Forged by Desire (10 page)

“That’s not how I—”

“Isn’t it?” Rosa glanced over her shoulder. “Do you know the one thing that changed my mind? The moment I realized that I could lose him—truly lose him. Nothing else mattered anymore.”

“Garrett doesn’t feel the same way that I do,” Perry blurted out, then cursed herself. Now where had that come from? She curled her fingers into a fist and turned back to the sword rack. “Forget I said that.”

Silence followed her as she crossed the room, broken only by the faint patter of rain against the glass behind her. Perry dragged the rapier free and examined the blade, running it between her fingers to feel for the faintest flaw. She took up a rag and the pot of oil that Finch lovingly caressed the weapons with.

The swish of taffeta skirts followed her. “I think that you have worked very hard over the years to keep him from thinking of you as a woman or realizing that your own emotions hold such sway. And now he has realized at least one of those truths, and you are frightened.”

Frightened? Perry pressed her lips together to stifle her retort. She was trying not to ruin their friendship. Fear had naught to do with it. “This is most unbecoming, Your Grace.”

“If you call me ‘Your Grace’ again, I shall box your ears. I thought we were friends. Indeed, I’d hoped.”

“I should like to see you
try
to box my ears,” Perry muttered under her breath, sliding the oiled rag along the blade. She held it up, examining the gleam of fine steel, and then set it aside.

“Don’t tempt me,” Rosalind said dryly. “Do you want to know what I think of the situation?”

“Not particularly.”

Rosalind shot her a humored look. “I think that if you went knocking on Master Reed’s door one night, this whole matter might be sorted before dawn.”

Heat swam through Perry, a flush of both embarrassment and need. In her dreams she was brave enough, but not now. “If Garrett feels anything for me, then why hasn’t he acted upon it? He’s made it quite clear that he’s avoiding me. I’ve seen more of you this past month than him.” She didn’t mention what had happened in the alley yesterday. Garrett had made it quite clear that if she hadn’t come to her senses, he had no intention of stopping.

But that was sex. Of course he wouldn’t turn such an opportunity down.

“There must be some reason he’s been avoiding you. Come now. You’re a Nighthawk, Perry. Why don’t you figure it out, hmm?”

***

“Any ill effects?” Dr. Gibson pressed his stethoscope against Garrett’s bare chest and then tapped his ribs in several spots while Garrett breathed in and out.

“Nothing,” he replied, staring at the white walls of the small surgery. He hated being here. He’d been trapped here for days last month while his body recovered from the crippling injury it had taken. The vulnerability had shaken him.

“Mmm.” Dr. Gibson tapped along Garrett’s back with two stiff fingers. “Your chest sounds fine. No sign of that wheeze that was bothering you at the start.”

“I’m a blue blood—which means everything should be perfectly healed. Are we done?”

“Even a blue blood rarely recovers from a thrust through the heart. If Falcone had gotten his fingers through the heart muscle, you’d be dead. You may put your shirt back on. We’re finished with this part of the examination.”

Garrett stood and picked up his shirt from the back of a nearby chair. “You mean there’s more?”

“I need to take your CV levels,” Gibson replied, staring down at his notes as he swiftly made a few marks.

Garrett froze with one arm through his sleeve. “Is that necessary? I monitor them myself.”

Gibson scratched out another word. “As this is your final examination, I would like to be able to complete your file.” He gestured distractedly at the corner. “The spectrometer is there, if you would?”

Garrett’s heart started pounding in his chest. He slid the shirt up his arm and eased his other shoulder within it. If Gibson saw his CV levels, he’d be required by law to report them. The doctor was a man he considered a friend, but the truth was inescapable.

“How is the autopsy coming along?” he asked mechanically, tugging the soft black undershirt closed over his chest. He had to think of a way out of this…

“I’ll have my reports in by the end of the day.” Gibson looked up, momentarily distracted. He squinted through his half-moon spectacles. “A terrible shame, truly. Those poor young girls.”

“Anything of importance you’ve discovered?”

