Heart of Brass (43 page)

“About your decision to leave the Wardens.”

He frowned. “Do you wish to continue working for them?” There was an edge to his voice that told her he would fight her on it if she did.

“No,” she replied honestly. “Though I do think consulting on occasion was a good suggestion. My concern is for you. You’ve been a Warden for as long as I’ve known you. Every Earl of Huntley has been part of the organization as long as it’s existed.”

Luke shrugged and untied his cravat. “I don’t care. It ends with me. We’re going to the country.”

“But are you certain that’s what you want?”

He came toward her and cupped her shoulder with his hands—so gently her healing flesh didn’t even pinch. “My duty is to you—as your husband. That’s all I want to be. I want to get to know everything about the woman you are now. I want to read to you, rub your feet. I want to have children with you and live to see them grow up and start families of their own.” He sighed. “Arden,
you
are my life. I don’t want anything else.”

“Oh.” The word squeaked from her tight throat. Tears flooded her eyes and spilled over her cheeks and she didn’t even bother trying to stop them. “Oh, Luke.”

He took her into his arms and kissed her. Tenderness soon gave way to hunger, and when he picked her up in his incredibly strong arms her heart began to race. He carried her to his bed and stretched out beside her, his skillful hands caressing her until she writhed beneath his touch.

He undressed them both and joined her again, hard and ready. She accepted him eagerly. He braced himself above her—so careful not to hurt her—as they joined and rocked together, riding the spiral of tension upward until they came together in cries of pleasure.

Afterward they lay together, limbs entwined, simply enjoying the silence. Luke leaned over and kissed her, and Arden smiled happily against his lips. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” And then they didn’t speak again for a long time. After seven long years of living in the past, Arden knew she could finally look toward the future. Their future.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My foray into steampunk happened quite by accident. In fact, I didn’t know there was a name for what I wanted to do; I simply knew I wanted to combine my love of history and science fiction. Once I started doing this, and researching various subjects, I stumbled upon steampunk. And I wondered where it had been all my life. Turns out, steampunk has been around for a long time. I’ve watched it and read it—I’ve even worn it—without really knowing what it was. Since discovering there was a name for this wonderful genre I have met so many fabulous, giving people who only want to share their love of steampunk. These folks write books, make fantastic machines, wonderful films and beautiful music. It’s not possible for me to list them all, but I need to make mention of these few: Dr. and Mrs. Grymm of Dr. Grymm Laboratories, who are simply the best; Miss Kitty, the Emperor, Bruce and Melanie Rosenbaum, who are so wonderful and sweet my teeth ache; Ay-leen and Lucretia, both of whom are so genuinely lovely and so supportive of the genre; Eli August, whose music could easily be a soundtrack for this book; and Mike Marchand of Ajar Communications, who is quite possibly the nicest person I have ever met.

I have some romance friends to thank as well—Sophie Jordan, Laura Lee Guhrke, Colleen Gleason, Julia Quinn and Caroline Linden, who are always there with a smile or a shoulder whenever I need it.

I also need to thank my agent, Miriam Kriss, for believing in this project, and Laura Cifelli and Claire Zion at Penguin for seeing its potential and buying it. Also, thanks must go to my editor, Danielle Perez, for her support and help in making this book something special, and for discussing TV shows with me. (
Supernatural
for the win!)

And finally, thanks to my amazing husband, who makes the world a better place simply for being the first face I see in the morning and the last one I see at night. I love you bunches.

Don’t miss the next book in the

Clockwork Agents series by Kate Cross,

TOUCH OF STEEL

Coming in December 2012 from Signet Eclipse

The only sound louder than the breath panting from her lungs was that of blood dripping onto the toe of her boot.

Claire Danvers crouched behind the grimy chimney stack and pressed her hand to her side. Wet seeped through the boning of her corset and the thin wool of her coat, warming her chilled fingers.

Her lungs burned and her gun hand was cramped, but she refused to set down the pistol. Refused to give up the chase. It would take more than a bullet in her side to stop her now.

