The Iron Duke (33 page)

“I’m
what
?” Yasmeen whipped around. Brow furrowing, the captain stared at her for a long moment before breaking into laughter. She shook her head. “This is part of our contract. I make noise—”

An explosion from below cut her off. Aviators gathered at the rail began to cheer, laughing and slapping each others’ backs. Another explosion followed, and the crew began burrowing into the weapon chests and withdrawing rifles. The rail cannon fired again and again, soundless but for the whine of the generator and the explosions below.

“We make noise to draw the zombies!” Yasmeen shouted between explosions. “Fox glides out as far as he can while they’re all running here, so he’ll have fewer to deal with when he lands. And it gives my crew a crowd of zombies to use as shooting practice—and fewer of them left in Europe!”

Oh.
Mina flushed, and Yasmeen laughed again. Stalking to a chest, she hefted out a rifle and tossed it to Mina.

The captain grinned. “If you hit five, I’ll give the stateroom to you instead of to Trahaearn.”

 

 

The stateroom wasn’t as large as the captain’s cabin, but
had enough space for a full desk and bed, a wardrobe and washstand—and a private privy. It took Mina only a few minutes to move her things. She was tucking her valise beneath the bed when a heavy footstep at the door brought her around.

Trahaearn stood at the entrance, his gaze moving from her valise to the open wardrobe. Coal dust streaked his skin and shirtsleeves. A dark emotion in his eyes burned like a furnace.

“You’ve moved into my cabin?”

Her heart pounding, Mina shook her head. She almost couldn’t speak past the constriction in her chest, and her answer came out thin and high. “The captain gave it to me.”

The heat in his eyes flickered out. “I see.”

That was all he said. Mina waited for him to barge into the room as he always did, but he didn’t come inside. Didn’t take advantage of an open door. The silence stretched, and she couldn’t bear it.

“Sir?”

“I lost my head last night.” His solemn gaze held hers. “I vow to you that I won’t drink again. Not while I’m living.”

The wine had made her foolish enough that she shouldn’t, either. But it wasn’t the drink that had made her need him. It wasn’t the drink that had overwhelmed her with fear. And wine wasn’t the reason she couldn’t invite him in now.

She tried not to wish it otherwise. No good came from fighting against something she couldn’t change—and her past was immutable. She couldn’t take away the Frenzy, or the panic that her need summoned.

Gathering herself, she said briskly, “All of your life? I’m sure that’s not necessary. After we find the
Terror
, we’ll return to London and won’t—”

“It’s necessary.” His voice was low and implacable. “I’d never have hurt you, or frightened you. I didn’t have the head to realize I was. I’m sorry for that.”

She wanted to laugh and couldn’t. “Just for that?”

“I’m not sorry I had a taste of you.” His gaze landed on the bed. A bleak smile touched his mouth. “Though maybe I should be.”

Mina wasn’t sorry, either. But she didn’t say it. He met her eyes again. After another endless silence, he left.

 

 

The blue of the Mediterranean had more green to it than
the Channel’s. Mina watched the Horde’s barges crossing the sea far below, carrying harvests from Europe to the ports in the Orient, where they’d be shipped east to the heart of the empire. The sun was setting as they neared the North African coast, and the barges gave way to airships that traveled between the great walled cities of Egypt and Morocco, still under Horde occupation. Though her heart leapt into her throat as she spotted each new vessel,
Lady Corsair
passed over both the sea and the coast unmolested. She watched until the night prevented her from watching anymore.

The duke hardly said a word during dinner. He might have spent it looking at her; Mina wasn’t certain. She concentrated on her plate, making her plans to escape the captain’s cabin as soon as possible. And so after her dinner was finished, it was with some dismay that she heard Scarsdale say, “Are you ready to hear about Hunt, inspector?”

She glanced up. Trahaearn
had
been watching her, but now he turned to frown at Scarsdale.

Yasmeen groaned. “Again? You tell that story every time you’re soused—and you’re not even close to it yet.”

“I’ll make you purr while I tell her, then.” Scarsdale pulled her close. Noting the duke’s frown, he said, “The inspector saw the scars while she was in your bed last night. I told her where I’d gotten them, and promised to tell her the rest.”

