My Lady Quicksilver ls-3

by Bec McMaster

  Jack shut the door behind them as Rosalind sank into one of the stuffed armchairs. A spring dug into her hip and she shifted.

  Jack crossed his arms again. “Talk.”

  “You haven’t told me about your night,” she said as Ingrid lit the gas boiler to make tea.

  “I’m more interested in yours.”

  There would be no shaking him in this mood. “We were ambushed as we left the enclaves. Lynch and his men were waiting for us, no doubt given the tip by somebody.” Rosalind frowned. “I need to discover who—that could be costly.”

  “What’s he like?” Ingrid asked, looking up from the kettle.

  Intense. Rosalind stilled as unwelcome memory flooded through her body. “Exactly as they say. Hard and cold. And very determined.” The way he’d looked at her—as if he’d tear apart the world to get his hands on her again. She shivered. “I don’t think I’ve seen the last of him.”

  “You should have put a bullet in him,” Jack said.

  “I wasn’t in the position,” she lied, dropping her gaze. “The best I could do was paralyze him with hemlock. His men came while I was getting away and I had to flee.”

  Rosalind could feel Jack’s gaze boring into the top of her head. Looking up, she smoothed the expression from her face. “So tell me about your night. Any luck?”

  Tension lingered in his shoulders, then he blew out a breath and glanced at Ingrid. “We intercepted the coach carrying the London Standard’s editor toward the Ivory Tower. The escape went as planned and one of our men got him out. Unfortunately, a group of metaljackets came and we were forced to separate.”

  Another avenue lost tonight. The editor had printed a caricature in the London Standard of the prince consort with a monstrously deformed head, dangling puppet strings over a wan image of his human wife, the queen. He wouldn’t be doing that again.

  “No casualties?”

  “Not on our side.” Though she couldn’t see it, she could sense the vicious smile behind the mask.

  “And no word of Jeremy?” she asked, looking toward Ingrid with deceptive casualness. Though it rankled, there was no use in her looking for Jeremy when Ingrid’s senses were far better suited. She’d spent the entire month blundering along behind Ingrid, no doubt hindering her. Tonight had been the first night she’d forced herself to let go, to let Ingrid do what she did best.

  This time it was Ingrid’s turn to drop her gaze. “Nothing. No sightings, no scent trail.” Ingrid took a deep breath then looked up, her bronze eyes gleaming. “He’s not outside the city walls, Rosa. If there’s any hope that he survived—”

  “He survived,” she snapped. There could be no other option, for if there was, then she had failed him. Her baby brother, the one she’d practically raised. The world blurred, a haze of heat sweeping behind her eyes.

  Jack’s hand slid over hers and Rosalind looked up in shock as he squeezed her fingers gently, then let go.

  “It’s not your fault,” he murmured, then turned to Ingrid. “And nor is it yours. If you can’t find him, then he’s not there.”

  It was her fault though. Rosalind had been too wrapped up in her cause to pay attention to her brother. Jeremy had fallen in with the mechs, lured by their rough talk and bawdy laughter. He was almost a man, and she couldn’t blame him for wanting the company of other men. It was only when he went missing that she realized how much she’d been ignoring him lately.

  “So he’s not outside the city walls,” she murmured, rubbing her eyes. So tired. “That leaves the city.”

  “No,” Ingrid snapped. “You can’t even think it.”

  The thick wall that circled the city borough kept the riffraff out and the blue bloods in. Inside it was their territory. Their stalking grounds. A world of glittering carriages, fancy mansions, silk, and steel.

  Rosalind slowly lowered her hand. “Where else do I look, Ingrid? He was last seen in the Ivory Tower during the bombing and the bodies were all accounted for. I’d hoped he’d escaped with the few mechs that got away but we’ve hunted some of them down and nobody knows where Jeremy is.”

  “Which leaves the blue bloods,” Jack murmured.

  “Or the bloody Nighthawks,” Ingrid snapped. She shoved to her feet. “And none of us can get near the Guild Headquarters.”

  Nighthawks. Rosalind stilled. The very men who were hunting the mechs—and Mercury. Why hadn’t she thought of it before? “If anyone knows what happened to the mechs who blew up the tower,” she said quietly, “it would be the Nighthawks.”

