Heart of Steel - Meljean Brook [36]
A boiler explosion, everyone said. It happened all the time.
And every time it was repeated, Captain Machen got a mad look in his eyes. Only after the man finally called him Archimedes did he realize what the pirate had been thinking when they’d met on the docks: Wolfram Gunther-Baptiste provided weapons and explosives.
But Archimedes Fox hadn’t done this.
He’d killed Yasmeen, though. The knowledge crushed every other thought, every other care. He didn’t remember making his way back to the boardinghouse, or climbing the stairs to his room, but his legs were still trembling from the effort when he opened the door.
The unlocked door.
He stared at the empty bed. The glider contraption was gone. They hadn’t taken anything else, but that was enough. Too much. He dropped his head to his hands, slid to the floor.
And knew his luck had finally run out.
Chapter Four
Eventually, Archimedes crawled to the bed. Fever set in. For three days, he tossed in his sheets, and woke shivering in clothes drenched with sweat. When the boardinghouse matron came round, he discovered that during his delirium, he’d somehow had sense enough to post the letter to Zenobia. As arranged, she didn’t reply. He didn’t send another message telling her the sketch had been taken. When he could manage the stairs without tumbling down, he took a meal and a pint at the nearest tavern. Around him, everyone spoke of where they’d been when Lady Corsair’s boiler had blown; no one mentioned a da Vinci sketch or a satchel that could convert into a glider. The next day, he chose another tavern, bought a meal and several pints, drinking as he listened to the talk around him. By the next week, he rarely bothered with the meals. He drank and listened, and then drank more.
Two months after Lady Corsair had burned, Archimedes woke with a pounding in his head and a knife at his throat.
A low voice purred in his ear. “What will you call this adventure? Archimedes Fox and the Drunkard’s Filthy Stench?”
Yasmeen? Archimedes opened his eyes to a coal dark room, not daring to hope. Dreams of her had come before. He’d always woken, cold and shaking, his face wet—but it wasn’t wet now, and he wasn’t shaking. A weight pushed on his chest until he could hardly breathe. Was she sitting on him?
“You’re heavier than you look, Captain,” he said on a wheeze.
She hissed. Pain bit his neck with the edge of her blade. Ah, sweet bliss. Not dreaming at all.
And she was alive.
Without any air to laugh, Archimedes grinned as elation poured through him. It didn’t matter if she killed him now. Focusing on the feel of her, he realized that she’d straddled his chest, her knees and shins pinning his shoulders and upper arms to the mattress—but he could bend his elbows. He could lift his hands. He could reach her waist. She stiffened when his fingers slid over her hips.
Solid. Real. Warm.
He felt the trickle of blood down his throat. Her breath skimmed over his jaw. Her hair tickled his face. Was she close enough to kiss him?
Oh, God. Please.
Her voice was soft. “Tell me the truth and I’ll make it quick: Did you set fire to my ship?”
What the hell? No.
But he could only mouth the word—and it was too dark for her to see. Goddammit. He shoved his hands beneath her ass. As if prodded, she jolted forward, her weight shifting long enough for him to breathe.
Long enough for him to bite out, “I never would!”
“So you already said.” She settled back down, trapping his hands, but this time allowing him room for shallow inhalations. “I can see, you idiot. Why would I ask if I couldn’t?”
“Why say you’d make it quick if you wouldn’t?”
Her dark laugh filled the room. “That’s true enough. I’d have flayed you alive.”
Why say it—and why ask? Suspicion crawled into his mind. “Is there someone who needs