Blade, my chief crewman. He’ll be watching over Mrs. Thomas on the platform.”

  The prick who’d prodded Thom’s back with his pistol—and apparently the leader of this mercenary band. At his feet, he saw Georgie’s mouth tighten and her tug on the strap between his shin and calf guards was a little sharper than the one before. She hadn’t liked Blade any better than Thom had. None of the mercenaries had been friendly, and he wouldn’t expect them to be. They were doing their job. But none of the others had gone out of their way to poke at him, either.

  “That all right with you, Georgie?”

  She huffed out a breath. “Does it matter?”

  “Not really, no,” Southampton said easily. “Mr. Blade will have the same instructions that I would give to any of my crew, which is to eliminate all obstacles that might prevent us from recovering my gold and to ensure that nothing unexpected returns from your ship with you.”

  Blade opened his coat, exposing the pistol at his waist. There could be no mistaking Southampton’s meaning. If Thom brought up weapons from Oriana, Blade was under orders to kill them both.

  But Thom didn’t intend to bring anything up. Not yet. And he already had his weapons with him.

  Finished with the brass guards, Georgie rose. Anger brightened her eyes and flattened her mouth, but she only walked onto the platform. His body weighed down by brass, every step that Thom took after her felt like wading through a current.

  Blade joined them, standing in the one corner of the platform not taken up by equipment. Thom hooked the airship’s tether to his belt, then pulled to make certain the cable unspooled easily. He glanced at Southampton and nodded.

  With a clank and rattle, they began to descend to the water. But there was still more to do before he went in. Holding the brass helmet under his arm, Thom connected the air hose to the back of the dome. The pump sat near the front edge of the platform. Kneeling beside it, Georgie cranked the handle, testing the flow, then glanced up at him.

  She spoke over the loud rattling of chains. “This fast?”

  “You can go a little slower. And when you get tired, just switch over with Blade.” When she began shaking her head, Thom said, “A missed second or two won’t kill me, Georgie. Just speed it up a bit after the switch, so the flow in and out is equal again.”

  “I’ll do it myself for as long as it takes.” Her tone said there’d be no arguing it, and Thom wasn’t a fool. But the frown pulling her brows together told him that he hadn’t quite escaped. “The past two years, you didn’t have a crew on Oriana. How did you do it alone?”

  “The first time we met, Ivy gave me a pump she’d made, powered by three small automatons. I just had to wind them up, and they’d crank for two hours.”

  Her frown darkened. “With no backup?”

  “No.”

  “Thom.”

  Sweet blue, there was nothing like an admonishment from Georgie. He loved it every time, the way she only had to say his name and her voice would be full of shock or outrage or exasperation or anger, but also told him so much more: that she liked his teasing. That he made her laugh. That she cared enough to yell at him.

  But he didn’t want to worry her. “I’m not alone now, Georgie.”

  Not alone at all. And he couldn’t change anything of the past, but that was something different from before—neither one of them was alone now. When they returned home, maybe she’d still want to separate. But for now, they were in this together.

  “You’re absolutely not alone,” she said, then reached up and pulled his mouth to hers.

  And even if there’d been no threat, no gold, nothing else between them, this would have been reason enough to return, simply to feel her lips pressing sweetly against his again—to feel Georgiana kissing him as if she believed he was the man he’d wanted to be.

  The platform jolted to a halt, stopping two feet above the rolling water. Reluctantly, Thom lifted his head.

  “Be careful,” she whispered. “And please come back to me.”

  “I will.”

  He lifted the dome over his head, muffling the squawks of the seagulls. Each of his breaths was loud in his ears and fogged his view of Georgie’s face. Then she disappeared, and he felt her fingers at his back, tightening the thumbnuts that fastened the helmet to the suit. She went over each one twice, then moved around front again, her expression focused as she concentrated on each bolt. Finally, she seemed satisfied and looked up at him through the fogged glass plate, her eyes glistening.

  With a gloved hand, Thom cupped her face. His thumb swept across her cheek.

  No tears.

  Setting her jaw, Georgiana nodded. She moved to the pump and knelt beside it. A few seconds later, cool air flowed into the helmet, filling his ears with a loud, persistent hiss. The glass began to clear. Turning in the stiff suit, he found the short rope ladder dangling off the edge of the platform and into the water.

