she’d have a friend, lover, someone she’d protect and who’d protect her in return. She’d never guessed how necessary he’d become to everything. “It’s completely different from what I thought it might be.”
Completely different from what Archimedes had thought, too. He’d planned to love her, but only until she inevitably broke his heart. They’d stumbled into forever, instead.
“Love, the great disrupter,” Scarsdale declared. “It ruins all of our grand schemes, destroys our reputations.”
So it had. She supposed that meant it was time to make a new reputation. But as for schemes…love hadn’t ruined hers.
Bilson’s scheme was another matter.
As soon as the newssheets printed that advertisement, Archimedes’ play was going to rip that damn game apart.
* * *
Archimedes had never paired his crimson waistcoat with his scarlet breeches before, but he had to admit the effect was oddly dashing. He didn’t own a red jacket—an oversight that he’d have to correct upon his next visit to the tailor’s—but the sun came out midmorning and shirtsleeves became a viable option. He was waiting on deck in all his monochromatic glory when Yasmeen returned. She burst into laughter upon seeing him, and drew the red-handled daggers from her boots.
“I concede defeat,” she said.
“No.” Not defeated. “Never that.”
“All right.” She slipped the left dagger back into its sheath. “You have one. I’ll keep the other. Between us, we’ll have a matching set.”
A perfect match. He accepted the blade, still warm from her thigh—and not half as warm as the emotion that moved through him when she smiled.
She looked round the decks, at the crew engaged in their work. “So how goes the sky, Mr. Fox?”
“Well.” He walked with her toward the companionway. “We ought to be finished loading by midafternoon. We’re only waiting on the second delivery of coal. And how goes your fashionable earl?”
“He sketched New Eden’s layout, and gave us a way in—if we need it. The advertisement will be at the printer’s tomorrow, and he’ll also be directing a fleet of airships to search for The Kite around the North Sea, which is Berge’s usual territory. He’ll find her.”
No doubt. But the hint of trouble in her eyes told him there was more. “And how is he?”
“Not well. But he hasn’t been for years.” She stopped at the head of the ladder, reached up to cup his jaw in her palm. Her gaze captured his, saw through him. “It’s…difficult, loving someone, and fearing you’ll lose them. I say I don’t like my belly exposed. You say you don’t want me with you when you rescue Zenobia. We don’t want someone to be hurt, so we try to protect them, and hurt them while we do it. It’s irrational.”
Irrational, yes. He smiled against her hand. “That’s why I’m so good at loving you.”
She laughed. “Probably.”
“I want you with me, Yasmeen.”
“And I’m not sorry my belly is exposed. Perhaps I’m more vulnerable, but it doesn’t make me weak. The opposite is true.” She lowered her hand, gripped his, and held him tight. “I lost my crew, my ship. I know what it is to lose and how much it hurts, and I’ll do anything to keep it from happening again. And so being vulnerable now means that I’m far, far more dangerous than I ever was before.”
“My God, that’s so arousing.” Her grin all but finished him off. “You’re a cruel woman, to tell me this while in full view of the crew.”
With a wicked tilt of her brows, she stepped closer. “You’ve been fondling your dagger since I came aboard.”
“Only because it was still warm from your sheath, Mrs. Fox.”
Her laughter faded; intense heat replaced the humor in her gaze. She inhaled deeply—drawing in his scent, he knew. All a tease, a delicious and exquisitely frustrating one that aroused her, too. Need quickened her breath, made him ache.
“Tonight,” he promised softly. “I’ll sheathe myself so deep. I’ll make you scream.”
“By the lady, you’d better,” she breathed, then closed her eyes. “Tonight.”
He had to force himself to step away, or tonight would begin within minutes at the head of the companionway. Her skin was flushed when she looked at him again, but she was every inch the captain.
“Has Bilson awoken?”
Archimedes nodded. “An hour ago. Still groggy, but mostly healed. He knows he’s infected with my strain of nanoagents.”
Her gaze turned speculative. “As soon as we’re under way, we’ll let him out of the stateroom and move about the airship as any passenger might.”
Clever. “And hope he speaks to the person with the device?”
“Yes.