Of Silk and Steam (8 page)

“Something that might interest you, Your Grace,” Gow murmured, patting the file beneath his arm as she stepped onto the portico.

“One hopes.” Gravel sprayed as her steam coach was brought around, one of the liveried footmen leaping down from his perch and setting out the small footstool for her to climb. The other footman opened the door and stepped aside. “I daresay you wouldn’t have brought this to my attention at this precise moment unless it was important.”

Gow simply handed over the file.

Nobody could get close enough in the luxuriant blackness of the evening to overhear them, yet Mina turned, using her body to shield the file as she flicked it open.

And caught her breath.

Grainy photographs filled it. She couldn’t stop her heart from racing, a small, devilish smile curling over her painted lips as she flicked through image after image, one after the other.

Good
Lord…

This was a blow that the Duke of Caine would never recover from. A way to finally earn justice for her father’s death—and the part that Caine must have played in it.

She snapped the file closed. “The photos are only a suggestion of kinship. I want proof.”

“As Your Grace wishes.” Gow took the file back and retreated into the shadows.

Clicking together the gold-filigreed jeweled claws that sat on the fingertips of her right hand, she gathered herself and swept toward the carriage.

No sign of weakness could be allowed tonight.

* * *

Midnight chimed on the clock in the entrance hall to Lord Abney’s London manor. Unfashionably early for her to arrive, as no decent ball truly started before midnight, but Mina was too full of nerves to care.

Taking a glass of champagne from the passing tray of a drone, she gestured for one of the loitering footmen to lace it with blood.

“Celebrating something?” a cool voice murmured.

Mina tipped her chin at the newcomers in welcome. “Indeed. Minor victories, Your Grace. Simply…placing a pawn where nobody shall see it coming for several moves yet.”
Thought
he
was
several
moves
ahead
of
her, did he?
She drained the entire glass, smiling at the Duke of Bleight and his wife.

The woman at Lynch’s side was gowned in a spill of glorious green silk that set off the russet color of her hair. While not as dark red as Mina’s own hair, neither was that color the end of the similarities between them. Rosalind Lynch, however, would never truly know how much Mina knew of her past—and the secrets Rosalind was keeping. After all, Mordecai, the man the prince consort had executed, had never been Mercury, but Rosalind had been. Once. Mina tipped her chin in a slower salute toward the Duchess of Bleight, a mark of respect to a fellow humanist.

“That sounds ominous,” the woman replied, arching a brow.

“Let us hope your claws find other marks.” Lynch’s gaze dropped to the deadly filigreed jewelry Mina wore on her fingers.

“Trust me, Your Grace. You’ve no need to be concerned.”

Those cold gray eyes settled on her with an intensity that made her slightly uneasy, but then he smiled. “Oh, I’m not concerned. I never did take you for a fool.”

And no fool would attack a duke with ties to over four hundred Nighthawks. At least, not blatantly.

Something caught her eye over the Duchess of Bleight’s shoulder. Barrons. He moved through the crowd, standing head and shoulders above a pack of debutantes in simpering white. They fluttered their fans as he passed, heated gazes following his black-clad frame. The disparity should have made her laugh. He looked like a wolf stalking through flocks of helpless little swans. Instead her smile grew sharper and she barely glanced at the duke and his wife as she murmured, “If you’ll excuse me?”

This time she stalked him. Their eyes met and Barrons’s left eyebrow twitched slightly in question before he crossed to the stairs, leaving her to follow if she wished.

Mina made her way through the growing crowd, following the trail of steam that heralded one of the servant drones. The room was full of them. She claimed another glass of champagne from the flat tray on the automaton’s head, laced it heavily, and then followed Barrons to the gallery overlooking the main ballroom.

Her gown glimmered in the light as she climbed the stairs, each gold sequin rasping as it trailed over the marble steps. The full skirt cascaded like individual petals from her waist, golden at the interior and darkening to black at the tips of each petal. The bodice itself was sheer gold, the weight tugging at the delicate champagne-colored straps that clung to the very edges of her shoulders.