That bleak smile touched his mouth again. “I see,” he said, and reached across the table for Yasmeen’s silver cigarillo case and spark lighter.

Yasmeen watched him with a smirk. “So this time you won’t need it?”

“I’m sure I will.” Leaning back against an ottoman, he stretched out his left leg and braced his elbow on his cocked right knee. He regarded Mina over the curl of smoke, and his expression cooled into detachment. “But I’ll trade one need for another.”

With effort, she returned his stare without revealing the hurt squeezing in her chest. How foolish to feel it. She didn’t want his attention. But she supposed that no one liked knowing they could be replaced with a roll of tobacco.

She looked back at Scarsdale, and only her determination not to reveal anything of her feelings allowed her to contain her shock. He lay on his side with Yasmeen stretched out on her back in front of him, lazily smoking, her head propped on a pillow. His hand smoothed up and down her stomach
beneath
her untucked shirt. In full view of both Mina and Trahaearn.

Her shock faded into discomfort. She was no Manhattan City miss, but neither was she accustomed to such a display, even one whose aim seemed to be simple physical pleasure rather than sexual. Mina lifted her glass of iced lemon water, wishing that it were wine. Yesterday, she’d felt so content. Today, she could not have felt more out of place among these people to whom wallowing in luxury and sensual indulgence was as normal as breathing.

She could not even relax against a pillow. Spine straight, she prompted, “Hunt?”

“Let’s see where to start.” Scarsdale’s gaze unfocused. “Ah, well. After the captain mutinied and let Hunt escape the
Terror
—”

“Deserted him,” Trahaearn interrupted. “If I’d known what he was, I’d have killed him. But there’s always a coward ready to do as his superior commands, no matter what the command is—and that’s all I thought he was: a coward. I didn’t know he was as bad as Adams.”

“Worse than Adams, because he’s the slippery type with enough powerful friends who owe him favors that he always weasels out of a hanging or prison. That’s what he did after the court-martial.” Absently, Scarsdale’s hand curled around Yasmeen’s waist, dislodging the shirt and exposing several inches of olive skin. Mina looked into her glass. “But I didn’t know about the mutiny then. No, I was off helping the Liberé fight the damned French.”

“I like the French,” Yasmeen said.

“You like their money.”

“That I do.”

Scarsdale laughed before he continued, “I landed in a French war prison in the Antilles. So did Hunt, as part of a group of mercenaries that Colbert had hired to run the place.”

Mina glanced up. “On Brimstone Island?”

He nodded. Yasmeen rolled around, pillowing her head on his shoulder and stroking her hand over his chest.

“Everything you’ve heard about the prison . . . it was a hundred times worse. The money that Colbert provided for food, clothes, and medicine went straight into Hunt’s pockets.” His mouth twisting, he reached for his drink. “They crowded us in. Twenty thousand men in a prison designed to hold five thousand. Rivers of shit and the dead piled up, rotting. And one little scratch becoming infected until—”

“Skip the maggots, and everything you ate,” Yasmeen interrupted. “It’s still too soon after dinner.”

Scarsdale nodded and took a long drink. He remained silent for a long moment after swallowing, looking down into his glass. “Hunt was also making money on the side. He’d ship prisoners across the Atlantic to Santa Luzia in the Cabo Verde—islands off the west coast of Africa, and just far enough from the Gold Coast that no one cared.”

Uncertain what that meant, Mina shook her head and echoed, “No one cared?”

“Even the Gold Coast has rules,” Trahaearn said. “Laws that are understood, even if they aren’t written down. They don’t include throwing prisoners and zombies together on an island, and having rich men pay to hunt them down.”

Barbaric.
“What sort of men could do that?”

“The sort who didn’t think they were killing
men
,” Scarsdale said. “So Hunt gave them the Liberé, and the few buggers unlucky enough to end up in the prison. He liked those. Buggers were stronger, so they lasted longer than the others.”

“And that’s why he sent you there?” Not a bugger, but an infected bounder was just as strong.

Scarsdale smiled slightly. “I wasn’t infected then. He sent me for other reasons.”

“But . . . he had to know you’re set to inherit Halifax’s title. When the eldest son of a marquess disappears, it doesn’t go unnoticed.”

