The Iron Duke (17 page)

But his reputation hadn’t been destroyed because he’d lost the ship; it had been destroyed because a quarter of his crew had starved, been hanged, or whipped to death.

He must have read Mina’s disbelief. “I deserted the lieutenants and the crew who didn’t want to join with me. When they were returned to Manhattan City for the court-martial, half of them spoke the truth about what had happened under Adams—and the Dame believed the others. She still wants to clear his name.”

Mina shook her head. “So to restore his reputation, she took to piracy, and became a thief and murderer?”

“To finance her pursuit. She had to pay her crew.”

Unbelievable.
“And you never killed her?”

“Why would I? She surprised me now and again, but never had me on the straights.”

After destroying the tower, however, he hadn’t been continually on the move. He’d begun building his house on the Isle of Dogs. The Dame could have easily killed him then—
Oh
.

“You gave up the
Terror
, and you cut her off at the knees,” Mina said quietly. “But that meant you wouldn’t have to kill her.”

Trahaearn tensed beside her, and she realized he hadn’t expected her to make that leap. Perhaps he hadn’t
wanted
her to make that leap.

Had he felt sorry for the woman? Mina couldn’t. “And if she
is
the one who murdered Haynes?”

Iron determination hardened his response. “Then she’ll pay for it.”

Mina sighed. She didn’t suppose he intended for the Dame to pay with an arrest and trial. So when the time came, Mina would have to go around him . . . or end up arresting the Iron Duke for murder, instead.

But since she didn’t want to spend the rest of this flight contemplating the destruction of her career, she asked, “What has the Dame been doing since?”

“She took up with Jasper Evans—”

“The steelcoat inventor?” And the bounder who’d been cheated out of a fortune fifteen years earlier, when Cornelius Morgan stole his patent to build the armored suits. When the navy didn’t support Evans’s claim—Morgan’s bid came in at half the price—he’d gone mad. “I’d heard he was dead. That he drowned himself in one of the suits, jumping off a ship taking him out of Manhattan City.”

“No better way to stop the navy from searching for you.”

“So he’s not insane?”

“He is.” Trahaearn’s grin flashed. “And angry enough that he holed himself up in Calais, so that no one could steal his work again. The Dame’s there with him now, though—has been for the past eight years.”

Probably stewing in her resentment and hate. “If he’s holed up, how do you know this?”

“They sail to Port Fallow regularly for supplies and to spend a few nights at the taverns. They both drink too much, and talk even more.”

Mina laughed softly, shaking her head.

A bell rang behind them, a sharp chime audible over the engines and the rushing wind. Trahaearn looked round and stood. “Yasmeen has something for us.”

Lady Corsair’s name was Yasmeen? That narrowed her accent, then. Either she’d escaped from the territories that the Horde still occupied in the Orient, or she’d grown up in one of the Arab tribes who’d settled along the southern coast of the South American continent.

They joined her on the quarterdeck, where she stood behind a thick, curved sheet of glass that formed a windbreak around the helm. Cigarillo in hand, she’d pushed her goggles up, and exhaled a mouthful of tobacco smoke past the windbreak.

The aviator captain had expensive tastes—but if she earned twenty-five livre in one day, Mina supposed the woman could afford them.

“The wind is in our favor, captain. I’ll have you to the Dame’s fort in less than an hour.” Though it was quieter behind the glass, Lady Corsair still had to raise her voice over the engines. “Where’s the windup boy? Scarsdale won’t thank you for having to miss a reunion with the Dame—and I’m sorry that I won’t see you knock him unconscious again in order to get him up here.”

Mina couldn’t read the expression that passed over the duke’s face. Part concern, part irritation.

“He was still abed,” he said.

“Hungover?” Yasmeen gave her head a little shake before looking Mina over. “You’re keeping strange company in his place, captain. I’m not sure what’s worse—that you’ve taken up with the Horde, or that you’ve taken up with a London copper.”

Mina’s jaw clenched.

“Yasmeen.” Trahaearn’s voice held a warning.

