The Deathsniffer’s Assistant (The Faraday Files Book 1) (49 page)

She giggled and snuggled her cheek against him. “I’m so happy you’re okay,” she whispered, and he squeezed her tight.

Then he raised his head to the gathered reporters and photographers with their shuffling feet, muttered questions, and flashing cameras. He hardened his features, feeling his embrace go from warm to protective. Some of them exchanged glances, but they were as stubborn as the press ever were and needed to hear it for themselves. “My sister is thirteen years old,” he said sharply. “A girl has a right to privacy.”

Still, they didn’t move. A few shuffled, glanced towards the door, the other occupants of the room. But not one of them took a step. Every camera still pointed their way, and there was a question hovering on every reporter’s lips. Anger bubbled up in him as he wished he could somehow punch every single one of them in the gut. “Fine,” he snarled. “Enjoy your story.”

Seizing Rosemary’s wrist in his hand and ignoring her cry of protest, he turned and pushed aside the big man who’d grabbed him, shouldering through the gathered crowd until he stood before Avery Combs. The man smiled down at him with all that easy, deceitful charisma. Chris couldn’t tell the lights caused by the bruise on his brains from those caused by the popping of flashbulbs. He was dimly aware of Miss Albany coming up to stand at his side. “You had no right,” he spat up at Combs.

Combs spread his hands innocently before him. He gave a disarming smile. “Mister Buckley,” he said, “I know you must be very upset over what you’ve heard, but let me try and explain just what―”

“I’m contacting the police,” Chris said firmly, tugging Rosemary and turning to leave the room.

“Chris!” Rosemary gasped.

“Ah―” Combs said, and Chris had a moment’s satisfaction at the slightest hint of panic in the man’s voice. But before he got more than a few steps, Combs had hurried ahead of him and stood to block his path. “
Mister
Buckley,” he said again, and raised his hands once more, this time, in a gesture of warding.
Wait,
they said,
listen
, and despite his lack of will to do either, Chris pulled his sister close by his side, felt Miss Albany at his other, and narrowed his eyes, staring up at the tall, dark and handsome kidnapper.

He waited and listened.

“It was an emergency, Mister Buckley, and we didn’t have long to try and find a binder available. I don’t even think there is another one strong enough to handle the disaster we were warned the reformists would create. We knocked. We asked. Your sister agreed to come with us, and your governess said nothing at all in protest.”

“
Liar
,” said Miss Albany, and, “It’s
true
!” said Rosemary, and “What did you do to her?” said Chris, all at once.

Combs looked back and forth between the three of them, eyes narrowing. “What are you talking about?” he asked. The reporters behind them were a beehive of hushed whispers and exclamations.

Chris saw Miss Albany step forward and lift her chin out of the corner of his eye. “I couldn’t move,” she said with quiet ferocity in her voice. “Every muscle was paralyzed and I could only sit and watch from the parlour while you all took Miss Buckley out of my hands. What did you do to me, Combs?”

Combs shook his head slightly, and then he chuckled. Quietly at first, and then louder and louder until he was laughing quite loudly. “Fantastic!” he crowed. “Bloody
fantastic
. That’s how you’ll play this, then? Rich, I must say. I wondered why you just let us walk out with her.”

“I couldn’t move!” she repeated. “You―”

“I thought I recognized you,” Combs continued, his booming, well-projected voice trampling over Miss Albany’s as though she had merely whispered. “Your face seemed so familiar from somewhere. I know who you are, now.
Rachel
, yes, Rachel
Albany
. How convenient for the reformists that you somehow ended up as Miss Buckley’s caretaker.” He peered at her plain face, shaking his head. “How did you
know
about her?” He turned back to the reporters and called to them leisurely. “This woman is a reformist agent. She’s responsible for the tragedy on Grapevine Street, today.”

“My brother’s politics have nothing to do with me. I am not a reformist,” Miss Albany snapped. A flashbulb went off, and then another, and another.

“Indeed, you’re very well known for never doing anything Garrett says,” Combs purred, quietly enough that the press wouldn’t have heard.

Chris’s eyes darted over to Miss Albany’s face. The governess’s face was flushed with both shame and anger, her eyes flashing, but not meeting Combs’s.

Rosemary tugged, murmuring, “
Chris
, you’re
hurting
me.”

He shot her an apologetic look and loosened his grip, but only slightly. He was terrified that if he let her go, the chaos on all sides might lean in close, swoop down, and carry her away.

When Combs spoke again, his voice was louder and had that courtly, polished quality Chris had seen when the man had first come to his estate to steal Rosemary away. “Did we drug you, Miss Albany?” he asked. “Is that what you claim? Well―” He spread his arms wide and indicated the room in which they stood, all the people gathered there, who had gone very quiet. “We’re in a hospital. There are lifeknitters everywhere. Surely one could peer into your blood and see if there’s anything unfortunate coursing through your veins. Then when your employer is good to his word and takes me to the police, he’ll actually have some evidence instead of some ludicrous claims.”

