Dead Dukes Tell No Tales

by Catherine Stein

  “I know.”

  She clutched him tight, breathing him in, soaking up his warmth and his love. She would never be whole, but he filled some of those gaping spaces inside her.

  Sabine woke with a start. The ship had landed. But where, and why? She bolted upright, surprised to find herself alone in the pile of bedding. Where was Cliff?

  Her eyes scanned the room, homing in on all the sudden wrongness. No spider house. No dolls. Only her own clothes. A small, handwritten note beside the bed. She snatched it up.

  My dear Miss Diebin,

  I can’t even begin to tell you how sorry I am for all the strain and worry I have heaped upon you. I have involved myself where I am not qualified to be, and it has brought you pain, misery, heartache, and even danger to your person. I am flying back to England with Lola. We will see to the cleanup of the house and have it finished before you return. If you wish to sell, I’ll take it off your hands, but if you wish to stay, I will not hassle you about it. I expect to settle elsewhere, as I will be returning to my business and spending much of my time in Chicago. You may keep the Heart if you wish. We will get on well enough as we were. I wish circumstances were different, but as it stands, I cannot bear to be the cause of any future trouble, stress, or danger for you. As of now, please consider our association severed.

  Yours,

  Hartleigh

  47

  “I won’t! I won’t! I hate you!”

  “Lola, for God’s sake,” Cliff groaned, trying to dodge flailing legs in order to pull her to her feet. The heel of her boot caught him right in the shin, and he hopped back, grimacing in pain. “Babe, please listen.”

  God, he must look like the world’s worst father. Lola had never been one to throw many fits, and she hadn’t done so at all since she was three. Now, here she was, having an all-out tantrum in the middle of the Key West airfield, while dozens of upper-crust travelers looked on in horror.

  Cliff circled his daughter, searching for any sort of opening where he might reach down and grab her without injuring either of them in the process. He didn’t think his chances were especially good.

  “We’re leaving,” he said sternly. “I’m sorry you don’t like it, but it’s what we need to do.”

  “I won’t!” she shrieked again, battering his already sore leg with her small fist. “You’re stupid! Stupid!”

  “Fine.”

  Cliff sucked in a breath and braced himself, bending to grasp her by the waist and haul her to her feet as she kicked and screamed and lashed out. He stood her upright, but didn’t release her. Lola grabbed his hand with both of hers, trying to pry it off of her.

  “Let me go! Let me go!”

  “I do not want to carry you kicking and screaming onto an airship, but that’s exactly what I’m going to do if you don’t stop, do you understand?”

  She pushed on his hand again. “Let me go.”

  “Are you going to throw yourself on the ground again, kicking and screaming?”

  “Yes!”

  Well, at least she was honest. “Then I can’t let you go.”

  “No,” she pouted.

  Cliff relaxed his grip, slowly pulling away in case she flopped again. When she remained standing after a few seconds, he straightened. “Now, do you want to talk about this before we get on the ship?”

  “No.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

  It was difficult to refute her when a big part of him was saying the same thing. He took another deep breath. “I’m sorry, Lo, I really am.”

  “No you’re not. If you were sorry, you’d stay. You’d marry Sabine so she can be my mommy.”

  “I’m trying to help Sabine. I’m trying to protect her.”

  Lola turned away, pulling Lucas from her pocket and petting him, the way she often did these days when she needed comforting.

  “Babe, I led bad people to her because I wouldn’t listen. I wouldn’t stay away like she wanted and she got hurt because of that. I can’t keep doing that to her. It’s not right.”

  She remained facing away from him, arms tight to her chest, saying nothing.

  “Just because you love someone doesn’t always mean you can be together. Sometimes the only thing you can do is let them go.”

  “I won’t,” Lola said, quietly but firmly. “I don’t want to go. And Lucas doesn’t want to either.” She spun and tossed the spider into the lap of a woman who sat nearby, resting atop her traveling trunk.

  The scream carried clear across the airfield and probably all the way back to Savannah. “Get it off! Get it o-o-o-off!” She flailed at the spider at the same time as a man lunged to grab it, and he howled in pain when her nails met his skin.

