Gilded Lily

PRAISE FOR THE STEAM AND SEDUCTION NOVELS

SCARLET DEVICES

“This romantic adventure shines, thanks to memorable characters, nifty steampunk technology, and undeniable chemistry between the leads.”

—Publishers Weekly

“With this second installment, Dryden has moved to the very short list of authors whose Steampunk is on my to-buy list.”

—The Book Pushers

“A fun, sexy, steampunk adventure romance.”

—Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

“A fun steampunk read with some romance and a lot of attitude . . . If you haven't read anything by Delphine Dryden yet, then you must!

—Peace Love Books

GOSSAMER WING

“Smart and sexy . . . With plenty of steamy sizzle, ingenious gadgets and prospective danger, Gossamer Wing is just the ticket for a fun-filled ride.”

—RT Book Reviews

“Entertaining and exciting . . . Delphine Dryden has put a lot of thought and inventiveness into her world to make it feel quite real, busy and politicking.”

—Fresh Fiction

“I was hooked from the first page. . . . A fun, fast read filled with action, spy adventure and seduction.”

—Night Owl Reviews

“The steampunk in
Gossamer Wing
turns it into deliciously frothy fun, with a whole lot of steam heat in the romantic tension between Dexter and Charlotte.”

—Reading Reality

PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF DELPHINE DRYDEN

“Steampunk erotica at its best.”

—
RT Book Reviews

“Something I couldn't resist. Ms. Dryden delivered one hell of a great story!”

—
Risqué Reviews

“Smokin' hot.”

—
Two Lips Reviews

“Only Delphine Dryden could pull off a beautiful, funny, sexy-as-sin story like this!”

—Mari Carr,
New York Times
bestselling author

“One of the coolest . . . books I have read.”

—
The Romance Man

“Supersexy!”

—Jennifer Probst,
New York Times
bestselling author

“The plot is captivating, the intimate moments are scorching!”

—Sinfully Delicious Reviews

“Bravo!”

—Seriously Reviewed

“I really loved the story.”

—Just Erotic Romance Reviews

“A fun and exciting read that kept me entranced from beginning to end.”

—
Night Owl Reviews

“Well-written, sexy . . . and intriguing . . . Highly recommend.”

—
Romancing the Book

Berkley Sensation titles by Delphine Dryden

GOSSAMER WING

SCARLET DE
VICES

GILDED LILY

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) LLC

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

USA • Canada • UK • Ireland • Australia • New Zealand • India • South Africa • China

penguin.com

A Penguin Random House Company

GILDED LILY

A Berkley Sensation Book / published by arrangement with the author

Copyright © 2014 by Delphine Dryden.

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

Berkley Sensation Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group.
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For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

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eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-61371-9

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Berkley Sensation mass-market edition / July 2014

Cover art by Claudio Marinesco.

Cover design by Rita Frangie.

Interior text design by Kelly Lipovich.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

All my usual admiration and then some for Kate Seaver and the wonderfully talented folks at Berkley. Y'all have made this series not only possible, but gorgeous, and working with you is a pleasure. Thanks also to my family and friends, for all the love, support, encouragement and understanding. And a very special nod to Dana, Duncan and Mina, for sharing and confirming my innate love for and fascination with cephalopods. Maybe it's genetic!

R
OLLO
F
URNEVAL WAS
in a position to make demands. Sitting on a warehouse full of priceless product, backed up by a steely-eyed contingent of his most heavily armed lads and more importantly no longer answerable to a crazy man an ocean away, Rollo had begun to feel invincible.

“What's it worth to you?” the woman in front of him asked, her voice not quite as steady as she probably would have liked. He made her nervous and was glad of it. It meant that word of his power was spreading.

“Dunno. Haven't heard anything yet, love. My boys, what they told me made no sense at all. Nothing worth paying for.” He raked his gaze over her body, then shrugged as if he'd assessed that she too was not worth much.

“Told 'em the truth. Not my fault if nobody believes it.”

One of the lads leaned toward her, letting the long barrel of his pistol graze her arm. The woman snatched herself away, shooting a glare at Edwin and his firearm.

“That's enough, Ed. Don't frighten her.” He could afford to be magnanimous. The Benevolent Overlord was Rollo's new favorite persona. “Step closer, miss. He won't harm you.”

At Rollo's beckoning, the woman—barely older than a girl, really—approached, still eyeing Edwin with suspicion. “It's Missus.”

“Of course, Mrs. Hill. I remember. Now tell me what you told my lads, won't you? We'll see if we can sort this out.”

“It was three nights ago,” she started, her voice regaining some confidence. “My Tom come home from the docks drunk as a lord, but he were still shakin' in his boots. He said he went out that afternoon with Jimby as usual, to check the marker buoys, but something awful happened out on the water. Some . . . monster.” She faltered, less eager to share the unbelievable part of the tale.

“Monster? A sea monster?”

“Tom said it came up when Jimby started singing, you know how he does. Did. ‘Rule Britannia.' And there they came like snakes, over the side of the boat, and just took Jimby, neat as you please. By the time Tom knew what was what, it had already dragged him under. It was too late.”

Whatever had happened, the woman seemed to believe her husband's version of events. Rollo, however, was not so sanguine. “What came over the side? Was it snakes, or a monster, or something else? Or nothing else, Mrs. Hill, but Tom forgetting himself in an argument and doing something he later regretted? He wouldn't be the first to make up a tall tale to cover his own guilt.”

