Charlotte woke to the sound of someone pounding on her cabin door.
“Marleen!” she almost called. But of course, Marleen had been laid off at the last port. Charlotte had to serve her own tea, manage her own bustle, and even answer her own door.
“Wait!” she called as she scrambled up to get dressed.
Men’s clothing was more and more appealing, she thought; it had half the tying and lacing and buttoning. But she was attempting to secure a husband and he wasn’t going to want someone more masculine than he was, so she gritted her teeth and wore the flounces and frills that made her look softer, even if she couldn’t entirely make herself sweet and appealing the way Valentina Briggston did.
Valentina Briggston.
Charlotte had liked her odds for Jamison’s hand, until she showed up. At first, she only worried because Valentina was so pretty, but it didn’t take much conversation to also realize that the milliner was also exceedingly nimble-minded and had arrived at the battlefield more ready than Charlotte.
I ought to hate her, Charlotte thought. Valentina was effortlessly independent in her own right except for that one tiny legal wrinkle, smart and beautiful and fashionable...which wasn’t even a thing that Charlotte thought she cared about until she saw how perfectly the other woman’s dress fit and how cunning her coordination of accessories was. She was subtle, in all the ways that Charlotte was cloddish, and had embraced all of the things that Charlotte considered flaws, to turn them into weapons.
There was a second impatient knock at the door and Charlotte hastily fastened her final buttons.
“Travor,” she said flatly when she finally opened the door to find him looking out over the railing down into the center of the ship’s courtyard. The room she had booked was on a respectable middle deck, mostly filled with tradesmen and high-end servant class; it even had a tiny balcony overlooking the ocean. “I’m surprised they let you on the cityship. Don’t they screen for criminals at all?”
“Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
“It would be unseemly,” Charlotte retorted.
“You’ve never cared about that,” Travor scoffed. “Anyway, it would be far more unseemly to have our conversation out here in public.”
Charlotte reluctantly let him in, glancing down the deck to see that no one was watching in the unfashionably early morning light.
“I still have five tendays left to repay my debt,” she said tightly.
“I’m not here to collect,” Travor assured her. “I’m just here to make sure you can pay.”
A chill ran down Charlotte’s spine. “I won’t cross the Underground,” she promised. “I’m after a prize that should be more than good for all that I owe.”
“Lord Jamison, yes,” Travor said knowingly. He wandered around the room, trailing dirty fingers over her trunk and the hairbrush at her dressing table. “Good choice. Though, do you know, there are rumors that he killed his last wife? Is that a risk you want to take?”
“Nothing was proved,” Charlotte snorted. “There was never even a case. And I would not be so easy to get rid of.”
“She was a senator in the parliament,” Travor pointed out. “She probably thought that she was safe, too.”
“I sleep with daggers,” Charlotte countered. “Steel daggers.” She wondered again how much of a role her sword had played in defending Jamison. Had the enchanted horse simply lost steam at that moment in its charge, or had she truly deflected it?
“Well, the Underground doesn’t particularly care if you survive the marriage, provided you pay your debts,” Travor said carelessly as he completed his circle of the tiny cabin. “So, they are prepared to help you.” He reached into an inner pocket of his vest and pulled out a gold-edged ticket. “A prime seat to the musical review tonight. Lord Jamison should be in attendance.”
Charlotte took the ticket and pursed her lips. She had been trying to figure out how to get an invitation since the cityship set sail and had been able to think only of offering Lord Jamison directly to act as his bodyguard before the program. This would be a much better way of attending, but…“What will it cost me?”
“It can be added to your tab,” Travor said knowingly. “A mere trifle for the wife of a wealthy man like Jamison.”
Charlotte stared at the dirty ticket. “Fine. You should get out before there is traffic on the decks.”
Travor tipped his hat to her and bowed dramatically. “Yes, your future ladyship.” He paused at the door. “Kindly remember that a disappointment to the Underground would be a considerable problem. The kind of problem that your daggers might not save you from.”
Then he was gone and Charlotte was checking the surrounding balconies to see that no one had seen his unseemly visit. She closed the door behind him and locked in with a sigh.
She had no desire for a husband, but a husband would be protection. However much she didn’t want to admit that she needed it from any man.