Heart of Brass (3 page)

“I didn’t see his face, unfortunately. All I can tell you is that he wore expensive clothes and had an onyx cravat pin in the shape of a horseshoe.” She sighed. “She knew him. They were lovers. If those marks on her wrists were made by him, they were done so with her consent, and before this rendezvous.”

Inspector Grant went pale beneath the dark of his whiskers. “Knew him, you say?”

Arden met his gaze evenly, her typical tight rein over her emotions returning. “Yes. You are not wrong to be alarmed, Inspector. I’m fairly certain your madman is an aristocrat as well.”

The inspector swore beneath his breath, and this time he did not apologize for his language. Arden didn’t blame him. She’d curse as well, for the inspector’s chances of catching this monster just dropped considerably, never mind the odds of actually bringing him to justice.

“If she’d only looked at him I might be able to identify him,” she mused ruefully.

Grant shook his head and patted her shoulder one last time before he remembered his station and removed his hand. “Do not fault yourself, my lady. You have been of enormous assistance already.”

As Arden removed the spectacles from the girl and used her palm to close her eyes, she didn’t feel as though she’d been of much use at all. She quickly ran through the images in her mind once more. “He was older. Not elderly, but not a boy—perhaps in his late twenties or thirties.”

The inspector wrote this down in his little leather-bound notebook.

“And, Inspector Grant?” When he looked up from his writing she said softly, “You should request Dr. Stone examine the body.”

A soft flush flooded the lawman’s face. The poor thing really had no idea how to handle such situations. He had more modesty than a fourteen-year-old girl. “I see.”

Dr. Evelyn Stone was generally employed by Scotland Yard when a female victim had been molested in some way, but her talents were more extensively employed by the Wardens. The brilliant young woman had machines and formulas for making identifications and finding insights into crimes that baffled and impressed the agency to no end.

“She may find something that will aid in our investigation.”

Inspector Grant’s head snapped up. “
Our
investigation, my lady?”

Arden’s lips twisted into a grim smile. “You’re going to require my ongoing assistance with this one, sir. I travel in the same circles as our killer, and can therefore go where you cannot.”

“Lady Huntley, I cannot allow you to put yourself in harm’s way.” He was clearly flustered. “To include you so thoroughly in a Yard investigation would be grossly unfair, not to mention ungentlemanly of me.”

Not to mention it was terribly gauche of her—a lady—to engage in such horrid pursuits. No doubt that had much to do with her desire to do it.

“
You
, my dear friend, cannot prevent it,” she informed him with a touch of warmth to her determined tone. She rose easily to her feet. “Now, do be a good boy and accept that you are powerless in this instance, and escort me back to my carriage.”

Being the considerate gentleman he was, Inspector Grant could not refuse a lady’s request—especially not the request of such a high-ranking lady as a countess. He also stood and offered her his arm, which she took with a faint smile on her lips.

Arden was all too happy to leave the awful vision of that poor girl behind, but she knew the memory of the sight, as well as what the girl had seen, would linger for at least a fortnight until she managed to put them away with all the other awful things she’d ever seen and buried. Or drowned.

Each peeler she passed tipped his hat and bid her a good evening. The transport team was there to collect the body, and the “cleaners” had arrived to ensure all evidence was collected and every trace of the crime erased. It was standard protocol when the details of a crime were to be kept undisclosed, and since the young woman obviously was of good birth, they had been brought in to save the family from being dragged through more unpleasant scandal than necessary.

Such precautions also kept the jackals of the press from plastering the tragedy all over the pages of the papers and sending the country into a paranoid tizzy that another Jack the Ripper was on the loose. They’d learned their lesson with that particular nasty piece of work.

“You have my gratitude for coming here tonight, my lady,” Inspector Grant spoke, as he opened the door of her carriage. Two metal steps flipped down.