“Only that our killer is a master with a scalpel. The hearts were removed while both girls were still alive. Miss Fortescue was sedated throughout the procedure—with chloroform, I suspect—and her breastbone was removed to get at the heart, then replaced and wired together.” Dr. Gibson frowned. “It was most peculiar. The ends of the aorta and superior vena cava were in some state of healing, almost as if the murderer were performing some sort of… I don’t even know what to call it. The closest thing I’ve ever seen is when they replace a man’s lungs with bio-mech chest pumps, but everybody knows that you can’t replace a man’s heart and keep him alive. It’s impossible.”

Garrett started working on the buttons of his shirt, glancing at the spectrometer. “Any sign of the craving?”

“In Miss Fortescue, yes. The breastbone was starting to fuse back into the ribs and her CV levels were sitting in the low teens. Miss Keller was only missing for a day, so it’s too early to tell.”

“Is there—”

A sharp rap at the door preceded its opening. Lynch strode through, then faltered when he saw Garrett. Anyone else might not have noticed the hesitation, but Garrett knew him only too well. Grabbing the black leather coat that completed his uniform, he gave a clipped nod. “Your Grace.”

Lynch ignored him. “A word, Gibson?”

“We’ll finish this later,” Garrett murmured, more relieved to see his former master than Lynch would ever expect.

They locked gazes and Lynch tipped his head in the faintest of nods, his lips pressed together thinly.

The hurt of it was like an icy stab to the chest. Garrett strode past with his coat in hand and shut the door behind him. Only then did he let out the breath he’d been holding. The hallway stretched out on both sides, empty and looming.

Once he’d been a trusted comrade. Now there was nothing. Not even a greeting. As if Garrett was some stranger. It ate at him, though he’d known how Lynch might react when Garrett had revealed the truth to Rosalind and begged her to sacrifice herself for Lynch.

Garrett crushed his fist closed, turning blindly down the left hallway.
You
earned
his
scorn
, he told himself, trying to ignore the rising tide of darkness within him. It didn’t do a damn thing to halt the regret he felt.

With late afternoon light streaming through the windows, the corridors were empty. Most Nighthawks would be asleep, waiting for the moon to rise. That was when the city was at its most active and also the time that suited them best. The bright light of day could be harsh on a blue blood’s eyes and fair skin.

Almost four hundred Nighthawks filled the guild at times, though there were several other groups of them billeted across the city. Garrett found himself striding the halls unthinkingly, not knowing where he was going. Somewhere away from Lynch’s scorn. Somewhere he didn’t have to be quite so alone…

***

A knock at her door jerked her out of the stillness of meditation.

Peace slipped from her body like water rushing over her skin. Only Garrett knocked like that. Perry cursed under her breath. After the conversation with Rosa she’d been on edge enough for the hunger to rise in her. Her usual blood-laced tea had barely suppressed the urge, so she’d resorted to the meditation techniques Lynch had taught her.

For a woman to have such hungers was socially unacceptable. Perry had to be in control of herself at all times, especially when she was on a case and needed her head clear. Stealing a moment like this was a necessity. With all the feelings he aroused in her, Garrett would only shatter any gains she’d made.

“Come in,” she called, uncrossing her legs and stretching.

Her hard-won peace fragmented the instant Garrett strode inside her quarters. The short chestnut strands of his hair were rumpled, as though he’d raked a hand through them—or just risen from bed—and his blue eyes were hot with turmoil. It rode over the broad line of his shoulders, and each step he took radiated a predatory menace.

Her own needs spiked, driven by the hunger reflected in his body. For a moment the world was crafted of shadows, then she took a deep breath and let it spill from her. “What’s wrong?”

The expression washed from his face. She could see him visibly rein himself in, forcing the hunger back. It lingered in the tension of his jaw, but a smile touched his mouth—a meaningless, hard-edged smile. “Nothing is wrong.”

Lynch
. For a moment her heart ached for two stubborn men who both refused to apologize.

He prowled her small room but saw none of it, she guessed. Perry rested her hands on her knees and watched him, waiting for him to speak. This wasn’t the first time she’d received an inappropriate visit to her bedchambers.

Garrett plucked a half-open book from the small armchair in the corner and glanced at the title. “A gothic?”

Perry uncurled herself swiftly and reached for it, but he held it high, flicking it open to where it had rested. “‘And then he tasted the breath of her, each lingering caress…’”

“Give it back,” she growled.

Turning his back, he went on reading. Perry wrapped an arm around his shoulders and threw herself forward, trying to reach it.