  And with a few steps, lowered himself into the cold, swirling dark.

  * * *

  Georgiana barely breathed as water closed over the top of the brass dome. Beneath the surface, Thom stopped, hanging on to the bottom rung of the rope ladder. Bubbles from the exhaust valve trickled up through the rolling water. After a full minute, he lifted his hand, letting her know that he was getting enough air.

  With her free hand, she gestured for him to go. The longer Thom was down, the more dangerous the dive would be. He released the ladder.

  A few seconds later he was gone, with only bubbles to mark where he’d been. Beside her, the air hose slowly uncoiled, slipping easily over the edge. The tether cable angled down from overhead, and she measured Thom’s descent with the flags as they went under the surface. Twenty feet. Forty. Sixty. Eighty.

  Only a little farther—though if Thom had to walk any distance along the bottom, he would need more line.

  Another flag. Then another and another. All of them were going under at the same rate as the ones before. That couldn’t be right. Unless Thom was sprinting along the bottom somehow, he wouldn’t be moving so quickly. The terrifying thought that he’d been snagged by a shark that was speeding away like a fish caught on a line sent her blood draining from her head and spots swimming in front of her eyes, until she forced herself to breathe deep and think sensibly. The tether wasn’t being dragged in one direction or another. Judging by the angle of the cable, it still looked as if he were going straight down.

  She glanced back at Mr. Blade, and found the mercenary standing closer to her than she’d realized. He must have come nearer to the edge to watch the descent—or to make certain that she didn’t pull any sort of trick.

  Though Georgiana didn’t even want to look at him, let alone speak with him, she had to know. “How deep is he going, Mr. Blade?”

  “I don’t know, missus. How deep do you let him get?”

  Disbelief dropped her mouth open. Had he meant . . . ? But he did. Because he was leering again. Of course he was. Her husband was gone. The coward could feel brave now.

  Disgusting man. Coldly, she said, “Did you measure the distance to the seafloor, sir?”

  Her anger seemed to please him. A smile slid across his mouth like oil. “We did. It’s sixty-five fathoms.”

  Almost four hundred feet. Overwhelmed by sudden panic, Georgiana turned away to stare into the water, cranking the pump. But there was nothing to do. Hauling Thom back up on the tether might kill him—if Blade or Southampton didn’t do it first. No doubt they’d kill her. Georgiana’s reluctance and fear would be an obstacle to eliminate.

  Another flag disappeared into the deep. How many was that now? She’d lost count while talking to the horrible bastard behind her. However
many, it was too many.

  Four hundred feet. Oh, dear God.

  Thom had lied to her. He’d known the depth. He’d known the danger. He must have feared what might happen, maybe even expected it, telling her what to do if he had to unhook his tether and air hose. Yet he’d gone anyway, to save her life.

  And she wouldn’t lose him to panic.

  Yet it still held her in its grip as she cranked and cranked and cranked, her panic easing only a little when the flags stopped moving so steadily and a hundred feet or so of hose remained in the coil beside her.

  Slowly, more hose paid out. Oh, that was Thom. Moving somewhere on the seafloor.

  The danger wasn’t over yet. Coming up would take longer. Anything could happen between now and then. But he was down there and moving around. Hope began to replace her fear.

  Her arm began to tire and her knees began to ache but she didn’t slow. She stared at the water, watching the hose, the cable, anything that offered some indication of how Thom was doing. Dimly, she was aware that Blade had moved closer—and that another noise had joined the gentle roll of the waves, the creaking of the airship, and the gulping rhythm of the pump.

  She glanced over. Shock almost made her hand slip from the crank. Directly behind her shoulder, Blade had opened his coat—was rubbing himself through his trousers.

  Revulsion and anger slapped furious heat into her cheeks. “Back away from me, sir! This moment!”

  “I don’t think so.” His oily smile returned, but as slick as that was, his eyes were hard and mean. He held his pistol at his thigh. “You’re doing a fine job there. But you’ve got a free hand, so you’re going to give me a good pumping, too.”

  Rage stole every single word. Incensed, Georgiana craned her neck back and looked to the airship. No one stood at the rail. Even if they had, Blade’s open coat would have blocked his disgusting actions from their sight.