Arabella adjusted the fur blanket around herself and gritted her teeth. She took a sip from her tea and silently cursed the idiot dragon holed up in her cabin. He would certainly be warmer than she was right now, huddled in her bed under a mountain of covers while she was in the flight box. Ordinarily, she would be content to let the dirigible follow its course, letting the wind and helium balloon work together to propel it. She’d lost some faith in her navigation abilities since she crashed.
Every comptroller she had ever spoken to along her trek to Antarctica had been correct about the foolishness of her endeavor.
Xavier was, too.
She was supremely lucky to be alive, and refused to take any more chances with her safety until they landed in Santiago, which meant she hadn’t slept despite the late hour. Their safety, she reminded herself. Xavier was her responsibility for as long as he remained on her dirigible. They hadn’t spoken since he took possession of the spoon and he hadn’t left her room, let alone the cabin. At least needing to keep an eye on the skies meant she had an excuse not to go belowdecks, as chilled as she was. There was a peacefulness to be found behind the steering yoke, a return to her ordinary life that was a relief. Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of feet climbing the stairs to the flight box. She closed her eyes and uttered a silent prayer to the powers above that Xavier wasn’t going to try to make off with her fur blanket.
His throat cleared behind her. “Arabella.”
She sighed and kept her gaze on the deck. “The only options I had were taking you with me or pushing you off the dirigible.”
“I know.” She heard him shuffling behind her. “It’s past midnight.”
A clock was affixed to the steering yoke. Arabella knew full well the time. “I’d prefer to stay here until we’ve reached less windy skies. I’m still nervous about this part of the flight over the Antarctic Ocean.” She looked over her shoulder at him, wrapped head to toe in the blankets from her bed. His hair was mussed from sleep. “You should go back to bed. You had a hell of a fall.”
“Arabella…”
“I don’t have the energy to get yelled at for saving you.”
“I’ve had some time to think about it. I’m not angry. You did what any reasonable and kind person would do for someone who flew too high and lost consciousness.”
“Is that what happened?”
He nodded. “I think so. I’ve never reached those heights in my dragon form. I don’t know why it happened.”
“All right. Well, you’re welcome to return to Antarctica when we’ve reached Santiago. I can give you the money for a ticket,” she said.
“No, thank you.”
“You don’t mean to fly back there yourself? It isn’t possible.”
“No, I wouldn’t be able to board another dirigible legally. I don’t have a passport anymore, and no means of procuring a new one. Which reminds me: when we arrive in Santiago, I can’t leave your dirigible.” He leaned against the glass wall, his expression dejected. “I have to return to England. It’s the least worst option for me right now.”
“Where will you go?”
He shrugged and pulled the blankets tighter around himself. “I’m sure I’ll be able to secure another position with a university or in a lab. I’ll sort it out later.”
His words were a surprise to Arabella. “What about your dragon?”
“What about it?” he countered. “I’m in an untenable position at the moment. I’ll need funds to start my life over in another remote place. Working in academia is all I know what to do. I can save for a while for passage somewhere, or join an expedition and get lost.”
“The same way you did when you arrived in Antarctica?”
His expression shuttered.
It was as if Arabella had watched a factory shut down for the night: the lights turned down, doors slammed and locked shut. Her heart thudded in her ears and she wondered if she had gone too far.
A muscle in his jaw ticked. “Yes,” he said shortly. His voice was calm, but there were undercurrents of anger and shame in that single word.
“Couldn’t you stay somewhere remote in Britain? Surely, there’s a moor or hill that would suit your purposes.”
“I appreciate your suggestions.” He stared straight ahead as the snowflakes whipped against the flight box walls. “But have you considered that I’ve thought about all my options, long before you knew dragons existed?”
She hadn’t. “I suppose not. I’ll shut up now.”
He sighed. “Damn it, Arabella.” He looked like he wanted to say something else but his lips thinned. He shook his head.
She changed the subject. “How are you feeling? Besides being angry and anxious, I mean. How’s your head?”
“I have some bruises, but they’ll heal quickly. I don’t have any head injuries as far as I can tell.”
“Well, you have that spoon I left the bottle of Dr. Thaddeus in the cabin. Help yourself,” she said.
Once again, he looked like he wanted to say something but talked himself out of it. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, almost placated. “Thank you.”
