Dead Dukes Tell No Tales

by Catherine Stein

  Sabine closed the wardrobe as methodically as she’d done everything else, then finally turned back to face the room. She had nothing left to occupy her.

  Cliff wasn’t staring. In fact, right now he was holding Lola a foot off the ground so she could reach the washbasin and brush her teeth. His eyes flicked briefly to Sabine, however, moving quickly up and down before he glanced away. He was watching her. Waiting.

  Lola spit and rinsed her mouth, and Cliff set her down. She smoothed her hands over her shift, a plain cotton garment much like the one Sabine wore.

  “Daddy? I don’t have my blanket sleeper. What am I going to wear to bed?”

  “You can sleep like that. We’ll shop tomorrow.”

  “But…” She frowned down at herself. “But my feet aren’t covered and it’s not warm and fuzzy. What if I get cold?”

  “You won’t get cold, Lo. It’s warm in Georgia, and I’ll be right next to you.”

  “What will you wear to bed?”

  Sabine raised her eyebrows at him and his cheeks colored. “My clothes, I guess,” he replied.

  She looked him over, mentally undressing him, feeling her body warm at the memory of what lay beneath. Their eyes locked, his darkening to a deep blue. He licked his lips and her right breast tightened in response. Damn him.

  “Okay.” He grasped Lola around the waist and lifted her up to sit on the bed. “Fuel, then bed.”

  Sabine sat on the long sofa, perching on the edge as she watched Lola open her chestplate and fill her small reservoir of luxene with practiced hands. No complaints, no fussing, no difficulty. Cliff glanced at Sabine multiple times throughout the procedure, watching her watching. Continuing to say nothing.

  “Sabine, do you need fuel, too?” Lola asked, her gaze anchoring on Sabine’s chest.

  Sabine unfastened the top button of her shift and crossed the room. “No. I’m different.” She took a seat beside Lola, not looking up at Cliff, though she knew he was watching with interest. She pressed carefully on her chestplate, and the access panel popped open, revealing the clockwork inside and the small winding key.

  “I wind it every night,” she explained, turning so Lola could get a good look. “It can run for longer. As many as three days and nights, I’m told, but I’ve never tested that. It’s easier and safer to keep to a routine of winding every night.”

  “Wow.”

  Sabine let Lola watch the winding process, then closed the panel, rebuttoned her shift, and gave Lola a nudge. “Into bed with you.”

  Lola bounded across the room to bid goodnight to Lucas, who sat at the bottom of a glass jar filled with sand and beach rocks that Lola had produced from her pockets. She retrieved her Sabine doll and a pillow from her fort and scrambled into the bed.

  “I still miss my footie sleeper,” she complained. “My feet are cold.”

  Sabine gave her a kiss goodnight. She couldn’t help it. The girl was so full of spunk and vivacity. Innocent and adorable, but smart and strong. Sabine had always had a tender heart for children, even hard as she’d had to be to survive.

  Cliff made no secret of the fact that he loved her for it. She rose from kissing Lola to see him beaming at her, his expression so full of naked adoration that it should have sent her running for the hills. She shrugged off the urge to fling herself into his arms and returned to the sofa, picking up her book and pretending her body wasn’t tingling.

  He closed the curtains around the bed and sat on the opposite end of the sofa. He had no book, no newspaper, nothing to keep him occupied. Sabine stared at the words on the page in front of her, determined not to look up.

  He waited. Not moving. Not speaking. Hardly even looking. His patience seemed limitless. And it was driving her absolutely insane.

  Minutes crawled by. Sabine read the same paragraph three times, comprehending none of it, despite the fact that she had this book nearly memorized. Across the room, Lola’s squirming had quieted as she fell into a well-deserved sleep.

  Cliff stole a glance in Sabine’s direction, his gaze drifting down to the dark pink of her nipple, barely visible through the thin fabric. He grinned, then looked away.

  Sabine slogged through another page before shutting the book and setting it aside.

  “Please, just ask,” she sighed.

  “Ask what?”

