Enthralled

To Cindy, who let me save my brain by writing this story, and who miraculously hasn’t killed me yet.

ONE

When Georgiana came across her good-for-nothing cheating bastard of a husband washed up on the beach with a bullet in his side, she considered leaving him for dead. Then she wrapped both hands around his iron wrist and dragged him up to the house.

Despite the tiny mechanical bugs that lived inside her body and enhanced her strength, hauling him wasn’t easy. Big Thom, everyone in town called him. Taller and broader than any other man of her acquaintance, her husband deserved the appellation. But Georgiana had other names for him.

Always-Gone Thom. Empty-Hearted Thom. Abandon-Her-Bed Thom.

Not that his cold heart or her bed mattered now. Georgiana’s hopeful expectations for their marriage and her burgeoning love had wilted the first time he’d sailed off and left her alone. All remaining affection had withered to ashes during his most recent absence, which had passed without any communication from her husband—just an occasional bit of money in an envelope stamped with his ship’s seal, and no note to accompany it. Georgiana hadn’t needed the funds, but there had been days when she’d have given anything for a single word from him. Now nothing he ever said could soften her heart toward him again.

If he’d sent even one message, she might have attempted to carry him up the stairs to the seaside entrance of the house. Instead she dragged his body up the steps and listened to the four solid thunks.

One for each year he’d been gone.

She had lit the stove before setting out on her morning walk. Georgiana usually welcomed the cozy warmth after the brisk ocean air, but while sweating and flushed with exertion, the kitchen seemed stifling and cramped. Her shoulder muscles burning, she pulled Thom through the entrance, leaving a trail of seawater, blood, and sand. Her mother’s hand-knotted rugs slid across the stone floor with him, bunching under his head and shoulders. Her bottom bumped into the table before his boots cleared the door.

The big, heavy dolt. She let go of his wrist. His arm dropped to the floor, his sodden gloves and woolen coat muffling the clink of iron against stone.

Where to now? Unwrapping her scarf, she eyed the door leading to the second level. The bedchamber she’d shared with him was up there, but she’d closed that part of the house years ago. It made no sense to open the upper floors now, and her husband wasn’t worth the effort of hauling him up the stairs or the expense of heating the rooms. She would put him in the single bedchamber downstairs, then send him on his way the moment he was well enough to walk out of it.

That wouldn’t take long. Thom was infected by the mechanical bugs, just as she was. They’d have him on his feet within a day or two.

After shedding her coat and gloves, Georgiana bent for his arm again. The iron forearm beneath the wool sleeve was thicker and more solid than she expected. His prosthetics were of the skeletal kind, resembling metal bones. But perhaps his iron arms always felt bigger than they appeared. Georgiana didn’t know. She’d only seen them once, after walking in on Thom while he’d been changing into the nightshirt he’d worn to their wedding bed. He almost always wore gloves, as well—not for warmth, but with a lightly oiled lining to prevent exposing his jointed iron fingers to the rusting effects of the salty sea air. She’d seen his hands only a few more times than his arms. And although she’d often rested her palm upon his coat sleeve, which had given her some idea of the shape beneath, she’d never had to wrap her fingers around his wrist and drag him around before.

The bedchamber stood on the opposite side of the kitchen. With her skirts swinging around her booted feet, Georgiana huffed her way past the table and stove and through the door. Once inside, she let his heavy arm drop again.

Soaked and bloody. Thom wasn’t going into the bed like that. She stripped the quilts down the mattress, then covered the sheet with towels.

Thom needed to be stripped, too. She reached for his cap, damp but warm. Too warm. Heat radiated through the knitted wool. Tugging it off, she laid the backs of her fingers to his forehead.

Burning.

Oh, no. No, no, no. When she’d first found Thom on the beach and rolled him over, she’d touched his face. His skin had been cool. Not now. And the bugs wouldn’t heal this—they created the fever. It only happened rarely, and with severe wounds. The tiny machines worked so hard to heal him that they overheated his body. Infected men and women almost never sickened or died from anything but old age, unless an injury killed a person faster than the bugs could heal him. But bug fever was often fatal.

Rushing to the window, Georgiana threw it open. Frigid air swept inside the room. She flew back to Thom’s side. She needed ice, opium. His temperature had to be lowered, and the drug slowed the bugs. They wouldn’t repair his wound as quickly, but the opium might keep the healing from killing him. He probably only lived now because his body had lain half-submerged in the freezing ocean water.

She tore open the buckles of his coat, her mind racing as quickly as her fingers. A few blocks of ice were stacked in the ice house, but she would have to send a wiregram to town for more. The physician could bring opium.

But she had to get Thom undressed first. She wrestled the thick coat down his arms and tossed it aside. A woolen fisherman’s gansey lay beneath, the gray weave soaked in blood. She yanked the pullover up to his chest, taking his linen shirt with it and exposing the bullet hole in his side.

The small wound had stopped bleeding. Carefully, she turned him. The bullet’s exit had done more damage, the injury larger and more ragged, but no blood seeped out. The edges had already healed.

Thank God. Even if the healing slowed, this wound no longer threatened his life. She just had to worry about the fever.

Gripping the hem of his gansey and shirt, she stripped them the rest of the way off, almost losing her balance in the process. His prosthetics thunked back to the floor, and—

He had new arms.

For an instant, astonishment froze Georgiana in place. No longer dull, skeletal iron. These were steel, and shaped in proportion to his body—a combination of intricate machines designed to resemble a pair of long, muscular arms.

Where on Earth had he gotten them? Who could have made such incredible devices?

But Georgiana knew. She’d heard the whispers, rumors that had flown by airship and sailed by boat across the North Sea to the small Danish town of Skagen. Yet although she herself had called him a cheating scoundrel in her mind, that was only when she’d been at her angriest, her most hurt. She hadn’t believed the rumors. After all, Thom had only visited her bed three times. Three awful times that he’d seemed to enjoy even less than Georgiana had. So she hadn’t believed that he’d gone to another woman’s bed.

And maybe he hadn’t. Perhaps there was another explanation. It hardly mattered. As soon as he was well again, she would say good riddance to him.

He would go, anyway. Thom always did. But this time, for the first time, Georgiana would have the satisfaction of knowing that he went after she’d told him to leave—and not after she’d asked him to stay.

By evening, the rash that signaled the worst stage of the fever began spreading over Thom’s throat and chest. The doctor didn’t say anything as he administered another injection of opium, but Georgiana didn’t need the grim-faced man to tell her how little hope was left. Those small red dots marked the beginning of the end.

Thom would leave again. He wouldn’t come back. Not because she’d told him to go, but because he’d made her a widow.

But that was not how this would end. She had accounts to settle with her husband before he left, so Thom could not go like this.

Georgiana would simply not allow it. And in recent years, she had become very good at getting her way.

The lamps flickered throughout the night, the flames dancing in the draft from the window. Accompanied by the roar of the ocean, Georgiana bathed his nude body in ice water until her fingers shriveled and ached. In the morning, the doctor pumped Thom full of opium again and helped her replenish the chunks of ice piled around his motionless form. She resumed bathing his skin, her frozen hands stiff and her mood too heavy to lift.

Exhaustion finally claimed her in the middle of the second night. She fell asleep in an armchair next to Thom’s bedside and woke at dawn with a crooked neck. Her husband lay still, with only a sheet over his hips for modesty. The gray light through the window paled his skin, washing away the flush of the fever. The ice surrounding his big body had melted almost to nothing.

The dour Doctor Rasmussen stood at the vanity, snapping his black case shut. He wore his scarf and gloves, and the brim of his hat shadowed his humorless features. From outside, Georgiana heard the chattering engine of his steamcart.

She jolted upright, her back and neck protesting. “You are already leaving? But we must add more ice.”

In a tone as somber as his expression, the doctor replied, “There is no need for more, Mrs. Thomas.”

No need . . . ? Fear yanked Georgiana to her feet. Her gaze shot to Thom’s pale, still form.

The doctor continued, “The rash receded during the night. I’ve administered another dose so that your husband continues to rest, but he should not need another.”

Relief descended in a bone-dissolving wave, but Georgiana didn’t trust it until she flattened her palm against Thom’s chest. Still too warm, but not burning. His heart beat in deep, even thuds. The angry rash and the swelling in his throat had faded.

She glanced at the fresh bandage wrapped around his abdomen. “And the wound?”

“The nanoagents have sealed the skin. I removed the stitches. As long as he does not reopen it, he should be out of danger.” The doctor paused. Though he only seemed to have one attitude—grim—Georgiana detected a hint of apology from him. “You will likely have a visit from the magistrate today.”

Because Thom had been shot, and the physician was required to report such wounds. Well, he didn’t need to be sorry for that. “I understand your duty, sir. But you might tell him to come tomorrow, after my husband has woken. I have no answers for his inquiry.”

Now surprise put a faint twist in Rasmussen’s lips. But he only nodded and wished her a good day, and had already quit the room when Georgiana realized that the doctor assumed she had shot Thom.

Which was ridiculous. Not that Thom hadn’t given her reason to shoot him, because he had. But if Georgiana had wanted to murder him, she wouldn’t have missed his heart, and she certainly wouldn’t have called on a physician to heal him. Georgiana would have buried his body in the steamcoach shed, where her digging wouldn’t be observed—though there was slim chance that someone would happen by her isolated home at the same moment she needed to conceal a body, it was better not to risk discovery.

Not that she had often pondered his murder—or anyone else’s. But planning for unexpected events was just common sense.

She hadn’t planned well for this, however. She didn’t know who might have shot him, either. On the seas, attacks could come from any direction, but salvagers like Thom weren’t usually targets for pirates or thieves. Perhaps it had been a personal matter . . . but Georgiana would not let her mind dwell on that, any more than she dwelt on how he’d obtained his new prosthetics.

Whatever the answers, they had nothing to do with her.

Georgiana set about clearing away the ice. Meltwater soaked the bed. The day maid arrived at eight o’clock full of gossip from town, of an aristocrat’s airship that had flown into Skagen’s harbor and of twin babies that had been born. Aware that Thom’s condition would soon be more fodder for wagging tongues, Georgiana only listened with half an ear while they wrestled a mattress down the stairs. On the bed, the sodden mattress was too heavy to drag off the frame. They made a pallet on the floor and, together, she and Marta transferred Thom onto dry sheets. He didn’t lie so quietly now, turning his head against the pillow and restlessly shifting his legs, as if swimming through rough dreams.

Her secretary came shortly afterward, bearing a stack of cargo receipts and inventories. The following hours were spent catching up on two days of neglected work. After lunch, Georgiana sent him back to her offices in town with the assurance that she would be in the next morning.

Perhaps with Thom in tow. She didn’t know what the terms of their separation would be, but she’d make him a fair offer for his part of her shipping business. Though to her mind, any offer would be more than fair. His involvement in her venture had begun and ended four years ago, and only comprised an envelope containing a bit of money. All of the risks and the work had been her own.

Tired, she returned to the armchair in the bedchamber. She’d barely closed her eyes when Marta came in carrying Thom’s clothing, a frown on her softly lined face.

“I patched up the holes, ma’am, but the shirt and gansey are still showing the bloodstain. Would you like me to give them another wash?”

“There’s no need. Clean will do well enough.”

Marta nodded and turned toward the wardrobe before abruptly turning back. Her fingers dipped into her apron pocket. “Before I forget and make a thief of myself—this fell out of Captain Thom’s coat.”

The maid dropped a heavy gold coin into Georgiana’s palm. Not a livre, though by weight, it must have been worth as much as one of those valuable coins. A shield was stamped on one side and a crowned rose on the reverse, with a diameter as wide as her two middle fingers together. She didn’t recognize the lettering along the edge.

“Do you suppose he found it while searching through those sunken ships, ma’am?”

Georgiana smiled. It was a lovely thought, but despite their depiction in popular adventure tales, salvagers rarely discovered anything of value that wasn’t already claimed by the ship’s owner. Most were hired to recover recent wreckage before the cargo spoiled completely. They didn’t keep any of it for themselves.

Perhaps Thom had found a single coin or it had been given to him in payment. And if he’d found more than one, they were gone now, anyway. “If this is part of a treasure, Marta, it must have been cursed.”

Because Thom’s ship must have sunk, too. He hadn’t dropped into the ocean out of the æther, and unless he’d shot himself, his ship must have come under attack. Her secretary had confirmed that Oriana hadn’t sailed into Skagen’s harbor, and Georgiana hadn’t seen the old herring buss’s familiar silhouette on the water the morning she’d found Thom on the sand. She’d spent too many days searching the horizon for Oriana to have mistaken her for any other ship.

Georgiana’s smile faded. She put the gold coin on the side table where Thom could find it when he woke up. The coin and their separation settlement would easily buy him a new ship.

Then he could be off again.

A dry whisper penetrated Georgiana’s sleep. She opened bleary eyes. Darkness had fallen outside. A blanket covered her legs, curled up in the armchair. From the adjoining kitchen, Marta’s soft hum and the scent of roasting lamb wafted through the room.

The whisper came again from the pallet on the floor. “Georgie.”

Thom.

She sat up. His eyes had opened. Not looking at her, though he repeated her name again on a rasping breath, as if through a parched throat. Unfocused, his pupils had dilated, his irises just a thin ring of dark blue.

Not truly awake. Still in the opium’s grip.

Though not lucid yet, he could take a few sips of broth. Untangling her blanket from her skirts, she rose from the chair and retrieved a small bowl from the kitchen. She sent Marta home and returned to the bedchamber. Spoon in hand, she knelt beside his left shoulder, the mattress cushioning her knees.

That dry rasp came again. “Georgie.”

His gaze had fixed on the ceiling. He wasn’t speaking to her—or at least, not the real Georgiana. She might very well have featured in his drugged dreams.

“I’m here, Thom.” Cradling the back of his head in her palm, she tipped him forward and brought the spoon to his lips. “You need to swallow this. It will help your throat.”

She didn’t know if he heard or if he simply swallowed in automatic response to the broth being spooned into his mouth. Not a single drop spilled, even now. He’d always been a fastidious man. Not overly concerned by his appearance—he just preferred neatness and order in all things.

That was something Georgiana had learned about Thom before she’d ever met him. Eight years ago, her father had hired him on as chief mate of his whaling ship, and within a day, the gossip from Skagen had been laden with the complaints of the sailors taken to task for sloppy stations and berths. At the dinner table, however, her father spoke nothing but praise.

Although she’d heard much about him, five months passed before Georgiana had actually seen her father’s new chief mate. And although Thom gave little thought to his appearance beyond keeping himself neat, she had not been able to stop thinking of it.

Not because Thom was handsome—though he was that. His dark hair held just a hint of curl, in a sensibly short style that he trimmed himself. Taken one at a time, his features were too heavy: thick slashing brows over deep-set eyes, a prominent nose, and a wide mouth. But the strong frame of his angular jaw and cheekbones prevented the boldness of his features from overwhelming his face, and complemented his height and breadth. Altogether, he made a striking figure.

But it hadn’t been his face or his size that had captured her interest. It had been his stillness. It had been the intensity of his gaze when he’d looked at her in return. It had been his quiet manner, and how he used as few words as possible when he spoke, so that each one felt significant—like a promise.

So when Thom had asked what would make her happiest, Georgiana had told him. After years of watching her mother pacing in front of the window facing the sea, her gaze searching the horizon, and waiting weeks and months for Georgina’s father to come home, she’d known exactly what would make her happy. A husband who will hold me in his arms every night. And she’d believed Thom when he’d sworn that he would.

Then the morning after they were married, he’d sailed off in the salvaging boat her father had given him as a wedding gift.

With a sigh, Georgiana put aside the empty bowl. These weren’t memories that she wanted to revisit. Their wedding night had been painful enough—and she’d understood that remorse and guilt had driven him away, despite her asking him to stay. But it didn’t explain the second and third time. That last visit, he had not even waited until morning to go. He had not even waited long enough to spend his seed inside her, but abandoned Georgiana in the middle of their coupling—even though it hadn’t hurt that time, and he’d had nothing to be sorry for.

Nothing to be sorry for, except staying away for four years. That had been more painful than anything she’d experienced in their bed.

But those years had apparently treated him well. Despite the fever and bullet wound, he appeared healthy. Shadowed by dark hair, thick muscles carved his broad chest and strong thighs, their shape well-defined even at rest. He was just as handsome. Like many men at sea, he wore a beard to protect his face from the elements—and kept it neatly trimmed, so that even after two days’ growth his whiskers didn’t look unkempt.

The last time Georgiana had seen him, he’d been clean-shaven. Each night he’d taken her to bed, he’d always taken a razor to his beard first, and his skin had been smooth when he’d kissed her.

But not now. Frowning, she ran her fingers down the short, silky strands covering his jaw. He wasn’t clean-shaven now, despite the rumors that he’d been in another woman’s bed.

When she’d first heard the whispers, her instincts told her not to believe them. This beard told her the same. And it was hardly solid evidence that he’d been faithful during his absence—he could grow a beard within a few weeks, after all—but whispers were no more substantial. Georgiana preferred to trust her instincts over rumors.

Not that it mattered. His fidelity had never been the problem; his absence was. But believing that he’d been true to his vows hurt less than believing he hadn’t been.

And she would not think about how substantial his new arms were.

Those arms moved restlessly at his sides, steel fingers clenching. He turned his cheek against her palm.

“Georgie?”

His voice didn’t sound so painfully dry now, more like his own; her name was a low, deep rumble.

“I’m still here, Thom.” Right where she’d been for years.

His unfocused gaze looked beyond her shoulder. “I failed you, Georgie.”

“Yes.” A hard little laugh escaped her. “Yes, you surely—”

“I was coming to stay. To hold you every night.” A rough hitch of his breath was like a hook through her chest. “But I lost it. I lost it all.”

Coming to stay? Her heart suddenly seemed pinched in a vise. She couldn’t breathe.

It meant nothing. The words of a man blissed on opium. And even if they were true, he’d said them far too late.

But despite the stern reminder Georgiana gave herself, almost a minute passed before she could speak again. “You were coming to stay?”

He didn’t respond. Still only seeing the Georgiana in his dream—or perhaps seeing nothing at all now.

She tried again. “What did you lose, Thom? Oriana? Your crew? And who shot you?”

Silence. She wanted to shake his shoulders and rouse him. To make him answer. But there would be time for answers tomorrow.

Nothing he could say would change her mind. But she would need the time to ponder what she would say if Thom’s answer was that he’d hoped to stay.

TWO

He never should have married her.

Sitting naked on the pallet, Thom flicked the coin over in his palm. Just a small bit of gold—and all that was left of his hopes and intentions.

Almost nothing.

He’d wanted to give Georgiana so much more. He’d been arrogant enough to believe that he could. But this coin had been waiting for Thom when he’d awoken, as if to make certain he didn’t spend another second fooling himself. In sleep and dreams, her face and her touch had been so close. Then he’d seen that glint of gold, and the memory of everything he’d lost had crashed through his mind like a cold wave, sweeping those dreams away.

Losing it all was the last thing he remembered: the airship flying in low over Oriana’s sails, the rail cannon firing a chunk out of his ship’s bow, and the turned-out pirate who’d descended from the airship and asked Thom for the chest of coins—then the crack of a pistol and the stabbing pain through his side. A dim recollection of the waves and a lighthouse might have been memories or more dreams. Thom didn’t know. There wasn’t anything solid after the bullet, until the glint of gold.

But the room he was in now told the rest of the story. Henry Tucker’s house—the bedchamber on the ground floor. Thom must have been too heavy to carry up the stairs, so Georgiana’s parents had put him in their own bed. The mattress dripped water that puddled on the stone floor. Only one reason for that. He’d had a fever and they’d packed him in ice.

It would have been better if they’d left him for dead. Now he’d have to get off this pallet and look Georgiana in the eye. Tell her that he’d come home with nothing, and that he was leaving again. But Thom thought that going this time might kill him—because this time, he would be leaving for good.

She deserved more than this. He couldn’t be what she needed. He couldn’t make her happy. He had to let her go, give her a chance to find a man who knew how to be a husband. Who didn’t return empty-handed.

Now Thom didn’t even have a ship.

He dressed, his movements slow. The bullet through his side was nothing more than a twinge now, but he didn’t want to hurry. From the kitchen he heard a woman’s light tread and the clink of utensils. Georgiana, or her mother. Though he ached to see his wife, a step out of this room was a step closer to leaving. And if it was her mother, he dreaded the woman’s cheer. He’d never seen Jane Tucker unhappy. Always simmering with joy, and a smile now would be a curving dagger through his heart.

But the delay could only last until he pushed his feet into his boots. He braced himself for whoever waited beyond the door, battening down the pain in his chest. He couldn’t falter in this. Georgiana was a stubborn woman. She wouldn’t give up on their marriage easily, and when she argued, Thom would be tempted to soften and give in. But he’d spent four years forcing himself to stay away. He would have to rely on that strength again.

Silently, he opened the door. At the table, Georgiana sat with her back to him—just like the first time he’d seen her. He’d been standing on the deck of her father’s ship, Sea Bloom, returning after a five-month whaling expedition. Georgiana had been waiting at the docks with her mother, but she’d turned to greet someone, and he’d only seen her black hair, her graceful neck, and a summery yellow dress that left her arms bare.

She was just as graceful now, but her hair had changed. Instead of a long braid, she’d rolled it into a thick ball at her nape. A dress of dark blue hugged her figure, with long sleeves for winter.

Aside from the pounding of his heart, Thom had been quiet, but Georgiana must have heard him. She turned her head just slightly, so that he glimpsed the shell of her ear and the shadow behind her jaw. “You’re awake and well?”

“I am.”

“Sit and eat, then.”

Georgiana rose and moved to the stove as she spoke. There was never any nonsense about her when a task needed to be done, even one as simple as breakfast. Always practical. Many of her father’s sailors called her cold and humorless, but Thom had appreciated her steady nature from the first.

And she wasn’t cold. Nor was she humorless. Just reserved. After those barriers had fallen away, he’d discovered that her teasing could be gentle or sharp, and usually at unexpected moments in their conversations. During the long walks they’d taken while courting, Thom had laughed more with Georgiana than he could recall laughing in all of the years that had come before, and he’d realized that far more went on in her head than ever came out of her mouth.

But there was nothing in his head except Georgiana. She’d made him happy. He’d wanted to do the same for her. He hadn’t.

Heart heavy, Thom chose the nearest chair and sat. “As soon as I’ve finished, I’ll haul out that wet bed.”

“Thank you.”

She returned from the stove. Oh, sweet blue heavens. Standing close, she set his bowl and mug on the table, and the fragrance of her filled his senses, that delicate flowery scent from a bloom he didn’t know the name of, but that he always thought of as Georgiana’s. Her hair had smelled of it the first time he’d kissed her, moments after she’d accepted his hand. Her nightgown had carried the same scent on the night of their wedding, and it had taken every bit of his control not to strip it from her body and discover if she smelled the same everywhere.

It took all of his control now. He closed his eyes, fingers clenching against the urge to carry her upstairs and lose himself in her warmth. Never again. Even if he’d intended to stay, never again. He’d promised himself the last time, when she’d been under him, whimpering and squirming as she bore the pain of his raging need.

Never again.

