Chapter 2 #3
He’d also been her savior, dragging her out of the gutters—when she’d been that bleeding, discarded coal lass—and tending her in his shop.
Offering her respectable work. Then later, giving her some sense of hope when she had first begun to realize that her life at court wasn’t the safe world she’d been searching for.
She could remember only too well the day she’d returned for her cloak and overheard him discussing secrets that could get a man hanged.
The shock had nearly floored her. Mr. Mandeville, a humanist?
She’d kept the secret to herself for days, tossing and turning at night as questions started to gnaw at her.
Excitement. Finally she’d confronted him and demanded to join the cause.
“Miss Todd,” Mr. Mandeville greeted, though he’d once called her “Lena” and threatened to rap her knuckles if she knocked over any of his clocks.
“Mr. Mandeville,” she replied, proffering the box. “You’re looking well. The summer air must be agreeing with you.”
“Is this it?” His eyes lit up as he saw the box.
A warm spark of something sinfully proud reared itself in her chest. There were very few things she’d ever been good at. “It is,” she breathed. “Oh, you should see it. It works exactly as I’d planned.”
“May I?”
At her nod, he ushered her toward the counter.
The walls seemed to encroach the farther one went into the shop due to dozens of hanging, ticking clocks that loomed off the plaster.
As his apprentice, Lena had grown used to the sight of them.
Mrs. Wade, however, hovered near the windows, glaring at the swinging pendulums from the safe depths of her bonnet.
Mr. Mandeville placed the box on the counter and slid a glance toward Mrs. Wade. “Old Dragon-Breath is still in the dark?”
“She thinks I’ve come to see if you’ve any orders for me.
” The work was steady enough to keep her occupied, though she had to do so under her brother’s name.
A Charlie Todd original clockwork toy went for a rather generous price.
They weren’t always for children either, though Lena took the most pleasure from those commissions.
“Hmm.” Mandeville opened the box and slid his long fingers under the foot-high clockwork. He lifted it reverently and set it on the counter. “Oh, my. Oh, Lena, this is your finest work. He’s utterly magnificent. Wherever did you come by the inspiration for such a thing? I assume it walks?”
Steel overlapping plates drew the eye, burnished to a polished gleam.
The clockwork sculpture was a man, a burly figure carved from iron sheeting and seething with an interior of springs and coils.
It stood on a metal plate, with a windup key at the back.
Heat crept into her cheeks. The last thing she could admit was her inspiration.
She’d never before dared take this image from the sheets of paper she sketched upon to work in iron sheeting.
“It does more than that. Here, let me show you.”
The key grew tighter and tighter to turn. The figure trembled, his rough-hewn face jerking almost with violence. How apt, she thought, then let the key go.
For a moment nothing happened. The virile iron man quivered, and then slowly the gears started turning. The plates slid back upon each other, revealing a swift glimpse of the cogs within. Then a creature began to form, just as wild and fierce as the iron man had been.
Mandeville sucked in a breath. Lena watched his face as he tugged his magnifying glassicals up and peered closer. “My goodness, Lena! It’s incredible. Look at it transform! One moment a man, the next a wolf.”
She put her hand on his. “Wait.”
Breathlessly they both watched as the wolf slid back into the man, the clockwork gears grinding slower and slower, until finally it stopped, caught in transition, the man’s face scowling out over a hint of the wolf’s jaws.
“Well? What do you think?”
Mandeville let out his breath and cleaned his glassicals.
“You truly have a gift, my dear. This is beyond compare. Beyond!” Her heart swelled, until she saw him shake his head.
“However, you’ll never sell it. What on earth possessed you to create such a thing?
The Echelon will have you thrown in the dungeons of the Ivory Tower! ”
“Maybe a year ago,” she replied, glancing over her shoulder at Mrs. Wade. Her voice dropped. “Times are changing, Mr. Mandeville. There’s talk of the Scandinavian Empire sending an embassy to London.”
Mr. Mandeville stilled. “Where did you hear that?”
“There’s a loose grate…in the ceiling of my guardian’s study,” she admitted. “I often do some of my work in the solar above.”
A conspiratorial smile. As though her ingenuity had surprised him.
“Leo was entertaining the dukes of Malloryn and Goethe yesterday morning. It’s not common knowledge yet, but the Council is concerned.”
Mandeville leaned closer, peering at the clockwork transformational through his glassicals.
