Fires of Hell: The Alchemystic

by Maureen L. Mills

  Which was silly. After all, he had not pursued the argument. I had conjured it wholly in my head.

  “This is remarkable,” he said, making a move as if to lick the escaping dribble of syrup from the base of his thumb. He stopped himself in time to prevent the faux pas, but I could tell it was a close-run thing.

  Was it a bad sign that I had a sudden urge to lick it off for him?

  I shook off the inappropriate impulse, plucked the handkerchief from my sleeve, and offered it to him.

  He hesitated as I, again, violated the rules that governed the actions of proper gentlemen and ladies.

  “Just take it, sir,” I said. “You may pretend I am simply one of your crewmen, doing his—or her—captain an appropriate courtesy.”

  He took the square of white linen and dabbed at his hand. “How can I possibly pretend such a thing when you look like this?” he muttered. “With your hair curling around your face like a Greek goddess from one of Elgin’s marbles, and the tight…” he waved a hand at my bodice, “and the ruffles, and the way your skirt drapes…”

  I looked down at myself in surprise. “Not so many ruffles, after all. And the neckline is high. Perfectly proper. There is nothing wrong with my dress. Or my hair.”

  “Yes, your neckline is high. But that only brings to mind what I have seen of what lies beneath it.” He gritted his teeth and lengthened his stride until I had to scurry to keep up with him. “And I thought it a difficult task to keep from touching you when you wore breeches and waistcoat,” he added as an aside I do not think he meant me to hear.

  Oh. Oh, my. I suppose I should have been expecting this sort of reaction. I had not, perhaps because of the sheer amount of time he spent angry with me. Too, I had spent much of our acquaintance covered in grime and dropping with exhaustion, neither of which tended to make a woman more acceptable to men in general.

  I had assumed our initial attraction to each other had been a fluke, fueled by the novelty of our situation. At least, his attraction to me. For my part, my attraction to him continued unabated. Increased, even, as I came to admire him as a captain and a man, despite his lamentable, old-fashioned views on the roles of women.

  I pondered how to respond as we started across the Galata Bridge toward the Stamboul side of the city and the airfield. An association between us was still impossible. Even were he not my captain and therefore out of bounds, my social standing had not changed. Too, I was a phlogistologist in hiding. Could I trust him to keep my secret—and thus my existence—safe?

  No, the combined burdens were too great.

  Now I had to come up with a way to convince not only him of that fact, but also my own naïve inner child, who steadfastly believed that love conquered all.

  What utter tosh.

  “Captain Rollins,” I began in a firm voice. “We must find a way to put such feelings behind us and come to…”

  “I cannot,” Josiah said, stopping my progress and my words by the simple expedient of stepping in front of me and grasping both my hands in his own. “Since the night I found you dangling out in space repairing our gasbag, wearing those trousers in a ridiculous attempt at disguise, you have constantly occupied my mind.”

  The bridge carried a moderate amount of foot traffic, tourists and the vendors who preyed upon them going about their business mere yards away, but all of that fell away as I met Josiah’s grey eyes. They no longer reminded me of Captain Rollins’. They had taken on a quality of their own, or I had finally come to know him well enough to recognize the differences.

  I liked the differences. Most of them, anyway.

  “Hush, Josiah,” I said, rather desperately hanging onto reason. “This is merely a… a physical reaction between us. Like alchemistry. Quite common, really. To be expected. We should not allow our actions to be guided by it.”

  “No. What I feel is more than can be described by formulas or equations. You are lovely, it is true. I am certain you have been told that before.”

  I had. But only by Maman, when trying to pry me away from the Mercury to attend some opera or musical soiree. Never by a man whom I thought devastatingly attractive as well.

  “But when I saw you tending to poor Benjamin,” he continued. “When you wrestled us over the Monti Matese range by sheer willpower…”

  A charge truer than he knew…

  “… when you worked yourself to near collapse to fulfill our contract, when you bent but did not break at Henry’s death; that was when I saw how strong and beautiful you truly are. Not your outer form alone, but your very spirit is lovely to behold.”