He’d done wrong, asking her to marry him. His need had been part of that wrong, coming upon him from the moment she’d turned to face him on the docks eight years ago. He’d been fool enough to believe he had that hunger under control.

He couldn’t let such needs rule him. He controlled them now. He kept them in order. Marriage should have done that, too. Marriage put them both in their proper place. Wanting a wife, then having her in bed. That was a proper order. Yet his hunger had only grown, and his control had become a bare, slight thing. He’d wanted her every second—if not inside her, then just to be with her.

Just as he wanted her now. But her presence and that fragrance weren’t a poor substitute for the bed. They were a sweet pleasure of their own.

She moved on to her chair, and her perfume was replaced by the scent of hot grains wafting up from his bowl. He glanced down. Some kind of porridge. It didn’t matter. Everything he’d ever eaten in this house was better than what he had on his ship.

Georgiana must have read his silence as a question. “I sweetened it with honey,” she told him. “No sugar.”

He hadn’t doubted. “Thank you.”

And though she drank tea, she’d given him coffee, because two hundred years ago the Horde had slipped the bugs in through sugar and tea, then put up their towers that made slaves of an entire population. He’d only had to tell her once what he would and wouldn’t eat, and she’d always provided what he needed without asking why. That was Georgiana. She hadn’t pressed him to talk about memories he’d rather forget, or of the occupation in England. Thom didn’t think about his arms being taken and replaced with iron, or the years on a boat, hauling up fish. He didn’t think of the frenzies and the revolution. All that was done. He’d left England behind and found himself in Skagen, where he’d tried to make the sort of life that other men did, men who hadn’t been born under the boot of the Horde.

He’d tried and failed. Thom was his own master now. But he would never be what other men were.

Holding her mug cupped between her hands, Georgiana watched him eat, her green eyes steady and calm. “You’ll need to speak with the magistrate about the bullet wound.”

Mouth full, he nodded.

“Who shot you?”

“I ran into pirates,” he said between bites.

“Your crew?”

There was no crew. Thom shook his head, but his mouth was full again, and she went on before he could answer.

Her voice troubled, she asked, “And Oriana?”

“Stolen.”

Along with his new submersible, and a fortune in gold coins. His throat closed, making it impossible to swallow.

It was time to tell her that this was done.

But he couldn’t yet. He couldn’t meet Georgiana’s eyes now, either. His gaze dropped to the bowl. Still mostly full, but he couldn’t eat. And there was one question that still had to be asked before he could leave. “It’s been some years since I was here.”

Just the corners of her mouth tilted upward, as they did when her humor was sharp. “Yes, it has.”

“Was there a child?” He had to force it out. “The last time.”

“It’s difficult to conceive a child when your husband spills his seed on the way out the door.”

Heat rushed to his face. He hadn’t actually spent on the floor, but the way he’d rushed out of the room to escape the pain and shame of hurting her, he might as well have. “And your father, mother?”

Her smile disappeared. Her thick lashes swept down. Quietly, she said, “They’re gone.”

“Gone?” Thom stared at her. “Dead?”

“Yes.”

When she looked up again, moisture had pooled in her eyes. She abruptly rose from the table to pace its length. No task to complete. Just upset.

“How long ago?” His voice was rough.

“A month after you came home last. The lump fever swept through town. They both caught it.”

Almost four years ago. So Thom’s failure was worse than he’d known. Raised in a Horde crèche, he didn’t know what it was to have a mother or father. But he knew she had loved them. Losing them must have ripped her heart to shreds.

“I should have been here.”

“Yes.”

Her soft reply was a heavy condemnation. Thom knew he’d never stop feeling its weight. “Who’s been supporting you, Georgie?”

“I have been, Thom. Sea Bloom came into my possession. I made use of her.”

Throat thick, he nodded. He’d let it all fall out of order. Her father had told him, over and over. Thom’s place as a husband was to support his wife, support any children. And not to come back until he had something worth bringing.

Go on, Thom, and make yourself a man. I’ll look after her while you’re gone.

But her father hadn’t. And Thom shouldn’t have relied on anyone to help him. He’d been so focused on trying to do what a man should, on trying to make her happy, that everything had lost its place. Georgiana had been supporting herself, while Thom had come home with nothing.

And she wouldn’t be arguing with him, he realized. Not his strong, practical Georgiana. She’d see all the wrong here, too, and let him go.

With a sigh, she took her seat again. “The money you sent was appreciated.”

“It wasn’t much.”

“It was enough.” Her steady gaze held his. “What are your intentions now?”

“I’ll be going again.”

“Without a ship?”

Without anything. No home, no work. But he’d been there before. He’d left England with nothing, and had found everything here.

Now it had gone all wrong. Even if he found work, found a place to sleep, Thom didn’t think his life would ever be right again. It didn’t matter where he went, what he did.

But he had to give some kind of answer. He picked the name of the nearest town. “I’ll try to find work in Fladstrand. Maybe on the docks.”

“Not in Skagen?”

“No.” He made himself say it, though the ache in his chest felt like it would rip open and swallow him whole. “It’ll be for the best. I’m hardly a husband to you. Never bringing you anything worth having. Not doing what makes you happy.”

For a long second, Georgiana didn’t react. Just looked at him. Finally, she nodded. “We’ll go into town and see the magistrate together, then, and set about drawing up papers of separation.”

“Papers?”

“Legal papers, Thom. Marriage binds us together by law. Those ties have to be dissolved.”

He hadn’t even known there’d been anything official to it—he’d thought the marriage had just been a ceremony and a promise. But she’d been tied to him by law. Something as real and as solid as the emotions that were choking him. And no sooner had he learned of them, those bonds were to be broken.

The ache in his chest burrowed deeper, threatening to overwhelm his control. But he wouldn’t let pain be his master.

Jaw clenched, he gave a sharp nod. “That seems sensible.”

“We’ll have to decide how to divide the money and property.”

Thom didn’t want any of it. “What I have is yours. Though it’s not much. I never made much.”

And when he had, he’d lost it all.

She slowly nodded. Then her gaze fell to his gloved hands. “You made enough for those arms.”

Which would have cost more than Thom had earned in four years, if he’d bought them. But he hadn’t paid anything for the prosthetics, except for the time he’d spent helping a blacksmith build a better diving machine.

He could imagine how it appeared to Georgiana, though. Sending her tiny bits of money, yet coming home with arms fit for a king.

“They were a gift,” he said.

“From Ivy Blacksmith?”

A new note had entered her voice, something hard and trembling. No surprise, that. He’d kept notorious company when he’d helped Ivy.

“Yes. You know of her?”

“I heard rumors of your acquaintance. And Mad Machen’s obsession with her is just as well-known. He came into town about three years ago, searching for her, and there weren’t many people who dared leave their houses while he was here.” She looked down at her cup, her thumb rubbing along the rim. “Is he the pirate who shot you?”

Why would Mad Machen have reason for that? Thom had no argument with the man.

“That wasn’t him. It was some nobby gent.” But even as Thom spoke, he realized what she’d been getting at. Sharp anger spit up his throat. Had people told her that he’d been carrying on with Ivy? “Whatever you heard about me and her, it wasn’t anything like that. Is this why you’re agreeing to the separation?”

Her gaze lifted to his. “We have been separated, Thom. This just makes it official.”

Official. And he was suddenly desperate for her to argue, to persuade him to stay. Maybe that’s what he’d wanted all along. So he could be secure knowing that he’d tried to do right by her, telling her that he’d leave—yet remaining here when she asked him to. Now he wanted to beg her not to let him go.

But this was for the best. He knew it. Now he just needed to persuade his heart of it.

Softly, she asked, “Why did you keep leaving, Thom?”

I wanted to make you happy. But he hadn’t. And his throat was so rough, he could hardly speak. But this might be the last she ever asked of him. He’d give her this, at least.

“I wanted to bring something back to you.” And he’d brought a little. “This is what I have left. It’s yours.”

He slid the gold coin across the table. She barely glanced at it before her solemn gaze returned to his.

“You should keep—”

“You’ll take it, Georgie! Let me give you one damn thing worth having, then maybe I can pretend that I—” Clenching his jaw, Thom bit off the rest. He was losing control. Not with her. Abruptly he stood, chair legs scraping across stone. “I’ll haul that bed out.”

Georgiana gathered her coat and reticule while Thom went to fire up the steamcoach’s furnace. She expected him to return to the house and wait for the boiler to heat, rather than staying out in the cold morning air, but as the minutes passed she realized that he wasn’t coming. She made her way out the roadside entrance of the house and to the shed, but stopped before going in. By the trickle of steam rising from the coach’s vents, she could see that the boiler wasn’t ready—and neither was Thom. He stood at the side of the coach, his hands braced against the aluminum frame supporting the roof. His head hung down between his arms, eyes closed and face rigid.

Feeling as if she were intruding, Georgiana hesitated. Telling her that he wanted to separate had been hard for him. Her husband was a man of few words, but Georgiana had never seen him have any trouble finding them. Yet when he’d said he was leaving, Thom almost hadn’t gotten the words out.

That difficulty had been a surprise in a morning of surprises. She’d never thought his character was a mystery. He was quiet, sturdy. Calm and controlled, not given to strong emotion. And what Georgiana had known of him, she’d loved. But she was realizing that she hadn’t known her husband at all.

He was a man of few words. But he was also a man of powerful emotions.

And she shouldn’t be wondering what those emotions were. They’d agreed. Separation was best. But she couldn’t help wanting to look under the surface of Thom’s quiet facade now that she knew much more lay beneath it.

How much had she known of him before? A substantial amount, she’d thought. She knew that he’d been born in England just over thirty years ago, when that country had still been occupied by the Horde. He’d grown up in a crèche, like an orphan, though his parents had probably still been alive. But they wouldn’t have been parents as Georgiana knew them—just a man and a woman caught in a mating frenzy produced by radio signals broadcasted from the Horde’s controlling tower. Thom had been taken from his mother at birth and raised with other children, and when he was a young man, his occupation had been determined for him. His arms had been replaced by skeletal iron, and hydraulic braces across his back and chest offered additional hauling power. Then he’d been sent to work on the Horde’s fishing boats.

Thom had never spoken of that history. She only knew of it because, before her father had hired him on as chief mate, Thom told him that he had experience hauling nets. The arms and his braces had been self-evident. The rest of it was the same awful story shared by so many laborers during the Horde’s occupation, so Georgiana assumed the same was true for him.

And because of his silence, she’d also assumed that Thom hadn’t wanted to speak of his past. So she hadn’t wanted to hurt him by dredging up terrible memories simply to satisfy her curiosity.

But perhaps she should have. Perhaps she would have had a better understanding of the man who would be her husband. Perhaps she would have better understood why he’d left each time. He’d wanted to bring something back to her.

And that sounded exactly like her father.

With a sigh, she glanced up at the house. Georgiana had been a young girl when her father had tired of the crowded landscape and overfished waters of Prince George Island, as well as the disapproval of his wife’s well-to-do family. He’d left the English territories in the Americas and brought Georgiana and her mother here, to the very tip of the Jutland Peninsula, where the North Sea met the Baltic. He’d built their new home on a stretch of flat beach two miles from the nearest house, a home unlike any of those in town, but in the style her mother had grown up in. Three steep gables contained windows overlooking the sea. A widow’s walk surrounded the chimney, and on fine days her mother had abandoned the windows of her room to search the horizon from the roof, instead.

Georgiana loved Henry Tucker. He’d been a wonderful father, a good man.

But he’d been a terrible husband.

So had Thom. Except . . . he’d obviously been trying to be a good one. They’d simply had opposite ideas about how to go about it. He’d wanted to do the right thing by her. Maybe she should have asked before they were married what he considered right.

But Georgiana hadn’t. Not really. Theirs had been a smooth courtship. He appealed to her. She had appealed to him. And she’d liked him, in every way. Her father had approved of the match, no doubt lining Thom up as his successor. They’d known each other three years before they’d married, but they hadn’t been delayed by doubts or hesitation. Thom had simply been gone—away on whaling expeditions. He’d spent months at a time on a ship with her father. There was no question how he’d formed such strong notions about a husband’s duties.

Each time he’d returned, however, they hadn’t spoken of that. He’d told her of the oddities and dangers he’d seen while at sea. She’d told him of the town, the people who lived there—always trying to make him laugh, and so gratified when he had. She’d asked his opinion of everyone they knew, to judge the sort of man he was, how he saw others.

But she hadn’t asked Thom about himself. She hadn’t asked what he wanted from their marriage or what he expected of her. He’d asked what would make her happy. She’d never asked the same question in return.

Now they were on their way to dissolve their marriage. But the fault wasn’t all his. It was hers, too, for failing to ask so many questions.

Georgiana didn’t like knowing that. And she wasn’t sure what to do, now that she did know—or whether she should do anything at all. Perhaps it would still be best to continue on to the magistrate’s, and be done with the wreck they’d both made of their marriage.

In the shed, Thom pushed away from the coach. The thin eddies of steam had begun to billow. He walked toward her through them, like a large ship emerging from fog. “I’d have come for you when the engine was ready.”

“I thought I might enjoy a few extra moments of sun.” And the way it glinted in his dark hair.

Nodding, he said, “Best enjoy it while you can. We won’t have much of it today.”

“That is what you said on every walk we took,” she reminded him with a curve of her lips. “You were always wrong.”

And they’d walked often. On the road to town, along miles of beach—close to his side, her arm occasionally brushing against his, and every part of her feeling heavy and light all at once, as if her body hadn’t known how to settle when Thom was near.

“Wait and see,” he said with a slight smile. “Maybe I’ll prove you wrong this time.”

Maybe he would, at that. “If you’re right, at least we have the coach.”

He glanced back at the canvas-topped vehicle. “Did you buy it?”

“Yes.”

“So you don’t always trust the sun.”

She laughed and shook her head. “Not at all between October and March. And I go into town more often now. There is little time for leisurely walks.”

Very little time at all. Her friends had urged her to move into Skagen so she wouldn’t have to make that journey every day. It would have been more practical. Her offices were there, and the expense of the wiregram lines she’d installed to connect her business to her home—and the cost of repairing them after every storm—could hardly be justified. No one waited for her at the house. But Georgiana couldn’t bring herself to leave it.

At first she’d worried that if Thom returned, he wouldn’t know where she’d gone. But after hope for his return had faded, she’d stayed, anyway. She loved the house. She loved the beach and the constant roar of the ocean. She loved being able to leave the town behind.

She also loved driving into town, because every day, she had a purpose there. In the steamcoach, her gaze was fixed on the road ahead of her instead of on the horizon.

And not every day was a sunny one. She appreciated the roof over her head.

She frowned a little. Thom wouldn’t have one.

“Where do you intend to stay tonight, Thom?”

He shook his head. “I’ll figure something.”

“You don’t need to. Stay at the house until we have everything settled. I’ve room enough—and we’ll avoid the gossip in that way. I’ll open the upper bedrooms.”

“They’re not ready now?”

Not after Georgiana had become her mother, standing at the window and waiting. “No.”

His gaze searched her face. “I don’t want to give you trouble.”

“It’s no trouble. I’ll leave a note for Marta.”

He exhaled on a sharp breath, looked out over the sea. Debating. After a quiet moment, he said, “I’d best not stay. You’ll be looking for a new husband soon. I’ll be in the way.”

“A new husband?” Surprise pushed a short laugh from her. “Why would I do that?”

“You have to have someone.”

She frowned at him. “You sound like my father. I did well enough on my own for four years.”

“You wanted children.”

Yes, she did. “Perhaps I’ll have those on my own, too.”

He didn’t respond, but his gloved hands clenched at his sides. That was the Thom she didn’t know well. The one who kept so much concealed.

She gave that hidden Thom a little push into the light. “Perhaps it won’t be long until I have a baby, if you stay tonight.”

His head jerked around, gaze locking with hers. He took a step before stopping to stare down at her, eyes burning blue. Georgiana’s breath caught. He’d looked down at her like that before. In bed, his arms braced beside her shoulders and his mouth carefully tasting her lips. Everything he’d done, so controlled—but that burning in his eyes had eventually been smothered by her tears. She’d known their lovemaking would hurt the first time, yet breaching her virginity had been even more painful and bloody than she’d expected. And the second time, she’d been so tense that his entry had hurt again, even though he’d been so careful and slow.

But the last time, he’d kissed her endlessly before finally lifting her nightgown to her waist and settling between her legs. There’d been discomfort, at first. Then just wetness and heat and Thom sliding back and forth inside her, and all of her body had been caught between the same sensation of heavy and light, but so much heavier, so much lighter. He’d been so slow and so careful, but she hadn’t been able to stop herself from moving beneath him, or the little noises that had welled up, so that she’d had to bite her lips to keep herself from begging him for . . . she hadn’t even known. Faster. Harder. Something more.

Now that same need rose inside her again—and he wasn’t even touching her.

And she wasn’t crying this time, but the burning in his eyes still went dark. “I don’t know how to be a husband, Georgie. I know even less about being a father.”

“I would be enough of a parent for any children.”

“And I should abandon them?”

“You abandoned me,” she pointed out, and the edges of his mouth whitened. She didn’t know if it was anger or hurt.

It was anger. His face hardened, cold steel that matched his voice. “Only because you asked me to.”

Georgiana gaped at him. “What?”

Through gritted teeth, he repeated harshly, “You asked me to. Don’t you—”

He abruptly stopped. Not controlling his emotions again, she realized. Something had changed. His gaze had fixed behind her, a frown slowly darkening his features.

“You have your pistol, Georgie?”

Oh, dear God. Without question, she dug into her bag, spinning around to scan the beach and road. Ravenous zombies roamed the continent, but they didn’t cross water. A shallow sound to the south prevented almost all of the creatures from venturing this far up the peninsula, but now and again one made it through and wandered into a town. In all of the years she’d lived here, none had come near her home or as far north as Skagen. Yet she always kept a pistol with her, nonetheless.

Nothing moved. She glanced up at Thom, saw that he’d focused on the sky—on an airship flying along the shoreline. A white balloon over a small wooden cruiser. Such airships were a common sight . . . except that it flew silently, using its sails instead of propellers. This far from town, there was little reason to stay so quiet, unless they didn’t want the engines to announce their approach.

“Thom?”

“The shed.” He didn’t wait for her to make sense of that. His arm wrapped around her waist and he hurried her through the humid clouds of rising steam and into the shed. “You have more bullets?”

“In the coach, under the bench.”

Heart pounding, she glanced at the airship again. Just a personal yacht or a small passenger ship, though by the gleam of its polished hull, a rather fine one. Why had the sight of it alarmed him? Who did he think was coming?

The clank of metal against metal turned her head. Thom had found the ammunition box, set it on the coach’s boot. He shoved his sleeve up over his steel left arm. With his opposite thumb, he flicked open a small panel on the inside of his forearm, revealing a cylindrical chamber. He began loading the bullets into his arm, one by one.

Georgiana’s lips parted in shock. What in the world? “Thom?”

“You hide, Georgiana. You stay in this shed, out of sight. No matter what.”

“Why? Who are they?”

“The same pirates that took Oriana.” He snapped the chamber in his arm closed and covered it with his sleeve. “Maybe they think I still have some of the coins. I don’t know. I’ll give them the last one and send them on their way.”

And if he truly thought they’d leave so easily, would he be telling her to hide? Georgiana wasn’t going to fall for that. “Thom.”

His jaw clenched. “Listen to me. He aimed a rail cannon at Oriana’s deck and came aboard, asking for the coin chest. I offered to give it over, even though it meant I wouldn’t be coming home with anything but my ship. He said he wouldn’t risk anyone else having a claim on the gold and shot me. So you stay here. I’ll try to stop them however I can. I won’t see you hurt, too. Let me do this one thing, and protect you.”

So Thom had given up the money, yet the pirate had put a bullet in him, anyway. And now he believed the pirate would kill him whether he gave the coin or not.

Georgiana wouldn’t allow it to happen. “Get in the coach, Thom.”

“We can’t outrun them.”

“No, but if we’re moving too quickly for them to get a good shot at us, perhaps we’ll stay out of their hands long enough to make it into town.” When he shook his head and turned away from her, as if intending to leave the shed, Georgiana clamped her hands around his wrist. “Some chance is always better than none.”

“And any risk to you is too much.” But his eyes narrowed, as if he was thinking it over again. “I’ll make a run in the coach alone. The airship will come after me. You send a wiregram to town, ask them to round up carts and send as many men as possible. When he sees them coming, the bastard might decide to fly off.”

Not by yourself. Georgiana closed her lips against that automatic response. If the pirates caught up to Thom, she didn’t want him to be alone. But she knew this was the most practical plan, and offered the best chance of keeping them both alive and safe.

Still, her throat tightened with worry and fear. “Be careful, Thom.”

“I will.” For a brief moment, his gloved hand cupped her jaw, his gaze softening as he looked down at her. “You wait for the airship to turn around before you come out of the shed.”

Georgiana nodded. Her heart an aching hammer in her chest, she stepped aside and watched Thom climb into the coach. The driver’s bench creaked under his weight. He engaged the engine and the vehicle rattled to life.

His eyes met hers through the plate-glass windshield. Then he was off on a great huff of steam, the coach quickly picking up speed. He reached the road and sped toward town, out of her sight.

Concealed by the shadows within the shed, Georgiana stood in an agony of tension, waiting for the airship’s sails to furl and draw in against the sides of the wooden cruiser. It flew less than a hundred yards from the shed now, but an airship couldn’t quickly turn around. It would take a few seconds to haul in the canvas.

The pirates must have realized they’d been spotted. The engines fired, breaking their silence with a heavy thrum across the sky. The propellers began a lazy spin.

Yet their heading didn’t change. They weren’t following Thom.

Perhaps he’d been wrong and they hadn’t been coming after him. Perhaps their appearance was only a coincidence, and they were headed to some other destination.

Georgiana couldn’t assume that, though. She had to prepare for the worst: that they had seen her outside earlier, and guessed that she’d remained behind.

But what sort of preparations could be made against pirates? She would be far outnumbered. She might be able to shoot one or two before they returned fire and killed her.

No, shooting meant certain death. She would only use her pistol as a last resort. If she waited, though . . . perhaps there would be some chance. Thom would alert the town. And she would fetch any pirate a healthy ransom, as long as he left her alive.

The engines became louder. Blocked by the roof, she lost sight of the airship as it neared the shed, but its oval shadow darkened the ground outside. Directly overhead now. Keep flying on, keep flying on. Her pulse pounded in her ears at a dizzying pace.

The rattle of chains sank her heart. The cargo platform was being lowered. Someone was coming down.

Oh, God. What to do now?

Only what she could. Straightening her shoulders and steeling her spine, Georgiana tucked her pistol into her reticule. She could reach it quickly enough. And if she was to be taken, perhaps they would assume that she only carried frivolous items and overlook the weapon.

A clank sounded beside the shed. The rattle of chains stopped. They’d lowered the platform to the ground out of her sight—either fearing that she’d shoot their legs as they came into view or concealing their numbers. Georgiana strained to hear anything more over the thrum of the airship’s engines.

In all the noise, the man who appeared at the shed entrance could have stomped his way there and she wouldn’t have heard him. Georgiana’s fingers tightened on her reticule. He didn’t hold a gun. That didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous.

