by Bec McMaster
"Anything I should be aware of?"
Those canny gray eyes gleamed with amusement. "Rosa's not entirely certain what to think of this entire affair. If she picks up her knife, I'd duck for cover if I were you."
"I always duck for cover when Rosa's giving me that look," Byrnes replied, accepting a glass of blud-wein from the butler.
It still felt strange to be invited into Lynch's inner sanctum here. Lynch had taken him off the streets when Byrnes's infection with the craving virus bloomed and given him a place in the world, but he'd never thought of the man as a father, like Garrett did. No, Lynch had been a mentor, one of the few people that Byrnes truly respected. They took dinner every now and then, and Byrnes knew he could go to the duke with a vexing case when he wanted insight, but Lynch's life had drifted away from the course of his own over the past few years. Though once reluctant to step into the duchy's shoes, now Lynch thrived on his involvement in politics and his busy little family's affairs.
"Byrnes," Ingrid greeted.
"Miller," he replied, his tone devoid of any emotion, as he circled the table and took a seat across from her. Being so clearly on display had his guard up, which wasn't entirely fair to her, especially not after last night. His tone softened, "I didn't realize we were both attending tonight. Else I'd have offered you a ride."
"Likewise," she drawled, and turned her attention to the baby. Dinner was to be an informal affair then, if young Phillip was around.
Byrnes held little truck with children—until now, they'd never truly entered his life—but he was struck by how warm Ingrid's expression was as she burbled something to the baby, who promptly stuck her pearls in his mouth. She'd relaxed in a way that he'd rarely seen, and it troubled him.
Perhaps it was her confession the other day; she'd lost her own family as a little girl, and Rosa and her brothers were all she had. He'd known this. But the reality of the situation hadn't struck him until now.
Ingrid wanted children. She wanted a husband and a family of her own, and this was precisely why Rosa had wanted him to be here. To see it.
He met the duchess's dark eyes and felt like he wanted to be ill.
"So," Lynch said, leaning back in his chair, as if Byrnes hadn't just been struck by a revelation that made him want to bolt from the table. "Tell me about these Rising Sons. Just how dangerous do you think they are?"
It was easy to answer, to string sentences together, and put cold hard facts out for the duke's perusal, but a part of Byrnes remained aware of Ingrid, who was playing some sort of game with Phillip involving spoons. The baby was laughing.
A cold clammy hand gripped the back of his neck.
"Vampires," Garrett murmured, leaning back to rest his arm along the back of Perry's chair. "That bodes ill. How many do you think there are?"
"We killed one at Ulbricht's garden party, so there's at least three left."
Garrett and Perry shared a look.
"No," Perry replied firmly. "Don't even think it. I'm not leaving you here in the city to face a vampire alone. Or three."
"If trouble comes," Rosa chipped in, to prevent an argument and perhaps forestall Lynch on the topic, "then Perry and I will take the children out of London. But not yet, I think."
"Malloryn's passed along his findings to the Council of Dukes," Lynch said, looking at Byrnes, "but I wanted your take on matters first. The queen is uncertain whether to declare martial law upon the city, and if we're forced to take a vote on the matter... well, I'd like the facts, at least."
Martial law would send the Nighthawks out onto the street in force, which might be good for the case but would also cause panic among the citizens and lead to potential riots and outbursts in the streets. The revolution was still too raw in people's minds.
"I'd... wait," Byrnes said slowly. "So far these vampires seem to be under the control of Ulbricht's mistress. They're not rampaging through the streets."
"And by voting for martial law," Ingrid pointed out, "we're playing directly into the hands of whoever is behind all of this. Each event so far has been to provoke some sort of response in the populace. These people want the crowd to fear the queen, they want them to start thinking about what happened three years ago, and the second that starts, I suspect these events will increase in intensity. Right now there's a lot of behind-the-scenes work going on. Ulbricht and his crew are building up to something, but they're not there yet."
"You have the full cooperation of the Nighthawks," Garrett told Byrnes, which made something inside him spread its wings.
