The Iron Heart

by Leslie Dicken

  Blood roared through his veins, blurring his vision. “Fix me? You created this demon! Without even asking me!” Hugh scrambled back. “I know you’ve been looking for me, but you’ll not catch me. I won’t let you erase the mistakes you made.”

  His brother stood. He was covered in mud, dirt and blood. But his black eyes blazed through the shadows. “I’m trying to save you, you bloody fool, before the constable has you hanged.”

  Lies. How could Bennett say anything but lies to entice him back in that house? He wouldn’t go in. He couldn’t.

  His heart raced, charged and ready for him to take off at any moment. Ready for him to vent his fury at the man before him.

  “Those women.” Bennett took a step forward, then hung his head. “Why, Hugh? Why did you do it?”

  Those women.

  Hugh squeezed his eyes closed but still saw flashes of white skin, streams of red blood. He heard their screams and cries. Their lives slipped away and then there was nothing.

  Suddenly, an excruciating pain exploded in his head and his knees almost buckled. In seconds he would be on the ground and Bennett would have total control.

  Hugh lurched forward. His vision dimmed and all around him shadows grew and shrank like a hellish nightmare.

  “No!”

  His brother trailed him but he couldn’t let him catch up. Despite the piercing agony, Hugh pushed himself forward, blindly ramming through bushes and trees and tripping over logs.

  Until at long last, he no longer heard sounds behind him. Then, in the blackness of night, he sank against the trunk of a tree and dropped his head into his hands. His eyes watered, teeth clenched.

  He started to draw in a deep breath but the loamy odor of wet earth and rotting logs made him gag.

  Damn, damn, damn! Bennett caused this pain. Bennett made this monster. Bennett should be the one to die.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The blasted motor was broken.

  Ellie stared at the printing press, as if she could will it fixed. Only last year, she and her uncle had installed this motor so that she’d not have to crank the press over and over.

  She bent closer to get a better look. It wasn’t just broken. Something was jammed into it. Something that had splintered from the force and bent the inner workings of the small motor.

  Ellie pulled up a stool and dragged the oil lamp closer. She reached for a long tweezers and began picking at the shattered objected.

  How in the world would something have gotten jammed in there? The press functioned properly the last time she’d printed her newsletters. She always cleaned up immediately and her uncle never came near it unless it needed oiled.

  After much wrangling and twisting, a piece came free of the gears. Ellie brought it closer to the lamp. A small piece of silver wire. There had to be more in there, more to cause such a major malfunction.

  Ellie pushed carefully through the gears, gently teasing them apart. Eventually she drew out another piece of silver wire, but this one had something glued to it.

  Once again she brought it directly over the oil lamp.

  Her heart stopped.

  It couldn’t be.

  At the end of the wire was a tiny heart with a now scuffed pearl. This was a piece of Jenny’s favorite hair barrette. Uncle Joseph had given it as a gift on her eighteenth birthday. She’d worn it nearly every day. But it disappeared the night…

  The night she was murdered.

  Ellie dropped the tweezers as if they scalded her skin. They clattered on the table and the broken barrette skittered away.

  Her pulse beat a drum inside her ears. Stomach plunged, knotted. She backed away from the bench and glanced about the room.

  The killer must have possessed that barrette all this time. Wild tears filled her eyes. He must have snuck into the shop and jammed her motor with it. It only made sense that he’d been the one to rip up her paper.

  Had Bennett’s brother come looking for her? Did he know of her relationship with Bennett or was it that she was Jenny’s cousin and threatened to reveal him?

  Dear Lord, was she the next to die?

  Ellie squeezed her hands into fists, her eyes closed. Tears and terror rose up her throat. Air vanished from her lungs.

  He was going to kill her. Bennett’s brother, the one he looked for every night, was out to get her. She lifted her skirt and reached for the gun on her thigh.

  The shop door banged closed. A customer.

  Voices rose in the next room. The killer wasn’t here for her. Not now, anyway.

