Beneath a Waning Moon: A Duo of Gothic Romances by Elizabeth Hunter & Grace Draven

Author:Elizabeth Hunter & Grace Draven [Hunter, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Tags: Gothic romance
Publisher: Hunter/Draven
Published: 2015-09-28T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THREE

“WOULD YOU THINK POORLY of me if I confessed to the temptation to drown my mother in her koi pond?" Lenore eyed her hostess over the rim of her pint glass and wiggled her eyebrows.

Nettie Widderschynnes, captain of the Pollux, grinned and raised her glass in a toast. Lamplight winked off the bits of beads, shell and ribbon entwined in her blonde braids. She'd greeted Lenore's sudden arrival on the ship with a spine-cracking embrace and the offer to share a pint in her quarters. "I'd think you were your father's daughter. I'm surprised he didn't do it years ago."

A fundamental traditionalist, Jane Kenward had loathed Nettie at first sight and considered her a low-class, immoral strumpet who dirtied their doorstep each time she appeared at Kenward's workshop to do business. Nettie returned her contempt in equal measure.

A formidable woman of unknown age and even more obscure birth, Nettie Widderschynnes had risen from the gutters of the Abyss to become one of the airship fleet's most experienced captains. She ran her ship with a strict hand and carried a reputation as a fearless captain and even more ruthless business woman. She had no patience for traditionalists like Jane and told her so in no uncertain terms, forever earning the other woman's enmity.

Lenore adored Nettie for all the reasons Jane abhorred her. Encouraged, albeit on the sly, by her father, she had pretended to be Captain Widderschynnes when she was a child, guiding the Pollux on her many runs, capturing cargo and enemy dirigibles for the king. She'd dreamed of joining Nettie's crew, but her mother's stringent disapproval and the progression of her father's illness had insured it remained a dream. Until now.

She put her glass down and folded her hands in her lap, once more silently rehearsing what she planned to say. A golden tide of ale rocked in the glass as the airship gently yawed at its mooring mast.

Nettie eyed her, one eyebrow lifted. "Now this should be good. Every time you do that, I know you're about to spin some scheme. Spit it out, girl."

Lenore took a deep breath and spilled her words in a torrent before she lost courage. "Papa was a great inventor but no banker. There’s debt—a lot of it. The creditors will seize his workshop and everything in it to pay what is owed.” She took a quick sip of beer before continuing.

“He left some funds so that Mama may live comfortably but not enough to support us both.” Arthur Kenward had expected his only child to be married by now, and if Lenore was honest with herself, she once assumed the same thing. “I want to join the crew. Your crew. I'll take any spot—messman, rigger, mechanic, ground crew even—whatever is open. Papa taught me soldering and welding. I can read blueprints and am familiar with propulsion and the concepts of thrust vectoring. I haven't much experience for telegraph or navigation, but I can learn. What do you think? Would you take

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