The Aviator (6 page)

Gilda laughed under her breath, unable to quite believe it, even now. “What are you going to do? Put your hands around my pretty little neck and wring the life out of me? You think you have the courage for that?”

His jaw tightened, the pale green of his eyes turning cold. “More than enough, if I wanted you silent.”

With a quick push, he spun her around, forcing her to lose balance. She fell to her knees on the carpet. Turning back in shock, she caught the sharp movement in his shoulders, the rustling of fabric as he stripped off his jacket and tossed it to the floor.

The dark silk bow at his collar came undone with a few quick slashes of his hand, the buttons of his starched shirt parting to thin cotton. Diamond cufflinks tumbled along the carpet like discarded stars. Another garment fell, then another. Firelight played over bared skin, his arms and chest shaped by hard work, a thin shadow of crisp, dark hair glistening along lean muscle, trailing down a tight, narrowed waist.

The island’s relentless sun had turned his skin a rich brown, making him as swarthy as one of the sultans, his expression just as merciless as an enemy’s would be.

“Nathan.” She wet her lips, the corset suddenly far too tight, constricting her breath to a shallow slip of nothing. There was no gentle cushion of brandy this time, no warm blur of senses to disguise his hatred, no darkness to hide the beauty of his body. He had always been beautiful, even as her father’s pale and thin apprentice.

So be it. Bring me your anger, let me feel it after all these years of pretending that it isn’t always between us, just as much from your side as from mine. Let me feel your rage inside me, your pain so close to mine, your shadows just as dark, your memories just as vivid…

Nathan approached, his hair loose to his shoulders, its sable color tinged red with firelight. “Did the Duke please you so well? Is that why you brought him to the island?”

She pressed her lips together, confused.

“Did he take you against the wall? Did you stroke him the way you did me, encourage him, drive him mad?”

“Sutton?”

“Don’t play the fool. Don’t you dare.”

Bed the Duke?
Impossible.
And yet, Nathan didn’t think so.

“You went to him,” he accused. “After you came to me—”

“Oh, is that what you need to hear? To do your worst? Then, by all means, yes. I went to him right after you slammed your door and left me out in the cold. I stroked him, yes, and I kissed him too, then I took him into my mouth and sucked on him until he was delirious and begging for paradise.”

An anguished noise escaped under his breath, his eyes hot and glittering, emotion raw in his voice. “You destroy everything you touch.”

“Nathan—”

“Shameless and cruel, especially to those who may care, those who may…” He stood above her, his hands flexing and clenching at his sides.

Gilda stared at him, realizing her mistake too late. He was lost now, not to pride, not to the destruction of prototypes or business ventures, but to jealousy, deeper and darker than she had ever imagined. She struggled against the weight of her skirt, satin shimmering around her like a bright pool of fire. “He isn’t here for me. That is the truth.”

“Don’t,” he warned.

He was beyond reason now, his body strained and trembling in the candlelight, his eyes flashing with hate.

“I didn’t go to him. He doesn’t—”

“No more!’ he bellowed, sweeping the corner of the table clean with his arm. Dishes crashed to the floor, silverware clanging and tumbling in the half-light, vases of watery pastel flowers flinging loose over the carpet. Chaos rang in the air, a hard cacophony of destruction that was surely heard throughout the mansion.

“Nate!” she cried.

He grabbed her by the shoulders, hissing through clenched teeth. “My fault, for not giving you what you wanted. So, where were we? Ah—”

Twisting her to face the table, he bent her roughly down over its surface, one big hand securing her back, her stomach pressed tightly to the white linen. She stilled in panic, feeling him lift the satin skirt behind her, throwing the fabric over her hips. He found the thin cotton of her petticoat and yanked it down, followed by the embroidered lace of her drawers.

His hand then stroked over the bare skin of her buttocks, his fingers large and warm. “Here. We were here, weren’t we?”

She wet her lips. His touch was light, teasing over the tender skin as he rubbed his hand in larger circles, covering the rounded curves of her bottom before slipping lower to trace the contour of her inner thigh.

Nathan
. She closed her eyes, imagining the firelight on his shoulders as he knelt behind her.

“You like it when we beg, don’t you?” he whispered, slipping two of his fingers along the sensitive skin of her quim, then deep into her tight pink sheath. She felt them push into her and spread, scissoring open to stretch and caress.

