She could have. A few more messages, a few months later. Eventually, he’d have received one. But she’d been so angry and stubborn and hurt.
Thoughtless and cruel. Angry and stubborn. Georgiana was not liking this new view of herself at all. He had not been a failure of a husband, but she might have been a failure as a wife. And she understood why, feeling this way, he’d want to leave. Because now Georgiana wasn’t certain that she deserved to keep a man like Thom, either.
But she had to try. And also try to be something that she’d thought she was: just a little bit clever. Because she wouldn’t lose him again. Not like this.
The vibrations under her feet changed subtly, the thrum of the engine deepening. Frowning, Thom crossed the cabin.
“We’re slowing,” he said.
She joined him at the porthole, looking out. Only water. No ships. “We’re going to need a boat when we escape,” she said. “He said that you’d be able to retrieve your belongings. I’d hoped that meant wherever we were going, we’d see Oriana there.”
“I did, too.”
They both turned at the knock. This time, the door didn’t open until Thom answered it. Blade stood in the passageway. Not leering now. Perhaps he wasn’t brave enough to do it in front of her husband, just as he’d only prodded Thom in the back behind the safety of a loaded gun. If so, he was the worst kind of coward—a mean one.
“His majesty says to come on up. But the missus stays here.”
Thom glanced back at her. Georgiana nodded.
“I’ll be fine. You’d best find out what he wants.”
* * *
A cold wind scraped across the upper deck, whistling past the cables tethering the balloon overhead. Coming off the ladder, Thom turned up the collar of his wool coat. Blade pointed him to the starboard side, where the nobby gent stood, looking down at the water. Thom started across, his gaze sweeping the deck. Near the stern, two clinker-built cutters hung on pulleys beneath the balloon. Lifeboats, capable of holding twenty. Thom only needed to seat two.
He looked south, squinting away the tears the wind whipped from his eyes. No land on the horizon.
Bundled in a thick scarf and wearing goggles, his nose red from cold, the nobby gent glanced up when Thom reached the side. “There you are. Have you settled in comfortably, then?”
Comfortable? What the hell did that matter? “What do you want with me?”
With a sudden grin, the bastard nodded. “You’re a direct man. I trust that I can be as well.”
He already had been. “There’s nothing more direct than a bullet.”
“I suppose not. But I should have taken a few moments before pulling the trigger to ask where you’d hidden the chest. I assumed—falsely, as it turns out—that I would have an opportunity to search your ship and find it. But at the time, I was more concerned with sailing your ship away from the coast, where it might be recognized.” He sighed and looked down at the water again, and Thom saw a round buoy rolling on the swells. “My men didn’t know how to handle your rigging. She capsized and went under right here.”
He’d stolen Oriana, only to sink her the next day? Thom’s hearty laugh rang across the deck.
“I’m not insensible of the irony, Mr. Thomas,” the bastard said, still smiling. He paused. Behind the clear lenses of his goggles, his eyes narrowed. “No. It’s not Mister Thomas, is it? Just Thomas. No one in the Horde’s laboring classes knew their family names.”
They didn’t know any family, either. “We didn’t.”
“Your single name is refreshing, in truth. So many of the others take such ridiculous names. Strongarm. Screwmaster. Blade.” His lip curled. “Longcock.”
“I think they’ve earned the right to call themselves whatever they damn well please.”
“Perhaps they did, at that.” He regarded Thom thoughtfully. “Your wife took your name as hers. How did you earn that, I wonder? An infected man with no education, no history, no family. No arms.”
“I have two right here.” He’d always had arms. They just hadn’t always been made of flesh and bone.
“Arms that the Horde gave you? I’ve seen their like.”
No, he hadn’t. But Thom didn’t bother with an answer.
The gent smiled faintly, as if amused by Thom’s silence. “You haven’t asked me who I am.”
Because it didn’t matter. “You’re the man who’s holding my wife hostage in exchange for gold. That’s all I need to know.”