The woman grinned, her green eyes keen and suddenly full of humor. “I don’t hold it against
you
,” she told Mina. “I am only surprised that Trahaearn doesn’t. I remember a time when his only purpose was to destroy the Horde, along with every New World government and institution therein—including the police forces. And look at him now: a duke who conducts most of his business legally and pays
taxes
to the Crown. God’s truth, it’s heartbreaking. Smoke?”

After the barrage aimed at Trahaearn, the offer Yasmeen tacked on took a moment to sink in. Curious, Mina nodded. Yasmeen withdrew a silver case and a small spark lighter from her belt, and passed her cigarillo to Mina to hold while she lighted it. They traded, and Mina observed how the other woman drew another mouthful before putting the cigarillo to her lips.

“The Lusitanians make a fortune on this stuff,” Yasmeen said, then glanced at Trahaearn. “You have, too?”

“Shipping it, yes.”

His gaze had settled on Mina’s mouth as she sucked in a long breath. Yasmeen burst into a deep and throaty laugh, accompanied by a shake of her head.

“I should have warned you—inspector, is it? Shallow inhalations. You’ll feel that one.”

Mina already was feeling it—dizzy, light-headed.

“And you’ll want more,” Trahaearn added, not as amused as Yasmeen, but smiling.

Mina wasn’t sure if she would. The taste wasn’t unpleasant, but it wasn’t good, either. It most certainly wasn’t worth the price. “Why will I?”

He shrugged. “Ask Yasmeen to make this her last, and to never smoke another again. She won’t be able to. Perhaps she’d last until tomorrow, but no longer.”

“I
could
,” Yasmeen said. “I don’t
want
to.”

Mina glanced at the cigarillo between her fingers and thought of the opium pipelayers in their dens. She looked to Trahaearn. “How do you know?”

“When I realized how much I needed it, I meant to quit them. But I only managed to stop after I ran out when I was still six weeks from any port.”

“You stopped because you needed it?” Yasmeen shook her head, laughing. “Did you stop eating, too?”

That decided her. Mina liked to eat—but if her tastes began to run toward these cigarillos, she wouldn’t be able to afford any food afterward. Carefully pinching out the burning end, she gave the remainder back to Yasmeen. “Thank you.”

The other woman tucked it into her case. “Such manners. And you don’t speak like a crèche baby.”

“No, I don’t.”

Yasmeen narrowed her eyes, then looked around when a bell chimed. One of the crew pointed out over the bow, to a faint blue line across the horizon. Mina’s heart leapt. She gripped the side of the windbreak, peering through the thick glass. That had to be the Channel—her very first glimpse of the sea.

Turning back to them, Yasmeen said, “We’re almost to Dover, then. Are you heading into Evans’s fort, just the two of you?”

“And the constable,” Trahaearn said.

“That red giant?” The other woman pursed her lips. “Yes, yes, that will make all the difference, I’m sure. I want payment upfront, captain.”

With a laugh, the duke shook his head.

Mina frowned at him before looking to Yasmeen. “Why don’t you think we’ll return? The Dame is hoping for a ransom. Won’t she wait to see whether it will be paid?”

“She’ll honor a ransom payment, but getting Trahaearn out again is another matter.” Her gaze ran over Mina from head to toe. “
You
obviously can’t pay me, and your employer
won’t
.”

No, Mina couldn’t pay her—or a ransom. She asked Trahaearn, “What if the boys are there? Will you pay for their release?”

Yasmeen snorted. “And play the hero again? If you do, this reward won’t compare to the last you received. Dukedoms only come with towers.”

Trahaearn’s mouth tightened, and that awful detached expression came over his features. “No.”

Mina stared at him. “No?”

“They aren’t in danger. Their families will pay, and the Dame won’t risk harming them before they return home.”

“Yes, but if she’s the one who killed Haynes, then I’m going there to
arrest
her. If those boys aren’t at the fort, how will we find them? But if we pay the ransom first and verify their location, then bringing Haynes’s murderer to justice won’t come at the expense of the boys’ lives.”

Aghast, Yasmeen gaped at her before looking to the duke. “It’s worse than I thought. Not just the Horde, not just the police—you’re keeping company with someone who has
principles
.”

“Unfortunately,” Trahaearn said.

