Eleanor’s lips trembled. Now this he had not invented! Her eyelids fluttered, behind her teeth her tongue moved. He could catch a faint glisten of it.
“Graces…Divine Graces, thank you.” Tears blinded him anew as he waited. Waited. Hoping against hope, berating himself for letting his fancy take flight. She could not be. Spark had shot her from barely ten feet away.
Eleanor’s eyes flared. She whimpered and tried to move. “Spark.”
Her voice a mere ribbon of breath, not even a whisper.
He kissed her forehead as gently as he could. Heat graced his lips. He was not imagining things. “He is dead.”
“Leeford.”
Her hand rose slightly. He captured it in his, kissed it all over, whispered thanks through his tears, made an utter fool of himself. He did not care. Eleanor was alive. Nothing else mattered.
“My love,” he said. Repeated the words. Such sweet sound. “Do not ever scare me this way again.”
A half grin, half grimace pulled her lips. She patted her front, slipped a bent metallic plate from underneath the ripped purple satin and gave it to him. “I would like this mounted on a frame above our hearth.”
He laughed. He cried. So did she. “What a blabbering pair we make,” he said when he could talk without his voice breaking. “Divine Graces, but I need a stiff drink.”
“I need a bed. And a boring life afterward.” She rose with him doting on her like a frantic nurse. Even if he could have stopped himself, he still would not have.
“I can provide both. The latter most of all.”
“Good,” she replied, stood with his help. “Lead the way.”
“Look,” Leeford said.
Together, they watched as a veritable armada of small dragons flew overhead, converged on the still-smoking mansion atop the island. Fog shrouded most of it once more, and swallowed the silvery dragons like a cave would a flock of bats returning from the hunt. Except that these had only just begun.
They did not stay to watch. Nothing remained there that interested either of them. He had what he wanted.
While explosions erupted behind them, she guided him—from the safety of his arms, he would not let her walk—to a dragon she had hidden on her way in. He recognized Mr. Clarence’s personal dragon and wondered if the man had lent it or if his little spy had turned thief as well.
He argued with her the entire way that she needed professional medical attention but made no progress so took the dragon home where they found both the house and lighthouse in pitiable state of ruin. Before following them to the “society’s” safe house, Spark and his men had gone through everything, broken what was of no use to them and taken the rest. Most of his machines had been tipped to their sides, ripped open or just plain destroyed. He should have fallen dead on the floor from the despair alone. The work of decades. Gone. But the one thing most precious in his life was in his arms. He would have taken her up the stairs to his room had there been a stairwell left. As it stood, only the great room lay relatively undamaged. So he set Eleanor down on the couch by the window—intact, by a feat of good fortune—while he rummaged around the kitchen for something to drink and eat. He managed tea, banana bread from the ice box, which had been dumped onto its face, and a tall glass of whisky from a bottle under the slop stone. Max’s personal reserve. He pushed the anger away. It would serve no purpose now. It had filled his heart, in one blinding second of rage, he had shot a man in the back and killed him. He would do it again. A thousand times if he had to. But the rage was gone now. Hope replaced it.
“Here,” he said, coming into the great room to find Eleanor resting in the position in which he had left her. She grinned at him when he set the things on the floor at her feet.
Sitting cross-legged, he passed her the chipped cup of tea, broken bits of cake and took a long swallow from the glass. Liquid fire filled his guts.
“Should you make yourself completely drunk and start singing, would you mind if I still fell asleep on this couch?”
“Drunk?” Leeford replied, snorting. “With this pitiful amount?” He downed the glass. “I am a Gunn, my lady. It takes more than that to make one of us drunk. Comes with the constitution, tolerance to the blasted stuff.”
Her eyes rolled around to the destruction then settled back on him. “I am so sorry, Leeford. So very sorry.”
“Do not ever apologize to me again, Eleanor. I mean it. I may be a social leper to my family, a hindrance to the scientific community and a pain in the backside to your ‘society’, but I am still master of my house. There will be no apologies from you under my roof.” He grinned, gestured at the demolished section of roof. “No matter the state of it.”
“You may come to regret ever uttering those words, Mr. Gunn.”
Her smile warmed his heart just as the whisky had warmed his belly. He could live without one, but not the other and vowed to start this very day. He no longer needed the stuff anyway. No point dulling his brain when he had to reinvent everything. Plus, what sort of fool would be going to sleep when he had the most beautiful woman in the world sharing his bed? Or his couch.
“You have lost so much,” she murmured. “Your home, Max. Lily…”
His heart squeezed at the memory of Lily’s horrified shrieks as Spark’s goons descended on them. He had never heard such screams and hoped never to again. “I cannot bring Max back to her, but I will take care of Lily to the best of my ability.”
“What of your work?” she asked.
He patted her leg, lingered for the sheer pleasure of feeling her warmth through the fabric of her trousers. “I will find more things to build. The world still needs tools to make life easier. My life is perfect the way it is now.” He toasted the dismantled table by his leg and drank the last of the whisky.
Eleanor took a sip of tea, grimaced. “I wish I could do something. This is mostly my fault.”