  Before she even reached the door, she heard Lady Westerling’s laughter and the low baritone of another man.

  As she stepped into the room, the old woman and her uncle went silent.

  Her gaze immediately sharpened on the third voice. Bennett.

  Her pulse skipped, breath caught. He’d come back. Although it didn’t seem as if he’d come to visit her.

  Ellie moved further into the room and noticed two unusual things. First, the front door was locked and the closed sign had been hung. Second, an angry gash slashed a red zigzag down the side of Bennett’s face.

  The cut was swollen and red, but no longer bleeding.

  Her heart trembled. It almost looked like the ones on his back, the ones across the throats of the dead women. But no. Bennett would tell her if he came across the killer. If he’d found his brother.

  Wouldn’t he?

  “Ellie.” It was Uncle Joseph, who stood and put his hand on her arm. “You have finished printing your paper then?”

  She didn’t answer. Now was not the time to mention someone slipping in the house and damaging her motor.

  Something else was going on now. Suspicion weighed on her, slowly building to dread.

  Lady Westerling rose from her stool. “Here, have a seat. We have something to show you.”

  Bennett immediately cleared his throat. “It’s not quite ready.”

  “That is only the perfectionist in you,” her uncle laughed. “It is more than ready for use. Bring it in.”

  Ellie allowed Lady Westerling to lead her to the stool, but her gaze never left Bennett’s face. It wasn’t just his fresh scar giving her pause. His lips were pursed, his eyes guarded. He wouldn’t look at her directly.

  This was the first they’d seen one another since the afternoon in the dirigible. Was his demeanor a reflection of embarrassment from that day or did it have to do with today’s surprise?

  As for her, she felt no embarrassment. No shame. Ellie knew full well what she was doing on that bed. Her heart had given her body permission to fulfill its desires. Even if Bennett didn’t love her, Ellie found bliss. Her own secret heaven. A memory to live with her forever.

  Bennett drew in a deep breath. He was clearly troubled. “I-I do not think it wise. We should continue with the original plan. Just because Ella is here now…”

  “Nonsense.” Lady Westerling waved a fingerless gloved hand in the air. “Now is as good a time as any.”

  Finally, Ellie could take the suspense no more. “Enough. Either bring me in on the secret or I’ll find something else to do.”

  Uncle Joseph nodded.

  Bennett shook his head but passed her on his way to the side alleyway door. His musky sandalwood scent slipped over her in waves.

  “You will truly be amazed.” Lady Westerling squeezed her hand. “I know I am.”

  “Yes, yes,” Uncle Joseph chimed in. “Sheer genius.”

  Suddenly, her heart’s frantic beat didn’t have to do with the delicious aroma of a handsome man. No, the dread had returned. She could only recall one thing that had both of these two so enthralled and fervent.

  Sally.

  The rear door to the shop opened and each of her muscles tensed.

  Bennett emerged without looking at her, which only made her worry deepen.

  “Well?” Ellie stood, drew closer. “Out with it.”

  He flipped a lever on a casing in his hand then moved to the other side of the room.
“Per your uncle’s request.”

  Ellie watched, each beat of her heart thundering in her ears, as a clockwork automaton entered the room. Struck mute, despite expecting it, she stared in awe at the human-like male creation.

  Though clothed as a normal Lundun Commoner, Ellie could see its hands. The skin looked nearly human, much more advanced than the mesh covering Sally.

  In fact, this automaton could be confused with a human, were it not for the glass eyes and stiff movements.

  Her fingers tingled with the desire to reach out and test its reflexes, engage it in conversation. But she must not.

  “Genius, I say!” Uncle Joseph came over to her. “The progress from your mother’s servant is remarkable.”

  Ellie nodded. What he said was true. She could tell this even from the brief presentation of the man. Certainly Bennett’s skill had advanced a hundred-fold.

  She whirled to face the three of them. “Who is he?”

  Uncle Joseph smiled. “I thought you might like to name him.”

  “Me? Why?” Blood pulsed through her veins at frightening speed.