  My naïve inner child practically swooned, taking me with her. How was I supposed to resist such a declaration?

  Still, I tried to be sensible. “Nothing has changed, Josiah. You are still my captain. We cannot…”

  “I am not merely the Mercury’s captain, Amelia. I own Winged Goods. If I wish to associate with my chief engineer, none will gainsay me.”

  His position as my captain should concern me. I ought to worry more what Josiah would think about my mother’s profession, not to mention the thornier problem of my pyromancy.

  Not a one of those protests made their way into speech. All I could do was watch, transfixed by those steady, grey eyes as slowly, so slowly, he bent and laid his lips against mine.

  I had plenty of time to draw back. Plenty of time to turn my head and receive his guerdon upon my cheek. More than enough time to tell him “no.”

  I did none of those things, for my naïve inner child had won the battle for control, and I was in her power.

  And as Josiah drew me closer and I returned his kiss with interest added, I rejoiced in her victory.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Our embrace, embarked upon in full daylight on a public and well-travelled thoroughfare, could not help but draw unwelcome attention.

  The sharp clearing of a throat broke through the fog in my head after a mere few seconds of bliss. I drew back, the heat in my cheeks warning me of the blush others would see.

  A portly, middle-aged gentleman in a dark frock coat stood at my elbow, accompanied by an equally portly, though handsome, middle-aged woman in a lilac walking dress, and a young woman of a similar solid build, obviously their daughter.

  “Such lewd behavior and in public, too!” the man exclaimed in German-accented French. “You should be ashamed of yourself, young man.”

  Josiah tucked me into his side, away from the curious gazes of passers-by. “I do beg your pardon, sir,” he said, seeming calm and composed as ever. “However, seeing as the lady has just agreed to be my wife, I became carried away in the moment.”

  I must have started or squeaked or given some other indication of my surprise, for Josiah’s grip on my waist tightened as if in warning.

  Of course. He had come up with a believable story to cover our actions. It meant nothing; except once again, perhaps, to my naïve inner child. A child who no longer retained control of my actions.

  Josiah had meant nothing.

  The portly man hemmed and hawed, and repeated, “Well, I say!” twice before coming to the conclusion that our display could be forgiven, this once. He touched the brim of his hat politely, and herded his giggling womenfolk over the bridge.

  Josiah turned to me. “Miss Everley…”

  “No. I understand. You wished to avoid unpleasantness. Quick thinking, Captain,” I said, not allowing him time to utter any elaborate explanation or apology. I could spare us both that embarrassment, at least.

  “A moment ago, you called me ‘Josiah’.”

  I do not know what expression his eyes held, as I could not bring myself to meet them. I studied the buttons of his uniform, instead. His voice let nothing slip, giving me no clue at all to what answer he desired from me.

  “Did I, sir?” I forced a strangled laugh. “How indiscreet of me. I shall guard against doing so again. Should we not return to the Mercury?” I strode out into the main flow of traffic, aware of Josiah’s looming presence b
eside me. How he managed to loom when he only topped my height by a few inches, I do not know, yet he did.

  “We shall discuss this later, Everley,” he said.

  Just Everley, no “Miss”.

  Thank goodness. Despite the thrill his lavish praise and unguarded declarations had caused, I knew nothing of how to react to such statements. How could I, not understanding of my own feelings toward him? I needed us to resume a solid, well-defined relationship.

  But by using my last name alone, Josiah indicated he acted as a captain addressing one of his officers. This sort of relationship I understood. I felt as if the swampy terrain of our last few minutes’ conversation had solidified to stable ground. “Yes, sir.”

  We approached the end of the bridge, and the airfield lay not so very far beyond. I needed the comfort and clear logic of my engines.

  Josiah cleared his throat. “When we discussed all the information we possessed that might point to my father’s killer, I was not entirely forthcoming.”

