by Bec McMaster
"My very big boots," he replied, a strange glitter in his eyes, "which are suddenly the topic of discussion among the female Rogues, though I can't quite work out why."
Memory repaid Adele with a sudden flash of Ingrid announcing, in all seriousness, "It has some sort of correlation with the size of a gentleman's feet, I've heard."
"That's ridiculous," Ava had replied. "That's the least scientific theory I've ever come across."
"Well, you're the scientist. In the interest of disproving the theory, you should test it," Lark had replied. "Use Kincaid's boot size as your sample."
"Kincaid?" Ingrid snorted. "I'm going to examine His Grace's boots, since Adele is so unforthcoming."
Ava looked dubious. "To properly test a theory, one would need a larger field of data. And I am not going to go about measuring the size of the gentlemen's boots in the house."
"Oh, no," Adele blurted.
What had she told him?
What had she told the other ladies?
"Oh, yes," Malloryn purred. "Bathe, drink your tea, and then meet me downstairs. Apparently, you're officially a Rogue now, which means we have schemes to plot. No matter what kind of condition some of us may be in."
Chapter 20
"What have you got for me?" Malloryn asked as he followed Jack and Ava through the cellars the rest of the Rogues had affectionately called Dungeon II. "Have you two managed to decipher what this Prometheus Project is all about?"
The most reclusive member of COR, Jack spent most of his time down here, fiddling with strange devices and creating weapons for the rest of the Rogues to use. And Kincaid liked to tinker.
"It looks like schematics for the control chip the latest metaljackets have," Kincaid said, leaning over the design Gemma had sketched for them.
The former mech knew everything there was to know about automatons after years of being trapped in the Echelon's enclaves, where they had been created.
Gemma sipped her tea as she followed Malloryn. "Control chip?"
Light flared to life in Jack's eyes. "If these schematics are what we think they are, then they're designed to control an automaton of some sort."
"Each squadron of metaljackets required a handler with a control box. They were brutally effective in number, but severely limited in what they could do on an individual scale," Kincaid added. "So the prince consort ordered a new ceremonial model that could be programmed individually. The contract wasn't finalized by the time he died, but the design was in place. They're designed to patrol a specific section of a building. You plant frequency transmitters in the walls, which communicate with the receivers in the automaton's head, so the metaljackets don't patrol beyond their limits."
Jack gestured with his hands. "We think that if someone replaced the chip inside a metaljacket with another, somewhat like this, they'd be keyed to obey the new instructions."
"Which makes the tower's metaljackets a weapon to be used against us." Malloryn scrubbed at his mouth.
"But how does Balfour get inside the Ivory Tower and replace the implants?" Gemma placed her cup on its saucer with an agitated rattle. "When Obsidian was under his control, he spent weeks trying to work out how to get past the tower's defenses."
"Maybe that's why he needs Sir George?" A frown of concentration drew Kincaid's brows together. "Adele's father used to own several manufacturing factories, and I think he had shares in the Ironmonger Enclaves."
"Which produced automatons."
"Household automatons. Not metaljackets," Kincaid replied. "They were created in the King Street and Oldgate enclaves. But Sir George has mechwork knowledge, contacts, and access to the tower."
"Kidnap him?" Gemma suggested, glancing at Malloryn.
Which was precisely the sort of thing one wasn't supposed to do to one's in-laws, though Malloryn knew Sir George didn't care for him.
The feeling was mutual.
"Not yet," he replied. "I'll need more proof if I'm to bring it to the queen and make it official. The membership rolls list our enemies, but if used in a court of law, then they may argue they are merely that. Membership lists. I need cold, hard proof."
He'd barely managed to get the queen's approval on Corvus, though considering it happened after he'd actually kidnapped the bastard, the queen had been in somewhat of a quandary. "If I start publicly arresting members of the Rising Sons, the entire Echelon will be up in arms. The queen wants everything to go smoothly for her celebrations."