Gilda struggled for breath, heat flushing in her cheeks, her body shuddering with the silken feel of it. Nathan held her down with one hand, rolling his fingers inside her, pumping and circling her opening until her hips writhed against his hand, her folds swollen and wet.

“Just once, I would like to hear you beg,” he insisted. “Say my name. Plead with me.”

“Nathan,” she blurted out, her body humming with need. “Please.”

“Not yet. Not before I take what I want.”

“Take?”

He pulled his fingers out of her, sliding them up the crease of her buttocks, spreading the cheeks to wipe her juices over the tight knot of her anus. She caught her breath, feeling the fingers stroke the puckered skin, then push relentlessly inside.

A raw noise escaped her lips, her body tensing as his fingers stroked beyond the clenched opening, exploring yet another sheath. Not disagreeable, just unfamiliar, a pleasing itch that grew stronger as it was stroked. His fingers parted, stretching.

She hissed in pain.

“Good,” he murmured darkly, lowering his mouth to the tender skin of her quim. She felt his breath hot in the folds, then his tongue, licking and sucking as his fingers teased the ring of her anus.

The sensations together were too much, a flood of heat and pleasure that left her gasping. She bit her lip, her hands knotting the table linen in her fists, sweat breaking on her brow. His mouth found a point of sweetness in her skin and she cried out as he rolled his tongue over it. His fingers stretched her in response, mixing pleasure and pain.

“Nate,” she begged. “Please, please…You have me. All of me. Surely, you know that. Please.”

“I will not be gentle with you…not with you.”

“All of you. I need all of you. You know I do.”

He paused, drawing back, leaving a chill of emptiness on her skin. She felt the thick head of his cock press against her then, pushing past the tender folds of her quim and sinking deep inside her snug passage. He filled her, thrusting her hard along the table, his hips shoving against her.

His fingers worked inside her anus, rubbing deep under the puckered ring, heightening the feel of each brutal thrust. She felt his anger coursing through her, driving in punishing surges between her legs, wringing pleasure from wet, tingling skin.

Her body strained under the assault, the breath burning to nothing in her throat. She gasped for air, jolting with the force of his thrusts until she trembled at the edge of climax, until she couldn’t bear any more.

“Nate,” she pleaded.

He slid his fingers in a circle and stretched the skin, sending her careening into the bright flood of orgasm. She floated in its warmth, his cock stroking a languid release, spreading it through every cell until it glowed in her like candlelight.

He groaned, pushing into her one last time, his body held rigid. A harsh sound escaped his lips, rasping and heavy with ecstasy. She felt him shudder. After a moment, his fingers slid out of her. His hands closed on her hips, lightly, gently.

Then he withdrew, his weight gone, his warmth vanishing.

“Nate,” she whispered.

He did not answer.

“Nate?” She turned to see him standing against the firelight, his hands quick as he slid his trousers over his hips and quickly reworked his belt through the buckle. He dressed in silence, refusing to look at her.

“You’re leaving?” she asked in disbelief. “Now? No, you cannot.”

He shook his head, a pained laugh escaping under his breath. He shrugged on the starched wing collar, leaving it untucked and unbuttoned as he grabbed his jacket from the carpet and headed for the door.

No, Nate, you don’t understand
.

Gilda slid off the table, her hair fallen loose, her dress crumpled and shapeless without its petticoat. She grabbed onto his hand, feeling her heart break as he tried to pull it from her.

“No, please, listen to me,” she said, the words desperate.

He cursed and looked back at her, his eyes shimmering with raw emotion. “Let me go.”

“I never went to the Duke.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

But it did. It very clearly did. He clenched his teeth and looked away from her, unwilling to visualize it, unwilling to listen.

“Stay. We can set so many things right. I…”

“No.”

“You can’t leave us!”

He glared at her. “Us?
Us
, Gilda?”

She hung on the word, on the moment, realizing finally that this was the point he intended her to beg. Not earlier, not for gratification, but now, for forgiveness.

She shook her head, fighting the warm flow of tears, her voice halting when she spoke. “You were about to sell the majority of my father’s company, deliver it on a platter to those fat, preening idiots! What do they know about the future of this business? About all we’ve accomplished? Nothing! And you don’t care. How could you not care?”

