Of Silk and Steam
Page 56

Your duchess… Leo ignored it but the thought sent a shiver beneath his skin. Some part of him liked those words. The darker, predatory part of him. It didn’t make sense, but for a moment he felt somewhat less adrift. “Congratulations. You’re a father.”
“Aye, and no time to enjoy it. Now”—his expression hardened—“the stakes just got ’igher. Morioch’s grandfather were the Butcher o’ Culloden, weren’t ’e?”
Leo nodded. Culloden was something he preferred not to think of, a time when the English blue bloods had risen against the Scottish verwulfen clans and crushed them, turning those verwulfen left alive over to slavery or throwing them into the Manchester Pits to fight to the death for the crowds. Though he personally considered it a dark time in blue-blood history, others still whispered that perhaps they shouldn’t have left any verwulfen alive. Not everyone was pleased with the new laws regarding the verwulfens’ newly legal status, Morioch chief among them.
“And the duke were never shy about cuttin’ a throat.” Blade leaned on the wall. “Rip, I want you to lead a team down into the tunnels of Undertown. It’s the only other way into the rookery, barrin’ the wall.”
“And me?” Leo asked.
“I want you back at the Warren to relieve Tin Man. Keep an eye on things there for me.”
Guard duty. A part of him bristled—as a blue blood he was worth more here, and at least the fighting took his mind off matters—but Blade rarely did anything without a reason. “You think he’ll attack the Warren?”
“It’s what I’d do.” Their eyes met and Blade’s went black with hunger for a moment, a reminder that the man before him could be utterly ruthless when he wanted to be.
“You wouldn’t kill women and children.”
“No, but ain’t nobody else knows that. I’d capture ’em and ’old ’em for ransom. I don’t think Morioch’s got it in ’im to be quite as benevolent.”
The words were stark. Blade stared down at the amassed forces below with a cold, almost calculating gleam in his eyes. For years he’d been the Devil of Whitechapel, a man whose name was whispered into small ears by nannies all through the city’s mansions, warning aristocratic children to behave or else the Devil would come and steal them away.
Honoria’s presence in his life had softened some of those edges, humanized him in a way Leo would never have expected; yet the merest hint of a threat to his wife and daughter brought out everything in Blade that was dangerous. He would kill to defend his own, and he would be utterly ruthless in doing it if need be. Morioch might eventually be able to take the rookery, but he would do it through a hail of raining fire.
“I want you to get ’em out,” Blade said quietly. “If things go wrong ’ere for me. Get ’em out through Undertown and try to find Will.”
“It won’t come to that—”
Blade cut him off with a harsh glare. “You ever get one o’ those feelin’s? Where you don’t think it’s gonna end well for you? I got it now. The prince consort can’t afford to let me live. It’s either ’im or me this time. ’E won’t stop ’til it’s done, no matter ’ow many lives ’e needs to throw away, and I need to know that my wife and my daughter are in safe ’ands. You’re the only man I’d trust with this, because they belong to you too. Do this for me. Promise me.”
They belong to you too… “You’re not going to die, you stubborn bastard. You are not going to leave me to tell my sister that she’s a widow.”
“Aye.” Blade looked out over the wall once more. “Just keep an eye on ’em at the Warren. You see red smoke, and you get ’em out and don’t come back.” A long hesitation. “No matter what she begs you to do.”
“She’ll hate me for leaving you behind.”
“She’ll live.” Blade looked at him. “That’s all I need to know.”
* * *
The artillery started up almost five minutes after he’d left the wall. Leo gritted his teeth together, striding away from the white flashes illuminating the night behind him. A stronger offensive this time.
Blade didn’t think he could hold the wall. What the hell was Leo going to do? This lay on his shoulders. Think, damn it. The control devices. If he could manipulate the frequency somehow… That had to be the way out of this.
Sound exploded as Blade and his men fired back. Someone in Morioch’s forces had a revolving gun, based on the design of the Hotchkiss revolving cannon—able to fire almost sixty-eight rounds per minute. The sharp hammer-strike rat-a-tat of the gun cut through the stillness of the rookery. Then Blade was shouting and Leo could almost hear the return fire focus on that area. It fell silent a minute later.
A stronger strike, but not as hard as Morioch should have sent in. If that were him… His strides slowed as the Warren came into sight. If that were him he’d have leveled the walls already, what with the artillery and legions Morioch had under his command, or he’d be damned close to it.
Blade was correct. Morioch was waiting for something.
But what?
It lifted the hairs along his spine. With Rip leading men down into Undertown, Morioch couldn’t come at them from that direction.
Esme had marshaled the women at the Warren with military efficiency. Leo nodded to Tin Man, the guard, as he passed him and prowled through the yard. A dozen strategies worked through his head. Obviously the prince consort’s intelligence on the rookery was better than they’d been led to believe.
How would he do it?
Take Honoria and you had the key to destroying the Devil of Whitechapel. If the prince consort knew about Leo’s relationship with her, then he certainly knew how much Blade doted on her. Anyone in the rookery could tell you that.
Leo’s blood ran cold, a wash of unfamiliar feeling.
Taking the steps two at a time, he ghosted through the almost-silent Warren to his sister’s room. Voices murmured within and Leo didn’t bother knocking. He jerked the door open, startling both a bed-bound Honoria and a slim woman he presumed was Mrs. Parsons. The sensation died a little, though his gaze raked the room, taking in the shuttered windows and the small fire warming the hearth. Nobody here. Perhaps he was mistaken. Perhaps Morioch would be too arrogant to risk such a move.