The light from their lantern reached the Metal Man first and showed him hunched over something on the ground. He looked up at them and his mask seemed both fierce and resigned. “I won’t go to prison.”
“You’ll hang,” Andrew said.
“Promises, promises.” The Metal Man dropped out of sight.
Over the thunder of her pulse, Ivana finally identified the sound she heard. It was the rush of water. The Metal Man had opened a hatch to a sewer. One of London’s hidden rivers ran beneath them.
And above them, rain fell.
Ivana made a sign of the cross. No man could survive the sewers when they were in flood. If he wasn’t battered against the walls, he’d drown.
Andrew peered into the hole, then drew back. He shook his head. “No hope.” He got stiffly to his feet. “And perhaps this is kindest. If such as he deserve kindness.”
A strange epitaph. They both paused a moment, before Andrew sighed and shoved the sewer lid closed. It clanged shut with an echoing thud. He stood and put an arm around her.
She welcomed his warmth and life, and tucked herself closer. They walked like that back to the lit cellar. The pathos of its recreation of a normal man’s study, hit Ivana. She rocked just inside the door.
Andrew’s arm tightened. “I know. It’s the traces of his humanity that add horror to the madness.” He raised his voice, put energy into it. “Let’s take the children home.”
Andrew worried about Ivana as they walked slowly through London’s streets. He carried the younger boy, who still hadn’t spoken, and Ivana held Janey’s hand. They walked slowly to match Janey’s steps.
At least the rain had stopped. The clouds had begun to clear, too, leaving patches of stars visible in the sky since the coal smoke was momentarily dampened. The pre-dawn hour had that odd clarity that sometimes occurred; when shadows acquired sharp edges and reflections of moonlight in the puddles appeared crystalline.
Ivana was subdued.
He understood. The Metal Man had been more than a monster. Evil, undoubtedly. But suffering his own demons. The experience was a nightmare they’d never forget.
And not over yet. Andrew hitched the youngster higher against his shoulder as the boy’s sleeping weight sagged. They were headed for the nearest police station. The Metal Man might be gone, but his actions had to be reported, his underground home investigated, and the man he’d called ‘The Chemist’ had to be found. If drugs had contributed to the Metal Man’s moral decline, such drugs had to be stopped from reaching others.
Ivana spoke abruptly. “Just at the end, when he snipped the wire, those razor tips moved independently. Like fingers.”
“I didn’t see.”
She stared at him with huge haunted eyes. “It wasn’t a trick of the light. He had done it, Andrew. He fused man and machine. He was his own nightmare.”
The rattle of cart wheels carried through the sleeping streets. Andrew stopped and looked back, in the direction of the cart’s approach. “Ivana, I’ll buy the cart if I have to, if you’ll agree to take the children to your home while I deal with the police.”
He’d expected she might argue, on suffragette principle, that she could deal with the police as well as he.
Instead, she nodded. “That would be sensible. A police station is not a good place for children. And I’m tired.”
Heart-tired. He knew. Andrew stepped into the middle of the road and hailed a rag and bone man’s cart. Negotiations were short once he showed a coin.
Ivana climbed up and he handed her the children. She settled Janey beside her and cradled the boy. “Will you be all right?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“And you’ll come around to the shop when you’re done?”
“Yes.”
She smiled, a small but genuine expression of welcome. “I’ll make breakfast.”
A simple offer, but one that stole his heart. They were allies, partners; each doing their part. He had to clear his throat. “That would be good.”
The cart rattled off. He stood watching it, then set off himself, Ivana’s directions to the nearest police station clear in his mind. The cart could have taken him there, but he’d be faster on foot—and he wanted her and the children safely away.
The children.
He had started this quest thinking to find Sammy, his cousin’s illegitimate child, and place him somewhere safe. He could arrange a healthy home for the boy, education and money for his future.
He’d been naïve. It wasn’t only Sammy who needed help. There was Sammy’s friend, Kelly. There was Janey and the two other children he and Ivana had saved. There were thousands of other street children. All desperate. All needing help.
He felt the phantom weight of the boy he’d carried.
Good grief, I’m an earl! There ought to be something I can do.
Ivana stared unseeing at the city streets as the cart wended its way to her toy shop. Now that she wasn’t moving, the cool wind cut through the damp wool of her suit. But she didn’t shiver. The cold she suffered was internal.
The night had been traumatic. Its horrors visceral.
What haunted her was the tragedy of the Metal Man’s broken mind and spirit. He’d lived in the past, consumed in regret and rage against fate, consumed perhaps with guilt that he had survived where so many of the men in his command died.
She understood. She had spent five years of her life trying to make up for her friend Alice’s death, trying to prevent other women dying from violence. It had been the sole reason for opening the toy shop. It had become the motivating force in her life—and now she had no other life.
It wasn’t healthy.
You couldn’t live in the past. You had to build a new life. You had to accept past regrets, know that they would be yours forever, and still carry on. That was courage.
The cart stopped in front of the toy shop.
Ivana climbed down.
The door to the shop opened as she lifted down the boy and Janey. Sammy shot out. “You found her!”
The unknown boy whimpered as he woke.
“Sssh.” Ivana nudged a half-awake Janey towards Sammy and the security of her home. “Thank you,” she said to the rag and bone man.
