Steamed (23 page)

“I wouldn’t go so far as that,” I said, casting a worried glance at him, quickly rearranging my expression to be one reflecting more pleasant thoughts as Alan greeted us.

“Octavia, my dove, you look exquisite as ever,” he said, bowing low over my hands.

“So that’s how it’s going to be, eh?” I murmured softly as he kissed my knuckles.

The look he shot me was filled with purest mischief.

“Yes, she does look exquisite, every blessed inch of her,” Jack agreed, wrapping one arm around my waist and pulling me up to his side. “As I noted this morning, when I was helping her put on her corset.”

“Subtlety isn’t your strong point, is it, Jack?” I asked, giving him a gimlet eye.

Alan looked from me to him for a moment, before bursting into loud and very amused laughter. “I can see it’s not. Jack, is it? How d’ye do. Alan Dubain.”

Jack took the hand Alan offered and shook it. “Jack Fletcher. And you were worried we weren’t going to be civilized about this, Octavia.”

I narrowed my lips at him.

“I am frequently very uncivilized when it comes to Octavia, but I am pleased to know she has found a lover at last. I have been worried about her these last three years. She has been working so hard, she has not had time to enjoy herself in that way.”

“God grant me patience,” I murmured, casting my eyes upward, and indulging in a general damnation on lovers old and new.

“That’s a long time for a woman to go without a man to keep her happy,” Jack said, nodding his head in agreement.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake—,” I started to say.

“Especially a woman of Octavia’s appetites,” Alan said in a conspiratorial tone.

“Right. That’s enough! Cease this conversation immediately. We have more important things to do than discuss my sexual well-being. This just encourages Jack in possessive behavior, and I think we can all do without that.”

“Thus sayeth the woman who knows nothing of possessiveness?” Alan asked, his dark eyes lit with a teasing light I knew well.

I glared at him.

“Is she really?” Jack asked, considering me. “I had no idea. So, what would you do if I walked over to that flower seller and kissed her?”

“Bid you good riddance,” I growled, ignoring the two men to climb into Alan’s carriage. I gritted my teeth against their manly laughter, cursing the ill luck that not only threw Jack and his blighted sister into my lap but entangled me with the former in ways that I was beginning to fear.

Alan sat across from us as the carriage drove to the palace, his gaze alternating between Jack and myself. His appearance was as familiar to me as my own, his bronzed skin just as warm and glowing as I remembered it, his laughing eyes almost as black as the crown of shining black hair that he wore just a smidgen too long for a gentleman. His grin was not as infectious as Jack’s, but it held a true warmth that I never failed to appreciate. He spoke in a drawling, languid manner common to the upper classes, but there was nothing slow about the mind behind the eyes that danced with secret mirth.

“He seems nice enough,” Jack said fifteen minutes later when we stood in the lobby of the palace while Alan was speaking with a tiresome official who refused to let us pass. “I retract my earlier concern about him wanting to make a play for you. It’s clear that he is what you said he is—a friend and nothing more. He doesn’t seem very diplomatic, though. Not at all what I expected from someone on an ambassadorial staff. You sure he’s going to be able to get Hallie free?”

“Don’t allow yourself to be misled by his lighthearted appearance,” I said slowly, watching Alan as he first reasoned, then joked with the official. “There is substantially more to him than what you see on the surface.”

“Wise words in general,” Jack acknowledged, taking my arm when Alan turned toward us and waved us forward.

“I have the utmost confidence in you, Octavia, but I think in this situation it would be best to let me handle the vice-provost,” Alan told us a few minutes later as we walked down the long hallway to a suite of offices. “I am equally confident that Jack will understand the necessity to allow me to be the one to make inquiries about his sister, since I gather his presence here is not with any form of official sanction.”

“What did you tell him about us?” Jack whispered in my ear as Alan strode ahead of us.

“Nothing other than you do not have official status within the empire.”

“An outlaw, do you mean? Well, that’s certainly close enough to the truth. Although—you don’t think he’s going to think I’m one of your revolutionaries?”

I hushed him, giving the guards at attention nearest us a worried glance. “It doesn’t matter what he thinks you are so long as he helps us.”

