Lust Plague (Steamwork Chronicles) (27 page)

“Mmm.” With that last embarrassing, strangled sound still in her ears, she opened the door and made her somewhat disheveled escape.

I must never speak to that man again. He knows me too well. But…I am the only woman he’s conquered?
Then she touched her poor ear, running her fingers along the sutured edge.

He didn’t say a word about this. As if he didn’t see it. As if it made no difference that I’m a little war torn and less than perfect. But then who is? Who is ever perfect?

“Did you give him hell, Kaysana?” One of the guards dared to say to her as she passed them.

She spun, shot him a menacing look. “You watch that mouth, soldier. It’s captain to you. You want to be scrubbing the outside of this airship with a toothbrush, keep being insubordinate!”

“Sorry, Captain!” His eyes were like little marbles, his expression rigid, and he snapped her a salute.

“Carry on.” She strode away, trying to figure out who she wanted to strangle more—Sten or the guard. “
Why are you so afraid
?” he’d said.
I’m not, dear man. I’m angry. Can’t you tell?

So why is it I feel as if I’ve just made the biggest, stupidest mistake in my whole life? I can’t want to be with him, can I? Just because he’s big and cuddly and…and makes me quiver like a love-struck teenager whenever he does almost any damn thing to me. Or is it because he loves me?

She came to a stop, leaned her back on the nearest wall, and studied her boots.
What if I love him back? What then? But I don’t, do I?

Sten slumped into the chair and stared out into space. That’d gone real damn well. Romance and him didn’t get on. He had a feeling he’d totally screwed up. Pinning her against the wall had been a mistake, no matter how nice it had felt. Trying to get her to think about a relationship was like skewering a flea with a fork—impossible and potentially messy.

Maybe it was time to draw away and let her plain think. If she swung the wrong way, he’d just have to figure out another strategy. Giving up wasn’t in his nature. Course knowing her, she’d get snarky and try to shoot him or something. Romancing was way more dangerous than he’d thought.

Even he would have to call it quits eventually, though. And that would hurt so much. He sighed, feeling an unfamiliar ache inside, remembering Kaysana. Yep, that’d hurt for the rest of his fucking life.

For two days she thought on what they’d said and what she’d felt. Sexual attraction was there, she couldn’t deny that, and more too. But why then did her guts turn into a nauseating labyrinth of knots whenever she thought of Sten? She wrote herself notes and stared at them. There were questions on her mind that couldn’t be answered on board. It wouldn’t hurt to make some inquiries. The radiophony operator received some unexpected business from her.

When her replies returned, Captain Nordland called Kaysana into her office. She slid the white sheets of paper across the desk. “Here, Captain Onomi, the questions you asked are answered. I had to be appraised of the contents, you realize? You’ll find additional replies appended from your GAM commanders.”

“Yes. I understand.” Apparently radiophony transmissions were closely monitored, and her private ones must have rung alarm bells in the ears of her superiors. Not surprising. This was the aftermath of a war.

“Then take my advice—and it is that of a friend and not as the officer of another nation—please think very, very carefully before acting on these answers.”

As a friend? But then she had made friends here. The day before, the captain had tried to teach her how to play poker and, before that even, had introduced her to most of the crew, including Emily’s live-wire beau, Corey—he of the head of dirt brown hair and many pigtails. A Scotsman. A man with more pigtails than Emily. The sight had struck her speechless until she’d broken down and chuckled. For once she’d been able to join in and talk to others without the burdening air of a superior officer.

Then the very calm, rational words of Captain Nordland sank in like delayed fuse bombs.

“I will. I will think very carefully.”

Fingers interlocked in a steeple on the desk, the captain nodded. “Good. It might be best for the continued harmony of this ship if you keep your decisions private until we dock. I’d like to keep this airship as peaceful as possible. In other words, do not rock the boat. The quarantine is lifted, and we are allowed to return home.”

“To London? To your home?”

“Yes. And, Captain, this is a cruise ship. Please make use of the facilities. It will keep some of the retained staff happy, get them occupied. Hmm?”

“Of course.”