  “It bit me! It bit me!” He hopped in a circle, cradling his hand. “Call a doctor, the monster bit me!”

  Cliff moved closer to the chaos, cringing at the shrieks that stabbed into his ears. Do I just sweep him off her skirts? Or lunge and grab? Even here in the US, he would make headlines. So-called duke attacks travelers with man-eating spider, gropes innocent woman.

  Another man intervened before Cliff could cause a scandal, grabbing the bottom of the woman’s skirts and shaking them until Lucas toppled to the ground.

  Thank God. Cliff bent down, prepared to scoop the spider into his hands and then give Lola a thorough scolding.

  A large boot flew past his head, smashing to the ground atop the spider. The snapping and crunching made Cliff’s stomach heave.

  “No!” No. Not her spider. Not her beloved pet. “Oh, God, no.”

  The boot lifted away to the sound of a satisfied, “Much better.”

  Cliff grabbed for the wretched, squashed insect. He’d hold a funeral. He’d weep with her. His baby. His poor, heartbroken baby.

  “What the…” His fingers touched fuzzy legs and a crushed exoskeleton. No guts. No insides. No spider. He’d been mourning an abandoned shell. She’d tricked him. She’d tricked everyone. Cliff shot to his feet, furious at her, at himself, and at the whole damn world. “Lola Ann Kinsley, you…”

  The blood drained from his face. She was gone. He whirled in a circle, looking everywhere, desperate, terrified.

  “Lola!”

  Nothing. Nowhere. She was gone. Cliff darted this way and that, pushing people aside to look behind them, clambering over heaps of trunks, screaming her name.

  “Lola, goddammit, where are you?”

  A hand clamped down on his arm. “Sir, I need you to calm down,” the porter said, his no-nonsense tone and iron grip brooking no arguments.

  “My daughter is missing,” Cliff pleaded. “Let me go. Help me, dammit.”

  “You’re spewing foul language in front of women and children,” rebuked the man who had been “bitten” earlier.

  “Your sensitive ears matter more than my child? Go to hell.”

  “She should be with a governess. A firm hand. A good thrashing for disobedience. You brought this upon yourself, spoiling her as you clearly do.”

  Cliff pulled out of the porter’s grip, trying to calm himself before he punched someone. He stormed off, fuming in silence. He had to think. Where would she have gone? Back to the ship? Was it even there anymore? The crew hadn’t put up a fuss when he’d asked them to drop him at the nearest port. He’d assumed they’d fly off again immediately.

  Cliff rushed back to where he’d disembarked. His heart sank at the big, empty space before him. No ship. No Lola. He fought the urge to fall to the ground and cry.

  “Okay, okay.” He put his head in his hands. “The ship’s not here. Where else would she go? She’s a smart kid. She’ll want to hide until the ship I was hoping to board takes off.”

  He began a slow scan of the airfield, looking for potential hiding places. A distant ship rising into the air made his breath catch. If someone had kidnapped her…

  “I will hunt them down and break every bone in their body,” he vowed.

  “Rather bloodthirsty for a man ‘n
ot qualified’ to be a pirate.”

  Cliff spun around. “Sabine?”

  “No one else is harebrained enough to go after you.” The words were flippant, but her eyes blazed and her cheeks flamed. She was furious. “How could you?” she shouted.

  “I—” He blinked at her, not fully certain he wasn’t hallucinating. She’d come after him? Joy. Sorrow. Panic. Confusion. His brain couldn’t process all the conflicting emotions. “Lola’s missing,” he blurted.

  Sabine paled. “What?”

  “She distracted me with a fake spider and disappeared. She didn’t want to return to England.”

  Sabine’s eyes darted this way and that, surveying the area much as he had. “Smart girl. We’ll find her.” Her voice carried a slight tremor, but her body remained braced for action. “Let’s start from where she disappeared. Look for tracks. If there aren’t any, we can spread out. Cover more ground.”

  “Right.” Tracks. He hadn’t even thought of that. “This way.”