And he must have been the nobby gent whom Thom had spoken of. Tall and wiry, with lightly tanned skin and brown hair tied back in a queue, he was smartly dressed for a pirate. His black silk waistcoat and buff breeches didn’t show any stains or signs of wear. His tall boots gleamed with high gloss.

He stepped into the shed and offered Georgiana a charming smile. “Mrs. Thomas, I presume.”

This gent could presume all he liked. Georgiana raised her voice over the airship’s thrum. “If you are seeking my husband, I must tell you he’s left.”

“He’s abandoned someone as beautiful as you? No. He’ll soon return.”

The pirate spoke in English, not the trader’s French commonly used with strangers. He had a Manhattan City accent—and though that city lay just across the river from Prince George Island, where her own family hailed from, each word he said marked his higher class and education.

Why would such a man resort to piracy? Georgiana couldn’t imagine. And she didn’t care to. She only wanted him gone.

“I’ve always looked the same, sir, yet my husband has managed to leave me before. He’s quite adept at it. He’s never been as good about returning.”

The pirate only shook his head.

His condescending smile irritated her. How could he be so certain?

Georgiana tried again. “If you are looking for the last gold coin, he took it with him. He said that you already possess the remainder.”

He nodded. “It’s true, I did possess them. And that is the problem, you see. Now I require your husband’s assistance, but I doubt he will gladly offer it. I need a guarantee that he will help me. So come on out, Mrs. Thomas. I prefer to have you aboard my flyer before he returns.”

Georgiana hesitated. If this pirate needed Thom’s help, that meant he needed her husband alive—at least for a short time. That might give them a chance to escape. Yet how could she trust the words of a pirate? She couldn’t.

But he didn’t leave her with any choice. The pirate drew a pistol from behind his back and leveled it at her chest. As if that were a signal, he was suddenly flanked by a pale-haired woman in trousers and a shorter man, his lips fixed in a leer. Both were armed with guns.

“Leave your reticule, Mrs. Thomas,” the pirate said, gesturing at it with a wave of his barrel. “Unless you’ve tucked a small child in there, nothing but a weapon would weigh down the bottom so much.”

Damn him. But she obeyed, dropping her satchel to the ground. If nothing else, its presence here might alert Marta or anyone who came to investigate Thom’s and her disappearance.

Because they would both soon be gone. As Georgiana exited the shed, she spotted her steamcoach tearing down the road toward them, leaving a thick trail of black smoke and steam.

Oh, Thom. He shouldn’t have returned. He should have continued on to Skagen and sought help. That would have been far more practical.

But Georgiana could not fault her husband for this. She would have come back for him, too.

THREE

The bastard had taken Georgiana.

Thom roared up to the shed at full steam and slammed to a stop. On the ground, a cargo platform waited to carry him up to the airship.

As if he’d bloody wait.

He grabbed the platform chain and hauled himself up, climbing hand over hand, trying to regain his control with every long pull. Not since the destruction of the Horde’s tower in England twelve years ago had so much wild rage and terror laid open his heart and clawed through his mind. Senseless with it, he’d killed dozens of the Horde soldiers who’d tried to quash the laborers’ rebellion with their weapons and vehicles, ripping their flesh apart with his iron hands, uncaring of the danger to himself.

Thom didn’t care for his own safety now, either—and given half a chance, he would tear every damned pirate aboard this airship apart.

But he couldn’t risk Georgiana being hurt.

He fought for control until his fear and anger were a cold storm inside him. With a final, powerful lunge, he swung over the gunwale and dropped to the wooden deck.

No one had a gun pointed at him. They didn’t need to.

The nobby bastard held a pistol to Georgiana’s side. Through the rage, relief hit Thom hard. She was all right—and she was furious. Green eyes bright with anger, her face flushed, and her mouth tightening when the pirate spoke.

“We meet again, Big Thom. As you see, I’ve had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of your lovely wife. I must confess that when I heard the talk in town that you’d been found on the beach with a coin in your pocket and a bullet in your side, I could hardly believe it. What healthy man could swim a full league through those waters, let alone one who is wounded? But with such an incentive to reach home, it is not so inconceivable after all.”

Thom dug the coin out of his coat. He flipped it across the distance separating them. The gold hit the boards with a dull clink and rolled before bumping into the toe of the bastard’s shining boot.

“That’s all we’ve got,” Thom said roughly. “Now let her go.”

“That coin is all I have now, too.” As he spoke, the nobby bastard glanced at a nearby aviator. With a slight roll of his eyes, the aviator bent to scoop up the coin, then dropped it into the bastard’s open hand. “I have need of your salvaging services, Big Thom. But considering our history and the danger of what I’ll be asking you to do, I want to ensure that you don’t offer any resistance.”

Using Georgiana to put Thom over a barrel. For her, he’d take anything. “I’ll do whatever you want. Just let her go home.”

“She’ll be coming with us. Mrs. Winch,” he spoke to a tall blond woman, “run down to the house and collect Mrs. Thomas’s things. A week’s worth ought to do it.” He glanced back at Thom. “I suppose your belongings were on your ship?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’ll have an opportunity to collect them. Don’t fear that we’ll treat you poorly. Mr. Blade will shortly escort you to the stateroom, where you’ll remain until we’ve reached our destination. You and your wife will be comfortable during your stay, and when you’ve finished your task, we’ll return you both to your home.”

By the bloody stars, Thom vowed to smash the teeth out of that lying bastard’s smile before this was over. “What task?”

“We’ll speak of it soon. Let us be on our way first. We’ve miles to go, and you have dangerous friends, Big Thom. We don’t want your absence discovered too quickly.”

We? The nobby bastard could speak for himself. Discovery couldn’t come soon enough.

But Thom doubted that help would come at all. It would be up to him to get Georgiana off this damned airship, and he would do anything to make sure it happened. Even if it destroyed him.

Because losing her would, anyway.

Georgiana held tight to Thom’s hand as they were escorted down the ladder to the second deck. The man showing them the way, Mr. Blade, was the same leering pirate who had come to the entrance of the shed, and as they walked, he kept prodding Thom’s back with the barrel of his gun. Thom didn’t react in the slightest, but only the danger of their position prevented Georgiana from whirling on the man. Fury dogged her every step along the corridor. Whatever niceties and manners the master of this airship pretended to have, the crew obviously did not share them.

Blade prodded them toward a cabin door at the far end of the passageway—toward the front of the vessel. Georgiana had never been on an airship before, but the narrow corridors and wooden bulkheads didn’t appear or sound much different from a sailing ship’s. The engines had been stopped while they’d waited for Thom, and from all around them came the creaking of boards and the noises of the crew. The sway was much different, however—as if they were swinging rather than rocking. Not badly enough to affect her balance, yet still disorienting.

They reached the cabin door. Blade gave Thom another prod.

“Go on through, the both of you. Lord Pinchpenny is playing captain, so he’s given you the fancy room. Don’t leave it unless someone’s come to get you.”

Lord Pinchpenny? That didn’t bode well. A crew member’s blatant disrespect for the master of a ship never did. But there was little here that did bode well.

The door closed behind them. Thom’s hard arms immediately surrounded her waist, pulled Georgiana tight against his broad chest. She clung to him, his warmth and the strong beat of his heart soothing away some of her anger and fear.

Almost as quickly, he stepped back and swept his gaze from her head to her toes. “You’re all right?”

“I am. Oh, Thom. Who is this man?”

He shook his head. “No idea. But he’s not a pirate, as I thought.”

“Not a pirate? He stole your coins and your ship.”

And Georgiana wasn’t surprised that Lord Pinchpenny had heard all about Thom in Skagen. She was only surprised that he’d flown there. Pirates avoided the harbor, preferring rum dives and lawless cities like Port Fallow. Georgiana could only recall one pirate coming into town—Mad Machen, in his search for Ivy Blacksmith.

“He stole them, just as a pirate would,” Thom agreed. “But look at this cabin, Georgie. This isn’t a pirate ship.”

She’d barely had a moment to look. Turning, she saw that Thom was probably right. Roughly triangular to accommodate the shape of the bow, with a personal privy cabinet taking the point, the stateroom abounded in luxuries. Deep rugs of blue and cream covered the deck boards. Sunlight streamed through two thick glass portholes, twice the diameter of any she’d ever seen in a ship. A table large enough to seat four stood beneath one of the portholes, and a settee upholstered in blue damask lay beneath the other. A full-sized bed topped by a fine, pale blue counterpane sat flush against the port bulkhead, and there was still room enough for a wardrobe and washstand.

She glanced at the rugs again. Only someone who thought nothing of cleaning would ever put a pale color on the floor. This was a wealthy man’s personal vessel. Perhaps the pirates had stolen this as well, but if so, they likely wouldn’t have kept this cabin waiting for passengers.

“But what of the crew?” she wondered. A motley bunch. She hadn’t seen even one liveried servant. “They don’t fit here.”

“They don’t. Blade said that the nobby gent was playing captain.” Thom strode to the starboard porthole and looked out. “I’m thinking that he put the regular crew off and hired mercenaries.”

A cold slip of fear trickled down Georgiana’s spine. She’d have preferred pirates. Most of them operated by a code. They would kidnap and steal and murder, but in trade for ransom, they’d usually leave most captives alive. She might have been able to negotiate that.

But mercenaries had no code except the cash they received from their employers. And anyone who kept a personal flyer probably had more at his disposal than Georgiana did.

“If he hired mercenaries,” she said, “then he had a job in mind.”

Eyes cold, Thom glanced back at her. “Yes.”

A job that he didn’t want his regular crew to be involved in . . . or to know about. Such as boarding a salvage ship and shooting her captain.

“Whatever his purpose, he needs to keep you alive for it,” Georgiana said. “And he will keep me alive to see that you perform it. While he does that, we’ll watch for a chance to escape.”

As she spoke, the engines started again, the thrum humming through the airship. The boards vibrated under her feet. Flying away from home.

She fought the panic that fluttered in her belly. They would come back home. Alive.

As if seeing her distress, Thom returned to her side. Earlier when he’d looked down at her, his face had been gentle. Now determination hardened each bold feature. “I won’t let any harm come to you. We will escape.”

Nodding, she desperately tried to think of how they would. Her gaze fell to his gloved hands. “You put bullets in your arm—do they function as guns?”

His lips twitched. “Among other things.”

His humor sparked her own, and she grinned up at him. Her husband was a man of surprises. Of course he couldn’t shoot anyone now, just as she hadn’t dared to fire her pistol. They would have to wait for the right moment. When the time came, however, hopefully these mercenaries would be surprised by her husband, as well.

A sharp knock sounded at the cabin door. Before they could respond, it opened and the pale-haired woman in trousers came through carrying a bundle of Georgiana’s clothing. A mercenary, too, most likely, though it wasn’t the daggers or gun tucked into her belt that made Georgiana think so. It was the flatness of her gaze and the firm set of her mouth. Georgiana had seen that look in the mirror. This was a practical woman who would do what was necessary when it needed to be done, but who never forgot her own interests. Georgiana and Thom wouldn’t find any help here.

“Mrs. Winch?” Georgiana recalled that Lord Pinchpenny had said the woman’s name. “Can you tell us where we’re headed?”

“Out to sea.” She dropped the bundle on the bed. “I won’t tell you more.”

That was enough for now. “Thank you.”

Out to sea. Escape might be more difficult, but it could have been worse. She looked to Thom when Mrs. Winch closed the cabin door behind her. “Well, it is better than flying to the continent and trying to salvage among zombies. You’re a good diver.”

Thom nodded, but she knew what he was thinking: the sea held dangers just as terrifying as zombies were. But he truly was a good diver. He knew to be careful beneath the waters.

She was more concerned about the dangers on this airship.

“Which of your friends does he believe will come for us?” But even as Georgiana asked, she realized the answer. Lord Pinchpenny had known about Thom washing up on the beach, so he’d obviously talked up someone in Skagen. He’d have heard the same rumors in town that she had. “Mad Machen? Lady Corsair?”

Thom shook his head. “They’re not friends of that sort. Even if they were near enough to hear that we’d been taken, I don’t imagine they’d rush to a rescue.”

“But they are acquaintances?”

“Yes.”

“Such company you keep, Thom.” So surprising. But as much as she would like for him to continue surprising her, they couldn’t afford to miss any opportunity to gain an advantage. Ignorance of any sort could only harm them now. “So tell me of this treasure, and why he believes that the most notorious of pirates and mercenaries would come for you.”

Thom moved to the porthole, keeping an eye on the sun’s position and trying to estimate their heading. North by northwest, for now. Nothing lay ahead of them but the sea and the gray clouds piled up on the horizon.

He glanced back at Georgie, who was waiting for him to speak—and hanging up her dresses in the wardrobe. Even with all of this pressing on her, she did what needed to be done.

Thom was the same. But everything he’d ever done seemed like a fool’s path now. Leaving England, to start. He hadn’t even known what he’d wanted then—he’d only known what he didn’t want.

He didn’t want to live under the Horde’s boot. He didn’t want to work for nothing. He didn’t want to be an animal, or anything less than his own man.

Then he’d met Georgiana, and he’d known. He wanted to be in her bed. He wanted to be her husband. He wanted to be a man for her, the only man she’d ever need.

And if Thom hadn’t wanted her, if he hadn’t made her his, Georgiana wouldn’t be here now.

But she was. Now the only thing that needed to be done was seeing her make it safely away.

Thom wouldn’t be doing it alone, though. He’d rather have her anywhere else, but he was grateful for that. Georgiana was clever and practical—and she was right. They needed to figure out exactly what advantages they had and why this bastard had come after him, so it’d be easier to spot lies that might get them killed.

So he started at the beginning of it all. “Two years ago, Mad Machen came to Oriana looking to borrow a diving suit. His blacksmith was going down in a submersible she’d built, retrieving a lockbox of Lady Corsair’s that had ended up in the bottom of the harbor at Port Fallow. He wanted someone under the water to help out if she got into trouble.”

“That was Ivy Blacksmith?”

An odd note in her voice made Thom glance back. She’d stopped beside the bed, holding a pink dress and looking at him.

“You sound fond of her,” she added softly.

“I am.” But he shook his head. “Whatever you’ve heard, it wasn’t more than that.”

“What was it?”

A weight settled in his chest. How much of this should he reveal? They were separating. None of it mattered now.

And he might soon be dead. Nothing mattered at all now except for Georgie.

“She was the closest I’d come to staying with you.”

Her dark eyebrows pinched together. “What?”

“Ivy was like me. Born under the Horde. Given a sweeper’s arms instead of a hauler’s apparatus, but the same. And she left England when she could, but now she has arms of mechanical flesh.”

A frown creased her forehead. “I still don’t understand.”

“I wanted arms like that. I couldn’t afford them.” Salvaging was hardly a lucrative business, and the one man who could create flesh made out of metal fibers and nanoagents charged a small fortune for each limb. “But seeing those arms on Ivy made getting them seem more possible. And that made the possibility of coming back to you seem a little closer.”

“Why would you need those to come back to me?”

Anger and hurt dug into his heart, sharp and hard. “You asked me to hold you in my arms every night, Georgie. I had iron bars.”

And he’d never thought much of it until leaving England. Prosthetics were as common as noses there. But not around the North Sea—and he’d known that she hadn’t envisioned a man holding her in an iron cage.

Yet he’d promised. He hadn’t cared if it meant getting newer, better arms. That suited him. Making her happy suited him even more. He just hadn’t known it would take so long.

But Georgiana damn well shouldn’t pretend that she hadn’t asked him to do it.

Now she stared at him, her face absolutely still. After a long second, she whispered, “I did say that.”

“You did.”

“And that’s why you kept leaving?”

He gave a sharp nod. “I promised to make you happy.”

A wild little laugh burst from her and she sank onto the edge of the bed, clutching the pink dress to her chest. “You were hoping to earn enough for mechanical flesh.”

“Yes.” Because Thom hadn’t known that anyone could make prosthetics like he possessed now. Though not mechanical flesh, they were just as amazing in their own way.

“So you made their acquaintance in Port Fallow. And then?”

Thom hesitated. Her voice was strained. Her face had paled, but her eyes were bright, as if she held back tears.

“Georgie?”

She shook her head. “Staying or leaving isn’t so important now, Thom. How do you think the rumors began? Is there anything we can use as leverage against this man?”

Staying or leaving wasn’t important. For so long, it had been all that mattered. It didn’t now.

Thom pulled a chair from under the table and sat. “Ivy likes building things. I had experience diving. So about four months ago, Mad Machen sailed into Port Fallow’s harbor for a few weeks’ stay, and while she was there we made a trade. I’d tell her what I knew of diving in deeper waters, and she’d give me the first submersible she’d made. So we spent time together while she built a new one. But anything else?” He shook his head. “She’s a fine woman. But I haven’t had eyes for anyone but you, Georgie. And she doesn’t have eyes for anyone but Mad Machen.”

“For the pirate? But I thought he abducted her. Forced her to work on his ship.” Her green eyes hardened. “Forced her into his bed.”

“That’s what people say, but I asked her once if she wanted help getting away. She said no. And I never saw anything that made me think he’d hurt her.”

Instead, he knew exactly what the man felt when he looked at her. Thom was feeling the same now, looking at Georgiana. There was the woman he’d kill for, die for—and do both without a single regret.

“Truly?”

He nodded. “Considering what she’s capable of building, Georgie, she could have gotten away a long time ago. If she’d wanted to.”

Her expression thoughtful, Georgiana rose from the bed and hung up the pink dress. “He has a terrifying reputation.”

“And he’s earned it. He is a madman.”

“A dangerous man.” She joined him at the table, skirts swaying with each step, sweeping her flowery scent around them. “But you weren’t worried?”

Thom shrugged. “After watching a megalodon swim by when I was a hundred feet below the surface, mad pirates don’t seem much of a threat.”

Unless they pointed a gun at Georgie. Even a giant armored shark couldn’t terrify him as much as seeing her in danger.

Smiling, she took the nearest chair. The sun shining through the porthole caught the reds in her hair like sparks of fire and deepened the shadow beneath her soft bottom lip. Her gaze fell to his arms. “So they truly were a gift?”

“Yes. Ivy said it was in trade, too.” Though they were worth far more than any help he’d given.

“She sounds very generous. And amiable.”

“She’s both.”

“The rumor is that she’s a little mad, too.”

“Considering that she gave me these arms for nothing, I’d say there was some truth to that,” he said, and her laugh in response lifted through him. “Though I never put much stock in rumors.”

“I don’t, either.” Her smile faded. Steadily, her gaze held his. “But it’s sometimes difficult to ignore them, when a rumor is the only news of your husband that you receive.”

Throat suddenly thick, Thom nodded. He’d done wrong by her in that. The easy excuse had always been that he couldn’t read and write, anyway. But he could have had a message sent. Thom just hadn’t been able to make himself tell her that he still had nothing. And the longer he’d gone without a message, the harder it had become to send.

But that soft admonishment was all she said of it. “And these coins? How did you find them?”

“While I was in Port Fallow, working with Ivy on that submersible, I ran into Lady Corsair again. We met on Mad Machen’s ship and she invited me up to her skyrunner for a dinner.”

Georgiana stared at him. “You had dinner with Lady Corsair.”

With a grin, Thom nodded. The disbelief in her voice wasn’t that of someone wondering whether he lied. His wife was wondering whether he’d gone mad, too. Maybe for good reason. A mercenary, Lady Corsair’s reputation was even more ruthless than Mad Machen’s.

“And while we were eating, Archimedes Fox told me—”

“Archimedes Fox!” Now she laughed. “He’s not a real man. He’s a character in those adventure stories.”

“All of them based on his salvaging runs.” Though it wasn’t the type of salvaging that Thom did. Instead of recovering recent wreckage, Fox risked the zombies in the abandoned cities of Europe, searching for treasures. That risk had paid off for him, too. “Much of it’s true. Especially the bit about his colorful clothes—I nearly go blind every time I look at him.”

She laughed again. “Truly?”

“Yes,” he said. “His sister writes the stories. She lives in Fladstrand.”

Not far from Skagen. Georgiana’s eyes widened slightly. “I heard that Lady Corsair flew into that town a few times—and that Fox’s sister was kidnapped last year. But I thought it was all part of another story.”

“They didn’t tell me anything about that. Fox was more interested in talking about a wreck that might be worth diving. It was more than two hundred years old, and he said it was just waiting for any man who could dive deep enough for it—and that in a wreck so old, I wouldn’t have to worry about anyone claiming ownership of anything I found.”

He’d also said that others had died searching for it. But Thom hadn’t thought there was anything to lose by trying.

He’d been wrong. Though he’d found the treasure, there’d been everything to lose.

“How deep was it?”

“Fox didn’t know for certain. Just deep enough that no one had found it yet, though his research had given him a good idea of its location. But it was just over three hundred feet.”

“Three hundred feet!” Georgiana shot out of her chair, her hands flying to her head as if to keep her brains from exploding. “Thom! What the hell were you thinking?”

She was right to be angry. That dive had hit him harder than any other, making him dizzy under the water, and feeling as if every joint in his body would snap apart after he’d come up, despite a slow ascent. In her place, he’d have been shouting, too.

But foolish or not, his answer was the same. “I was thinking that I had new arms, but that I didn’t have anything else to bring back to you. It seemed worth the try.”

Her lips compressed and she turned away from the table, arms crossing beneath her breasts. Those soft mounds rose and fell sharply a few times before she nodded. “Where was it?”

“Off the eastern coast of Ireland.”

She glanced back at him, baffled. “Ireland?”

“It was the wreck of the Resolution.” That was met with a blank expression. “It was the ship that the Irishmen fired on when the Horde first invaded.”

Her eyes slowly rounded in realization. She knew the story, then. Thom hadn’t until Archimedes Fox had told him. It was apparently common knowledge among the descendants of the Englishmen who’d fled Britain for the Americas—and a sore point between everyone living in Ireland and Manhattan City. But not in England. Those who’d lived under the Horde hadn’t known anything of the incident. And truth was, Thom didn’t care enough to hold a grudge now. He could see both the horror of what had been done, and he could see the sense of it, too.

Two hundred years ago, a good number of Englishmen had been infected by the Horde’s sugar and tea. And when the radio signal had begun broadcasting, a good number of people suddenly had their emotions dampened. They’d become pliable, obedient.

A good number of people, but not all of them. Those who could had tried to flee, but there’d been no airships then. The only escape lay across the water—and Ireland was the nearest destination that wasn’t teeming with zombies.

The people on the first ships to Dublin had been allowed to disembark. But those ships had been full of panic and rumors of infection, and the city had recently lost a large number of its population to a plague, so the Irish had set up a blockade at the mouth of the bay and began ordering new arrivals to turn away. The English refused, and soon the sea had been teeming with boats waiting for entry, some of the passengers taking the risk of rowing to shore or attempting to sail farther along the coast—until the Lord Mayor of Dublin had ordered cannons to fire on the largest ship, Resolution, as a warning of what would happen to them all if they didn’t leave.

The drastic action had the desired effect, but that hadn’t been the only ship sunk. Several dozen that left Dublin had also been lost in the North Sea and while trying to cross the Atlantic.

“Fox told me that, aside from the fishing boats, most of those who’d managed to escape England only did because they could afford to go—and that all of the valuables they took with them had likely sunk, too.”

“The Irish always denied it ever happened,” Georgiana said.