Arden turned to him, one foot on the bottom step. “That’s very lovely of you to say, Inspector. Thank you.” It wasn’t as though she had a choice—it was her duty. Even though she did not answer to Scotland Yard, she reported to the Wardens—an organization higher up the clandestine ladder—and they would expect her to do all she could to aid in the apprehension of this monster.

Grant nodded, and closed the door once she was inside the vehicle. The driver started up the steam engine, and within moments the carriage jerked into motion, the comforting chug filling the interior.

Arden leaned back against the cushioned seat, a wave of weariness washing over her. She was just about to close her eyes when the dirigible made another pass overhead, illuminating the factory yard. Something—someone—on the roof of the factory made her sit bolt upright.

The factory was only two floors, so the distance to the roof wasn’t that far, but when she looked up she swore her eyes were wrong, that they were deceiving her.

The man on the roof was dressed in black, so she couldn’t tell if he had blood on him or not, and he dove out of sight when the bright light washed over him. However, his clothing wasn’t what caught her attention, but his face. A face she knew as well as her own. A face she had once traced every inch of with her fingers, kissed with her lips.

It was the face of her husband.

Chapter 2

His target had escaped him.

The man called Five ran along the roof, keeping to the shadows to avoid the damned dirigible and its glaring light. Below him the carriage carrying his prey rolled through the damp cobblestone street. He kept pace with it as he ran, approaching the edge of the factory roof with an easy speed.

When he reached the edge he jumped and hit the ground in a crouch, the impact reverberating through the heavy soles of his boots as his coat flared out around him. The cobblestones seemed to groan under the impact.

Nimbly, he lunged into his former pace, keeping almost abreast of the vehicle as it traveled through the semideserted street. Not a lot of traffic in this industrial part of the city at this time of night—only the factory workers on the night shift, and they were too busy slaving away or sneaking out for a smoke or a suck of gin to notice an abnormally fast man race by.

Moisture hung in the air, the by-product of so many steam engines—as though London wasn’t damp enough. It permeated his skin and clothes, causing the long leather coat to cling to him uncomfortably. Still, he ran.

An old-fashioned carriage hauled by polished brass automaton horses rolled down the street toward him, metal hooves clomping sharply on the stones, steam billowing from the exhaustion vents disguised as nostrils. It was a hearse, probably on its way to the factory where he had tracked his prey.

“Is it done?”

He was accustomed to the voice in his head now, the intrusive demands familiar instead of distressing. It made the sharing of information particularly simple.

“
Not yet,” he replied in a low tone.

“What’s the delay?”

He turned a corner, following the carriage down another street. “Peelers.”

“Avoid apprehension at all costs. Take extra care if you must, but do
not
fail.”

“Failure is not an option.” Onward he ran, not the least bit winded. He was rarely ever out of breath anymore—it was the way they’d made him.

He didn’t remember what he had been before the Company found him. He was told he had been a criminal of some kind, that he was being offered a new beginning—a chance to repay his debt to society. Now, he was extraordinary, a weapon against evil.

Though the lady in that carriage didn’t look evil to him. In fact he’d been rather startled by her face. It wasn’t that it was a particularly beautiful face—he’d seen prettier women—but there was something about her auburn hair, peaches-and-cream complexion and shapely mouth that gave him pause.

Nothing
gave him pause. Not ever.

He followed the carriage all the way to the exclusive Mayfair part of London. Despite having no memory of ever being there before, it had seemed strangely familiar when he first happened upon it earlier that evening. When he spied on his target from outside a ballroom window he thought he saw people he knew, but for the life of him he could not remember their names or how he might have come to make their acquaintance.

The only explanation was that he had been so well and efficiently briefed on this Arden Chillingham Grey—Lady Huntley—that she and all her friends seemed recognizable to him. That had to be the reason he felt as though he could find his way through her sandstone mansion with his eyes shut.

The carriage pulled up to the front of the house. A footman readily appeared to assist his mistress from the vehicle as Five watched from his perch atop the high wall that surrounded the house and grounds. When the lady was inside and the carriage on its way round back to the stables, he jumped off the wall and ran across the damp, perfectly manicured grass to the back of the house.

