Thief of Hearts (Elders and Welders Chronicles Book 3) (10 page)

But Rowan had been so curious when they’d dropped anchor at St. Mina’s that he’d been practically vibrating with nervous energy. She’d not been able to say no when he’d expressed an interest in accompanying her and Hubert to the sanitorium. Having someone by her side to help temper Hubert’s impulsiveness had not been a bad idea anyway, but now, seeing the result—how seamlessly Rowan had slipped into her life—made her extremely wary.

As she trailed her father and Rowan back toward the
Amun Ra
, she studied the way Helen clung to Rowan so trustingly, laughing lightly at something the man said, and felt her heart constrict in her chest so tightly it was hard to breathe.

Dread. Bewilderment at the entire situation. Had her father and Omar not also witnessed it, she would have said that what had happened in the tomb had been a dream. It certainly felt that way.

How had he known her name? That, more than anything else, ate at her. He’d not remembered her when he’d woken up later in the tent, but there was no doubt in her mind that he’d
known
her in those first few moments. There had been recognition in those unnerving amber eyes. It made it way too…personal.

And the way he’d charmed Helen…

She wasn’t sure how to feel about any of it, and she loathed that uncertainty. The last time she’d been so emotionally torn was during her brief, disastrous marriage to Edgar Shaw. In retrospect, she could see just how callow and ridiculous of a child her husband had been, but for a while there, Edgar had twisted her soul in knots.

At first, his self-effacing and well-bred manner had been so refreshing after a lifetime surrounded by the street-toughened, vulgar-tongued thugs who had comprised most of her father’s circle of acquaintance. She’d thought herself so lucky to have finally escaped her father’s yoke and settled into a half-respectable life with her mother and sister. She’d felt so damned grateful that Edgar, the son of a prominent Baltimore shipping family and as polished as any Old World aristocrat, had shown an interest in her. She’d been smitten with him—with the life he could offer her and Helen and her mother.

Hex had never blamed her mother for leaving her behind with Hubert after Helen had been born. The itinerant life had been killing Caroline, and so when Hex had woken up one day to find her mother’s note, she had understood. Hubert wouldn’t have let Caroline go so easily if she’d taken Hex with her. Hex was, after all, the one who’d filled his pockets.

Although Caroline herself came from as respectable a family as any in Baltimore, her elopement with Hubert had never quite been forgiven or forgotten. After she’d fled back to Baltimore with Helen, she’d been able to maintain a frugal household on the small allowance her family had reluctantly settled upon her, but when Hex had joined them years later, they had just barely managed to scrape by.

Hex had never regretted finally getting away from Hubert after what he’d done to her, but she had felt guilty for adding to her mother’s burden. Perhaps that was why she’d so hastily agreed to Edgar’s proposal when she was just sixteen.

In the end, just after Hex’s marriage, her mother had died, wasted away with the same mysterious disease of the blood that she had passed on to Helen, and Helen had become Hex’s sole responsibility.

The addition of her already sickly sister to the household had been the last straw for Edgar, whose family had never approved of his choice in Hex anyway. After his family had threatened to cut him off completely, Edgar had caved and asked Hex for an annulment.

Hex hadn’t even bothered to fight for the marriage. Edgar’s luster had quickly worn off once she’d realized how weak-willed he was. He’d chosen his family’s money over her and in the end had willingly subjected her to a divorce when the courts had refused to grant the annulment. It was a stigma that would always leave her beyond the pale of Baltimore society, through no fault of her own.

She’d taken the divorce, and then she’d taken the Gray family’s latest prototype dirigible from their warehouse and had never looked back. Baltimore and all of its narrow-minded society could go hang, for all she cared. She’d vowed over the Atlantic never to let herself be put in such a vulnerable position again.

Yet ever since Rowan had spoken her name in the tomb, that was all she’d felt: vulnerable. Out of control. It was unacceptable. She was grateful that he’d stepped in front of that bullet for her and made Helen smile today, but she refused to feel indebted.

After they landed in Cairo, Mr. Pharaoh was on his own.

