Hannah whispered in Darien’s ear, “I found something today.”
“You found this? I like it.”
“No, Darien. I had an idea. I’ve been talking to my parents.”
“What?”
Darien reared away from her, a familiar, stung expression on his face. “Why? You said you didn’t need to do that, not anymore!” Hannah shook her head, put her hand on his arm.
“Darien. Listen, a minute, calm. I haven’t changed my mind about telling her where to find me. I know the same rules hold true. I stayed with you. But I’ve been meeting my mother.”
“What are you doing? You know if she finds you, we’re all over, all changed.”
“I promised you! Will you listen to what I have to say?” Hannah fought down the familiar frustration as it rose at the sight of her lover’s compressed lips. Stubborn, unlistening man. “I’m not going to tell her who I am. She thinks I’m two, remember? I don’t want to send the poor woman doolally. I know I can’t help her find me.” Hannah’s eyes misted. Her heart was full of lost children and grieving parents. Darien’s insistence that she stay away seemed more unreasonable every day. “Let’s give them Doc. Give her a chance. Help them too.”
It was the perfect solution, she thought. A safe home for Doc and someone to fill her mother’s empty arms. She had seen the heartbreak in the eyes of the woman who was so like her, whose arms she longed to fall into. If I could just fix this, she thought.
Darien frowned. “She’s all right down here. She doesn’t want people telling her what to do, whipping her arse for not minding her Ps and Qs. It’s not so bad. She’d hate it the other way.”
“Darien, are you serious? She’s filthy and lousy, half starved and desperate for some light and stimulus! Don’t you want to see her warm and fed? What future does she have down here?” Her voice rose. Darien looked at her chest flush with the passion of her speech.
“She does all right,” he muttered and turned and stalked into the ship. She followed.
“What is wrong with you? You cannot for a minute think this is all right? For children? This pitiful existence?”
“It was fine for me!” Darien’s aggrieved roar startled her. “I came out of it all right! And you—you said it was good enough when we met. And now you’re running to Mama and Papa and their money the minute my coffers dry up! So, great, go, good luck!” He turned and stalked into their cabin, slamming the door behind him.
“Darien!”
But no answer came.
Will and Elana found her rooted to the spot, staring at the door to her cabin. They cooed and shushed and pushed and pulled until she was out of her nightgown and corseted and booted again.
“Elana, have you been doing jobs with Darien again?” Hanna’s voice was quiet. Elana’s fingertips lingered over the buckles at Hannah’s breasts until Hannah gripped them affectionately and held them at her side.
“Oh, well, a little bit. You know how I like to keep myself entertained, darling. And Darien likes to feel useful.”
“What’s he so angry about? He was like this when I wanted to go find them before. But there was more at stake then. And he knows which way I chose. Why is he being so, so…”
“Fear, Hannah, fear makes arseholes out of the best men, sometimes. There’s things he hasn’t told you yet, and your nobby background brings it out in him. You’re trying to bring the kids out of here, into your parents’ world, and he hasn’t had the nutmegs to tell you that’s where he…”
“Elana!” Will broke in. “Leave it to Darien, surely.”
Elana ducked her head, but said no more. Will gestured to the outsized copper tank in the corner.
“Help us, I have a project in mind.”
Elana handed Hannah a spanner, picked up the metal-saw and pulled her goggles down. The rest of the night passed in noisy hard work and quiet advice, and the door to the ship stayed resolutely closed.
6 Hannah Defiant
In a very different area of London, tall houses bordered a leafy park. Birds sang, and the flowerbeds were bright and well tended. Hannah looked back at the shining red door to Doc’s new home. She walked into the park and stepped onto the grass, seeking out the refuge of the trees before she crouched down, a hand pressed to her breast, the other to her mouth. She gasped back tears, breathed in the smell of soil and spring. She looked up to see Darien leaning against a tree, a torn expression on his face.
“You did it anyway.”
She nodded, hand still held to her chest.
