“Who?” Jack asked, looking around.
“Dammit!” I whirled around, grinding my teeth at the audacity of the man. “He’s done it again!”
“Sweetheart, I think you’re starting to get a fixation on the poor man,” Jack said, giving me a long look.
By some miracle, I held my temper, but I swore to myself that I would get to the bottom of the Mr. Llama mystery by the time we landed in London. “Mr. Francisco,” I said, breathing heavily through my nose. “Please leave the
Tesla
. Return here tomorrow at six bells. I will take care of any foodstuffs that you require.”
“Why should I leave?” he asked, pouting even as he glared at Jack. “The one who claims your hair most fabulous is his, he will stay, but I, your most devoted servant, your slave, your worshipper, I must leave? No. It will not be. I will not allow it.”
“You will leave, because I say you will,” I answered, shoving him toward the door.
He resisted, his gaze narrowing on Jack. “I will not leave you with that one. He is not to be trusted. You set him down, and he returns! It is clearly that he has bad thoughts on his brains for your hair. I will not forsake you, my glorious one.”
“Not only will you forsake me, you will do so right now,” I said even more forcefully, putting all my weight into the act of shoving him out of the mess.
He grabbed at the doorframe. “But why should I leave when the others stay?”
I stopped shoving. “What others? Don’t tell me more of the crew came on board early?”
He shrugged. “It is not for me to become the tail of tattling.”
“Damnation,” I swore, then slammed shut the door to the mess, and slid the bolt home before looking at Jack. “Others have come on board.”
“I heard. There goes double-checking the engines.”
“And setting the course for the autonavigator.”
“And having wild, unbridled sex up against the wall.”
My breath got caught in my chest at the look in his eyes. I cleared my throat and tried to focus on what was important. “Indeed. Well. I suppose I should go see who ignored my orders and came on board a day early. And then if there’s time, I will check the autonavigator in case Mr. Christian decides to attend to his duties. He means well, but he’s appalling when it comes to plotting a course and directing it to the navigator. I asked him to oil the navigator’s engine shortly before you and your sister came on board, and had to spend three hours correcting the course and slipping the gears back into their proper channels. Are you sure that people do it standing up? What about balance?”
Jack grinned, and took a step toward me. “Want me to show you?”
My brain, recently having proven itself unreliable where Jack was concerned, agreed most emphatically with his suggestion, but luckily the rest of my person realized that there were more important things to do, and I unbolted the door and slipped through it before he could make good his offer.
A slight figure disappeared down the end of the corridor. “Dooley! What are you doing here?”
The lad popped his head around the corner. “Hullo, Cap’n. Mr. Piper sent me to the ship to check that all the stores were tidy-like in the hold.”
“He’s not here?” I asked, relieved. That would be one less person to get out from underfoot.
“No, Cap’n. He said he was going to his favorite brothel to bend one of the ladies over his capstan, and have her scrape the rusticles off his bollocks.”
I absorbed that news with the silence I felt it was due.
Dooley picked his ear. “He sent me here, instead.”
“Indeed. Well, at least someone had the good sense to do as I asked and not come to the
Tesla
early,” I grumbled as I caught the lad by his jacket and shooed him down the passage ahead of me. “Go back to the pensione. The stores are all properly assembled in the rear hold. You may assure Mr. Piper of that when he is done having his rusticles scraped.”
“But, Cap’n,” the lad protested as I shoved him one step at a time down the gangway to the ground.
“Shoo. Begone. Go enjoy your last evening in Rome. I will see you at six bells.”
“Cap’n, Mr. Piper’ll have my dillywhacker if I don’t—”
I gave him a look that probably frightened a good three years off him. “You’ll lose more than your personal equipment if you don’t do as I say!”
His shoulders slumped as he nodded, and shuffled off. I reentered the ship, my gaze honed to razor sharpness as I hunted down the other members of my crew. Mr. Ho I found in her cabin, putting away her clothing in a foot-locker. “Mr. Ho,” I said in my most disappointed tone.
She gave me a level look. “Captain Pye.”
A silence grew, a rather uncomfortable silence.
“I am sorry to see you here. I had assumed you would be cherishing your last night in such a romantic city.”