“But people saw it, talked about it, wrote letters about it. Some painted the scene later. Fox had studied the letters and pictures, and told me where to find it.”

“And you did.” Her admiring look sent heat rushing under his skin. “Were only the coins left?”

“I don’t know.” Thom hadn’t stayed down long enough to look for anything else. “As soon as I saw the chest, I knew it would be enough. There were five thousand coins in it.”

Georgiana’s mouth opened. No sound came out. She plopped back into her chair, looking astounded.

Thom imagined he’d looked the same when he’d first come across the chest. “Fox had given me the name of a salvage dealer in Brighton. So I took one of the coins in. He called it a Carolus Broad—one of the last English coins minted before the invasion. He said he’d had a collector eager to know if any came in. He gave me that collector’s offer, but also told me that the offer was lower than the value of the gold itself, and that, considering where I’d found them, I could take in more at auction or ask for a higher price. I wanted to bring the coins to you first, anyway, so I told the dealer to make his inquiry and send word to me in Skagen.”

“So you were coming home with a chest of gold,” she said softly.

“Enough to buy mechanical flesh if these arms wouldn’t do.”

Her chest hitched. “Oh, Thom. They would have.”

But he’d been too late, either way. He’d had these arms when she’d agreed to separate. “At least it was something worth bringing home. Something I could have given you when I left.”

“The gold?”

He nodded. “That’s a husband’s duty: earning enough to support his family.”

“‘And a man doesn’t deserve to come home unless he’s done it.’ Yes, so I’ve heard my father say.” She rose to her feet and paced a few steps, rubbing her forehead with the tips of her fingers—a gesture Thom had seen many others make when they were frustrated or tired, though he’d never formed the habit himself. Skeletal iron fingers didn’t smooth away tension well.

She faced him again, eyes narrowed. “Was this salvage dealer the only man who knew you’d found the coins?—but you met him before. So the dealer is not the same man as on this airship.”

“The collector he contacted knew, too.”

“You increased the price. Maybe it was more than the collector could pay—or he realized that hiring a band of mercenaries would cost far less.”

That would fit. “So he came to take it rather than make another offer.”

Georgiana nodded, blew out a sharp breath. He could imagine what she was thinking—the man had tried to kill him rather than make another offer, too. This task he wanted Thom to do probably wouldn’t end any differently.

Her eyes met his for a long minute before she stepped closer to his chair. Her hand lifted to his face. Just a gentle touch, her fingertips sliding over his bearded jaw, but need slapped him hard, turning his body into one thick ache. Hanging at his sides, his hands clenched to fists. He wouldn’t grab her, haul her onto his lap. He wouldn’t take her sweet mouth with his.

But smoking hells, he wanted to. And Georgiana had to see it. Her gaze was arrested on his face, her lips parting. Her fingers had stilled on his jaw, then her focus dropped and he felt the light brush of her thumb against the corner of his mouth.

“Georgie,” he said roughly.

Her eyes closed. With a sigh, she turned her face away, her gaze sliding around the stateroom. “We need to search this cabin,” she said. “Maybe we’ll find something to aid in our escape.”

Always practical, his Georgie. And she was right. He nodded against her hand.

“Let’s look, then.”

FOUR

The search needed to be done, but it was also a mindless task, and Georgiana desperately needed the time to think on everything that Thom had told her.

Her husband was such a good man. A far more fascinating man than she’d realized. And knowing why he’d stayed away left Georgiana ashamed and angry at herself now.

She had asked him to hold her in his arms every night. Of course, she hadn’t meant it so literally—and the important part hadn’t been his arms, but that he would be there every night.

She’d been so thoughtless. Cruelly and selfishly so. Why had she never imagined how such words might sound to a man whose arms had been replaced with iron? And she’d never explained what she’d meant, or why it mattered, so that he wouldn’t mistake her meaning. She hadn’t told him of her mother. Why had she assumed that he would know exactly what she’d wanted? As if it had been his responsibility to perfectly interpret her every thought and desire.

Oh, and this was the very worst time to think about whose fault it was that her marriage had fallen apart. What did any of it matter if they didn’t survive this? She had to be clever and focus on their escape, not think of the past.

She had to be clever. Even a few days ago, Georgiana would have said she was. Also sensible and intelligent. Her lack of understanding of the man she’d married dealt a shattering blow to that belief. Her gaze had been so limited and narrow. Searching the horizon for his ship, but never seeing anything but herself.

With a heavy sigh, she pulled open the final drawer in the writing desk. Nothing there. Either wealthy people didn’t keep anything that could be used as a weapon in their staterooms, or this cabin had already been cleared out.

Holding the mattress angled up with one hand, Thom turned away from his examination of the bed frame. “Nothing?”

“No. If I were more clever, I would know how to make an escape balloon with the lamp and the skirts cut from my dresses. I’d sew them together and we’d fly off.”

“I’ll be glad to take a ride under your skirts, Georgie.”

“Thom!” So outrageous. And wonderful. She blushed and laughed, shaking her head.

His response was a grin that she felt down to her toes. A man of few words, but he didn’t need many. He could lift her from sorrow and shame with the widening of his mouth and a laughing flash of his teeth.

Why had he never teased her in such a bold way before? Was this new—or another part of him that he’d hidden? Wherever it stemmed from, she hoped he would continue. Forever, if possible. But forever could only happen if they escaped.

And after they did, Georgiana was determined to win her husband back.

If she could. He’d wanted to stay—but he’d intended to leave her, anyway. He’d thought himself a failure as a husband. That hadn’t changed. He probably still intended to leave; and maybe he would. But whether he stayed or left, Georgiana would do everything she could to prove that he hadn’t failed at anything.

Thom let the mattress flop back to the frame. “There’s nothing here, either. But looking at you, I don’t doubt we’ll figure out something.”

Her determination must have been apparent on her face. As well it should. She was determined to get through this.

Her gaze fell to his arms. Thom and she weren’t completely without weapons. And Thom wore gloves, sleeves. Lord Pinchpenny probably knew of the prosthetics, but he likely didn’t know that they weren’t the typical skeletal sort, or what was hidden beneath.

Even she didn’t completely know. “But you have a gun?”

“Yes.”

“What else?”

“Anything I might need underwater or hauling sail alone. A diving knife. Cables. Grapples. Clamps.”

All useful, but Georgiana’s mind couldn’t work past the initial part. “Hauling sail alone? What of your crew?”

Not a large crew. Just two other men. If their trip into town had gone as planned, Thom would have given their names to the magistrate, listing them lost at sea—though they might both still be on Oriana. A pirate would kill a captain, but he needed someone to sail a stolen ship.

Thom shook his head. “About two years ago, I rigged her so that I could handle her alone. With no crew to pay, I could send more of my earnings to you.”

And he’d thought that amount wasn’t a lot, but it must have cost him so much more than the money he’d sent. The past two years, as alone on his boat as she’d been at home—but sailing and diving were far more dangerous. Anything could have happened to him and there’d have been no one to help.

Her heart twisted. She could have changed that. She’d sent out messages to Thom when her mother and father had died. Not knowing where he was, she’d sent them to towns and harbors where she knew he’d been. But when he hadn’t replied, she hadn’t tried again.

She could have. A few more messages, a few months later. Eventually, he’d have received one. But she’d been so angry and stubborn and hurt.

Thoughtless and cruel. Angry and stubborn. Georgiana was not liking this new view of herself at all. He had not been a failure of a husband, but she might have been a failure as a wife. And she understood why, feeling this way, he’d want to leave. Because now Georgiana wasn’t certain that she deserved to keep a man like Thom, either.

But she had to try. And also try to be something that she’d thought she was: just a little bit clever. Because she wouldn’t lose him again. Not like this.

The vibrations under her feet changed subtly, the thrum of the engine deepening. Frowning, Thom crossed the cabin.

“We’re slowing,” he said.

She joined him at the porthole, looking out. Only water. No ships. “We’re going to need a boat when we escape,” she said. “He said that you’d be able to retrieve your belongings. I’d hoped that meant wherever we were going, we’d see Oriana there.”

“I did, too.”

They both turned at the knock. This time, the door didn’t open until Thom answered it. Blade stood in the passageway. Not leering now. Perhaps he wasn’t brave enough to do it in front of her husband, just as he’d only prodded Thom in the back behind the safety of a loaded gun. If so, he was the worst kind of coward—a mean one.

“His majesty says to come on up. But the missus stays here.”

Thom glanced back at her. Georgiana nodded.

“I’ll be fine. You’d best find out what he wants.”

A cold wind scraped across the upper deck, whistling past the cables tethering the balloon overhead. Coming off the ladder, Thom turned up the collar of his wool coat. Blade pointed him to the starboard side, where the nobby gent stood, looking down at the water. Thom started across, his gaze sweeping the deck. Near the stern, two clinker-built cutters hung on pulleys beneath the balloon. Lifeboats, capable of holding twenty. Thom only needed to seat two.

He looked south, squinting away the tears the wind whipped from his eyes. No land on the horizon.

Bundled in a thick scarf and wearing goggles, his nose red from cold, the nobby gent glanced up when Thom reached the side. “There you are. Have you settled in comfortably, then?”

Comfortable? What the hell did that matter? “What do you want with me?”

With a sudden grin, the bastard nodded. “You’re a direct man. I trust that I can be as well.”

He already had been. “There’s nothing more direct than a bullet.”

“I suppose not. But I should have taken a few moments before pulling the trigger to ask where you’d hidden the chest. I assumed—falsely, as it turns out—that I would have an opportunity to search your ship and find it. But at the time, I was more concerned with sailing your ship away from the coast, where it might be recognized.” He sighed and looked down at the water again, and Thom saw a round buoy rolling on the swells. “My men didn’t know how to handle your rigging. She capsized and went under right here.”

He’d stolen Oriana, only to sink her the next day? Thom’s hearty laugh rang across the deck.

“I’m not insensible of the irony, Mr. Thomas,” the bastard said, still smiling. He paused. Behind the clear lenses of his goggles, his eyes narrowed. “No. It’s not Mister Thomas, is it? Just Thomas. No one in the Horde’s laboring classes knew their family names.”

They didn’t know any family, either. “We didn’t.”

“Your single name is refreshing, in truth. So many of the others take such ridiculous names. Strongarm. Screwmaster. Blade.” His lip curled. “Longcock.”

“I think they’ve earned the right to call themselves whatever they damn well please.”

“Perhaps they did, at that.” He regarded Thom thoughtfully. “Your wife took your name as hers. How did you earn that, I wonder? An infected man with no education, no history, no family. No arms.”

“I have two right here.” He’d always had arms. They just hadn’t always been made of flesh and bone.

“Arms that the Horde gave you? I’ve seen their like.”

No, he hadn’t. But Thom didn’t bother with an answer.

The gent smiled faintly, as if amused by Thom’s silence. “You haven’t asked me who I am.”

Because it didn’t matter. “You’re the man who’s holding my wife hostage in exchange for gold. That’s all I need to know.”

Being shot, losing Oriana—Thom could let those go. Not the threat to Georgiana.

“Fair enough. Especially as the name I’ll have will depend on those coins.” All trace of amusement fled his face. “And all that I need to know of you? You’re a man who can haul and dive. I want those coins back. You’re going to get them for me.”

And so now Thom knew something else about the nobby bastard. This man would look at him and his arms and anyone else who’d lived under the Horde, and think they were all lower than shit. But he’d use them, anyway, if they served his purpose.

So Thom was back to being under someone’s boot. But he wouldn’t be working for nothing. This would be for Georgiana’s life.

And it might take his own life. His gaze scanned the horizon again. No telling how far out they were. But it was farther out than he usually dove. “Did you plumb the depth?”

“Sixty-five fathoms.”

“Impossible,” Thom said flatly. That was almost four hundred feet.

“Not for you. The infected are less prone to the divers’ disease.”

“But not immune to it, and there’s more than that to worry about. Any deeper than a hundred, and even men with bugs can black out, like they’re swimming drunk. I’ve felt a bit of that myself. What you’re asking is a hundred feet farther than I’ve ever gone, and that was deeper than I should have.”

“Deeper than you should have, yet you’re alive now. So you could have gone deeper.” The bastard stepped back, his hand dropping to the pistol tucked into his belt. “I will keep it simple for you, Big Thom. Dive for the gold, or you’ll watch me put a bullet in your wife’s head. Then I’ll put one in yours.”

Rage swallowed any response Thom could have made. Only sheer will kept him in place—and fear of what would happen to Georgiana if he ripped this bastard apart where he stood. The Winch woman had been standing guard outside the stateroom door when he’d left. If Thom did anything here, he wouldn’t be able to get back to Georgiana in time to save her.

“Return to your cabin now. Talk to your wife. Sleep on your decision, if you must. But at sunrise, you’re going into the water. Your only choice is whether you’ll be dead or alive, and whether your wife goes with you.”

There was no decision to make. Georgiana was right: some chance was better than none. And if his submersible was still bolted to Oriana’s deck, maybe their chances would be better yet.

“I’ll dive,” he said. “So let me see the equipment you’ve got.”

Georgiana attempted to remain calm while Thom was gone, but she ended up pacing the floor until he returned. She didn’t wait for him to close the door before asking, “What does he want you to do?”

“Dive.”

She’d already guessed that. “Dive for what?”

“Oriana.”

His ship? Georgiana stared at him, expecting him to tell her it was a joke. But it was even funnier if true—and his grin told her that it was. She burst into laughter, shaking her head.

He unbuckled his coat, glanced around the stateroom. “I told them to bring me the suit and hose so that I can look them over. They’ll be coming with those and a tub.”

To make certain everything was watertight. “How deep is the wreck?”

“One hundred feet.”

Deep, though not horrifyingly so. And still dangerous. Most wrecks went down in the shallows, where giant eels and young sharks and sharp rocks threatened to tear into a man or into his air hose. The dangers of the open sea were not worse or better. Just different.

And now she watched Thom’s gaze slide away from her face, as if there were something he meant to conceal. But she could imagine what it was. “Did he threaten to kill me if you didn’t go down?”

His gaze snapped back to hers. “Yes. But I’ll kill him before he touches you.”

“I know.” That had never been in question. Knowing that he was diving for Oriana, however, raised another one. “Was your submersible aboard? Is there room enough for two?”

“Yes. And I was thinking the same.” Striding to the wardrobe, he hung his coat on a hook and dragged off his hat. His short hair stuck up every which way. He ran his gloved palm over his head once, as if to smooth down the strands. It didn’t help.

Well, she would not help him. Georgiana rather liked this wild look. “Do you think it’s a better option than a boat?”

“I do.”

“What of the megalodons? Sound will carry better through a metal hull. It might attract their attention.”

“She runs quiet. Just the propellers and whatever noise we make. But either way is a risk, boat or submersible. We have to decide which we like better.” His expression grave, he stopped close, looking down at her. “If we took a boat, it wouldn’t be anything for this airship to come after us. They’d spot us on the water and that would be the end of it. But if we’re under the surface, we’d be out of their sight.”

So they would have to weigh the uncertain chance of attack from an enormous shark against the certainty of being caught again. Georgiana knew which risk she’d rather take. “What of the air? Without another vessel, we couldn’t use a pump or hose.”

“We’d come up when we needed it, open the top hatch to let in the fresh air. Then go down again before they could catch up to us. It wouldn’t take long before they’d lost us completely.”

Georgiana nodded. “How will you bring it up from Oriana?”

“I wouldn’t have to. If she’s still full of air, she’ll pop up to the surface as soon as I release the bolts. The question would be when to dive for her.”

So that they could avoid anyone on the airship knowing they had a mode of escape. It would have to be at night—but that would make seeing anything underwater almost impossible.

A sharp knock sounded at the door. The equipment had arrived. They would have to discuss this more later.

For now, her only task would be to assist him in checking and rechecking every seal and valve, and every inch of that hose. Lord Pinchpenny would use a threat against her to make Thom go down. She would help make certain that he came back up alive.

FIVE

Lord Pinchpenny threatened their lives . . . then sent Mrs. Winch to invite them to dinner in his cabin.

Georgiana debated whether to refuse, and saw the same struggle in Thom. But in the end, refusal didn’t seem worth the risk, and she told Mrs. Winch that they would join him as soon as they’d washed up. With a sigh, she rose from her kneeling position beside the tub, where she and Thom had just rolled up their sleeves and begun running the long coil of air hose through the water to check for leaking bubbles.

With shorter sleeves and a bit of lace at the scooped neckline, her pink cotton dress seemed most suitable for dinner, but she wouldn’t wear it for Lord Pinchpenny’s sake. She only wanted to please Thom—and she changed into the dress to please Thom, too, though she wasn’t quite bold enough to face him after she unfastened the blue wool and stood in front of the wardrobe, clothed only in her chemise and stockings. Her cheeks felt as pink as her dress when she tugged everything into place, but the burning in his eyes when she turned around was worth every moment of embarrassment.

He must have watched her the entire time. When she’d left him by the tub, he’d been rolling down the right sleeve of his linen shirt. Though several minutes had passed, the left sleeve was still bunched up over his steel elbow.

She glanced at his hands. “You’d best finish covering those.”

The sound he made in response might have been a yes but emerged more like a primitive grunt.

Smiling, she moved to the mirror and began repinning her hair. In the reflection, she watched him pull on his woven gansey, followed by the gloves. Oh, but he was such a handsome, incredible man. Every part of her felt more alive when he was near.

And though Georgiana liked his hair wild, she would like this even more. “Have a seat. You could use a good combing.”

“I can do it.”

“I know. But I want to.”

That seemed good enough reason for Thom. But Georgiana’s true reason was that it gave her an excuse to move in between his knees when he sat on the edge of the bed, and stand with her body close to his. He would only have to lean forward to pillow his cheek upon her breast. His gaze had settled there instead, his lips parted, as if the shadow of her cleavage was an entrancing thing.

Her heart pounded. She slicked the wet comb through his thick hair, trying not to think of his mouth so near to the bare expanse of skin above her neckline, unable to think of anything else. Each breath she took seemed to tighten her bodice across her breasts, and she could hardly bear the ache at their tips. Thom must see how her nipples beaded beneath the cotton. But though she yearned for him to touch her, his hands had fisted at his thighs.

Now was not the time, anyway. Desperately, she searched for something to distract her. Anything. Such as dinner with Lord Pinchpenny. She wondered breathlessly, “Do you think that he put off his cook with the rest of the crew? He doesn’t seem like a man who will tolerate poor fare at his table.”

“He doesn’t.” Thom’s voice was rough. “But he also doesn’t seem a man who does anything by half.”

“Then he would have had to hire another for this job. A mercenary cook. I didn’t even realize there was such a thing, though I suppose all of the knives come in handy,” she said, and smiled when Thom laughed. That quiet rumble counted among her favorite sounds in all the world.

When his laugh faded, she felt his hand upon her hip. But not to pull her closer. It was a small touch of apology, instead. “I won’t be good company at dinner. I’d as soon kill him as talk to him.”

“I won’t care if you don’t speak a single word, Thom. You are always good company to me.” She used her fingers to smooth back a few dark strands near his temple, then sighed. “We should not delay much longer.”

“No. But I’ll need another minute before I’m decent.”

“Oh?” Then she saw the state of his trousers, and heat flooded her cheeks. “Thom!”

He laughed again at her admonishing tone—though the truth was, she did not mind a bit.

And she could use another minute, too.

The captain’s cabin also lay on the second deck, but at the stern rather than the bow. Squared off, the cabin was bigger than the triangular one, and whoever the usual captain was, that person had more sensible taste than displayed in the stateroom. A heavy brown curtain separated the main part of the room from the berth. Sturdy furnishings and dark woods gave the cabin a somber appearance. Paned windows overlooked the tall blades of the twin propellers, and beyond them, offered a view of the setting sun painting orange across the water in broad strokes.

Lord Pinchpenny was alone, reading by the glow of a small lamp. As they entered, he set the book aside and rose from his chair to greet them. “How lovely you look, Mrs. Thomas.”

“Thank you.” Her reply was stiff. She did indeed look well. But a single heated glance from Thom pleased her a thousand times more than flattery from this man ever could.

“Please, come and be seated. I cannot tell you how grateful I am that you’re here. I’ve longed for civilized conversation.”

He gestured to the table, a more formal setting than in their stateroom, and large enough to seat eight. Standing at the head, he pulled out the chair on his right.

Thom took it. He dragged the next seat back for Georgiana, keeping himself between her and Lord Pinchpenny.

Flattening her lips to stop her smile, Georgiana sat. Not much civilized conversation would be found with her husband—which was exactly how she liked him. Lord Pinchpenny didn’t attempt to conceal his amusement. He regarded Thom with a wide grin before looking to Georgiana again.

“By your accent, I believe we must have been almost neighbors once. You lived on Prince George Island?”

Near to Manhattan City, but in many ways, she couldn’t have been born any farther away from this man. They were most certainly not neighbors. But she only replied, “Not for many years. My family came to Skagen when I was a young girl.”

Still standing, Lord Pinchpenny filled their glasses with red wine. “Before the revolution in England?”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t return home when the tower was destroyed?”

“England was never my home, sir.”

His brows rose at that. “I have always considered it mine. All of my family has. Indeed, that is how we’ve come to this situation now.”

“The situation where you’ve threatened both me and my husband?” Georgiana smiled, so that he would know this conversation was still civilized. “What is it that you needed, sir? The money?”

“No.” He finished pouring wine for himself and took his place at the head of the table. “I’m not a thief. This is reclamation of honor.”

Through piracy and murder? “What honor do you wish to reclaim?”

“Title, lands. But above all, a good name.” He leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs at the knee, the easy posture of a man utterly sure of himself. “I’m the Earl of Southampton—or rather, I should be.”

And Georgiana had always thought she should be Queen of the North Sea. That didn’t make her so. “And why aren’t you?”

“Shortly before the Horde’s invasion, my ancestor—Henry, the sixth Earl of Southampton—shared the fears of those who had already fled England, and sent his countess and children to the Americas. But he remained behind. My family had extensive holdings and many tenants dependent on them, and the earl was loyal to the Crown. He would not abandon either out of fear. Like every man of my line, he believed that it was his honor and duty to serve them.”

Beside her, Thom drew in a long, slow breath and closed his eyes. Probably because he was rolling them toward the heavens.

Georgiana suppressed another smile. “And so he was caught in England when the tower went up?”

“No. He was among those who weren’t infected by the Horde’s radio signals. And you have likely heard the stories of what had happened then. Confusion and panic everywhere. No one quite knew what had happened; they only knew England was under attack of some sort, and even the king had been affected. For the security of the Crown, his ministers agreed that a portion of the treasury should be taken out of London for safekeeping until the threat was defeated. They entrusted my ancestor with some of those treasures.”

It finally began to make sense. “Including the chest of gold coins?”

“Yes. Everything my ancestor took with him was documented, with the understanding that it would all be returned when the Horde had been overthrown. That documentation reached the Americas with one of the king’s ministers. But my ancestor did not. The Irish fired upon his ship, instead.”

“They denied it.”

“Yes. So my ancestor was labeled a thief when the treasures in his keeping disappeared—and his title and lands were stripped from him and his heirs. I ought to have been next in line.”

“Now you want to restore your family’s good name.” Along with the title and lands.