  Together they jogged back to the scene of the spider incident. The area was well-trampled from the feet of travelers and smashed down by luggage. Cliff could see no way to track Lola, but Sabine’s background as a thief gave him some small hope. Maybe together they could do this.

  “I was standing here,” he explained. “When she threw the spider skin, I turned, putting her behind me, right there by… It’s gone!” His head swiveled around, confirming it. “The bag with all our things is missing.”

  “Lola took it,” Sabine guessed. “She would never leave that pirate doll of hers behind.”

  “Then she can’t have gone far. She can’t run lugging the bag.”

  “If I were doing it, I would run from one pile of luggage to the next. She’ll be harder to catch when she’s on the move, and if any adult spots her, she says she’s playing a game. Most likely she ran that way, away from you.”

  They raced to the next closest pile, where a teenaged porter in an ill-fitting outfit hauled trunks as big as he was onto a cargo hoist.

  “Have you seen a little girl?” Cliff asked. “Black hair done up in braids, dark gray dress probably covered in grass stains, carrying a canvas bag?”

  The boy only shrugged.

  Cliff and Sabine split up, each running toward another potential hiding place. Nothing. Cliff raced onward, his heart sinking further with each passing second. The whole horrible morning replayed in his head. Why hadn’t he explained better? What could he have done differently? He was a menace to everyone he loved. He ran on, not knowing what else to do.

  The bag caught his eye and he was careening toward it before his conscious thoughts even processed what was happening. “Sabine!” he shouted. “Over here! Lola! Lola, are you there?”

  He couldn’t take his eyes off it. The bag sat atop a mechanical cargo lift, at the edge of a big pile of luggage. Stacks of trunks beside the lift provided convenient steps for an agile girl. A perfect hiding place.

  “Lola!” Cliff flew across the field, heedless of anything but that one bag.

  The lift shuddered and began to rotate. Lola’s head popped up from the pile. “Daddy!” she cried.

  “Lola! I’m coming!”

  His foot caught on something, and he fell flat on his face, sending the wind rushing from his lungs and his glasses tumbling into the grass.

  “Daddy! Help me!”

  Cliff grabbed for his spectacles, struggling to his feet as the lift spun, cutting off Lola’s path to the ground. A steam truck pulled up and the lift tipped, dumping the cargo and a shrieking little girl into its bed.

  “Lola, hold on!” Sabine shouted, streaking into view from off to Cliff’s right.

  They converged on the truck as it hissed and belched, pulling away from the lift.

  “Give me a boost!” Sabine yelled.

  Cliff didn’t need clarification. He knelt, spreading his hands to make a stepping stone. The instant her boot hit his palm, he hurled her upward with as much force as he could, sending her flying up and into the back of the departing vehicle.

  The bag with his belongings hit the dirt, followed only a second later by a furious pirate with an armload of sobbing girl.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Lola wept.

  “You are in so much trouble, Little Miss Lola,” Sabine growled, her hands moving in soothing strokes over Lola’s back even as she scolded. “You scared the shit out of us.”

  “I know. I’m s-sorry.”

  Sabine released Lola into Cliff’s arms, and he clasped her against him. “Oh, thank God. You’re safe, babe, you’re safe. Don’t you ever do that again.” Tears of relief trickled down his cheeks and dripped from his chin. He hugged her tighter.

  “D-don’t squish Lucas,” she cried.

  Cliff stepped back, keeping his hands on her shoulders. “Do you understand, Lo, how worried I was? I thought I’d never see you again.”

  “I’m s-sorry. I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to never see Sabine again.”

  Sabine sniffed. “As if I would let my best cabin girl get away. You knew better. You’ve got some sense in your head.” She glared at Cliff. “But you…”

  He didn’t flinch from her angry gaze. He could take it. He could take anything now that they were all here together. “Me.”

  “You left me!” she raged. She dug a hand into her pocket and brandished the note he had written “You wrote this! This! How could you?”