"Bloody politics," Kincaid muttered under his breath.
"And unofficially?" Gemma joked. "I may know a dhampir who excels at making people disappear. He owes me a favor or two."
"I'll consider it."
"There's a slight problem with your theory," Ava interrupted. "This isn't the sort of thing that could be done in a short amount of time. And you have two hundred metaljackets in the tower. It would have been noticed. I don't think the metaljackets could have been tampered with."
"So back to the drawing board," Gemma grumbled.
Malloryn stared at the thin lines on the paper. "We can't afford to dismiss the fact it might have been done. Jack, I'll need you to work out how to detect if a metaljacket's been altered."
"You could just clear them out of the tower," Gemma suggested.
"And have Balfour know we're onto him?" Malloryn arched a brow. "I want to lure him out, Gem. Not make him scuttle back into hiding. Or use another weapon against us that we won't see coming."
"But what is he planning?" she asked.
"An attack on the tower."
Gemma rolled her eyes. "Very droll, Your Grace."
"Before you head upstairs for the meeting, Your Grace, may I show you the latest batch of designs?" Jack asked.
"Ooh." Gemma clapped her hands together. "New weapons? You shouldn't have, Jack. You do know the way to a girl's heart."
"You are not getting your hands on anything. You ruined my blast shield. That thing took me months to create."
"I only tested it," Gemma replied. "It's not my fault the design was flawed."
The scarred inventor limped toward a rack on the wall. "I've been experimenting with several new bullets, using the same design as the Firebolts." He tossed Malloryn a bullet. "Full of colloidal silver. Burns a blue blood, burns the hell out of a dhampir."
"A Firebolt will tear a hole in an enemy," Malloryn pointed out.
"Then you had best make sure your aim is exceptionally good if you're surrounded by friends," Jack replied smoothly. "This way you won't kill anyone, but you'll incapacitate them." He grabbed a smooth orb made of brass. "Ava helped me with this design. It's a recreation of a Doeppler Orb, used by a group of humanists several years ago to release a toxic gas that could drive blue bloods mad. Ava's managed to create a means to transfuse the Black Vein serum into a gaseous state when the Doeppler Orb is activated."
"I managed to distil it into a perfume bottle too," Ava said brightly. "One spray and it's in the air."
"I can't see any potential problems with that at all." An injection of Black Vein was toxic to blue bloods, dhampir, and vampires, and deadly within minutes. "Except for the fact none of us can use it."
"That's why it's not for you," Ava chided. "I made it for your wife. A little 'Welcome to COR' gift."
It hadn't escaped his notice everyone was going out of his or her way to include Adele.
He didn't quite know what to think about that.
"And for anyone else," Jack said, tossing Malloryn a breathing mask. "This will do in a pinch."
"We managed to get some vital information out of Corvus," Malloryn said, as the rest of COR gathered around the dining room table.
Jack and Ava had spent all morning searching the room from top to bottom, and finally managed to find the listening device Balfour's agent must have set inside. He'd told them not to destroy it, just in case he wanted to send Balfour on a wild goose chase.
"We've confirmed Corvus, Devoncourt, and Sir George Hamilton are the three leading members of the Ri
sing Sons, though Dido is the one who controls them."
He watched Adele's face as he mentioned her father's name. Though she paled, she didn't protest.
"Corvus admitted there's some scheme with the metaljackets that Balfour is hatching, though Sir George was handling it and Corvus didn't seem to know many of the details. He's mostly in charge of recruiting, since he owns the club and is the perfect lure for the disenfranchised. Devoncourt's in control of munitions."
"So they have explosives," Gemma mused. "But we need to get to Devoncourt to find them."
"Or Sir George to work out what this scheme involves," Jack murmured.
"Byrnes and Ingrid, think you can track our erstwhile earl?" Malloryn asked.
"Consider it done," Byrnes replied.