  “Anything. Any of the million questions you’re dying to hear me answer. The murder here in Savannah. How I got these damned biomechanics. Why Redbeard hates me so much.” She shrugged. “I guess I don’t need to answer why I went looking for the Heart of Ra.”

  “That one is rather clear, yes. Thank you for showing Lola. It means so much to her to know someone like her.”

  “So ask something else. Do it. Or, if you can’t ask invasive personal questions, at least ask me for sex. Which I assume you want from the way you keep eyeing my tits and licking your lips.”

  “How about I ask you about your extremely lengthy phone call this evening?”

  “Ah. Yes. I telephoned my friends in Scotland. Charlie is an airship designer. He’s going to fly here with a new ship for me.”

  Cliff’s brows knit together. “That’s quite the friend.”

  “He owes me a favor.”

  “I see.”

  “You’re not going to ask about that, either, are you?”

  He settled back on the couch, stretching his legs out in front of him and lacing his fingers behind his head. “I’ve decided it’s better for everyone if you tell me what you want to tell me in your own time and of your own free will.”

  “But then I’ll never tell you anything.”

  His mouth curved into a half smile. “I don’t think that’s true.” He closed his eyes. “I will give Lola another quarter of an hour or so to sink into a nice, deep sleep, and then I’m going to bed myself. If I fall asleep, nudge me.”

  “I was twelve years old when I left home,” she blurted, the need to unburden herself suddenly bursting through the dam inside her. “I’d been hiding money for years. My father became angry if I didn’t bring home as much money as I had the previous day, so I learned to hide the extra on any days I did well. One day he did something unforgivable.”

  Cliff opened his eyes and gave her a small nod of encouragement.

  “He… I had a brother. Only a baby. I planned to take him with me and raise him as my own. Until I came home to find that…” She took a measured breath. “My father had traded my brother away to someone for two bottles of liquor and a gold pocket watch.”

  “Christ.” Cliff gazed at her, but didn’t reach for her. “The bastard.”

  “Yes. I like to believe the people who took my brother were good. That he is happy. But my heart was broken. I ran away.”

  Cliff nodded and she continued.

  “I had thought to flee to Vienna, because it sounded glamorous. I didn’t even know how to get there. I made it from Berlin to Munich, where for the first time in years I was caught pickpocketing. Not by a victim. By a man named Schanbacher, a criminal king who within the next year would make himself infamous as the pirate Redbeard.

  “I thought I’d found my place in life. He recruited older girls and young women, all whip smart and with talents such as thieving and spying. He called us his ‘daughters’ and we bonded like blood sisters. I wasn’t alone.

  “Even so, I didn’t put my full trust in him and his organization. I did what I’d always done: earned money and pocketed small amounts for myself. A jewel here, a coin there. I was a good thief, always doing well, but never the best. Never drawing unnecessary attention.

  “The older I grew, the more I realized it wasn’t the life I’d hoped it was. Redbeard is a tyrant. His ships run on fear. He avoids hiring men who might outsmart him so he can always be the leader. He adores intelligent women, but still believes himself above them, knowing he could physically overpower them. I began to plot my eventual escape. When I was seventeen, he ordered me along on a plan that involved killing innocent people. I refused. I g
athered my money, ran away to France, bought a piece of shit airship, and started pirating.”

  “Good for you,” Cliff applauded. “You’re a hell of a woman, Sabine Diebin.”

  Sabine crushed the fabric of her shift in her fingers, staring at the wall, unable to meet his eyes. “There’s more.”

  “You don’t have to tell me now.”

  “You need to know. What happened here. About the murder. Why you are in danger by being with me.”

  “Only if you want to tell. Only if it helps you. Sabine, you’re pale as death and your fingers are about to gouge holes in your lovely shift.”

  She relaxed her grip, finally allowing herself to look at him. She realized her mistake at once. His eyes weren’t ice-blue now, but the soft velvet of a new spring flower. She didn’t move when he inched closer.

  “It’s not lovely. It’s plain and ordinary.”

  “Lovely,” he insisted. “The only way it would look lovelier is in a puddle on the floor.”

  She put a hand to his chest. “You did not just say that. That stupid, overused seduction ploy is not going to work on me.”

