Heart of Steel - Meljean Brook [7]
Large and well-tended, the house provided ample room for one woman. Yasmeen supposed that much space was the best someone could hope for when living in a town—but she couldn’t have tolerated being anchored to one place. Why would Zenobia Fox? She had based her adventures on her brother’s travels, but why not travel herself? Yasmeen couldn’t understand it. Perhaps money had been a factor—although by the look of her home, Zenobia didn’t lack funds.
No matter. After Yasmeen paid her off, Zenobia wouldn’t need to base her stories on Archimedes’ adventures. She could go as she pleased—or not—and it wouldn’t be any concern of Yasmeen’s.
As this was a social visit, she removed the guns usually tucked into her wide crimson belt. At the beginning of the month, she’d traded her short aviator’s jacket for a long winter overcoat. The two pistols concealed in her deep pockets provided enough protection, and were backed up by the daggers tucked into the tops of her boots, easily reachable at mid-thigh. She checked her hair, making certain that her blue kerchief covered the tips of her tufted ears. If necessary, she could use her braids to do the same, but the kerchief was more distinctive. There would be no doubt exactly who had dropped in on Zenobia Fox today.
The ladder swayed when Yasmeen hopped over the rail and let the first rung catch her weight. Normally she’d have slid down quickly and landed with an acrobatic flourish, but her woolen gloves didn’t slide over the rope well—and Yasmeen didn’t know how long she would be waiting on the doorstep. Cold, stiff fingers made drawing a knife or pulling a trigger difficult, and she wouldn’t risk them for the sake of a flip or two.
The neighbors might have appreciated it, though. All along the street, curtains twitched. When Yasmeen pounded the brass knocker on Zenobia’s front door, many became bold enough to show their faces at the
windows—probably thanking the heavens that she hadn’t knocked at their doors.
No one peeked through the curtains at Zenobia’s house. The door opened, revealing a pretty blond woman in a pale blue dress. Though a rope ladder swung behind Yasmeen and a skyrunner hovered over the street, the woman didn’t glance up.
A dull-witted maid, Yasmeen guessed. Or a poor, dull-witted relation. Yasmeen knew very little about current fashion, but even she could see that although the dress was constructed of good materials and sewn well, the garment sagged in the bodice and the hem piled on the floor.
The woman must have recognized Yasmeen as a foreigner, however. A thick Germanic accent gutted her French, the common trader’s language. “May I help you?”
“I need to speak with Miss Zenobia Fox.” Yasmeen smoothed the Arabic from her own accent, hoping to avoid an absurd comedy of misunderstandings on the doorstep. “Is she at home?”
The woman’s eyebrows lifted in a regal arch. “I am she.”
This wasn’t a maid? How unexpected. Despite the large house and obvious money, Zenobia Fox opened her own door?
Yasmeen liked surprises; they made everything so much more interesting. She’d never have guessed that the tall, awkward girl with mousy-brown braids would have bloomed into this delicate blond thing.
She’d never have guessed that her first impression of the woman who penned clever and exciting tales would be “dull-witted.”
Archimedes certainly hadn’t been. Quick with a laugh or clever response, he’d perfectly fit Yasmeen’s image of Archimedes Fox, Adventurer. She could see nothing of Archimedes in this woman—not in the soft shape of her face or the blue of her eyes, and certainly not in her manner.
Blond eyebrows arched ever higher. “And you are . . . ?”
“I am Lady Corsair’s captain.” Kerchief over the hair, indecently snug trousers, a skyrunner that had once belonged to Zenobia’s father floating over her house—was this woman completely blind?