He'd been overlooked for the job of guild master when Lynch resigned, and had slowly come to terms with it. Garrett did a much better job than he ever would have. But it was nice to realize that his opinion was respected enough for Garrett to offer them to him without objections.
"Thanks," Byrnes said, just as the first course arrived. "We may just need it."
* * *
THE DUCHESS of Bleight was not as easygoing as her husband, Lynch.
Byrnes heard the swish of fabric a moment before Rosa swept into view, bearing down upon him like a Dreadnought, its cannons raised. In that moment, he had a brief sensation of what the French might have thought at Trafalgar. Oh, shit. Just when he'd thought he'd escaped. Pausing in the entry, in the act of tugging his gloves on, he gave her a raised-brow look.
"A moment, Byrnes,” she said, and her voice was deceptively casual. Her dark eyes, however, flashed fire. One might not think it to look at her in all of those green ruffles and pretty pearls, but Byrnes would rather face Lynch over weapons than Rosa. Anyday.
"Something the matter, Your Grace?”
"Don’t you ‘Your Grace’ me. What are your intentions toward Ingrid?”
Byrnes’s eyes narrowed. "None of your business, I believe."
She snorted, and a gloved finger stabbed into his chest like a chisel. "Ingrid belongs to me, and I don't like this at all. You're the last man I'd ever throw her to."
"Ingrid belongs to herself," he told her firmly. "Not you. Not me. As such she can make her own choices in life, regardless of what you think of me."
"I'll concede that point, Byrnes, and I mean no offense, but we all know what type of man you are. You're not the sort to dally with a woman past your interest in her. You don't have marriage written in your future, or children, or all of the things that Ingrid secretly craves."
No, he hadn't been that man. Ever. But last night something had shifted in his perception of what was happening between them. He just wasn't entirely certain what it was.
And he clearly wasn't hiding it well enough, for Rosa's eyes narrowed as she watched him. "What was that?"
"What?"
"That look," she said suspiciously.
"Dinner disagreeing with me perhaps." He turned toward the door, conversation over.
Rosa darted in front of him, and Byrnes stopped short just before he ploughed into her. They both looked down. He had his hands up as if to stop himself and they rested but an inch from a certain area of her anatomy that Byrnes generally pretended Rosa didn't have.
He jerked them out of range before someone shot him.
"That look," she said, highly amused by his panic, "wasn't just dinner disagreeing with you. You were considering something. What was it?"
Byrnes crossed his arms. Interrogation it was, then. Never let it be said that he was afraid to face the worst womankind could throw at him. "Answer me this first: why is she so frightened of rats?"
"This is not an exchange of questions."
"Rosa," he warned. "She practically leapt into my arms when a rat scurried over her foot. She was frightened, and she won't tell me why. I want to know."
Rosa paused. "What do you know of her past?"
"She was stolen from her family and sold to Lord Balfour," he replied promptly, "who by all accounts was a right rotten bastard."
"Well, that is succinct." With a sigh, Rosa continued, though hesitantly, "She's only ever spoken of this to me once, Byrnes, so cons
ider this a matter she's extremely reluctant to deal with."
"I won't say anything."
"Imagine being a little girl, stolen from your family and placed on a ship by men who don't speak your language, and don't consider you even human. She wasn't the only child taken, either. There were two other girls in the hold, and a little boy in the cage next to her. His name was Viktor, and he'd sustained quite a beating in his capture. And, like most ships, there were rats."
Byrnes shifted uncomfortably. "What happened?"
"Viktor didn't survive," Rosa said, quite brutally. "You can imagine what the rats did to his body, and what she had to see. Ingrid would walk into a burning house to save someone she loved and not bat an eyelid, but rats... She's terrified of them."
"She's still looking for her family."
"Wouldn't you?"
He looked away. This was more complicated than he'd expected. "We have a... challenge set in place. If I win three challenges, she'll allow me into her bed. Those are my intentions. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a vampire or two to catch.”
"Byrnes.” Rosa caught his sleeve as he opened the door. Those eyes were molten chocolate as she looked up at him.
