Glorious Victorious Darcys 01.5 - His Broken Angel Page 2

  “One of their ace pilots,” she said with a cocky smile.

  “But you’re not a Freak.”

  “No. But I believe in the cause. I fight alongside your brother because I think you should have the same rights as me. So what if you’re an altered race? You’re still human.”

  Superhuman, truth be told. Something Doc accepted about himself, but didn’t advertise. “That’s very noble, Miss Darcy. I suppose you think my brother has taken up arms against the Vics for the same reason, to win equal rights for Freaks.”

  “Why else?”

  Revenge, mostly. Notoriety, maybe. Doc didn’t figure Miss Darcy would cotton to his opinion on the matter. Clearly she was enamored with Jasper. Most women were. “I’m a gifted healer, Miss Darcy, not God. I can accelerate the healing process of most injuries, but curing blindness?” As much as Doc wanted to reconnect with his brother, he could not in good conscience misrepresent his supernatural skills. “Can’t say that’s within my power.”

  “You don’t know one way or the other? No prior attempts?”

  “None.”

  “Hmm. Well, you never know unless you try and, in this instance, I wager you’ll want to take your best shot. The young woman I speak of is the sister of your boss.”

  Doc furrowed his brow. “Lily Gentry?”

  “Should you desire to mend bridges with the Sky Cowboy,” P.J. said while snapping her goggles back into place, “I suggest you come with me.”

  Doc’s heart hammered. Lily injured and blind? On this side of the Atlantic? “There must be some mistake. Lily’s in America.” Doc had heard from StarMan that arrangements were being made to bring her overseas, but that the plans wouldn’t be implemented until Tuck had been officially cleared of his crimes. “From what I understand Tuck sent Lily a Teletype alerting her of the impending relocation. He received a response from her yesterday. A response that originated in New York City.”

  P.J. shrugged. “The response might have originated in America, but Lily didn’t send it.”

  Doc dragged a hand over his face. He was puzzled. Stunned. “We need to tell Tuck—”

  “Jasper said you and you alone.” Patience ebbing, she nudged Doc with her elbow. “Look at it this way. You’re saving the cowboy from the misery of seeing his sister battered and broken. Fix her first then deliver her safely to Gentry. I imagine he’d forgive just about anything then, don’t you think?”

  Doc glanced to the cobblestone church, standing pure and regal against the polluted winter sky. The congested roads swarmed with a combination of horse-drawn carriages and steam-powered automocoaches, evidence of the ongoing battle between Old Worlders and New Worlders, those who resisted modern technology and those who raced forward. Doc wanted to race forward. He wanted to leave his betrayal in the dust and to reestablish his home on the airship Maverick and to repair his damaged reputation with Tuck. As it was, Doc had dug himself into a deep, dark hole. Even though he’d lived his life in the shadows, he’d never felt so lost.

  The arched doors flung open and his stomach knotted as Tuck and Amelia, followed by the crew of the Maverick, burst outside with huge smiles and loud cheers.

  I should be with them.

  Doc’s elusive brother aside, Tuck and crew, and now Amelia, were as close as he had to a family. They were celebrating not only a marriage, but also the Queen of England’s promise to exonerate Tuck and his men, including Doc, from their ill-accused crimes in America. Doc ached to join the festivities and the crew’s mission to retrieve the artifact lost to Captain Dunkirk. But he wasn’t welcome. He wasn’t trusted.

  He glanced back to P.J. Darcy. “How do I know you’re who you say you are? The last person who promised to lead me to my brother played me for a fool.”

  Her mouth quirked. “Jasper knew you’d be leery, what with your recent bugaboo.” She reached into her pocket and presented Doc with a worn daguerreotype.

  He blinked through his tinted specs at the four familiar faces, faded and stained, his family. A family that was no more.

  His papa smiled back at him, eyes sparkling with wisdom and courage. His mama’s smile was forced and Doc knew, because he remembered, she’d been minutes away from having one of her spells. The brothers were close in height, had the same lean, strong build, and according to the ladies both of the Bluebell boys were handsome. ’Course, they’d never seen Doc without the shaded spectacles that concealed his hideous defect.

