The Lady Machinist (Curiosity Chronicles Book 1) (13 page)

Lydia suspected it was too late for the beef tongue. “I’ll eat as soon as I finish cleaning this engine component.”

“Good thing the sails are being raised since the engine lies scattered. Smythe told us that it could be reassembled in a few hours.”

Lydia found a wrench in the toolkit near the stairs. “It will take longer than that.”

“Well, he is an apprentice. Speak of the devil, here he comes.”

Smythe came from the top of the stairs, sidestepping the salmagundi. “I haven’t been called that since I left the orphanage years ago.”

“You’ll be called worse if you don’t put that engine back in working order,” Malcolm snapped.

Unbothered, Smythe waltzed up and plucked the wrench from Lydia’s grasp. “I can take over from here, ma’am.”

Lydia plucked it right back from him. “The two of us can assemble this engine faster than one alone.”

“I agree with her,” said Malcolm. “See that you’re on your best behavior in front of the lass. I’ll be helping to get that bowsprit raised.” He ambled up the stairs.

Smythe looked at Lydia’s plate of salmagundi. “Are you going to eat that?”

Lydia shook her head. “Take it.”

He flashed a childish grin. If not for his height, he could say he was seventeen and none would be the wiser.

By evening, she and Smythe had the engine assembly close to completion. Malcolm brought them a late supper of bean mash and pickled herring and another cask of water. “Still working?”

Lydia wiped her face on her damp shirt sleeve before helping herself to the water. “It won’t be much longer.”

“You need to eat. Captain’s orders.”

Lydia tipped the water container to her mouth. How typical of Rhys to express his concern in the form of a command. She paused. Was she that familiar with his quirks already? Why shouldn’t she be? She gained familiarity with him in other areas.

While trying to assuage her guilt, Lydia closed her mouth too soon as she kept the container tilted. Water splashed her chin and dribbled down her shirt.

Malcolm and Smythe observed her child-like drinking habits without a word, though their faces said enough. She employed the use of her sleeve again to dry her face. “Mr. Clark, please inform your captain that I appreciate his concern, but I have a job to do.”

“I’m too old to play messenger boy so’s the two of you can quarrel. Eat.” Malcolm walked out with the empty lunch tray.

Lydia and Smythe worked into the night. The inlet valve of the cylinder gave them trouble, refusing to open. Close to ten, they had a fully assembled engine.

“Would you care to throw the switch?” Lydia asked Smythe.

He plodded over to the wall. Exhaustion settled upon him, leaving his back with a droop. He extended an arm and pulled the switch. The engine kicked on with a gurgle. He issued a relieved sigh. “It’s Thomas’s task now to keep the engine fed during the second shift.”

The sound of boots running down the hall came to a halt when Rhys burst in. “The engine turbine’s moving on deck.”

“I revived the engine.” Smythe beamed. “I mean, Lady D did a good share of the work, too, of course.”

Rhys gave the apprentice a vacant stare. “Lady D?”

“It’s quite acceptable,” Lydia said as she wiped the tools clean. “Dimosthenis is a difficult name to pronounce, especially for those unaccustomed to the Greek tongue.”

“I can pronounce it just fine.”

Rhys just had to speak his mind about everything. She hated to admit it, but she was beginning to see how tiresome the habit could be when someone else did the talking. “Yes, well, not all men profess to have such a gifted tongue.”

He inclined his head in mock deference. His simmering look sent heat up her spine. “Thank you, my lady. How kind of you to notice.”

Lydia had the most distinct sense that he wasn’t referring to her surname anymore.Rhys appeared to be enjoying this bit of mischief. His lips drew into a wicked little smile as he flicked a charm switch behind that handsome face.

She wouldn’t allow him any more satisfaction. She straightened her spine and gave him the most confident, authoritative look she could muster as she switched topic. “All of the ship’s engine-driven facilities should be in operation.”

“We’ll have hot water again. Good.”

Lydia agreed. The past two days left a certain degree of grime upon her skin that a washbowl was little effective in eradicating.