“Yes.”

“And you needed the coins as proof that your ancestor didn’t steal them?”

Smiling, he dipped his head in a slow nod. “Exactly right, Mrs. Thomas.”

What a load of ballocks. She didn’t doubt that there was some truth to his tale of being an heir and of lost titles, but the history of those coins would have been revealed when Thom put them up for auction, and Southampton’s family’s name would have been cleared then. So that could not be his only reason for taking such drastic measures to secure the coins—and the most probable reason was the same as the one she’d first suspected: money. Those coins were worth a fortune. A clever man could claim that he’d only recovered half their number from the wreck, return those to the Crown as proof of his ancestor’s innocence, then sell the remainder on the sly.

Georgiana didn’t know what his ancestor had been, but this would-be Lord Southampton was likely nothing but a thief, after all.

But she didn’t say so. “You must have been searching for these coins for some time—along with the other treasures that your ancestor took with him.”

“As my father did, and his father, and his father. We have hoped to hear any mention of the items.”

“So that is how Thom’s salvage dealer knew to contact you.”

Southampton nodded again. “I would not miss any opportunity to gain proof of my ancestor’s innocence. My children will not be raised under the shadow of shame that I was.”

Perhaps in Manhattan City, that shadow had been a painful one. But considering that he would likely try to deny Georgiana and Thom the chance of having any children at all—or a life that lasted longer than a few more days—she could not feel sympathy for him.

“Why didn’t you send your own divers to Dublin, then?”

“We didn’t know exactly where the items were, in truth. The weeks following the invasion were complete chaos. No one was certain which ship he’d boarded, or even if he’d made it onto a ship at all. The treasures might have shown up anywhere.”

So he hadn’t known much of anything until Thom had found the coins. “And what would you have done if they’d been found elsewhere?”

This time, the smile that touched his lips wasn’t amused. Just determined. And a bit frightening. “The same thing I am now: make my best offer, then go about securing them any way necessary.”

“And you will let us return home after Thom retrieves the coins for you?”

“Of course.” Southampton shrugged, the coldness falling away. “Just as I said I would.”

“So you did.”

And Georgiana didn’t believe a word of it.

Their dinner arrived shortly thereafter—fish and potatoes, and just as coarse as she would have expected from a mercenary cook—and they spent the remainder of the meal speaking of pleasant trifles. Georgiana was glad to finally return to the stateroom, where her time would be spent in a worthwhile purpose.

It was almost midnight when she and Thom finished running the air hose through the tub—at least five hundred feet of it. Probably more than would be used in a hundred-foot dive, but he would need at least some of the extra length to move around when he reached the bottom, and it was always better to have too much than too little.

She rose to her feet, rolling her shoulders to loosen stiff muscles. “Are you coming to bed?”

Shaking his head, he hauled the giant coil of hose out from the middle of the floor. “I’ll make do with that big chair.”

Big chair? Georgiana glanced toward the porthole. He meant the settee—but to a man of his size, it probably looked the same.

And it would be ridiculous for him to sleep there, whatever he called it.

“No, Thom. You’ve just spent days in a fever, recovering from a bullet wound. You will share the bed with me.”

Once again, her husband proved himself a sensible man. He didn’t argue with her. He just nodded.

Mrs. Winch hadn’t brought any of her nightgowns. By the soft glow of the lamp, Georgiana unpinned her hair. She removed her dress and stockings, then quickly climbed into bed wearing only her chemise. She watched as Thom stripped down to his drawers and snuffed the lamp. Darkness filled the cabin, but the silvery moonlight through the portholes allowed her to follow his progress to the bed. She waited, holding her breath. He lifted the blankets. The bed creaked, the mattress dipped.

As soon as he settled onto his back, Georgiana turned against his side, flattening her hand over his heart. Crisp hair tickled her palm. His hard body tensed against hers before he relaxed. His fingers slid down her spine, steel whispering over cotton, and with a tightening of his arm drew her a little closer against him. Smiling, she rested her head against his biceps.

A few seconds later, she began shaking with silent laughter.

“Georgie?”

“It’s harder than I realized.” She sat up to the sound of his deep laugh and tucked her pillow into the crook of his arm. “Is this all right?”

“Yes.”

In the faint light, she saw he was smiling. Georgiana lay down again, her cheek cushioned by down and supported by steel. In all her life, she didn’t think there’d been a single moment that had been as wonderful as this.

Then she sighed, because there were less wonderful things that needed to be spoken of. “Even if you find the gold tomorrow, you should delay bringing it up.”

“So that we’ll have tomorrow night to bring up the submersible?”

Or to develop another plan, if that proved impossible. “Yes.”

“You think he’s lying about returning us home, too.”

She nodded against his shoulder. “Your discovery of the coins would have been the proof he needed to clear his name. But as the salvager, you’d have had a claim on any profits—or a reward, if the Crown decided to simply take the coins back.”

“He’s after the money,” Thom agreed. “As if he doesn’t have enough.”

“I don’t think he does.” Georgiana came up on her elbow, her breasts pressing softly against his side. Moonlight and shadows made a handsome sculpture of his features. “I did, but not after he told us that he’d made his best offer. That doesn’t make sense. I believe that he wants to reclaim his title—that he’s desperate to. So why would his best offer be so low? He’d want to be certain that no one could buy those coins before he did. So I don’t think he was able to offer more.”

“You think he’s strapped?” Doubt colored Thom’s voice.

“Very likely. In Manhattan City, it’s quite common for the noble families to have all the appearance of wealth, while in truth they are living on credit and the goodwill of their relations. And if Southampton was desperate for the money as well as his title—or if he’s just a greedy bastard—it would explain why he chose this route.”

“Trying to kill me for it? He still could have just taken the coins when I offered them.”

“But you know how many coins were found. If fewer than five thousand were returned to the Crown, you are the one person who could expose him.”

“The dealer knew.” Thom’s body stiffened against hers. “And you know, too.”

“And that’s why I don’t believe he’ll let us live. No matter what he says. And I wouldn’t lay bets on your dealer’s life, either.”

With a heavy sigh, Thom nodded. He reached up and drew the curtain of her hair back over her shoulder—it had been shadowing her face, she realized. She caught his hand before he lowered it back to his side.

Her fingers slipped through his. Hard, cool. Surprisingly smooth. The joints were so finely constructed, she could barely detect the seams. In brighter light, she’d seen the great number of components, as if Ivy Blacksmith had taken twenty different machines and reshaped them into his arms.

“They are truly amazing,” she said softly.

“Yes.”

His voice was thick. Suddenly her throat felt the same. Without letting go of his hand, she lay her head against his chest, listened to the heavy thud of his heart.

“I need to tell you, Thom. What I said—what I made you promise—it wasn’t what I meant.”

“What wasn’t?”

“Holding me in your arms. I should have explained. My mother . . . When my father was gone, she was always looking out the window. Waiting for him. And when he wasn’t home, she never even seemed alive. Like some part of her was gone, too.”

“She always looked happy to me.”

Georgiana came up on her elbow again, saw his confused frown. “Because you only saw her when my father was there, too. When you worked on his ship, you came home when he did. So after we married, I didn’t want to be like my mother. I didn’t care what sort of arms you held me with. I just wanted you home every night.”

His mouth flattened into a hard line. “But I left, anyway.”

Yes, he had. And that remembered hurt tightened her throat. Because she hadn’t explained herself then, but he’d known she wanted him home. “I asked you to stay.”

As if in frustration, he lifted his head and slammed it back against the pillow with a soft whump. “Your father told me you would. And that if I did as you asked, and didn’t bring anything home, soon you’d be asking why I wasn’t out there working and supporting you.”

Georgiana frowned. Though she didn’t like to think so, maybe she would have. When they’d married, she’d had no occupation for herself, aside from helping keep her father’s records. What had she expected Thom to do? She’d wanted him to stay near to their home. But work was scarce, and staying close to home wasn’t always an option for a laboring man.

It would be now. Her shipping interests earned enough to support them both. Thom could work anywhere he liked—or not work at all, if that was what he wanted.

And despite all the hurt of the past four years, a part of her was suddenly glad for every bit of pain. His absence had turned her into a woman who wouldn’t ask her husband when he would support her.

“Did I do that to you?” His words were low and rough. “Did I make you watch at the windows, with a part of you gone?”

She shook her head. “I wouldn’t let myself. I kept myself occupied. I made a business.”

“Did you?” Admiration tinged his deep voice.

“Yes.” Lightly, she traced her fingers down the center of his chest. “And it’s partially yours. For years, my father had been selling whale oil to men who turned around and made a fortune trading it with the Horde. So I took the money you sent and used it to pay a crew to sail my father’s ship to Morocco and trade directly. I might have lost everything. But I was lucky. I made enough to buy more vessels, though I don’t take so many risks now. Primarily just shipping cargo around the North Sea.”

“That’s good, Georgie. I’m glad you did well. But I’m sorry that you had to. I should have done better.”

The sudden bleakness of his expression ripped at her heart. “No, Thom. It was good of you to want to, to try to. But you’re not the only one in this marriage who is responsible for my happiness and well-being. Or for yours.”

He gave a slight nod. Not of agreement, she saw, but the sort of nod someone gave when they didn’t believe something, yet they didn’t want to argue, and there wasn’t anything left for them to say. Despite her words, he still thought that he’d failed as a husband.

She would convince him otherwise. But she needed to know how to do it, and first learn more about this man she’d married. Not by assuming, but by asking.

“Was it truly such a huge difference, Thom, when the tower came down? In everything you thought and felt?”

He hesitated for a long second, then his throat worked and he said, “Like coming out of the fog into bright sun.”

“But that’s a good thing.” Though the thickness of his voice and that hesitation made her wonder. “Isn’t it?”

“It is. Now.”

“But not then?”

“It was then. But it was all at once. All these things I never felt, all at once. Fear. Rage. Everything. I went mad with them.”

She couldn’t imagine it. Not her calm, ordered husband. But perhaps that explained why he was so controlled now. “Did being that way frighten you?”

“Yes. I was more like an animal than a man. I wanted to be a man again. The things I did, Georgie . . .” Voice strained into nothing, he shook his head.

Her heart ached with every painful word. Talking about this was clearly difficult for him. She could barely make herself ask more. But she needed to know. How could he ever think he wasn’t a man? “What sort of things?”

“Killing the men trying to put us down. Rutting.”

Rutting? Did he mean . . . “With women?”

“Not just. Men, too.”

“Oh.” Georgiana didn’t know what to say. That was completely outside her experience, except as whispers and jokes. But Thom didn’t seem to think one or the other any different—only his lack of control seemed to bother him. So that would be her only concern, too. “You did that during the frenzies, too?”

“It was the same. Though the tower made us feel it, then. But after it came down, that need was overwhelming in the same way. I was still trying to get ahold of myself. And all around me, others were trying to do the same. Just a look or a touch could set us off, and we’d fuck in a street.” His jaw clenched. “I’m sorry, Georgie. I shouldn’t have said.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for. I wanted to know, Thom.” Her heart hurting, she stroked her fingers down his beard. Some of what he said, the way he said it—all rough and shocking, but so had his life been. “You weren’t like that with me.”

“I made myself control it. I didn’t want to hurt you. Back then, I only cared about what I felt. Getting into someone and spending inside them. I didn’t want to be an animal with you.” He met her eyes, and the torment she saw in his almost ripped her open. “But it’s still in me. All of it’s still in me, Georgie.”

“Oh, Thom. If feeling more than you can bear and wanting someone makes you an animal, then I am one, too.” She leaned over him, her fingers sliding into his thick hair. “But you’re a man. The finest I know.”

Without waiting for his answer, Georgiana bent her head. Her lips pressed to his. She felt the sharp catch of breath, but that was all. He didn’t move. Still controlling himself.

He didn’t need to, not with her. But perhaps she would never persuade him with words alone.

She softly kissed her way from the corner of his mouth to the center of his firm bottom lip. A shudder ripped through his big body. Steel hands came up to frame her face, then he kissed her back, his mouth so gentle and slow that she wanted to cry from the sweetness of it.

Her husband. Her man.

Her breath hitched. Immediately, he pulled away.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Georgie,” he said hoarsely.

“You won’t.”

Through the shadows over his eyes, she saw that he wasn’t convinced. But he was not the only one responsible for their happiness. She was, too. And when necessary, she would see to a task herself.

“May I touch you, then?”

His brows drew together in a dark line. “Me?”

“Yes.” Smiling, she smoothed her palm along the heavy muscles atop his shoulder, marveling at the seamless meld of hot skin to cool steel. “When you were with fever, I washed you down with ice water, and saw more of you than at any time since we’ve married. And I was so worried then, I didn’t think of how appealing you looked—but now I cannot stop thinking of all that I saw. Of all that I’d like to touch now that you’re well. And how I want to kiss you again.”

Expression torn by desire and worry, his face darkened in the silvery light. But he didn’t deny her. “Anything you want of me, Georgie.”

His mouth, first. This time, he didn’t hesitate before kissing her back, half rising to meet her. Not so sweet now, but hot, his mouth opening against hers to suck lightly at her upper lip before moving to the lower, gentle tugs that pulled at a painful need inside her. Heart racing, she couldn’t seem to catch her breath, though she could feel the air coming and going through her parted lips, sharp little pants heated by Thom’s mouth.

Her fingers fisting in his hair, she pushed closer. A gentle lick against her bottom lip sent pleasure bursting into a desperate ache. She whimpered low in her throat, wanting more and more.

Thom dragged his mouth away. “Am I hurting you?”

“No. You can’t. Please, Thom.”

Lying across his heaving chest, she pulled him back into the kiss, wanting him to feel what she had, licking and tugging at his firm lips.

With a groan, his hands gripped her hips. He hauled her fully on top of him, her thighs straddling his abdomen, her chemise sliding up past her knees. His mouth opened under hers and suddenly there was the more she’d wanted, in the steady pressure between her legs and the thrusting penetration of his tongue, but they didn’t ease the ache, only made it sharper and harder.

Deep and hungry, each kiss drew more whimpers from her throat, started the rocking of her hips. His bare skin so hot between her thighs, and the ridged muscles of his stomach so hard, she couldn’t keep herself from rubbing against him, where she felt so empty and needy and . . . wet.

Oh.

Face suddenly hot, she made herself stop moving. Thom’s kiss slowed, then he eased back to look up at her.

“All right?”

“Yes.” Just embarrassed. And she couldn’t hide it. Her skin felt so warm that he could probably see her blush, even in the moonlight—and he had to feel the wetness all over his stomach.

But she didn’t want to move. It had all been so wonderful. Was still so wonderful. Even though her lack of control was completely mortifying.

Thom studied her for a long second before he nodded. “Sit up, then. Let me see you.”

She did, forcing herself to hold his gaze instead of turning away while he looked. It was so unnerving. Georgiana knew herself to be an attractive woman, but this wasn’t like being judged and found pretty or wanting. She felt exposed. And even in her chemise, she felt bare. Nothing could be hidden. Her lips felt swollen and hot. Her stiffened nipples stood at attention beneath the cotton, the moonlight exaggerating their shapes with long shadows. Her legs were opened wide across his abdomen, her skin visible from the middle of her thighs to her feet.

She didn’t know where to put her hands. To stop their trembling, she braced them against his chest.

Steel glinted in the dark. Thom’s fingers hooked beneath the straps of her chemise. Slowly, he dragged them down her arms, smooth metal gliding over skin. Cool air kissed her breasts. The pink flesh around her nipples puckered and tightened.

Oh, she couldn’t bear it. She squeezed her eyes closed.

They flew open again at the rough sound of his voice. “I’ll never be able to stop thinking of seeing you like this, Georgie.”

Just as she’d told him, only moments ago. When he’d been uncertain. When she’d been trying to persuade him that he needn’t be.

Oh, God. How she loved this man.

And though she still trembled, the need to look away had gone. More exposed than she’d ever been—yet no longer wanting to hide. She only wanted him.

She found her courage again. “Are you going to touch me, Thom?”

“I am. After this.”

He dragged her down for a sweet, hot kiss. Her bare breasts flattened against his hair-roughened chest, and it was such a perfect, wonderful sensation, skin against skin.

And steel against skin. His hands slid down her sides. Her breathing ragged, Georgiana sat up again, then bit her bottom lip to keep from whimpering and rocking when his palms cupped her breasts. Utterly still, she watched him touch her, his eyes burning and his face rapt as he looked.

Maybe not just looking. “Can you feel what you touch?”

He slowly nodded, his gaze never leaving her breasts. “Yes. Not everything. But some. Like soft and hard.”

His thumbs swept across her taut nipples. Unexpected, sharp pleasure seared like fire through sensitive flesh. Georgiana gasped and arched into his palms. “Thom. Oh, Thom.”

Expression stark with need, he slid his hands down. “The difference between cloth and skin.”

His fingertips skimmed over the chemise bunched at her hips, down the tops of her thighs, stopping at her hem. His gaze lifted to hers. Trembling, Georgiana didn’t look away from his eyes as the fingers of his right hand ventured up the delicate flesh of her inner thigh. Higher. Tension tightened her legs against his sides, pushing her away from his touch. His left hand caught her hip. Between her thighs, his fingers neared her center, slipping over skin left slick by her arousal.

“I feel heat.” His voice had deepened near to a growl. “And wet.”

Oh, sweet God. “Thom—”

A soft touch of steel. Georgiana froze, her hands braced against his chest and her gaze locked on Thom’s, but her entire being focused on the sensation of his fingers slowly stroking her most intimate flesh, slippery with need.

Except for his fingers, Thom’s body had stiffened to solid stone, his heavy muscles corded with strain. “All right, Georgie?”

Unable to speak, unable to breathe, she only nodded.

A low groan rumbled through his chest. Parting her, he delved deeper through her folds, his thumb sliding up to rub at the apex of her sex. Shock and sudden, needy pleasure jolted her hips forward. Georgiana cried out, her fingers curling against his skin.

Desperately, she rocked against his hand. “More. Again.”

Her plea was met with a tortured groan. Thom reared up, catching her lips in a searing kiss. His thumb circled her slick bud, and she gave a strangled cry into his mouth.

As if propelled by that sound, Thom turned and bore her back to the bed—lips still fused to hers, his fingers still stroking through her wet heat. Overwhelmed by need, Georgiana clung to his shoulders, widening her thighs, but he didn’t settle between them. He stretched out alongside her, instead, his erect length heavy against her hip. Oh, God. She needed him inside, where she was aching and empty. Hands diving into his hair, she tried to pull him on top of her. He didn’t move.

Frustrated, frantic for him, she whipped her head aside, breaking the kiss. “I need you inside me, Thom. Don’t leave me like this.”

“I won’t leave you.” As rough as gravel, his reply was followed by the tight circling of his thumb. Helplessly, her hips lifted against his hand, urging a stronger touch. “But I won’t risk hurting you. Let me please you like this, instead.”

His mouth opened over hers again, stopping her response. Steel warmed by her skin, his big hand delved deeper between her legs, the tip of his middle finger stroking through her folds to find her entrance. With a moan of realization, Georgiana stilled. Her body shook, anticipation and need and uncertainty building into a furious storm. Thom groaned, stroking through her wetness again. His long finger began a steady penetration.

Not the same. Not as big. But still tight and full and wonderful, sliding back and forth inside her, and all of her body moving like liquid with him.

He pushed another finger alongside the first, a deep and slow invasion. She cried his name, but nothing else inside her was coherent, just a spiraling ache and tension fed by more pleasure than she’d ever known. Her head fell back. Uncontrollable moans escaped her throat. Writhing against his hand, she found his lips again, Thom, her Thom, his mouth so hot and his need as deep as hers, his tongue thrusting with the same slow rhythm as his fingers. Kissing him endlessly, though the ache became unbearable and her body didn’t feel liquid anymore, but sharp and hard, until Thom groaned brokenly into her mouth, his slippery thumb rolling over that sensitive bud.

She splintered apart. Nothing that was Georgiana, just pieces of her. Her fingers, clenching hard in Thom’s hair. Her mouth open under his, but no longer kissing, just open and soundless and not even taking in air, because her lungs had stiffened into iron. Her spine bowed, and her toes curled, her knees bent and locked into place, as if they’d been jerked up toward the center of her, which hadn’t locked or stiffened but was clamping around Thom’s fingers in tight pulls, drawing him deeper.

Refusing to let him go.

Then it was gone, and she could breathe again, her heart pounding harder than when she’d dragged him up her steps from the beach. With his back to the portholes, Thom was all in shadow, but she found his mouth again easily—and felt his smile against hers.

Still inside her, his fingers suddenly pumped deeper. Georgiana gasped as a shudder wracked her body, her inner muscles clamping around him again.

“I felt that, too,” he said.

“Thom!” she cried, then laughed, though she had to hide her face against his shoulder.

Gently, he withdrew his hand. His lips pressed against her hair. “All right?”

“Wonderful.” Absolutely perfect.

She knew it wouldn’t have hurt if he’d entered her himself, instead of using his fingers. But this had been better than she’d ever imagined. She would eventually convince him, but for now, she could not remember ever being so satisfied, and drained, and energized all at once.

But Thom had not been satisfied, she realized.

Georgiana lifted her head. He lay on his side next to her. With a push against his shoulder, she urged him onto his back. He went, the moonlight washing over him again—all hard muscle and steel and his bold, incredible face.

“I haven’t touched you yet,” she told him. She hadn’t done more than kissing.

His fingers stroked down her hair. “You can touch me all you like. But let me clean up first.”

“Clean up?” Her gaze swept over him. His heavy erection still bulged behind his linen drawers, though not as fiercely as it had earlier. But there was no wetness. Just on his stomach, and that was . . . not all hers.

“I have two hands, Georgie. They were both busy.”

Though her face blazed, she met his eyes again. “I imagine your arms are worth a fortune for that improvement alone.”

His deep laugh rang through the cabin. “They are.”

Grinning, she leaned over him. Her lips pressed to his. Thom caught her before she could pull away, lingering over her mouth with a sweet kiss.

He drew back, his eyes burning. “I’m going to clean up. Then I’m going to hold you all night.”

Her heart filled. “I’ll be waiting for you right here.”

SIX

Thom woke before dawn with Georgie burrowed in against him, her dark hair spread across her pillow and her leg cocked over his stomach. For the longest time, he didn’t move. Just held her, breathing in that flowery scent.

The dive today stood a good chance of killing him. But that deep water didn’t scare him near as much as knowing what would happen to her if he didn’t come up.

So he would. There just wasn’t any other option. If Thom could have, he’d have torn through the airship now, killing everyone on it who presented a threat. But Southampton wasn’t a fool. He’d be expecting that. Especially in the hours before the dive, when desperation might drive any man to attempt his escape. Thom would probably be shot the second he opened the cabin door. In the time he’d been lying awake, he’d heard the muffled voices of four mercenaries in the passageway, but no footsteps leading them away. Not a moment had passed without someone standing guard outside the stateroom, but Southampton had recently quadrupled the watch.

At his side, Georgiana stirred. Her lashes fluttered across his skin.

For the first time, his wife was waking up in his arms. Her hand slid across his chest, her fingers curving around his ribs. But though there were tasks to be done, she didn’t immediately lift her head, or make any move that would take her closer to getting out of bed. She just held on to him, as if there was nothing in the world more important to do.