  Over near the back of the room Bennett stood with his arms crossed. He watched her now, his gaze curious, but his lips firm. He looked like he did that day at her mother’s, when Sally rolled out the cake.

  Bennett knew her reaction to automatons. He had seen and heard her wrath several times. It was no wonder he’d been hesitant before, no wonder he would not look at her when she first came in the room.

  Lady Westerling waved at the clockwork and the machine immediately followed her command to stand beside her. “He is perfect. He just needs a name.”

  Ellie’s patience crumbled. She was long tired of them speaking in riddles and half reveals.

  “Why is he here? Is anyone going to tell me?”

  Uncle Joseph picked up her hand and rubbed it between his rough fingers. “I have purchased him as an assistant.”

  She stared his hands encasing hers. “But why would you need one? You have me here.”

  “But not forever. I am holding you back, dear Ellie. You stay here in Lundun to look after me and work in the shop.” He squeezed her fingers. “But there is so much more for you elsewhere.”

  “Elsewhere?” What was he saying?

  “In the Greenlands. At Hilltop House.”

  “Or,” Lady Westerling giggled. “At Barrington Manor.”

  Bennett coughed but said nothing.

  Ellie withdrew her hand and took a step back. Heat blasted across her skin from her chest up to her cheeks. Ears burned, stomach clenched. Yet on the inside, each drop of blood turned to ice.

  “You…you are replacing me with an automaton?”

  Her uncle tilted his head in confusion. “We aren’t replacing you. Merely giving you the freedom to move on.”

  “What if I don’t want to move on?” Her throat tightened. “What if I’m happy right here as things are now?”

  “Oh, you might be content right now,” Lady Westerling answered, before shooing the clockwork off on a task of sorting cogs. “But that will change soon enough.”

  At once, Ellie’s gaze sharpened onto Bennett. This must have been in the works for weeks. Yet, she’d never given anyone the impression she wanted to leave Lundun. Quite the opposite.

  She bit her lip, blinked at them, until possible realizations dawned on her. “My mother put you up to this.”

  Her uncle shook his head. “No, this was not her idea. Although she was quite intrigued and pleased by it once she heard about it.”

  Of course she was! Her mother detested Ellie living in Lundun.

  “Then I can think of only one other thing.” She narrowed her eyes at them. “You are worried about me being safe here.” So maybe there was a killer sneaking in to frighten her. But she wouldn’t run away.

  “Well, let me tell you, I can take care of myself. I won’t ever go off into the alleys alone, plus I have my uncle’s gun.”

  The three of them were staring at her like she’d gone half-mad. Perhaps she had. But the anger and frustration and hurt continued to boil up from her gut.

  Her mother tried to tell her how to live and Ellie resisted until she finally moved away. Damn it all, she was tired of being told where to go, who to see, where she belonged. This was her life.

  If she wanted to give her body to a man who had no intentions of marrying her, she could do it. If she wanted to live in tiny rooms behind a shop instead of a sprawling manor, she could do it. If she wanted to help customers and tinker with gears instead of practice needlework, she could do it.

  “I don’t want to be replaced. I never asked for it, never gave you any indication of it.” She held back the tears, but her voice wavered. “And not only that, all three of you know my strong feelings on these clockworks and yet you expected me to be happy with one living the life I chose?”

  This time it was Uncle Joseph and Lady Westerling who could not hold her gaze. Bennett, however, did not look away. His dark eyes drew her in, almost haunting her with their direct stare.

  Clearly he had a lot on his mind, but none he would say now.

  Finally, the old woman stepped forward. “No one can truly replace you, my dear. We had good intentions. You are young, should marry. Your uncle did not want you to feel obligated to take care of him.”

  Ellie sighed. Now all of them were hurt. Perhaps she was being unreasonable, not thanking them for their kindness.

  But she wasn’t a child. Not anymore. There was no mother to keep her away from her cousin, no long-gone brother for her to live up to.

  She could live how and where she wanted.

  Except now they expected her to leave. And she would have no place to call home.