  He sighed. Everything he’d done since he’d awoken felt both rash and wrong, no matter his motive. “I was trying to help.” He wasn’t sure if he was explaining to her or to himself. “You were right to want to get rid of me. I’m so sorry I didn’t listen. I’ve been foolish and careless, and I hurt you and let others hurt you, and I was only trying to make it right. I know it was cowardly to leave a note, but I didn’t want—”

  “You signed it with your title!”

  Cowardly and callous. “I, uh… thought someone else might read it, and thought it would be better—safer—if it sounded like I wasn’t so… ardent.”

  She slapped the note against his chest, and a shiver of delight raced through him. Even her fury thrilled him, after thinking he might never feel her touch again.

  “It is splattered with your tears, you oaf!”

  “You oaf!” Lola echoed, wiping her dripping nose on her sleeve.

  Cliff had no reply. He couldn’t even shrug. It had nearly killed him to leave, and he didn’t think he’d have the willpower to do it a second time.

  “We are partners!” Sabine shouted, not removing her hand from his person. “You do not abandon your partner!”

  Cliff gave in to his selfish desires and inched closer. “I thought pirates didn’t have partners.”

  “Well, this one does! And I’m not going to let you wander off and leave me to find the treasure all on my own. It’s not my treasure, it’s our treasure, and it’s for Lola. You didn’t honestly think I would keep it for myself?”

  Lola peered up at the adults. “The treasure is for me?”

  Cliff covered Sabine’s hand with his own. “No, I didn’t think you’d keep it, even though I told you to. I imagined you barging through my door with the Heart of Ra in your hand, shouting, ‘Hartleigh! What the hell am I supposed to do with this?’ And then I imagined sweeping you into my arms and kissing you.” He sighed and disentangled himself, stepping safely out of her reach. “And then I stopped imagining and told myself to quit being selfish and leave before I got you killed.”

  “Did you ever think maybe you should’ve asked me if that was what I wanted?”

  “He didn’t ask me, either,” Lola huffed.

  Cliff crossed his arms and scowled. “You’d made it pretty clear what you wanted. How many times did you try to send me and Lola away? And who did the leaving in Savannah?”

  “I was trying to protect you.”

  “And, as I have already stated, I was trying to protect you.”

  Sabine sighed heavily. “I was wro
ng, okay? You were right and I was wrong. I thought last night made things different. You came for me. You weren’t giving up. You were there for me all night.”

  “You don’t need me, Sabine.”

  “But I want you. Dammit, Hartleigh, I don’t care if it’s stupid or foolish or dangerous. I want you and I want you always. We’re better together. I’d rather have a short life with you in it than a long life thinking about what might have been.”

  Cliff cracked. He opened his arms and let her fling herself into them, gathering her close, breathing her in. He’d already proven himself incompetent with words, so he simply held her. Lola joined the embrace, and they stood locked together in the warm sunlight and the gentle breeze. Together. Family.

  “I think we’ve missed our flight,” he murmured.

  “My ship’s down at the other side of the airfield,” Sabine replied. “I told them to go stock up on supplies, since I didn’t know how long our search would take.”

  He pressed his lips into her hair. “Or were you preparing for the possibility that you’d have to track me all the way to England?”

  She tilted her head up and caught his mouth in a bruising kiss. “I would hunt you down anywhere. Now let’s go find a Heart.”

  48

  “Captain?”

  Sabine yanked the blanket up to cover her naked body. Dammit, why now? Snatching time alone had been almost impossible during the days since they’d left Florida, and now when they finally had a moment together…

  Hawkes pounded on the door again. “Captain, I think you need to see this.”

  Cliff burrowed beneath the bedding, finding sensitive skin and sucking hungrily. “Tell him we need half an hour.”

  Sabine slid reluctantly from his arms. “Maybe this is it. Maybe we’ve reached the coordinates.” She planted a kiss on his cheek. “We can celebrate after.”

  He sighed and rolled over. “It’s probably another storm that we’ll have to go out of the way to avoid.”

  Sabine hoped not. Inclement weather had slowed their progress to a crawl. Days of thick clouds blanketing the mountains and heavy rains had made flying treacherous and pinpointing their location difficult. This morning the sun had come out—prompting Lola to run up top to play—but they had no guarantee conditions would remain favorable.