“It might have. The last thing my father said to me was that I was an idiot for risking my life in a war for half men.” He shook his head. “But to return—Hunt didn’t send me because I was infected. No, I was just foolish enough to be caught kissing a marine captain.”

Truly?
Mina had thought that the marine corps were still formed only of men—
Oh.

Startled, she caught Trahaearn’s gaze. He regarded her with cool amusement, as if confirming the conclusion she’d drawn.

But . . . ? Surely her conclusion couldn’t be right. Even now, Scarsdale was stroking his thumb beneath the curve of Yasmeen’s breast . . . though neither of them seemed to notice what he was doing. They simply looked at each other, sharing a quick smile that spoke of a long friendship, before Yasmeen rolled onto her belly and his hand moved to rub her back.

A friendship. And an arrangement between them, because Scarsdale had something to hide.

Mina fought her quick stab of envy. How fortunate that he
could
hide it. That he could pass though society as everyone else did, rather than being hated on sight. She’d have given almost anything to do the same.

“I see,” she said softly. “And so you were found out, Hunt decided that you were less than a man, and sent you to the island. The marine captain, too?”

“Yes. They put us in a maze, and the men who paid Hunt were given steelcoats and rifles. They hunted us, the zombies hunted us—but as an extra incentive, the men were refunded their fee if they killed all of the prisoners before the zombies did.” His voice thickened. “Thomas’s brains were blown out right in front of me.”

Yasmeen squeezed his hand. “Better than the zombies.”

“Better than the zombies.” The hollow echo was followed by another long drink.

“How did you escape?”

He tapped the side of his head. “I can’t become lost in a maze, especially one I saw from above while they were flying us in. And those steelcoats aren’t fast. I got round behind one, took his rifle, and blew my way past the guard at the maze exit. I hid on the island until nightfall, found a boat, and sailed to the Gold Coast. And as the captain said, there are some rules that can’t be broken. As soon as I spread the word, the Ivory Market took care of the island.”

“And Hunt was arrested?”

“No.” Trahaearn reached for another cigarillo. “There are no police in the Ivory Market. No arrests. The Market czars destroyed the island. Burned it all.”

“And Hunt slipped away again,” Scarsdale said. “I returned to Brimstone, but Colbert’s neglect had already been found out, the prison’s condition appalling all of the New World, and the French trying to save face. I met up with the captain shortly thereafter, and assuming that I’d hear where Hunt was sooner or later, I signed on to the
Terror
as navigator.”

“You didn’t sign on. You were playing parlor games with blindfolds in a rum dive, and I took you because I wanted you on my ship.”

Scarsdale lifted his glass to him. “And you still have me, captain. Your finest possession.”

For a brief moment, genuine amusement lit Trahaearn’s eyes. “Only until I take the
Terror
again.”

A possession to whom he’d offered a job instead of a place in his bed. He’d have offered the same to Mina, at first.

Not now. And however determined Trahaearn was to have everything he wanted, he obviously didn’t hold on to all of his possessions. He’d given up his ship so that he wouldn’t be forced to kill the Dame. Mina had been traded in for a cigarillo. And that was for the best—he obviously didn’t take care of what he owned.

“After Scarsdale told you what Hunt had done to him, you still had him flogged?”

The amusement vanished from the duke’s eyes. “Yes.”

“I’d have killed him,” Yasmeen said.

“I should have boarded your ship, instead,” Scarsdale said. “Dead looked like a fine option, those days, and whether it was Hunt or me didn’t matter. Sailing on a ship with a captain who was looking to destroy the world seemed the best way to go about it.”

Trahaearn gave a faint smile. “I failed you, then.”

“Not yet. But I’m starting to lose hope.” Scarsdale looked to Mina again. “We didn’t see Hunt again until just before the tower, when he threw a zombie off
Josephine
onto the quarterdeck of the
Terror
.”

Mina’s mouth fell open. “While the crew was aboard? While you were all there?”

Scarsdale nodded and began playing with Yasmeen’s hair, winding one of her narrow braids around his fingers. “Right onto the captain, who killed it. After that, blowing up the tower seemed a better way to go out.” With a short laugh, he glanced at Trahaearn. “Only you could make a suicide run after being bit by a zombie and end up a duke.”