Captain Gravenor’s Airship Equinox (Steampunk Smugglers) Read online

  CAPTAIN GRAVENOR’S AIRSHIP EQUINOX

  Tinkerer extraordinaire Philadelphia Hardcastle is horrified to learn her late brother sold her animal management inventions to the British Air Enforcement for nefarious purposes. Distraught, she feels suicide is the only way to pay for her deadly mistakes.

  When Brecon Gravenor, a smuggler and airship builder, saves a woman teetering at the edge of a cliff, he discovers he has rescued the infamous and reclusive Dr. Castle. They are imprisoned by the Red Kite free traders in Wales, who want her human containment devices.

  Philadelphia is willing to give the free traders the secrets of her inventions if it helps liberate enslaved men, but she’s a lady used to independence. Brecon has no intention of helping her escape. Especially when he realizes she has a price on her head and he’s the only one who can save her.

  What others are saying about the Steampunk Smugglers

  "5 Stars! Steampunk adventure at its finest." — Shoshanna Evers, author of ‘Snowed In With The Tycoon’

  “5 Stars! I love how she blended the recognizable, everyday world with the fantasy of an alternate reality, working out the wonderfully intricate details of the story and giving us an airship ride that is believable, enticing and intriguing. — Teagan Oliver, author of ‘Three Truths’

  “Captain Andrew's Flying Christmas was a fabulous read, especially for a short novella. Her characters are sweet, engaging and brave in a world of darkness and grime.” — Mae Pen on Romancing the Genres

  “A fun, lovely story with a happy ending.” — Sheery’s Place

  Captain Gravenor’s Airship Equinox

  By Heather Hiestand

  Copyright Heather Hiestand 2012

  Amazon Edition

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  CAPTAIN GRAVENOR’S AIRSHIP EQUINOX

  COPYRIGHT 2012 by Heather Hiestand

  Amazon Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or Coffee on Sundays Press except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: [email protected]

  Cover Art by Delle Jacobs

  Coffee on Sundays Press

  Visit us at http://www.coffeeonsundays.info

  Publishing History

  First Amazon Edition, 2012

  Published in the United States of America

  DEDICATION

  For Elizabeth and Mike

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you to Jacquie Rogers, Mary Jo Hiestand, and Elizabeth Flynn for editing this story. Thank you to David Hiestand for providing research assistance.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Wales, late August, 1893

  She wore unrelieved black. Jacket, skirt, boots. Her yellow hair streamed out behind her, courtesy of the wind off the cliff’s edge. She looked tall and thin, like a reverse image of Queen Victoria. Brecon Gravenor had taken her for an adolescent at first, but when he trained his spyglass on her face he realized she had to be older by at least a decade.

  As his airship flew over the Bristol Channel toward Barry, Brecon’s gaze had caught a small rock fall sliding down a limestone cliff. But he hadn’t expected to see the woman balanced near the edge. What was she doing near such danger? As he came closer, his steam engine sputtering due to the lack of coal, she lifted her arms straight out from her body. For stability?

  His attention was torn between watching the woman and reloading the burner. Just as he’d decided to put down his spyglass and reload coal, he watched the woman close her eyes and take a step closer to the edge. Her movement sent another spray of rocks showering down the cliff face.

  Couldn’t she feel or hear the rocks? Curious, he navigated his sputtering airship closer. He needed coal now, but the bin was ten feet away, on the other end of his deck. And he couldn’t keep the spyglass trained on the woman while he worked, because thanks to the British Air Enforcement, commonly called Blockaders, he only had one hand to work with. It was spyglass or coal scoop.

  What he wouldn’t give for one of the brass automac hands the Blockaders commissioned for their amputees, but he’d had his hand removed by a cannon ball when he was on a smuggler’s airship, one built by his own family, in fact, rather than when he was serving aboard a government airship. So he was left with only a hook, no longer a full man.

  As his airship ran out of fuel, it began to lose altitude. At this rate, would he hit the cliff or just skim it? Which would it be? He ran calculations in his head. The balloon would be high enough, but not the craft, and he wasn’t about to lose the test airship.

  His shipbuilding expertise was why the Red Kite free traders had kept him fed and sheltered for the past four months, not his ability to smuggle. Thanks to his hook, he was far too memorable to risk battling Blockaders out in the open.

  Mam duw. He dropped the spyglass and ran for the coal burner, estimating time down to the second necessary to save the airship. Ten steps, five steps, one. Catch the coal bucket’s handle in his hook and race up the ladder, dump the coal in the burner. Slide down the ladder. Drop the bucket. Ten steps, five steps. One.

  He spun the wheel, turning the airship away from the cliff, planning to skim along the side in case he couldn’t achieve lift in time. When he picked up his spyglass again, he hadn’t even raised it to his eye when the silver warning band around it began to emit puffs of smoke.

  Blockaders.