"We'll handle the metaljackets plot. Sir George is awaiting a final piece of information they need to get this scheme off the ground, though their informant is withholding it until a certain payment comes through. Apparently, Sir George is furious. Doesn't want to look the fool in front of Balfour. The informant's supposed to be in attendance at Lady Haynes's ball tomorrow night, where the transfer is intended to take place. He and Sir George had some sort of falling out years ago, and Mowbray doesn't trust him to hold up his end of the deal."
"Mowbray?" Adele lifted her head from her hands. "There was a letter to a Mr. Thomas Mowbray on my father's secret desk. He was an old business partner who part-owned one of the factories Father had invested in."
"The one and the same," Malloryn confirmed. "We need to attend Lady Haynes's ball, to see if we can get some eyes and ears on this transfer. Think you're up to it, Duchess? I believe we were both invited, were we not?"
Adele looked like she had a little color back in her cheeks. "I'm not the one who's going to turn heads. Lady Haynes is going to think it the coup of the year to have your illustrious presence in her ballroom."
"As well as my cousin, Lady Beechworth, and her husband, Dmitri Grigoriev, a Russian prince," he replied, gesturing to Gemma and Obsidian. "Think you can get them past the door?"
"Oh, please," Adele replied. "Give me a challenge, Malloryn. You may all be lethal in dark alleyways and gambling dens, but the Echelon and its ballrooms are my territory. I can get them in. Just don't kill anyone, or I'll never be able to show my face in society again."
"I'm sorry, my lord."Sir George bowed his head as Balfour lashed out, kicking the desk in his study over.
"Sorry?" Balfour snarled. "Sorry? I told you not to commit anything to paper."
"They didn't take anything," he growled out, "except for my bloody paperweight."
"And you're certain they were inside your private study?" Balfour demanded.
"Yes. The floorboard is rigged to alert me should anyone break in."
Balfour strode to the fireplace and depressed the sun symbol. This was what he got for relying upon others.
"Do you think they found the map?" Jelena murmured to him as they ducked inside.
"They couldn't have. I burned it yesterday."
Balfour made Sir George examine the room. "Nothing else's been touched?"
"Nothing. I've checked everything."
Jelena knelt in front of the desk, examining the lock. "Someone's picked it. There's a faint scratch on the lock."
His fingers curled into fists. "Then we need to move the explosives. Tonight."
"But they couldn't know what the—"
"They'll know," he snarled. "Move every stockpile tonight, or I'll remove your throat. And make sure all of those bloody automatons are in place. We're so close to completing our plans. I will not suffer any more incompetence." He turned on Jelena. "I want the Duke of Malloryn distracted. Keep him away from rest of the Rising Sons. I don't care how."
"Trust me," she purred. "I know exactly how to do it."
Chapter 21
There was another body that night.
Malloryn made his way through the evening fog of Brompton Cemetery, his steps slowing as he saw the gathering around a familiar headstone.
Garrett Reed awaited him, the entire area cordoned off by Nighthawks. "Another message from your friend."
Malloryn flicked a glance toward the girl's body. White gown, bloodied gore spattered all over her chest, her body draped in front of the headstone like an offering.
Like a reminder.
Malloryn examined the familiar calling card that bore his name. He wanted to tear it into little pieces. Perhaps even burn it. Instead, he breathed out, forcing the rage from his lungs.
This was what Balfour wanted from him.
Pain. Suffering. Tormented memories rising to choke him.
He couldn't give in to it.
"Who is she?" Garrett asked. "Do you recognize her?"
"No." He knelt at the girl's side, reaching out a hand to slowly close her eyes. This one hadn't died easily. Her face was a rictus of horror, her hands scratched and bloodied. She'd fought, even at the end. "Have you worked out the identity of the first girl?"
"Miss Millie Vane," Garrett replied quietly. "A butcher's daughter."
"Send me her details," he murmured, standing and tugging his gloves back on. "I'll arrange for the funeral to be paid."
And money to be given to the grieving family, to try and make their lives easier in some small way.