His attention, however, was all upon her.
“I still don’t see how this changes matters.
The Echelon exterminated the Scottish verwulfen clans at Culloden.
This…this piece stirs dangerous sentiments toward an ancient enemy. ”
He picked the clockwork back up and began to nestle it safely in its box, where it might never again see the light of day.
“The Duke of Malloryn said that the Echelon were considering a peace treaty with the Scandinavian clans,” she blurted.
Mr. Mandeville froze. Both his eyebrows slowly vanished into his hairline. “That’s unheard of. The Scandinavian verwulfen have been at odds with Britain since Culloden. There’s no chance they would agree to a treaty.”
“That’s all I know. Mrs. Wade discovered me and I was forced to go look at bonnets.”
“Goodness,” Mandeville whispered. “I shall have to pass this information on. At once.”
Lena glanced at Mrs. Wade, who was tapping her reticule impatiently. “Do you think I should meet with Mercury? To tell him what I know? Firsthand?”
For months Mercury had been only a dashing figment of her imagination.
As the mysterious head of the secret humanist movement working right here in London, he was little more than cloaks and shadows.
Rumor had it that the Council of Dukes had posted an extravagant reward with the infamous Nighthawks for his capture.
“No. No, I’ll pass the information on. It wouldn’t do at all to have you involved any further. The fewer people who know of Mercury’s identity the safer he is.”
“I would never tell a soul.”
“Oh, Lena, you’re so terribly innocent still.
” He gave her a sad smile. “There are ways for a blue blood to make a young woman tell them everything they want to know. Especially those rotten bastards in the Ivory Tower.” He patted her hand.
“I’ll pass the message on. Hopefully we can use this information.
If this alliance between the Echelon and verwulfen clans goes ahead, there’ll be little chance for the humanists to defeat the Echelon. They’ll be too powerful.”
He slid a folded envelope toward her, beneath a sheaf of orders. “The usual spot, if you will?”
Lena palmed it, pretending to rifle through the orders. Her voice rose. “Of course. Thank you for the commissions. I shall select which ones I deem appropriate.”
“Let me know if you hear more.” A frown crossed his face. “I am most curious about why they’re talking of peace.”
“I will.”
Lena picked up the box with the snubbed clockwork inside and turned her back on him. Pasting a smile on her face, she ignored the curiosity that lit Mrs. Wade’s face and gestured toward the carriage. She was about to make her companion’s day much worse.
“Oh look, we’ve time to visit my brother and sister,” she said lightly, though in fact she’d planned on it.
Mrs. Wade paled. “Not the rookeries, Lena. If anyone sees—”
“We’ll be discreet. And they’re my family, after all—even if they are considered persona non grata to the Echelon.
” She stepped through the shop door into the warm sunshine.
“I’ve a mind to gift Charlie with this toy.
Mr. Mandeville doesn’t want it.” And she couldn’t bear to let it go to waste.
It was the finest thing she’d ever created, even if it bore striking familiarity to a certain hulking brute that she knew.
Not that she’d be seeing him this time of day. She’d lived at the warren long enough to know the times that Will came and went. Midday usually found him asleep after his nightly sojourn guarding the rookery.
Which suited her perfectly.
She wouldn’t care if she never saw him again.
***
If Honoria was surprised to see him so early, she gave little sign of it. Will growled a greeting and strode past. Sunlight spilled through the attic window, dust motes swirling through its beams. The stink of chemical took his breath, with the faint, underlying tang of blood and chamomile tea.
“Blade’s still in bed,” Honoria said, brushing a lock of dark hair behind her ear. “He’s recovering well, though not as quickly as I’d like—”
Nor as quickly as he once had. Will nodded brusquely. “I seen him.”
“Of course.”
It was the first place he would have gone.
Tugging off her magnifying glassicals, she began to remove her apron.
The attic had been sectioned into two rooms, one for Honoria’s laboratory and the other for Blade’s boxing saloon.
Will’d never been in here before. It was solely Honoria’s domain, and while he’d expected sterile benches and equipment, he was surprised by the pair of cozy, overstuffed armchairs by the hearth and the mounds of paperwork.
Honoria struck him as someone who was obsessively organized.
“Can I help you with anything?” No doubt she was almost as surprised to see him here as he was.