Jack had nothing to say to that, so we proceeded after Alan in silence, waiting patiently while an officious secretary fussed over Alan’s request for a few minutes before sweeping open a set of French doors and gesturing us into a grand office where an equally officious man sat dwarfed by a huge white-and-gilt desk.

“Your Excellency, Ambassador Dubain seeks an audience with you,” the secretary said, bowing and groveling as we entered.

“Yes, yes, I know all about that,” the doughy man behind the desk said, his bare head shiny with perspiration despite the early hour. “I have the ambassador’s letter here. It is a matter of state, I believe you said?”

“A trivial matter, I assure you,” Alan said, donning his most persuasive voice. “But one, alas, that I must trouble you with.”

The vice-provost barely cast a glance toward us, his shiny red face expressing dyspepsia and irritation as he gestured loftily toward Alan. “The ambassador will understand that my time is limited, what with this royal wedding almost upon us.”

“The matter concerns Captain Octavia Pye,” Alan said, waving a hand toward me. “Captain Pye is the commander of one of His Imperial Majesty’s airships, and was the ward of a great favorite of the late emperor. She is of much value to Emperor William, as well as to the empire as a whole.”

The vice-provost, whose oily glance had barely touched me, returned, this time with a glint of speculation in it. I lifted my chin and endeavored to look of great value.

“Just so,” the provost said, his gaze flickering back to Alan. His fingers drummed impatiently on the table.

“Captain Pye has unfortunately lost one of her crew members, a lady, in what can only be described as a farce of miscommunication. The lady in question was mistakenly detained by imperial guards yesterday afternoon—”

“Name?” the provost interrupted, shuffling through a stack of cards.

Alan smiled. “Hallelujah Norris.”

“Charged as a spy. Trial is two days hence. Deportation to England for execution on the following day,” the man said in a bored voice before casually tossing the cards down onto the desk and picking up a sheet of paper.

“Execution!” Jack said, starting forward. I grasped him firmly by the arm, tightening my fingers in silent warning to let Alan handle the situation.

“That’s what we do with spies,” the provost said without looking up from his paper. “We don’t normally send them to England, but the emperor wants a big display to be made the day of the wedding. Just more work for me, that’s what it is, but does anyone think of that?” He looked up at that, narrowing his eyes on Jack. “Who’re you?”

“This is another of my crew,” I said quickly. “Mr. Jack Fletcher is an engineer. He came out on the
Tesla
with us, and is naturally very worried about his fellow crew-mate. I can assure you that Miss Norris is not a spy.”

“No more than I am,” Jack growled.

Both Alan and I shot him a look of warning that thankfully he took to heart.

“You can understand how distressed Captain Pye and her crew will be to hear of this travesty,” Alan said smoothly. “Since there is to be a trial, perhaps we will be able to speak on her behalf, and clear up any misunderstanding there has been regarding the identity and purpose of the lady in question.”

“Trials are closed to the public,” the sweaty man replied, picking his teeth for a moment before glancing up, his face tight with irritation. “As you ought to know. If there’s nothing else, Ambassador, I’m a very busy man. I’ve nothing but work to do while you lot gad about at balls and routs, having your way with Italian princesses and such. Some of us have to work, you know! I’ve got all those trials to get through, and a half-dozen prisoners to ship back to England, all on the emperor’s whim.”

Beside me, Jack tensed.

“Sir,” I said hastily, fearing what Jack might do or say. “If we could just speak with Miss Norris, it would relieve our minds—”

“Out of the question,” he answered, sourly shoving away from his desk and yelling for the secretary. “Ben-son! Where the devil is my brandy?”

“Don’t,” I murmured to Jack as he strained toward the man. “You’ll just end up in gaol with her, and then where will we be?”

I could feel his hesitation as I tugged him out of the room while Alan, in true diplomatic style, mouthed pleasantries and thanks that were certainly not deserved.

Jack managed to hang on to his temper until we reached the relative safety of Alan’s carriage, at which point he exploded in a veritable cloud of profanity and outrageous demands.