  Sensing trouble, Jack shot her a sharp look. “What are you planning?”

  Rosalind looked around. “Where’s my file on my lord Nighthawk?” She spotted it on a pile on the table and pushed out of her chair eagerly. “There was an advertisement,” she said recklessly, tearing open the file and hunting through it. Pages and pages of notes on Lynch and his comings and goings scrawled across the page. Know your enemy. “Several weeks back in the London Standard.” Her fingers closed over the piece. “An advertisement for a secretarial position—”

  “No,” Jack snapped, knowing precisely where her mind was going.

  Ingrid looked between the two of them, then frowned. “The position might be filled.”

  “Then we’ll have to ensure it’s vacant again,” Rosalind said flippantly, not averse to kidnapping anyone temporarily for her needs.

  “Roz, this is insane,” Ingrid said. “We don’t have anyone to play the part. I can’t do it, not with these eyes.”

  “But I can.”

  Her words fell into an abrupt silence. Ingrid’s jaw dropped and Jack took a menacing step toward her.

  “No,” he said.

  “This is what I do,” Rosalind replied, knowing where the trouble was going to come from. “This is what Balfour trained me to do.” And perhaps the only thing she was truly good at. Though she hated him, the prince consort’s spymaster had recognized her talents and nurtured them early on. He knew her in a way even Jack did not. The only thing he had ever misunderstood were her limits, what even she could not be coaxed to do.

  Like the day he had asked her to kill her husband.

  The only time she had ever disobeyed him—the cost of which still haunted her at night. Her hand sacrificed to save the man she’d betrayed. And Nathaniel lying dead at Balfour’s hand in punishment.

  “You were too late, mon petit faucon,” Balfour murmured, cleaning the blood from his hands with a rag and eyeing her dispassionately as she’d slumped to the floor from the blood loss. “I gave you five minutes to prove your loyalty.” A furious glance at the bloodied stump with its rough tourniquet. “And so it is proven.” Throwing the rag aside.

  She could barely see him or Nathaniel. Her vision was bleeding black around the edges.

  “Come,” he whispered, lifting the wrist and making her scream as her vision went white. “I shall make you a new hand. And you will serve me again.”

  But she hadn’t. It had been Jack who broke her out of the healing ward where she lay delirious, his own skin acid-burned and bloody from the cost of her betrayal. And Ingrid, the young verwulfen girl from Balfour’s menagerie whom she’d always felt sorry for.

  Because she too knew how it felt to be trapped in a cage.

  “I don’t give a damn,” Jack snapped, his hand slicing the air in a sharp gesture. “Balfour used you. And me. He didn’t care whether we came back from our missions alive or dead, Rosa. Well, I do. I can’t find my brother and I’m damned well not going to watch my sister walk into such a dangerous situation.”

  She couldn’t bear the cost of Jeremy’s loss on top of what she already owed those she loved. “You can’t stop me,” she said simply. “And I can manage Lynch. I know I can.”

  “I’ll chain you to the bloody—”

  “Why are you so certain you can manage the Nighthawk?” Ingrid asked.

  Rosalind backed away from her brother. Avoid rather than fight. “He’s attracted to me—to Mercury rather. I can manipulate
that. Lynch might be a blue blood but he’s still a man.”

  “Christ, are you listening to yourself?”

  She ignored Jack. “It’s perfect. Almost too perfect. As his secretary, I’ll be given free rein to examine his paperwork at my leisure. If he knows anything about the mechs and Jeremy, then I’ll be able to find it. If not, then I walk away and he never sees me again.”

  “That’s if he offers you the position,” Ingrid replied.

  “He will.” Jack shot her a cutting look. “Rosa always gets what she wants, doesn’t she?”

  Rosalind curled her hands over the back of the chair and stared at him. Hard. He didn’t realize it, but that was capitulation in his voice. “Then that means I’ll find Jeremy.”

  “If he’s there. If he’s still alive.” One last parting shot.

