Kiss of Steel (29 page)

“Aye. But you obviously didn’t. What stopped you?”

“I don’t know. I’m tryin’ to be patient. To win ’er over. Sometimes I doubt if she’ll ever yield.”

Esme scraped the pastry off her hands then wiped them on a cloth. She turned and slipped her arms around him. “She affects you, doesn’t she?”

He looked into her serene face. “The ’unger’s worse. With ’er. Even though I’ve just drank, it still wants. I’m afraid I’m goin’ to lose control of it.”

“You obviously managed to rein it in.”

“This time.” And his CV levels were only rising.

Esme pressed a kiss against his forehead. “Don’t doubt yourself. You’re a good man, Blade. I know how strong you are. And you’ll have to wait a month before you take from her again. Perhaps in that time she’ll have grown used to you.”

“Maybe.” If he could last the month without demanding more. He’d never before been tempted to break his own rule. “She wants ’er diaries back.”

A guilty flush crept over Esme’s cheeks. “I see. You figured it out.”

“Well, it weren’t Rip or Will readin’
The
Tamin’ o’ the Shrew
.”

Esme pushed away from him, leaving a heady cloud of her floral scent behind. “They’re coded.”

“You tried to read ’em?”

She reached up to the flour container and tugged it down, then pulled a pair of worn-looking diaries out of it. “I was curious to see if she’d mentioned you at all.”

The leather of the spines was soft and creased when he took them. He scratched a nail over the gold lettering on the larger one. Why were they so important to her? Why risk her life—her freedom—just to fetch them from Vickers’s Institute?

His hands tightened on the leather. Honoria. Cool, rational, guarded. An impenetrable tower he couldn’t storm. At first the challenge had stirred his interest, but lately he’d begun to find it only frustrated him.

He wanted her to trust him. To share her secrets with him. He found himself curious, wanting to know more about who she was beneath the composed facade.
Let
me
in, damn you
.

He was lucky she’d believed him when he said he hadn’t taken the diaries. That could have been one step back in the cautious dance they shared.

“Don’t interfere again,” he said, pushing off from the bench. “I mean it. Or
I’ll
start interferin’.”

Esme’s gaze shot to his. “I don’t know what you’re referring to.”

“Don’t you? I wonder what Rip’d say ’bout it if I asked ’im?”

A flush of heat burned up her neck. She pounded both fists into the pastry. “You wouldn’t dare.”

He eyed the pastry. A wise man might not push a woman in this kind of mood, but, then, Esme had always been his confidante. “Wouldn’t I?”

“If you mention anything of the sort to John, I’ll box your ears.”

“Well, someone oughta take the blinders off ’is eyes.” Blade snagged a piece of pastry and danced past her as she swung out at him. “Man’s got ’is ’ead buried deeper ’n an ostrich.”

“John’s been very kind to me.” Her hands stilled. “Too kind. I’m not at all certain that how I feel…” She broke off and took a deep breath. “I don’t believe my feelings are reciprocated.”

“Aye. That’s why ’e looks murder at me whenever it’s your turn to come up to me rooms.”

Esme shot him a sidelong glance. “He wouldn’t dare. He worships you.”

“Per’aps that’s why ’e don’t let on to you. Let me ’ave a chat with ’im, man to man.” One little conversation ought to clear up this little mess that was developing in his home. Blade took his responsibilities seriously, and as far as he could see, Rip and Esme’s future happiness was part of that responsibility.

“You’re a regular matchmaker. Perhaps you ought to take your own advice. I’ll let you deal with John if you allow me to have a little discussion with Honoria.”

The smile on his face died. “No.”

“Not so easy a solution when the shoe is on the other foot, is it?” Esme rolled her eyes. “You can’t control everything, Blade. And you can’t force her trust. Be patient.”

He tapped the diaries against his thigh. “I been more ’n patient. She won’t tell me a bleedin’ thing.”

“And of course you’ve been the soul of confession with her,” Esme replied.

He paused.

“Why should she trust you when you haven’t trusted her?”

“Not the kind of bedtime stories a lady wants to ’ear.”

“Maybe her stories aren’t either.”

Blade scratched at his jaw. “I’ll think ’bout it.”

“Coward.”

“Now, that’s the pot callin’ the kettle black, ain’t it?”

***

Blade sauntered down the stairs, listening to the sounds of muted conversation in his audience chamber. Blue bloods. In his home. And one of them had some form of connection to Honoria.

He wore a scowl as he pushed the double doors wide with a bang. Both Barrons and a stranger turned to look at him, neither of them flinching in surprise. Barrons wore metal-plated body armor over his torso, with a pair of buff trousers, worn knee-high boots, and a short sword at his side. The hilt was unadorned and the grip had seen use. Once again Blade was forced to revise his opinion on the man. Barrons just might be dangerous with a sword. Blade’s scowl deepened.

“Blade,” Barrons said and nodded to his companion. “This is Sir Jasper Lynch, huntmaster of the guild.”

Lynch was taller than both of them, his features cool and calculating as he watched the byplay. The aquiline tilt of his nose and the deep-set gray eyes brought to mind the image of a falcon. He nodded courteously, though no deeper than one blue blood to another. “We have a vampire to hunt?”

“We do.”

“Any idea of its location?” Lynch watched him intently. He wore the stiff black leather coat of the Guild of Hunters, with its white frogging down the middle and chrome epaulets on his broad shoulders.

Blade liked the fact that the man was straight to the point. None of them were friends, only wary allies. There was no need for formalities and polite backstabbing.

“It ain’t aboveground in the rookery,” Blade answered. “Me and me men ’ave covered every square inch. I think it’s either in Undertown or ’idin’ down in the factories by Brickbank.”