And if he’d known how it would feel to have her there, his heart bursting out of his chest and his throat so full and tight that he couldn’t have spoken a word if he’d wanted to, Thom would never have been able to pass a single night away from her.

He didn’t know how he ever would again.

Though he’d gotten into a canvas diving suit by himself a hundred times, Thom didn’t protest when Georgiana insisted on helping him, checking every seam and seal in the inner and outer layers. He liked having her close. And since he’d be going up on deck in a few minutes, this would be the last time they’d speak without having Southampton or any of the mercenaries listening in.

There were a thousand things he wanted to say. But her life mattered more than all of them. “Georgie.”

She glanced up from his waist, where she’d been tugging on the belt that would anchor him to the airship’s tether cable. After Thom found Oriana, he’d hook the tether to the submersible and use the cable as a guide back to the surface—or tonight, as a guide through the dark waters. And if Thom got into trouble before he reached the bottom, they could haul him back up with it.

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 brass 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.

“His majesty will have gone below. He doesn’t like the cold. And even if my crew hears you, they won’t help.”

Georgiana didn’t doubt that. But Blade could threaten all he liked. This cowardly bastard wouldn’t shoot her. He wouldn’t dare, not when he’d have to explain it to Southampton.

Shaking with anger, too sickened to look at him, she resolutely faced the water again. “This isn’t the job your employer gave you, Mr. Blade. Now back away from me.”

“My job, missus, was to end when Lord Pinchpenny collected his gold. And that was to be four days ago, when we caught up to that old ship. But now collecting the gold is taking longer, and his majesty isn’t extending the pay, saying this is all one job. Not one of my crew is happy about it—and I’m looking for my bonus.”

And she was supposed to pay it? Seething, Georgiana cranked. “Then go ask Southampton for a hand and leave me be.”

After a short pause, Blade stepped back. Relief touched her for a brief second, then crumbled to horror. He’d moved away from her—and now stood next to the coil of Thom’s air hose, the toe of his boot resting on the line.

“Don’t you dare! I’ll kill you if you do!”

Blade regarded her with hard amusement. “It seems to me that your husband’s diving deeper than most men can. That he even told his lordship the dive was impossible. An accident wouldn’t be no surprise. And then there won’t be questions if you’re dead next. There’s no use for you if your man’s not alive, and if I didn’t do it here, his lordship would do it himself when we went back above. So give me your free hand, missus.”

The filthy disgusting coward. Georgiana glanced around her. There was nothing to protect herself with. And she didn’t dare leave the pump.

“Give me your hand, missus.”

Setting her jaw, she looked down at the water. No bubbles in sight yet. No Thom coming back up.

Blade’s boot pressed down, flattening the hose against the platform boards. The pump wheezed, jolting terror through her heart.

He would murder Thom.

Sick with rage and fear, Georgiana lifted her hand. Blade stepped off the hose, coming around behind her shoulder again. Hard fingers circling her wrist, he pressed the back of her gloved fist to the front of his trousers. Not demanding bare skin or her participation. He hadn’t wanted her touch. He’d just wanted to force her—and to win.

But only for now. Georgiana stared ahead, briefly imagining turning her hand around and crushing Blade’s organ through his trousers. She didn’t dare risk it, though, when he’d likely shoot her and step on the hose again or knock over the pump in his agony. It had to be decisive. She couldn’t allow him the opportunity to use his gun or react. So she watched the water, sending air to her husband and killing Blade a thousand times over in her head.

As she would in truth.

The moment he’d stepped on Thom’s air hose and forced her hand, Blade’s days had ended. In Skagen, or in any civilized land, she’d have had another recourse. Law and authority would have punished Blade for this. But not on the seas. Here, there would be no justice except what she took.

Blade believed she was helpless. That was the only reason a coward like him would have ever dared this. But Georgiana was just delaying her response until her husband was safe.

And she needed a weapon. Thom had knives in his arms, he’d said. But to prevent the other mercenaries and Southampton from assuming Blade’s death was an attack on the ship, it had to be done before the platform reached the top, and Thom would have to rip through his canvas suit to access the blades.

He needed that suit to dive for the submersible tonight, and a patched one wouldn’t be as safe. A knife also ran the danger of spilling blood into the water.

Something blunt, instead.

Would she need to fear Southampton’s retaliation? Probably not. He’d said himself that any of the other mercenaries could have fulfilled Blade’s duties. Southampton wouldn’t do anything to risk losing the gold. He’d kill her and Thom if they jeopardized its recovery—and he’d kill them after he received the coins. But for Blade? Georgiana didn’t think so.

Beside her, Blade grunted. Georgiana yanked her hand away. Abandoning the pump for the space of a second, she ripped off her glove and tossed it into the water.

Laughing, Blade stooped to her ear. “That was good, missus. Now if your husband doesn’t bring up the gold this time, he’ll be going down again. And if you want him to suck on a hose when he does, then you’ll suck on mine.”

Sour revulsion burned in her throat. Her face froze into a mask of hate, darker and colder than any she’d ever known. She did not wonder anymore at what Thom had feared in himself when the tower had come down. It must have been like the rage she felt now—all-consuming, such fury that only love and Thom’s very life prevented her from rising up and destroying the man behind her, without fear of his gun or her own death or any other pain.

But this was not an animal’s rage. It was a rightful rage, and purely human.

It filled her to the brim, a furnace that pistoned her aching arm around and around, that fired hotter with each bellowing breath she took. She waited, kneeling and stiff, her body like iron, her eyes fixed on the water.

An hour passed. Bubbles popped on the surface. Then movement under the sea. Relief and joy broke through at the same time Thom did, water streaming around the brass dome. He hauled himself up the tether cable and over the platform, the air hose in a giant coil at his side—he must have been gathering it during his slow ascent. He dropped from the tether, landing with a heavy thud that rocked the platform and rattled the chains.

Georgiana flew to him, her fingers working at the thumbnuts that fastened the dome to the suit. His glass plate had already fogged again. She helped him lift the heavy helmet and at her first sight of his face, fear made her cry out.

“Thom!” Bloodshot, his eyes had more red than white. His skin was pale, and sweat plastered his thick hair to his head. “Oh, dear God. How are you feeling?”

“All right. Only a few rough minutes.” Tiredly, he shook his head. “But I think it’ll get worse before it gets better.”

Heart thumping, she nodded. That was how the divers’ disease came on—worse after he was out of the water. “We’ll get you to bed. Mr. Blade! We’re ready to go up.”

Blade turned to clank the platform chain with the barrel of his gun, shouting up to the airship. A moment later, the platform jerked beneath them and they began to rise.

When she glanced back at him, Thom’s gaze was searching her face. A frown darkened his expression. “Are you all right, Georgie?”

“I will be. Excuse me, please. I have something to do.”

Over the rattling and the noise, he didn’t hear her come. Blade was just turning away from the chain when Georgiana swung the diving dome with all of her strength. The heavy brass helmet rang dully against his skull. Jarring pain shot through her fingers and wrists. Her palms went numb.

Blade dropped in a heap. His gun clattered to the boards. She left it there.

She turned back, but Thom was already at her side, his arms coming around her.

“Georgie?”

“Oh, Thom.” Fighting back sudden, hot tears, she pressed her forehead to the cold brass plate over his chest.

“I’m glad I never pissed you off that much.” His arms tightened before he drew back. “What was it?”

She closed her eyes, hating the tears slipping down her cheeks, but now that it was done, something broke, and she was cold and shaking.

But not feeling an ounce of regret. “He stepped on your hose.”

“Not by accident, I guess.” His voice hardened. “Are you all right?”

“I am. He . . . used my hand.” Simply saying it pushed the sour sickness up her throat again. “And told me tomorrow it would be my mouth.”

Thom didn’t respond. Just held her tighter. But she knew what was burning in him.

They were halfway up to the airship. With a deep, shuddering breath, she glanced down at the diving helmet still clutched in her hand. She’d been careful to hit Blade with the side of it, where the impact wouldn’t damage the valves or the glass face plate. Blood and short hair clung to the smooth brass.

“Not even a dent. After it’s cleaned, it should be fine to dive in again,” she said.

Thom gave a rough laugh. “Georgie.”

She set the dome on the boards, slipping her arm around him to face the airship. Their hands were empty. It was best to show everyone right away that they didn’t intend to kill anyone else.

Not yet, anyway—and not unless they had to.

But hopefully not at all. “Did you find the submersible?”

“Yes. Flooded.”

“Oh.” They wouldn’t be using it, then. She fought the weight of disappointment. “Well, we’ll find another way.”

He nodded. His gaze dropped to Blade, crumpled on the boards. “I’d have done it for you.”

“I thought of asking. But he’d have been wary of you, and more prepared to shoot when you went for him.”

“I’d still have done it.” His jaw tightened, and the sudden anger on his face would have been terrifying if she’d seen it on any other man. But Thom would never harm her, so it couldn’t frighten her. “I want to do it now.”

“I know.”

Because she wanted to do the same to the man standing at the side of the airship now. Southampton had forced Thom’s hand using her life. He just had more protection than Blade. A good number of mercenaries stood behind him now. None with guns drawn, but it was clear that they would shoot, given a signal from their employer.

Southampton frowned down at Blade. “What is this?”

“He forced my wife to touch him,” Thom said flatly.

“Ah. He deserved it, then.” Face clearing, the other man raised his voice. “Remember that Big Thom and his wife are our guests! I won’t tolerate such violations.”

Behind him, not one of the mercenaries seemed disturbed by Blade’s death. A few looked to Mrs. Winch, who was smiling faintly as she regarded Blade’s still form. She glanced up at Georgiana and tipped her head, as if in thanks.

Either Winch had hated Blade as much as Georgiana did, or the woman had just been made the new chief of this mercenary band.

Perhaps both.

Southampton stepped onto the platform, his gaze holding Thom’s. His voice lowered. “But I will hand your wife over to every mercenary on board if you don’t find the gold. Did you?”

Thom didn’t answer for a long second. Controlling himself, Georgiana realized. Wanting to destroy the man now, but knowing they’d both be killed if he did.

“I found the wreck.” Teeth clenched, he finally grated the words out. “But my time was out. It’s tethered off, so I can go straight to it tomorrow.”

“Not today?”

Ridiculous, greedy man. Georgiana had to control her own rage. “You will kill him, sir, and end up with nothing. My husband is standing now. Within an hour, he won’t be.”

Southampton looked back at Thom, his gaze coming to a rest on his bloodshot eyes. “All right. Tomorrow.”

A few mercenaries shifted their feet. Not one looked glad to hear it—but also not as upset as Blade had suggested.

Holding tightly to Thom’s hand, Georgiana left the platform. Winch turned to follow them—would be their guard, she realized. Better than Blade.

Georgiana paused for a moment. “Will Southampton still pay Blade’s share, Mrs. Winch?”

“He will. It’ll be split between the rest of us.”

No wonder the others hadn’t looked too upset. “Like a bonus?”

Winch shrugged. “If you like.”

Georgiana did.

The divers’ disease hit Thom hard soon after they reached the stateroom. She managed to get him out of his suit and into the bed, but there was little she could do after the first pains started. Soon he was sweating, his body twisting up in agony. Georgiana hovered over him, massaging his joints when he could stand to be touched. He was silent through it all, jaw clenched, and she wished he would make some sound—but she was the only one who did, whispering his name through the worst of it.

But whatever was happening inside him, the mechanical bugs soon healed it. The pains passed just after noon. Too wrung out to even raise his head for a bit of soup, Thom fell into a deep sleep that lasted the remainder of the day.

It was after dark when he woke. Georgiana had dragged a chair to his bedside, and glanced up when she heard him stir.

Her heart lifted. He was awake, looking at her—and his bloodshot eyes had cleared.

“Oh, Thom. Are you well?”

“I am.” His voice was a dry rasp. He swallowed. “And you, Georgie?”

“So much better now.” And sitting here, smiling at him like a useless ninny, when he hadn’t eaten all day. “Dinner is waiting. I told Southampton we wouldn’t be joining him, so they brought it here. Would you like it in bed or at the table?”

“Not in bed.”

He sat up, the muscles of his stomach rippling. Sometime soon, Georgiana vowed, she would run her hands over them when he wasn’t sick. But not now. She waited long enough to ask whether he needed help—he laughed at that before crossing the cabin, just as strong and steady as always—then laid out their meal while he tended to the necessary and washed. He pulled on trousers, but didn’t tuck his shirt before joining her.

Her neat and orderly Thom, not so orderly now. And she liked it very much.

His knee bumped into hers when he sat and pulled up his chair.

“Now eat,” she told him, and he suddenly laughed before obeying and taking a bite.

She didn’t know quite what had amused him, but couldn’t stop herself from smiling again—smiling, even though they had no submersible. Smiling simply because he was there.

“I’ve spent every moment this afternoon trying to think of a clever escape. I haven’t yet, though I do know how to avoid the guards outside this cabin.”

Mouth full, he raised his dark brows.

Georgiana tapped the porthole over the table. “We’re fortunate that our abductor is a rich man—or that he has the credit of a rich man. You would never find such large windows on the bow of a poor man’s airship. Not when the glass has to be replaced every time they hit a goose.”

Thom grinned. “That’s a truth.”

“I don’t think we’d have to break it, either.” Which would make far too much noise. She fingered a bolt in the metal frame. “Are your hands strong enough to pull these out?”

Taking another bite, he nodded.

“Then we can climb up outside the hull and onto the deck. We’ll have to surprise whoever is on watch—and maybe take one of the boats.” She sighed. “But I don’t know what to do after that. This flyer will catch up to us. They have every advantage. Weapons. Speed. And I don’t see how to turn that advantage around.”

Her voice broke at the last. Oh, God. It was so hard to remain practical and unaffected when their lives were at stake.

He set his fork down. “We will, Georgie.”

Yes, they would. Trying to gather herself, she drew a deep breath. “Do you think we can delay another day?”

He lifted his gaze to stare out the porthole. Not looking at anything, she knew. Just weighing their chances, as she had been all afternoon.

“Maybe I can bring up just a bit of it, and tell him I have to go back down the next day for the rest. Or we’ll convince him to wait another day so that I can bring up the submersible. If he’s after money, it’s worth a bit. And we’ll take our chances in the boat tomorrow night.”

Her chest tightened. “How far do you think we are from shore?”

Thom was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, “I think we have a better chance in a boat than we do here.”

A long distance, then. She nodded, and despite her best effort to stop them, her eyes suddenly spilled over with tears. Then Thom had her in his arms, holding her in his lap while she sobbed against his neck.

“Georgie, Georgie.” His fingers stroked through her hair, her name a broken murmur in her ear. “I’d kill him again if I could.”

And he knew. He knew how wrong this all was. Everything wrong, except being in his arms. Her breath shuddered against his throat. “I was so angry. So angry. I’d have ripped it off if it hadn’t risked you.”

“You should have, anyway.”

“Would you have? If it was me needing that air, would you?”

His livid silence gave Georgiana the answer. He wouldn’t have risked her, either—and just thinking of it infuriated him.

It did her, too. “And not just because he made me feel so disgusting. Not just because he took something that should be a gift. But that he would dare use your life against me like that. And his reason was that he hadn’t been paid enough. But Southampton’s just the same. He feels that he’s owed something, and he’ll use our lives to get it—and he degrades you just as much while he’s at it.”

Not in the same mean way that Blade had, but Southampton degraded Thom in his own manner, by treating him as less than a man. He was just more subtle about it. Georgiana didn’t even know if Southampton recognized what he was doing.

Thom shook his head. “It’s the same in some ways, Georgie. But not anything like what Blade did. I can ignore what Southampton says and he doesn’t hurt us for it, as long as I dive. Blade didn’t give you the choice to ignore what he’d done.”

That was true. But both men were wrong, either way. She sat back in Thom’s lap, met his eyes. “Do you want to kill him?”

“Yes.” No hesitation. His gaze flattened, and the same terrifying anger hardened his expression. “If I knew of any way to do it without risking harm to you, I would. But I’ll warn you, Georgie. Right now he’s just full of threats. The moment I think he intends to hurt you, I’ll rip him in half. I won’t stop myself, no matter the danger. If you see that happen, you get to one of the boats, because I’m going to tear this ship apart and bring everyone else down with it. But for now, I’ll leave him alive if that’s what it takes to get you away.”

“And get you away, too.”

He shrugged.

Georgiana frowned. “That’s not something to be dismissed, Thom.”

Though he didn’t argue, she saw the response in the bleakness of his eyes. As long as she got away, Thom didn’t think it mattered if he did.

Or maybe he didn’t think that was a possibility anymore.

But he was wrong on both counts. He would escape with her. And she would fight for him to stay with her.

Maybe that wouldn’t be their future, though. It hurt so much to think it might not be. But whether he stayed or not, she needed him to know he did matter.

More than anything.

“Thom.” Gently, she cupped his face in her hands. “I know you felt that you’ve never brought me anything worth having. But you did. You brought yourself back—and you’re worth more to me than a hundred thousand chests full of gold.”

And for the first time, he didn’t quietly shake his head or insist he should have done more or apologize for not supporting her. His throat worked, but his only response was a rough whisper. “Georgie.”

“Thom.” Smiling, she softly pressed her lips to his, then the corner of his mouth, and the silky beard over his jaw. “Today, you were the only light I knew. While you were gone, I only felt fear and rage. But then you came back to me, and there was hope and joy again.”

His eyes closed. “That’s all there is when I see you. And fear when I think you might be hurt. I’d risk anything to stop it.”

“As I would for you.” She lightly kissed his mouth again. “And I was terrified when I discovered that you were diving four hundred feet. You didn’t have to lie to me, Thom.”

He looked at her again, his arms tightening around her. “I didn’t want you to be afraid.”

“But I was, anyway.”

“I wanted to protect you from that.”

“And you don’t have to.” Sliding her hands around the back of his head, she pushed her fingers into his thick hair, still rumpled from his long sleep. “I suspect there is much in you that you don’t let me see or know, because you think I’ll be frightened or you need to protect me. Please don’t hide it anymore, Thom. Don’t hold it back. I have no right to ask this of you. But I want to be with the man that you are, rather than the man you think you should be.”

His body stiffened against hers. “No holding back?”

“Not with me. With others, do as you please.” She didn’t want to share him, anyway.

He stared up at her, his blue eyes slowly beginning to burn. Georgiana’s gaze fell to his mouth, and she suddenly felt every inch of her dress twisted around her legs and stretched across her breasts.

“All right.” Abruptly, Thom lifted her against his chest, carried her to the bed.

And left her there.

Uncertain, Georgiana watched him move to the wardrobe. Reaching behind his neck, he dragged his shirt over his head.

Without looking at her, he said gruffly, “You’d best get that dress off.”

Oh. With heat in her cheeks, she quickly unfastened the buttons at her throat. Her gaze followed Thom to the vanity. Oh, but he was a fine man—his back muscular and broad, his wide shoulders a smooth meld of flesh and steel.

Water splashed into a bowl. Thom’s eyes met hers in the oval mirror hanging above the vanity, then he looked down and began lathering his beard.

Shaving.

Her breath stilled. Thom had done this every time he’d come to her bed, but she’d never watched him before. His soapy fingers moved in sure, even strokes. With his trousers hanging low on his hips, he braced his left hand against the edge of the vanity and leaned in closer to the mirror. His weight shifted to his right foot, left leg slightly bent, and his back was not just a beautiful sculpture now but the most arousing thing she’d ever seen, the muscles bunching over his left shoulder and smoothing along his ribs, and the groove of his spine the perfect width for her fingertips.

The razor scraped over his jaw, the rasp of it like a slow abrasion over her skin. Her heart thudded, as if her blood suddenly ran thick. With trembling fingers, she finished unfastening her dress and stripped it off, leaving her clad only in a chemise.

Hands lifting to her nape, she began unpinning her hair. At the vanity, the razor clinked against the bowl before swirling through water. Tipping his jaw back, Thom scraped beneath his chin. Soapy water ran in thin rivulets past the hollow of his throat, down the center of his thickly muscled chest. Her lips parting in envy, Georgiana followed the soapy path in the mirror, until the lather slipped past the bottom of the oval frame.

When she glanced back up, Thom was watching her in the reflection. Tilting his head slightly, he scraped another swath up his throat.

“You’ll have me again, Georgiana?”

Have him. She clenched her thighs, trying to ease the sudden ache. “Yes.”

“I promised myself I wouldn’t.” He glanced down. The razor clinked and swirled. “After the last time, I promised I wouldn’t risk hurting you again.”

And they’d both said and done and promised far too many things based on what they’d thought was true of each other, rather than what was true. “I think we should forget about all of the promises we ever made, and make new ones, instead.”

He nodded. With his thumb, he pulled the skin taut at the sharp corner of his jaw. The scrape sent another delicious shiver racing across her nerves.

“And, Thom”—she waited until he glanced up—“you didn’t hurt me the last time. I just didn’t know how to tell you how much I was liking it.”

He stared at her in the mirror for a long second, eyes narrowed. “That’s truth?”

“Yes.”

With a nod, he angled his chin, scraped away the last of the lather and whiskers. Water splashed. When he looked up, his strong jaw had been rinsed clean.

He turned toward her, not bothering with a towel. A swipe of his hand flicked the soapy water from his chest.

“Here’s my first new promise, then.” He rounded the foot of the bed, untying the front of his trousers as he walked. The thick weave strained across his heavy erection. “Tonight, I’ll have you over and over again.”

Oh, sweet God. Arousal pulsed through her in a thick, liquid beat. She rose up on her knees at the edge of the mattress, waiting for him. “And I’ll finally touch you like I wanted to.”

Passion roughened his voice to a growl. “You’ll get your chance when I’m done.”

All at once, Thom captured her face between his palms, and his mouth slanted over hers for a ravenous taste. With an eager moan, Georgiana wound her arms around his neck, opening to the stroke of his tongue past her lips. The scent of soap and wet, bare skin filled her senses. He clutched her to his chest, the damp linen of her chemise clinging to her breasts.

All too soon, he broke the kiss. Standing against the bed, he pushed her back to the mattress. His big hands gripped her hips and dragged her bottom almost to the edge, hooking her knees up around his sides. Her chemise slipped down, exposing her thighs. Thom stilled, staring, and with a sudden groan, shoved her hem up over her thighs, her hips, higher, as if once he’d begun to bare her skin he couldn’t stop. Frantic with need, Georgiana helped him, lifting her bottom and wriggling the material free of her shoulders. He tore the chemise over her head before leaning over and taking her mouth again, hot and deep.

Cool metal slipped between her thighs. Georgiana arched up against his hand. “Inside me, Thom. Please.”

“Not yet.” He looked down at her, his face taut with strain. “Because I touched you last night, Georgie, but what I’ve dreamed of most isn’t what I’ll do with my hands.”

His head dipped to her breast. At the same moment his fingers pushed inside her, he latched onto the throbbing tip. His cheeks hollowed, sucking her nipple to a burning point.

Georgiana cried out, her body lifting in a rigid bow. Her hands fisted against the sheets. With a hungry moan, he lifted his head and moved to her other breast. Hot and wet, his mouth closed over her nipple. Between her legs, the rhythm of his fingers quickened, his thumb relentlessly sliding over her aching knot of flesh.