  Rosalind hid her flinch. She felt better now that she had a plan. “True. But I need to find out if he is. It’s the only way I’ll ever be able to move forward.”

  Ingrid frowned. “You’ll need to disguise yourself.”

  “It’s one of my talents.”

  “Even your height and scent,” Ingrid muttered.

  “Find someone roughly my height. ‘Mercury’ can make an appearance while I’m with Lynch. He’ll never suspect me.”

  Jack’s face tightened. “So be it. But we do this the way we were trained—and you get out the moment you find the Nighthawk doesn’t have him.”

  “Deal,” she said softly, knowing that she had won.

  * * *

  Fog swirled at his feet as Sir Jasper Lynch strode through the narrow alleyway, his great cloak flapping around his ankles and his cane echoing on the cobbles. Each slap of his boot soles seemed to echo the frustration beating in his chest.

  Crossing Chancery Lane, he caught sight of the grim building that housed his men. Almost all of them were blue bloods, but their infections had been by chance or accident, rather than intention. Only a son from the best bloodlines of the Echelon was offered the blood rites when they turned fifteen. Any chance infections were considered rogues, and they were offered either a place in the Nighthawks or the Coldrush Guards that served the Ivory Tower. Or death.

  Lynch had been the original Nighthawk, but over time the entire guild had come to represent his name. The Nighthawks were legendary in the city, a threat used to cow criminals and revolutionaries alike.

  They’d never once been unable to track their prey.

  Until now…

  The streets were starting to bustle with pre-dawn traffic. A young paperboy with ruddy cheeks from the cold shoved a copy of the London Standard in front of him. “Murders in Kensington! Read all about it! Blue blood gone mad!”

  Lynch slipped him a shilling. The Haversham massacre was being investigated by his man Byrnes, a task he’d usually save for himself but for the importance of capturing Mercury. It had been an effort to keep it out of the papers so far. “Any other news, Billy?”

  The lad wasn’t the only one he used for information. Though they stood in plain sight, the paperboys were almost invisible in the city. “The Coldrush Guards arrested the London Standard editor yest’day, sir. Found ’im in a cellar with a printing press and a pair of ’umanists.”

  “A shame.”

  Billy’s eyes gleamed. “Not really. They was escortin’ ’im back to the Ivory Tower when they was attacked last night. Bunch o’ lads swarmed the metaljackets guardin’ ’em and knocked the Coldrush Guards out some’ow. Them ’umanists, they says.”

  Hemlock darts no doubt. But the interesting thing was that they’d taken out the metaljackets. He’d have to look into how they did that. Slipping Billy another coin, he took a paper for show and hurried across the street.

  The guild loomed over Chancery Lane, an alley running along both sides, as though the row houses on each side feared to touch it. Leering gargoyles kept watch on the roof; inside each gaping mouth was a spyglass that—by use of a clever mirror system he’d designed—transmitted inside images of the street so that his men could keep watch without being seen. Stepping through the pair of glossy black double doors, he found himself in the main entry. It looked like the typical London manor and it was easy to penetrate—not so easy to escape. If he pressed the security breach button a chain-and-lever system would drop heavy iron bars over every opening.

  A faint creak on the floor above drew his eyes upward. From the faint hint of bay rum in the air, he recognized Garrett. Nobody else wore bloody aftershave.

  Lynch took a step forward, then froze as the scent of something else caught his attention. Warm flesh. Linen and the mouthwatering tang of lemon. Just a hint of woman.

  His hunger stirred. He was overdue for his allotted measure of blood. That had to be the problem.

  Garrett appeared at the top of the stairs, lean and stark in his black leather body armor.

  “There’s a woman here,” Lynch stated. “Who is she?” His men knew the rules. All assignations were to be on their own time and not in the guild.

  Garrett sauntered down the stairs. “She’s here for you.”

  “Me?” He paused.

  “For the secretarial position. To interview with you.”

  “Bloody hell,” he muttered, stripping his great cloak off. He tossed it on the hatstand. “I forgot. I thought I said no more women? I want someone with a stronger constitution and more fortitude.”

  “She insisted.”

  “It’s the nature of a woman.”