  Doc had inherited his mama’s fair features, pale skin, hair so blond it was almost white, and eyes… . Had he been born of one dimension, they would have been blue. Had it not been for the botched surgery …

  Doc shifted his gaze to Jasper. Black hair, olive skin, kaleidoscope eyes. Usually the tension between the siblings was obvious, but in this photograph, Jasper had slung his arm around his older brother’s shoulder, and Doc remembered there’d been real affection in that moment.

  His heart ached to the point of cracking, and he forced himself to pocket the photograph while focusing on his other family. His other loss.

  One he might be able to do something about.

  He could take the bull by the horns, rescue Lily Gentry, cure her maladies, and deliver her safe and sound to Tuck.

  Redemption.

  Chapter Two

  Skytown, Somewhere over Northern Ireland

  Black.

  Black as coal.

  Black as ink.

  Black as death.

  Lily Gentry had never been fond of the absence of color. She preferred pastels or bold, vibrant hues like purple, gold, or cobalt blue. Black was depressing. Black was evil. Black was … catatonic.

  For the past few days, Lily had been drowning in an ominous pit of despair, clawing her way through pitch tar blackness. When she’d first opened her eyes and heard the physician, Patch, say she’d been unconscious all day, she thought she’d awakened in the dead of night. But then someone spoke to her, the man named Jasper, and he’d assured her it was midday. Cold and windy, but sunny.

  Can’t you feel the sunshine through the window? he’d asked.

  She could feel it warming her skin. But she couldn’t see the light or the window or the man. She’d tempered the panic and waited for her vision to clear. Only it didn’t. Her ribs and legs hurt something fierce and her forehead stung like the devil. But nothing compared to the blow to her heart when she realized she was blind.

  Blind.

  How could she sketch if she couldn’t see? How could she paint? Art was her passion. Her universe. How could she exist in a world with no color? No light?

  Jasper, who claimed to be in charge, told her to be patient.

  The physician mentioned a possible contusion to the brain. When the swelling goes down, maybe …

  In her heart there was no maybe. No hope, only fear. What if she never saw again?

  A knock on the door jarred her out of her morbid thoughts but not her sullen mood.

  “Mind if I come in?” a man asked.

  Jasper. She knew his voice now. Unlike Patch, who had a British accent, Jasper was American and had a Western twang, much like her brother’s, and he spoke sort of slow as if he was measuring every word. P.J. sounded British, and she was a bit of a chatter box. Snoop barely spoke at all but his accent was heavy … Irish? Scottish?

  Jasper. Patch. P.J. Snoop. No one in this skytown seemed to have a last name. At least none of the four who’d visited her room.

  “I’ll take your silence as an invitation,” Jasper said.

  Lily heard the door creak open, heard the soft thud when it shut. Boot heels knocked on the floor. A puncheon floor, she guessed. She smelled tobacco and gunpowder as Jasper approached. He smelled like the rebel he was.

  “You really asleep, Miss Gentry, or are you ignoring me?”

  Good manners dictated a response and she’d never been keen on lying. Partially because it was wrong, partially because her cheeks always burned with a fib. “I’m awake.”

  “Couldn’t tell for su
re with your eyes shut.”

  “Open or closed, makes no never mind,” she said in a tight, scratchy voice. “View’s the same.”

  “Mmm. Not much of a fighter, are you, Miss Gentry?”

  “I’m not a fighter at all. Not like you.” Jasper was the leader of an elite faction of the Freak Fighters. Midway between America and Great Britain, they’d attacked the Britannia—the exclusive airship she’d arranged passage on. She knew this because she’d overheard Jasper arguing with his second-in-command, the man called Snoop, and then because Jasper had told her himself. For an outlaw, the man was pretty liberal with the truth.

  “Here’s the thing,” Jasper said in a calm but firm tone. “I need to move on in a day or two.”

  “Because you’re on the lam.”

  “That’s right,” he said with a smile in his voice. “Can’t take you with me and I can’t, in good conscience, leave you behind.”

  “Forgive me if I wrestle with the concept of you having a moral dilemma,” Lily said. “Don’t suppose a man who viciously attacked a diplomatic convoy has many of those.”

