And so we'll have to be quick.

"And so we'll have to be quick if we want a poke," Edmund said. "Lucy?" He ran his fingers down her side, bringing on a shiver.

"Here? In the girls' room?" Lucy said.

"All the more reason for speed," Edmund persisted. "Lady Downs?"

Lucy smiled. "Lady Downs most strenuously implores Lord Netherwood to put it to her from behind, with all speed."

As other airship passengers watched the mooring or busied themselves with preparing to depart, Lucy lifted her skirts for Edmund, once her master, now her lover and lately acknowledged half-brother. He spread the split bottom of her drawers and inserted his member between the panels and into Lucy's moist, hot centre. The luxurious indulgence of intercourse in an airship cabin made Lucy feel that this was her second honeymoon, while the hasty conjunction, bent over the seat with her dress thrown up in back to receive Edmund's frenzied strokes put Lucy in mind of an elopement or an intrigue.

And so it was both.

Edmund's ardent thrusts quickly raised him to his climactic joy. Lucy was left stirred but far from satisfied. Edmund considerately blotted her parts with his handkerchief after withdrawing, then helped Lucy arrange her underdrawers and skirts so as not to immediately give the impression someone had had his way with her.

"Lucy," he said, spreading his arms for an embrace and deep kiss. "How grand that we have found one another. Now I must off to the smoking lounge for long enough to convince Sabrina that's all I have been doing."

"Edmund," Lucy said, fixing his gaze with hers. "How grand, indeed, and how strange."

"Tonight you'll have the girls' stateroom," Edmund said.

He let himself out. Lucy took herself to the women's WC to make use of the miniature bidet before the airship grounded and it would be time to see the girls off.