It would be the least he could do, for bringing this nightmare into the homes of an innocent butcher and his family. All because the girl resembled Catherine.
Malloryn glanced at the tombstone.
Miss Catherine Tate.
Along with her birth and death dates. Two simple lines that told no one of the horrors of her murder.
I'm sorry. I'll stop them.
There was no answer. There never was. Only the wind blowing through his hair and stirring his coat.
Slipping the bloodied calling card in his pocket, he turned toward the gate.
There was no point lingering.
He couldn't do a damned thing for Catherine.
But perhaps he could finally bring her peace.
And protect those who still lived.
Plans were in place, half the Rogues trying to track vital members of the Rising Sons—such as Sir George and Devoncourt—which left Malloryn with the silence of his thoughts as he returned to Hardcastle Lane.
He'd heard Gemma giggling in Adele's room about something to do with corsets—the pair were becoming thicker than thieves these days—and with the dead girl's body on his conscious, he'd chosen to avoid them.
He wasn't in the mood for giggling.
Nor his wife's company.
As much as her state last night had amused him, the ease with which COR had accepted her into their ranks bothered him a little.
She wasn't supposed to be a part of this.
And she wasn't staying.
But pointing this out to Gemma had only earned him an arched eyebrow and a little smirk. "Keep telling yourself that, Malloryn."
They all seemed to think something was happening when it wasn't.
He couldn't allow anything to happen.
Malloryn found himself in the training room, staring at the enormous padded automaton some of the Rogues occasionally fought. Stripping down to bare feet and trousers, he set the machine running and started warming up tight muscles as he ducked and dodged its swings.
He wasn't a complete bastard, but he'd always presumed the arrangement he and Adele shared suited them both. And if it didn't, then it didn't truly matter for they'd both been at odds. A cold war of words begun the day he slipped the engagement ring on her finger, which had only escalated the closer their wedding day loomed. While he certainly hadn't been entirely innocent, neither had she.
Yet....
It was almost as if he'd come to enjoy the daily trading of barbs, the swift uppercut he received in return. The second her face lit up with the intense flash of emotion when they sparred, he'd known he'd won, but there were moments when his jaw would clench and he'd be forced to concede the floor to her
.
Their marriage was a battleground, a constant lingering tension, and yet he couldn't deny that Adele was the only woman of his acquaintance who wasn't afraid to go toe-to-toe with him. He'd even secretly respected her for it.
Everything had changed in the blink of an eye.
A single photograph.
His wife in another man's arms.
Or.... If he was being honest with himself, this shifting of axis—the complete skewing of his life with Adele—had begun the day she'd given him blood in the Tower.
Attraction simmered between them.
It always had, though he'd been forced to confront the truth of it that day.
To admit to himself that he desired his wife.
Try as he might, he'd never been able to stop his eye from lingering on her nape as he came across her dashing out some sort of correspondence in the library. Toying absently with her pearls, her fingers drawing his attention to the smooth curve of her breasts. Nibbling on the end of her pen, those soft full lips parted slightly. Sometimes he'd pause, and take the moment to peruse her while she was unaware of him.
In those moments, she seemed a different woman entirely, and it hadn't escaped his attention that he was curious about that woman.
Curious about the swift wit that flashed behind those expressive eyes. Curious about the soft gasp she'd made when he came back to himself in the tower, and found himself clasped between her thighs, her blood wet across his lips.
Curious about the whisper of silk behind the locked bedroom door that marked the edges of their respective territory.
The sound of her sheets rustling as she slipped between them chastised him each and every night. When he did sleep, he woke hard and aching, with her perfume in his nose.
And somehow, somewhere along the line, the bloody woman had begun to slip under his skin. No longer an enemy. Not quite a wife. Where then, could he place her?
Malloryn drew to a halt as the automaton ran through its cycles, his bruised knuckles slamming one last blow into its poor defenseless midriff. Who was he fooling? Certainly not Gemma.