“We should be clear of this weather within the next twelve hours. I expect we’ll land in Santiago in two days, if not sooner. Once we’re out of this wind and snow, I’ll let the wind take over and I can take a nap.”
“I can pilot,” he offered.
“No, you can’t.” It was at the tip of her tongue to remind him that the last time he was aboard a dirigible, it crashed. She didn’t know the details other than that, and didn’t want to alienate him further. “It’s been a while for you,” she amended. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving the yoke in someone else’s hands right now. Perhaps when we leave Santiago and we’re in friendlier skies, I can show you a few things.”
His teeth chattered in response. “All right.”
“For God’s sake, go back downstairs. You’ll catch your death out here.”
“No, I won’t. I’m better suited to the cold than humans are.”
“And yet here you stand before me, shivering. You’re not totally impervious to it, and you’re injured, besides. Go back to sleep. I’m the captain of this vessel. That’s an order.”
His nostrils flared, and she remembered again what a powerful creature he was but he didn’t argue. “I’ll have some of your medicine, if it’ll make you feel better.”
“You’re the one who’s hurt.”
“But the medicine’s important to you.”
Irritation welled in her, and she no longer had the patience to try to talk some sense into him. “Xavier, just go back to bed,” she snapped. “We’ll discuss all of this when we’re both better rested.”
He sighed again, but didn’t offer a retort. He turned around and descended the stairs, leaving her alone in the flight box with her thoughts.
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The next four days were spent with Xavier and Arabella keeping their interactions to a minimum. Xavier offered to return her bedroom to her but she demurred, insisting he needed it more. She took a couple of naps during the daytime after their first night of travel, fitfully sleeping on the lounge’s sofa. When Xavier dared to venture to the galley during those times, he could tell she wasn’t truly sleeping. She looked so uncomfortable, with her long legs scrunched up on the sofa, hands tucked beneath the thin decorative pillow under her head.
Guilt chewed at him. Guilt, shame, anger, and fear of the unknown ahead. His blustering about academic positions aside, he was truly at a loss for how he was going to continue living once they reached England.
You forgot to add ‘lust’ to that list.
The reminder popped into his head as he crept past a sleeping Arabella to the dirigible’s galley. He didn’t touch the scant tea leaves in their tin and instead used the sink’s pump to pour some water in a cup. Lust. There was that, too. His physical attraction to her was frustrating and unwanted. It was yet another reason he avoided her as best he could, for fear he would make an idiot out of himself. It was so difficult to be dignified and put together when one didn’t have any clothes and had to stay covered up in a sheet or blanket. He’d even checked Arabella’s closet out of desperation and found she had nothing that would fit him.
She was nearly as tall as he was, and slender. Her flight clothes were tailored for her, with hardly an inch of fabric to spare. She didn’t have so much as an oversized shirt he could borrow, not even a nightgown.
That was curious, but he preferred not to dwell on why she might not own one.
In bare feet, he shuffled back to the bedroom, cup and a fork in hand. He told himself he would return the fork as soon as he got bored with it. It had been sitting in the tiny sink, left over from when he and Arabella had shared a couple of her hardtack biscuits for their evening meal the night before. She had used utensils to carve off crumbly bits and delicately eaten them.
Neither of them had spoken much. The silence, save for the hum of the dirigible’s helium engine, had been nearly deafening. Xavier hadn’t known he could be unnerved by it after being the only human in Antarctica for so long.
Arabella shifted on the sofa. “Xavier.”
He paused, bedsheet wrapped around his waist. “Yes?”
“Do I want to ask why you have a fork?”
He looked down at it, the possessiveness over it, the need to hide it under the mattress with the spoon more powerful than his embarrassment. “Why do you think I have it?”
She sighed and stood up, still wearing her flight trousers and jacket. She tucked locks of red hair that escaped their braid behind her ears. She looked exhausted. “I have some jewelry aboard that belonged to my mother. Perhaps you can make a game of it and find it. It’s hidden.”
“Why would it have to be hidden?” Xavier ignored his piqued interest in hunting for the jewelry.