HEX FINALLY SET
foot on the teeming Cairo air docks and sighed with a mixture of relief and resignation. Nothing had changed while she’d been in the Western Sahara. The docks were, as usual, a god-awful cacophony of clanking machinery, shouting street vendors, and whirring airship engines. The familiar miasma of unwashed bodies, engine grease, and the kebap stand just across from the
Amun Ra’s
berth was underscored by the ever-present stench of human excrement that hung over the Nile.

Ah, home. Or at least what passed for a home these days. The familiarity of it all was somewhat comforting, though, and she’d take
somewhat
over
nothing at all
, considering her limited options.

Simon jumped from the ladder and landed beside her with his usual clumsy grace. He wrinkled his nose as he always did when first arriving back in the city, unimpressed as ever with the smell.

“Well, we’re alive,” he said gloomily. “There is that.”

She snorted. “Such as it is.”

He stretched out his long limbs and sighed. “Well, I’m famished. Kebap?”

She waved him on his way with a shake of her head and turned her attention to her two neighbors, who had set up a makeshift table out of old engine parts in the narrow strip of dock beside the
Amun Ra
.

Thaddeus Fincastle and Won Jin occupied the berths on either side of her own, and they were both thankfully only slightly nefarious characters. She didn’t think she would have lasted as long as she had in Cairo had her neighbors been anyone less scrupulous. She may have been streetwise, but she wasn’t stupid enough to believe her age and gender didn’t put a target on her back.

Thaddeus was an old salty privateer with an antique Welding peg leg, a ubiquitous red neckerchief, and a thousand tall tales about his adventures. He operated a ramshackle dirigible so ancient it had likely seen action during the Crimean War, and dabbled here and there in small-time smuggling schemes. He seemed happy to earn just enough to keep himself in tobacco and whiskey, though he did occasionally disappear on mysterious business for months on end that he refused to talk about.

Won Jin, who looked about two hundred years old with his long white beard and shriveled skin, was a rare spice trader out of the Joseon Peninsula and something of an expert at evading tax collectors in both hemispheres. He’d given her a lot of interesting advice on “expanding” her business, most of which she was too cautious to take.

The two men were playing poker and sipping tea.

Well, Won Jin was sipping tea. Hex suspected Thaddeus had something a bit stronger in the dainty little porcelain cup clutched in his work-roughed hand.

“A’right there, sweetheart?” Thaddeus called out with a jaunty wave. He was the only one she allowed to call her by such a ludicrous nickname. She wasn’t sure why.

“Ah, Miss Hex! Greetings,” Won Jin said, standing up and giving her a proper courtly bow. “We have been concerned.”

No doubt they’d gleaned some of what had happened to her from gossip around the docks. She was glad they’d both been out of the city when she’d been abducted, however, for they would have tried to intervene—unlike the rest of the self-interested, unprincipled denizens of the port—and Harlan Janus’s men would have made short work of them.

“I’ll tell you all about it later,” she said as the rest of her cargo started to descend the rope ladder.

Rowan landed on the dock first and gazed around his surroundings, wide-eyed and slack-jawed. A jumble of emotions passed over his too-open countenance: awe, disgust—he must have had a whiff of the sewage, then—and panic. He nearly jumped a mile in the air at the sound of a distant gunshot, skittish as a colt.

Something tightened in her chest at his obvious disorientation, but she ruthlessly pushed the feeling aside. Her life had no room for sentiment, especially toward him.

Omar flew past Rowan after he’d alighted, careful not to touch him. The man was still terrified of Rowan—so was she, to be honest—and he seemed to want to put as much distance between them as he could. He didn’t even thank her or Rowan for saving his life, the wretch, before he was melting into the dockside throng. She didn’t even try to stop him, though, glad to see the back of the little con artist.

Her father managed to pant his way down the ladder next, protesting his aching bones the entire time, but she made no move to help him. To his credit, neither did Rowan. Hubert dropped heavily to the ground and stumbled a little before righting himself with a groan.