  “Might want to devote some of that vigor to your recovery, Miss Gentry.”

  Lily held silent. One of her legs was broken and the other was badly bruised. She had a few fractured ribs and a deep gash on her forehead. All sustained, she’d been told, when she’d taken a bad fall. Maybe that’s what had caused her blindness too. The fall. She didn’t remember careening down the stair tower. She didn’t remember much of anything after the zeppelin shook with the first explosion. No doubt her flesh and bones would heal with time, but she would still be blind. She would still be plagued with intense anxiety and a panic swirling inside of her.

  “Breathe.”

  “What?” Chest tight, Lily opened her eyes.

  Nothing to focus on. Nothing to see. Her lungs seized. She couldn’t— A hand gripped her shoulder.

  She flinched from the hard pressure.

  “Sorry.” Jasper eased away his hand. “It’s just … I’ve seen this before, the anxiety. Don’t forget to breathe.”

  The man who’d attacked. The rebel. The outlaw. “Don’t trust you.”

  “Don’t blame you.”

  Even though she couldn’t see Jasper, she averted her gaze. “What do you want from me?”

  “I want you to rally. I want you to live.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want to piss off your brother.”

  She frowned. “You know Tuck?”

  “Know enough not to piss him off. Also …”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  Boot heels scuffed across the puncheon floor, and the pungent scent of tobacco faded.

  Jasper was leaving.

  “I sent for help for you, Miss Gentry, and it cost me mightily.”

  Was she supposed to care?

  “Stop thinking the worst. Stop wallowing in self-pity. Grow up. Wake up. It’s a cruel world, Miss Gentry. A twisted world. Shape it or erase it, but don’t damned forsake it.”

  “You know nothing of my world,” she choked out.

  “And you know nothing of mine.”

  The door closed and Lily felt even worse than before. She hadn’t thought that possible. How dare that rebel lecture her? How dare he diminish her wretched plight? Jasper spoke as though she were a spineless, spoiled brat. She’d saved her pennies for months, working on the sly and sketching caricatures in Central Park. She’d worked extra hours in the art shop for Mr. Rueben. She’d thwarted her legal guardians and conspired with a young British diplomat in order to gain access to an elite transcontinental airship. Lily had led a sheltered life. She’d never been on her own, yet at eighteen years old, she’d set off alone, flying from New York City to London, hoping to reunite with her older brother, a good man wrongly accused of a horrible crime.

  Such bold and subversive action had not come easily to Lily, but she’d grown weary of hearing her distant cousins—her guardians since her beloved aunt’s death—speaking ill of Tuck. She also suspected they’d been manipulating her correspondence with her brother as well as pocketing funds he’d sent specifically for her.

  As for Tuck … She appreciated his efforts to protect her from his perilous circumstances, but she was no longer willing to live her life in a suffocating cocoon. She’d imagined herself joining his renegade crew on the Maverick, learning some task to make her useful to the men who’d rescued Tuck from the gallows and whisked him across the ocean to safety. She’d thought about sketching and painting the adventures of the Sky Cowboy and his loyal crew. She’d looked forward to seeing Tuck’s horse, Peg, in action. She’d never seen a flying horse. She’d never seen foreign lands.

  Now those wonders would forever remain a mystery to Lily. She would never be a viable member of the Maverick’s crew. Instead of being useful, she’d be a hindrance.

  Lily swallowed hard, managing the pain in her legs, chest, and head, but not the one in her heart. The thought crossed her mind that she would be more useful to everyone dead. But she didn’t want to be dead. She was glad she wasn’t dead. Truly.

  She stared into the darkness, gripped her sheet.

  It’s not that she wanted to die. She just didn’t know how to live in the dark.

  Chapter Three

  Doc clung to the two-person dirigible, dubbed the Bullet, fearing for his life as they shot through the sky.

  P.J. Darcy was loco. That, or a genius.

  She listed port then starboard time and again, rattling his brains, circumventing Air Law Enforcement and a wicked winter storm.

  At least those were the threats she’d cited upon takeoff. Hell if he knew for sure.

  She had blindfolded him the moment he’d strapped himself into the front seat of the open-air dig.