"I’m not your husband, Rosa. I’m not going to fall for those innocent eyes. I know exactly who you are, and what you’re capable of." He couldn't forget that she'd once been an assassin, despite the fact that Lynch seemed to be able to.
"But do you know who Ingrid is, and what she’s capable of?”
"Rendering a man senseless, or tearing his head from his shoulders? She’s verwulfen, Rosa. I know what she can do. I've seen her take on a vampire, after all.”
"But do you know what it means, to be verwulfen?”
He paused then. There was something beneath the words that he couldn’t quite identify.
Rosa took his hesitation as intended. "Verwulfen are passionate and loyal and completely enslaved by their emotions. The Scandinavian verwulfen often mate for life, and when their partners die, they rarely take another. They refer to marriage as mating, and when they do so, it is only ever once. Ingrid’s wary when it comes to letting a person into her life, but when she does… it’s forever. If she falls for you, then she won’t let you go. Not in her heart, though she may watch you walk away. She has her pride, after all, and Ingrid has learned how to adapt to loss. Sometimes I fear that a part of her won't accept any man as her mate, for fear of losing him, but... I hope that one day she will find someone."
"And that someone is not me," he said coolly, his fists clenching at his sides, even though rationally he could admit that he agreed with the duchess.
"That someone is not you."
Byrnes looked away. It was one thing to know that she spoke the truth, quite another to... accept it.
"If you become her lover and you walk away, where does that leave her? Alone? Pining for someone who doesn’t give a damn about her? She's lost enough in this lifetime, don't you think?”
"Who’s to say she’ll fall for me? After all, if it’s not the first time she's been with a man….”
"This is not the same,” Rosa told him firmly. "She won’t speak to me about you. Just changes the subject. She’s never hidden a man from me before, nor avoided me, which means that there’s something different about you. I don’t like this.”
The floor felt like it tilted, just a little, beneath his feet. And the image of Ingrid bouncing that chubby child on her lap returned with full force, a gut punch that made his nostrils flare. What was he thinking? That he wanted her despite the fact that he would be the worst thing for her?
"What I am saying, Caleb, is that if you intend to pursue this, then step lightly, and be certain about your intentions. Because if you break my friend’s heart, I’m afraid it will never mend, and then I shall make it my business to haunt you until the day you die. Do you understand?”
He stared at her for a long time. "Quite.”
* * *
"YOU WERE QUIET TONIGHT," Ingrid said, gathering her skirts as she descended the stairs at the front of Lynch's house.
Byrnes paced in the driveway, staring at nothing. There was a remote set to his shoulders, as if he'd subtly withdrawn from the world. Or perhaps her. Ingrid frowned, her steps slowing. "Are you all right?"
"Just lost in thought," he said, and it felt like there was more distance between them than just a foot.
A chill ran through her.
Something had changed. She knew it, though she didn't understand it. "Rosa is just meddling. I didn't know that you'd be at dinner tonight. She's just trying to figure out what is going on between us. Don't pay her any mind."
"Ingrid," he said, peering down at her with some strange expression on his face. "Maybe you were right? Maybe the debris we'd leave behind wouldn't be worth the risk."
Her heart stuttered to a halt. She wasn't surprised. She couldn't be, as this was what she'd been trying to tell him all along. As much as the fire burned between them, ultimately they were too different to belong together. But she hadn't expected it to hurt quite as much as it did.
Nor had she expected it to happen so soon.
Rosa had done this. Her friend had swept from the room on Byrnes's heels, leaving Ingrid to try and disengage Phillip's fat little paws from her pearls.
"What did she say to you?" she demanded.
To his credit, he didn't bother to deny it. "The truth. That you and I come from different worlds, and that we have different futures in mind."
"So you don't want to complete your second challenge?"
Byrnes looked away. "Maybe tonight was a reminder that the stakes might be too high. We'd damage more than just ourselves if this ended badly. Jesus, Ingrid. I don't know."
"Then it's over?" Before it had even begun.