Will dragged the letter from his pocket. He couldn’t make heads or tails of it, but Honoria’s inquisitive little mind took to codes like a duck to water. “Can you decipher this?”
She took it, scratching her thumbnail through the waxy substance that coated it. “Hmm. I can try. It might take a while. Is it important?”
“Could be.”
She shot him a look.
“Found it on the men as stabbed Blade.”
The color drained from her face and she glared down at the letter. “I’ll do my best then. When did you retrieve this?”
“This morning,” he muttered. “Tracked ’em into the sewers.”
“Are they still breathing?”
“Aye.”
Surprise widened her eyes—then they narrowed with an expression that was quite bloodthirsty. “May I ask why?”
“The Nighthawks were on me heels. They’ve got ’em in custody, no doubt.”
“That’s not like you, leaving an enemy behind.” Crossing to the bench, she tapped the letter against her lips.
His cue to leave.
As if sensing it, she glanced over her shoulder, eyelashes shuttering her luminous eyes. It felt like a punch to the gut, the gesture so reminiscent of Lena that he swallowed hard. Definitely time to get out of here.
But as he turned, he heard a set of footsteps on the stairs.
“May I ask a favor of you, Will?”
His hand hovered over the doorknob, nostrils flaring. The scent of leather and blud-wein assaulted his nose. Blade. Which meant Honoria had him neatly trapped. He couldn’t be rude and make his escape. “What?”
“Blade suggested I should take a sample of your blood.”
Of course he did. She’d spent the last three years sticking holes in her husband. No doubt Blade thought it high time she turned that obsessive little mind toward someone else. A chill ran down his spine. Needles. Frigging needles.
Seeing the look on his face, she hurried on.
“To see if there’s any chance of finding a cure.
Or vaccination.” With a sigh, she added, “My work here has stalled. Charlie’s not responding to the vaccinated blood the same way as Blade did.
And Blade’s results have reached a plateau for the moment.
His CV levels are sitting as low as forty-eight and have been for six months, thank goodness. ”
The door opened. Honoria’s gaze shot straight past Will. For once, he was grateful not to be the recipient of that diamond stare. “What the devil do you think you’re doing out of bed?”
Blade kicked the door shut with his heel. White as parchment and moving stiffer than an eighty-year-old man, he struggled to catch his breath. “Good to see you too, luv.”
“I gave strict instructions that you were to remain bedridden for the next three days. Then we would renegotiate.”
“Which means she’ll decide if I can or can’t get up.” Blade winked at Will. “I couldn’t stand to be without you another moment, luv. Me ’eart were breakin’.”
Honoria pointed. “Chair. Now.”
Handing Will his bottle of blud-wein, he settled into one of the armchairs by the fireplace whilst Honoria clucked and scolded him. Blade bore it with goodwill, but his eyes sparkled whenever her back was turned.
Will shifted on his feet, but Honoria saw the movement and looked up from where she was tucking a footstool under her husband’s feet. One delicate eyebrow arched in question.
“What’s up, luv?” Blade asked, catching the look.
“I asked Will if he’d consent to having some of his blood examined.”
“You don’t ’ave to,” Blade hastened to assure him.
That was the thing he hated the most now. The hesitant way they spoke around him, as if fearing he’d walk out the door and never come back.
Folding his arms over his chest, he glared at Blade. As if he’d ever abandon him. Without Blade he’d probably still be trapped in a cage, reduced to little more than an animal.
A hot little coal flared to life inside him. If only he hadn’t bloody been there that night. If only he hadn’t heard Honoria ask if he was dangerous, if he could be trusted around Lena…
And then the hesitation.
He’d never doubted himself before. Never doubted his control. Years in the cage had taught him to leash the anger, the beast within. He choked it down, trapped it in solid iron bars—a manifestation of the cage he’d spent ten years in. Nobody could reach in there.
Until Lena came along.
She’d driven him near insane. It was nothing but a game to her, a flirtation, a tease.
A way to test her burgeoning womanhood on someone she thought was safe.
But he wasn’t safe. And he didn’t play games.
After two years of living with it, the edges of the cage had started to grow ragged.
If Blade had noticed the restless prowl of the beast within him, if Honoria had…
Then how close had he been to losing control?
How long had they watched him? Not trusted him?
“Will?” Honoria asked.
“Do it,” he snapped, somewhat harsher than he’d intended. “But hurry up. I’ve got things to do today.”