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    Captain Fenna's Dirigible Valentine
    Captain Fenna's Dirigible Valentine
    Captain Fenna's Dirigible Valentine
    Ebook109 pages1 hour

    Captain Fenna's Dirigible Valentine

    By Heather Hiestand

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    About this ebook

    Smuggler Terrwyn Fenna just escaped from Newgate Prison and most of Queen Victoria’s British Air Force is after her. Instead of spending a quiet Valentine’s Day with her infant daughter, it’s time for them to jump an airship and flee Wales. Terrwyn thinks she’s out of harm's way—until the airship finds itself under siege.
    Ian Cavill, an enslaved crewman serving aboard the government airship Defender, recognizes Terrwyn during the battle. He wants to escape the clutches of the government as much as she does. Will joining forces help them rebuild their lives or lead them into more danger? Both have enemies. Both have much to lose. They can die trying...or find a way to survive.
    Captain Fenna’s Dirigible Valentine is a 27,000-word steampunk adventure novella. It is the second release in the Steampunk Smugglers series.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHeather Hiestand
    Release dateDec 22, 2011
    ISBN9781466171374
    Captain Fenna's Dirigible Valentine
    Author

    Heather Hiestand

    Heather Hiestand is the author of many novels, novellas and short stories. She lives in Washington with her husband and son.

    Read more from Heather Hiestand

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      Book preview

      Captain Fenna's Dirigible Valentine - Heather Hiestand

      CAPTAIN FENNA’S DIRIGIBLE VALENTINE

      Smuggler Terrwyn Fenna just escaped from Newgate Prison and most of Queen Victoria’s British Air Force is after her. Instead of spending a quiet Valentine’s Day with her infant daughter, it’s time for them to jump an airship and flee Wales. Terrwyn thinks she’s out of harm's way—until the airship finds itself under siege.

      Ian Cavill, an enslaved crewman serving aboard the government airship Defender, recognizes Terrwyn during the battle. He wants to escape the clutches of the government as much as she does. Will joining forces help them rebuild their lives or lead them into more danger? Both have enemies. Both have much to lose. They can die trying…or find a way to survive.

      Captain Fenna’s Dirigible Valentine is a 27,000-word steampunk adventure novella. It is the second release in the Steampunk Smugglers series.

      What others are saying about the Steampunk Smugglers

      5 Stars! Steampunk adventure at its finest. — Shoshanna Evers, author of ‘Snowed In With The Tycoon’

      "5 Stars! I love how she blended the recognizable, everyday world with the fantasy of an alternate reality, working out the wonderfully intricate details of the story and giving us an airship ride that is believable, enticing and intriguing. — Teagan Oliver, author of ‘Three Truths’

      Captain Andrew's Flying Christmas was a fabulous read, especially for a short novella. Her characters are sweet, engaging and brave in a world of darkness and grime. — Mae Pen on Romancing the Genres

      A fun, lovely story with a happy ending. — Sheery’s Place

      Captain Fenna’s Dirigible Valentine

      By Heather Hiestand

      Copyright Heather Hiestand 2011

      Smashwords Edition

      This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

      CAPTAIN FENNA’S DIRIGIBLE VALENTINE

      COPYRIGHT 2011 by Heather Hiestand

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or Coffee on Sundays Press except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

      Contact Information: heather@heatherhiestand.com

      Cover Art by Delle Jacobs

      Coffee on Sundays Press

      Visit us at http://www.coffeeonsundays.info

      Publishing History

      First Smashwords Edition, 2011

      ISBN 978-1-4661-7137-4

      Published in the United States of America

      DEDICATION

      For Andy

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      Thank you to Viola Estrella, Jacquie Rogers, Mary Jo Hiestand, David Hiestand, Katie Hiestand, and Elizabeth Flynn for editing this story. Thank you to Delle Jacobs for the brainstorming session.