  He moved again, bringing his thigh up against hers. “Yes it is. Because you know I meant it. I’m used to hiring professionals, Sabine. They don’t care what I say. I’m not good at romancing. But I am good at saying the honest truth, hackneyed though it may be.”

  Her hand lifted to his cheek, her thumb brushing over the trace of dark stubble that had grown since morning. “You are good at romancing. Much, much too good.” She dropped her hand back to her lap. “You should go, you and Lola. Leave, before I get you killed.”

  “Not happening.”

  The arm of the sofa prevented her from backing away, so she shoved him instead. “You saw what happened today. You could have died, and it would have been all my fault.”

  “It would have been Redbeard’s fault for attacking us. And my presence on that ship was my own choice. You didn’t force me. I chose to undertake the journey with you. And I’m not going to change that decision. I don’t desert the people I love, Sabine.”

  “Don’t say that word.”

  “Which word? The?”

  She shoved him again, and he toppled off the sofa, arms flailing.

  “Ooof. I love you.” He didn’t bother to get up, remaining on the floor in an awkward heap, his spectacles askew.

  “Stop it.”

  “I love every bit of you. From the tip of your perfect nose to the soles of your ass-kicking boots, I love you. I love your strengths and your flaws. I love your mechanical heart, and the fathomless depths of human kindness that flow from it. I love the way you come apart in my arms, and I love the way you will defend me to the ends of the earth.”

  “Cliff, please.”

  He sighed. “Stopping. Sorry.”

  He picked himself up and sat beside her again, but she turned away, fighting tears. “You make me so angry.”

  “I certainly never meant to do that.”

  “Yes, you did. You’re always pushing. Even when you don’t say a word, you’re pushing, pushing, pushing. I hate it so much. I hate that you’re good and kind and care about the feelings of others but won’t let yourself be trampled on. I hate that you put others first without being weak. I hate that you make love look like a good, powerful, beautiful thing. I hate that you make me want it.”

  “You should want it. You deserve it. And it’s yours. You stole my heart, my darling pirate, and I don’t want it back.”

  Sabine turned to face him. He was so close to her. So horribly, wonderfully close. Her hands clamped down on his shoulders, dragging him in for a kiss.

  “I hate how much I want you.”

  His fingers moved to the buttons of her shift. “I know. Love is terrifying.” He pushed the garment down her shoulders until it fell to her waist. He grinned at her bare torso, then reached one hand to stroke the gentle slope of her metal breast. “Can you feel this?”

  “Yes.” She closed her eyes as his feather-light touch moved in a slow caress. She could sense the pressure of his fingers in each place they touched, sending faint vibrations through the chestplate and into her body. “It tickles a bit.”

  “Do you like it?” His thumb brushed over the small steel nipple.

  “Yes.”

  He cupped her other breast, his hands moving in parallel. The contrast between her deeply sensitive flesh and the subtle sensations beneath the metal brought every nerve in her body roaring to life. She pressed into him, twisting to bring him closer.

  Not good enough. She squirmed from his grasp long enough to reposition herself sideways on the sofa, legs splayed. He dragged her shift and her drawers down her legs and dropped them onto the carpet.

  “A puddle on the floor. What did I tell you?”

  She jabbed him in the ribs. “Jackass.” Her gaze darted to the bed. “What about Lola?”

  “She won’t wake up.” He swiftly crossed the room to fetch a blanket, which he deposited on the floor beside the sofa. “And in the unlikely event she does, we’ll simply cover up.”

  Sabine watched him strip off his clothes. His movements were efficient, but unhurried. She had plenty of time to change her mind. Plenty of time to remind herself why he was best kept at a distance. Plenty of time which she spent admiring the hard planes of his chest and the eager jut of his erection.

  Her whole body quivered. She was wet for him, and her skin tingled in anticipation. He knelt between her thighs, his hands resuming their patient exploration. Slowly, he lowered himself down atop her, his lips finding hers.

  She rocked her hips into his, grinding in a rhythmic dance, sighing at the feel of his cock sliding against her, rubbing over her slick folds, teasing her clit. The pace of her thrusting increased, drawing a groan from deep in his throat.