“Thom!” Overwhelmed by pleasure, Georgiana rolled her hips, her thighs tightening against his sides. “Thom, please!”

“Your taste. Sweet fucking blue, Georgie.” He pulled back, his hand leaving her empty. His bold features set in a mask of insatiable need, he dropped to his knees. “I need more.”

His head dove between her thighs.

“Thom!”

Shocked beyond bearing, she screamed his name. Her fingers stabbed through his thick hair, tried to pull him up, but the heated swirl of his tongue twisted shock into pleasure. She keened low in her throat, rocking against his mouth. And there must have been something hidden within her, too—something wild and fierce and needy, like a storm at sea, lashing at her with every slow lick. Her head thrashed against the sheet, her body anchored only by his hands on her hips, his tongue and his lips.

And she crashed, splintering. He moaned against her, licking as she shuddered and cried his name. Then he rose up, a sheen of sweat slick over his skin, his lips wet.

Lifting her, he sat at the edge of the bed, settling her over him. Georgiana straddled his thighs, his erection a hot iron bar against her stomach.

She’d never seen him this way before. Only flaccid in fever and sleep, only as a softening bulge beneath his drawers. But he was so much thicker and longer. Looking at his arousal now, she didn’t wonder why their coupling had hurt so much the first times. The only mystery was how it had ever felt so good the last time.

But it had. She remembered exactly how much.

“As slow as you need to, Georgie.” His voice was hoarse, every muscle in his body as hard as his arms. “Even if you take all night to fill yourself up with my cock, I’ll hold back until you tell me you’re all right. And then I’ll never hold back again.”

Rough, explicit words, but no embarrassment or shock was left in Georgiana—only her desperate need to feel him inside her. Rising up, she braced her hands on his shoulders. Her eyes locked with his when the broad crown slid through her slick folds and lodged against her entrance.

Without hesitation she took him in, easing down over his heavy shaft. No pain at all. No discomfort. Just full. So full. Her head fell back on a moan, and she slowly undulated her hips, taking him deeper and deeper.

Until she couldn’t take any more, stopping with her legs spread wide, her bottom against the tops of his thighs. Panting, she looked down, where their bodies melded together as seamlessly as flesh and steel.

Filled with his cock. A perfect, impossible fit.

Rigid with strain, Thom shook against her. “You’re all right, Georgie?”

“Yes. Oh, Thom.” No holding back. Not when he was so deep inside her. “You feel so good.”

His fingers clenched on her bottom. She rose up again at the urging of his hands, then cried out as he pushed her back down, filling her again.

Fingers catching in her hair, he brought her gaze to his. “This time, you know how to tell me that you like it.”

“I do. So much.” She drew a shuddering breath. Every tiny movement seemed to stretch her sheath tighter around his thick shaft. “Do you?”

“Do I?” A tortured laugh rumbled through his chest, ending on a groan. “I love being in you. You’re so tight, squeezing around me. So hot. I can’t ever get deep enough, Georgie. But I’m going to try.”

Hands locked over her hips, he surged upward. With a strangled cry, Georgiana took him deeper, pleasure searing her senses. She rose up with him, then he filled her with his cock again, just as she wanted, needed. The wild ferocity rushed over her, driving her up against him over and over, her fingers clenching in his hair, sharing his breath as she rode, faster and faster, his face the only thing in her sight.

Then she was there, her mouth feeding greedily from his as her body clenched around him, tighter and tighter, before leaving her liquid and boneless.

Groaning, Thom eased her onto her back. “Wrap your legs around me, Georgie. Tighter. Sweet blue, you’re so wet I could drown in it. Pull me in deep.”

Loving the heavy feel of him over her, she ran her fingers down the flexing muscles of his back. Hands braced beside her shoulders, he lowered his mouth to hers—just as he had the first time, and the second, and the third, but this was nothing like before, with no clothes between them and her hands roaming free, and Thom not slow and careful now. He drove into her, each deep plunge bringing Georgiana back with him, not liquid anymore but soon tense and frantic, writhing beneath him, his heavy thrusts wringing desperate cries of need and frustration from her lips. Not holding back but giving—all the pleasure he could, and when she came again, the clench of her sheath seemed to destroy any remaining control. Lunging forward with a broken yell, Thom held himself deep, pulsing inside her.

Then he kissed her, hot and sweet and smiling. He rolled onto his back, holding her against him—and Georgiana made her second new promise to herself.

She was never letting him go again.

SEVEN

Thom woke just after dawn with Georgie’s head pillowed on his chest and her dark hair spread over his shoulder. This time, he didn’t feel her wake up in his arms—her eyes were already open, her gaze fixed on the porthole.

Probably imagining their escape.

As if sensing he’d woken, she said, “I’m trying to think of something clever. Or not so clever, if stupidity will get us away just the same.”

“I’ll do what I can to delay and just bring up part of that gold, or convince them to wait for the submersible.” Closing his eyes, he breathed in the scent of her hair. The third morning away from home, only a faint hint of flower remained. He wanted to destroy Southampton for that alone. “But if I come up and he’s set on killing us, I’m going to bring the ship down and get you into that boat.”

“I wish we could get into it now.” She turned her head to look up at him, crooking her arm over his chest and cradling her chin against the roll of her fist. Her full lips pursed. “Or climb on top of the balloon. We could hide up there while they wonder where we went, and hang on until they fly back to some port.”

Thoughtfully, Thom nodded. “We could, at that.”

“I wasn’t serious. That was a not-so-clever suggestion.”

He knew. Between the cold, the wind, and no knowing where they were going or when they’d get food, the top of a balloon could be a death trap. “It’s better than other options we have.”

She sighed heavily against him, acknowledging that sad fact. “Is there anything on Oriana that you can bring up? Perhaps something that we could attach to the bottom of the platform—or to the tether, just below the surface—and keep it hidden until we need it?”

Offhand, he couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t be noticed. “I’ll look around.”

“Be careful, though. It isn’t worth your being trapped in a wreck.” Her eyes were somber as she regarded him. After a moment, a faint smile curved her lips. “It’s odd to say this, Thom, but despite not yet having an escape, and despite Southampton’s threats—I am happier at this moment than I’ve ever been.”

He was, too. “I’ll be happier when we are away.”

Georgie laughed and dropped a kiss to his chest, directly over his heart. “I will be, too.”

And she was full of more smiles and kisses after they rose from the bed, as she helped him into his diving suit—and when he teased her, full of laughter and blushes and cries of Thom!

Until sunrise, when Southampton knocked at the door—and told Thom that if every single coin wasn’t aboard the airship by the end of the day, he and Georgie would both be dead.

Within an hour, Georgiana was watching the sea again, endlessly cranking the pump. On the other side of the coiled air hose, Mrs. Winch sat at the edge of the platform, her bare feet dangling into the cold water and a cigarillo between her lips.

Unlike Mr. Blade, she obviously had no interest in harassing Georgiana. They’d barely exchanged any words since the platform had descended.

That suited Georgiana. Her worry for Thom kept her company—as did thoughts of escape. But she hadn’t yet figured out how . . . and if they didn’t delay Southampton’s leaving for one more day, she and Thom would likely never find the opportunity.

Tonight would be their only chance, and the submersible was their best hope of securing that extra time. But Georgiana didn’t believe the machine would tempt Southampton. Though valuable, the twenty or thirty livre it might bring at market would be nothing to a man who would soon possess thousands of gold coins.

It would be a hefty sum to mercenaries, however—probably more than Southampton had paid them for this job.

So Georgiana would try to tempt them, instead. Over the noise of the pump, she said, “I hope Thom will bring up the submersible as well. It’s worth quite a sum. Not as much as the gold, of course—though if Southampton gives all the coins back to the Crown, I suppose he will walk away with nothing extra.”

For a long second, Mrs. Winch studied her through a small cloud of smoke. Then she nodded and said, “I don’t understand bringing the gold up at all if his lordship just gives it away.”

“I suppose you would earn a larger percentage if Southampton also recovered any treasure for himself. If there was something coming up from Oriana that Southampton wasn’t giving away, its value could make up for the additional time you’ve spent on this job.”

Winch’s eyes narrowed. “Are you trying to buy me off, Mrs. Thomas?”

Georgiana hadn’t been, but she wouldn’t pass up the opportunity. “Yes. Could I?”

The other woman smiled and shook her head. “In my profession, there’s only two things that matter aside from the money: the job you’re doing, and the next job you’ll get. And anyone who gets a reputation for sinking one job when a bit of gold is flashed in front of her won’t be getting another job.”

“Then I suppose it would take a lot of gold to persuade you—enough that you’d never need another job.”

“Yes.”

Georgiana wasn’t that well off. And giving Mrs. Winch the gold coins wouldn’t secure her help. If the mercenary would betray her employer, then she would likely betray Georgiana and Thom, too.

But Mrs. Winch might extend a job by one day, if she knew there was a possibility of earning more money. Not changing Southampton’s plan to kill them—just benefiting from delaying it. So Georgiana would let the knowledge that a valuable submersible waited below simmer in Mrs. Winch’s head for a while.

Cranking the pump, she shrugged and sighed. “It was worth the attempt. I doubt I could have paid more than a man like Southampton. I’m sure you will be very well compensated.”

“You’d think so.”

Georgiana nodded, as if she hadn’t detected the edge in Winch’s reply. “He seems a fair man. Despite taking us against our will, he has treated us well. Thom and I have no complaints, especially as he’s promised to return us home. I’m sure that Southampton is fair in his dealings with you, too.”

Winch looked out over the water, her mouth tight. No doubt the mercenary knew very well that Southampton didn’t intend to be fair in his dealings with Georgiana and Thom. Now she was likely wondering whether he’d show her mercenaries the same type of fairness.

“Indeed,” she finally said, and took another draw from her cigarillo.

Satisfied for now, Georgiana glanced up at the airship. The polished hull gleamed in the early morning light. Not the swiftest vessel in the skies, but quick enough to chase them down in a boat.

Her gaze lifted to the balloon. As the morning passed, climbing up the cables anchoring the hydrogen-filled envelope to the wooden cruiser, and hiding atop its rounded bulk seemed less not so clever, and more no other choice. But as long as they were being foolish, she and Thom wouldn’t wait until they died of exposure. They would haul one of the lifeboats up with them, start a leak in the balloon—and when the airship settled into the sea, they could row away laughing.

Georgiana’s breath stopped. She turned to stare into the water again, her ears filled with the squawking of seagulls and the gasping thrust of the pump, and her mind filled with thoughts of leaking balloons.

It was a terrible idea. Incredibly stupid and dangerous. And it would also take away every advantage Southampton had over them. Right now, she and Thom were outgunned. But no one would dare fire a pistol on an airship with a leaking balloon. And they couldn’t have escaped in the lifeboat now, because the flyer would simply catch up to them—but not if her balloon had been compromised.

Oh, but they would be taking such a risk. A single spark could destroy them all.

Yet some chance of escape was still much better than having no chance.

She spent the next hour weighing the risks over and over, trying to minimize every one. By the time she spotted the bubbles breaking against the surface, Georgiana knew that it would be their escape plan. Not at all clever, but it was the best they had.

As long as they could delay Southampton for a little longer. It did not even have to be until that night—just until Thom recovered from his dive.

This time, Thom didn’t haul himself up the tether with the air hose coiled at his side, but gripped the edge of the platform and dragged himself out of the water, a bulging canvas sack in his left hand. He dropped it onto the boards with a heavy thunk—and the unmistakable clink of coins.

With his help, Georgiana worked his diving helmet off. His eyes were bloodshot again, his face pale and sweating.

The dome had not even cleared his head when he asked, “Are you all right, Georgie?”

She laughed. “That is my question to you. I’m fine, Thom. Are you?”

Beside them, Mrs. Winch crouched in front of the canvas sack. “You brought up what you were supposed to?”

“A bloody fortune,” Thom said. “Five thousand gold pieces and no weapons. Open it and look.”

Winch did, her eyes widening. “There’s five thousand here? Southampton said it was only half that.”

“He must have been mistaken,” Georgiana said.

“He must have.” Winch stood and clanked on the platform chain, signaling to the airship. The boards jolted under Georgiana’s feet. Her heart began to pound. The gold had been retrieved. Their task for Southampton done.

“Thom still needs to haul up his air hose, Mrs. Winch!” she called over the rattling chains. “Or he won’t be able to return for the submersible.”

Winch glanced at her. “That’ll be up to his lordship, Mrs. Thomas.”

And the bastard would either be greedy enough to stay another day, or Thom would bring it all down. Georgiana clutched his hand through the wet canvas glove and tried to resist when he subtly moved her behind him, until he said quietly, “I’m covered in brass armor, Georgie. Let me protect you a bit.”

That was sensible—and terrifying. She was almost dizzy with fear by the time the platform clanked against the side of the hull.

Wearing a cold little smile, Southampton stood waiting for them at the gangway, with the band of mercenaries behind him. “You didn’t release the tether from the wreck, Big Thom. I hope this doesn’t mean you returned empty-handed.”

“It only means that my submersible is still down there. I’ll go back for it tomorrow.”

Southampton’s gaze lit on the bulging canvas bag. “But you retrieved my gold?”

“I did. All five thousand.”

Southampton looked to Mrs. Winch, whose mouth flattened as she nodded her confirmation.

Thom continued, “You don’t have to worry that I’ll make a claim on those coins or mention to anyone that I ever laid eyes on them. But that boat down there is all I have to support us . . . and I can sell the submersible on it for thirty livre, enough to buy another ship. That’ll get my wife and me back on our feet when you return us home.”

Oh, Thom. Georgiana squeezed his hand. So very clever. At their dinner, Southampton had spoken of his noble family’s honor and duty, and now Thom appealed to him like a vassal appealing to his lord. If Thom had been appealing in fact, this would have been impossible for him—but her husband probably liked using Southampton’s supposed honor against him.

And Southampton still wouldn’t let them live, but he’d no doubt enjoy playing the generous noble until he put a bullet in their heads.

“A word, your lordship?” Mrs. Winch left the platform and drew Southampton forward along the deck. Georgiana didn’t hear anything of what Winch said to him, but she could well imagine. The value of the submersible might be enough to keep her mercenaries from feeling they’d been cheated, given that the gold Southampton had was worth twice what he’d said he owed the Crown.

Relief almost knocked Georgiana’s knees from under her when she saw Southampton’s nod.

He returned to the gangway, a pleasant smile fixed around his mouth. “Forgive me. Of course I would never deny you the means to support your family, Big Thom—especially as you’ve done my family so great a service. We will stay until tomorrow, then.”

Good enough. They only needed tonight.

The pains soon hit Thom again, though not so hard. He’d taken a longer time coming up and hadn’t been down so long. Georgiana still worried every second, checking his temperature for fever and doing her best to soothe him.

As soon as he slept, she began to prepare. She rolled up two blankets and strapped them together, so they would be easy to carry on her back. When their noontime meal arrived, she requested extra bread for her sick husband, then made a satchel from the skirts of her pink dress and stuffed into it everything from their plates that wouldn’t leak. Coats and hats and gloves and scarves. Thom only had one change of clothes, but she dressed in her warmest wool, with two pairs of stockings.

When he woke, she had everything ready and had settled into the chair by his bed. There were still several more hours to wait. Fewer mercenaries would be on watch late at night, and any bit of fire would be easier to spot and extinguish.

Thom sat up in the bed, his gaze searching her face. “You’ve thought of it.”

“Yes.” She drew a deep breath. “We have to cut open the balloon.”

His big body tensed and he shook his head, as if in instinctive rejection. “If it catches fire, Georgie—”

“I know.” That was the reason it had taken her so long to think of this plan: Cutting open a balloon was simply unthinkable. “But when we come up from the porthole and onto the deck, we’ll have the advantage of surprising the watch. You’re strong enough to pierce the envelope?”

Not everyone would be. The metal fabric was made to withstand weather and birds and the weight of the ship. Georgiana doubted that she could stab a knife through—the blade would just slide across the envelope’s surface. But she didn’t have Thom’s arms.

“I can,” he said.

“Just the threat of ripping through it will make them run to smother all the flames on deck and sound the alarm. And after it’s leaking, not one would dare use his guns.”

Thom was nodding now. “They couldn’t come after us, either.”

“So we could lower the boat to the water,” she said. “Get in and go.”

He settled back against the pillows again. Frowning, thinking it over. She waited for him to decide.

With a heavy sigh, he said, “It’s a hell of a risk, Georgie.”

But that response meant he would take it.

“I know,” she said, and when he reached out and tugged on her fingers, she slid onto the bed and curled against him. His arms came around her, and she rested her head back against his shoulder.

Holding on to each other, while they could.

Quietly, she lay with him. His back propped by the pillows, Thom stared out the porthole, and she knew he was going over it all in his head again.

“When they sound the alarm, all the crew will come up,” he said.

“Yes.” She slid her hand over his chest. “But we have to make sure they sound it. Or someone might come up with a lantern.”

He nodded. “I’m just thinking about you, Georgie. There’s ten mercenaries, and I can handle them if they come at me. You’ve just got to make sure you’re behind me or out of sight.”

“All right.” She wouldn’t argue. If Thom knew she was safe, he would be safer, too. “What about Southampton?”

“That depends on him. I’d like to kill him for every threat he made toward you. But I won’t go out of my way to do it. My only concern is getting you off this ship.” He stroked his fingers down her arm. “When we go out, you’ll have to hold on to the rail while I take care of those on deck. Can you do that?”

Hanging on to the outside of the ship. “I’m stronger than I look.”

“You are.” Shifting her against him, he tipped her chin up and looked down at her with narrowed eyes. “You are, Georgie. And I didn’t think of it much until now. Growing up, everyone was strong, man or woman. But out here, everyone’s almost always weaker. Not you, though. You’re infected?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“After you left the last time. You always seemed so afraid of hurting me. It seemed practical to make certain that hurting me wouldn’t be so easy.”

“It wouldn’t have made a difference. Hurting is still easy. Just the healing is faster.” Gently, he smoothed his thumb across her bottom lip. “Most people are afraid that the tower will go up again—or that they’ll be zombies. You weren’t?”

“I was more afraid that you wouldn’t return to my bed again.” Her eyes filled suddenly, and she blinked at the tears, willing them away. “And I think it saved me when the lump fever came.”

Because she hadn’t caught it, though both her parents had.

“I’m sorry, Georgie.” His voice thickened. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I wish I had been.”

She wished he had been, too. But she shook her head.

“If you hadn’t gone, Thom, I’d never have infected myself. I probably wouldn’t be alive now.” And as much as she’d missed him, Georgiana liked the woman his absence had let her become. “All that matters is that you’re here now.”

“I am.” His arms tightened around her. “I am.”

“But only until tonight.” She grinned up at him. “You’d better not be here after that.”

They waited until after midnight—when, hopefully, whoever stood watch on deck would be half-asleep and huddled down against the cold.

Carrying the blankets and her satchel, Georgiana watched Thom pinch the head of the steel bolt that fastened the thick window to the porthole frame. He twisted and pulled.

A metallic squeal rang through the cabin.

Thom froze. Heart pounding, Georgiana stared at the cabin door, waiting for the guard to burst through and see them attempting to escape.

No one. She looked back at Thom. “Try again?”

He shook his head. “We’ll need to make some other noise to cover this.”

“What noise wouldn’t bring them in?”

“No one came in when we were making noise last night.”

“Thom!” Her blush warmed her cheeks.

He grinned.

Unable to stop herself, she laughed and looked to the bed. It would be the sort of sound that might draw attention, but wouldn’t be unexpected in the cabin of a married couple. “Shall I jump on it?”

Thom shook his head again and led her to the door. Softly, he said, “That won’t be loud enough. Do it here, instead.”

Where? “I don’t understand.”

“You bang up against the door, like I’m having you against it.”

She met his quiet explanation with a look of sheer disbelief.

Without a word, Thom wrapped his hands around her waist and hefted her up. With her thighs around his hips, he pushed her back against the wooden door and gently rocked between her legs.

Oh. Her fingers curled into her palms. This was actually . . . quite . . . wonderful. Despite the urgency of their situation, despite knowing a guard stood in the passageway just beyond the door, heat began to coil inside her, winding tighter with every slow thrust.

She was almost sorry that they needed to escape.

He set her down again, then pushed at her hips, her backside bumping against the wood. “Like that, Georgie, but harder,” he murmured. “You make some loud noise, and I’ll get those bolts out.”

She nodded. “I can do that.”

“Then start yelling.”

Yelling? Georgiana thought she just had to bang against it. “What do I say?”

“Like this,” he said softly, then raised his voice. “Going to spread you wide and fill you up, Georgie!”—his elbow thumped against the door and he gave a heavy grunt—“Going to shag your hot pussy deep and hard!”

“Thom!” she cried—scandalized and muffling her wild laughter behind her hands.

“You’ll soon be screaming my name.” He thumped and grunted again. “Lift your beautiful tits to my mouth now.” Thump. “I’m going to suck on your sweet nipples until you come all over my cock!”

“Thom!” With her face ablaze, Georgiana bumped her backside against the door. “Oh, Thom!”

Grinning, Thom lowered his head, his lips against her ear. “My mouth is full, so I have reason to be quiet. Now you start shouting all those things you said last night.”

He left her bumping at the door, trying to recall exactly what she’d said. Every moment had been seared into her brain, but she’d barely given a thought to most of what had been tumbling out of her mouth.

“Oh, Thom!” Bump. “Thom!” Bump. “Oh, yes, Thom!”

At the porthole, another bolt squealed. Georgiana threw her hips back harder, faster, trying to cover the sound.

“You’re so deep, Thom. Oh! Oh! Don’t slow down. Oh! Harder, now. Thom! I need more! More!”

His back to her, Thom seemed to hunch over. His shoulders were shaking so hard that when he reached for another bolt, his juddering fingers missed it—twice.

Laughing.

Oh, Georgiana always loved to see him do that. Enjoying herself now, she slammed harder and harder. “Thom! Oh! Faster! Don’t stop! I feel it coming!”

And she was running out of things to shout. Remembering last night was no help. Mostly she had just moaned and cried his name.

Desperately, she called up her memories of touching his body afterward, exploring every ridge of muscle—“You’re so hard, Thom!”—running her hands up his thick shaft—“And so big. So long and strong and powerful!”—circling her fingertips around the flared crown—“They should call you the King of the North Sea. Oh, Thom, make me your queen! Oh, oh, Thoooommmmm!”

By the time her wail faded, the glass was out of the porthole frame and her husband had collapsed into the settee with his head in his hands, tears streaming down his face and choking on his laughter. His muffled snorts likely fit quite well into their impromptu bit of theater.

Her face flushed from the exercise, Georgiana joined him. “I must say, Thom—that was quite invigorating.”

Still laughing, he pushed to his feet. Catching her around the waist, he kissed her hard and far too briefly. “I love you, Georgie. Now are you ready?”

No. She wanted to stay here and bask in those words. She’d known he did. Love had never been in question between them—only whether it was enough to overcome all the other hurts.

But even knowing that Thom loved her, it was so sweet to hear him say so. And to say it in return. “Oh, Thom. I love you, too.”

Eyes dark with emotion, he kissed her again. Longer this time. But not as long as Georgiana wished.