“‘For I love thee, Diana—’” His voice choked off as she wiggled against him, her fingertips bare inches from the book. “Christ, Perry, are you trying to strangle me?”

“Tempted to.”

The next moment, he flipped her over his shoulder onto the armchair. Her legs dangled over the back of it and she rolled, righting herself. Garrett backed away, his blue eyes dancing as he held the book up again.

The words washed over her, horribly romantic words she’d been enjoying the night before to take her mind off the day’s horrors. From his tongue, however… They shivered over her skin—tender, mocking words she’d always wished he’d say to her.

She shouldn’t begrudge him the moment. Playful times like this always took his mind off his troubles.

But it ached, just a little. Why did she have to hurt just so that he felt better?

“That’s enough,” she said quietly.

Garrett kept reading. “‘And the duke whispered in her ear, words that echoed along her spine—’”

This time Garrett was ready for her. When she leaped at him, he swept her up over his shoulder. The world upended. All she could see was the long, lean length of his back, the curve of his muscled arse, and—with a quick glance under his arm—the dratted book.

“Garrett!”

The room spun. Perry landed flat on her back on her bed with a breathless gasp. Something red flickered into view. The book. Garrett held it with negligent fingers and a watchful gleam in his eyes.

Perry snatched at it—and missed. Rolling onto her hands and knees she tried again. “Give it back!” The words came out a little choked, a little desperate.

He watched her. Then held the book out.

Perry eyed it. As soon as she realized he wasn’t going to withhold it, she snatched it from him and buried it beneath her pillow.

Garrett collapsed back on his elbows on the mattress, taking up most of her bed as if he belonged there. A dangerous thought. Dragging her knees up to her chest—not to avoid taking up space, she told herself—Perry leaned against her pillows and stared back at him.

“Why are you so afraid to be a woman?” he asked finally.

She ignored him. “You shouldn’t be here. You’re going to start rumors.”

“I enjoy being with you,” he said carefully. “I don’t have to pretend with you. It’s…peaceful.”

Pretend? She looked at him sharply.

Garrett stared at the ceiling, his arms crossed beneath his head. He gave a soft sigh and she saw that the smile had faded again. This was why he was here—to talk to her.

“Do you know what Lynch once told me? He said I should be an actor on the stage. I’ve always known how to mimic people, even as a lad. Then when I became a thief for the swell mob, I had to learn to strip everything of my past from my speech and appearance. To be something I wasn’t. I still do it. Only now, I’m Garrett Reed, Master of the Guild of Nighthawks.” A harsh, breathless laugh. “Confident, in control, a man who knows how to react in every situation.”

His confidence was one of the very things she found attractive—that, and his seeming ease in his own skin. He was everything she wasn’t. Or was he? A frown touched her brow. She’d never seen him show even the slightest sign of conflict, but it was there now, in the distant gaze he leveled at the ceiling and the line of tension around his mouth.

“You don’t feel you are those things?”

He turned those dangerous blue eyes toward her and she saw the truth in them. “I feel like I’m trying to juggle a half-dozen balls, and I don’t know where they’re going to land. Byrnes, Lynch, you…the guild… That, most of all. Am I doing right by it? By the men? I keep making mistakes, and everybody keeps reminding me that I’m not Lynch—”

“Lynch made mistakes,” she cut in.

“Really?” A mocking arch of the brow. “Because I can’t seem to think of any.”

“Rarely. But you have to remember that he was in charge of the guild for forty years. He had more than enough time to perfect his leadership and learn from what he’d done wrong.”

“Then you
do
think I’m making mistakes?” Garrett countered.

“Some, yes.” His eyes flashed hot blue, but she held up a hand to stall him. “Byrnes, for example.”

“He’s the one who—”

“You do realize he doesn’t truly want to lead the guild?” she cut in. “He knows he’s not equipped to deal with it, nor does he particularly wish to.”

Garrett’s mouth opened and shut. “He’s made it quite clear he disagreed with the choice Lynch put before the Council.”

“Of course he did. He feels overlooked. And you reacted as if you saw a rival, when you should have been working together to sort this matter out. You give him the same work and cases you’d offer to any of the trackers, rather than using him as a trusted member of your Hand, so he resents it.”