Dutifully she tried out the badminton court, the library, and the gymnasium—though that had again reminded her of her last hours on the
Art of War
. The steward’s offer to give her a larger cabin, well, that seemed wrong, and she’d declined. Besides, staring out the porthole of a large, opulent room would surely be less satisfying to the wounded depths of her soul than her little room was? Though Emily joined her in some of the games, including her attempt at mah-jongg, Sten was absent. She’d not seen him in many days. On an airship, that meant he was deliberately avoiding her. But she could still feel the pressure of his words.

There was one person she trusted enough on board to discuss this with. She lured Emily into a game of mah-jongg—at which game the librarian excelled.

“I thought you’d not played this much before?” She raised an eyebrow and stared at the array of white tiles in front of Emily.

“Oh no, ma’am.” The woman grinned and wriggled on her chair. “I used to play all the time on the…
Art of War
.”

“Oh.”
Sneaky girl. Must remember not to try out poker
. Kaysana fiddled with the ivory tablecloth. She shoved away the bad memories. “I asked you here because I have a question.” A glance showed Emily waiting patiently, lip between teeth. “It’s about Sten.”

“Uh-huh. Go on.”

“Right. I’m not even sure what I’m asking. Damn.”

“Hell. I know that one. You want to be with him but want to know if it’s a good idea, right?” Then she rushed on. “And see, it’s like with me and Corey. Sometimes you just have to take a chance.”

“There’s…ahh…reasons why it doesn’t mesh with the future I have planned. And…” She grimaced. “I don’t know him that well. Do I?”

“You what? Pardon me, ma’am, while I fall off my chair. If you don’t know him well enough to try being together, after all we’ve been through, I’m not sure you ever will.”

“Hmm.” She stacked several of the tiles into a tower, flicked them off, and watched them spin. “My family, my grandfather might disown me if I have a relationship with a frankenstruct. Does that make me shallow?”

Emily plonked herself back against her chair, blew out air through her lips. “Welll…if you listen to him, yes?”

That was it? Cao and fuck. “He said yes I could, but that he’d reserve his decision until he met him.”

“What! Then yep, you’re shallow.”

“God, Emily, blunt is your middle name, isn’t it?”

“Ma’am. I say what I see. But I also know you ain’t shallow. Here, I’ll go get us both a scotch. I figure we both need it for these in-depth conversations. Be back in a sec.” She shoved away from the table then set off for the bar in the games room.

She wasn’t getting anywhere trying to get Emily to help. Confusion still taunted her. No. That was wrong. Emily had helped. Now she knew it wasn’t her grandfather’s decision she was afraid of. It was something else she couldn’t put her finger on.

Damn. She put her hands to her head and wove her fingers into her hair, rested her elbows on the table while she did more thinking.

Whatever she decided, would it be the right decision? Could she go back if she chose wrong? A battle decision had never been this difficult. The papers burned a hole in her pocket.

Two nights before they reached London, a dinner was held in the magnificent dining room. VICTORY OVER ZOMBIE F DINNER the banner draped above the entrance proclaimed. She adjusted her red jacket. London, thank goodness, was reputed to have a thousand great tailors.

The doors were propped open, and the clatter of dishes and cutlery, the murmur of voices carried to her. She braced herself. People. And she had a feeling she wasn’t going to like some of them.

The
Queen Margeurite’s
dining area would have done an upmarket restaurant proud. Bright apricot walls up to a timber chair rail with, above that, a luscious cream. The staff wafted about with towels over their arms, taking orders of food and drink and bringing back trays of citrine bubbling champagne. From the kitchens at the back came the smell of roasting meats and vegetables. Three sparkling cut-glass chandeliers hovered above.

As she sat at the left-hand table at the top of the hall, she couldn’t stop eyeing the chandelier. Dangerous thing. On the
Art of War
, she’d have turned it into dome lights in a fraction of a second.

“Imagine that coming down on your head after a fast maneuver, Captain? Or while under enemy fire?”

"Yes, so true.” She turned to look at the speaker—a PME lieutenant colonel with a red mustache grandiloquent enough to be used as kindling, or a bird’s nest.

My goodness, I wonder if he twirls that thing daily?

“Exactly, sir. It would be a danger in combat.”

Her agreement thrilled him so much she wondered if he’d nod his head off. Why did her opinion matter to him so much?

“So glad to have met the hero of Perihelion.” He thrust out his hand for her to shake.

