Heart of Iron

“You’re late.”



The voice was soft, melodic. A man used to the well-toned inflection of command. The door opened and light spilled through, blinding her for a moment.



“Had to take care of a little something,” Mendici replied, stepping through.



Lena glared at his back. His dismissive words hurt. Will was more than a little something. Brave and strong and stubborn, he had more worth in his little finger than Mendici had in his entire body.



“This her?”



Lena felt the shove from behind as she stepped through the door. Her eyes slowly adjusted to the light. The room beyond held an enormous table ringed with twelve chairs and the remains of a meal. A pair of women looked up from the table, one sprawled with an arrogant grace in her chair and the other rifling through a sheaf of notes. Her hands were stained with ink, her eyes warm and dark with curiosity. She wore a pair of tight men’s trousers and a white shirt cinched against her lush curves with a gray tweed waistcoat. A pair of magnifying goggles were pushed back on her coppery hair and her right hand was a metal gauntlet, the fingers moving with a delicate grace Lena had rarely seen. A gold pocket watch drew the eye to her breast, but Lena was certain the effect was unconscious.



Another mech.



The other woman wore a black leather coat, buttoned up the left breast with brass buttons. Gleaming epaulets crowned her shoulders, and her boots encased muscular calves. She flicked the ash on her cheroot, her catlike hazel eyes raking over Lena. One glance and the cold gaze moved on, lip curling dismissively. “You wasted all that effort on this?”



A man stepped out of the shadows, the same man who’d answered the door. His hand curled over the woman’s shoulder, slightly possessive. “Patience, Ingrid. That’s no way to treat a guest.” The voice shivered across the skin. A man used to hypnotizing people with that alone. A showman.



A patchwork coat framed his lean body. At first glance the coat looked shabby and mean, but Lena hadn’t spent hours grinding her teeth in boredom over her sewing for nothing. The coat was deceptively fine, the patches quite deliberately placed, she was certain. A stained cravat spilled from the open throat of his shirt, and his black gloves were cut off at the fingers, revealing the tanned skin of his fingers.



But that was not what drew her eye. A leather strap held a monocular brass eyepiece over one eye, his mouth hidden by a brass and leather half mask. Together they obscured his face so that all she could see was one piercing gray eye. His hair was the same dark copper as the first woman’s.



“A guest?” Lena demanded, shaking off her dull wits. “Your hospitality is somewhat lacking. Who are you? What do you want with me?”



“You wished to see Mercury, did you not?” His hands spread wide, palms facing her.



The words stole the breath from her lungs. “Mercury? You’re Mercury?”



“And you, my delightful Miss Todd, are a rather surprising little package.” His fingers absently stroked Ingrid’s thick brown hair. “This is one of our little pigeons,” he murmured to his comrade. “A protégé of the resourceful Mr. Mandeville. And quite resourceful herself. She’s the mind and hands behind our gift to the Scandinavian embassy.”



The way he acted, the slight edge of mocking humor that curled over every word… It made her teeth grate. He’d kidnapped her from the streets when she would have gone willingly. If he’d simply asked, Will would be sitting in the warren, dining with the rest of her family.



Tears sprang into her eyes. The praise was meaningless, the entire cause was meaningless. She could summon nothing but grief. “Why the charade? Your men could have asked me to come. One mention of your name and I would have been willing.” A dark glare at Mendici. “You’ve destroyed my guardian’s carriage, knocked my footmen unconscious, and…hurt a man I consider a friend. Now you assume I should have some goodwill toward you remaining.”



Mercury’s fingers froze, the smile faltering. He glanced at Mendici as if in search of explanation.



“Her guardian’s a bleeder,” Mendici replied with a sneer. “If I could, I’d smash every one of his pretty little carriages. And your so-called friend, my dear, clearly weren’t human. Not to have taken on Percy in such a way, or to cross that cable so swiftly.” His lip curled. “I don’t trust her.”



“Yet you expect me to trust you,” Lena retorted. “I don’t think I want any further part of this. I thought the humanists wished to be equal, but you don’t. You want to reverse the social order instead, to grind the Echelon and the blue bloods beneath your heel. To make of them slaves, or little better.”



“To make them dead,” Mendici snapped back.



“They’re not all inhuman,” she replied. “I have met some few who I consider trustworthy and heroic. My own brother-in-law is the Devil of Whitechapel and considers his men his family. My guardian is equally kindly and treats his thralls with respect—”



“See?” Mendici snarled to Mercury. “She’s a friggin’ bleeder lover! I’ll bet she’s whorin’ for ’em. Daresay if we ever locate that man’s body we’ll find he’s into the first cycle of the craving. Certainly didn’t like the screamer none—”



Lena turned on him in a rage, her fists clenched. “Will is not a blue blood, you filth. If you had half his courage—”



“Enough!” Mercury roared. He pushed away from the wall and threw a dark glance at Mendici. “I believe I gave orders that you and your men were to seek a warm belly and bed. Why are you here?”



Mendici crossed his arms over his massive chest. “Some of the men are wonderin’ about your latest orders. And the lenience you’ve shown the last batch of blue bloods we caught.”



“You’re questioning me?” The words were silky soft. Deadly.



“Me and the men, we don’t like it none.” Mendici scowled. He held up his mech hand. “You promised us revenge, for this. For those hell-spawned enclaves. We didn’t risk our lives, lose our friends, to break out of the enclaves for nothing. I want blood. Blue blood. I want to see all their heads on bleedin’ spikes.” He pointed a finger at her. “Why’s she so important?”



“Because she is a set of ears where we have none,” Mercury replied.