Shadows darkened the gallery, where the gaslights were turned low. Red damask wallpaper only gave it a more intimate feel. Mina was practically vibrating with nervousness as she saw the tall, elegant form leaning against the railing, watching the crowd below.

Barrons didn’t bother to look at her, but she knew he was aware of her arrival. How could he not be? Tension vibrated in the air between them, an electric glide across her skin.

“You have a certain look in your eye tonight, Mina,” he murmured, his eyes half-shuttered as he surveyed the ballroom. “I feel like prey.”

He didn’t look it. Tall, hard, and lean, with his rapier sheathed at his side, he looked like the king of his own jungle. Slowly his head turned, those dark eyes locking on her. Some trick of light gave hint to the striations of his irises—not black, not truly. Hints of warmth gleamed there, the color of molten chocolate. She was left at once overwhelmed and somewhat uncertain. Mina fought to regain her sense of equilibrium. She needed a damned victory tonight. Anything to take her mind off the queen’s absence.

“A ridiculous assumption.” Mina circled behind him. Barrons’s head turned, tracking her movements as she trailed her filigreed claws over the back of his coat. “How could I ever harm you?”

“You seem to be lumping me with the rest of those addlepated fools who think you’re a pretty little symbol.” Turning, he caught her wrist, slowly lifting her clawed fingers to his lips. He never took his eyes off her as he pressed a kiss to the inside of her wrist, just over the pulse. The gentlest of touches, a ghostly caress. For a debutante, this would be considered a sign that he intended to pursue her for a thrall contract. “I know just how dangerous you can be, and just how clever your little ruse in the Council chambers is.”

Shock froze her. “Ruse?”

“You vote like a pendulum, swinging one way and then the other, placating the prince consort just enough to appease him on items that matter little to you. But when it comes to something that appeals to your heart—or whatever game you’re running—you don’t back down. No one else has quite figured it out yet. They all think you’re some puppet, dancing to his tune.”

He’d guessed half of it. It was extraordinary—and proved just how closely he’d been watching her.

Dangerous.
If anyone realized the game she and the queen were playing, they’d both be destroyed.

“Though I can hardly countenance what occurred in chambers today.” Barrons lowered her hand from his lips, his thumb stroking where his mouth had left its burning mark. His lashes lowered and he dropped her hand.

Of
course
not. For you don’t understand it.
Still, her cheeks burned. She had no need to explain herself and yet… “If she’d said any more, he would have hurt her. The embarrassment of being chastised so publicly will perhaps suffice.”

Sharp eyes bored into hers. “Then it was done out of mercy?”

“What does it matter?”

“It matters,” he replied, turning and leaning on the rail, surveying the room once more. “It means that perhaps I was not mistaken about you.”

A thousand thoughts coalesced. First and foremost, a warming buzz at his words that she shouldn’t be feeling. There was no reason to desire his praise. “You do not like the way he treats her,” she said instead, for she was a little curious herself. The very idea that Barrons had tried to speak today on behalf of the queen… Foolish and only bound to make Alexa’s punishment more exacting if he hadn’t stopped when he had, but… A ridiculous warmth spread in Mina’s chest. There had been no strategy behind the move, simply a man voicing disapproval of the treatment of a woman, and how rare was that?

“I should have stopped it. I should have done more.”

“She’s not your wife. He would only have taken his anger over such a confrontation out on her.”

“I know. It’s why I didn’t give voice to more.” He glanced down. “And in not lifting voice, do we not condone it?”

A knife to her chest. Mina ran her polished claws over the rail, finding the prince consort in the room below. He laughed at something his pet spymaster, Balfour, had said. Hatred twisted the knife, her vision dipping to black and white shades for a moment as her hunger fought its way free. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, letting it wash out of her, leaving only sadness and guilt in its wake. Perhaps she wasn’t only furious at the prince consort. Perhaps some of that hatred was for herself.

