An Improper Derailment Chapter Forty
Start the adventure from the beginning.
Wind and rain buffeted The Profound Name.It lurched side to side, losing altitude with a swiftness that left Mary and Marshall hanging in midair for seconds—until either gravity made them catch up, or The Profound Name rushed back up to them.
“Is there any way we can… is there any way you can make it stop?” Mary cried.
“It’s a storm, Mary. What do you expect me to do? Land this ruddy ship? We’d be on the ground if I knew how to do that,” Marshall yelled back.
The ship continued to lurch and spin as if it were caught in the eddies and waves of the actual ocean, instead of being suspended and floating in the air.
The ship dropped out from underneath Mary. She screamed as she flailed her arms to grab hold of something—anything. She was not meant for flying, at least not like this.
Marshall wrapped a firm arm around her torso and hauled her against him. He had a firm grip on one of the many ropes that seemed to connect the gondola to the dirigible above them.
“Here. Lash yourself down with this.” He handed her the rope.
She gripped it tightly, unsure of what to do.
“Tie yourself down!” Marshall yelled against the howling wind.
Rain whipped at Mary’s face for a few long moments as she tried to quell the lurching and rise of bile in the back of her throat. It was bad enough that The Profound Name rocked back and forth, but for her body to betray her in this moment was unconscionable. Unforgivable.
She swallowed hard and took several breaths to control the urge to be sick. It wasn’t as if she could fold herself over the railings and empty the contents of her stomach now. It took everything in her to resist vomiting into the night sky.
“Dagnabbit, woman! I said tie yourself down before you get hurled overboard!”
Mary swallowed hard and finally nodded. She wrapped the rope around herself and tied it tightly as Marshall secured the other end to the ship. With another rope he fastened himself to her side.
“I think it might be better if we hunker down instead of standing up,” he said as he lowered himself to the bottom of the gondola.
Mary shook her head nervously. There was no way to be delicate about it. If she needed to be sick, she wanted quick and easy access to the side of the boat.
“I’ll be fine here,” she said with false bravado, as she gripped the railings and prayed to a god she wasn’t certain even existed.
Please do not let me be sick in front of Marshall Hunter.
She had managed to withstand so many atrocities against her person. She had overcome situations that her previous life as a young lady in Chicago society could never have even dreamed of. But she knew this one thing—she would not survive if she threw up in front of that man.
The storm continued to batter The Profound Name back and forth like a cat playing with a favorite toy—constantly swatting at it, only to seemingly abandon it for long, drawn-out moments before pouncing again with an attack that should not have been a surprise.
As the ship rocked, Mary lost her balance and practically fell against the side.
“Mary!” Marshall called out as he jumped up to grab hold of her.
It was all simply too much for her constitution. She was not as strong as she wanted to believe, and this time, when bile burned the back of her throat, there was no swallowing it down. There was no preventing the unthinkable.
She gasped as her eyes met his. Her hands flew to her mouth, and she barely spun away in time to lean over the railings.
Not only was she losing the contents of her stomach where Marshall could witness it—he was holding on to her as she did so. Wave after wave of nausea prevented her from pushing him away. She didn’t want him seeing her this way. She didn’t want anyone to witness such unseemly behavior from a lady.
Her need to be sick quelled while the storm continued to leave her dizzy.
“It’s okay, Mary. You’ll be okay,” Marshall said in soothing tones that she did not deserve.
He should have been mortified, should have been disgusted by her—and yet he was so gentle as he eased her back to a sitting position at the bottom of the airship’s gondola.
“This can’t go on all night,” he said. “It’ll be over soon enough.”
She suspected he was lying to her as she closed her eyes and wished for sleep—or a blow to the head—to take her into unconsciousness.
Will the storm ever end? Tune in next time…
©2025 Lulu M. Sylvian
