Free Charmed Vengeance by Suzanne Lazear Page A

engineer. So does The Laughing Mermaid.”
    “Female yes, but never a lady. ” Winky nodded so vigorously Noli thought his head might fall off. At the very least his stripped cap.
    Making a face, Jeff glanced at his pocket watch. “I’ve need to get up to the bridge. You make sense of your little place here and get settled in. Winky’s going to ready the engines, which usually the engineer does. You should watch and take notes.” Jeff bent down to give her a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll check in on you later.”
    She took the lamp. “I’m glad I’m here.”
    “Me, too.” Jeff left, going back the way he came.
    Noli looked to Winky. “Mr. Winky, would you kindly introduce me to the engines?”
    His brown eyes went alight and he inclined his head. “Why, Miss Noli, it would be my pleasure.”
    Despite the late hour Noli buzzed with too much excitement to sleep. Airship aloft, Winky had returned to his duties below after giving Noli an overview of the engines and the ship’s quirks. She’d concentrated on getting the room in enough order to sleep and would tackle the rest in the morning—such as putting away everything she’d taken out of the workroom so there was room for a hammock.
    Her hat and cape hug on hooks on the door. More hooks on the walls sat at about the right place for a hammock, but she found none. Jeff hadn’t returned, but he might still be needed on the bridge. Noli yawned. Perhaps it was time to find the necessary and peek in on Jeff. If he told her where they stored the hammocks she could get it herself. She’d never slept in one, but it sounded better than sleeping on the floor.
    All ships this class had the same basic layout. She climbed the stairs to the bridge. The common area had a room on one end—probably the captain’s quarters—and a kitchen area on the other, with a sitting room in the center. The bridge should lie on the far side of the kitchen, right at the bow of the ship. Voices came from that direction.
    “What were you thinking, Jeff?” Nearly tangible exasperation dripped from Vix’s voice.
    “We need an engineer. We’re courting disaster every day we fly without one. There’s only so much Winky can do. She has decent general knowledge of airships and she’s an ace at fixing things. She rebuilt that deathtrap of a flying car my father had,” Jeff replied. “She rebuilt the hoverboard I’d given up on. She even built my mother a steam-powered sewing machine out of junk lying around the house.”
    “From all your stories I never realize she was so…dainty.” Vix sounded as if she considered this a detriment.
    Noli stood in the dining area where she could hear but not see them. Dainty? That wasn’t a word usually used to describe her. Part of her preened at the idea. She knew it would make her mother proud. What would Mama of Vix? Noli took a deep breath and tried to squish those thoughts away.
    “Look at her, she’s dressed for a party.” It sounded as if Vix paced the bridge as they spoke.
    “As long as she can work in it, what does it matter?” Jeff replied.
    “This isn’t the place for a lady. You always painted her as a hoyden but … ”
    “They did something to her,” Jeff sighed. “I don’t know if it was the school or those people who kidnapped her, but something’s not quite right. If I let our mother take her to Boston, who knows what will happen. The last thing I want is for her to be taken advantage of or even worse, institutionalized.”
    Noli’s blood went cold at the thought of being sent to an asylum. The words something’s not quite right made her stomach churn. True, something wasn’t quite right, but until her mother mentioned it tonight, she hadn’t realized anyone had noticed. She’d worked so hard to hide it.
    “We don’t know she was actually kidnapped,” Vix retorted.
    “She never mentioned in her letters what exactly happened, but you know she wasn’t here with us.”
    Kidnapped? Kevighn hadn’t exactly kidnapped