“You wish it was you.”
“Well, who wouldn’t? For god’s sake, Darien! I thought you knew enough to understand this isn’t about you! Look at me! I’m right here!” She gouged out a handful of the damp loam they stood on and threw it at his feet in frustration.
“Nice, Hannah, nice form. I can hear someone coming, you’d better stop throwing things at me and start acting like a normal woman again.” Bristling, Hannah brushed off her hands and strode out of the park. Darien started to follow her, but turned and walked in the other direction.
7 The Art of Bathing
The tub was a sight to behold. A giant copper tank, it was big enough for a child to swim in. Portholes gleamed on its scrubbed and buffed sides. Round wheels turned on jets of steamy hot water and nozzles bubbled foam into the center of the bath. The heating mechanism sent streams of bubbles fizzing through the tub.
Hannah’s mouth fell open. She’d helped build it, but she hadn’t seen it at work. The air was full of steam and candlelight. She could hear the gush and hiss of the steam heater that ran the bathtub. The smell of perfume hung in the moist air. Elana encouraged her forward.
“You need to relax, darling, relieve some tension.” She pulled the pins from Hannah’s hair, pulled at her dressing gown and unlaced her corset. “It’s terribly uncomfortable, playing the lady, isn’t it?” She smiled charmingly, making Hannah suspicious. The lure of the bath called her, though, and she rubbed at the red marks left by the whalebone on her white skin.
“Thanks, Elana.” A titter came in response.
“You can thank me later!”
Hannah left her dressing gown where it lay and a trail of hairpins and underthings in her wake and nimbly scaled the ladder to the tank. She stepped down the rungs on the other side into a dim world of steam and bubbles. The hot water embraced her, she slipped up to her neck in it, felt the day’s tensions beginning to ebb. Will and Elana were so clever, she thought idly. Perhaps they could fix her conflict with Darien too.
A grinding shrieking noise made her jump and splash and she turned to see the ladder disappear from the high sides of the tub. Will and Elana’s faces appeared at a gleaming copper porthole, sporting gleeful grins.
“Enjoy, you silly children! We’ll let you out when you’ve made up. Resolved your differences. There’s plenty of hot water, don’t worry!”
The steam cleared and revealed her lover at the other end of the tank, looking sheepish.
“Were you in on this?”
He held up his hands and shook his head. “No, this is all their doing, and I plan to have my sweet revenge at a later date. But I don’t see them letting us out of here unless we make amends. So maybe you should come down to my end of the bath and we should talk, before my whirligigs get pruney.”
Hannah rolled her eyes. “Whirligigs, is it? We may be naked and captive in a giant bathtub, but I’m not so sure it’s time for talk of your whirligigs just yet. I don’t know who you were, in that park today. Watching my pain and walking away from it. They offered me a job, Darien! And the way things are going, yes, I’m this close to taking it. If that’s how you want to push me.” She splashed water at him in frustration and turned away.
Darien dipped under the water and surfaced at her shoulder. His voice was rough when he spoke in her ear.
“I’m sorry. Can I…? I need to touch you.” She sighed, and without turning round, leaned back against him. He sank his forehead into the crook of her shoulder. He
was quiet for a moment, lips still on her neck. When he spoke, his answer was so low she had to turn to hear.
“I’m not part of that world, the one your parents move in. And you could be, if you chose. I was scared I’d lose you. That I’m not good enough, and once you’re out of the bubble of the ship, and the three of us misfits, you might see that.” Hannah shook her head, mystified.
“I didn’t grow up in that world either. I’m Miss Lowly Background too—an orphanage and a seamstress apprenticeship. That’s me.”
“Yeah, but Hannah, you didn’t grow up down here. If the professor hadn’t saved me the way he did Doc, I’d be…I don’t know what I’d be right now.”
“Oh. I didn’t know. You could have told me about that, Darien. You know that.”
