The Lion and the Mouse: A Steampunk Romance Read online

  “Colin.”

  She blushed as his gentle, implacable clasp raised her from the chair. She settled her free hand decorously on his shoulder. The warmth of his open hand at her waist sent her nerves into skittish excitement. She took a deep breath and let her husband lead her into a simple waltz.

  They circled the room slowly. Her skirts, not designed for dancing, flirted gently, alternately embracing and releasing Colin’s legs. It felt like the most daring intimacy. She didn’t risk looking at him, but focused on his shoulder.

  “I’m not much of a dancer,” he said awkwardly.

  “Nor am I. This is…nice.”

  His hand tightened fractionally at her waist, pulling her a degree closer than decorum would have allowed in public. “Very nice.”

  The music wound down. She stifled a sigh.

  “One moment.” He started the recording all over again.

  She smiled and went readily into his arms. “You’re humming.”

  “Does it disturb you?”

  It felt like flying, swaying around the drawing room, skirting chairs and tables with this large man, her husband. “I like it. You sound like a lion purring.”

  She felt as much as heard his chuckle, deep in his chest.

  “I have a rough voice. It comes from shouting against the wind and the noise of the dirigible engines.”

  “And you’re a big man,” she said.

  “That I am. Do I still scare you?”

  Surrounded by his strength and the masculine scent of his soap and starched collar, she found her fear had decreased. As well, she detected a note of regret in his voice. In running from him, she’d hurt this man. “You wouldn’t hurt a woman. You’ve very protective. I’m not very brave. Loud voices, violent moves, make me flinch. But even if I flinch, I’m not afraid of you anymore.”

  His hand moved, rubbing her back as a woman might soothe a child.

  She glanced up at him and saw him staring over her head, clearly thinking.

  He looked down and caught her watching. “Did your uncle abuse you?”

  “No.” Her nerves jolted as she saw the grim promise in his dark eyes. “No, Uncle George is horrible, but he never hurt me. We ignored one another.”

  “Until he sold you to me.”

  “Yes.”

  “So what made you such a mouse?”

  Her pride winced at the blunt question. “I was born this way. Scared of my own shadow.”

  “No,” he said thoughtfully. “A woman scared of her own shadow wouldn’t work at the airfield. Nor would she have found the courage to pursue her engineering interests. I suspect, Mrs. Truitt, that you don’t recognize your own power.”

  “I haven’t any power.”

  “Oh yes, you do.” He stopped dancing and lowered his head. “A power of beguilement.” His mouth brushed hers in a tender kiss, lifted for a tantalizing moment, and returned with a deeper, surer pressure.

  Anthea trembled. As an heiress, there’d been men who’d tried to steal kisses and more: her heart and inheritance. But this was the first time a man had kissed her in invitation and promise. She could sense Colin coaxing her to respond. Her lips parted.

  Instantly, he claimed the intimacy of her mouth. His masculine aggression was fiercely controlled.

  And all the more exciting for that control.

  His hands encircled her waist and she put her own hands on his shoulders, reveling in his strength. He held her up as eddies of excitement rippled through her.

  He nibbled her ear. “When I take my wife to bed, I want her loyalty as well as her body.”

  She drew back to study his expression.

  Desire burned in his eyes and his mouth was stern with it. His hands moved restlessly at her waist, urging her closer, shaping her slight figure. “I want my bride in my bed, but I’m willing to wait. The decision is yours, Anthea.”

  “I barely know you.” Her own feelings bemused her. She was leaning into him like a wanton.

  He set her carefully back, steadying her with a lingering touch at her waist. “Then think on what you do know of me. Good night, wife.”

  “Good night, husband.”

  An expression flashed over his face, too fast for her to read, before he bowed his head curtly and left the room.

  She sank into the fireside chair and waited for her pounding pulse to steady.

  “Rain, rain, rain. And fog. Bah.” Anthea drummed her fingers on the windowsill. The front garden looked depressed under the gray skies. The brave spring flowers had broken, falling to the horrible weather, and their bright faces lay crushed in the dirt.

