Heart of Brass (29 page)

Just what had Alastair meant when he bid her good night and called her by her title? It had sounded so final. There were so many assumptions she might make, but Arden knew in her heart that this was the end of their friendship. He would come if she needed him, but they would never again be as close as they had been these last few years.

Drawing a deep breath of cool night air, she squared her shoulders and headed back inside to the party. She had a killer to find, and she wasn’t going to find him moping on the balcony. Plus, there were easily a dozen women inside just dying to ask her about her husband’s return, and another half who had expressed interest in one of her devices. The discombobulator was almost as popular as the anti-hysteria machines.

But these thoughts abandoned her as she stepped over the threshold and caught sight of her husband. He was exactly where she had left him, wearing the exact same expression of frustration and amusement, only now the people around him had stepped back to clear a path for the stunning woman in a bloodred gown and matching eye-patch heading straight toward him.

Rani Ogitani, his former partner and mistress.

Chapter 15

He was surrounded like flies on shite, but Luke became aware of two things at once: the crowd around him parting, and his wife.

Being able to finally draw breath without tasting someone’s cologne bitter and pungent on his tongue was a blessing, but the look on Arden’s face when his gaze found her stole all the air from his lungs. He’d seen predatory women in the past, but the possession in his wife’s eyes ignited something very primal deep inside him. He wanted to go to her, take her to a place where they could be alone without some idiot asking him how he was “enjoying being home, har har,” and shag till they were both too weak to move.

It would have nothing to do with sexual arousal, love or even attraction. It would be about possession, stark and primal—like a wolf offering his throat to his mate.

After the things she’d told him—that she suspected he was unfaithful, that he went on assignment with a former lover, leaving her alone…he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why she thought him worth waiting for.

But he had gotten the same tattoo. Having her with him even when he had no idea of it, that had to mean something. Even if it didn’t exonerate him, the glint in her eye told him why she had waited.

Because he was hers.

Then he saw her gaze move past him, and her porcelain features turned hard as stone. He turned to see who or what she was staring at, and caught a whiff of perfume that reminded him of incense, danger and sex—and not in what he would call a pleasant manner.

The woman was tiny, but she walked with the grace and confidence of someone whose body was as lethal as any weapon. Her hair was jet-black and fell in a thick, straight curtain to her waist. Her gown was a rich red with a Mandarin collar, tight, corseted bodice and long full skirt. Her ivory arms were bare, and as she walked an occasional flash of leg peeked through a slit in the fabric. He caught a glimpse of garter and red leather boots that came up over her knees. One of her legs was automatonic—he spied a flash of a filigree brass thigh as she moved toward him, her gait purposeful and extraordinarily even, despite the prosthetic.

Over one eye she wore a black leather patch adorned with diamond rivets. Was it actually bolted to her face? A gaze almost as dark as her hair met his, and full lips curved into a seductive smile. He was supposed to be impressed—it was expected of him. Instead, the spot in his head that Dr. Stone had patched up itched as though something had slipped inside and tickled his brain.

“Lucas Grey,” she purred, standing right in front of him, so close her jutting breasts brushed his torso. “Lord Huntley returned from the grave. It is
very
good to see you, my lord.” Her accent was posh, with just a touch of the Orient.

“I’m sorry,” Luke said smoothly, pasting a disarming smile on his face. “Have we met?” He had a pretty good idea of who she was, given the look Arden had given her, but if he hadn’t been told her name it wouldn’t have come on its own. She had to be the mistress. He rather liked not remembering her, even though he was certain that made him an even bigger arse.

A few people tittered nervously. Others chuckled at the slight, but most just stood in silence and watched. Her smile drooped. She honestly had expected him to know her, even though she had to have heard about his “amnesia.” All of London was talking about it. It had been in the papers for Christ’s sake.

“We’ve done more than meet,” she informed him saucily, and a few onlookers sniggered.

“Perhaps if you told me your name,” he suggested. It wasn’t gentlemanly to embarrass her, but she obviously didn’t care about embarrassing him, or Arden. He might deserve it, but Arden didn’t.