  And him, over the Channel, in an illegal airship without weapons. Not that any airships were legal. Air travel was reserved for Her Majesty’s military.

  Brecon adjusted the rudder, lifting the airship higher, hoping to run for base and the support of other Red Kite aircrafts. Out in the open, he had no place to hide.

  He did a three-sixty with the spyglass, looking for the enemy airship, but they were still out of range. His rudder whined as he pushed it, trying to obtain enough elevation to avoid smashing into the cliff.

  Cach. His spyglass caught sight of the crazy woman on the cliff’s edge again, her wide-eyed look of horror as he sped toward her, though she kept moving. Was she trying to commit suicide or escape the airship? He couldn’t murder an innocent woman.

  He ran for the edge of the deck, grabbing a tie-up line with his hand. He flung himself over the rail, hoping the momentum would lead him back to the airship before it crashed into a tree. The woman was only a couple feet from the edge of the cliff now. He swung through the air, just as the last bit of cliff crumbled under her feet. Without thinking, he punched out his free arm. His hook sliced through her clothing then held.

  His shoulder screamed as it took her weight. He could only hope the leather binders strapping the hook to his body held. Calculations whirred through his mind. With the additional weight, would they swing back onto the deck or pull the airship into the Channel?

  He started to lose lift, just as he became aware of the woman�
�s shrieks.

  “Stop moving!” he ordered. He glanced down, seeing scudding gray waves beneath them. At least there weren’t any rocks in view.

  Instantly, she went limp. Maybe she wanted to live after all.

  A speck in the distance was coming in from Cardiff. An airship. But he couldn’t worry about the Blockaders now. Not with the deck only a few feet away.

  He turned his head just in time to avoid breaking his nose on the railing. With a slam that jarred his entire body, his flesh met the hard oak, but he managed to bend his arm over the top.

  “Put your feet on the ladder!” he yelled, kicking the hull, where permanent slats were attached.

  He felt most of the weight ease off his aching shoulder socket. With a yank, he ripped through her clothes, hoping he hadn’t inadvertently torn flesh as well, and slapped his hook to the railing, vaulting himself over.

  He couldn’t worry about the woman now. He’d done his best for her, though the copper scent of blood sifted through the air from his hook, showing he’d injured her. He ran for the rudder. The airship screeched protest as the keel scraped the cliff. More rocks crumbled underneath as it sheared off more of the edge.

  Curses and prayers fell from his lips as he threw his body against the rudder, trying to get the airship away. With a horrible screech, it cut through the cliff, speed the only thing saving them, and rose a foot above the ground.

  He glanced down and saw a head through the rails. The woman had decided to save herself and climb aboard. He’d thought she’d been smacked into the cliff, but apparently she’d been just far enough to the side to avoid that fate. She yelled something, but he couldn’t hear her.

  Then he saw a stand of trees coming in fast.

  “C’mon, cariad, work with me,” he muttered, massaging the rudder. The airship obeyed, and he got another six feet of lift, just enough to avoid the trees.

  He heard shouting from the distance, but if he headed for Barry they’d probably be safe. The Blockaders wouldn’t risk firing on the docks. The coal barges were too important to England. Still, if he went that way he’d be heading right at them. He absolutely had to stay land-bound.

  The woman’s head popped up above the railing, then she tumbled to the deck. Her strength impressed him. Most women didn’t have the upper body strength or lung capacity to climb. At least, not unless they’d been raised by smugglers.

  As he was deciding what to do, she ran toward him and grabbed the spyglass, putting it to her eye. She saw the puffs of smoke drifting from the band and dropped it with a cry.

  “It isn’t hot,” she said, frowning. He didn’t recognize her accent, but it was undeniably upper class. “It must be some kind of warning system.”

  She picked it up again. Brecon was relieved to see the device was still functional. Smuggler tools like the spyglass, invented by the famous Captain Andrew, were hard to come by. Brecon had bartered for it with a month of repairs to the Christmas, Andrew’s flagship.

  “They are almost within cannon range,” she said, once she got a look through the spyglass.

  “Load up the burner. We’re faster than they are.”

  “Burner?” She looked at him, confused.

  “We don’t have cannons.” With a sigh, he grabbed her arm and pulled her toward him. She cried out.

  “I’m not going to molest you, woman. Take the wheel. Hold her steady!”

  Once he saw she had obeyed, he ran for the coal bucket and filled it. They’d drawn far too much fuel in their escape from the cliff, and he wouldn’t be surprised if the hull was badly damaged. In a battle of rock versus oak, oak was likely to fail. But he couldn’t worry about that now. He refilled the burner and dashed back to the bridge.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, her hands steady on the wheel.

  “I have no idea. The docks?”

  “They’ll force you down. You want to be hanged?”

  He stared at her. She must be close to thirty, since her eyes crinkled in the corners as she glared back. “So you aren’t trying to kill yourself.”

  “I was thinking about it. I hadn’t decided.”

