“It will.” Thom was pushing up his sleeves over his forearms, sliding aside small steel panels in his wrists, breaking the illusion of smooth metal skin and revealing the gears and pistons within. “You’ve just got to hang on to me. All right?”
His certainty helped. Though her heart still raced, she nodded.
Moving to the porthole, Thom looked up. He swung his arm. A glint of metal caught the moonlight—a thin cable, she realized. He tugged, seemed satisfied.
He gestured her close. “All right, Georgie. I’ve got this hooked around the bowsprit. We’re going to swing out, and I’m going to pull us up. Once we get up to the rail, I’ll look over, see where the crew is. The bird screen they’ve put across the bow will probably keep us from being seen, but if we’re spotted, I’m going to go up and over right there. But if they don’t see us, you’re going to hang on while I go around the hull and get closer to them. You should take off your gloves for a better grip.”
She stripped them off and shoved them into her coat.
The steel of his palm chilled by the air outside, he cupped her cheek. “Now, listen. If it all goes to hell when I cut that balloon, if you see any hint of fire, you drop into the water before she explodes. Try to straighten your body and hit feet first—your legs will heal. Can you swim?”
“A little.” She couldn’t manage more than a whisper.
“I’ll come for you. I’ll find you.” His head lowered, his kiss a fierce promise. “Are you ready?”
She nodded. After another hard kiss, he moved to the porthole. Gripping the frame at the top, he lifted his body through and sat in the opening with his legs hanging over. Georgiana linked her arms around his shoulders, and buried her face against the back of his neck.
“All right,” she whispered.
He leaned forward, pulling her with him. The front of her legs scraped past the porthole frame, and then they were falling out into nothing, the bowsprit creaking above them and her scream locked behind clenched teeth. They spun, the hull and the moon in a dizzying whirl around them. Desperately, she wrapped her legs around his waist, then a windowed porthole spun into her view—the porthole on the other side of the stateroom, over the settee instead of the table—and she realized that they weren’t falling, but swinging in an arc around the prow like a pendulum.
Before they swung back, Thom began to climb. A soft ratcheting click came from inside his left arm—winding up the slack in the cable. Georgiana clung to him, not daring to close her eyes, too frightened to look anywhere but up. The long bowsprit spar extended like a spear from the point of the bow, and at its base, the heavy iron loop that anchored the balloon’s forward tethers was set into the hull.
“As soon as we reach that anchor, you put your foot on that big loop,” Thom said softly. “Then grab on to those balloon cables or hold on to the spar. You can hide right there for a bit.”
Better than dangling from the rail. Heart thumping wildly, Georgiana watched the anchor loop come closer. Thom slowed, hanging on to the cable with one hand while reaching around behind her with the other. His forearm rotated against her back, his fingers curving around her side as securely as if he’d been holding her from the front.
“I’ve got you, Georgie. Now step on that loop.”
The iron was as thick as her ankle, but even while dangling from a thin cable a hundred feet over the water, the man she clung to seemed more secure. Clenching her teeth against the whimpers building in her chest, she let her leg slide from around his waist and set the toe of her boot on the anchor loop.
“Reach out and grab that spar now.”
Held, but still terrifying to let go. With one arm still clinging to his shoulders, she leaned over. The wooden bowsprit pole was smooth and cold, slippery to her sweating hand. She gripped it tight.
“Pull yourself over, now. I’ve got you.”
It seemed almost impossible to make herself move, then she was over all at once, clinging to the heavy tether cables and looking at Thom.
His dark gaze swept her from head to toe. “All right?”
As long as she didn’t look down. Chest heaving, she nodded. The rail was just above her head—truly an easy climb now. She would just have to reach up and pull herself over.
Just as Thom did now, lifting himself and glancing over. After lowering himself again, he hung on to the rail with one hand and unhooked his cable from the bowsprit. A grapple dangled from the end. He folded the claws and slipped the contraption into his left biceps.
“There’s just two of them amidships, starboard side,” he said quietly. “Only three lanterns. There’s none at this end, Georgie, so they won’t be coming this way to put one out—and they aren’t likely to see you when you look over.”
And they would be less likely to see him coming. Good. “Be careful, Thom.”
He grinned. “That’s the opposite of what we’re doing, Georgie.”
And then he was gone, silently making his way along the rail. Hardly daring to breathe, Georgiana waited. A cold breeze slipped past her cheeks. The airship swayed slightly, the hull creaking.
A shout rang from the deck.
Heart almost bursting in her chest, Georgiana gripped the rail and hauled herself up to look, feet braced against the cables. The soft glow of the lamps at the opposite end of the deck transformed everything in between into shapes and shadows—two men with pistols extended, but they didn’t dare shoot, not with Thom so close to the balloon. With the moon behind him, he was silhouetted ten feet above the deck, hanging from a portside tether cable by one arm. From his other arm, the point of a long blade pressed against the envelope.
His deep voice carried across the deck. “You’d best put those lanterns out.”