The Dark Matters Quartet

by Claire Robyns

  He drew to a halt just inside the door. “What is it, Lily?”

  “I was wondering…” She nibbled her lower lip, meeting his expectant look with a tiny frown. Her heart kicked. “I was wondering how your lady friend is, the one you mentioned the other night. Has your, um, relationship progressed?”

  “Isn’t this crossing one of your ‘frankness’ boundaries?” His brow cocked, but he answered anyway. “Georgina is very well and our relationship is much the same, so far as I’m aware. What is this about?”

  “I have a, um, favour to ask of you,” she said softly.

  He shrugged. “Anything at all.”

  “Would you…” Her tongue twisted on the insanity. What was she doing? But she had to know. She wasn’t the same woman she’d been three months ago and that’s when Greyston had last kissed her. “Would you kiss me?”

  “Anything except that.” His gaze sharpened on her. “Lily, that’s not a good idea.”

  “No, not that. This isn’t about you and me,” she told him. “I just want to…”

  What? Confirm that what we could have had might have been every bit as intoxicating as what I can never have with Kelan? She could barely wrap her own mind around that.

  “…see something,” she finished lamely.

  Greyston shoved a hand through his hair, shaking his head. “Still not a good idea.”

  “Where’s the harm? It’s not like we’ve never—”

  “I promised Kelan.”

  Her jaw slackened as she digested that. “Why would you do that?”

  “He’s your husband, Lily. Permanent or not, he doesn’t want to be a cuckolded husband and I can’t say I blame him.”

  “And I suppose I can be a cuckolded wife and no one would blame anyone,” she retorted, thinking of her and Evelyn’s theory about Whites.

  Greyston gave her a blank look.

  She rolled her eyes. “Regardless, I’m not embarking on an affair. It’s only one kiss, Greyston, please?” She slanted a smile up at him. “Why don’t we call it a science experiment? No McAllister could disapprove of that.”

  As she’d hoped, the combination of McAllister and experiment swayed Greyston right over onto her side.

  “Why the hell not?” He stepped closer, his knuckles grazing beneath her chin as he lifted her mouth to him.

  But he didn’t lean in for the kiss, not immediately. His gaze held hers, a sun-tipped caress that heated through her in a hundred different places. In a hundred different ways. Padding the hollow in her stomach. Fluttering her pulse with a shivery expectation.

  And when he lowered his head and his lips touched hers, tentatively, lingering and tasting, a delicious warmth spread through her. She reached for him instinctively, clutching the front of his jacket and tipping forward.

  He groaned, a guttural breath that feathered across her lips as his hands went to her hair, his fingers spearing and anchoring while he deepened the kiss. His tongue plunged inside her with masterful strokes, coaxing threads of desire all the way from her toes on up.

  Lily held on to him, savouring every blissful second of their intimacy. She could still lose herself in Greyston, in the warmth beating in her chest, in the delicious exploration of his kisses. And she might have, if he didn’t abruptly stiffen a moment later, his mouth slanting off hers as he pulled away.

  She could lose herself, and it would be beautiful, everything she could ever have imagined wanting…before she’d started wanting the daunting, ruthless surge of raw potency Kelan had stabbed her with.

  She had her answer, and it was even worse than she’d suspected.

  Greyston was so handsome, charming, slightly wicked, absolutely dashing. He was a man who could claim her heart as well as her passions.

  And if Greyston was no longer enough for her, she was in deep, deep trouble.

  SIX

  The unease that had gripped Kelan since Clitheroe was gradually loosening. Without a doubt, that could be attributed to any number of recent developments, but Armand was the one that had his full attention right now. Knowing Armand, and his lack of enthusiasm for London, he wouldn’t be here unless he’d brought some worthwhile information back from Glasgow.

  When Kelan passed through the entrance hall, however, when his gaze landed on the couple locked in a passionate embrace just inside the front room, all else white-washed from his mind.

  His steps slowed, his fists clenching to contain the onslaught of unfamiliar emotions. He should look away, push this setback aside to deal with later.