He leaned close, anger bright in his pale gaze. “Not care about airships? Or not care about you?”

She grimaced.
You can’t expect me to do this. You can’t expect me to beg for your love. You, who took everything, who destroyed everything I knew, the life of my mother and the love of my father…

“You can’t do it, can you?” he whispered. “You can’t stop punishing them for what they did to each other, or me for being the son he wanted, or yourself for not being exactly that. None of us will ever be forgiven.”

“Don’t leave.” It was as much an acknowledgment as a plea, soft spoken and desperate.

A hint of pain surfaced in his eyes. He pulled his hand from her grasp and turned away, heading for the doors. “The Navy will collect everything I have on the island. There should be an airship leaving at the top of the hour and I will be on it, to wherever it goes.”

“But, I don’t—when will you return?”

He paused, his hand resting on the door’s brass knob. “I won’t. There’s no reason for me to anymore. Find someone else to buy my shares, whoever you want, whoever you can convince after this…fiasco.”

“I cannot do that, Nathan.”

“Now you’re being modest. After all, the Duke has not yet retired.”

He pushed through the doorway, striding past three dumbfounded maids on his way out.
Don’t leave…
She balled her hands into fists, as if she could contain the panic that way.
Please, don’t leave!

Tears blurred her view as he stepped onto the porch and melted to a silhouette, his outline black against the rose hue of sunset.

You’re all that I have. All that I want…Please don’t leave me.

He didn’t look back, merely disappeared.

She made a broken noise, a defeated, self-loathing curse.
Foolish woman. Where is your strength now? Now, that you have proven yourself both a coward and a liar? Who have you punished? What great revenge have you wrought, when you are the only one left to suffer?

“Forgive me,” she breathed.

N
athan focused on the darkness beyond the window, trying to block the sound of her voice. But words formed in the cycling drone of the airship’s engines, in the slipstream of air around the gondola, whispering from lust-colored memories of her warmth, wet and tight around his fingers.

You have me. All of me.

He shut his eyes, despising himself for wanting to believe it, even when he knew it wasn’t true, even after she taunted him with what she’d done only hours before, acts performed for another man, another fool.

Don’t leave.

How softly she had said it, desperation from a woman who was never desperate. Those two words robbed him of everything he expected to feel. Freedom. Vindication. Resolve. He had none of it now.

Worse, he had been cruel in ways that were impossible to forget. Taking her without gentleness or sentiment was one thing—her need had been sated along with his—but leaving her alone in a pool of shattered porcelain, clinging to a ruined dress, was another.

He rubbed his hand over his face in frustration, glaring across the aisle in time to catch sight of a man slipping through the shadowed maintenance hatch at the back of the compartment. Not a man in uniform. Not a pilot. Simply someone who was not supposed to be there.

Glancing toward the control deck, he searched for attendants and saw no one. It was a routine cargo run to the mainland station, a trip that did not necessitate a full crew, yet the silence suddenly felt too surreal, too wrong to be anything but a warning.

Pushing up from his seat, he crossed the compartment to find the hatch left open to the cold, vibrating air inside the hull. He pushed it wide, scanning the long aluminum catwalk on the other side. The man appeared in the lamplight between laddered girders, crouched by the oil storage tanks, directly under the main gas cell.

The lower maintenance doors yawned open to the vast ocean below, its waves a shiver of moonlight in the darkness.

Nathan watched as the man slid a bundle of short tubes from inside his jacket, handling them gingerly, grimacing as he tucked them into a metal niche under the tanks.

There could only be one reason, one purpose…

Nathan turned to the box at the side of the hatch and pressed the switch, hailing the captain of the craft. “Emergency in the hull. Descend immediately and evacuate all crewmembers.”

The man under the girders turned sharply at the sound of his voice.

The captain’s reply buzzed back through the speaker. “Mr. Lanchard? Repeat, please.”

Nathan didn’t bother, his gaze locked on the man crouched between the tanks. The man shifted his position, searching for his observer. He was dark, his eyes meeting Nathan’s and glittering with recognition.

The airship’s engines swiveled on cue, forcing the big dirigible to descend rapidly toward the water.

“You think you can stop this?” the man asked, grinning. “It is already done. We have only minutes left to live.”

Nathan pursed his lips and stepped down onto the catwalk, moving toward the tanks. “Then you should allow me the honor of knowing who has murdered me.”