  I had wondered when he would realize his father’s hidden accounts book might have something to do with his murder. Josiah would be furious to learn I had let myself into his father’s cabin and found the thing. Maybe he would not have to know. “You found something amongst Captain Rollins’ personal possessions that could help us identify the man from the Russian’s Cap?” I hinted as delicately as I could manage.

  “Mmm,” Josiah replied, frustratingly nonspecific. “I must assume that my father knew this person. They had to be at least acquainted, else why would Captain Rollins agree to meet, and so far from his usual haunts? How can I recall every single person my father ever met, with the addition of all their dependents and hangers-on?” He sighed. “An impossible task, given that my father has travelled constantly while I have been relegated to English backwaters for most of my career.”

  “Surely he left records; a journal, perhaps.”

  “His personal journal was, strangely, absent.”

  I wondered, with a start, if Lieutenant Whitcomb had been responsible for its absence in an attempt to keep my gender a secret. Captain Rollins surely had referred to me, in the feminine form, multiple times, if only to keep track of the state of my education. I had not thought of that particular complication. Drat. Now I owed Whitcomb another thank you.

  Josiah had not finished speaking. “However, I did find one odd thing—an accounts book, hidden among his linen.”

  “Ah,” I said, attempting to project surprise and interest. “What was in it?”

  My attempt appeared to fail, as Josiah drew me to a stop with our heels on the bridge and our toes on the land, causing a minor traffic upset. He apologized to the pair of English ladies in sturdy walking boots and their native guide, and drew me farther to the side, under the awning of a parasol seller. “And how do you know about my father’s hidden accounts book?”

  You would think, all things considered, I would be better at dissembling. Nothing for it now but to confess. “On the way back to England, after Captain Rollins was k-killed…” I had to stop and swallow heavily to clear my throat, which had closed up suddenly. “In any case, I searched his cabin to see if I could find any clues. I found the book, but could make little of the notations inside. Have you had any better luck?”

  “My father’s cabin door was locked.” His jaw tilted at an ominous angle.

  I waved a hand airily, hoping he would not make a fuss over an admittedly worrying infraction. “A child could get around the locks aboard the Mercury. The point is, have you made any sense of the book?”

  “I shall continue the discussion of your trespassing later,” he said.

  Yet another conversation to which I was not looking forward.

  “For now,” he continued, “let us compare notes to see what we can decipher of my father’s private dealings.” He fished about in an inner pocket and pulled out a flat leather wallet. Undoing the clasp, he removed a single sheet of paper with initials, payment amounts, and dates listed. The sheet reminded me very much of my own carefully copied notes currently residing in a similar wallet under my mattress aboard the Mercury.

  Josiah held the paper so we both could study it. “Some of these I can account for. I believe AC stands for Arthur Crabtree, the man who runs my father’s favorite gaming establishment in London. He took me there on my eighteenth birthday.”

  I had spent my eighteenth birthday above the central plains of Portugal, rushing diplomatic dispatches across Gibraltar to Algiers. I think Captain Rollins had said something like, “Oh, and happy birthday, Amelia,” as I had staggered from his cabin, filthy with coal dust and sweat, weighed down by yet another stack of scientific tomes he wished me to study.

  Quite a contrast to a night celebrating out on the town. Not that I would waste my money on cards or other games of chance. I knew too much of probabilities and odds to throw my funds away in such a manner. Still, I would have appreciated some more tangible sort of acknowledgement of the day.

  Josiah continued without noting my distraction. “However, I can make nothing of these other payments. Who is YS? Or MB? Or DP? Not his tailor, nor his club. I do not know who else they could be.”

  “Well, I can explain the DP, at any rate. That is what he called my maman.”

  “But your name is Everley,” he said, frowning in confusion. “No ‘P’ involved. And why would my father pay her if you are the one in his employ?”

  Double drat. I had assumed he knew about Maman. Not that she was my mother, of course, but that his father had kept a mistress. Didn’t many English gentlemen?

