Never would she voice these concerns, but Jules was hindered by his bum leg, and Simon, despite his calm demeanor, must be distracted by the guilt of his failed project, the project that had compromised the family funds. She, however, was in prime condition physically and mentally, and, as Simon had pointed out, determined and resourceful. Twiddling her thumbs at Ashford was not an option.
Amelia paced the library, her mind spinning. She could not afford to purchase transport on one of the upscale public dirigibles. Only the very wealthy could.
Thanks to Simon, the
Flying Cloud
was no longer an option. Loco-Bug would take her only so far before she’d have to purchase water passage across the channel and then a
train ticket across France and beyond to Italy. It all seemed so costly and time-consuming. Also, a young woman traveling alone for such a long distance in the company of foreign travelers was risky.
Just then she had a vision of herself peddling across the skies. “Bess!”
Flying the kitecycle all the way to Italy would be a challenge, to say the least. But it would be most affordable, and if she tweaked the rocket blaster and steam engine, and if the winds and luck were with her, the journey would be more swift and less complicated. She would be in control, and she would not have to worry about propriety or unscrupulous traveling companions, as she would be traveling alone.
Except…the kitecycle required two pedalers. The dual-cycling mechanism enabled maximum thrust for lift. Once it was in the air, at least one person needed to pedal at all times. For such a long journey she required someone to share the workload. She needed a copilot. Additional manpower.
Blast!
A door slammed, causing Amelia to whirl toward the window. She’d thought to spy Simon striding off toward the aero-hangar. Instead she saw their former cook stomping along the garden path with her long, sturdy legs. Saw her lips moving as she blathered to herself, no doubt in her native tongue.
Eureka!
Amelia smiled as she hurried to catch up to Concetta. A copilot and, once upon Italian soil, a translator and guide. Her spirits lifted as she focused body and soul on a positive venture. Her pulse zinged at the prospect of soaring foreign skies and restoring Papa’s reputation and the family fortune.
The Darcys would indeed prevail!
J
ANUARY
11, 1887
S
OMEWHERE OVER
K
ENT
Though a dense cloud bank obliterated what had started off as a sunny day, the winds were strong and blowing at the
Maverick
’s stern. The topsails and mainsails were fully engaged, and the augmented blasterbeefs were operating at optimum capacity.
“Smooth sailing,” Tuck noted as he approached the ship’s wheel.
“At this rate,” StarMan said while navigating the airship over Kentshire, “we’ll be in Paris by morning.”
“The sooner, the better.” Their venture into that skytown two nights past had afforded them a lucrative job, but not without risk. Sky pirates and corrupt air constables would kill to get their hands on his current cargo, a shipment of contraband alcohol that would earn a fortune on the black market. Were he less scrupulous and lacking vision, he’d be tempted to abscond with the cargo himself. Instead, Tuck focused on making the delivery, collecting the second half of their fee, and spending a few days in a Parisian dove’s bed before moving on to the next job.
His lust stirred as he recollected the flexibility and enthusiasm of Chantel, a buxom brunette who operated out of Le Chabanais, a luxurious brothel near the Louvre. The last time he’d been in the City of Light she’d lit up his—
A horn blasted.
“Dig ahead!”
Tuck and StarMan looked up through the transparent thermoplastic shield surrounding the cockpit just as Birdman Chang leaned over the side of the iron-grilled crow’s nest. “Incoming!” he announced through the amplified dual-purpose megahorn. “Starboard bow!”
Tuck peered through his spyglass. “Hard to port!”
StarMan spun the wheel, veering the
Maverick
off a collision course at the same time as the two-person dirigible took a hard turn.
“What the hell?” Tugging down his Stetson, Tuck strode to the starboard, where Eli and Axel had already gathered to watch the show.
“Came out of nowhere.” The flaps of Eli’s aviator cap whipped in the frigid wind as he leaned over the gunwale for a better look. “What is that thing?”
Axel whistled around the unlit cigar clamped between his teeth. “Quart bottle of whiskey says they bite the dust.”
Tuck focused his spyglass. Sure enough, what looked like a cross between a motorized tandem bicycle, da Vinci’s glider, and an oversize kite bucked and reared, then took a fateful nosedive.
“Cut the blasterbeefs,” Tuck shouted to StarMan. “Bring to and hoist the bally.” Trading his Stetson for a fly cap, he turned to Eli. “Grab three packs.”
