What a delight it was to laugh and tease with this man. Not since Nathaniel’s courtship of her had she been so enthralled.
“I shouldn’t be so harsh,” she admitted. “I’m certain the boredom was mutual. Many of them dreaded engaging me in conversation, terrified I’d rhapsodize over the efficiency of a Daimler engine design or how Sir Hugh Carver once again improved the impact shields on the ships. I, however, will restrain myself from falling into that trap tonight. I’ve no wish to lose my intrepid companion who can withstand the cold but possibly not the ennui of my company.”
Colin’s expression sobered. His fingers glided over her gloved hand where it rested on the ledge by the field glasses. “You have nothing to fear on that score, Lenore. Trust me.”
She laced her fingers with his, regretting the barrier of her glove between his skin and hers. Once more they stood only inches apart, the space between almost shimmering with tension. Lenore met his gaze, a Shakespearean dichotomy of dark and bright.
“Is a post on an airship what you thought it might be?” He spoke in tones reserved for lovers, as if the innocuous question was meant to be asked while he nuzzled her breasts or drew invisible murals on her bare belly with his fingertips.
He held her mesmerized. Only a blast of icy wind through the window cleared her head. She blinked but didn’t let go of his hand. “Yes and no,” she said, waving her free arm to indicate the wide sky. “This. This is beyond the ability of the most eloquent poet to adequately describe. Great men dreamed through the ages to fly like birds, and here we are above the world, counting falling stars.”
She gave a rueful shrug then. “Mostly, it’s like home. There’s tea to be made and supper to cook, laundry to wash, accounts to settle and beds to tuck in.” She winked at Colin. “The adventurous life of a cabin boy. Or girl if that better suits your sensibilities.”
“It’s how many captains started and rose through the ranks. You learn the ship’s language and her song until she becomes more familiar than the mother who bore you.”
There it is, she thought. A hint of the life before his transformation. “You speak as if this isn’t your first time on a ship.”
A wistful expression played across his elegant face. He tapped his chest. “Before I became this, I served aboard an airship.”
His admission didn’t surprise her. For a “guest” and observer, he moved with surprising ease and familiarity aboard the Terebellum, as if sailing high above the earth were an everyday thing. She still gazed at her surroundings in open-mouthed wonder, unspoiled by the drudgery of chores. “No wonder you seemed so at ease and unafraid of great heights or the Terebellum’s movements,” she said.
“Some things you don’t forget.”
She wanted to ask him more, but a flash of light caught her attention. She grabbed the field glasses and peered through the eyepieces. She passed the glasses to Colin and pointed to the light. “There. Do you see her?”
He looked through the glasses before returning them to her. “If I’m not mistaken, that’s the Danika, a Russian skyrunner. Likely on her way to the Redan.” He slipped behind her and tucked her gently against his body. “Now this,” he said, “is resoundingly improper.”
“I should strike you in outrage,” she agreed in a mild voice and leaned back against his tall frame. No coat or cloak, and still he radiated a delicious heat that seeped through her woolens to warm her from the inside out.
“And I should beg your pardon and release you,” he replied, his arm sliding around her waist until she stood snug in his embrace.
“We won’t do any of those things, will we?”
“I certainly hope not,” he whispered against her temple.
Were she not at her post, she’d turn in his arms and bring his head down to hers for a kiss.
They watched the Danika for several moments, Lenore noting her flight pattern and that it vectored safely away from the Terebellum. Once more the sky curved empty around them except for the moon and stars and those they watched as well.
Were it up to Lenore, they’d stay like this for hours, silent, unmoving, content to relish each other’s nearness. Colin’s warmth, however, worked better than a sleeping tonic, and she fought off a warning yawn.
Colin’s blunt inquiry snapped her wide awake. “Why aren’t you married, Lenore?”
Had he pushed her head out the window for a bracing blast of icy wind, she doubted it would have worked any better at obliterating her somnolence. Lenore stood silent in his arms for a moment, remembering the surprise visit from a dignified marchioness with a kind face and sad eyes. The tea had been bitter that day, almost as bitter as the choice presented to her.
“You need not answer if you wish.” He was strong and lithe against her back, a literal pillar of strength.
“I don’t mind,” she said. “I was almost married. Well, almost engaged.” A shooting star arced across the sky before disappearing into the horizon. “Unbeknownst to me, the man who courted me was the youngest son of a marquess, a lord. Because there was already an heir and to the title and another brother in line after the heir, his family tolerated his ‘eccentricities’.”
As aware as she was of his every touch and breath, Lenore didn’t miss the slow stiffening in Colin’s body as she spoke. “Like you, he served aboard an airship. The Pollux to be exact. He loved it, embraced it, risked scandal over it.
“You understood his passion.”
She nodded. “I did. I think we’re born with a love for a particular thing that calls to our souls. To ignore it reaps unhappiness.”
“What happened?”
Five years on, and it still hurt to recall that meeting and the events which followed. “I didn’t know it at the time, but my almost-fiancé had lost both brothers to cholera in the space of a week. He became the heir to the marquisate. His duty was to the estate and providing the next generation of heirs to succeed him.”
“And you were an inventor’s daughter.” Colin’s voice sounded clipped and cool, even as his hand stroked a comforting rhythm along her ribs.
Lenore swallowed, willing down the clot of tears trapped in her throat. “Indeed. A mésalliance not to be borne. Once they discovered his intention to propose, his mother paid me a visit. She presented a sound argument. Accept his offer and consign myself and any offspring we produced to the status of outcast.” She sighed. “I would have suffered it gladly. I have no interest in or fondness for the nobility. My children, however, and their children as well would be burdened by our selfishness, ostracized from Society the moment they were born.”
“You refused him when he asked.”
She wondered at the odd flatness in Colin’s tone. “I did and will regret it all my life. We parted on bad terms. He was killed while fighting at the Redan.”