She became self-conscious of her appearance before Rhys. It did no good to hide her grease-stained hands behind her sweaty clothing.

“Where did Smythe run off to?” She searched the room for the ginger-haired apprentice, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Rhys remained with her. “He’s relieved for the night. You’d have seen him leave if you didn’t have that faraway look in your eyes.”

“I was thinking of weighty matters.”

His droll expression said he didn’t believe her. “You’ll have plenty of time to contemplate. I moved your belongings back to the cabin. Most of the floor is dry.”

Lydia skirted past Rhys and set her feet to ascend the stairs. “Just when I was beginning to enjoy my freedom to roam the ship.”

“So I noticed.” Rhys advanced on the step behind her. He stood so near to Lydia that her body responded just thinking about being in his embrace once more. “Don’t worry. I won’t express my appreciation by kissing you again.”

She gripped the stair rail. “You shouldn’t tease me then, either.”

“You made your point clear the first time.”

Was that hurt she heard in his voice? Lydia thought Rhys’ anger trumped all such emotion within him after last night. She peered at him over her shoulder, fighting an urge to remain with him.

But that was foolish.

Hurt or not, Rhys wasn’t going to change anything about himself or reveal his past to her. She needed that in order to even consider letting him get close to her, although the temptation to do so was not afar. She retreated up the stairs.

“Sleep well, Lydia.”

She didn’t look back to see if Rhys followed. She kept straight for the cabin and shut the door, locking it before she could talk herself out of it.

Lydia took a look around. With the exception of a faint water evaporation line on the baseboards, the cabin barely revealed that a storm had struck. The books on the bookshelf had all been repositioned. Rhys must have moved them. And the COIC mission papers.

She paused as a cold sliver of shame moved along her back. She invaded his privacy and yet accused him of breaching her trust by withholding information. They were both guilty of compromising each other’s trust in different ways.

She left the bookshelf alone and plopped in the chair to unlace her boots. How did it happen? One day she was spending her time perfecting small engine boilers. The next she was matching wits with a mysterious foreigner whose stubbornness gave her indigestion and whose kisses and strong arms turned her insides to jelly.

Her heart was turning, moving towards something that she would not allow herself to feel since her husband passed. Was this what her mother meant by being alive to the world and open to its charms? To Rhys’ charms? But it was happening all too fast. How could she trust in such circumstances when they—Rhys—caught her unawares and left her confused and conflicted?

Besides, after her arrival to New Britannia, would she even see Rhys at the COIC headquarters? Or would he merely deposit her on shore and sail off on his next mission, giving her nary a second thought?

She winced at the idea of him charming her just to get the automatons and get her to his country with minimal interference. Then Rhys would be no different from Nikolaos, only using her for his own greedy purpose. The possibility that everything about him could be a ruse left her raw inside.

#

A night and day went by. Whenever a knock sounded on the cabin door, Lydia briefly entertained the notion that it was Rhys. Instead it was always Malcolm and his rations of hardtack, strong tea, and salmagundi. At least she was becoming an expert on the many ways to make salmagundi, which was not bad once she started eating the dishes that didn’t contain salted beef tongue.

“Five days,” Malcolm said as he delivered her supper the next night. “We’ll soon reach the Channel.”

Reality set in once more for Lydia as she contemplated the distance from the north Atlantic and the Mediterranean. She never thought she would be so far from home or loved ones. So alone.

She dozed off at half past ten, too tired to change out of her clothes. Deep sleep began to overtake her just as something scraped the outside of the door.

Lydia opened her eyes wide in the darkness. She squinted over the bedcovers, trying to see past the shadowy shapes of the desk and bookshelf.

The sound came again, this time softer and closer. A shuffle. From the inside. A chill crept under her skin. Whatever was responsible for that sound was in the room with her.

Lydia reached over to the nightstand for her pistol. As her hand closed around the barrel, she heard the hammer of a gun lock into position behind her ear. She gasped before a large, rough hand clamped over her mouth.

“No need to act rash now, ma’am. I won’t hurt you, so long as you keep mum and don’t try to run.”