  She turned away from the limited view and paced the length of the drawing room. If she’d been at the airfield, she’d have hardly noticed the weather. Her experiments would have absorbed her attention. But she wasn’t at the airfield. She’d learned yesterday that there was no peace to be found there.

  Bruce—following Colin’s instructions—insisted on sitting in her workroom while she was there. Not all her expostulations, to him and to her husband, served to shift him. And with Bruce sitting there, she could neither concentrate on her work nor talk privately with the tea ladies and cleaning women who usually spoke with her. They were her own information network within her father’s company and she resented losing it.

  They were also the women who had first shown her that her ideas for labor-saving devices could profoundly alter a person’s life. Refinements of ideas originally developed to assist with cleaning the airfield offices and canteen now sat on the shelves of Ivana’s toy shop.

  Unfortunately, the women, like the men employed at Farleigh Dirigibles, were fascinated by her sudden marriage. From being invisible, she was now stared at as soon as she entered the airfield. She knew they all looked at her and marveled at the lengths Colin had been willing to go to to secure Dirigible Journeys’ future. He was a splendid lion and she was a mouse.

  She hated being the center of gossip.

  “Darn.” She dropped onto the loveseat. If she didn’t want to be gossiped about, then she really had to stop pacing. To the staff at the townhouse, she must sound like a caged mouse going round and round in her wheel.

  Maybe Colin was right and they did need to buy a bigger house? One with a workshop for her and a proper garden, perhaps even a conservatory where a person could stroll in comfort when the weather was miserable.

  But not a sewing room. She smiled faintly. Colin really was trying to be a good husband. It just baffled him. It seemed that he was as accustomed to solitude as she. Which made his efforts last night all the more touching.

  Over the last two nights, he’d started to talk about himself.

  She could have cried—but then, she cried easily—to hear how his widowed mother had struggled to raise him, her early death from consumption and his departure to try his fortune in the Antipodes. He’d knocked around the world, learning to pilot a dirigible and had served as a mercenary captain, shipping in information (“never guns, but I did carry automatons”) and agents to local, brutal wars. He’d made his money taking jobs too hazardous for men with any commonsense—or any reason to live.

  Finally, three years ago he’d returned to London and launched Dirigible Journeys. His ships flew not only in Britain, but had refueling stations throughout Europe, allowing journeys all the way to the mountains of Transylvania.

  She understood now that he’d built his company out of blood and pain, and that it took the place of family in his life. No wonder he’d have done anything—even marry her—to keep it from Lord Looster.

  The drawing room door opened.

  “Mrs. Truitt,” Mr. Jones intoned. “Mr. Farleigh, your uncle, is calling.”

  “Never mind announcing me.” Uncle George pushed the butler to one side. “She’s my niece. Of course she’ll be home to me.”

  Mr. Jones looked his disapproval.

  Anthea checked the clock. It was barely eleven, far too early for her self-indulgent uncle to be out and about. She made a mental d
etermination not to invite him to stay for luncheon. Nor would she suggest a cup of tea. “That will be all, Mr. Jones.”

  Uncle George sat down in the large armchair that was Colin’s customary seat.

  It was disconcerting to see his florid, sagging face where she’d grown used to Colin’s grim expression with its occasional lifting of humor. Her husband seldom smiled, but he did have a sense of the ridiculous and a surprising degree of patience. In telling her of his history, she knew he was attempting to bridge the gulf between them.

  “I need ten thousand pounds,” Uncle George said.

  “Pardon?”

  “You heard me.” His red-rimmed eyes shifted nervously even as he attempted to bluster. “Your wretched trustees have thrown me out of the house. Said that since you’re not living there, nor can I. They said your husband agreed with them. Bastard.”

  “Uncle George!” As disreputable as she found the man, he hadn’t previously cursed in front of her.

  “Truitt tricked me.” Uncle George was deep in his troubles. “Paid me for your hand in marriage and all that went with it, then turns round and kicks me out of my own house.”