      CHAPTER ONE

      February 14, 1893

      Terrwyn Fenna huddled over the counter of the locksmith’s stall outside Cardiff Market, hoping to shield her face from the freezing wind drying her lips and chapping her skin.

      "Where is Owen this bitter day?" asked a youth in a bloody butcher’s apron, walking by with a caged chicken.

      "Joints are bothering him." Her cousin, Owen, owned the stall. He had stayed in bed that morning and asked her to work for him. She knew she needed Owen to keep housing and feeding her, so she had left her seven-week-old daughter in the care of her cousin’s wife. If only the family could have afforded to locate their stall inside the new indoor market. But any extra money the Fenna family had was sent to the black market builder who was constructing the family’s new airship.

      "Tell him to visit Mary Perkin, the youth, the youngest member of the Bebb family, advised. My mam swears by her liniment."

      "Thank you, I will," Terrwyn said.

      "Stop by my nhad’s stall when you’re done for the day. I’ll give you a ham hock for the pot."

      "Ask your father to set aside a couple of your good sausages too. She rubbed her hands together to generate warmth. I’ll pay for them."

      He nodded and went around the corner. The Bebb family lived just two streets away from her cousin’s cottage. They knew why the Fennas were low on shillings, and that they’d receive a case of French spirits as thanks for past assistance when the airship was operational.

      Cardiff had been a center of smuggling for centuries, thanks to the reefs, sandbanks and cliffs along the near shores that made water travel so dangerous. The Fenna fortunes, long built on the smuggling trade, had fallen three years before when the Blockaders, the law enforcement force keeping the air under government control, had attacked Wales and Sussex-based smugglers the same night. Owen Fenna had survived where Terrwyn’s father had not, and saw the recent retirement of Prime Minister Gladstone as an opportunity to take to the skies again. The new prime minister, the earl of Rosebury, didn’t have the stomach or personality of Gladstone, and smuggling was far more lucrative than locksmithing.

      Terrwyn had had enough of mud and horse droppings herself. She couldn’t wait to have her boots on an airship deck again.

      "I need a key to fit this lock, called a portly, sparsely bearded, middle-aged man, waving a heavy iron box at Terrwyn as he rushed out of the Trinity Street entrance to the market. My bloody wife lost the key to our strong box."

      Terrwyn stared at the glass, iron and stone edifice behind him with longing, wishing her day was spent in the warmth inside. The irritated husband plunked the box down in front of her and she was glad he’d brought it. A locksmith had to have proof the customer owned the lock they wanted a key for, otherwise selling to that customer was illegal. A trained screwsman, or lockpicker, herself, she’d had relationships with less scrupulous locksmiths over the years, but she’d never do business with one at ten in the morning on a busy street.

      With the care of a newborn resting on her conscience, she’d been careful to stay law-abiding. As a fugitive sprung from jail the night her daughter was born, she didn’t want to go back to Newgate Prison.

      The man tapped the box. How long will this take?

      She picked up the box and examined it. A pretty standard lock. Her gaze moved to a rope strung with keys at eye-level on her left. No, they were all too large. The string of keys to her right seemed more promising. She lifted them off the nail and untied the knot, then flipped through until she found the one she wanted. Always one to keep a small workspace neat, she restrung the unwanted keys, knotted the string and hung them back on their nail before fitting her chosen key to the lock.

      "Perfect," she said.

      "It will unlock the box?"

      "After I file it." She worked on it for a few moments, sanding the metal until it turned in the lock easily. When she had the box open, she felt a wave of jealousy at the fat pile of shillings inside. If she broke into this man’s market stall late tonight, perhaps she could take this box and start a new life somewhere with Noelle.

      No, she was honest now, an upright citizen. Besides, her family liberated stores from the government, and only then when times were bad, never from common individuals. One shilling, sir.

      The man plucked one from his box and tossed it in her direction. She grabbed it out of the air and dropped it into the pouch at her sturdy leather belt. Owen had said she could keep a quarter of the day’s earnings for herself.

      An hour later, she was searching through

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