“My name is not important. I am no one.”

“A loyal subject of the Sultans.”

“You say that as if they were all the same. They are not. They are as different as the jewels in God’s crown. Before you invaded our Northern deserts, they fought each other. Now they are united.”

“And which of God’s jewels sent you?”

The man paused and smiled at that, his face glowing with pride, his dark eyes wide. “His spies are everywhere, even in your capital. He knows your secrets, the plans of your Great Inventor. He bought them from an Earl, a cousin to your own king. He will use them to make great weapons, and ships like this.”

“So why destroy this one? Why not just take it back to him?”

“Because you must see everything you have built turn to dust. After tonight, you will have no more airships, no more station to supply them.”

Nathan stopped short. “No more station?”

Collision alarms whined from the passenger compartment. Canopy flares shot from under the gondola, sparking to life and lighting the ocean surface below. The young saboteur shifted nervously from foot to foot, his attention divided between the explosives and the glow filtering through open maintenance doors beneath him.

“You set explosives at the station too?” Nathan asked.

“You think I am the only one? They will kill everyone. Not a single person, or ship, will be left on your island. It is has begun already.”

The words tumbled through his chest, jagged and ice cold.
Gilda.

The man glanced down at the explosive and brightened, raising his arms in thanks. “The fuse has burned. It is time.”

Nathan clenched his teeth, fear and rage propelling him forward. He charged the catwalk, leaping over the rail to grab the man by the collar. They fell from the girder together. Nathan hit the edge of the maintenance door, the impact punching the air from his chest. He grasped for the metal, only to feel it slip away under his fingers, his body dropping into the darkness.

A thundering concussion warped the air above him, releasing a blast of fire that set Heaven ablaze.

A distant thud issued from the shoreline, followed by another. And closer, a crack and an explosion, flames dancing in the glass panes of the balcony doors. Gilda raised her head from the cradle of her arms, narrowing her gaze on the trembling goblets across the table’s surface.

“Lady Sinclair!” a male voice yelled from outside the dining room, the brass door knobs jittering frantically. “Unlock the door. We’re under attack. We must get to the lawn!”

Attack?

Another blast hit the windows, shattering the glass in a hot flash of light. Gilda screamed, ducking and shielding her eyes as the balcony doors blew inward, the hard collapse of metal and wood thundering from the docks. Debris ripped through the balcony, torn aluminum tubing and pieces of railing cracking the frame, a shower of burnt rivets peppering the wood.

Gilda lost her voice, staggering out of her chair and tripping on the hem of her dress. She pushed up against the wall, staring past the balcony railing to the docks outside. Ash floated like snow, fire searing the air as a row of airships lay cracked in the water, their framework burning above the waves. Men and horses ran from the glare, carts bright with flame, pilings, rails and cranes collapsed.

“Oh God.” She put her fingers to her lips.

“Lady Sinclair!” The voice at the door was back. “Lady Sinclair!”

She shook her head, steadying herself through force of will. Pushing up from the wall, she headed for the door.

Another crash issued from behind it.

“No!” the voice yelled again. “Stay where you are. Stay—”

The polished doors splintered in front of her, broken in a blast of gunshots. Screaming erupted from the hallway, cries for mercy and cracks of pistol fire, the fierce shouting of foreigners.

Gilda stumbled back, smelling blood thick in the air.

The brass knobs jolted again.

Nathan’s voice rang in her heart.
Go. Run!

Turning, she headed for the balcony.

The door broke open behind her.

She sprinted over broken glass, bunching her skirt as she leapt over the fractured railing and dropped through a cloud of ash. She hit the lawn, dress boots first, and staggered through soft flowerbeds, her skirt ripping on the border of rose branches.

Destruction reigned in the glaring firelight, the waterfront now a hellish nightmare of roaring flames and shouting voices. The shrill cry of a horse sounded at the edge of the lawn.

Another pistol exploded from the balcony.

She looked up to see a man leaping over the railing to follow her. Clenching her teeth, she bolted across the grass in panic.

Her pursuer was on top of her in seconds, pushing her to the ground. She kicked him, screaming, but he grabbed onto her neck, sliding a curved blade from his belt. She heard the hiss of his language, a promise of ruthlessness, then a sharp pistol retort.

The man fell back, his body slumping to one side.