  He seemed incapable of wrenching his gaze from the pair.

  As if sensing they were being watched, Greyston’s head turned. Their eyes met for a frozen moment.

  The tension in Kelan’s jaw sent an ache into his back teeth. For the first time in his adult life, he didn’t trust in himself to act.

  He wouldn’t just knock the haze of lust from the bastard’s face, he’d snap his neck.

  He wouldn’t just remind Lily she had a husband, he’d drag her upstairs right now and finish what they’d started. She’d certainly shown she was amenable to either of them.

  And then Greyston’s hands fell from Lily and he stood back, looking as if he might say something.

  Kelan didn’t wait around to hear. He walked on, each step marked with the determination to refocus on the most pressing matter at hand. And that wasn’t Greyston breaking his word, Lily’s impetuous streak, or that public display which would have defeated the sole purpose of this sham marriage if they’d been caught by anyone else but him.

  Even so, by the time he reached the library, the image of Greyston and Lily wrapped around each other was still branded in his head.

  Armand hadn’t come downstairs yet, leaving Kelan alone with no distraction. He paced the length of the room, his muscles strained with a fury that wouldn’t stay suppressed. A fist clenched again, and shot out. At the last moment, Kelan opened his hand and his palm struck the wall. He kept his hand there, his head bent, his heart beating far too fast.

  What the hell was wrong with him?

  He did not lose control.

  That led to mistakes he couldn’t afford.

  He sucked in a couple of breaths, released them slowly.

  He did not let anger, fear, passion, jealously, regret or guilt dictate his mind and his behaviour.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t feel. He did, sharply and intensely, and then he moved on.

  His palm slammed against the wall again. He hadn’t moved on. All these conflicting emotions had been gathering for days, directing him like a damn puppet master, he just hadn’t been aware of it.

  He shoved away and crossed to the window, staring out over the small patch of manicured lawn. The rose garden at the bottom was in a full bloom of reds and pinks and whites. Above, the sky was darkening with heavy clouds that threatened an imminent deluge. Kelan cast his mind open over it all, reaching for that soft point of focus outside of himself that heightened awareness and anticipated a stroke of danger a fraction of a second before the naked eye. But that seventh sense proved useless now when the threat came from inside him.

  He half-wished Greyston would sift back through time and rewind that kiss. But that wouldn’t undo their intentions and it wasn’t the whole of it anyway.

  He brought his gaze inside, turning from the window to adjust his perspective on all fronts.

  It wasn’t in his nature to examine emotion. Analysing his feelings, especially after the fact like a bloody post mortem, was a waste of time and energy. He planned ahead to avert disaster and, when that failed, he reacted to the best of his ability.

  His philosophy was practical and efficient. And it wasn’t working very well when it came to Lily, he admitted.

  And if there was one thing he excelled at, it was adapting to whatever his life next demanded of him.

  He leaned back against the window ledge, his gaze rooted to the symmetrical patterns on the Persian carpet as he mentally picked up the threads he’d dropped over the
preceding days for evaluation.

  Losing Timothkin was an inconvenience.

  The revelation of Lily’s recklessness was terrifying. He still didn’t know what haunted him more, that she had no idea how careless and idiotic her actions were, or that she did indeed and had gone through with it anyway. It wasn’t a miracle she’d survived, it was an anomaly not even God could reliably turn in her favour next time around. Kelan had never felt such a crippling impotency before. What was he supposed to do? Keep her under lock and key until she understood how much her death would cost? What was at stake?

  More than that.

  Lily was his responsibility.

  She was his wife.

  He refused to lose his wife, especially not to a damned demon.

  But it was becoming increasingly obvious that keeping Lily safe was an impossible task when he had no sway over her.

  He’d seen the chance and he’d seized it. Taking Lily into his bed was no hardship. She was beautiful. When she wasn’t trying to bury all that passion, she came alive to his touch. Those provocative breeches skimming her curves had gone straight to his blood, thickening his desire with an insatiable hunger to devour, to be consumed. Claiming his husbandly rights, both in and out of bed, was the kind of pleasurable solution that could send a man searching for problems.