A patrol automaton—man-sized and armed with pistols for hands—came up from a hole that had opened in the ground. Five leaped back into the shadows to avoid detection. The metal had no face save for a pair of irisless eyes that served as scanners, searching for unfamiliar life forms. Slowly, it stepped off its platform onto the grass, the hole grinding closed behind it. It would likely patrol the grounds until dawn and then return to its grave. Fortunately, it strode off in the opposite direction of where Five remained hidden. By the time it made a full rotation, he would be gone.

Then he heard the sound of another hole—rusting metal screeching in his ears—opening behind him.

Bloody hell.

Five slipped around the corner as fast as a blink. Gaslights flickered along a gravel path that led to a lush garden, casting a warm glow that he tried to avoid as he crept closer to a trellis against the side of the house. Private security automatons were sensitive to sound as well as movement. A sneeze or wrong step might very well bring one or both of them down upon him. He could probably destroy each with relative ease, but the noise was bound to raise the alarm inside.

An assassin’s best weapon was stealth. Right now he had to be fast as well.

He took a running leap and jumped, pushing himself up with a brief foothold on a ground-floor window casing to grab the edge of the balcony above. He pulled his body up enough so that he could wrap one hand around the balustrade. From there it was easy to maneuver up and over.

The balcony was dark, but the room beyond illuminated with a single lamp. Five peered between the parted gauzy drapes to gauge his location.

It was a bedroom—large and clearly feminine. Could he be so fortunate as to have climbed to the lady’s chamber to discover nothing but a layer of fragile glass between them?

Sure enough, she was there, sitting at her dressing table as a young woman removed the pins from her mass of hair glinting with copper in the lamplight. The sight of long, silky locks falling down her back caused a peculiar pinch in his chest. He watched, almost mesmerized as the maid, having removed all pins, ran a silver-backed brush through the thick waves.

The lady looked up, holding her own cinnamon gaze within the mirror. A fraction to the right and she would have seen him, but she was too preoccupied with her thoughts to notice him. She looked sad and shaken as she removed the small gem-set gold studs that secured the chains in her nose and ear. Why did she wear them? he wondered as she placed the jewelry in a carved wooden box. And the ring she removed from her left hand—was it a wedding ring? If so, where was the fortunate groom? Surely he wouldn’t allow such an intriguing woman to sleep alone?

Five knew it was wrong, and he didn’t care. He stayed where he was, a Peeping Tom as the lady stood and allowed the maid to assist her in undressing. The shimmery gray gown slid down her arms, revealing a fine lawn chemise beneath a corset better suited for a courtesan than a lady: silver satin embroidered with turquoise, magenta and green butterflies. It pushed her breasts together and up as though offering them on a platter. His mouth turned arid as a desert at the sight of them.

He hadn’t been with a woman in more than a month, but even if he’d gotten shagged five minutes ago, he would still appreciate this woman’s body. Her waist was nipped, her hips flared. He watched brazenly as the maid loosened the lacings on that work of art enough to easily unhook the front, releasing her mistress from its confines.

The chemise was so thin he could see the shadows and blushes of her body beneath. She wasn’t yet naked, and he could feel a familiar tightening below his waist—and then she stood there in nothing but her stockings and shoes.

Christ Jesus.

He tore himself away from the door, flattening himself against the side of the house. What the hell was he doing? He was there to kill her, not pant after her like a randy mutt. He had to get control of himself. He had to focus, because it had only taken the sight of her tits for him to think it was a shame she had to die.

His lungs filled with cool night air, exhaled and filled again. Each cleansing breath eased the arousal inside him, returned his mind to its former cool detachment. When he returned to the door, she was no longer in the room, but in the mirror he could see the adjoining bathing chamber where she soaked in a tub of steaming water, her hair spilling over the side.

She drank from a squat crystal glass as she soaked. Whiskey it looked like. Good, that would make her more relaxed, less likely to fight back.