Across the roof, she heard Howard scurrying away like the rat he was. He could not escape, not when she had already chased him across five countries. Robert’s death could not go unavenged.

Gritting her teeth against the ungodly burning in her side, she braced her shoulder against the sooty brick and leaned hard as she dug her bootheel into the rough stone. She pushed herself to her feet, biting her lip to keep from crying out.

She lifted her gun, blinked the sweat out of her eyes, took aim and fired. The dark figure running toward the edge of the roof ducked as the shot sent bits of brick scattering near his shoulder.

Damn it. A miss. If her vision weren’t so blurry she would have gotten him.

Still clutching her side—blood poured over her fingers now—she ran after him, every strike of her heels a new lesson in pain.

You’re not going to die just yet,
she told herself.
Not until you know for certain you’re going to take that bastard with you. He dies first.

She thought of Robert, of how there hadn’t been enough of him left for her to have a proper funeral for him, how he’d been betrayed by the organization to which he had pledged his life. The thought of seeing him again, whether in Heaven or Hell, wasn’t what pushed her forward. What kept her running despite the sheer agony was that she had sworn to send Howard to his judgment first.

Moonlight cut through the clouds as Howard leaped from the edge of the roof to the next. Claire didn’t hesitate, her stride easily bridging the narrow gap between buildings. A shot whizzed past her ear, and she pitched herself downward. She hit the roof hard, going down on her knees.

“Arrhh!” Lights danced before her eyes as agony ripped through her. Bile rose in her throat as darkness threatened to claim her. She swallowed and staggered to her feet. Howard was putting too much distance between them; he was already at the opposite side.

She raised her pistol and fired again. The sound cracked in the night like the lash of a whip. Howard made a guttural cry. She’d hit the bastard. A grim smile peeled back her lips as she forced herself to move faster. Her battered knees protested, but her legs did as she willed. Howard had stumbled when she shot him and she was closing the gap between them.

This time, he hesitated at the edge of the roof. He clutched his shoulder as he turned his head to look back at her. His face was different from the last time she had seen him, but then his face was different every time. He was a master of disguise, and Claire doubted that even the higher-ups at the Company knew his true countenance. When she killed him she would peel back the layers of his disguise and see the real him.

He raised his hand—she had winged his gun arm—and waved before dropping over the ledge.

Claire froze, but only for a second.
What the hell?
She ran to the edge. Something closed around her ankle. She looked down.

Stanton Howard grinned up at her from where he hung on a crude rope ladder. She realized it was his hand wrapped around her leg just a split second before he yanked her off-balance. She raised her gun, but it was too late—she was already plummeting toward the alley below.

She twisted her body so that her back was to the ground, raised the gun at the man climbing back to the roof and fired. He staggered, and—

She hit with teeth-jarring force. Pain embraced her entire body, and everything went black.

She woke to the low murmur of nearby voices. Fog swam thick in her brain and her limbs were heavy—almost as heavy as her tongue felt in her mouth.

A dull, faint ache radiated across the back of her skull. Her back was sore and her side burned, but none of these complaints bothered her as much as the fact that she did not know the location of her gun.

Opium. They had given her opium—whoever they were. Drugged her and took her weapon. Her clothes, too. Damn it, that meant she was in a hospital.

Why wasn’t she dead? Howard couldn’t have allowed her to live out of the kindness of his traitorous heart.

Opening her eyelids took every ounce of strength she possessed. The room was a blur of motion and colors, and her lids felt as though they’d been lined with sand.

“She’s waking up.” The voice was female, the accent a strange, melodic mix of Irish and some exotic land.

Slowly, her eyes righted themselves and began to focus. Claire blinked. Standing before her was a dusky-skinned woman so strikingly beautiful, she probably had very few female friends, and a tall, stern-looking man with a very British nose. The two of them looked very official, but neither of them had the look of constabulary about them.

“How do you feel?” the woman inquired.