“You have done something.” He set the glass down, knelt between her feet. “You have come into my home, my boring home, and brought your own personal sun to warm and light my life. I could not ask for anything more.”
Tears filled her eyes. After a nod, she set the cup down, made room on the couch for him. Despite his arguments, he was forced to lie behind her or have her come to the floor with him. Unthinkable! The heat of her warmed his tired bones, his throbbing hands and achy skull. He would not change a thing.
To feel Leeford pressed against her back, a protective arm around her shoulders and a long leg wrapped over hers proved the most enticing, loving, undeniable “cage” into which she had ever been held. One from which she would never try to escape.
Just as she was falling asleep, a small crunching sound alerted her. Leeford must have heard it too for she felt him tense, raise his head.
“Someone is coming,” he whispered in her ear.
She reached back for her pistol, grimaced when she hurt herself for nothing. It was gone. Leeford must have left it at the beach.
“Stay here,” he murmured, slipping off the couch and retrieving one of the table legs.
“Wait, I am coming.”
He turned, an expression she had never seen on him before. “Eleanor, please.”
She slipped the dagger from her corset—in the early morning light, she could see specks of dried blood on the blade—hid it along her forearm.
True, she would have been in no shape to fight off an old lady armed with a parasol. For the first time in her life, she would have to rely on someone else to assure her protection. A novel idea and an even more peculiar sensation—trust.
Glass crunched—the poor man was barefoot—as Leeford crept across the great room, plastered his back against one of the intact walls, table leg brandished high. And with his height, the thing almost grazed the ceiling.
Movement beyond the doorway caught her attention. She would have recognized that silhouette anywhere.
“Come to finish me off, Mr. Clarence?” she called.
To his credit, Leeford did not move or m
ake a sound as her former colleague came into the room carrying a small valise in one hand and an envelope in the other.
“You hold very little regard for someone you once respected,” he said, grinning. “Or was it all acting?”
“What do you want?”
“You look well, considering.”
Eleanor sat, failed at stifling the groan of pain. Her chest burned, as did an ankle. With a sigh, she focused on Mr. Clarence’s eyes, never at Leeford. Clobbering the older gentleman to death did not seem beyond his will or capability. Anger narrowed his eyes, thinned his mouth. As much as he was a pacifist, Leeford Gunn could prove to be a force to be reckoned with when anger took him. For a reason she could not pinpoint, Eleanor liked this new angle of his personality. She loved the different layers, the sometimes unguarded, clumsy side of him just as much as his more combative angle pleased and aroused her. A friend had once said the perfect man was three-quarters mildness seasoned with a quarter aggressiveness. He seemed to embody this measure.
“We have always prided ourselves in taking care of our own, even after they have, let us say, chosen different paths. A coach should arrive promptly to deliver supplies. And later, a construction crew will start repairing what has been broken. What can be repaired anyway.” Mr. Clarence put the valise on the floor and the envelope on top of it. “Your things are in the valise. What we could recover.”
“What of Spark?”
“His remains have been cremated and will be sent to his family. With his research, no one will be surprised to learn a terrible fire destroyed his home and killed his staff.” He dug in his pocket.
Behind him, Leeford raised the leg higher. His long jacket parted, revealed muscles corded and ready. The sight of his naked chest and belly fanned the little flame in her soul.
“Here,” Mr. Clarence said, pulling a letter bearing a green seal. “I think Mr. Gunn will find particular cause for celebration in this.”
“What is it?” she asked, eyes still on the face she had known for years. Trust had never come easily to her. Could she? Should she?
“A small token of the Society’s trust in his good judgment. He had applied for a patent last year, before the fair, which had been denied for lack of financial backing. A sponsor, one I trust implicitly, has come forward to endorse the project.”
She nodded at Leeford. He lowered the impromptu weapon.
A small, spiteful part of her took satisfaction in seeing Mr. Clarence’s shock—quickly subdued—when he spotted Leeford walking around him to take the note.
“Mr. Gunn, what a surprise. I had not seen you there.” He took note of the leg in Leeford’s fist. “And well prepared, I am happy to say.”
“Where is Lily now? Is she well and safe?”
“She is safe. As for well, I could not say.” Mr. Clarence cleared his throat. “She seems quite content to live in a world only she can see.”
“A world you forced her to inhabit,” Leeford snapped. “I will go see her at first opportunity.”
“I think she would enjoy that.”
Leeford mmm-ed noncommittally while he read. His eyes narrowed. “So I am to work for another mysterious sponsor? Will you—oh, forgive me—will ‘he’ or ‘she’ come destroy my house should I fail to cooperate?”
“Eleanor trusts you, Mr. Gunn, and I have learned to respect her choices. Too late, I fear.” Sadness filled the dark eyes. “For what it is worth to you, I regret calling you child. One more regret among a thousand in our line of work.” He tipped his chin at them both, turned.
“I said I would thank you if I found Leeford safe and sound,” she called after him. “A promise is a debt, you once told me. So thank you.”
He nodded and left.
Eleanor wanted to say something more, for old times’ sake at least, but could not. She watched her former mentor leave the destruction of Leeford’s house.