“I wish I could offer you more. More than theft and moving and running away all the time. You never asked if we could take Doc with us. Maybe you think this is no life we live either.”
Hannah turned to him then.
“I love our life, Darien, when we do it properly. I just don’t feel safe right now, especially when you’re not on my side. And my parents…that was something I needed to do. I thought you’d understand. I thought you’d support me.” She finished in a whisper. He ducked his head and nodded into her breasts.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered into her chest. “I wanted to. I’m sorry I wasn’t there. It hurt to see you so upset.” He gently put his mouth to her skin, placed kisses along the slope of her breast as it floated in front of him. Bravely, he started nuzzling her nipples, distracting her.
“Shh.” She petted his tightly shorn hair, ran her fingers down his neck as he suckled her. The water lifted her, let her wind her legs around his hips and hold him as he licked her stiff nipples as they peeped out of the foamy water. Steam wreathed them, the pipes groaned and clanked, the water bubbled.
“You gave me a whole new life, Darien. Don’t mess it up. Don’t get arrested, or bring the police here, or slip away from me into the company of some rodent-man. I need you here, with me.”
“Rodent-man?” He laughed. “Oh, you saw me with Clive! Ah, Hannah, it was just a little business; he doesn’t have much to offer me. Not like you do, you give me so much.”
“I can give you more.” It had been a long separation for them, and they were naked together in the hot water and steam. Water beaded Darien’s shoulders and lips, and she longed for the feeling of his body against hers again. She slipped from his grasp and dived in, her hair spreading around her like a heavy cloud. Its seaweed wreathing worked the tension from her sore neck and scalp.
In front of her was Darien’s cock, standing proud, and she took its slippery length into her mouth and moved up and down it until she ran out of air. She surfaced for breath and a glimpse of his transported face before returning to the task, letting the heat of the water in her mouth do much of the work, then sucking him until his knees buckled and he pulled her back onto him. Darien turned her so her back was resting against the wall of the tank and eased her legs around his waist again. He crushed his erection against her clit and thrust and she bucked and moaned and pushed back at him. The pressure was always a sweet, delicious pain that she loved. He tipped her mouth up toward his, and kissed her, deep and intense, claiming her again. At the same time, his cock worked to unfurl her labia, nudging its way in. Hannah felt herself slip onto him, hot and slick, different from the heat of the bath. Darien’s thrusts were slow and deep and she felt dreamy, floating on his cock and held up by the water. His hands found her breasts again, reached for her nipples, slippery in the water. Everything was heated and swollen, every touch magnified. She squeezed him closer and he groaned and pumped harder, sliding his hand between them to press and circle her clit.
“Oh, velvet, Hannah.”
She lay her head back against the warm metal and shifted her hips, clenching down hard, making him gasp.
“Oh, easy, girl, easy.
Might as well go easy, she thought. We’ve nowhere to go for the moment, and Will says there’s plenty of hot water. Darien lifted a hank of her wet hair in his hand and leaned his face into it.
“You’re my mermaid in the water, Hannah. I’m sorry, Hannie, I’m so sorry, I’m a fool, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m sorry I let you go alone. Angel girl.”
He rubbed her harder, thrust faster, and she leaned in and bit his nipple as the shudders broke though her.
“Augh, I love you,” he coughed out, and came, leaning down to bury his head in her shoulder.
“I like it in here,” Hannah said, when their breathing had cooled, and Darien had slipped out of her. “Maybe we shouldn’t tell them we’re okay.” She laughed, lifting her wrinkled fingertips to his mouth to kiss. “Though we must consider your whirligigs.”
8 Airborne Again, A Moonlit Ending
With a clank, the ladder splashed back into the tank and Elana’s smiling face peered over.
“I hope your rapprochement is complete in there, there’s something you need to see.”
They climbed out, gingerly. Before the ship stood a beaming Doc, clad in a new dress and a smear of grease and holding a multi-tool. A whum and a whir emanated from the ship. Will was looking stunned.