“So my father’s wife doesn’t find it and keep it for herself. She doesn’t have the excuse of being a dragon for her actions.” She tugged at the end of her red braid, messy from sleep. She sighed again, unfastened it, and worked her fingers through her hair. She began to braid it again. “I will require the jewelry to be returned to me at some point, but if it will keep you from total boredom, search the cabin for it.” She slipped a watch from her trouser pocket and glanced at its face. “I’m returning to the deck. We’ll be in Santiago in less than twelve hours. I only want to stay there long enough to replenish the fuel and pick up some supplies.” She gave a pointed look at his bedsheet toga. “You need clothing.”
He tried not to let her loose hair distract him, but it was difficult. “I suppose you want your bed back, too.”
“You’ve been injured. I’ll be fine sleeping on the sofa until we get back to England. It’s only for another few days. We just have to get to Santiago and I can get some proper sleep.” She tied off the end of her braid with a ribbon. “You’d best start looking for that jewelry if you want to keep yourself from going mad with boredom.”
“What kind of jewelry is it?”
She gave him a look that clearly questioned his intelligence. “I don’t have any of it on my person or in a box in my bedroom. You’ll know it when you see it.” She sighed. “There’s a necklace with a ruby pendant and a matching pair of earbobs. They’re genuine and were handed down from my great-grandmother. There’s also a small assortment of paste jewelry that my mother was very fond of and wore every day.”
“What do I get if I can’t keep the jewelry?” Xavier asked. “I know you won’t want me to keep it.”
“What do you want?”
Xavier’s mouth unexpectedly went dry at the question. He knew she probably wouldn’t appreciate the answer.
Her. I want her.
“Uh,” he said, his mind working frantically. “I suppose I get to indulge my dragon’s needs to plunder.” Perhaps she would let him hang on to a paste-filled bracelet. Even if she didn’t, Xavier was still amenable to a treasure hunt for the sake of it.
“Don’t plunder my walls, floorboards, or pipes,” Arabella said. “Don’t tear into or break anything.”
“I won’t, and I’ll find them by the end of the day,” he promised.
“They’re not in my mattress, either.”
The mention of her mattress brought other images to mind that she likely wouldn’t appreciate. “I assumed the mattress would fall under things not to tear into.”
“I wasn’t sure if dragons would be compelled to do such things,” she said.
He shrugged. “It’s not the same as hoarding anything shiny and sparkling.” Already, he missed his diamond-filled underground lair in Antarctica. He tried not to think about how he would likely not be able to return. If he fell out of a South Pole-bound dirigible again, it would set off even more suspicions than the ones he would be raising when he returned to London. He forced himself to focus on the challenge ahead of him. It wouldn’t provide the same thrill as carving out a space for himself in a mountain, but it would have to do. He tried not to think about how he would cope with his dragon’s need to plunder and hoard when he returned to England.
The South Kensington Museum is full of jewels.
He deliberately hadn’t set foot in that museum since he learned he was a dragon shifter. The thought of all the gold and sapphires on display made his teeth and gums itch.
“Xavier?” Arabella’s voice was curious. “You look a little feral. And it isn’t just the hair.”
He blinked, trying to force his mind back to the task at hand. Arabella’s mother’s jewelry. Hidden somewhere on the dirigible. Find it. Perhaps she’ll let you keep a piece as a token of her appreciation. His gaze met hers. “Feral?” He touched his hair. It was longer than was considered fashionable, but he kept it as tidy as he could. Albeit he cut it with a pocketknife he’d had on himself when he first arrived in Antarctica. Of course, that pocketknife was now lost forever.
“You’re missing your spectacles, too.”
Irritation rankled him. “I’ll get another set when we return to England and I’m wearing your bedsheet, too. Is there anything else you wish to criticize about my appearance?”
Her face crumpled for a second, and he thought she was about to cry. Just as quickly, she smoothed her expression. “No, and I apologize. I’m feeling out of sorts.”
“I’m familiar with that,” he replied dryly.
“It’s nothing personal. Please, look for the jewelry if it will give you something to do. Help yourself to Dr. Thaddeus’s Miracle Elixir. I can tell it’s working. You’re up and about and grumpy as usual.”
He wasn’t going to argue over the lack of efficacy of the elixir she loved so much. It was time that had healed him. Time and his dragon physiology. “You should help yourself to a cup of tea,” he urged her. “Before you go back to the deck.”
She nodded. “That sounds ideal.”
He waited until she had prepared her tea, then watched as she climbed the narrow stairs to the deck. He looked around the small living space, anticipation running hotly through his veins.
There was jewelry to be found here, somewhere.