* * *
The divers’ disease hit Thom hard soon after they reached the stateroom. She managed to get him out of his suit and into the bed, but there was little she could do after the first pains started. Soon he was sweating, his body twisting up in agony. Georgiana hovered over him, massaging his joints when he could stand to be touched. He was silent through it all, jaw clenched, and she wished he would make some sound—but she was the only one who did, whispering his name through the worst of it.
But whatever was happening inside him, the mechanical bugs soon healed it. The pains passed just after noon. Too wrung out to even raise his head for a bit of soup, Thom fell into a deep sleep that lasted the remainder of the day.
It was after dark when he woke. Georgiana had dragged a chair to his bedside, and glanced up when she heard him stir.
Her heart lifted. He was awake, looking at her—and his bloodshot eyes had cleared.
“Oh, Thom. Are you well?”
“I am.” His voice was a dry rasp. He swallowed. “And you, Georgie?”
“So much better now.” And sitting here, smiling at him like a useless ninny, when he hadn’t eaten all day. “Dinner is waiting. I told Southampton we wouldn’t be joining him, so they brought it here. Would you like it in bed or at the table?”
“Not in bed.”
He sat up, the muscles of his stomach rippling. Sometime soon, Georgiana vowed, she would run her hands over them when he wasn’t sick. But not now. She waited long enough to ask whether he needed help—he laughed at that before crossing the cabin, just as strong and steady as always—then laid out their meal while he tended to the necessary and washed. He pulled on trousers, but didn’t tuck his shirt before joining her.
Her neat and orderly Thom, not so orderly now. And she liked it very much.
His knee bumped into hers when he sat and pulled up his chair.
“Now eat,” she told him, and he suddenly laughed before obeying and taking a bite.
She didn’t know quite what had amused him, but couldn’t stop herself from smiling again—smiling, even though they had no submersible. Smiling simply because he was there.
“I’ve spent every moment this afternoon trying to think of a clever escape. I haven’t yet, though I do know how to avoid the guards outside this cabin.”
Mouth full, he raised his dark brows.
Georgiana tapped the porthole over the table. “We’re fortunate that our abductor is a rich man—or that he has the credit of a rich man. You would never find such large windows on the bow of a poor man’s airship. Not when the glass has to be replaced every time they hit a goose.”
Thom grinned. “That’s a truth.”
“I don’t think we’d have to break it, either.” Which would make far too much noise. She fingered a bolt in the metal frame. “Are your hands strong enough to pull these out?”
Taking another bite, he nodded.
“Then we can climb up outside the hull and onto the deck. We’ll have to surprise whoever is on watch—and maybe take one of the boats.” She sighed. “But I don’t know what to do after that. This flyer will catch up to us. They have every advantage. Weapons. Speed. And I don’t see how to turn that advantage around.”
Her voice broke at the last. Oh, God. It was so hard to remain practical and unaffected when their lives were at stake.
He set his fork down. “We will, Georgie.”
Yes, they would. Trying to gather herself, she drew a deep breath. “Do you think we can delay another day?”
He lifted his gaze to stare out the porthole. Not looking at anything, she knew. Just weighing their chances, as she had been all afternoon.
“Maybe I can bring up just a bit of it, and tell him I have to go back down the next day for the rest. Or we’ll convince him to wait another day so that I can bring up the submersible. If he’s after money, it’s worth a bit. And we’ll take our chances in the boat tomorrow night.”
Her chest tightened. “How far do you think we are from shore?”
Thom was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, “I think we have a better chance in a boat than we do here.”
A long distance, then. She nodded, and despite her best effort to stop them, her eyes suddenly spilled over with tears. Then Thom had her in his arms, holding her in his lap while she sobbed against his neck.
“Georgie, Georgie.” His fingers stroked through her hair, her name a broken murmur in her ear. “I’d kill him again if I could.”