Very well, then.
Mina could think of several other reasons not to leave the boys to rot. “If the Dame lies about the
Terror
’s location, those boys can probably tell you who has it now and where it was headed. At the very least, they can tell you where it was taken. If their lives aren’t worth the money, surely the information they have is?”

He frowned at her, and Mina supposed she ought to have quivered or cowered. She turned to the airship captain, instead.

“What can we expect at the fort, Captain Corsair?”

“Zombies, the Dame’s crew walking about in Evans’s steelcoats, and whatever mad inventions he’s spent the past fifteen years creating. Then there’s the Dame herself.
Sawtooth
isn’t just a name, but a role she’s determined to play to the very,
very
end.” Yasmeen waved her cigarillo in a dramatic flourish before glancing over at Trahaearn. “I truly think you should pay me upfront.”

Mina returned to the bow as the airship passed the Dover
cliffs and flew out over a breathtaking expanse of dark blue water. The clouds weren’t wisps now, but small puffs crowding the sky like sheep huddled together. Dozens of ships sailed the lanes, their white canvases full, the rigging standing tall and proud against the water. Her heart hurt, it was all so beautiful. Andrew would have loved this.

By the starry sky, she hoped he was well.

In the distance, the shores of France waited, a flat band of dark green that separated the sapphire water and the azure sky.

The crew’s activity near the rail caught her attention, and a moment later she was forced to abandon her wooden chest when a red-faced aviator told Mina that she was sitting on his gun. Unlike a sailing ship, the airship didn’t carry heavy artillery, but rail cannons—electric-powered weapons that fired smaller ammunitions at greater velocity than a traditional cannon. Though more destructive and accurate, only the most desperate of sea captains ever fired up a rail cannon on the water; the electricity required demanded the use of steam engines, whose vibrations drew the monstrous sea creatures the Horde had altered and bred for their own unimaginable purposes. Fortunately, no megalodons or kraken inhabited the Channel, but there swam sharks big enough to damage rudders, and giant eels who generated electrical discharges strong enough to kill a swimmer or burn holes in a wooden hull. But an airship had nothing similar to fear, and could fire its engines for both propulsion and defense.

She watched in trepidation as they readied the gunports and mounted the rapid-fire rifles, whose multiple spinning barrels could shoot almost two hundred rounds per minute. When Trahaearn came up beside her, he swept an exacting gaze over each weapons station, but must have found little to criticize. With a nod, he looked down at her.

His lips quirked, and he bent to her ear. “Even a fast airship isn’t worth twenty-five livre,” he said. “But no navy in the world could boast of a ship this tight, or a crew as loyal. And so
Lady Corsair
is worth every denier.”

Mina had to take his word for it. She’d never stepped foot on another airship, let alone a sailing ship. She gestured to the guns. “Do you believe we’ll need those?”

“I believe we’ll need to be ready to use them.”

Said by a man who only carried a dagger. Uncertainty trembled in her stomach. Despite hearing of zombies and insane inventions, Mina realized that his presence had prevented fear from rattling her as hard as it should have. Almost a decade of reading his praise in the newssheets must have seeped into her, down to her bones—and she’d felt safe all the while she’d been with him, knowing that no one in England would dare touch the Iron Duke.

But it was different, here. They’d passed out of England . . . and were on course to confront enemies who
would
dare.

His gaze sharpened. “What is it? What’s frightened you?”

She shook her head. His expression darkened and he caught her chin, forcing her to look up at him.

“Tell me now, inspector, or—”

A bell chimed, followed by Yasmeen’s shout from the quarterdeck. Trahaearn looked round. He took Mina’s hand, and though she tugged, he didn’t release her until they’d reached the windbreak.

Yasmeen passed him a telescoping spyglass. “Somebody’s father yanked on the navy’s leash. Idiots.”

The duke looked. His face settled into grim lines as he passed the spyglass to Mina. He pointed to the right of the bow. “There, do you see? Five ships under full sail, including two ships of the line.”

The navy’s largest and most heavily gunned warships. Mina found them more easily than she’d expected. Most of the ships passed through the Channel, heading for the mouth of the Thames or having just come from the river. Only one flotilla of five ships was headed south, straight crossing the Channel—and was already halfway there.