Heart of Brass (16 page)

As though he were some sort of prize.

One thing he did know—this was not a woman who took emotions lightly, nor shared them indiscreetly. She was barely holding herself together, and if he coddled her right now, or tried to comfort her, she would break down. She would never forgive him for it.

Instead, he lowered his head so that his mouth was close to her ear. “You know Wolfred is right.”

She shot him a glare that made him reconsider the possibility of her dissolving into tears. Her ferocity did something queer inside his chest, deep beneath his ribs. “I know no such thing.”

This was not the woman he married—he realized this though he had no solid memory to back it up. This woman was going to make his life very interesting, a thought that he relished despite himself. “You do.”

When she straightened and drew back, he did the same. They squared off like opponents about to fire in a duel. She would fight him until she had no more fight in her. He enjoyed a good row as much as the next man, but he’d already made shite of her life. Besides, he didn’t trust himself alone with her. Not to shag her and not to kill her. Those two choices made him a danger to her, and made him uncomfortable in his own skin. He had so much blood on his hands, but he couldn’t remember a time when he questioned his own honor—at least not in the last seven years. He questioned it now, and she would try to convince him otherwise because she wanted to believe that he was the man she married. He was no more that man than she was that girl.

It was time to take her fight away. He smiled at her, and reached out to touch the silky warmth of her cheek. The sensation brought a rush of emotional memories with it—a million and one touches stored in the dusty cupboard of his mind. With it came a flash of pain that fled as quickly as it came. Arden frowned at him, but she leaned into his palm. So trusting.

Luke dropped his hand and turned to Alastair. The other man’s face was void of expression, but his steely eyes betrayed the pain this reunion brought him.

Luke met that gaze unapologetically. “Take me to the Wardens.”

Chapter 9

Both men were fortunate that Arden hadn’t her Electrical Discombobulation Intensifier at hand, because she would have rendered them both incapacitated and twitching on the floor. And she wouldn’t have cared if they soaked their trousers, either.

The nerve of both of them, disregarding her like that. Alastair was supposed to be on her side. And Luke…was it too much to ask that he spend a few hours with her after seven years apart? Early in their marriage she would get down in the mouth when he’d work long hours without her—what could she do when England was his mistress? But right now she wasn’t maudlin. Right now she was incredibly angry.

Of course she was going to accompany them. Luke had tried to persuade her otherwise, but she refused to cave. At least the pair of them were intelligent enough to wait on her rather than leaving her behind. Obviously she couldn’t appear before Dhanya in her dressing gown. She needed all the armor she could manage.

She didn’t wake her maid or any of the servants. Beauregard had to be asleep on his bed in front of the kitchen hearth or he’d have been dancing around their ankles barking like mad at them all. This silence felt eerie and tense, not comforting as it normally did.

A little while later, she joined them in the foyer, wearing a teal gown with a corset bodice that laced up the front. Her hair was secured in a black snood and her boots were soft leather, worn to such a degree of comfort that they molded around her feet.

Luke stared at her as she approached. The blatant appreciation in his gaze should have filled her with warmth, should have given her hope. Instead she wanted to slap his handsome face so hard he would have to talk out of the back of his head.

He must have seen the anger and hurt in her eyes—how could he possibly miss it?—because he arched a dark brow. “You didn’t look at me with that much venom when I tried to kill you.”

“I think perhaps you’re still trying,” she muttered with a shake of her head. She’d forgotten her chains and her cheek felt oddly bare without the cool metal strands brushing against it.

Luke sighed—the same way he’d always sighed when she said or did something he thought irrational. “If you don’t take me to the Director, both you and Alastair risk being accused of treason. I have to turn myself in if I want any hope of getting my life back.”

“
Have
to,” she repeated bitterly. He had almost won her over with his words, until he used that offensive four-letter one. “That’s what you said every time you left this house—and me—to run off and play with the Wardens.”