“I fully intend to avail myself of the city as soon as I’m through setting my things to right,” she said evenly. There was a pause that was even more uncomfortable than the previous one. “I realize it is none of my business, Captain, but I could not help but notice that your bed in our shared accommodations has not been disturbed since we arrived.”
“Oddly enough, I was about to remark the same about your bed,” I said, lifting my chin.
She nodded an acknowledgment of that, and allowed herself a little smile. “I have greatly enjoyed our leave here.”
“As have I.”
“Then we are in harmony on such matters,” she said rather stiffly.
“We are. You will leave the
Tesla
as soon as you have finished here?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“I had wanted to make myself available to you,” she said slowly, her eyes curiously examining me. “But if you have no need of me, then I shall do as you suggest.”
“Everything is under control. Enjoy your last evening here,” I said, closing the door and releasing a breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding. There was something about Mr. Ho that simultaneously relieved me and worried me, but I couldn’t for the life of me pinpoint just what.
Mr. Mowen was just coming on board when I headed for the forward cargo hold. It took some doing, but I managed to convince him that all was well with the ship, and that he needn’t check anything before the morning.
I poked my head into the now empty hold after getting rid of him, just to double-check that nothing was awry, and was startled to find it occupied.
“Titties of the virgin!” Mr. Piper exclaimed as I popped into the room. He clutched his chest and staggered a couple of feet to a chair that was bolted to the floor next to the door. “Ye damn near scared the hair right off me balls jumpin’ in on me like that!”
“Mr. Piper,” I said, hands on my hips. “I thought you were off having your rusticles scraped! What are you doing here?”
His startled expression melted into one of smug masculine pleasure. “Aye, Captain, that I was. I went t’see Two-Guinea Tandy, finest whore in all of Italy. She’s got muscles in her Suez Canal that can grip a man like a pair of hands. Fair stripped the foreskin right off me rod, they did, the first time I had her. Scared me ’alf to death until she told me that she’s known far and wide for her ability to milk a man without layin’ so much as a finger on him.”
“Mr. Piper,” I said firmly, straightening my shoulders and giving him a look that I hoped he read with great accuracy. “I am not interested in your leisure- time activities except so far as they concern you being on the
Tesla
when you are supposed to be elsewhere. You have the rest of the evening free, so I suggest you go back to your friend and allow her to . . . er . . . grip you again.”
“But, Captain,” he said, lifting a wan hand. “Once ye’ve been milked by Two-Guinea Tandy, yer cods is drained dry. There be’nt any use in me goin’ to see her again. Not until twenty-four hours has passed to allow me sacs to refill.”
“Surely a man of your lusty appetite can find something to do with Tandy,” I said, pulling him to his feet.
“Nay, Captain. ’Tis the truth I’m tellin’ ye. Look, I’ll show ye—here’re me tallywags. See how they just hang there, swayin’ ever so forlornly in the wind, like a pair of empty plums?”
Before I could stop him, Mr. Piper dropped his trousers and pulled up the front of his shirt, gesturing toward his groin. I averted my gaze immediately, but not before getting sight of that which I hoped never to see again.
“Have ye ever in yer life seen a pair of cods as drained?” he demanded, prodding at himself. “I couldn’t mount a flight of stairs, let alone a whore as demanding as Tandy be, not without givin’ me clappers time to recover.”
“How goes the—what the hell is going on here?”
I whirled around at the sound of Jack’s outraged voice. “Oh. Jack. Um . . . I found Mr. Piper.”
“So I see,” Jack said, glaring at the bosun. “What’s he doing exposing himself to you? That’s what I’d like to know.”
“The captain didn’t believe me when I told her that Two-Guinea Tandy had drained me oysters dry,” Mr. Piper said, gesturing once again toward his crotch. “But ye be a man of the world, and ye’ll be able to tell her the truth in what I say. Er . . .” Mr. Piper thankfully hiked up his trousers, squinting at Jack as he did up the buttons. “If ye don’t mind me askin’, didn’t we leave ye off outside of Rome a few days ago?”
“Yes. I’m back.” Jack gave me a look that had me clearing my throat. “I assume you are finished showing the captain your nuts? Good. If you don’t mind, I need her to look at something.”