  “Aye.” Garrett grinned. “That brutal sense of honesty is why you keep a lonely bed.”

  Lynch scraped a weary hand over the stubble on his jaw. That hadn’t always been the case. “It could have something to do with the fact I’ve not been to bed for two…possibly three days.” He considered it. “Definitely three.”

  “I’ll have some coffee and blood sent up. And a plate of biscuits for the lady.”

  Lynch gave an abrupt shake of the head. “Don’t bother. She’s not staying. Blood however…blood would be much appreciated.”

  Climbing the stairs, he paced toward his study on cat-silent feet. All the better to observe. The door to his secretary’s study cracked open an inch. The scent of her was much stronger here. The heavy overlaying perfume of lemon verbena and linen lingered in the air. Some scent she’d dabbed on her wrists and throat he imagined.

  The narrow slice of door presented him with a view of dark blue skirts, the bustle hooked up in a style fashionable almost five years ago. A thick velvet wrap the color of midnight covered slim shoulders and her hat disguised her features. He couldn’t tell whether she was young or old, pretty or plain.

  He could tell, however, that she was examining the enormous map of London that covered the far wall. Red pins dotted the map, carving out a large swathe of East London and red string ran between each pin, creating an incomprehensible spider web for those who didn’t know what it meant—sightings of Mercury that he’d been able to verify or the location of several humanists he’d uncovered. Some he’d left in place. It was enough to know who they were. He had larger prey to catch.

  Lynch’s hand slid inside his waistcoat pocket and the small scrap of leather inside. No perfume there. His fingers had long since rubbed away any trace of scent. But close his eyes and it would be a simple matter to recall the hot scent of her, laced with the burning smell of iron slag in the enclaves and the choking pall of coal. Mercury wore no perfume. His cock throbbed at the thought and Lynch ground his teeth together. Devil take her.

  The woman in his study ran her fingers along the map, the jaunty hat swiveling to survey the room. Searching for something? Or merely bored? He hadn’t asked how long she’d been waiting, though since it was but morning, it couldn’t have been too long. Nobody was allowed out at night between the hours of nine and six during martial law.

  Easing the door open, Lynch slipped inside without a sound. The woman froze, as if she sensed him immediately. Her head tilted to the side, revealing the fine line of her pale jaw and a pair of ro
sy lips. From the prickling uneasiness in her stance and the stiffening between her shoulder blades, she hadn’t been around a blue blood often. No doubt she was one of the working class, her ears full of rumors and superstitions about how a blue blood lusted for blood, their hungers insatiable. Or how the Echelon kept factories filled with human slaves.

  “Sir Jasper.” She turned slowly, the light striking over her fine features. Eyes the color of polished obsidian met his. Lynch stopped in his tracks. She was just past the first blush of youth, but…no…He looked closer. Her tip-tilted nose and fragile features gave the impression that she was younger than she was. Her sense of poise told another story.

  Thirty perhaps.

  Lynch raked his gaze over her. Skin like porcelain, so pale and creamy it almost glowed in the soft dawn light through the windows. Her eyebrows were coppery wings, arching delightfully as she examined him back. He couldn’t see her hair for the hat and netting, but he imagined it was the same fierce copper of her brows. She was slender enough through the torso that her heavy skirts swamped her and her hands were hidden by kid-leather gloves that she hadn’t bothered to remove, as etiquette demanded. To present the wrists or the throat to a blue blood was tantamount to exposing a breast.

  So she did have some experience with blue bloods. Interesting. Lynch had to amend his previous assessment of her. She was wary enough that the experience had not been a good one, he suspected.

  “How do you do?” she asked, pasting a smile on her rosy lips and offering him her right hand.

  Lynch stared at it. “Let us get to the point, Miss—?”

  “Mrs. Marberry.” Slight emphasis on the first word.

  “Married?”

  “A widow.”

  He frowned. “I’m afraid your services are not required. There was a mix-up with the advertisement. The position has already been filled.” His eye caught a letter on the desk, the address written in gold ink. From the Council of Dukes then. He started toward it. “Garrett will see you to the—”

  “Obviously not by a woman,” she replied tartly. “With their weak constitutions and all.”