He grunted and departed. The slow clip-clop of his horse rattled into silence.
Sammy and Kelly pulled Janey through the toy shop and into the kitchen.
Ivana walked wearily behind them, carrying the boy. The shadowed shop seemed small. Its work remained important, but she had hidden away in it for too long. She’d refused, as the Metal Man had, to move on.
She left the children with mugs of milky tea and biscuits, and climbed the stairs to her room. She hadn’t the energy for a hot bath, but rubbed her clammy skin with a dry towel till it glowed, then dressed in warm clothes. When she returned to the kitchen, the children had curled up on the narrow lounge and on the floor, sleeping anywhere, as street children learned to.
She sighed and went in search of blankets. Something would have to be done for them.
The scent of bacon greeted Andrew as he walked into the toy shop, with Sammy opening the door for him and gabbling excitedly before sticking out a small hand. “Thank you for getting Janey back, Mister.”
Andrew shook hands formally with his cousin’s son. There was a poignancy to the moment. In his instincts and care for others, in his intelligence and determination, Sammy was everything his father Henry hadn’t been. “You’re welcome, Sammy. And don’t worry, the Metal Man is gone forever.”
“I know.” Sammy nodded. “Miss Ivy said so.”
Andrew found “Miss Ivy” at the stove, cooking bacon and eggs and watching the children eat bowls of porridge. He paused in the doorway to take in the sight of her flushed cheeks, the sparkle in her eyes and the way she smiled at him. “Good morning, Ivana.”
In her plain blue apron worn over sensible clothes, she looked more beautiful than any debutante he’d ever seen. “Sit down,” she invited. “You look tired. Kelly,
pour the earl a cup of tea.”
Andrew put his hat on the sideboard and sat. A sigh escaped him. The small, crowded kitchen was very pleasant after the night he’d spent.
“That bad?” Ivana questioned.
Andrew thanked Kelly for the cup of dark tea and concentrated on adding two sugars to it. There were things to tell Ivana, but not in front of the children. On the other hand, children matured fast on the street, and perhaps a definite ending would save them nightmares. He took a healthy swallow of tea before putting down the cup.
“We found the Metal Man’s body on the bank of the Thames. He’s dead. The police guessed pretty well where the sewer ended.”
“Did you find ‘The Chemist’?”
“No, but the police are taking things seriously and will look for him.”
Ivana shared out bacon and eggs, and began slicing a loaf of bread. Its freshly baked aroma mingled appetisingly with the smokiness of the bacon. She waved the knife a fraction. “Eat.”
The children hadn’t waited to be invited. Bacon was too rare a treat.
Andrew, though, waited until she sat and picked up her own knife and fork. The bacon was hot and crisp.
Sammy wrapped his last rasher of bacon in a slice of bread and slid off his chair. “Come on, let’s play. Kelly, do you have the ball.”
“Yeah.” Kelly slurped up his tea.
Sammy led his little band out through the toy shop.
Andrew watched them go. “Do you know the two new ones’ names?”
“Jimmy is the one we rescued first. Timmy is Janey’s tiny, toddling friend.”
“Jimmy and Timmy. A matched pair.” He smiled.
Ivana refilled his tea cup.
“I can’t just take Sammy,” he said abruptly. “There are so many other children.”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to start a boarding school. Somewhere on the edge of the city, so that as the children age, they can travel in and learn a trade. There are ex-soldiers who can teach them about life, and single women who need employment. Teachers and nurses and people to protect them. I can’t help all of them, but I can help some. And when I sit in Parliament, I can look out for their interests. The government should be ashamed—we all should—that such poverty and suffering is at the heart of our empire.”
“You’re a good man, Andrew.”
“An over-whelmed one. Ivana, you must know women who need this work, and children you’d most like to have this chance. If I might call on you, here, at the shop…”
Ivana looked at the man across the table. She’d spoken no more than the truth. He was a good man. Unshaved, in the rough clothes of his disguise, tired and yet determined, he was nothing like the popular conception of an earl—and everything one should be: an honourable man.
Which made her next words difficult. He was accepting his responsibilities, and she was finding the courage to refuse some of hers. “I won’t be staying in the shop.”
The hope died in his eyes and his smile was wistful, resigned. “You’re going adventuring?”
She took a deep breath and looked at him directly. Time to choose where she would build her life and with who. She responded cryptically. “Perhaps.”
The tilt of her head said, it’s up to you.
Andrew caught the challenge. His smile lost its wistful edge. An eyebrow quirked. He pulled her up from her chair and into his arms.
It felt wonderful to stand in his embrace, to hold him, to feel his strength and know he wanted her. She smiled.
He stared into her eyes and his intensity made the words a vow. “We’ll make our lives an adventure.”
“Holy cow,” Sammy shouted. “Miss Ivy’s kissing the earl.”
Note from the Author
I’m so glad you enjoyed The Icarus Plot. I also write paranormal romance (yes, this is a shameless plea to check it out), focussing on The Collegium series in 2016.
You can find a list of my other books on my Amazon page, including Australian Steampunk, and while you’re there, click “Add Favorite” and Amazon will notify you of my new releases.
Happy reading!
Jenny
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