Gilda blinked, feeling blood wet on her cheek, on her neck. She wiped it off with trembling fingers, crying softly.

“Are you hurt?” the Duke of Sutton appeared on a horse behind her. “Not yours, is it?”

She startled as a great volley of pistol fire unloaded in the mansion, crackling shots followed by screaming.

“Steady,” he said, stepping down from the saddle. “That would be our team, clearing them out and securing the mansion.”

“I—” She found her voice through gasping breaths, trembling, but strong enough. “I appreciate your timing, your grace.”

“Are you hurt?”

“Hurt?”

“More shaken, perhaps.” He came close, still balancing the pistol in one hand. His gaze moved quickly over her neck, her dress. “Heard your screaming. Lovely sound, given what trouble I’ve had finding you.”

“There was a man behind the doors. I…”

He grimaced, taking her hand and drawing her into a warm embrace against the soft plum velvet of his jacket, holding her until the crippling panic eased. “There, there, now, we are still breathing, are we not?”

“Or we have gone to God together.”

“Not I, dear girl. Clouds and choirs are someone else’s real estate.” He pulled back, his gaze warm, smudges of blood on his collar and sleeves.

“The Sultans?”

“They had a good plan. We lost five, perhaps six, dirigibles to explosive devices, but I think we’ve saved the other three that were moored, as well as the five that were approaching. We were able to signal them with the lighthouse at the last minute to keep them away.”

“But—you knew? All of this?”

“Precious little. We caught one of them with the information we had, and he produced a confession, but with only moments to spare, too little time to thwart them all. The station has been damaged, surely, but not as much as they intended. Having found you still breathing, I dare to say it might have gone far worse for us.”

“Explosives?”

“Hidden in the airframes.”

She stared at him, fighting the cold return of fear. “Hidden in the moored airships. Only these here.”

“Not only those. They had agents on two of the dirigibles that departed. We have to assume, at this point, that they are lost.”

“Nathan?”

He hesitated. “I’m afraid so.”

She stared at him, not comprehending it. “He couldn’t.”

The Duke said nothing, but his silence was the loudest thing she had ever heard. Gilda looked past him, focusing on the burning docks, chaos and murder too staggering to grasp. Her eyes stung.

“I can’t accept that,” she whispered.

“My dear,” the Duke said softly. “You are the strongest person I have ever known. You must stay strong now.”

“He cannot be dead. I would know. I would—” She shook her head, hating the tears as they came. “I would know.”

He opened his mouth, then paused, rethinking his reply. “By tomorrow, we should be able to send a search vessel out to check the route. We will make every effort to find him.”

“Tomorrow? But he couldn’t be more than one flight hour out. If they crashed the airship, the wreckage would be close. He might still be alive.”

“The docks are burning. We can do nothing.”

“How can you say that? We could take another airship, or a boat, or a raft. It doesn’t matter! We could find them, now, tonight.”

He grimaced, wincing through smoke. “We are
burning
. There may still be explosives on the airships, or the boats. There may agents of the Sultans anywhere. We must restore order, check the equipment and secure the station. We can do nothing else.”

“You won’t let me take one of my own airships, George?”

He registered the use of his given name with look of regret, placing his hand on her arm. “Not until we know it is safe. Many of our friends are dead. We must be brave. We must not endanger ourselves, or others, in our grief. We will send a search vessel tomorrow, perhaps an airship too. Every effort will be made, I promise you.”

She swallowed the harsh taste of blood, struggling against the image of Nathan in the water, swallowed by blackness. She glared across the broken docks, desperation turning to anger, to strength.

Tomorrow would be too late. If there was wreckage on the surface to mark the location, it would only burn for a few hours. Then it would drift and vanish with the currents by morning, spread over an area so wide that it might never be found. At night, in the blackness, a fire on the ocean could be seen for miles. From the sky, it could be seen forever.

There had to be way to get into the air, an airship the Sultans would not have been able to reach.

If you knew me that well, you might have become aware, over the past ten years, that I don’t just build airships.

He’d said it right before he slammed the door on her.

She turned in realization, lifting her gaze to the lighthouse on the hill above. The test hangar loomed at the top, a private domain with its own staff, well guarded at all hours.

“A lovely chat, your grace.” She quipped, stepping past him to take the reins of his horse.