“Not snakes, Mr. Furneval. Tentacles.”

“Tentacles.”

“Big around as your—” She glanced at Rollo's meaty thigh, then shrugged. “Big around as Tom's leg. He said he won't go back on the water for anything.”

“And who could blame him, after what he saw? But I can hardly pay him wages for failing to work, can I? And nobody's seen Jimby Evans since that afternoon.”

“Because the monster—”

“Snatched him from the boat, yes, so you've said. Or so Tom has said to you.”

“It's the truth.”

“But it's old news, Mrs. Hill.”

“There was something.” She bit her lip, brow furrowing. Rollo gave her another look. Pretty enough, he supposed. And she looked clean. Rather wasted on a dispensable unit like Hill. He waited her out until she spoke again. “Something else Tom and Jimby saw, before the . . . before it happened. Something I think they weren't supposed to see.”

Awareness prickled under Furneval's hide, all his senses attuned to the change in the woman's demeanor. This was the real news. Something bigger than giant murderous tentacles, which was a remarkable thought. “Tell me.”

“They were at the farthest buoy, the one the boys go to with the lantern to signal sometimes. I don't—” She seemed to realize her error and added in near-panic, “Everyone knows around here, sir. It ain't no secret. We can see the light from shore on clear nights. If—”

“Just get on with your story.”

After a pause, she continued cautiously. “Well, it weren't night then, but bright day, and the water was calm. That buoy's near a shallows. And they could see it. Tom and Jimby both, Tom said. One of them submersible machines, passing right underneath the boat. Bigger than any they ever seen and painted in colors. And bristling with funny sticks in the front, like thick whiskers. It didn't look like no Navy ship, he said. And that water's supposed to be no-man's-land. Only the Navy can go there, since before the end of the war.”

Ah. “I see. Well, that is another matter, as you've obviously surmised. And Tom chose to withhold this information from me?”

Mrs. Hill shrugged. “Ain't seen Tom again. He went back out next day and hasn't been back. Word is, he's at the opium parlor.”

Rollo knew for a fact that Tom Hill was no such place. He never allowed his boys to partake of the product; it was grounds for instant dismissal, with prejudice. Prejudice in the form of Edwin or one of his boys in a dark alley with a swift, well-placed knife. This practice—which he liked to think of as his own form of morality clause for his workers—gave him the advantage he'd sought so long. Violating it, Rollo fully believed, had been his former employer Lord Orm's greatest mistake. The Lord of Gold's drug-addled minions had been no help to him in the end.

That had been a glorious day, hearing about Orm's defeat at the hands of two posh steam car drivers at the thrilling conclusion of last year's American Dominions Sky and Steam Rally. Orm, trussed up and hauled away to molder in prison, leaving Rollo and his boys in London with a full warehouse of opium and nobody to account to for it. He'd guarded it jealously from all contenders until the smoke cleared, and emerged as the new leader of Orm's notorious opium cartel. And he would keep it as long as he chose, or his name wasn't Rollo Furneval. Because, while he was no genius like Orm, he was no lunatic like Orm either. He was no Lord of Gold, he was a businessman.

Tom Hill was either dead or long gone, and if it was the latter case Rollo would dispatch somebody to take care of him in short order. Businesslike.

“That's worth something, innit?” the young woman before him ventured. “Giant whiskered submersible in the no-man's-land like that? Tom may not have told you but I did, Mr. Furneval. I came to you and nobody else.”

“So you did, Mrs. Hill. You've shared this vital information with me and nobody else, you're quite sure? Not even your mother? None of Tom's associates, perhaps the one who suggested he was at the opium den?”

“No one, sir,” she insisted.

“Thank you, my dear lady. That makes things much simpler.” While she smiled tentatively at Rollo, he gestured to Edwin, who quietly cocked his pistol and stepped up behind the woman. “No, not with that, you idiot. Think of the noise. Think of the mess. Now, Mrs. Hill, let's see if we can't reunite you with your husband.”

Ed had nodded and traded his gun for a long, wicked knife. It slid over Mrs. Hill's slim neck without a sound, and quick-thinking Ed caught the spurt of blood with his other sleeve. Sacrificing a coat, but saving the warehouse office floor from inconvenient stains. After a few startled attempts to gasp, a feeble clutching at Edwin's enormous arm with skinny fingers, Mrs. Hill hung limp against her killer's chest, pinned there by her still-bleeding throat.

With a snap of his fingers and a point, Rollo commanded Edwin's associates to tidy away the body.

“I was fond of that coat,” Ed complained. He'd slung it off and let the boys take it to keep the blood from dripping, but he hadn't kept the rest of himself as clean as he must have wished. One cuff was soaked in blood, so his shirt was probably a loss as well.

Rollo shrugged. “I'll give you the direction of my tailor. He's a good man. Doesn't ask unnecessary questions.”

With any luck, Mrs. Hill had been telling the truth, and nobody else outside his inner circle knew of Rollo Furneval's secret cargo submersible with its array of experimental hydrophonic “whiskers.” And now, nobody else ever would. Just the way he liked things. No fuss, no mess, no untidy loose ends.

All business, that was Rollo Furneval.