The person seated in the rear of the flimsy flying apparatus bailed, and soon after a parachute opened and billowed. That harnessed sail wasn’t the only thing flapping in the wind. Skirts and petticoats caught the men’s eyes.
“Damn,” Axel said, squinting through his goggles. “That’s a woman.”
“Looks like the pilot’s going down with the ship,” Eli noted as the three men buckled on steam-and-nitrogen-powered Pogo Packs.
“Fighting to regain control,” Tuck said while adjusting his harness and tank.
“Crazy as a loon,” Axel said, tugging on gloves and gripping the hand controls.
Tuck disagreed. “Ballsy.” The three men fired up the deafening blasters and launched overboard. From what he could tell, that pilot had some impressive skills. Even so, the flying contraption continued a speedy descent. At the last second, the dirigible leveled off, but still hit the ground at a jarring speed, skidding, then rolling into a snow-covered embankment.
By the time the men touched down, that two-person flying machine was a tangle of twisted metal, hissing steam, ripped sails, and one ballsy pilot.
Hearing a whoosh and thud, followed by a stream of foreign ranting, the men turned and saw the woman who’d bailed, wrestling to escape the trappings of the ropes and canvas.
Eli shrugged off his still-hissing pack—“I’ll get her, Marshal”—then trotted toward the caterwauling female.
“Least that one’s alive,” Axel said as he and Tuck moved in the opposite direction toward the crashed dirigible.
Tuck noted a pair of thick-soled boots sticking out of the mangled wreck, but no movement. As they drew closer he saw those boots were attached to some mighty shapely legs—legs clad in tight leather pants.
A feminine moan sounded from beneath the rubble, quickening both men’s pace.
“Damn,” Axel said. “That ballsy pilot’s a woman?”
“Seems like.” Tuck’s respect for her flying skills doubled.
They unbuckled the cumbersome Pogo Packs in order to dig her out. Just as they reached for the bent frame, a bird screeched and swooped close to their heads before settling on the wreckage.
Axel spit away his cigar. “What the hell is that?”
“A falcon.”
“Yeah, but look at its legs and beak.”
“Interesting.”
“Mechanical body parts on a bird? Seems a waste of ingenuity.”
“Not for the bird.” Goggles now dangling around his neck, Tuck tugged off his leather gloves and stuffed them in the pockets of his overcoat. Seemed to him that enhanced falcon was protective of the lady pilot. Fascinating. He edged closer and the falcon flapped and screeched.
Axel jerked his Remington Blaster from his holster. “Vamoose or roast, you iron-beaked pecker.”
Rubble shifted as the pilot pushed into a wavering sitting position, some manner of a pistol aimed at Axel’s private parts. “Harm one feather on Leo and I promise I shall roast another kind of pecker altogether.”
Tuck grinned at that. “Just trying to help, ma’am.”
Using her free hand to push her fur-rimmed goggles onto her forehead, she blinked to clear her vision. Her dazed blue gaze hopped from Tuck to Axel, then skyward, to where the
Maverick
now hovered. “Were you to steer your ship responsibly, I would not be in this predicament.”
“Of all the sass,” Axel remarked while holstering his piece.
Flygirl lowered her weapon as well and visually absorbed the wreckage. “Crikey,” she complained, voice brittle. “Look what you’ve done to Bess.”
Tuck assumed she was referring to her flying machine. He might have felt worse if she’d stop faulting him and his boat for her misfortune. “Plenty of time to sort blame,” he said. “Let’s get you out from under that mess, make sure you’re in good workin’ order.” He stepped closer, soothing the falcon’s angst with a gentle signal of peace. Leo shifted his weight, but stood down.
“I say, how did you manage that?” Flygirl asked.
“Marshal’s got a way with animals,” Axel said as he lifted away a mangled kite wing.
She winced as Tuck disengaged her boot from the twisted pedal. “I suppose you cannot be all that bad then, Mr. Marshal.”
“Name’s Tuck.” Admiring her disarmingly pretty face, he helped the frank young woman to her booted feet. “Tucker Gentry.”
Favoring her left leg, she slipped her pistol into the coat’s pocket and gaped. “The Sky Cowboy?”
“In the flesh,” Axel answered for him, nudging aside a bent wheel to retrieve a carpetbag and leather satchel from the snow.
“Did you twist your ankle?” Tuck asked. “Do you hurt anywhere else?”
