The ever-present pall over London deepened. Clouds, heavy with rain, lowered even more. Drizzle that had threatened all afternoon finally fell to beat an arrhythmic tattoo on High Gate’s crypts and verdant landscape.
Lenore snapped open the umbrella looped on her wrist and swung it over her head. She raised an eyebrow. “Improper or not, it seems hardly fair that you become drenched while I remain dry. I’m willing to share.”
Nathaniel smiled a little, as charmed by her offer cloaked in challenge as he was by the memory of her subduing a belligerent pack of butchers boys on a Camberwell street with the same umbrella.
Rain didn’t bother him. He acted as sentinel here in all weather, had even survived a lightning strike once with only the acrid smell of burned hair to mark the event. Still, her offer tempted him beyond words. To be close to her once more, breathing in her scent of bergamot and lemon water and hearing the gentle rise and fall of her breathing...
“Your offer of shelter is kind, miss, but it’s only water. Everything dries in time.” He noted the continually darkening sky. Once the rain stopped, the fog would roll in, blotting out what little light still remained and turning the city into a murky sea. “You should return home. Even the hardiest person doesn’t stroll through a pea-souper if they can help it.” He frowned. “And it isn’t safe for those alone, even when you aren’t in Whitechapel.”
A soft whirring sound overhead forestalled her reply. Nathaniel followed her gaze to watch one of the many airships dotting London’s sky drift past them. It flew low under the cloud ceiling, the whirring noise that of the two rotating disks that spun around its girth at bow and stern. Nathaniel recognized the ship; so did Lenore.
“After thePollux, my father was always partial to theMerope. Her design made it easy to retrofit her engines for adiabatic demagnitization.” Her smile was wistful. “He was almost as proud to see her inaugural flight after the upgrade as he was to watch thePolluxafter retrofit.”
Rain sheeted off the ship’s sleek exterior as it glided past them. Nathaniel had sailed on theMeropeonce years ago when Nettie brought him with her to inspect the gun batteries for ideas on how to improve upon her own ship’s arsenal. He’d come away unimpressed. The engines were indeed a marvel, no longer subject to overheating from the volatileempyreanused to fuel them, but thePollux’s firepower remained superior. TheMeropewas built for transport, thePolluxfor war, and their designs reflected their different purposes.
“She’s a good ship for a thermal and her pilot one of the best. He’d have to be to keep her from porpoising every time the throttle settings change.”
The weight of Lenore’s measuring gaze rested heavily on him. “You know something of airships,” she said in a voice both curious and admiring.
“A fact here and there,” he replied. The common knowledge they shared—his through experience as a deckhand, hers through design and theory—had provided him with the perfect excuse to talk with her when he visited her father’s workshop. She’d seduced him as much with her passionate descriptions of membrane structures and buoyancy ratings as she had with her beauty.
She asked him a question that made the breath die in his chest. “Would you like to sail in one in the future?”
Of everything he’d lost since thePollux’s near disaster at the Redan and Dr. Harvel’s experiments, the greatest—besides Lenore herself—was his post on Nettie’s ship. Any ship for that matter. He strove to keep his voice even and free of bitterness lest she sense it and question him, as had always been her wont.
“I’m neither a creature of air nor ocean, miss, but of earth.” He swung an arm to encompass the cemetery with its wide field of headstones, crypts and mournful angels. “My place is here.”
Despite his best efforts, something of his regret must have colored his words. Lenore’s pitying gaze turned his stomach. He steered the conversation back to her. “And you, miss? Would you like to see the world from an airship gondola?”
Her expression lightened, but his delight in the change was short-lived. “I would, and I may yet have the chance. I’ve requested a post on thePollux, serving under Captain Widderschynnes.” She grinned, unaware of Nathaniel’s growing horror. “I’ll know in a few days if I have a place.”
Nathaniel stared at her, no longer seeing a woman clothed in black under an equally dark umbrella silvered with rain, but the gunnery deck of thePolluxslippery with ice and blood.
“Sir, what troubles you?”
He blinked, refocusing on Lenore’s pale features and the puzzlement clouding her expression. He shook his head. “I beg your pardon, miss. I’m more familiar with the ships than I am with their captains.” A lie as white as his hair. “But Widderschynnes is well-known.”
Lenore’s shoulders straightened even more with pride, as if the accolades were hers instead of Nettie’s. “She is a fine skyrunner captain—the best in the fleet, I daresay.”
He couldn’t agree more, and the second he laid eyes on Nettie Widderschynnes again, he’d wring her neck like a Christmas goose. What was she thinking to even consider allowing Lenore on a battleship?
Rain fell harder, and Lenore huddled tighter under her umbrella. “Forgive me. I’ve trapped you out here for a good soaking.”
Nathaniel shrugged. “As I mentioned earlier, miss, it’s merely rain. I’m in no danger.” He gestured toward the cemetery entrance. “You, however, could catch your death out here. Allow me to escort you to the gates and hail transport.”
Her soft laughter almost blunted the terror riding him at the thought of her on thePollux. Almost. “You’re very kind, but as we’ve both witnessed, you...intimidate most people. I think a driver would whip the poor horse to a faster pace if he saw you and abandon me to my fate.” She held up a gloved hand to thwart any argument. “You may accompany me to the gate and wait there if you wish until I’ve caught a hackney or omnibus. Agreed?”
He nodded, and they started toward Highgate’s grand entrance. Twice he gripped her elbow to keep her from slipping on the wet lanes. Her arm rested delicate and warm in his too-brief grip. What would she do were he to take her in his arms, not as Nathaniel Gordon, but as the deathless Guardian, armored and strange?
God, he missed her.
She bid him goodbye at the gate. “Until next time, sir, should I see you again when I visit my father.”
“Safe journey, miss.”Come back to me, Lenore. I’ll be waiting. The words flowed through his mind and remained tightly behind his teeth. He doffed an imaginary topper at her and bowed.
His ordinary action somehow startled her. Badly. She gasped, her eyes wide beneath her bonnet. The umbrella shook above her, and the cloth of her glove stretched tight across her knuckles where she clutched the handle in a death grip.
“Miss Kenward?” he inquired and almost reached for her. He dropped his hand at the last moment, fingers twitching with the desire to touch her.
