Luck Be a Lady Pirate
1
Savannah, Georgia
September 24, 1906
This was not the first time Catalina Navarro had found a pirate at her front door. Ordinarily, it happened on a schedule, when the visiting pirate had booked an appointment for her services. Pirates, Lina knew, were people like any other. Out of all her clients, they were often the most punctual and respectful. More women were finding careers outside the home these days, but Lina remained an oddity in the eyes of society. Pirates didn’t care, as long as she did her job.
Today’s pirate had no appointment.
In fact, today’s pirate had interrupted an important telephone call with a prominent psychologist. Lina’s insightful comments on the female mind and its complexity—neither more nor less inscrutable than the male—had been cut short by the pirate’s inconsiderate pounding. Now Dr. Goodfellow would go on believing women’s brains could be damaged by too much education and high thinking.
Catalina glared at the woman standing outside her door. Of course it was her. Who else would barge into her life at so inopportune a moment but this chaotic vixen, with her avaricious gaze and her haughty manners?
“Miss Redbeard.” Lina gave no nod or other gesture of welcome. “Why are you here?”
“Where is the biomechanologist?” the pirate demanded. Her pale blue eyes blazed, like ice cold enough to burn your skin. They were irritatingly beautiful, those eyes.
All of her was irritatingly beautiful, in fact, and it had nothing to do with typical cliches such as porcelain skin or flaxen hair. No, it was in the shape of her mouth—the way her lips could form an obnoxious smirk one moment and the sweetest of smiles the next. It was the uninhibited energy in her movements, as if a boisterous child wore the body of a grown woman. It was a face both so artless and so guarded Lina forgot to breathe every time she beheld it.
“Where has she gone?” Redbeard snapped. “Answer me!”
Lina blinked. Blast it all, she’d been caught staring. Usually she had better control over herself than this. It must have been the stress of the unexpected interruption.
“You are looking for Dr. Taylor?” Lina guessed.
“Oui. Dr. Nora. She repaired her house but no longer lives there. Where is she? Did she marry her giant grumpy man?” The pirate bounced on the balls of her feet. Her hands were clenched like she wanted to fight someone.
“As a matter of fact, she did,” Catalina replied coolly. “I can give you her telephone—”
“No. An address. Now.”
And that was exactly the problem with the beautiful Miss Redbeard. She didn’t listen. She simply threw herself into situations and hoped they worked out. Under special circumstances, such recklessness was understandable. It had served Nora well when Redbeard had assisted in a shockingly dangerous infiltration of a villain’s experimental airship. As Lina understood, however, the pirate now on her doorstep lived that way all the time.
She shuddered.
“Nora is in St. Louis,” Lina began, only to be interrupted once more.
“You know where? Her address? Her house?” The pirate tapped her foot impatiently.
“Yes.” Lina drew the word out, debating whether it ought to be the last thing she said in this increasingly bothersome conversation.
“Good. Brigid! Esme!”
A pair of women in not-quite-matching blue uniforms sprang from nowhere to flank Redbeard. Each of them held a knife. Had they been lurking in the bushes this entire time? Waiting to intimidate her, probably.
Well, little did they know, but Catalina carried a knife of her own. She wasn’t an easy woman to intimidate. And she certainly wasn’t rewarding this rudeness with Nora’s address. Especially since Nora would probably smile at everyone and invite them all in for tea. Knives didn’t deserve tea.
“Bring her along,” the pirate captain commanded. “We will learn what we need when we are in the air.”
The words made no sense until hands clamped down on both of Lina’s arms. Brigid and Esme hauled her down the stairs and into the street.
“This way,” said the one Lina thought was Esme. Her tone was distressingly pleasant from someone brandishing a knife and digging her nails into Lina’s arm.
“Is not far.” Brigid’s grip was like a manacle.
“Damn you, you can’t kidnap me!” Lina shouted. Hopefully her neighbors would hear.
Hopefully her neighbors would hear and do something to help instead of phoning one another to gossip about it.
“Your information is necessary,” Redbeard said, sounding perfectly reasonable. She probably believed she was reasonable. She closed Lina’s door—perhaps the only actually reasonable thing she’d done today—and jogged to catch up with Lina and her captors.
Three against one. It was hopeless. Lina couldn’t even slow them down by dragging her feet. The pirate women were too strong.
“It is a matter of life and death,” Redbeard explained as the group hurried down the street. “Even the remaining journey may be too long. We must fly now, as quickly as possible.”
Lina stumbled along, her arms beginning to ache where the pirates held her. “You can’t barge up to someone’s door and drag them away with you!”
“I can.” Redbeard tossed her long blond curls. “I’m sorry. I will return you when I can. Now, we must fly.” Her voice nearly cracked on the last syllable.
Lina sucked in a sharp breath. The pirate captain was distraught beneath her domineering behavior. Lina had suspected from their first, brief meeting that sadness lingered in the woman’s heart, but this was something more immediate. She was afraid.
Does she fear for herself? For someone else? What trauma lies in her past? What troubles grieve her heart now, driving her to this?
“Oh, hell,” Lina muttered.
Now she’d done it. She’d started analyzing the exasperating beauty. Next she’d start sympathizing. Then she’d start longing. To help. To hold. To comfort. Not a good way to squelch the lust she already felt every time their eyes met.
“You understand?” the pirate asked. “You won’t give me trouble?”
“Trouble,” Lina huffed, shaking her head.
As if she could be the trouble. Trouble was a scrawny, golden-haired Frenchwoman with a perfect face and secret pain. Trouble was what Catalina Navarro wanted least.
And maybe also most.
2
Yvette had no time to make nice. Every second brought Olga closer to death, and as the captain, Yvette couldn’t allow that. Not if there was any possible way to save her.