“What can we do?” Somehow her thoughts found voice, dripping with bitterness. “As her husband, he
owns
her. He can beat her as often as he likes and
what
can
we
do
?” Never, she’d promised herself, watching the queen slowly succumb to despair over the years. Never would she find herself in the same trap.

A slight warming prickle over her skin revealed how closely Barrons was watching her. Mina flushed, knowing she’d given something away.

“I thought you complicit in the queen’s treatment, but you don’t like it any more than I do.” Slowly he reached out and brushed a strand of hair off her face, fingertips grazing her cheek. She backed away and his fingers dropped, but his focus didn’t. “You don’t like it because you see yourself in such a situation.” Slow, questioning words, as if he were working through the thoughts himself. “Is that why you never married?”

“What could any man ever give me?” she asked instead. “I’m the head of my house, a woman on the Council. What man wouldn’t try to take that from me?”

Instead of answering, Barrons actually smiled a little. “Not all men are created equally. Perhaps you should find one who isn’t threatened by your achievements. Someone who finds such accomplishments to be part of the fascination.”

“I won’t hold my breath.”

“Perhaps you should open your eyes then. You might just realize he’s closer than you think.”

Every muscle in her body locked up tight. “What a fascinating little theory,” she replied hollowly, while inside…shock rampaged through her system, followed closely by mistrust. This was part of a game, though she couldn’t see what he thought he’d win from it. Fool her into thinking his pursuit was genuine and then… Then what? Did he think she would spill all of her secrets across the pillow one night? Or perhaps let her emotions hold sway until she was voting as he desired just to please him?

No.
Barrons wasn’t stupid, after all. What in blazes was his angle here?

But
then
you
never
have
understood
my
motives…

She went pale. She
felt
it, all of the blood running from her extremities and washing out of her face, for if he wasn’t playing games with her, that meant his words were real. For a moment she felt as if she’d caught a glimpse of his true intentions.
Her
. All along, he’d played for her.

No.

Breath coming just a little faster, she forced herself to school her features, hiding the maelstrom inside her, for this was exactly what she feared the most. To lose herself to a man.

In the silence, she realized he was watching her, no doubt drawing his own damned conclusions, and Mina suddenly wanted to lash out, to force him off balance too so that she wasn’t alone in this.

“Our secret is safe, if that is what puts that look in your eye,” he murmured. “I’ve told no one what occurred.”

“A strange thing that you should mention secrets…” She pressed closer, her skirts rasping against his pants as she placed her glass of champagne on the rail. “One wonders at yours.”

“What makes you think I have any?”

“Everybody has secrets. It’s just a matter of searching for them.”

His gaze sharpened. This time he looked right through her, as if hunting for her own.

You’ll never find them.
Her lashes lowered and she lifted up onto her toes, one hand hesitantly pressed against his chest—the one with her claws. For a second she wondered if she were doing the right thing. Hesitation let her feel the warmth from his body, the enticing scent of bay rum curling through her nostrils, making her body tingle. Determination returned. She owed her father this. Turning her lips to his ear, she whispered, “I always wondered at your friendship with that rogue from the rookeries.”

His head half turned. “The Devil of Whitechapel?”

“Did you know you look remarkably like one of the lads in his gang? One could say…the spitting image…”

Everything between them changed. Stillness radiated through his hard body, a silent menace. His hand came up, curling around her throat with soft, delicate fingers, the faint hint of a threat. “I wouldn’t have expected to see you near the rookeries.”

“Oh, I’m not that foolish. I sent someone else, a man of mine who’s very good at tracking down things people don’t want others to know. He followed you there this morning and now I have photographs, you see—”

Those fingers tightened. Not enough to restrict her breathing, but enough to set her heart to pounding. “Photographs of what?”

“The boy. Who is he, Barrons? Too old to be your get. A brother then… Caine’s, perhaps?” She threw the lure into the wind, but he didn’t bite as expected. “Not Caine’s,” she said slowly, her mind racing. Another thought sprang to mind. The icy-eyed Duke of Caine’s image and a barely remembered memory of what his wife’s portrait had looked like. Her father had had a copy of it.
Good
God…