"Maybe... we'd best take a step back? Think things over before we go rushing into anything?"
Which meant it was over. Ingrid nodded, tugging her gloves into place. She didn't care, truly she didn't. This was nothing more than she'd expected. Why then was there a lump in her throat? "I'll hail the hackney then," she said, turning to lifting her hand to hail a steam carriage as she stepped out into the street.
And tried not to let her hurt show.
NINETEEN
IT WAS ONE thing to declare someone bad for you, quite another to make your body believe it. Especially when they were forced into close proximity with each other until this case was solved. All Ingrid could think about was the taste of Byrnes's mouth and how much she wanted to lose that bet. It even stole into her dreams at night, leaving her tossing and turning until morning.
Which was when Ava saved her with an invitation to go question a man about the Doeppler orbs. Henrik Doeppler was dead, but rumor had it that he'd once had an apprentice.
Ava caught her in the hallway. "I’ve found a lead, but I need someone to go with me to... to...."
"Intimidate the suspect?" Ingrid had replied, with a wolfish smile.
"Something like that," Ava answered, sharing a conspiratorial smile. "I've seen how Byrnes and Perry used to work together."
The once-apprentice, Bartholomew Hayes, owned a small shop near Farringdon where he catered to the stages in Covent Garden. Ingrid hopped down out of the carriage she and Ava had commandeered as it let out a hiss of steam. The windows to Hayes's shop were full of automata, as well as a range of devices she couldn't quite make out. He was no blacksmith of the Royal Academy, but he seemed to have managed to eke out a well-to-do living, judging by the sumptuous velvet beneath the displays.
"Hullo," Ava called as she pushed open the door and entered. The bell rang. "Mr. Hayes?"
A thin woman popped up from behind the counter, raking the pair of them with a sharp gaze that probably weighed them to within a pound of their worth. "Mr. Hayes is busy, ma'am, but I'm sure I can help you. Mrs. Hayes, at your service."
Ingrid leaned on the counter as Ava launched into the spiel of why they were there. There was a back room just off the counter, and it was fill
ed with a listening silence. "So you see," Ava murmured, as she reached the end, "we would very much like to question Mr. Hayes about the orb."
"I can take a message, ma'am," Mrs. Hayes's smile held teeth. "But I'm afraid he—"
"Why don't you just fetch him out of the back room?" Ingrid broke in, eyeing the woman and letting the wild within her show. "He's standing right there listening to us."
Ava wanted intimidation, after all, and as much as a part of her hated to do this—to be what everyone in London suspected verwulfen were—they needed information.
Mrs. Hayes nearly collapsed a row of shelves as she scrambled away from the flare of bronze in Ingrid's eyes, her heartbeat rabbiting in her chest loudly. "What do you want with him?" she demanded shrilly. "My Bart has nothing to do with this... I see everything that runs through the books, I do!"
"Is that why he's sweating so badly right now, and his heart is pounding?" Ingrid inquired sweetly, before raising her voice. "I do hope he's not thinking about running. That would be a very bad idea. If I have to chase him down, well... I'll be most put out."
The curtains parted and a lean young man stepped through, his Adam's apple bobbing. "That's not necessary," he told her firmly, though the icy glaze in his eyes told another story. "Dolores, will you put the Closed sign up, and go see the butcher about dinner?"
Mrs. Hayes's lips thinned, but with a parting glance at Ingrid she complied.
Silence filled the shop, broken by the jingle of traces and carriage wheels outside. Several clocks ticked on the walls, and the eyes of numerous automaton stared blankly at her as Ingrid moved to tug down the small curtain over the door.
"What do you want?" Hayes demanded the second she did so. "I don't know anything."
"You do know how to make one of these," Ava told him, pulling the Doeppler orb out of her reticule. "You're possibly the only one who still knows."
He frowned, turning it over in his hands. "Yes, I made them." Handing it back, he met her stare. "Two months back. Three crates of them. Why?" Sweat darkened his upper lip. "They can't do anything dangerous by themselves."
