Forged by Desire
Page 12

“Enough.” Lynch caught Rosa’s wrists and glared down at her. “I asked him to do one thing for me. One thing. I trusted him.”
“And if he had obeyed, you’d be dead,” Rosa shot back. She tugged her hands free and smoothed a lock of her dark red hair into place. “Garrett broke his word and told me you intended to sacrifice yourself for me. If he hadn’t, the Echelon would have executed you. It worked. We tricked them into thinking that I wasn’t the revolutionary they were searching for. You lived and so did I.”
The prince consort had demanded the head of the revolutionary who led the humanist movement in London—or he’d take Lynch’s in return. When Lynch realized that his pretty little secretary was the revolutionary “Mercury,” he’d been unable to deliver her. Only by going against his word and telling Rosalind what Lynch had intended had Garrett been able to pull the wool over the prince consort’s eyes and save Lynch.
Lynch, however, was only too aware of how lucky they’d been. Rosalind could have died instead.
“He traded your life for mine, and he did it knowing the consequences,” Lynch said to Rosalind, giving Perry a tight nod. “I understand your loyalty to him. I appreciate it. But I am not in the frame of mind to forgive him for what he did.” A slight pause. “I don’t think I ever shall be.”
“That’s not fair,” Perry snapped. “I was aware of what Garrett planned regarding Rosalind. I helped him. Yet you’ve not given me the cut.”
“I never asked you to keep my secrets. You did as I would expect, given the closeness of your relationship with Garrett.” Taking up his top hat, Lynch clasped hands with Finch and then strode toward the door. “Until next week.”
The door shut behind him abruptly. Rosa let out a faint huff of breath. “Well. That was a spectacular failure.”
“I shouldn’t have pushed.”
“Perhaps my husband needs to be pushed every now and then. I wish he could resolve this feeling of being betrayed. He misses the men.”
“And they miss him,” Perry replied, sliding her rapier back into the rack with slightly more force than needed. Why had she said such a thing to him?
Perhaps because you’re worried that you might not be here for long, a little voice whispered, and you don’t want to leave Garrett alone.
“How is Garrett managing?” Rosalind asked.
“The one thing he is very good at is managing men. It’s Byrnes I’m worried about.” Perry glanced toward Finch. She knew he was unlikely to loosen his tongue, but some things should never be said in company.
Rosa slipped her arm through Perry’s and walked her toward the far end of the orangery. It wouldn’t matter. Finch had a blue blood’s exceptional hearing.
As if noticing their intent, the grizzled weapons master called, “Might leave you two alone and fetch myself some tea.”
As the door closed behind him, Rosa smiled. “A perceptive man.”
“A rarity,” Perry admitted dryly.
Rosa examined her. “And how are you doing? Truly?”
Nobody ever asked her how she was. Perry looked at Rosalind in surprise. “I’m fine,” she said guardedly.
“Surrounded by all these men… I doubt you have anyone to speak to of…certain matters.”
“Actually, Garrett and I often…” She stopped. He hadn’t been her confidante in over a month. So many things in her life seemed to exist in the past tense now.
Rosa patted her hand. She had never been an affectionate woman, but it helped that neither of them truly belonged to a conventional female role. Rosalind had been raised to despise blue bloods and the prince consort. Lynch had changed all of her perceptions. Now rather than destroying them, she was trying to browbeat them into restoring human rights through Parliament.
“Things change,” Rosa said wisely. “It is often difficult for men and women to have a true friendship without certain complications coming between them.”
Heat warmed Perry’s cheeks. “I don’t want our relationship to change.” She just wanted to take back that night at the opera, to have her friend back. Uncomplicated. Safe. Feeling as though she could breathe again when he was in the same room.
“Don’t you?” This time the look Rosa shot her was uncomfortably perceptive. “I was there, remember. I saw your face when you walked out in that dress and Garrett realized you had br**sts. You wanted him to know.”
“I was a fool.”
“Better a fool than a coward.”
Perry pressed her hand against the glass, her skin soaking in the coldness. She’d never spoken of this to anyone else, and it felt uncomfortable to be doing so now. “Rosa. Please don’t.”
“Do you know, you and I are very similar in some ways. I don’t like to be vulnerable. That is why I fought so long against Lynch, against what I felt for him. It’s a horrible feeling to be at the mercy of one’s emotions, especially when you have spent so long forcing yourself not to feel them.”
“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.