  My house. But Anthea held her tongue. Her uncle’s shameless reference to selling her came as no surprise. If George Farleigh had ever possessed any decency, he’d drank and gambled it away years before.

  “And I’ve bills coming in,” he continued aggrievedly.

  “You should have paid them out of the money you got for me.”

  “Wouldn’t have covered them.”

  She gasped.

  “So I decided to gamble Truitt’s payment.”

  “Oh heavens. And you lost.” It wasn’t a question.

  “I have to have more money.” He leaned forward, pushing into her space.

  She leaned back. “Ten thousand pounds. Do you expect me to ask Colin for it? Why on earth would he give me anything? He’s already paid for me once.”

  “I’ll tell you why.” Uncle George slapped the arms of his chair. “I’ll tell you what you can tell that damned husband of yours. You tell him either he pays me or I tell everyone that your marriage hasn’t been consummated.”

  The blood receded from her face and ran like ice. “Y-you can’t know that.”

  “I know you.” A sneer. “And I know your husband. Not even for Farleigh Dirigibles will he have brought himself to bed you. Bah. You’re less a female than—”

  “Enough.”

  Uncle George blinked. “You tell Truitt. Either he pays me ten thousand pounds or I tell Lord Looster the state of your marriage. I’ll get the damn thing annulled. Truitt will lose his precious business—and he’ll be laughed through the streets.”

  “And me?”

  “I’ll sell you to a man who can keep his bargain.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.” He went to grab her. “You belong to me. I’m taking you home and getting this farce of a marriage annulled.”

  She scrambled out of the armchair and stood behind it. “You try it and I’ll tell my trustees where father’s money went.”

  “You cow.”

  “They never knew where to look. They suspected, but they didn’t know. I couldn’t bear to send you to prison, Uncle George, but if it’s you or Colin and me, then there’s no question. I won’t let you do this to Colin.”

  His face flushed from red to purple and he made grunting noises of extreme rage.

  She watched him warily, feinted a move to the left, then ran for the drawing room door. Bruce would remove her uncle. She opened the door and ran into a wall that was her husband.

  Chapter Seven

  “Jones telephoned me that you’d turned up, Farleigh.” Very carefully Colin put Anthea to one side, tucking her safely in the hallway, before walking into the drawing room.

  George Farleigh retreated, step by step, as Colin advanced.

  “I thought you would. You’re a slug. But I didn’t know you were this revolting.” Colin grabbed Farleigh’s coat front, hauling him up on his patent leather toes. “No one threatens my wife.” He pushed and Farleigh fell back into an armchair.

  The man gabbled some incoherent nonsense.

  “Oh no.” Colin smiled, slow and deadly. “I heard what you said the first time. Don’t bother to lie to me. You threatened my wife and my marriage.”

  “And Dirigible Journeys,” Anthea said from just behind him.

  “Go back into the hall.”

  She caught his sleeve. “Please.”

  “I won’t beat him,” Colin said impatiently.

  “A misunderstanding.” Farleigh sat up and tugged at his rumpled coat.

  Beside Colin, Anthea trembled. She was overset.

  He put an arm around. “It’s all right. I don’t need to pursue vengeance against your uncle. I’ll leave that to Billy French.”

  Farleigh collapsed back against the chair, his mouth working, but no sounds emerging.

  “Who is Billy French?” Anthea asked. She leaned ever so lightly into his strength.

  Colin held her closer. “French is a bookmaker. Not one of the high class ones. Your uncle went slumming. But French won’t get his revenge by banning Farleigh from his clubs or anything so gentlemanly. French breaks knees as a first warning. If a man still doesn’t pay his debts, he dies.”

  Farleigh whimpered. “You have to help me.”

  “I will.”

  Anthea glanced at him in surprise.

  Colin kept his attention on Farleigh. “I’ll give you a choice. Walk out of here and wait for French to catch up with you.” He enjoyed the expression of congealing horror on the old man’s face. The bastard should never have threatened Anthea. “Or I’ll pay your fare to the Antipodes.”