“You
bastard
. I know very well you wouldn’t have given me anything that could be so easily detected!” Miss Albany was quivering with rage. Chris couldn’t help but take a step closer to her side, pulling his sister along with them.

He instantly regretted it when he saw the way Combs’s eyes flickered between them. “Oh,” the man whispered, a small, ugly smile curling onto his lips. “Is that how it is, then? If
that
was what Livingstone had in mind, you’d think he’d have sent a prettier spy.”

Rachel Albany spat in his face.

Spittle struck the handsome young traditionalist on the cheek and began oozing down towards the ugly curve of his lips. “Doctor Livingston would
never
have done what you’re all accusing him of!” Miss Albany snarled, and the press
exploded
into a flurry of questions and exclamations and flashing and
pop pop pop pop
.

Chris seized Miss Albany’s wrist in his other hand and then turned away from the chaos, yanking both women behind him. Miss Albany gasped in shock, and Rosemary protested with a squealed, “
Chris
, stop it!”

“Mister Buckley!” Combs called after them, louder than the press, his voice a perfectly composed facade of concern and confusion. “Mister Buckley, your own life was saved by the fact that we
did
bring your sister to Grapevine Street! Many more deaths and much more destruction were prevented! We are at a critical time in our history as a nation! Surely your sister’s
privacy
is not nearly so important as the lives, the
futures
she could be saving!” Rosemary struggled to break away from his grip, loudly trying to agree with everything Combs was saying, but Chris ignored her and pulled her on.

He reached the exit at the same time as Olivia Faraday.

She stared at him, leaning heavily on her crutches. She glanced at the two women he held gripped in either hand, peered over his shoulder at the shouting press, popping flashes, and scheming traditionalist. “Problem, Christopher?” she asked.

So many,
he went to reply, but then, of course, another surfaced.

A new burst of activity behind him caught Olivia’s attention. Her eyes flickered away from his, and then widened. Readjusting her grip on her crutches, she shouldered her way between Miss Albany and him, breaking his grip on her wrist, and headed out into the foyer. “Wh―” Chris asked, turning about to watch her pass, but at the same time, she cried, “
Maris
?” and he saw a group of frantic lifeknitters and grim-faced police officers rushing through the foyer with a stretcher held between them, a stretcher covered in stained red sheets and holding a quivering and twitching body.

He pulled Rosemary back out of their way by instinct. Miss Albany followed. Olivia fell into hobbling step beside Officer Maris Dawson, whose orange curls bobbed up and down as she marched with purpose. “What happened?” Olivia demanded.

“One of the servants found her in the gardens and mirrored us,” Officer Dawson replied briskly.

“Has she
said
anything?”

“Not a damn word. She’s in shock.”

Olivia locked eyes with Chris. For a moment, her gaze was sympathetic, but then that soft emotion dived beneath the surface, and his employer motioned with her head, indicating he should come with her.

No, no, why now? Why bloody now?
He knew, he just knew, who was on that stretcher, but when it passed before him and into the stark white halls of the hospital, and he saw Duchess Evelyn val Daren’s white face and staring eyes, he still had to lean against something lest he fall to the ground.

“Chris,” Rosemary said, her voice suddenly trembling in fear. “Chris, that lady, she…she was…”

That something he leaned on was Rachel Albany. She supported his weight for only a moment before pushing him in the direction the stretcher had gone. “You have to,” she said. “It’s your job.”

he was right.

Dammit, she was right.

Chris turned to her and grasped her shoulders in his hands. He looked into her eyes and decided, once again, to trust her. “Go home,” he commanded, and she nodded. “Mirror Fernand. Tell him to come and stay with you. Tell him to―that―tell him everything that happened, tell him Rosemary needs to be
protected
.” She continued nodding, and when he pushed her a step back and released Rosemary’s hand, she instantly took his sister into her care and turned to lead her towards the door.

“Come along, Miss Rosemary,” she said, her voice steady and professional. Flashbulbs continued to pop, but Miss Albany walked as though she didn’t notice them.

Rosemary turned back to meet Chris’s eyes, her own filled with fear. “Chris,” she said. “Is that lady going to be okay? Is she…”

He gave her an encouraging smile. “We’re going to do everything we can,” he called. “Now, go with Miss Albany and do what she says.
Don’t
go anywhere with anyone, please. Trust me.”

Rosemary bit her lip and nodded, turning away from him to follow after her governess. Chris watched them go until they vanished out the door and into the city, and then he had to put his faith in Rachel Albany and leave it to her. He turned and hurried down the hall at a near-run, after the clump of lifeknitters, police officers, and Olivia Faraday.

Olivia was stumbling along with her crutches and dragging her crushed leg,
somehow
still managing to position herself by the Duchess’s gasping face. “
Duchess
,” she said, her voice a sharp, heartless command. “Listen to me.
Focus on me.
Who did this to you? You need to tell me!” The Duchess said nothing in response, only blinked and sputtered up at the Deathsniffer. Chris couldn’t see how she was hurt, only that there was blood everywhere, and a distinct too-sweet smell like cooked meat. He’d smelled enough of that today.