  “Name him James,” she said and quit the room.

  Bennett shook his head and sighed. “Well, that went over about as well as I expected.”

  Mr. Cooper was sitting on a stool, his head down. Utterly defeated. Lady Westerling patted his shoulder, while the newly named clockwork James continued to sort gears and cogs.

  None of them said anything.

  “Shall I take it back?”

  “No,” the old woman’s voice was firm. “Ella will see that this was well-intentioned and for her own good.”

  Bennett snorted. They didn’t know Ella that well, obviously.

  “She’ll not go to Hilltop. You do realize this.”

  “What about with you?”

  He laughed and coughed at once. Ella in his bed each night. Ella in his bed each morning. The playing they could do in the hours in between. His groin tightened with the ideas.

  Yet, there were other sides to this happenstance. Ella demanding he stop work on every clockwork. Ella demanding to come with him into Lundun each night.

  No. Ella couldn’t possibly stay at Barrington Manor. No matter how badly he yearned to lick her delectable skin.

  “Be reasonable, Lady Westerling. She cannot stay with me.”

  The old woman sighed.

  Mr. Cooper looked up at her. “What have we done?”

  “Now, now, don’t fret. We discussed this at length. It is the right thing for Ella. She shouldn’t be in the city with a killer on the loose.”

  A knot instantly wrapped itself around Bennett’s chest. He found it difficult to breathe.

  Hugh was out there, just beyond his reach. Always beyond his reach.

  He’d been so damn close to finally capturing him. But failed. His brother slipped through his grasp yet again and now he’d never chance another visit back for supplies.

  His heart lurched. Bloody hell. Hugh thought Bennett wanted him dead, he was afraid of him. Worse, he still resented him for the replacement arm and repaired head injuries.

  Now, Hugh was back in Lundun and probably angrier than ever. He could be anywhere. He could find Ella.

  “She should stay with you, Lady Westerling.”

  “Oh?” The old woman glanced over at him. “That’s a brilliant idea. Do you think she would?”
>
  Bennett shrugged. “I’m sure if you offered it to her, she would gladly accept. What other option does she have?”

  “She could stay here,” Mr. Cooper said. “I certainly didn’t mean to force her out.”

  “Nonsense. You aren’t forcing anything. Ella needs to reexamine what she’s doing with her life. James here just gives her that opportunity.”

  Bennett gathered his things then reached for his coat. “Well, since I’m no longer needed here, I’ll be off. Contact me if you notice any issues with James.”

  He took two steps toward the door when gnarly fingers settled on his arm. “Won’t you do an old woman a favor and go speak to Ella? Tell her she can come stay with me until she sorts this out.”

  Every muscle tensed. “Me? Why do you think she’d want to hear it from me?” He wasn’t prepared to be alone with Ella again. Their encounter was nearly a week ago and he’d not had time to decipher the swirl of chaos in his mind. Or the gnawing ache in his chest which began after she’d gone that day.

  Lady Westerling winked. “You know you have a special way with her,” she whispered so that Mr. Cooper couldn’t hear. “Go talk to her.”

  “It’s a mistake. Ella resists everything I say. Just having the words come from my mouth will make her want something else.”

  “Then you’ll have to find another way to convince her.” She nodded toward the hunched man at the bench. “Look at him, he feels awful. You go make it right.”

  Without another word, the old woman pushed him forward, toward the stairs. Apparently, he wasn’t going back to Barrington Manor. Not yet.

  Bennett took the stairs two at a time. The sooner he got this over with, the sooner he could be on his way. The night was young and he had other duties to attend to.

  He stood in front of her door. Had it really been just days ago that he was in this same spot, ready to put aside his need for her tenderness so that he could ravage her?

  He knocked.

  “Go away,” came the voice from within.

  “Ella…”

  “Oh Lord, you? Really, truly, go away.”

  “Listen.” He leaned his forehead against the door. “I don’t want to be up here talking to you any more than you want me here. But I promised Lady Westerling I would try.”