A slender arm slid through his, and then his wife was at his side. “Huntley, this is Miss Rani Ogitani.”

Christ. He’d rather be in the scope of an Aether cannon than caught between these two women. “My apologies for not remembering you, Miss Ogitani. I’m afraid I’ve had trouble remembering almost every detail of my past, except for Lady Huntley, of course.” He must have said the right thing, because Arden squeezed his arm.

The two women stared at each other, but while Ogitani’s expression was wary, Arden’s was one of patently false pleasantness. Only her eyes betrayed just how angry she was; they glittered like amber under the chandeliers. Truth be told, his wife looked slightly mad, and it was all he could do not to grin at the sight.

“We should get you home soon,” his wife said sweetly. “But first, that dance you promised me. Will you excuse us, Miss Ogitani?”

“Of course.” The little woman didn’t look at all pleased, but short of making some kind of scene—which she’d already done—there was nothing she could do.

The automaton orchestra—which would give a child nightmares—had just started playing a waltz as Luke and Arden joined the other dancers. People watched them curiously, waiting for gossip fodder.

Did he even remember how to waltz? Yes, it appeared so. His body fell easily into the movements, and as they began their dance he pulled her closer. His body remembered what his mind could not. “Shall we smile and pretend all is well?”

The grin she gave him was like a shark about to strike. “Do you really not remember her?”

“Nothing. In fact, I’m not sure what I saw in her to begin with.” He didn’t mean any insult, but it was true. There was no mystery to such a woman, only a battle of wills and empty sex.

Five would have fucked her, got any information he could and then moved on. It wasn’t lost on him that perhaps Five had been a bit of an arse as well. So why hadn’t he returned to his former self when his memories began to return? What had changed? He wasn’t quite Huntley, but he wasn’t Five anymore either.

Who the hell was he then?

Real satisfaction brightened Arden’s face. “Good. Because I won’t be made a fool of a second time.”

He grinned at the promise in her voice. “Have I mentioned that I find bossiness arousing?”

“Have I mentioned that I find being ignored for two days off-putting?”

Luke laughed as he whirled her around. The metal lining his bones increased his strength, and he lifted her off her feet without any thought or effort whatsoever. “I thought perhaps you might not want me in your bed.”

“You thought wrong. For what it’s worth, I despise having an argument hang over my head. In the future, I would prefer to clear the air rather than to let things fester. I find it most vexing and distracting. I’ve thought of little else since.”

By God, her directness was refreshing. He should have stayed to talk things out, but he had been too fixated on his own shame—and the fact that he wasn’t sorry for no longer being the man she married—to think straight. “Forgive me.”

Arden nodded, unflinching gaze still locked with his. “It is forgotten.” Then a small smile curved her lips. “Next time, however, I use the magnet and force you to talk to me.”

On that magnet, he would be helpless, completely at her mercy. The thought should be terrifying, but it was quite the opposite. “Let’s go home,” he suggested, voice low.

Heat flickered in the cinnamon depths of her eyes. “We finish the dance, otherwise people will talk.”

“I don’t really care.”

She tilted her head, as though his words were unexpected. “All right.”

Heart pounding in anticipation, Luke led her from the dance floor. He was only going home with his wife, and yet he felt as though he was about to embark on a dangerous mission, the exhilarating kind.

They didn’t say good-bye to anyone. They simply cut through the curious crowd, gazes fixed straight ahead when they weren’t looking at each other. Luke instructed one of the footmen to have their carriage brought around, and offered him several pound notes to do it quickly. They collected their outerwear by punching the number they’d been given on the keypad on the wall. The mechanized belt growled to life and moved at a steady pace of coats and wraps until it stopped at theirs.

They were almost at the bottom of the steps when a voice called out, “Lucas!”

Luke stopped and turned. Rani stood at the top of the incline, an intense expression on her flawless face. She didn’t speak; she just stared at him with that one dark eye.

A sense of dread washed over him. In that second he knew that she was no friend, and that she had only called out to delay him—separate him from Arden.