He finally grumbled out a rather half-hearted goodbye to her after straightening his straining waistcoat, to which she replied with narrowed eyes and a frown that made him go pale. He then attempted to slip away in Omar’s wake, aching bones suddenly, suspiciously forgotten.

“Oh, no you don’t,” she muttered, yanking him by the collar until he nearly fell backward. The son of a bitch wasn’t going anywhere. She dragged him in the direction of Thaddeus and Won Jin, ignoring his sputtered protests.

Thaddeus pulled his pouch of Virginia tobacco from his coat and pinched off a sizeable wad, his sharp gaze surveying both her blustering father and the tall stranger who trailed in their wake. Thaddeus’s eyes widened in shock, then narrowed in suspicion on Rowan.

“I’m in need of a favor,” she said, refusing to release Hubert’s collar despite his struggling.

Thaddeus stuck the wad of tobacco into his bottom lip and eyed her coolly, his whole demeanor suddenly shifting from his usual amiability. His reaction was off-putting, but she tried not to take it personally. She doubted anyone who did business on the docks enjoyed granting favors, even Thaddeus.

“When I say favor, I mean that I have a job for you,” she amended. “But I need it done. Today. And I will pay you well.” She wasn’t exactly flush in the pockets, but she’d be tempted to sell her soul if it meant being rid of her father before sundown.

“What’s the job then, sweetheart?” he asked. He sent a wary look in Rowan’s direction, which she didn’t understand. Rowan looked about as unthreatening as anyone could at the moment, barefoot and practically gawking at his surroundings, clad in those ridiculous, biblical-looking white robes he’d been given in the desert. Thankfully, Simon had loaned him a pair of trousers to wear underneath the robes so that he was not going around half-naked anymore.

Not that she’d been looking.

Much.

“This here is my father,” she said, yanking on Hubert’s collar and diverting Thaddeus’s attention back to her. “And I need you to take him somewhere far, far away.”

“Now, hold on, my dear…” Hubert began. One glare from her, however, and his mouth clamped shut.

“America, if possible. Or Timbuktu,” she gritted out.

Thaddeus considered her request. “The old girl ain’t goin’ ta make no Atlantic trip at the moment. Give me a few weeks…”

“No. He must leave. Today.” She had a sudden, wicked thought. She smirked at her father. “How about Scotland?”

“What?” Hubert cried, finally managing to pull himself out her grip by the force of his outrage alone.

“Oh, she’ll make it that far, I expect,” Thaddeus said with a sly grin.

“I’m not going back
there
,” Hubert said. “I’m a wanted man!”

“You’re a wanted man everywhere,” she said with a roll of her eyes. She turned back to Thaddeus. “Edinburgh. Leith. 201 Easter Road, if you can.”

Hubert let out a disgusted sigh. “You’re a cruel, cruel woman, Hecuba Bartholomew.”

“That’s one very specific destination,” Thaddeus said after aiming a load of brownish spittle at Hubert’s boots. Hubert jumped higher than she’d seen him jump in years and glared at the privateer.

“It’s his mother’s,” she said dryly. “I’ll let her sort him out. Lord knows I wash my hands of him.”

Hubert looked affronted. “Well, I say! Ungrateful girl! You can’t order me to do anything, least of all leave Cairo,” he said in a tone that reminded her of a petulant eight-year-old.

She’d had enough. He’d only ever left her feeling heart sore and helpless. He’d ruined her life—risked her life and Helen’s time and again—and she refused to let him do so anymore.

“You will get in Thaddeus’s dirigible,” she said in a low, dangerous tone, “and go where he takes you. You’ll stay away from Helen and me. Far,
far
away.”

He sniffed indignantly. “Helen is my daughter. You’ve no right to keep me away from her.”

She
was his daughter too—a fact he only seemed to want to acknowledge when it suited him. “I’m not asking you, I’m
telling
you, how it’s going to be. Helen deserves better than your so-called love, and I don’t give a damn whether it’s my right or not. You’ll stay away from her. Otherwise…”

“What? What do you think you can do to make me?” Hubert sneered, a hard glint in his eye, his true nature surfacing at last.