  I could guess the direction this conversation would lead, and I did not wish to hold it in quite such a public forum as this. I turned to rejoin the foot traffic. “We should get back to the ship.”

  Josiah caught my elbow, spinning me to face him. Mine were not the only eyes on the crowded street that could not resist his commanding posture. We were attracting an audience. “Miss Everley, answer me.”

  I tried to step back, to urge him into motion, but I might as well have tried to tow the Mercury, on my own and against the wind. “Oh, very well, sir,” I muttered, hoping to speak so low nobody would overhear. Maybe not even Josiah. “DP stands for Dearest Phoebe. That’s what he called her.”

  His frown deepened. “Dearest Phoebe?” he pronounced clearly.

  I fought the urge to drop my head into my hands. Heads turned in our direction from all over the street. We were becoming a public spectacle. “Hush, please, Captain. Josiah. We’ll discuss this when we get back to the ship.” The number of items to be discussed later had grown large enough to fill a reasonably large airmen’s trunk.

  “Why would my father call your mother ‘Dearest Phoebe’?” Josiah said, his voice gone cold and dark, like coal before a flame sets it alight.

  Why did I have to be the one to inform the man that his father had a mistress? As a young, unmarried woman I was not supposed to know about such things as mistresses. That I had been raised a courtesan’s daughter and took men’s worldly ways for granted did not negate the fact that Josiah should not be asking me this question. I did not want to answer it.

  “Do not be naïve,” I whispered. I attempted to break his hold on my arm, with no discernible success. I do not know whether he even noticed my struggle.

  “Do not think I can be brushed off so easily,” he said. “Answer my question.”

  “Shall I say it out loud, then?” I countered, my temper fraying. “Right here in the streets of Constantinople? Would you force me to expose in public the tawdry roots from which I sprang? To admit to the world that your father refused to give my mother the protection of his name in order to marry for the sake of filthy lucre, forcing her to become a courtesan in order to feed herself and her baby daughter—me?”

  My heart raced as I finally verbalized the poison that had been growing in me since Maman had told me her story in Paris. Why had Captain Rollins betrayed Maman and me so many years before? Had he taken me aboard his airship ou
t of guilt? Or did he think he could use me as he had used my mother—not as a mistress, perhaps, but as someone whose need he could exploit for his own ends?

  “Everley, are you saying that your mother…”

  And now here was his son, come to condemn the pair of us, Maman and me, for doing what had to be done to survive—perhaps even thrive. And after kissing me and saying what he had about asking me to marry him. Yes, it had been a story for an enraged onlooker, but to come up with a tale like that, the idea had to have been present in his mind.

  Now I would see his attitude change once more. He knew all my secrets now, save one. If he condemned me so much for the lesser sin of being the daughter of a courtesan, pray God he never found out about the greater of being a pyromancer.

  I scrambled to find some way of hurting him as much as I hurt. “Yes, Josiah. My mother was Captain Rollins’ mistress. He only married your mother for her dowry. He never loved her.”

  And how was that better than what Maman had done? They both had sold themselves for money. I raised a fist to swipe at the moisture collecting about my eyes.

  Josiah dropped my arm as if I had caught fire. His face went white, except for two burning spots of red on his freshly-shaven cheeks. “You are aware of how I feel about secrets, Everley. I gave you a second chance before. Did you not think you being my half-sister was something I deserved to know? Perhaps before I kissed you?”

  A crowd began to gather, filled with disapproving whispers and muffled gasps at my accusations and Josiah’s reactions. My skirts swirled and ruffled in a rising hot wind.

  “We share no blood, Josiah. You can be assured I would not have let matters go so far if we had. I did not tell you because it was not my secret to tell. Edmund Rollins was your father. If he had wanted you to know, he would have told you.” I turned to escape from the stifling confines of the parasol vendor’s awning into the open street. I wanted my engine room and the pure logic that kept the engines running smoothly.