He whirled around just in time to see Arden at the bottom of the steps, and a horseless carriage careening toward her, faster than he’d ever seen one travel before. He raced toward her. If the vehicle hit her it would kill her—that was no doubt the intent.

The machine sped closer. He wasn’t going to get there in time.

“Arden, move!” he shouted, his feet a blur over the steps.

She didn’t look at him, didn’t question him. She must have seen death approaching. He watched out of the corner of his eye as his trusting wife dove out of the way. The vehicle swerved toward her….

Luke pounced, thrusting himself between Arden and the speeding carriage. He barely had time to brace himself for impact, but he turned his head away.

Then the vehicle wrapped around him.

Arden had seen many horrific things since joining the W.O.R., but nothing had prepared her for seeing her husband get hit by a carriage, and vice versa.

It was the quintessential unstoppable force and immovable object—or at least it seemed so in her frozen mind. She could only lie there on the steps—the edge of one digging into the flesh between her corset and underarm—and watch as Luke stretched out his hands a fraction of a second before the vehicle struck.

The front of the carriage caved under the force of his strength, and the velocity at which it hit, with a metallic screech of agony. The carriage drove Luke backward even as he did the same to part of it. Steam billowed around them as the destruction groaned to a halt, melting and moaning.

Luke was bleeding.

Somehow, Arden managed to scamper to her feet. Her ribs ached, but she ran to the twisted mass that held her husband prisoner, and when the man driving the carriage tried to crawl from the vehicle, she pulled her discombobulator from her reticule and shoved it hard against his grimy exposed throat. He spasmed and twitched like a fish flopping on a dock, but he could not escape.

The smell of burnt hair and urine filled the air—an unpleasant side effect of using the device on a higher setting, but at least she knew it was in working order.

She turned toward Luke. A flicker of movement in her peripheral vision made her head snap up in time to see Rani Ogitani hop on the back of a velocycle and roar away.

Arden’s jaw clenched. Someday she and Ogitani were going to meet again. But that didn’t matter right now. Luke was all that mattered.

He had saved her.

Alastair arrived as she reached Luke. There was a crowd gathered on the steps now—partygoers gawking at her husband’s battered form. Alastair looked at the scene in horror.

“Help me,” she said.

It took the two of them, despite Alastair’s augmented strength, to help Luke from the wreckage. He was awake, but bloody and unsteady. His hands were a sticky red mess, and there were cuts on his face and neck from flying glass and metal.

They helped him to the steps, where he collapsed on the stone. “Arden…are you unharmed?”

She hovered over him, using the handkerchief she’d pulled from inside his coat to dab at the wounds on his face. There were shards of metal and glass embedded in his skin. “I’m sore but unharmed, you great stupid article. What were you thinking?”

Pale eyes met hers. “Of you.”

Wonderful, now she was going to start bawling. She sniffed and tried to fend off the blurring burning behind her lashes. “We’re taking you to Evie.”

“I’m fine. Alastair can stitch me up.”

Alastair seemed surprised that Luke would have faith in his abilities. He flashed Arden a guilty glance. Perhaps he was thinking of his earlier claim that he would have killed Luke if she’d been his.

“I’ve seen Alastair’s stitches, and you’re going to Evie,” she informed him in crisp tones that kept her voice from trembling. “I’m not taking you home until I know for certain you’re fine.”

“Bossy.” His lips curved up on one side. He turned his head toward Alastair. “That one-eyed bitch was involved.”

The other man’s expression turned grim. “We’ll deal with her later. Can you stand?”

As they helped Luke to the carriage that was now waiting for them, Arden turned to Alastair. “Thank you for coming so quickly.”

“I heard him scream for you to move. I’m sorry I didn’t get here faster.”

His eyes flashed like mirrors in the lamplight. Sometimes she forgot that Alastair’s hearing had been augmented as well. After Luke disappeared, Alastair had volunteered himself for several W.O.R. experimental “improvements” to make him a better agent.

Is that what the Company called what they did to their agents? What they had done to Luke? Improvements?