Shimmy and Steam: Book 4 - Penny For The Queen

By Michelle Kopra

This is the fourth book in the Shimmy and Steam series.

While the crew of The Gypsy searches for the golden city, Penny misses her best friend, Lilly. Ever since their kiss, lilly has avoided Penny.

Can Penny find a way to show Lilly they belong together, be for it's too late?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michelle Kopra
• Release date: Jul 26, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476334028

Michelle Kopra

Lives in Texas!

Book preview

Shimmy & Steam

Book 4

Penny For The Queen

By Michelle Kopra

2012 Copyright by Michelle Kopra

Smashwords Edition

Chapter One – Italy

Penny loved The Gypsy.

When she was high in the bright blue sky, with the earth nothing more than a green blue below her, she loved the wind in her hair, and the engines with their rumble below her feet. She felt free.

With a sigh, she slumped on a sack of grain on deck, and stared at the snow-capped mountains across the green valley. Penny wished she were in the air right now. Far from Bolzano and the corpse in the hull of the ship, that had caused her friend so much grief.

Bloody Statz, had to go and get killed before we could ruddy leave, Penny grumbled. I wish we had never met the bludger, or that blower, Isadora!

Hush Penny! Sera looked around for Lilly, than took a seat next to her. You saw the way she looked when he mentioned Isadora might still be alive.

Aye, Penny sighed again and felt the weight of all her troubled sagged on her shoulders.

The two girls sat in uncomfortable silence, each lost in her own troubles.

When did you know you liked girls? Sera tore her eyes away from the two men kissing next to the large wooden wheel.

Penny shook her head. I’d been with lots of blokes back in Brighton before Mum died. It’s not like I ever thought about girls that way.

Not until Isadora showed up.

The sun dipped on the other side of the mountains, the sky looked bruised with blues, pinks, and golds. Penny was not eager to go below to the cabin she shared with Sera. The cramped room belonged to Penny. However, they had bunked here in order to make space for the men from Hammershaus and their leader. The Lord Captain wanted revenge. He had said so before they left Denmark. Penny couldn’t help but wonder if he had planned to kill Statz all along.

What happened? Sera tore her gaze away from Cap and Navi to look at Penny with inquisitive blue eyes. What made you fall in love with Lilly?

Isadora happened, Penny thought.

I’m not sure, I never thought of Lilly as a lover, only a friend. Before you came onboard, Lilly and me were tight. Lady C took a while to warm up, you know, being a toff ‘an all.

The girls grinned at each other.

You never did tell me how you ended up on The Gypsy, Sera pried.

Penny for the queen, that’s me, Penny shifted in the hammock, and remembered the first time she met Lilly and Lady C. I guess I gotta go back to Brighton. With Mum sick, I took a gig in a dancehall. The pay was pitiful, but the boss man paid for Mum’s medicine. He was the tops.

Sera crooked her head and gave her a curious look.

Folks knew me mum. She was a dancer before Da left her. So, she turned tricks on the side for extra money. She taught me what she knew, how to string a fella along. Penny didn’t want to get into the nasty details; she was a different person then. Lots of toffs from London took the train down to Brighton for a bit of fun. Some of them had loose lips. With a bit of drink and the right push, I could get those secrets outta them.

Oh? Sera’s eyes twinkled. Kinda how I started with the queen. She knew I enjoyed my work between the sheets.

Then Mum died. Penny steered the conversation away from the questions Sera seemed eager to ask. With no family to hold me back, I used up the rest of my coin and bought train ticket to London.

That’s when you worked at Tiggy Wiggs? You must have left just before I joined.

My old boss told me to go there, wrote a nice referral an’ all. At first, I thought it an ordinary ole pub. Penny chortled. "Well, you know what sorta place it is. Lady Gladie was a charmer, and the boys behind the