“It seems to be working. Doc, did you work with the professor?”
“Yeah, I was his ’prentice. He said I had raw potential.”
Darien frowned.
“He never made me his apprentice.”
“I think your raw potential was in a different area, old man,” said Will calmly. “Here, put some clothes on.”
“Told you I could fix it.”
Some nights later, in the small hours, a ship rose into the night sky, hoisted by a glowing green and gold balloon. At the helm stood Hannah and Darien, airborne again, united once more, hands entwined and steering for the moon.
SPARKS
Anna Meadows
I would have been the first to concede how much better things were for me back when I behaved myself. Back when I rarely went out, when I only saw friends whose politics my father had approved beforehand; we were only allowed to sit in the salon and drink the hibiscus and rose-hip tea that made me so drowsy I no longer parted the curtains to catch a glimpse of the outside world. Back when my parents spoke of betrothing me to men whose company I could comfortably stand, and when I wasn’t in love with a twenty-one-year-old boy who always had crescent moons of soot and ash under his fingernails.
Back when the clockwork corsos didn’t stalk me like a pasture rabbit.
I had only moments until their brass teeth would tear into me. My thoughts, which I knew might be my last, strayed to Ezra; instead of longing for the neat linens of the bedroom where I had slept until I was eighteen, I wanted nothing more than the touch of the boy who had first led me away from the safety of my parents’ walled gardens. The boy who had first taught me the landscape of the black market liquor trade that had flourished since the Ban. I wanted his hands up under my skirt, tearing my slip in his haste to reach the warmth and wetness beneath my crinoline.
But he wasn’t there, and knowing I would never again feel the heat of his breath against the hollow of my neck filled me with more dread than my approaching hunters.
I had none of the liqueur on me. But I had three-dozen autumn damask roses and two pounds of Parma violets under my coat. They were tucked neatly inside the red satin of the lining, but the corsos could still smell them, so I ran, holding my coat shut and trying not to let my heels call out my steps on the wet cobblestone.
Thanks in no small part to Ezra and me, roses and violets had been banned, and gardeners grudgingly filled their flowerbeds with clove-pink carnations and peonies, whose fluffy frills I loved, but the more reserved groundskeepers found garish.
Each of the clockwork corsos had a large, sturdy shape and a dark gleam, distinctive of the dog breed that was their namesake. As a child, I had once seen a month-old canine corso—a real one of course, since the clockwork corsos were always built full si
ze. The puppy had a sad but determined face and a coat so shiny it looked like damp coffee grounds. It had belonged to the daughter of an Italian businessman who visited my father whenever he was in the country. The puppy’s little body had been so warm on my lap; now I could find no resemblance to the brass and wrought iron creatures policing the streets and country roads, searching out contraband blooms.
I had chosen tonight because I had heard that the worst of the clockwork corsos were in the shop for repairs. But I recognized the growl of their gears from blocks away, the sound echoing off the brick buildings. They had been fixed and released from the shop early. If they cornered me, they would tear me to pieces. I had seen it happen to a man who had tried to smuggle a dozen bottles of juniper-berry gin into the city. Ezra and I had been walking home when we saw a crowd gathered, and he pulled me into him and whispered, “Don’t look.” Before Ezra shielded my gaze, I saw that a corso’s tooth had come loose in the struggle, the triangle of brass glinting in the dead man’s neck.
Whenever the corsos killed a man, the authorities termed it a mechanical failure, an accident. They recalled the involved dogs for inspection only to release them hours later. But they knew what their hounds were doing; they had designed them for it.
I ran toward darkness, down the alley between E. P. Logan’s Clothier and the hat shop that always smelled like chamomile. There was no use calling for help. Even if the businesses hadn’t been shut for the night, no one would have helped me for fear of looking guilty. I pressed my back against the damp brick, willing myself to disappear into the wall. But the corsos weren’t searching for me by sight. Even I could smell the violets and roses. My clothes and hair were soaked in their perfume.
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