“Otherwise I’ll deliver you to the authorities myself. Edinburgh, London, Vienna, Baltimore, take your pick. All of them would be glad to see you hang.”

He looked a bit taken aback by the vitriol in her voice. “You’d hang with me,” he finally managed.

“Perhaps. If I am very unlucky. But it would be
worth it
.”

His eyes widened, for no one could have doubted the raw sincerity in her voice. They stared each other down in a silent stand off, and for the last time she let herself mourn the death of her love for him. It didn’t take very long.

After a while, he seemed to deflate. “You need some time, then…”

“No,” she said, nipping his rationalizations in the bud. “Not this time. Not after what you did. I truly never want to see you again. I have forgiven you so many times, but I am done. You took my childhood, my
hands
, any hope for a normal life, and I forgave you, time and again, God help me, but not this time. Janus roughed me up, nearly did worse, and you
let him
. He would have killed me, and you would have
let him
. So I will extend to you the same courtesy. If I ever see you
here
again, I’ll drop you off on the Swede’s doorstep with a damn bow on your head.”

He flinched, but she couldn’t believe it was over anything other than his fear for his own life, no matter how much it looked like remorse. He wasn’t going to con her into believing he cared about her ever again.

“Are we clear?” she asked.

He swallowed and nodded without meeting her eyes, his jaw taut with stubborn tension.

She managed a halfhearted smile in Thaddeus’ direction, though she was trembling all over with rage. “So you’ll take the job, then?”

Sympathy was written all over the privateer’s weathered face. “Aye. I’ll drop the blighter on his mother’s doorstep just for you, Hex. But I ain’t doin’ it for free, despite us bein’ mates and all. Something tells me the journey ain’t goin’ ta exactly be sunshine and roses.”

Hubert just sniffed at Thaddeus and crossed his arms in a pout.

“Don’t worry. I’ll pay,” she said. “And I’ll double it if you drop this one off in London,” she said, pointing to Rowan, who had been watching her exchange with Hubert like a hawk.

Thaddeus’s face darkened immediately, and he took a step backward, as if considering fleeing the scene. “No deal. I ain’t takin’
that
one anywhere,” he said, spitting once more.

“Whyever not?” she demanded, taken aback by Thaddeus’s abrupt shift in mood. Thaddeus
was
a ridiculously superstitious man, but he couldn’t possibly know just how…odd Rowan was. To Thaddeus, Rowan was nothing but a harmless stranger.

“I won’t take ‘im, leave it at that. Don’t like the look of ‘im. It’s the eyes. They remind me of someone I know—an’ I know better’n to get tangled up with
that
sort o’ business any more than I already am.”

She opened her mouth to demand some sort of elaboration on these rather cryptic declarations, but Rowan immediately cut off any protest she might raise. “I wouldn’t go anyway,” he declared. “I’m staying in Egypt. Unless you think you can threaten me as well?” he asked her.

She didn’t think she could on any level, and that was what was so profoundly frightening about him. She’d expected him to stay, at any rate, but it had been worth the attempt to remove two thorns from her side in a single pass.

“Do as you please, then,” she muttered and took her father by the collar once more, shoving him into Thaddeus’s keeping, along with the bag of guineas she had prepared in advance from the secret stash not even Janus had been able to locate. “Don’t let him out of your sight, Thaddeus, until he is on Scottish soil.”

Thaddeus nodded tersely, and after he sent one last loaded glare Rowan’s way, he pocketed the money and grabbed Hubert by the upper arm. He saluted Hex.

“See you when I see you, sweetheart,” Thaddeus said. “In the meanwhile, steer clear of that one,” he finished in a low tone, nodding at Rowan before dragging Hubert in the direction of his dirigible.

“I intend to,” Hex muttered under her breath. She watched until Hubert was on board the airship and on his way out of her life for good. She sighed wearily and turned around to find Rowan talking animatedly with Won Jin in the man’s native tongue. After all she had seen in the past few days, she was hardly surprised, yet it was just another indication of how…impossible the man was. Who the hell knew Joseon? Other than someone from Joseon?