  He stepped behind her, and before she could protest, had wrapped his arms around her slender body and turned the wheel.

  She wriggled out from under him, but didn’t go far. “Not the docks, then?”

  “We’ll head for camp. Hope other airships can draw the fire.”

  She stared at him. “You’d give a smuggler stronghold location to the BAE?”

  He’d been swearing far too much today. “Any better ideas?”

  “Not I,” she said. “I was just about to jump off a cliff.”

  “Thanks. I needed the reminder.” He spun the wheel, and squeaking, the airship turned east.

  “What’s her name?” the woman asked, referring to the airship.

  “Doesn’t have one yet. She’s experimental.”

  “In what way?”

  “None of your business,” he said with a growl.

  “Tell me.” She lifted the spyglass. “They’re following us out over the Channel.”

  Of course they were. So much for secrets. “Look down. You see that hatch? Open it for me, will you?”

  She knelt down and lifted it. “What are those?”

  “Pedals. Ratchet up the contraption, will you? You are about to see experimental in action.”

  He shifted, still holding the wheel, as she pressed a lever that elevated a wheel attached to pedals, like the front of a bicycle. Glancing down, he stepped on the pedals and began to cycle.

  The strain immediately broke sweat on his forehead. The mechanism needed adjustment.

  She ran to the railing. “We’re gaining altitude.”

  “That is the point.”

  “You’re shooting hydrogen into the balloon?”

  “I said it is experimental. It’s meant to be a two-person airship.”

  “How is that possible?”

  He pointed down. “Underneath, I’m charging a battery that runs a motor. You no longer need crew in the ratlines, opening and closing ports in the balloon. It’s all controlled from here.”

  “No one could keep that up for long.”

  “I’m a cripple. Someone in the best condition could do it.”

  “You may have lost a hand, but the rest of you appears to be in fine condition.”

  He glanced over, trying to determine if her tone was admiring or sarcastic. It was neither. She spoke like a doctor, detached and professional. Though her gaze did seem to be focused on his thighs.

  “Who are you?” he asked. She had to be the strangest female he’d ever met.

  “My name is Philadelphia.”

  “Brecon.” He took his hand from the wheel and wiped sweat from his forehead.

  “Allow me.” She pulled a black-edged handkerchief from a pocket in her skirt and dabbed at him. “Do you want me to take a turn?”

  He smelled camphor and mint as she wiped away his sweat. “Take the wheel. Keep moving east. You’re going to see a hill. Behind it is an old castle ruin with an exposed basement. We’ll descend just as quickly as we gained altitude, deflate the balloon. I hope it will provide camouflage. If they stay over the Channel as long as I expect, it should be okay.”

  “That’s the best you can do?”

  “Have a better idea?”

  “I do not believe you can keep pedaling that long.”

  “Just like a Welshwoman. Always complaining.”

  “I’m not Welsh.”

  “You may not have the accent, darling, but you obviously live here.”

  Her lips pursed. “Only in recent months.”

  Sweat running down his nose, he estimated their altitude. “We need two hundred more feet,” he panted.

  She kept one hand on the wheel while she put the spyglass to her eye. “I can just see the hill. Two minutes at our present speed.”

  Gritting his teeth, he pedaled faster, knowing the keel probably wouldn’t survive another bash and skim ope
ration. His ears popped and he knew they were moving up at an increased rate. In a few seconds, he could see the hill too. Were they high enough to miss the turf?

  He heard her gasp, but she didn’t say anything, just gripped the wheel, staying on the course he’d ordered. The puffs of smoke continued steadily from the spyglass, telling him the Blockader airship had probably left the Channel to chase them over land. He hadn’t gotten a look at their airship but he hoped it was an old, slow one. They didn’t have much time to hide.

  Below him, he saw the grass and scrub-covered hill. Saint David be praised. “Get ready. The ruin begins in two hundred yards.”

  She turned the wheel. “Very well. Where is the basement?”

  “Go over the main building. The basement is a little to port.” He’d stopped pedaling, and maintained altitude.

  “I see it.”

  “Now!” he yelled, mostly to himself. He knelt down and pulled a lever to the left of the pedals, then began to pedal in reverse. The gears screeched at him.

  “Needs oil.” This direction was even harder. He was nearly blind with sweat pouring down his face.

  “Faster! We aren’t going down fast enough.”

  His breath began to squeak as he exceeded his lung capacity, but within seconds, they were all but falling into the old basement.

  “Hold on!”

  Philadelphia wrapped her arms around the wheel. He fell off the pedals and grabbed for the hatch. Would they set the entire bloody airship on fire with this stunt? He flipped backward as the keel met not dirt, but a puddle of water at the bottom of the basement.

  Stunned, he lay still for a second as stars danced through his vision, and then he crawled to the other end of the airship. He turned off the burner. When he peered over the railing, he could see nothing but inky blackness underneath as the airship swayed. Then the heavy fabric of the balloon dropped over his head.