There was no denying his surprise at her vehemence. Arden was angry enough—and her tongue loose from the whiskey she’d had another glass of while she changed—that she felt compelled to remark upon it. “I see the return of your memory is selective at best.” Tugging on her gloves, she brushed by him. “Let’s get this over with, shall we?”

The men followed after her; Alastair last so he could no doubt keep an eye on Luke. Or perhaps he simply did not wish to be within striking distance of Arden. Once upon a time she would not have reacted with anger. She would have wept, perhaps. Pleaded a little. It was only this unfamiliar, deep-seated rage that kept her from doing both right now.

But she would rather lick one of Mr. Tesla’s coil transformers than show just how afraid she was at that moment. For years she had clung to her belief that Luke was alive, that he would come back. Now, she was faced with the possibility of losing him once again to duty, or perhaps to the Executioner General.

Their driver took his perch on the front of the carriage while her husband sat across from her and his best friend took the seat beside her. Perhaps Alastair thought himself better equipped to protect her from that position. Perhaps he was staking a personal claim—she often thought men were like dogs that way. Provided Alastair didn’t urinate on her all would be well. What she didn’t bother to point out was that with him by her side, it would make killing them both all the easier. Luke could go for both their throats at the same time, and with metal-plated fingers it wouldn’t take much pressure to crush both windpipes.

“Why are you being so agreeable?” she asked the man half shrouded by shadow across from her.

He might have arched a dark brow again at the question. Certainly his lips lifted in that lopsided manner that both broke her heart and made her want to strike him. With Luke it was almost impossible to tell if he was laughing with her or at her.

Odd, but while he was gone she had forgiven—forgotten—most of his faults. Now her irritation with all those peevish behaviors came rushing back.

“How would you have me behave?” His rumble of a voice filled the interior of the carriage despite his quiet tone.

Arden shrugged. If she ignited the lamp she might see him better, but then he would be able to see her as well. She glanced at Alastair, noting how his eyes shone like a cat’s in the dark—another augmentation courtesy of the W.O.R. The Wardens and the Company were more alike than she cared to ponder.

“You do not seem the least bit concerned about what might await you at W.O.R. headquarters.”

“I’ll decide whether or not to be concerned once I’m there.” His deep voice filled the darkness. “Are you concerned, Ardy?”

She winced at the pet name, a pinch in her chest. “I’d be a fool not to be, given the circumstances.”

Out of the darkness he came, leaning forward so she could see his face in the pale wash of moonlight peeking through the window. Beside her Alastair tensed. “Despite the fact that I don’t deserve or require it, you are worried about me. Do you think the Director will execute me on the spot?”

“Or this might all be a ruse and you might not kill only me, but the Director as well.”

He didn’t seem the least bit put out by her suspicion. In fact he smiled at it. “So much for wifely trust.”

“Can I trust you?” she parried. She wanted to, but she’d be a fool to give it so quickly—the Wardens had taught her that.

Luke came closer. He reached out and took the fingers she had fisted in her lap. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Alastair’s hand move to the inside of his coat, where he often kept a weapon.

Glacial eyes locked with hers. “If you couldn’t, you’d be dead by now.”

She glanced down at his hand, wrapped around hers. His fingers were strong. Warm, and slightly rough. She wanted to lift those fingers to her mouth, press her lips against the back of them and let loose the scald of tears that seared the backs of her eyes.

She bit the inside of her mouth so hard she tasted blood.

“The Director will not be half so confident in your assurances,” Alastair remarked blandly.

Arden looked up as Luke turned that unnerving gaze on his friend. “I think we both know that the Director’s chief concern will be what sort of information I might impart,” her husband said. “That should keep me alive long enough to prove myself worthy.”

She blinked. He was right, of course. She hadn’t thought of it in her irrational state—much to her annoyance—but it was little wonder he was so calm when the Wardens would certainly jump at the chance to know all the Company secrets her husband had stored in his mind.

Secrets that had taken her place.