Within a few minutes, she was standing at the porthole with the blankets and satchel strapped to her back. Thom had offered to carry them, but had agreed it was more important for him to move as freely as he needed to than to relieve her of a few pounds’ burden.

Gripping the cold frame, she leaned out and looked over. Here at the front of the airship, the prow projected forward over the steep slant of the hull, presenting a sheer hundred-foot drop to the moonlit water below.

Oh, dear God. Her heart thundered against her ribs. This had been so easy to imagine before. Just a simple climb to the weather deck.

Craning her neck, she looked up. With the glass blocking the porthole, she hadn’t been able to stick her head out like this and see exactly what they’d have to climb. But there was almost ten feet of smooth, polished wood between the porthole and the rail on the upper deck—and all of it at that same steep angle.

She pulled her head back in. “I made a mistake, Thom. I don’t think this will work.”

“It will.” Thom was pushing up his sleeves over his forearms, sliding aside small steel panels in his wrists, breaking the illusion of smooth metal skin and revealing the gears and pistons within. “You’ve just got to hang on to me. All right?”

His certainty helped. Though her heart still raced, she nodded.

Moving to the porthole, Thom looked up. He swung his arm. A glint of metal caught the moonlight—a thin cable, she realized. He tugged, seemed satisfied.

He gestured her close. “All right, Georgie. I’ve got this hooked around the bowsprit. We’re going to swing out, and I’m going to pull us up. Once we get up to the rail, I’ll look over, see where the crew is. The bird screen they’ve put across the bow will probably keep us from being seen, but if we’re spotted, I’m going to go up and over right there. But if they don’t see us, you’re going to hang on while I go around the hull and get closer to them. You should take off your gloves for a better grip.”

She stripped them off and shoved them into her coat.

The steel of his palm chilled by the air outside, he cupped her cheek. “Now, listen. If it all goes to hell when I cut that balloon, if you see any hint of fire, you drop into the water before she explodes. Try to straighten your body and hit feet first—your legs will heal. Can you swim?”

“A little.” She couldn’t manage more than a whisper.

“I’ll come for you. I’ll find you.” His head lowered, his kiss a fierce promise. “Are you ready?”

She nodded. After another hard kiss, he moved to the porthole. Gripping the frame at the top, he lifted his body through and sat in the opening with his legs hanging over. Georgiana linked her arms around his shoulders, and buried her face against the back of his neck.

“All right,” she whispered.

He leaned forward, pulling her with him. The front of her legs scraped past the porthole frame, and then they were falling out into nothing, the bowsprit creaking above them and her scream locked behind clenched teeth. They spun, the hull and the moon in a dizzying whirl around them. Desperately, she wrapped her legs around his waist, then a windowed porthole spun into her view—the porthole on the other side of the stateroom, over the settee instead of the table—and she realized that they weren’t falling, but swinging in an arc around the prow like a pendulum.

Before they swung back, Thom began to climb. A soft ratcheting click came from inside his left arm—winding up the slack in the cable. Georgiana clung to him, not daring to close her eyes, too frightened to look anywhere but up. The long bowsprit spar extended like a spear from the point of the bow, and at its base, the heavy iron loop that anchored the balloon’s forward tethers was set into the hull.

“As soon as we reach that anchor, you put your foot on that big loop,” Thom said softly. “Then grab on to those balloon cables or hold on to the spar. You can hide right there for a bit.”

Better than dangling from the rail. Heart thumping wildly, Georgiana watched the anchor loop come closer. Thom slowed, hanging on to the cable with one hand while reaching around behind her with the other. His forearm rotated against her back, his fingers curving around her side as securely as if he’d been holding her from the front.

“I’ve got you, Georgie. Now step on that loop.”

The iron was as thick as her ankle, but even while dangling from a thin cable a hundred feet over the water, the man she clung to seemed more secure. Clenching her teeth against the whimpers building in her chest, she let her leg slide from around his waist and set the toe of her boot on the anchor loop.

“Reach out and grab that spar now.”

Held, but still terrifying to let go. With one arm still clinging to his shoulders, she leaned over. The wooden bowsprit pole was smooth and cold, slippery to her sweating hand. She gripped it tight.

“Pull yourself over, now. I’ve got you.”

It seemed almost impossible to make herself move, then she was over all at once, clinging to the heavy tether cables and looking at Thom.

His dark gaze swept her from head to toe. “All right?”

As long as she didn’t look down. Chest heaving, she nodded. The rail was just above her head—truly an easy climb now. She would just have to reach up and pull herself over.

Just as Thom did now, lifting himself and glancing over. After lowering himself again, he hung on to the rail with one hand and unhooked his cable from the bowsprit. A grapple dangled from the end. He folded the claws and slipped the contraption into his left biceps.

“There’s just two of them amidships, starboard side,” he said quietly. “Only three lanterns. There’s none at this end, Georgie, so they won’t be coming this way to put one out—and they aren’t likely to see you when you look over.”

And they would be less likely to see him coming. Good. “Be careful, Thom.”

He grinned. “That’s the opposite of what we’re doing, Georgie.”

And then he was gone, silently making his way along the rail. Hardly daring to breathe, Georgiana waited. A cold breeze slipped past her cheeks. The airship swayed slightly, the hull creaking.

A shout rang from the deck.

Heart almost bursting in her chest, Georgiana gripped the rail and hauled herself up to look, feet braced against the cables. The soft glow of the lamps at the opposite end of the deck transformed everything in between into shapes and shadows—two men with pistols extended, but they didn’t dare shoot, not with Thom so close to the balloon. With the moon behind him, he was silhouetted ten feet above the deck, hanging from a portside tether cable by one arm. From his other arm, the point of a long blade pressed against the envelope.

His deep voice carried across the deck. “You’d best put those lanterns out.”

They hesitated, clearly not believing that he would. It was unthinkable to them, too. Without a word, Thom stabbed the blade through the envelope.

Georgiana’s heart stopped. The opposite of careful—but if they didn’t risk everything, they’d lose everything.

And it was a risk worth taking. Shouting, the men ran for the lanterns, flinging them over the starboard side, away from the hole. Only a tiny leak right now. Thom had only pierced the balloon’s skin; his blade was still buried in the envelope, blocking the leak, and despite the pressure the metal fabric wouldn’t rip easily.

As soon as the lanterns were gone, Thom jerked the blade upward, slicing open a two-foot tear. He dropped to the deck with a heavy thud, the steel blade at his arm glinting.

The mercenaries ran. They sprinted to the companionway, shouting the fire alert as they disappeared down the ladder.

Georgiana hauled herself over the rail, stumbling into the coils of rope and crates near the bow. Moonlight spilled faintly over the port side of the deck, lighting her way as she hurried toward Thom. He caught her hand, and they raced to the stern, where the boats hung on pulleys.

Out of breath, she stopped at the tie, frantically unfastening the ropes. And Thom . . . didn’t have a left hand.

For the space of a second, she stared. He wasn’t holding a blade that had been stashed inside his arm, as she’d thought. His arm was a blade. And as she watched, he pushed back a small lever at his elbow, and his forearm unfolded as if being turned inside out. Gears clicked. The blade retracted and his fingers snapped into place, one by one.

Mouth open in shock, she met his eyes. “Thom!”

His grin flashed again. “I asked Ivy for it—in case I was ever eaten by a megalodon, I could cut myself out.”

Shaking with sudden laughter, she quickly finished unwinding the tie. Thom hauled on the line and lowered the boat to the deck, then grabbed it by the mooring rope tied to the bow.

“To the tether, Georgie. I don’t trust that they won’t cut the pulley line if we go down this way.”

Dragging the boat after him, Thom quickly started down the moonlit port side, toward the center of the ship. Georgiana followed close behind. But they weren’t going to be there alone. Ahead of them, footsteps pounded up the ladder. Mercenaries spilled out of the companionway, shadowy shapes peering through the dark toward them.

“I ripped the balloon open portside,” Thom called over the scrape of the boat against the deck. “If you shoot, we’re all dead.”

More mercenaries came up as he spoke. Winch’s voice sounded through the dark. “Put your guns away, you fools! Go pull down the other lifeboat. Billy, Leigh—go find Southampton. He’ll need help carrying up that gold.”

“I’m here, Mrs. Winch.”

Thom abruptly stopped and faced the center of the ship. Georgiana scrambled past the boat to his side. He pushed her back against the rail, behind him.

Southampton emerged from the shadows at the center of the deck, wearing a jacket over his nightshirt and a sword in his hand.

A sword. Fear roiled in Georgiana’s stomach. Southampton couldn’t shoot, but he could stab—and he held the weapon with the ease of someone long familiar with it.

He stopped, just over the length of his blade away from her husband. A thin smile curled his lips. “Well done, Big Thom.”

To her astonishment, instead of forming his own blade again, Thom pulled on his gloves. His voice was flat and hard. “If you have a brain at all, you’ll get into that lifeboat with your crew, and then you’ll leave us be. We won’t put any claim on your gold. We won’t say I was the one that brought it up. Those coins don’t matter to me.”

“You believe I’ll take that risk? Only three people know how many coins you found. I’ve already silenced your salvage dealer. Now you and your wife must be silenced.”

“And your mercenaries?” Georgiana said.

“Ah, yes. Well, they will be paid enough to keep silent.”

“Or maybe you’ll have them killed, too,” she said. In the shadows, the mercenaries had quieted. “Or perhaps they’ll blackmail you for more money. Or steal the gold and be done with it.”

She hoped Mrs. Winch would at least consider it.

“There will be no blackmail or stealing, Mrs. Thomas.” Southampton looked away from her and regarded Thom with amusement. “And my crew and I will be the only ones to survive this. You’re a fool for thinking this will save you. We’re forty leagues from the nearest shore. The two of you alone will have little chance of reaching it alive.”

Forty leagues? Oh, dear God. They would have to row a hundred and twenty miles.

But she wouldn’t let the dread overwhelm her. They still had a better chance in a small boat than they did on this ship.

Thom obviously thought so, too. “Little chance is better than none.”

“I prefer all or nothing. Now you’d do well to say good-bye to your lovely wife while you still can.”

“And you’d best get in your boat and go while you can,” Thom said, and she’d never heard his voice so hard and cold. “I was raised under the boot of men like you, who use people and toss them away. When that tower came down, I tore apart men like you. We called them the Horde, but they were the same. And if you don’t back away, I’ll tear you apart, too.”

“They put you down with a tower.” Southampton took a step, his blade rising. “I’ll do it with a sword.”

He lunged, jabbing the blade toward Thom’s heart—and stayed, as if his blade had embedded in flesh. Screaming, Georgiana flew forward. But it wasn’t what she’d thought. Southampton hadn’t impaled Thom’s chest.

Thom had caught the blade in his fist.

He stood, staring at Southampton as his fist slid farther down the sword toward the hilt—the glove preventing any spark from steel scraping against steel.

Jaw clenched so hard that his face seemed to shake, Southampton tried to pull back on his sword, then tried to shove it forward.

With a twist of his wrist, Thom snapped the blade and tossed it over the side. Stepping forward, he swung his right fist. A terrible wet crack split the air. Southampton flew back into the shadows at the center of the deck—but by the shape of his head, Georgiana could see that half of it was gone.

Stripping off his bloody glove, Thom threw it to the deck and looked into the dark. “Any of you want a go?”

“I don’t think we do,” Mrs. Winch answered quickly. “We’ll consider Southampton’s gold your ransom.”

“Fair enough.” Thom looked to Georgiana. “Now you hang on to me again.”

They’d done it. Heart pounding with sudden relief, she leapt up onto his back, winding her arms around his shoulders. He reached the airship tether—five hundred feet below, still connected to Oriana—and grabbed on with his gloved left hand. With his right hand, he hauled the boat over the side by its mooring line.

“Ready?”

She buried her face in his neck. “Yes.”

He went over, sliding down the cable toward the water. The tether bowed slightly under their weight—the airship was sinking, the cable taking on slack. With their feet just above the sea, Thom lowered the boat to the surface, then carefully slid the rest of the way down.

Standing in the boat, he hugged her fiercely. Georgiana clung to him, refusing to think of the forty leagues. They’d made it this far.

A splash suddenly sounded nearby, followed by a dismayed shout from Mrs. Winch. Thom stiffened against her.

“Those damned fools.” Letting her go, Thom dragged up the oars stowed lengthwise beneath the wooden thwarts and moved to the bow. “Sit, Georgie.”

Georgiana quickly took a seat on the center thwart, searching for another pair of oars on the bottom boards. “What happened?”

“They threw the body over.” He fitted the oars into the rowlocks. “Now hang on.”

“But let me—”

Thom surged backward with a mighty pull. The boat shot forward, almost tumbling Georgiana off her bench. A wild laugh broke from her.

“Oh, Thom! Perhaps forty leagues is not much at all!”

He grinned and pulled again, and they sped across the swells. Georgiana faced forward as long as she could, watching him, until the wind and salt spray blinded her. She turned to look behind them.

Lit by the moon, the airship had just settled onto the surface of the water, the balloon sinking in on itself. The mercenaries had begun filling the other boat—across the distance, she made out their dark silhouettes, the items being tossed from the airship to the mercenaries waiting below. Supplies or gold.

She looked around again as Thom suddenly stopped rowing. The expression on his face warned her to silence. Quietly, he tucked the oars inside the boat and moved to her thwart.

“Shh.” He gathered her to his chest, his voice a whisper in her ear. “No noise against the bottom of the boat. Stay absolutely quiet, no matter what.”

She nodded against his wet coat, not daring to breathe. They waited, rising and falling with the roll of the sea. Minutes passed.

The boat suddenly jolted, rocking deeper into a swell. Moonlight glinted on a blade of steel racing past the stern—a razor-edged dorsal fin taller than Thom would have been standing. Sharp terror jumped through Georgiana’s skin, spearing her heart.

A megalodon.

Thom’s arms tightened around her. She watched in horror as the monstrous armored shark sped straight toward the airship, the fin slicing through the path of moonlight.

And from the south, another fin. Oh, dear God.

Faint across the distance, shouts rose from the other boat. Water splashed as they began a desperate rowing. Two men jumped out, tried to swim back to the sinking airship, as if seeking safety.

There would be no safety there, either. A frenzy was starting. The giant sharks would batter the airship’s hull until they’d torn everything apart.

Nearing the mercenaries’ lifeboat, the fin disappeared beneath the surface.

“Don’t look, Georgie,” Thom breathed into her ear.

But she couldn’t look away. The other boat abruptly lifted up out of the water, as if on a huge wave.

And in one bite was gone. Soon the thrashing swimmers in the water were gone, too.

For a long moment, there were no more shouts, no sounds but Georgiana’s ragged breath. The bow of the airship suddenly tipped up, wood splintering. Another fin raced toward it. Georgiana clenched her teeth against a scream of warning. On the deck, a familiar silhouette—Mrs. Winch, standing with her feet apart. A gun barrel gleamed in her hand, pointed at the shark coming toward her.

A bullet wouldn’t do anything to a megalodon. Shooting a weapon beneath a leaking balloon would.

The fin went under. The airship tipped sharply to port—and Mrs. Winch fired her pistol.

The airship exploded in a bright ball of light. Muffling her cry, Georgiana turned her face against Thom’s throat. Heat rushed past her skin.

Then there was just cold again.

And despite Thom’s strength and how quickly he could row, with monsters swimming all around them, forty leagues seemed very, very far away.

The burning remains of the airship were nothing but smoking pieces of flotsam when Georgiana finally succumbed to sleep, held securely in Thom’s arms.

Only a few minutes seemed to pass before his low “Wake up, Georgie” pulled her back up, but when she blinked her eyes open, the eastern sky had paled, and pink traced the clouds.

The low thrum of an airship jolted her fully awake.

Still cradled in Thom’s lap, she sat up. Her gaze searched the air, her heart lifting when she saw the skyrunner coming from the southeast, her lines sleek and beautiful.

Thom pulled her back against his chest and pressed a kiss to her hair. “They must have seen the explosion,” he said softly.

And the remains of the airship burning like a beacon through the night. The etiquette of the seas demanded that any passing vessel offer help and rescue. Now the smoke led them here.

“Have the megalodons gone?” she whispered.

“I haven’t seen a fin in more than an hour. That doesn’t mean we’d be all right to start rowing.”

Georgiana didn’t want to risk it, either. She watched the airship’s approach, silently urging the engines faster. Slowly, Thom’s muscles tensed around her.

“Thom? Is it a shark?”

He made a slight choking sound that might have been a laugh. “In a manner of speaking. That skyrunner is Lady Corsair’s.”

The notorious mercenary. “I thought you were friendly with her?”

“I am. She’ll probably still charge us a ransom before she lets us go.”

Georgiana supposed it was the principle of the thing. She didn’t mind paying for a rescue, though. It seemed more practical than remaining here.

“All right,” she said, and felt Thom’s smile against her hair.

“You’re not afraid?”

“After watching that megalodon swim by our boat, I’ve become just as impervious to the threat of madmen and mercenaries as you are.”

He laughed quietly against her, and a few minutes later, when the airship hovered overhead and a rope ladder unrolled down to their boat, he urged her up the rungs ahead of him.

Above, a man with a wide grin and the loudest orange waistcoat Georgiana had ever seen leaned over the rail, watching them climb.

“Big Thom! We heard rumors that you’d gotten yourself kidnapped! But now I see that you’ve just been on a pleasure cruise with your wife.”

Thom’s gruff reply came from just beneath her. “It seemed like good weather for one—”

From the sea below, a rush of water and cracking wood. Gasping, Georgiana looked down just as enormous jaws crushed their boat to splinters. After a second, nothing remained but small floating pieces.

Astonished, she met Thom’s eyes, swallowed hard. “Well,” she said. “You missed the opportunity to test out your knife.”

And his laugh followed Georgiana the rest of the way up.

Within an hour, Georgiana was walking down a passageway toward another stateroom. In another three hours, she would be home, and quite aware that she and Thom would be returning in much the same way they’d left: on an airship, down a cargo platform. Perhaps even returned to the same spot, with her steamcoach still where Thom had abandoned it.

But Georgiana could not bear to return in exactly the same way they’d left.

When they’d left, she and Thom had been on their way to the magistrate’s to separate. When they’d left, Georgiana had still been keeping the promise to herself that she would never ask him to stay again.

Now she would beg, if necessary. When they’d left, theirs had been a wreck of a marriage. But in the past few days they’d salvaged something incredible from it, a treasure worth more than any gold—and she couldn’t let him go.

But it would not be her choice. If Thom didn’t see himself as she did, if he still believed himself a failure, he might want to leave. The very thought of it started a desperate ache in her chest. What would she do without him now?

She didn’t know. But it would not be the same as before. She’d survived the past four years.

Georgiana didn’t know if she could survive his leaving again.

Eyes blurred, throat knotted, she barely saw the cabin as they entered it. As soon as the door closed, she turned to him.

Before she could get a word out, he kissed her—and yes, this needed to come before anything else. Not a task, but a sheer necessity. She melted against him, his warmth easing the ache in her chest and the pain in her throat. Rough stubble scratched her chin and his coat was damp and her fingers were cold, and this was the most wonderful kiss that there’d ever been.

Until it ended, but then he swept her up and carried her to the bed, and that was even more wonderful.

He set her down on the mattress and stepped back to unbuckle his coat. Voice hoarse, as if something within him was hurting, too, he said, “I need to have you again before we reach home, Georgie.”

“You already have me, Thom. Always.” Gathering every bit of her courage, she rose up on her knees. “Always. When we reach home, I want you to stay. No papers, no separation. I want to call you my husband for the rest of my life.”

His fingers stilled on his coat buckle. As if not daring to believe, his gaze desperately searched her face. “Tell me again.”

“I love you, Thom, and I want you to stay,” she said, and fierce joy replaced the pain. Oh, she would tell him again and again. “I loved you before, but I love you so much more now. Before, I’d have let you leave because the hurt was too much. It isn’t now. And I couldn’t let you go now, even if I was torn apart. If you went, I’d be trailing along behind you—or tying a chain around you to drag you back. So I want you to stay.”

With a sharp hitch of his breath, he clutched her against his chest. Tightly he held her, his hands slipping up her back to tangle in her hair. Gently, he tilted her face up, and the aching love in his eyes was a mirror of her own. “You know I wouldn’t have ever gone. But I don’t know that I’ll be any better a husband than I was.”

“Will you be with me?”

“Every single night.”

“Will you love me?”

“Always, Georgie.”

“Then that’s all I need.” She tugged him down to the bed. When he sank down on the edge, she straddled his thighs. His coat still needed unbuckling. Her fingers started in on the task. “If it’s money that worries you, you ought to know it’s not a concern. My business is yours, too—at least the profits from it are, since I invested your earnings to start it. And it’s done well. I’ve got a fleet of ten ships, and I’ll soon be acquiring more. Maybe airships, too. It’s not a chest of gold, but we won’t want for anything.”

He struggled with that, but finally nodded. “Considering that gold is likely in a shark’s belly, I’ll trade it.”

“It’s a good trade. Your share of the profits is a hefty one.” She took a deep breath. “If you want a new ship for your salvaging work, you’ve earned more than enough to buy another one. A new submersible, too.”

“I don’t want to salvage.”

“You’re very good at it.”

“I was good at hauling fish, too.”

He was good at a lot of things. But that wasn’t the question she needed to ask—the question she’d never bothered to ask before. “What will make you happy, Thom?”

“Just you, Georgie. And you loving me even half as much as I love you.”

“I love you twice as much as that.” And her heart was bursting with it. Smiling, she pushed his coat down his arms. “Is there anything you want to do?”

He grinned and rocked up beneath her. “I want to make you my queen.”

“Thom!” She laughed, her face hot. “I’m sure we’ll do plenty of that.”

“Soon.” His expression gentling, he softly kissed her. “You’re the one person I care about proving myself to, Georgie. And yet you make me feel like I don’t have to.”

“You don’t have to. You already have, over and over.”

“And I’m not going to stop now.” And he seemed to be thinking her question over again now, his brow creased in a thoughtful frown. “I do like diving. And I enjoyed working with Ivy.” His hand smoothed down her suddenly tense back. “I’m not saying I want to go off and do it again. I’m saying that I liked tinkering, and putting that submersible together with her. I could make more of them, test them in local waters, sell them.”

“You’d like that?”

“I would.”

Then it sounded perfect to her. “We could build a workshop for you next to the house. Or in town, by my offices.”

“I’d like that, too. And I’ll figure out how to help you take care of our children—and learn to read and write a bit, so that I can send you love notes and make up for all the messages I never sent before.”

Her heart swelled. “I’ll send some to you, as well.”

“And I’ll make a better man of myself.”

“Oh, Thom. You’re the best man I know. You couldn’t be any better.”

He lowered his lips to hers, said softly against them, “You’re wrong, Georgie.”

Smiling, she wound her arms around his shoulders. “You’ll have to stay around to prove me wrong.”

“I will. You wait and see. You’ll never be able to get rid of me.”

She’d never try. “Is that your new promise? Because my new promise is that I’m never going to be separated from you again.”

“It is, Georgie.” His voice roughened. “I swear it.”

“And is there any chance you’ll ever break it?”

“None at all.”

“Then I was wrong, Thom,” she said, and leaned in for another kiss. “Sometimes, no chance is better than some.”