“Like I’ve been shot and fell off a roof,” Claire replied, though her words were slurred—“thot,” “rooth.”

The woman actually smiled a little. “I imagine so.” She came closer to the side of the bed. Claire watched warily as she poured a glass of water from a pitcher on the scarred bedside table. Then she bent at the waist and began turning a crank on the side of the bed. Slowly, as the mechanism ground into use, the upper part of the bed raised, until Claire was almost upright.

The cool lip of the cup pressed against Claire’s parched lips. “Drink,” the woman instructed.

Claire did not need to be told twice. She gulped the water greedily, closing her eyes in pleasure as the cold water ran over her tongue and down her thick, parched throat. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d tasted anything so delicious.

When the cup ran dry the woman refilled it and gave it back to her. Claire drank again, this time allowing her gaze to roam around the sterile ward.

There was one other patient in the room—a man several beds away. His face was a mask of bandages, and one of his legs was encased in a brass boot that extended above his knee. Rods and knobs attached to the boot kept the leg, and the broken bones within it, in the proper place.

He was obviously not the reason there was a heavily armed guard at the door. Damn. The weapon in his hands—a Baker Scatter rifle—was used to kill rather than simply injure or maim. It was very effective as well, the casings of the bullets designed to fragment and burrow once inside the body like little metal predators.

That gun was meant for her.

“Who are you?” she asked the woman.

“I’m Dr. Evelyn Stone.” The doctor took the cup and set it on the table. “You are a very fortunate woman. If that carriage hadn’t broken your fall, you might have ended up in far worse shape than you are now.”

Yes, such as dead. “Where am I?” And where the hell was her gun?

It was the man who answered. “You’re in Warden custody, Miss Danvers.”

The Wardens. Hell. God, she wished Howard had killed her. Claire kept her face blank—it wasn’t difficult given the heaviness of her muscles. Opiates were the very devil as far as she was concerned. She’d rather have pain than helpless oblivion. “Is that supposed to frighten me?”

The man stared down his imperious nose at her. “If you are not afraid you are clearly less intelligent than most Company agents. I wouldn’t aspire to such a claim.”

Arrogant British bastard. What did he know of fear? He probably spent his days behind a desk; the most worrisome thing he ever had to face was his undoubtedly bitter wife.

“If you wanted me dead, I’d be dead,” she responded, words slurring around her lazy tongue. “That means you’ve actually deluded yourself into thinking you’ll get information out of me. Which one of us is lacking in intelligence now, Mr. Idiot?”

A dull flush flooded his mutton-chopped cheeks. He looked as though he had scrub brushes bolted to the sides of his face, the things were so bushy. “Whether or not you cooperate is entirely up to you, Miss Danvers, just as whether or not you live or die is up to me.”

Dr. Stone shot him a dark look, her striking features downright intimidating. “You mean it’s up to the Director.”

“Yes, well…” He sniffed. “She’s not here right now, is she? And during her absence I am acting director.”

Aw, hell. She had to go and piss on the boots of a man filled to the brim with his own importance. Being locked up or killed was not going to help her find Howard. Time was already against her. He was undoubtedly on his way north by now. Every moment put more distance between them. At least she knew where he was headed.

She had not come this far to lose him now. She could not let Robert’s death go unanswered. He was all the family she’d had left, and now she was alone in the world. No one to lean on. No one to tell her when she was wrong or when she had gone too far—when she was too reckless for sense.

“What do you want from me?” she asked, lifting her gaze past that beak of a nose.

Cold eyes brightened with a malicious gleam. If she’d had full control of her limbs she would have stabbed him in the neck with his own cravat pin. “I want to know why you’re in London. I want to know whatever Company secrets you have in that pretty little head of yours. I want the name of every enemy agent here on British soil.”

And she wanted her brother back. “I can’t give you all of that.”

“You’ll give me something or I’ll see you hang.”

Dr. Stone grabbed him by the arm. “I’ll report you.”

He shook her off. “What will it be, Miss Danvers?”