“We have to go back in there and get her!” he repeated after the worst of the storm passed. “I’ll be damned if I let my sister be executed just because she was standing in a square looking at a fountain! I’ll be damned if I let her be executed for any reason! Dammit, Octavia, we have to do something.”

“And we will,” I said in my best soothing manner. “Alan, do you think it’s worthwhile going over that repulsive man’s head?”

“No. Tewksbury is a slimy slug on the underbelly of the empire, but there’s nothing I can do to force him to give us access to Jack’s sister.”

“What about the trial?” I asked, a sick, damp feeling clutching my belly. “Can you pull diplomatic strings to speak there? Or allow me to do so?”

“I’ll look into it, but I don’t hold out much hope,” he said, shaking his head.

Jack’s expression turned mutinous. “I am not going to sit by and let your precious emperor kill my sister as part of his wedding celebrations. We have to do something! What if we got that Etienne and his people to help us storm the palace?”

Alan’s eyebrows went up.

I thought about Jack’s suggestion for a moment before sighing. “No, there are simply too many guards even for the Black Hand.”

“Maybe we could get in touch with that Moghul guy, the one who tried to steal your cargo. I bet he could bring down the palace.”

Alan laughed. “Don’t think he hasn’t tried. Emperor William is well aware that the palace is a target of both the Black Hand and the Moghuls, and has seen to it that it is well protected.”

“Damn.”

“If we can’t get her out of the palace because it’s too well guarded,” I said slowly, “we’ll just have to free her after she’s taken out of there.”

“You don’t want to wait until she’s taken into prison in Newgate, once she’s in England,” Alan mused aloud. “It’ll be just as impossible to get her out of there as it would be the palace here.”

“We’ll have to get her out en route,” I agreed. “No doubt they’ll use one of the troop-transport airships to take the prisoners back to England for the wedding executions.”

“There is that,” Jack said slowly. “Do you think you could get a job on the ship, Octavia?”

“It’s doubtful. Not only will the transport ship likely have its full complement of crew already; the Southampton Aerocorps is still investigating the incident at the aerodrome yesterday, and I will not be allowed to fly in an official capacity until my status has been cleared.”

“Damn.”

“Alan, is there any way you could get me on the transport ship?” I asked.

He shook his head almost immediately. “Not in any way that would be useful. Besides, it would be dangerous for you.”

“Dangerous? Oh . . .” I stopped, not daring to look at Jack. Unease rose again within me at the deception I was keeping from him. I sent a pleading look to Alan, but his expression was inscrutable as ever.

“That was a loaded ‘oh.’ What did you mean by it?” Jack asked.

I looked at him, mute, wanting to explain, but unable to risk exposing Alan if he felt the situation was not wise.

“I see,” Jack said, withdrawing from me. Hurt flashed in his eyes, and I wanted to reach out and reassure him that it was nothing to do with him personally. “There are things you can say to your old friend, but not a new lover. Got it.”

“Jack—” I stopped, impotent. Ire swept through me as I glared at Alan.

Alan said nothing, just watched us both.

“That’s fine. Don’t worry about me,” Jack continued, looking out the window. “Clearly you have things to talk about that you can’t say in front of me. I’ll get out as soon as the carriage stops and let you have some privacy.”

“Alan!” I growled, narrowing my glare on him until it could have cut iron.

He sighed and made a half shrug. “Very well, but let this be on your own head. The reason it would be dangerous for Octavia to go on the transport ship in order to rescue your sister is because she—your sister—is suspected of being a member of the Black Hand. If Octavia attempts to free her and fails, her involvement with the revolutionaries will be uncovered.”

“You know Octavia is a member of the revolutionary group?” Jack asked, his pained expression thankfully fading. I took his hand, uncaring if Alan saw the gesture.

Alan said nothing. Jack turned from him to me. I raised my eyebrows.

“Holy shit. You mean he’s a member, too?” Jack pointed at Alan. “But he’s an ambassador!”

“There are people in all walks of life who desire to see an end to the current status of the empire,” I said nonchalantly. “Naturally, Alan’s involvement is known only to a very few people.”