  In the silence that gripped the living room, they clearly heard the rattle of a steam-mobile in the street.

  Then Farleigh heaved himself to his feet. “I’ll take the fare money.”

  “Bruce,” Colin shouted.

  The drawing room door opened. “Deliver Farleigh, here, to a ship bound for the Antipodes. I don’t care which ship. Make sure he sails on it.”

  “Yes, boss.” The guard’s big hand closed on Farleigh’s arm.

  “You can’t do this. Anthea?” Her uncle appealed to her.

  “Good-bye, Uncle George.”

  Colin squeezed her tight, proud of her courage.

  Bruce propelled Farleigh out of the room with a rough shove.

  “Oh Colin, that was horrible.” She hid her face in his shoulder.

  He put both hands around her and held her close. “Yes, it was. But I’m proud of you.”

  “Why?” She raised her face.

  He smiled because there were no tears, though her eyes looked watery. “Because you defended our marriage. For us, you threatened your uncle in a manner you didn’t dare to use to save yourself from me.”

  “You’re not so bad.” Her lashes lowered, hiding her eyes. She smoothed his rumpled tie.

  “Thank you.” He grinned. “And you’re not crying.”

  “I’m not?” She blinked up at him. “I’m not!”

  He kissed her mouth, taking advantage of her lips being parted in surprise. She tasted good, all feminine warmth and sweetness. Her shy but eager response sent a shudder through him. He lifted her up, into him, reveling in the welcome of her softness. “Come with me to York.”

  “Wha-at?” Her voice was dreamy, as unfocussed as her eyes. She licked her lips—tasting him on her, then squeaked as his arms tightened in fierce response.

  “Sorry.” He set her reluctantly back on her feet and ran a hand along her spine. She arched like a cat under his petting. “I’m signing a deal with Oswell who runs the York airfield. I have to be there in person. It’s important—part of locking Looster out of the air. Come with me.”

  For that heated look in his eyes, Anthea would have done more than fly to York with her husband. Her husband. She trembled at all the word implied. In defending him and their marriage against Uncle George, she’d pro
ven her loyalty. Whether she willed it or not, her loyalty was his.

  And Colin knew it.

  “Yes. I’d like to fly to York with you.”

  “Good.” A quick, triumphant kiss. “Pack a valise and wear your warmest coat.”

  She nodded and slipped upstairs, feeling breathless and shy. Excited, too. Not bothering to call a maid, she packed a change of clothes and shrugged into a cashmere coat. She heard Colin’s steps along the hallway and turned with a smile from the dressing table mirror, her hat in place and secured by hairpins created to her own design—their sharpened points were weapons; the sleeping powder in their carved heads an additional protection. She was accustomed to wearing them.

  Colin scooped up her valise and held out his hand.

  She clasped it and felt a deep, secret shiver, knowing she was saying yes to far more than a trip to York. She was saying yes to their future together.

  The carriage waited out front and within minutes they were at Colin’s airfield. The turquoise and black colors of Dirigible Journeys looked strange to her, but the airships were well-maintained. The guard at the gate recognized Colin and waved them through.

  Colin helped her from the carriage, though not perhaps as a gentleman might. He put both hands on her waist and lifted her down. The moment of weightlessness, of being reliant on his strength, thrilled her.

  “You’re making me a daredevil, Colin.” She ventured the small comment almost as a test and was rewarded by the flare of pleasure in his eyes. So he, too, felt the promise flowing between them.

  He tucked her hand into his elbow and escorted her to a small, sleek dirigible. “The Tyger is my private ship. It hasn’t a lounge, but that won’t matter. You’ll be in the captain’s cabin with me.”

  A cage lowered from its deck and a lad secured their luggage inside it. Anthea put her gloved hands to the ladder and started climbing, very much aware that Colin watched her ascent. For an instant she wished she’d had the dress made with a fashionable bustle. But then, Colin didn’t seem to mind her lack of curves.