Another sneer. Mendici took a warning step forward, his hand slipping to his side. When it came up, he was holding a pistol. “There’s some as says you’re growin’ weak. Merciful. We’ve been talkin’, me and the boys—”



A pistol retorted.



A small red hole bloomed in the middle of his forehead and, mouth agape, he slowly toppled backward. The clatter of his steel-plated jerkin as he hit the ground jarred her nerves.



Lena scrambled backward, her spine hitting the wall. The room was still as everyone in it turned tentative gazes toward the woman with the smoking pistol.



Her ink-stained hands didn’t so much as shake as she lowered the weapon. Lips thinning, she gestured to Ingrid. “Get rid of him. See that the others understand what we do with those who speak of mutiny here.”



The brunette ground her cheroot out and rolled to her feet. Lena hadn’t realized until that moment how tall the woman was. Nearly a good inch on Mercury, with broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist. Only the lush curve of her breasts and hips saved her from a masculine figure.



Wrenching Mendici up by his arm, she threw him over her shoulder with the same amount of effort Will might expend. “You’re certain of this, Rosalind?” she asked. “The men liked him.”



The petite redhead nodded sharply. “I cannot risk insubordination. Not now, when we’re so close. Take him away.” She glanced toward the masked figure leaning against the wall. “Leave us,” she murmured.



His gaze flickered toward Lena.



“She wants to know if she can trust us,” Rosalind replied to the unspoken question. Their gazes met. Held. “Perhaps a show of trust is what she needs.”



With a flamboyant shrug of his shoulders, he stepped toward the door. “On your head, so be it. I’ll go see if I can help Ingrid find out whose tongues have been flapping. And how far it’s gone.”



Two steps and he was through the door, with Ingrid on his heels.



It shut behind them and Lena turned to face the woman. They were much of a height and perhaps even age. Or perhaps not. Rosalind’s pale skin bore the creaminess of youth and her tip-tilted nose gave her a permanently youthful appearance. Yet the command with which she had spoken was not that of someone untried.



You wished to see Mercury, did you not?



It was only now that Lena realized that the man had never directly referred to himself as such.



“You’re Mercury, aren’t you?”



Those plump lips pursed. “I’m not going to harm you.” Rosalind slid the pistol into a holster at her hip with a dexterity and ease that Lena envied.



“Who was he? The man?”



“My brother, Jack. He is also Mercury. As is Ingrid at times. Mercury has worn many names and faces over the years, the better to hide from the Echelon.” Rosalind smiled slightly, gesturing toward a chair. “Sit. Talk with me. We’ve been very curious about you.”



“As am I.” Lena dragged out a chair, giving herself plenty of room to move if she needed to. This pretty, pouting young woman seemed friendly enough, but she wouldn’t forget the ease with which she’d killed a man. Nor the cool, emotionless look in her eyes as she’d done it.



Rosalind eased into her chair, leaning back with her arms slung across the chair backs next to her. Calculation cooled her brown eyes. “There are very few who know the truth behind Mercury’s secret.”



“I would never reveal it.”



“Even if your sympathies toward the organization are conflicted?”



Lena paused for a moment. “I would not betray you. If I choose to turn my back on this, then I’ll walk away and try to forget everything I ever saw.”



“Walk away?” Rosalind murmured. “To where? Your life at court? To beg a blue blood to take mercy on you and take you as thrall? How long do you imagine that will last, with your inability to allow a blue blood to feed?”



The only person who knew that was Mr. Mandeville. The betrayal raked her with iron claws.



Rosalind tidied the piles of paper in front of her, then pushed them across the table toward her. “This is everything that we know about you. Compiled carefully in the last year. Jack and Ingrid might think this a risk, telling you of Mercury’s secret, but I don’t think you’d dare.”



A charcoal sketch rested on top. Lena stared down into her own face. The rendering was exquisite, but the expression was slightly disdainful, one eyebrow arched in dismissal. A pretty, hardened flirt.



She lifted it carefully, revealing details about her and her life. Charlie’s name. That made her blood boil. Honoria. Even Blade and Will. The detail went further, examining the minutiae of her life. When she came and went from Caine House. A brief question about why Leo had taken her as his ward, that had been circled in red ink, and daily details about her relationship with him that were shockingly intimate.



No sign of her sharing his bed. Or her blood. I cannot quite fathom the relationship as yet, but I will…



Another page.



They joked of her sister, Honoria, this morning as if he knew her well. Does the relationship go deeper?



And further down.



I find it curious that the Duke of Caine has forgone visiting the house since the arrival of the girl. I’ve spoken to the servants, the thralls about it. His Grace came regularly each Sunday afternoon to play chess with his son but does so no longer. They have never been close, but one thrall claims that she heard them arguing about Miss Todd. His Grace insisted quite strongly that his son “remove that two-faced snake” from his house but the son refused. Something about this situation strikes me as out of the ordinary. Why would the duke’s heir take such a no-account girl as his ward? The duke was once her father’s patron, but by all accounts that ended badly, though I don’t know why. I will endeavor to find more.



A traitor in Caine House who’d been watching her every move. Icy fingers ran through her. “Mrs. Wade,” she whispered, suddenly afraid for Leo. If anyone realized precisely what their relationship was he’d be ruined. Or worse.



“Her loyalty was easy to buy. She has some outstanding debts,” Rosalind explained. “You were a potential liability from the start. One with access to a great deal of resources. We took a vote on whether you were too dangerous to use. Ingrid wanted to kill you.”



Lena shoved to her feet, the chair squealing on the floor. She couldn’t stop shivering. The sweats from earlier had vanished, her body feeling as though someone had turned a faucet from hot to cold. “What do you intend to do with me?”