  This seemed like the perfect place to stop. He’d still have to knock Greyston off his feet, but he could live with that. Call it motivation to remind Greyston a man’s honour was bound to his word.

  Movement across the room lifted his head.

  Greyston stood there, paused in the doorway for a beat before entering. “That wasn’t what you think.”

  “You don’t know what the hell I’m thinking.” Kelan unfolded his arms and pushed up from the ledge.

  Greyston dipped his head, giving that some thought. “Then I’m sorry.”

  The troubled look in Greyston’s eyes gave him away. Whatever he said or did, he cared for Lily. It tore at him to have to apologise for kissing a woman who’d once belonged to him. A woman he believed would always belong more to him than she could ever belong to Kelan.

  “It will not happen again,” Greyston added to the silence.

  He sounded sincere.

  Kelan didn’t doubt him, and it had nothing to do with trusting Greyston at his word. Once Kelan claimed his wife in full, Greyston would turn his back on that relationship for good. He’d see Lily with any other man as a betrayal. With Kelan, while they all lived under the same roof, with their history of adversity, it would be paramount to treason.

  A satisfactory conclusion so far as Kelan was concerned.

  Then why was he feeling uncomfortable in his own damned skin again?

  “Where is Lily?” he asked, more abruptly than he’d intended. “I assumed she’d be interested— Ah,” he cut off as Armand finally appeared. “I was beginning to think you’d run off back to Glasgow.”

  “Not even to avoid your scathing humour, my lord,” Armand replied dryly. “I’ve been travelling for two days.” He inclined his head at Greyston. “I broke my journey at Cragloden and saw the Red Hawk has returned.”

  Greyston’s eyes sparked with interest. “Did they send a message with you?”

  Armand shook his head. “I was already on the road to Edinburgh when I spotted them overhead.”

  “Mrs. Locke will inform them I’m in London,” Greyston said, then turned to Kelan. “I’d like to send an Aether Signal.”

  “I have access to a Signaller,” Kelan told him, “but that doesn’t help you. There’s no one at Cragloden who knows how to receive the message, or who’d even bother to check the Signal Chamber. The Baston and Graille Dirigible Company operate a mail service, you know. A letter shouldn’t take more than a day or so to reach Cragloden.”

  “I’ll send one in this evening’s post,” Greyston decided just as Lily swept into the room.

  She gave Armand a dazzling smile. “I’ve ordered us a pot of tea and some sandwiches to tide you over until supper, if you’d like.”

  Kelan raised a cynical brow. “Would those sandwiches be fit for human consumption?”

  Her smile strained caustic-sweet on him. “Should I ring for Mrs. Fettle so you can ask her?”

  “Is that our new housekeeper?” Kelan said absently as he contemplated that smile along with the rest of Lily. Her colour was high and he’d hazard a guess it wasn’t from the flush of kisses—his or Greyston’s.

  Her gaze was crystal clear…stinging. She was angry. At him. He couldn’t imagine why. He wasn’t the one who’d gone directly from her arms into another’s.

  “The housekeeper doesn’t start until Monday,” Lily said. “Mrs. Fettle is our new cook.”

  His jaw hardened with jealous, possessive urges.

  He pushed back at it. Irrelevant. Founded solely on his male pride. In the absence of being able to change the past, he’d let this one go.

  He put that into practice with a friendly smile. “Then I look forward to cancelling my plans for Whites this evening.”

  “Oh, please don’t feel obliged on my account.”

  “I intended to, anyway,” he murmured, only just noticing the others had retreated to the arrangement of chairs before the unlit fireplace and Armand was in the process of unlatching a thick, leather folder. “But now I look doubly forward to it. Come, let’s see what Armand has brought us.”

  Lily walked a wide circle around his proffered arm and took the seat beside Greyston. “That looks like a schematic of some sort,” she said, leaning forward as Armand unrolled a heavy sheath of paper almost as wide as the low table they sat around.