Lynch nodded. “Where’s the nearest entrance to Undertown from here?”

Blade crossed the floor toward the picture projector and lit the candle behind the pictograph. A grainy map of Whitechapel and its surrounding environs sprang up on the grimy wall.

“’Ere,” he said, pointing toward the south end of the rookery. “There’s an old broken drain someone covered o’er with mesh. Leads down into the sewers. One o’ the Undertowner’s cut a tunnel into it from the old, collapsed Eastern Link.” The only way into the rookery without crossing the wall.

“I’ll get the squadron ready.” Lynch nodded curtly, then turned and strode for the door.

Blade scratched at his jaw. “Interestin’ fellow. Abrupt.”

“He believes only in getting the task done,” Barrons replied absently, staring at the map.

“Blud-wein?” Blade asked, pouring himself a glass of it.

“Please.”

The candle behind the projector guttered. He caught the slight hint of floral-scented soap and heard the whisk of skirts, soft-paced behind the door. Honoria. Sneaking out the back entrance with Will.

Barrons took his blud-wein and sipped. His eyes widened. “An excellent vintage.”

“You were expectin’ poison?”

“Rotgut, maybe.”

They shared an uneasy smile, full of edges and raised hackles.

“I ain’t the sort for poison,” he said. “If I come at you, it’ll be ’ead-on.”

“That’s a refreshing novelty,” Barrons drawled. “They say you’re nothing but a jumped-up alley rat. A mushroom. I could almost like you.”

“Almost?”

Barrons drained his glass then put it down with a clank. “Interesting eau de toilette you’re wearing.”

Blade had come straight from the bedchamber, deliberately flaunting Honoria’s scent. Some part of him wanted her mark on his skin, to show the world—or perhaps just Barrons—who she belonged to. “You got a problem with it?”

Barrons clasped his hands behind his back and studied him. “She hasn’t told you about me.”

That made his teeth grind together. Honoria’s secretive nature was beginning to put him on edge. He didn’t give a damn if she’d taken a lover in the past; he just wanted to know why she refused
him
. Unless she still had feelings for this man…The thought ran like ice water down his spine. Not that. God above, he didn’t think he could be selfless enough to let her go to another man. “I’m curious. ’Er father worked for yours for many years?”

“Indeed.”

“You were friends?”

Barrons’s lips twitched. “No. Not friends. More than that. And less.” He cocked his head to the side, as though considering Blade. “I have no claim on her, if that’s what puts that look in your eye.”

Blade stopped in his tracks. He was pacing the room like a caged tiger. Exhibiting a weakness. If Barrons wanted to bring him down, he would know just how to do it. Blade gave a loose shrug. “The girl’s amusin’. But skittish.” He gestured toward the door. “You ready to get those boots dirty?”

Barrons gave him a long, slow look, then nodded. “I have no claim on her, but I warn you. Be kind to her.” He grabbed his hat from the hat stand by the door and fitted it with ridiculous care. They locked gazes. “Or I’ll have to kill you.”

Blade stared at his back as the man turned for the door.
Not
the
kind
of
thing
a
man
with
no
claim
on
a
woman
would
say
. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered and followed.

***

Honoria rubbed at her eyes, trying to ease the tired strain. She knew her father’s code, but deciphering it was still slow, tedious work. It didn’t help that Lena had taken over the other side of the table with yards of yellow cotton and was blabbering excitedly as she stitched the seam.

Will had shoved a package into Honoria’s hands with a grunt as he left her at her door. She’d been tempted to call after him and inform him to return it immediately. Then she’d read the note, carefully copied in an elegant hand—possibly Esme’s—but obviously dictated by Blade:
For
your
sister. And your brother.

If it had been anything else, she couldn’t have accepted it and he knew it. Tugging open the brown paper, tears had welled in her eyes as she saw the carefully folded yellow cotton, threads, and a small sewing kit. There was a clockwork tumbler ball too, for Charlie.

He had outplayed her. She couldn’t
not
accept the gifts, and the very thought that he had considered Charlie and Lena made her heart beat hard.

There was an awful knot of
something
in her chest. Honoria had stood in the street and cried with the two gifts clenched in her hands. It had been a long time before she could take them inside.

The letters in the diary were swimming before her eyes. She put her dip pen down and pushed away from the table. Weak afternoon sunlight streamed in through the window. Twitching aside the curtain showed the grimy cobblestones outside and the ragamuffin band of boys playing tumbler in the alley. One day maybe Charlie would be out there chasing the clockwork ball with the same ferocious energy.

A smile tugged at her lips then died. She was trying to be hopeful, but there was a lot of work for her to do before that scenario became reality. Her father had been on the verge of discovering a cure. It was all he spoke about in those final days, obsessing over the inoculations. But just because he was close to a cure didn’t mean she could re-create his work. She understood it, but she had never owned the kind of genius Artemus Todd had. To make mad guesswork and leaps of logic before scrambling wildly for pen and parchment. What if she couldn’t work it out?

Leaning her forehead against the chilled glass pane, she watched the boys rioting madly, upsetting the flow of traffic and nearly knocking a young woman over. Charlie deserved to have a life like that. Instead of confined to his bed, his arms marked with the track of numerous injections. Better that than the alternative…Or was it?

The craving was a slow death sentence. Worse. It turned men into blood-starved monsters who existed only for the thrill of the kill. But Blade was a blue blood. And although she might not be able to sort the jumble of her emotions regarding him, she could no longer despise him for his illness. Indeed, she could only admire the man. So close to the edge, and yet still he fought for control.