  His inability to focus on any one thing compromised his equilibrium. And he was a seasoned flyer used to daredevil stunts and breakneck speeds. The Maverick was the fastest airship in Europe. Tucker Gentry was a fiercely skilled and daring aviator. StarMan, the Maverick’s navigator and copilot, was nearly as fearless when it came to outmaneuvering sky pirates or ALE. But, dash it all, the Maverick was a massive dirigible whereas the Bullet was smaller than a dinghy.

  Without warning, she nosed the winged vessel up.

  Doc’s stomach lurched as the petrol-fueled dig arced and looped then shot through an icy mist. He thought they leveled off, but he couldn’t be certain. His head was spinning.

  By the time the gutsy female docked the Bullet, Doc was woozy and disoriented. He couldn’t decide if the knuckle-white flight from London to somewhere north had been the shortest or longest trip of all his born days. Flying blind was an adventure Doc hoped not to repeat anytime soon.

  Focusing inward, he settled his queasy stomach and calmed his throbbing brain. “Were you really dodging ALE, Miss Darcy?” he asked in a tight voice. “Or was that your sick way of disorienting me so I wouldn’t know the location of your hideout?”

  “Yes.” She chuckled then rapped him on the shoulder. “You can lose the blindfold. We’re here.”

  “Wherever here is.” Doc unknotted the coarse fabric and readjusted his shaded goggles.

  They’d docked to a ramshackle clipper, one of three airships in a one-horse skytown. A dense cloud bank shielded the ground below. They could be anywhere.

  He swiped off the borrowed aviator cap and retrieved his derby from beneath the compact seat. Smoothing the dented crown then tugging it on, he scowled at his annoying escort.

  “It’s not that I don’t trust you,” she said. “I don’t trust anyone. We’re in deep shite this time.”

  “As opposed to the other times Jasper broke the law?” Doc disembarked on shaky legs, his boots hitting a planked gangway that led to the floating clipper.

  His brother’s rebellious ways had branded him an outlaw years before. The fact that he was now the leader of an aggressive faction of the Freak Fighters only escalated his “wanted” status. No wonder he�
��d taken refuge in a skytown. These floating pleasure meccas operated above the law and appealed to anyone wanting to indulge in illegal or dubious pastimes—outlawed rock music, hallucinogenic drugs, gambling, drinking, extreme fantasies, and free love. Nowhere was the influence of the Peace Rebels, who’d time traveled from 1969 back to 1857, more evident than in a skytown. Transient and tolerant, skytowns welcomed one and all, even Mods and Freaks.

  Glancing at the main mast, Doc noted the iconic PR flag with its circle and two-legged stick. If he couldn’t smooth things over with Tuck, maybe he’d apply for a position on one of these rigs. It would beat the Sam Hill out of trying to practice medicine among conventional society where Freaks’ rights—including what professions they could pursue—were restricted.

  “This is different,” P.J. said, as she finished mooring the Bullet.

  For the first time since Doc had met the direct aviatrix, she didn’t look cocky. Nope. She looked a little worried, which was disconcerting. “That botched mission you mentioned. Did it involve Prime Minister Madstone?”

  “You’ll have to ask your brother.”

  “Where is Jasper?”

  “Around.”

  Anticipation and dread assaulted Doc in double-barreled shot. Don’t lecture, he told himself, preparing to see his brother. Reason, but don’t lecture. Jasper had never been one to take advice, especially from his big brother.

  Rolling the tension from his shoulders, Doc nabbed his medical bag. He was anxious to get on with his life. He eyed P.J. as she stepped away from her dig. “Where’s Miss Gentry?”

  “Follow me.” His graceless escort stalked over the swinging gangway then across the ship’s deck, red braids whipping in the frigid winds. “The faster you fix that girl, the better. For her. For us. Every day we linger …”

  P.J. trailed off, acknowledging a man loaded for bear to their left then another just ahead. Part of the elite Fighter squad, no doubt. They nodded at the leather-clad aviatrix then scowled at Doc. If they meant to intimidate him they’d have to do better than that. He’d been working alongside Tuck and his formidable crew long enough to hold his own among lethal gunslingers.