Bitterness settled on her smarting tongue, and in her heart, sharp and unwanted. She hadn’t realized just how angry she was at him for his absence—for so many things. She had been too bogged down in missing him, too smothered by regret to remember that the flaws in her marriage were not hers alone.

The truth was she had often hated the W.O.R. for being such a huge part of their lives. She had despised Luke at times—herself as well. It was only after she’d lost him that she found comfort in the agency, and dedicated herself so thoroughly to it.

She turned her head to find him watching her. His expression was neutral, but his gaze was anything but. She knew just by the weight of his stare that he knew how she felt, the confusion and torment, and that he understood it as well. But, she supposed, that was the luxury of being the one who left rather than the one left behind.

Would he have waited for her as she had him? Or would she have returned home to find him married to another woman? Perhaps she might have succeeded where he failed and killed him in his sleep, never knowing that he had once been hers.

Luke’s lips tilted with just enough of a twist that she knew he could tell what she was thinking. “Shine’s already off the penny, isn’t it?” His tone was vaguely amused—mocking even—but there was genuine regret in his eyes.

“It could use a little polish,” she replied honestly. “But I wouldn’t say it’s completely tarnished. Perhaps a slight buffing?”

He smiled at that, and so did she. Warmth blossomed in her stomach, spreading outward. All concern and fear were obliterated in that moment. Her head swam pleasantly, and for one hot second she contemplated throwing herself into his arms and shoving her hand down his trousers. But that might distress dear Alastair, who had made his own feelings for her quite clear.

Thank God she had never taken advantage—not fully—of his regard. Alastair was precisely the sort of man a woman fell in love with were she not careful. While Luke…Lucas Grey was exactly the sort of man a woman wanted desperately to have fall in love with her. Even now she felt that desire to call him her own, to be the one to hold his heart, pressing down upon her. She wanted to possess a man who remembered even less of her than she had forgotten about him.

Just how much had he remembered? Not all of it, of that she was certain. She had no way of knowing—short of asking—just how much of the past lived on in his mind. Did he remember the disagreements about duty to their country versus duty to each other, and children?

Perhaps she might have asked, but she didn’t wish to do so in front of Alastair, and what was more, their carriage had just chugged to a stop, signaling their arrival at their destination. It was a pretty little street in Chelsea lined with redbrick and white-trim houses that spoke of elegance without pretention, and it was very quiet at this late hour, as any decent neighborhood ought to be. But one of these homes had a thin diamond glazing on all of its ground floor and street-facing windows. It also had special shutters and doors that would snap into place if the right alarm was triggered. And it was equipped with its own arsenal, a safe room, underground tunnels, and housed a series of pipes that could deliver sleeping gas into a specific room or rooms provided you knew the right code to dial on the control panel. One wrong number, and the gas would fill the room you were in instead.

It was the Director’s quarters, and very few people in the W.O.R. knew its location. The agency was cautious to the point of paranoia.

“Now what?” Luke asked.

Before Arden could respond, Alastair struck. His fist flew with astonishing vigor into Luke’s jaw. She gasped as her husband’s head flew back, and the interior of the carriage filled with Alastair’s imaginative swearing.

“Bastard’s got a jaw like iron,” her friend groused, flexing his fingers.

“Not iron,” she argued. “He wouldn’t be able to move. I suspect it’s gregorite that protects his bones—the same metal used to rebuild your hand.”

He scowled at her. “What would I do without you to tell me what I already know?”

It was an old argument between them—him saying she talked to him like he was simple, and her saying he treated her as though she was a delicate flower. She was accustomed to such things coming out of his mouth when he was brooding, but that didn’t stop her from returning the scowl with one of her own.

“Did you also know that I could have spared your hand and used something less injurious to render him unconscious?”

“Of course you could have. I wonder why you keep me around at all.”

Alastair was in fine form tonight. His nerves had to be as sharp and ragged as her own. They would apologize for things said later, but for now they were both open game.

“I keep you around,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at him as her man opened the carriage door, “because I can’t carry him on my own.”