  “A blueprint of a dirigible, or so I’m told.” Armand glanced up at Kelan as he joined them. “To me, it looks more like something Blue Beard might have commissioned.” He slid the paper the right way round for Greyston’s point of view across from him. “I thought we might benefit from an expert’s opinion.”

  “You consider me an expert?” Greyston eyed the man with suspicion.

  “In piracy?” Armand managed to look suitably subservient. “Certainly, my lord.”

  Greyston shouted out a laugh. “Very well, then, let’s see...” He pulled the blueprint closer, his concentration deepening as he poured over it.

  Kelan moved to stand behind him, peering over his shoulder. The main diagram, a deck plan, did indeed resemble an illegal shipping vessel. Sunk low in the hull, both the foredeck and the aft were reinforced with iron, the kind of provision normally made for carrying cannon. On closer examination, what appeared to be a row of portholes on either side was in fact each labelled as a ‘6-inch gun’.

  Kelan drew back. “That’s a damned warship.”

  “An Aether Warship,” Greyston said. His finger slid to the smaller, Starboard elevation. “The curvature of the hull is for slicing air, not water. And here…” His finger traced the numerous mast poles. “These are not sail masts… Part of a support structure, perhaps? For either a hard or soft shell to cover the top of the ship.”

  “This is a preliminary drawing, or maybe just one out of a set of blueprints.” Greyston turned to Kelan with a grin. “But if this beauty’s out there, I’d be tempted to trade my firstborn for her.”

  Kelan wasn’t impressed with the man’s enthusiasm. “You and many others, including a King Demon.”

  Lily sat back in her chair, worry furrowing her brow. “You’ve always maintained demons have no interest in dirigibles. That they’d never risk crossing any expanse of ocean.”

  “Except the narrow channel between us and the continent,” Kelan said grimly. “The very thing my Dirigible Restriction Act is meant to prohibit.”

  Greyston’s head bent in Lily’s direction. “The threat of being shot out of the sky isn’t much of a threat at all, not with the amount of armoury this Aether Warship is designed to carry.”

  “It’s barely a deterrent,” Kelan muttered.

  “We don’t have to start worrying until we know for sure if this ha
s anything to do with Agares’ plans,” Greyston told her gently. “If demons are even involved.”

  “We might not have to start worrying at all,” Armand piped in. “I found the blueprint in a safe built beneath the floor of Winterberry’s office. When I asked around, no one at the factory seemed aware of it. Certainly, no work had yet begun on the build. If Lord Adair is right, and the blueprint is incomplete, perhaps this is just a vision of Winterberry’s mind that he never took further.”

  While Kelan was inclined to agree—and trust—his man, he was growing more wary of being complacent by the day.

  “It’s far too ambitious anyway,” Greyston said. “If you look at the dimensions, there’s no technology available that could keep a dirigible of that weight and size in the air and propel it forward at any viable speed.”

  “Another reason to be more vigilant,” Kelan said. “The Queen has asked me to attend her at Westminster over the next couple of days,” he explained as all eyes turned on him. “Delegations of foreign dignitaries are descending from around the world to discuss trade agreements with England. Its an informal affair of sentiment and ferreting out the current tide more than anything else, but our Dirigible Restriction Act always comes under fire when the talks turn to Aether Trading.”

  “You think this has something to do with Timothkin ingratiating itself to the queen?” said Greyston.

  “Possibly, assuming demons are turning their attention to dirigibles.” Kelan waved a hand across the blueprint. “And all the facts seem to be pointing to that right now. Agares set Timothkin up in position for the House of Commons. It also wanted something out of George Winterberry and Steam Precision Works. What if Agares was covering its agenda from all sides? As Greyston indicated, the warship may well have proven too ambitious. Which would explain why Agares gave up on Winterberry so quickly after we banished Saloese. Scrapping the Dirigible Restriction Act is the only remaining option to get it across the channel to the continent, and a lot further from McAllister reach.”