“Eleanor,” Leeford said after he flipped to the rest of the pages. “The patents office has approved it all. Everything. The research, the timeframe, the costs.” He sank onto a broken footstool. “My work…” He looked at her, all dazzling blue eyes and mocking grin again, the man she had met mere days before. Returned to her. Intact.
She smiled back.
The rest of the day passed in a whirl of comings and goings. Because Leeford was busy directing workers to and from the lighthouse, she took care of those inside the house proper. Her body clamored for rest, but with all the work to be done, she barely had time to sit, let alone lie on a bed. But the call was strong. And when the workers left, to return the next morning, and the estate quieted, Eleanor sat on the couch and propped her swollen feet on the footstool.
So the Society had given her a severance package. Several thousands of ecus in a trust fund, plus the envelope containing even more for immediate use. She knew where to invest them too. Leeford sorely needed a proper security system to his workshop. And his house. She would make sure to consult the best in the field and make his house the safest in the land. As for her, she intended to take a long break then contemplate her choices of professions at a later date. She had always enjoyed having a young agent in apprenticeship. Perhaps she could use her knowledge and teach political science at a nearby college or university, or rhetoric, or even the fine art of assassination. Ha! Whatever she chose to do, she would stay here by Leeford’s side. She loved the man, the location, the man, the odd way his house was put together, the man… Well.
“That will not do, I am sorry to say,” Leeford remarked from the doorway. His hair stuck out in odd places, dark circles rimmed his eyes but he looked satisfied.
“What will?” She yawned.
“This.”
He strode to her, picked her up, carried her to the repaired staircase and took them with extreme caution, as if he carried an object of inestimable value and extreme fragility. The incongruous thought made her chuckle.
“I have something for you. Something I made,” he whispered in her ear while he pushed the door open with the toe of his boot—he had finally found another pair in the ruins—and deposited her onto the bed.
She was so dirty and the bed so clean with starched linen sheets of the best quality she had ever seen. The Society had splurged on its little exculpation mission. “A bath first, please, I would feel so much better.”
Leeford scratched the dark blond stubbles on his chin. “True. Well, off we go then.”
Grinning, he picked her up again and carried her to the bathroom where she had had the workers fix the peculiar plumbing and assortment of pipes, to their obvious delight and interest.
Leeford ran hot water into the bath, let the level rise before he knelt in front of her, pinched the trim of her corset. “Nothing deadly hidden in there?”
“Let me see.”
She unhooked the first few clips but had to relinquish the rest to him after he gently batted her hand away.
His eyes flared at the bruise Spark’s bullet had left. It spanned from the top of her left breast and spread in a bluish, diagonal contusion over her sternum. An inch or so higher, and it would have missed the corset and its life-saving plates.
Anger flashed in the blue orbs. He clearly fought to keep a straight face. “Maybe I should have shot him in the legs first.”
Eleanor burst out laughing then sobered right away. “I am glad you did not. That would have made you like him, which would have been several notches down in my view.”
He shrugged. “Then maybe the backside then. Let him stew on that for a while.”
While he removed her clothes, he kept muttering about what he should have done to Spark instead of “just killing the monster”. To say she was glad he had “just killed” their nemesis would be quite an understatement. She would never want Leeford to pollute his remarkable character, his inner strength with such unsavory actions.
Once naked, he helped her into the tub, talked about everything—even the weather—while she washed, kept talking when it was his turn to wash, which he did
by letting the water run while activating the “rain maker” he had built. The sight of his naked body, long legs full of bruises, his back too, narrowed her center of attention to things which would require stamina and energy. Both of which she had precious little.
Dripping wet, he insisted on carrying her to bed—her legs would become atrophied if he kept this up—deposited her on the mattress to lie behind her, an arm draped over her. The pads of his fingers triggered an urgent need in her belly. And judging by the lump pressing against her backside, one he shared.
She rolled onto her back. “Make love to me.”
Shock flared his eyes. Leeford opened his mouth to speak, snapped it shut, tried again. When he let his fingers graze her hip, saw her reaction, the mocking grin returned tenfold. “Do you not wish to sleep? Getting shot must be tiring.”
“We never know what awaits us. This could be—”
He shook his head. “This could be the most boring day of our uneventful lives? This is what you were about to say?”
She smiled. “Yes,” she lied.
“Good.” He retrieved her hand so he could kiss her knuckles. “Now what was it you wanted from me?”
“I wish for you to take me slowly, to feel you move inside me. To make love to me.”
Leeford grinned. “You are just indomitable.”
Chapter Twelve
Leeford could well imagine the look on his face. Not rolling over her and doing just that—fortune’s goodness, feel him move inside her—required every shred of strength he possessed. He would take her in slowness, move inside her, make love to her. But first, he intended to properly address the many bruises, the multitude of affronts covering her body. He meant to kiss, lick and caress every hurt from her, every ache and every bit of grief she had suffered.
“Do you think I am one of those weak men who cannot resist the most beautiful woman on Terra? The affront, my dear. Wounding.”
She laughed. He loved to watch her laugh, could wait all day to see those little dimples in her cheeks deepen. A strand of wet hair around an index finger, he “reeled” himself close to her face.
Mechanical Rose Page 18