She barked orders to her crew, waiting at their stations in the airship above. The moment Yvette and the others stepped onto the cargo lift, La Liberté began to rise into the air.
Miss Navarro gave a cry of alarm, though she quickly smothered it beneath another furious glare. She could scowl all she wanted. Yvette had more important concerns at the moment than the hurt feelings of an upper-class lady.
“You may release her.” Yvette spoke to Brigid and Esme in French, assuming the American wouldn’t understand. “I doubt she is so foolish she would throw herself off the lift.”
Even Yvette wouldn’t try such a thing from this height. Unless she had a rope she could swing down on. Or a pile of soft materials she could land in. If she timed it right, the canopy sticking out from that nearby building could break her fall.
The sight of Miss Navarro shaking her arms brought Yvette’s attention back to her intended task. This was her ship. She was in charge here. No escape plan needed. And no daydreaming allowed. Daydreams got people killed.
Her stomach knotted. They had to save Olga. The crew needed to know their captain would do all she could to protect them.
The voices pounded in her head.
“Little Yvette made another mistake.”
“Don’t give her any important jobs.”
“Why is she even a Sister?”
“Spoiled princess with her head in the clouds.”
Yvette bit her lower lip. That would not be her. Not anymore. Never again.
The moment the lift settled into place, Yvette vaulted over the rail onto the deck. Behind her, the gate clanked open. Miss Navarro, no doubt, using the door in proper fashion. Proper and Yvette had never mixed well.
“How is she?” Yvette, still speaking French, turned to the nearest crewwoman, a seventeen-year-old Swiss girl in an ill-fitting uniform and sloppy pigtails.
The teenager—one of two sisters rescued during the operation in which Olga had sustained her injuries—gave a tiny shrug of her shoulders. “No change. Clara is watching her. It’s my turn to rest.”
Ah. This twin was Chantal, then. “Go rest,” Yvette told the girl. “You need strength. I’ve brought help.”
The girl shrugged again and wandered off, looking painfully like Yvette’s past self. Lost. Alone.
I will do this. I will save Olga. Clara and Chantal will have the chance to learn and be true crew members.
“Esme, have my cabin prepared for Mademoiselle Navarro.”
Yvette couldn’t help but glance at the woman when she spoke her name. Tall. Proud. Very professional in her tidy white shirt and perfectly pressed skirt. A pair of black suspenders curved around her breasts, highlighting them as neatly as a low-cut gown would have. A deliberate attempt to be alluring in her modest garb? Or merely an accident of fashion?
Yvette knew little about Miss Navarro except that she was a friend of Nora’s and an occasional collaborator. Not a medical doctor, but some sort of lady scientist. Perhaps she could be of use to Olga during the journey.
“Then see that she is escorted to the sickbay to give any help she can.”
Esme nodded. “Aye, Captain.”
“I’m going to the helm.”
Yvette sprinted up to the bridge and slipped into the pilot’s position, giving a nod of thanks to Angelique for taking a shift.
“De rien,” the soft-spoken Black woman murmured. She hurried below, probably to check on Olga.
I will save her.
Yvette’s muscles began to uncramp as she positioned them comfortably on the wheel. This was where she belonged. From here, she could see the entire ship and the sky in front of them. Her hands would be constantly busy, tweaking the steering or adjusting the gauges. Her crew would manage all the other parts of the ship and Yvette could fly free.
She pushed La Liberté to top speed, a feat none of the other women would have dared. But the air was Yvette’s home. Flying was the one task where the noises in her brain always quieted and she could simply be. Exist.
The sky had fallen completely dark by the time her first mate came to take a shift. Yvette stepped aside, a sudden exhaustion overtaking her as she slipped out of her focus. How long had it been since she’d taken the helm? How long had it been since she’d slept?
Zahra took the wheel and Yvette mumbled a word of thanks. A few hours’ rest. That’s all she needed, and then she’d be back, pushing her ship harder, showing her crew she wasn’t a tag-along child. Or, worse, her father.
Yvette stumbled across the deck, down the stairs, and through the narrow corridor to her cabin. Her bed awaited her, soft and warm. A half-night’s sleep couldn’t hurt. The crew wouldn’t let her down.
She pulled open the door, revealing an uninterrupted swath of darkness. Strange. She usually left the bedside light on so she could find her way around. Blasted bulbs, always burning out.
Yvette groped for the switch by the door, flicking it to illuminate the room with the overhead electric light. A woman’s clothes lay folded on her reading chair, and the woman they belonged to lay in Yvette’s bed.
Merde.
She’d forgotten about putting Miss Navarro here. There wasn’t any place else appropriate for a guest, so the decision had made sense, but at the time Yvette had been preoccupied with Olga and the need to take the helm. Even now, she barely remembered giving the order.
“Wha—?” Miss Navarro murmured sleepily. Her glossy black hair spilled across the crisp white of the freshly laundered pillow. She stretched one long, bare arm above her head and the quilt covering her slid down to expose her neck and shoulder.
Heat washed over Yvette’s entire body. There was a naked woman sleeping in her bed. How embarrassing. How thrillingly wicked.
The appropriately piratical thing to do would be to growl, “Move over, wench!” and slide into the bed next to her. But that was too wicked, even for Yvette. She’d never been a good pirate, no matter how she tried.
She grabbed one of the pillows off the bed and pulled the extra quilt from the storage trunk beside it.
“What are you… doing here?” Miss Navarro mumbled, her voice raspy.
Yvette quickly shut off the light and curled up on the floor. “It’s my room,” she retorted. “Be grateful I’m sharing it.”
Rest. She needed rest. Then she could get back to work. Soon enough, she’d be rid of the annoying Miss Navarro and back in her own bed, content with the knowledge that she’d protected her crew and done something right.
For once.