“I’m fine.” She licked her full lips, then glanced up. “So that’s the
Maverick
?” she asked in an awestruck tone.
“It is.” Tuck was captivated as well. Flygirl was beautiful. A tad young for his taste, but striking. Although her heart-shaped face was smudged with grease and red from the brisk cold, her complexion was flawless, her eyes as blue as the clear skies of Arizona on a dry, hot day. Her hair was hidden beneath a fleece-lined aviator cap, but given her fair brows, he guessed corn silk blond. As for her lips…damn, he’d like to kiss that rosebud mouth.
Staring up at his airship, she whispered, “Beautiful.”
“She’s something, all right,” Tuck said, though he wasn’t talking about his ship. Even though Flygirl wore a thick leather duster, mannish boots, and had two colorful scarves wrapped around her neck, he was well aware of her womanly form.
She met his gaze, causing lustful thoughts to scorch his brain.
Well, damn.
“Listen, Miss…”
“Darcy,” Eli said, coming up from behind. “And this is Concetta, her traveling companion.”
The dark-haired, olive-skinned woman shook a finger at Flygirl. “I knew this mistake!” she railed with a heavy accent. “You said you see me safely to
Italia
!”
Miss Darcy burst to infuriated life. “I would have if not for these sky pigs!”
“You sayin’ we were hoggin’ the sky?” Axel asked, outraged. “We were in the right. A mite dig like yours should have been flying at a lower altitude.”
“The air current was better higher,” Miss Darcy argued.
“You aimed on flying that winged bicycle all the way to Italy?” Tuck asked, astounded.
“I would have done it too, if not for you.”
His blood burned. “Hold up.”
“Now what am I supposed to do?” she asked, hobbling in a circle. “You’ve ruined everything!”
“We can take you as far as Paris,” Eli said.
Tuck shot him a look.
The bighearted son of a former slave gestured to the isolated landscape. “We can’t just leave them here.”
Amelia’s blue eyes sparked, and her sexy leather-clad body perked. “You’re traveling to Paris, France? Spectacular. I accept.”
Tuck tensed. No woman had ever boarded the
Maverick
in the midst of a job. The crew couldn’t afford the distraction, especially with someone as distracting as Miss Darcy. How could he trust his men—the majority not having been at port in two weeks—to behave like gentlemen? Hell, how was he supposed to trust himself?
“Eli spoke out of turn,” Tuck said.
“Damned straight,” Axel said. “Talk about trouble.”
“Eli,” she said with a nod toward the big man, “is a gentleman. I am most grateful for his kindness.” She smiled then at Axel and pointed up. “If you wouldn’t mind putting our luggage aboard.”
“Of all the—”
Concetta marched forward and snatched her carpetbag from the man’s hands. “I will go nowhere with these outlaws,” she said in broken English. “You are foolish like your
padre
,” she told Flygirl. “Like him you will die.”
The blue-eyed hellion flushed and Concetta bolted.
Eli looked to Tuck. “Give me the dinghy and an hour or so. There was a village a few miles back. I’ll drop Miss Concetta there and return faster than chain lightnin’ with a link snapped.”
So much for being ahead of schedule. “An hour,” Tuck said. Eli was right: They couldn’t abandon these women to the elements and road ruffians.
Hollering for Concetta, who’d taken off on foot, Eli hefted his pack and hurried after.
“Good heavens,” Flygirl exclaimed. “Is that a working rocket belt?”
“Pogo Pack,” Tuck said. “Good for short vertical flights.”
“I’ve never seen one.”
“And you won’t,” Axel said, chomping on a new cigar. “Not on the open market.”
Eli, who was arguing with the ill-tempered woman, finally lost patience and tapped her with his stun cuff. She wilted in his arms and ten seconds later they were airborne.
“Astonishing,” Flygirl whispered as they blasted straight up and disappeared over the side of the
Maverick
.
Hoping she’d be willing to join Concetta for a dinghy ride back north, Tuck looked to the mesmerized woman, trying to ignore her infectious wonder. “Since your friend no longer requires your services, seems you’ve got no reason to visit Italy.”
Awe turned to panic. “I have every reason!” She gulped air, then felled him with desperate eyes. “My grandfather lives there and he is dying. I must travel to Italy in haste.” She gestured to her wrecked dirigible, then glared at Tuck. “You owe me.”