That roused the rest of the table, and she had to shake hands with fifteen men and women—all, she noted, were PME or GAM soldiers from the rescue force. Emily was at her left, but apart from her, she could see no true friends, and no one who’d bothered talking to her in the last few days.

“It wasn’t only me,” she told the man. At the other head table, Sten was in deep conversation with Captain Nordland. For a moment, annoyance surfaced.

Am I jealous? Surely not? I told him our relationship was over. Why shouldn’t he search for someone else, talk to other women? It would solve my interminable problem
. “Don’t forget Emily and Sten were also there.”

Emily leaned forward and said loudly, “Yes, especially Sten and Kaysana. I mean I did nothing. I was barely in danger at all!”

Silence reigned for a while, with no one moving a fork or glass except a young sergeant down at the end of the table.

“Well.” Red Mustache wrinkled his lip, cleared his throat. “The frankenstruct may have been there, but I think it best if we concentrate on the achievements of those at our table. A toast to First Librarian Emily Winterborne and Captain Kaysana Onomi!”

So that was how it was to be?

The toasts grew merrier as the meal progressed. By the time dessert had been served, she was thoroughly tired of all the bombastic opinions of Mr. Red Mustache, whose name she refused to remember. And she wanted to throttle him. Emily was drunk enough that she had flung a forkful of pavlova into the air and hit Mr. Mustache smack in the eye. Though perhaps, knowing the little hellion librarian, it was deliberate.

“I’m going to dance with Corey after the awards ceremony,” Emily purred in her ear.

“What?” Award ceremony? Had she missed reading some memo? But she followed Emily’s wobbly pointing finger to the opposite table where the pigtailed medic was waving back. The grin on his face looked wide enough to drive a landship through. “Good for you, Emily.”

“Ladies and ladies, and gentlemen!” Seemed like Captain Nordland was tipsy too. “We have an inordinate number of ladies here tonight, and two of them are the surprisingly brave—Emily Winterborne and Captain Kaysana Onomi—so I thought I should double up on the ladies.”

Loud cheers and clapping broke out, much of it from those surrounding Kaysana.

“But first…but first.” She waited for the cheering to die away. “Please bear in mind these are awards from my heart and the hearts of all those who are grateful to you three for all you have done to defeat the Zombie F plague. These are not official awards from any country.

“So to begin, it is my pleasure to award to Sten a special medal, minted here on the
Queen Margeurite
.”

Murmurs of discontent rose from those around Kaysana and slowly grew louder.

“To the devil!” Mr. Mustache shot back his chair as he shouted. “To the devil with this award! At the very least, you must give this to our ladies here before that…” Thick disgust stewed in his voice. “Before that bloody frankenstruct.” He swayed and put his arms out in front to steady himself on the table.

“Hear, hear!” The table broke out in ragged cheers, and some began to stomp rhythmically. “Ladies first. Ladies first!”

Stunned, Kayasana looked around at all the red-faced people at her table and at the smug female GAM officer next to her who seemed a womanly version of Ling. Some seemed to be simply going along with what their friends or companions were doing, but many showed true disgust and rage. With a snort of fury, Emily slammed down her glass, lunged to her feet, and stalked to the other table. Corey gathered her onto his lap and hugged her, but the shouting continued. Captain Nordland did nothing.

This wasn’t what she wanted—especially not Sten sitting there by himself at the top of the table, stoic despite the goading of the crowd. She wondered if he was upset beneath his poised exterior. Captain Nordland waited, ramrod straight, arms folded across her chest, for a quiet that seemed never likely to arrive.

Being calm might let everything roll over you, might give you time to assess and react accordingly in battle, but here, now, it just made Sten look forlorn and alone. It wasn’t changing anything.

“Damn.” This was awful. Pain throbbed through her with every beat of her heart. She loudly scraped back her chair and got to her feet.

She hadn’t been sure what to do, despite the papers, despite her grandfather’s reply, but now she was. Seeing Sten hurt was like watching a piece of herself be torn apart.
What are you afraid of?
She
was
still afraid. But she wasn’t afraid of anything papers and facts could fix.
I’m afraid of change, of doing something outside this box I’ve created over all these years
. And now she knew exactly what to do about it.