  “Fuck,” he gasped.

  “Yes, Cliff, please,” she begged. “I want you inside me.”

  “The damned condoms sank with the ship,” he growled.

  “Then you’ll have to be careful,” Sabine replied. “Unless you want Lola to have a baby brother or sister.”

  Cliff froze.

  He did want that. Oh, God, he did, and he wanted it badly. She could read the helpless longing in his wide, blue eyes. She knew that look. Had lived it. The yearning for the impossible.

  She pulled her spectacles off, fumbling to set them on the table behind her, then kissed him ruthlessly, doing all she could to make him forget everything but the here and now. She spread wider for him, moaning her satisfaction into his mouth when he entered her.

  “Sabine,” he whispered as he thrust. “Sabine, I love you.”

  She clung to him, letting him carry her away from the earth to a place where nothing existed but the two of them and this pure, honest pleasure. She convulsed around him, and he jerked free, coating her inner thigh with his sticky seed.

  Sabine clasped her arms around his neck, holding him to her, ever a thief, stealing this precious moment when he was hers.

  I love you, too.

  Sabine awoke before dawn, curled up beside Cliff in the enormous bed, her body warm and relaxed. She pressed a kiss to his cheek, but he didn’t stir. She let her fingers wander over him, only for a moment, tracing his hip and the muscles of his arm, gently ruffling his thick, black locks.

  “I love you,” she whispered. She looked past him at Lola, the Sabine doll clutched in her arms. “Both of you.”

  She slipped from the bed, dressed quickly, and opened the door, hesitating for only a moment.

  “I love you so much.”

  She stepped into the hall, the door slipping softly into place behind her. The click of the lock echoed like a death knell in her ears. She would finish this alone. It was the only way.

  44

  Four damn days.

  Four days of worrying, wondering. Four days of frantically checking the papers for news that a wanted murderer had been captured or that a mysterious woman had been found dead. Lola’s birthday had been
a tearful disaster, and things hadn’t improved since.

  Cliff chucked the extra slice of bread out the window and watched the birds fight over it. His wife was in bed with a cold, he’d told the hotel staff. She wasn’t to be disturbed, but she wasn’t poorly enough that she needed a doctor. He’d had food brought to the room for her to maintain the fiction, and then he’d had to either eat it himself or dispose of it.

  The ruse was probably a waste of his time and effort. Sabine’s friend the airship designer could arrive at any moment now. She’d be off after the Heart of Ra, and he’d never see her again. He could hop a train to San Francisco and send word that the Duke of Hartleigh had died in an airship crash.

  “My dear Duchess,” he composed aloud. “It is with deepest sympathies that I must inform you of the tragic demise…”

  He let his words trail off and yanked the window closed, drawing the curtain. No sense letting anyone get a glimpse of him. Savannah was a small city, and outsiders stood out. If gossip spread about him, it could bring Redbeard’s minions right to his door. Assuming they hadn’t already left town in pursuit of Sabine. She’d already retrieved the map from the hiding place in Forsyth Park. He’d checked the morning she’d left. She had no reason to stay in town and several good reasons to leave. She could await her replacement airship elsewhere.

  “You’ll make Duchess Amy sad,” Lola said. She sat on the floor, watching Lucas crawl around. Nothing else seemed to hold her interest anymore. “She likes you.”

  “I know. I like her, too. I’d like to see her and Luella again, and find out how the household is faring. I never finished cleaning up all the junk in Sabine’s house. It needs to be sold if we’re to pay off the debts.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I’m not in a place where I can leave all that behind. I have responsibilities.”

  Lola nodded. “Will Sabine go back to her house? After she finds the treasure?”

  “I don’t know, babe. I wish I did, but I don’t know why she left when she did or what her plans are. I can only guess.”

  Cliff paced the room, fists clenching and unclenching in frustration. These past few days he’d imagined there’d been a chance she would return. She was merely hiding elsewhere to protect them, and would show up at the door when her ship arrived, announcing that it was time to leave for the next part of their journey. Now reality stalked him, waiting to pounce with its bad news.