Atlantic Ocean, south of Spain

Avoiding temptation was much harder work than Rhys imagined.

He avoided Lydia’s path since she repaired the ship’s engine. Knowing contact with her would make things more awkward, he focused all his energies on keeping
The Enlightened
on a steady course to New Britannia.

After bouts with pirates, stormy gales, busted engines, breached hulls, and one insolent, pampered king’s adviser, he was thankful for the mundane drudgery that his responsibilities as captain presented under less harrowing circumstances. Even if they did start to make him a little drowsy.

Rhys yawned as he finished the final inventory of the cargo hold. While Malcolm previously made sure to catalogue the rum stores, he overlooked two rows of boxes along the back wall. Rhys pried the lids open and looked for broken items. He gathered that the bosun conveniently forgot about these boxes because of their near proximity to the automatons.

But Malcolm wasn’t the only cautious crewmen aboard. Duncan and Thomas acted as though the automatons would come alive at any moment.

Rhys saw that the seven-foot clockwork model was tilted again, even after he straightened it that morning. He dug his heels into the floor and put his back into moving the automaton.

It budged the space of three fingers, its armor plates creaking at the hinges. Rhys shoved again to align it beside the smaller, six-foot soldiers. Iron clanged against iron before a steel rod clattered to the floor.

There went his goal of keeping the automatons in one piece.

Rhys picked up the rod. Where did it fall off? He inspected the automaton’s limbs and torso. All plates were intact on the front. He looked behind it and saw an open panel on the center of its back.

“There we are,” he said aloud as he reached between the automaton and the wall. The steel rod served as its key to wind up. Tucking the wire back inside the panel, Rhys then flipped the panel closed and returned the rod to its place. He wound it until it clicked. “That should do it.”

The automaton produced a soft ticking sound that gradually faded.

Rhys admired his handiwork. A simple fix it may be, but it probably just saved five humored pounds of the New Britannia’s investment.

He finished crossing items off the inventory list, picked up his lantern, and started for the cargo hold door. A vague wariness settled upon his shoulders as he ventured into the hallway. How quiet it was.

He listened for the engine, gritting his teeth when he heard no steady whir. The machinery must have cut out. Splendid. Just when the ship was finally back on course.

He rapped on the engine room door. “The engine’s stopped. What’s happened?”

He waited for someone to reply. Thomas had the first shift tonight. Was he even inside? Rhys tried the door again. Instead of knocking, he pulled it open.

Steam flew in his face. Coughing, he waved his hand in front of him and waited for most of it to dissipate before entering.

Sweat popped out on his forehead as the heat met him. His fingers came away slick with moisture as condensation collected on the stair rails. He took a bird’s eye view of the room and found no one on the floor. The lanterns flickered through their protective cage structures on the wall.

He treaded down the slippery steps and cut a path between the maze of pipes and valves. “Who’s down here?”

He arrived at the engine. The mouth of it hung open, wide and black, with wisps of residual steam emitting from it. Rhys groaned. What would possess anyone to abandon a working engine?

Unless there was something else more pressing to attend to.

Rhys went back up the stairs and turned left down the hall. The entrance to the ship’s third level was left ajar. The crew knew one of the main rules on his ship was that it be locked at nightfall. He descended to the lowest part of the vessel.

The corridor was narrow and pitch-black. Rhys held his lantern in front of him as his feet remembered the pattern of the uneven path. As he got closer to the brig, he saw the door to that area was also open.

He reached for his pistol and moved forward. As he got closer to the brig, his lantern cast a dim glow towards the back of the interior. The light shone on an empty cell. Rhys went straight for it and searched the surrounding dark corners.

Nikolaos was gone.

A noise. Something landed in the bilge water. The resulting splash was too big to be a rat. It sounded like a footstep.

Rhys swung the lamp around just in time to catch sight of a meaty fist before it slammed into the side of his head.

#

The tang of copper and salt mixed in Rhys’ mouth. He felt cold all over. His head pounded as something warm slid down his ear. Voices sounded nearby, though he was unable to make them out.