“Oh, aye?” Mr. Piper looked speculatively at me before leaning toward Jack and saying in what was supposed to be a confidential tone, “I wouldn’t be showin’ her yer middle leg and baubles just yet, lad. She looks to be in a right mood, and the ladies, they need a bit of sweet-talking before they welcome ye to fix their plumbin’.”
I rubbed my forehead as Mr. Piper, with a wink at Jack, and a leer at me, staggered off to parts unknown. “In a way, I shall miss the crew. But on the other hand, the thought of having a normal crew, one that does not possess individuals who can disappear and reappear at will, and a bosun obsessed with all things sexual, is strangely attractive. What is it you wanted to see me about? I assume it wasn’t to show me your—” I waved toward his fly.
“Not until later, no. Your chief officer is here. He . . . uh . . . took exception to finding me in the navigation room, and seemed convinced that I was holding you captive, and that it was his duty to alert the authorities.”
“Oh, no.” I bolted from the room, heading down the corridor to the spiral stairs leading up to the small navigation room housing the machinery that piloted the airship, Jack right on my heels. “You didn’t let him leave, did you?”
“You should know me better than that,” Jack said, grabbing my arm as I charged up the stairs and reached for the door to the navigation room. “Tavy, I should warn you—it looks a lot worse than it really is.”
I opened the door, looked in, then closed it quietly again.
“Jack.”
He winced at the expression in my eyes. “I can explain.”
“I should hope so.” I took a deep breath, then asked, “Why is my chief officer hanging upside down, naked, with my best corset strapped to his chest?”
Jack opened the door. “I couldn’t find any rope. You’d think that an airship would have great big coils of rope lying around, but no, I couldn’t find so much as a ball of string, and I had to have something to immobilize his arms, Tavy. Your corset was the only thing I had, so I used it to strap him down so he won’t be able to escape.”
“Today seems to be my day for seeing members of my crew sans clothing. He appears to be unconscious.”
Jack rubbed his chin. “Ye-es, I thought you’d notice that, too. He put up a bit of a fight, so I used the Vulcan Neck Pinch on him. Or the real-world equivalent.”
The naked chief officer swayed ever so slightly as the ship moved with the wind. “I believe I’ll forgo inquiring about this Vulcan Neck Pinch, and instead ask you why you felt it necessary to strip Mr. Christian.”
The look he gave me was pitying. “I forget you haven’t seen
MacGyver
, but you can take it from me that it greatly increases your chances of escape if you’re fully clothed. But string someone up naked and hang them by their feet, and you’re just about guaranteed to keep them where you want them.”
I sighed, and gestured toward the man, entering the small room. “Get him down.”
“He was pretty violent, Octavia. Punched me in the jaw, as a matter of fact, but I didn’t hold that against him, since he thought I was abducting you. Maybe we should keep him up there for a bit until he wakes up. You wouldn’t want him to escape to warn the authorities if we were distracted, would you?”
“For a man who professes to follow the doctrine of doing unto others as you would have them do unto you, you’re rather imaginative with your methods of restraint,” I said, gesturing toward the chief officer again.
Jack hauled a chair over and stood on it, pulling out a small penknife to slash what appeared to be a pair of my best wool stockings that bound Mr. Christian’s feet to the framework that ran over our heads. “Just because I’m a Quaker doesn’t mean I’m a wimp, sweetheart. I don’t kill people, but I don’t have a problem restraining someone who will cause us grief. And it wasn’t easy getting him up here on my own, you know. Took some doing. Watch out below.”
I managed to grab Mr. Christian’s head so it would not strike the floor with the rest of him. “I have every confidence that I will be able to reason with him when he wakes up. Until then, we will leave him bound on the floor. Will that suffice for security measures?”
“MacGyver would escape in about ten seconds,” Jack said, shaking his head.
“Then let Mr. MacGyver’s captain worry about him. I will just see to the autonavigator while we’re here.”
“And I’ll go off to finish checking the engines in the boiler room. That sheet of start-up procedures you found in Mowen’s room was very detailed. I’ll have the engines primed and ready to go. Oh, and Octavia?”