Читать книгу The Girl with the Iron Touch - Kady Cross - Страница 6

“Has he said anything to you?” Finley asked Sam when they were back at King House in Mayfair. Griffin was in his room, asleep. He’d regained consciousness on the way home and insisted he was fine, he just needed to rest.

No one really believed that. But, this was his house. He was the Duke of Greythorne, and his power over the Aether had been known to topple buildings. His power had also been unpredictable as of late, so no one wanted to push him. Not because they were afraid of what he might do to them—Griffin was their friend—but because they were afraid of what he might do to himself. There was something wrong, and he wasn’t sharing it with his most trusted friends.

Sam shook his head. The four of them—Finley, Sam, Emily and Jasper—were gathered in the red parlor having sandwiches and little cakes for tea. “He’ll tell us if he wants us to know.”

“That’s the problem,” Finley shot back, in no mood for his brusque tone or ever-present scowl. She was hungry and she’d tied her corset a little too tightly. “He doesn’t want us to know. Which means he thinks we’ll worry. Which means whatever’s wrong with him is something we should worry about.”

“Blokes are different than girls,” Sam informed her—still scowling. “We don’t need to talk about every little thing. You don’t hear me whining when I break a nail.”

Finley’s own brows pulled together. “Do you ever think before you open your mouth?”

“Did I offend your delicate sensibilities?” Sam asked sweetly. He seemed to take great pleasure in riling her. “Or are you afraid Griff might say something to me he might not tell you? If he had, I wouldn’t betray his trust by telling everyone.”

Finley’s shoulders straightened. She could kick him in the throat. That would remove the smug smile from his face. How did he manage to get under her skin and know what she was thinking sometimes? It wasn’t like Sam was all that bright, which meant she was completely obvious in her feelings. She’d have to change that.

But she was the one who’d cradled Griffin’s head on the ride home, and the one whose clothing was stained with his blood.

“No,” she agreed. “You’re a good little lapdog.”

His humor disappeared, replaced by a scowl darker than his usual. A muscle flexed in his jaw. Finley’s fingers curled into fists, her muscles tightening. If he wanted a fight she’d bloody well give him one….

“Oh, will you two please give it a rest? Just for a wee while?” Emily looked from one to the other like a school matron ready to apply a leather strap to both their backsides. “Regardless of what Griffin does or does not wish to share with us, there’s no denying something is very wrong. He is not himself. As his friends it’s our job to help him, not fight among ourselves over which of us knows more secrets or can better keep them.”

Sam at least look chastised, though Finley imagined that had more to do with the fact that censure had come from Emily rather than a true sense of remorse.

“He’s been getting worse since we returned from New York,” Finley said, and the others nodded in agreement, except for Jasper, who was looking out the window at the lawn beyond.

“It started the night Mei died,” the American said quietly, turning his head toward them. His handsome face wore no expression. This was the first Finley had heard him speak of that night in Manhattan when Griffin had used his abilities to prevent a group of criminals from escaping capture.

One of the criminals had his hand crushed. The other—Mei, a girl Jasper once loved—was killed. She glanced at Emily. The red-haired girl’s freckles stood out on her pale cheeks, her aqua eyes wide with sorrow. Sam looked down at his teacup. The delicate china was tiny in his large hands. Finley’s shoulders sagged. She was on her own, it seemed.

“You’re right,” she told Jasper. “It did start that night. Griffin hasn’t forgiven himself for what happened. It might…be helpful if he knew you had.”

Jasper nodded, his gaze drifting back to the window. It had started to rain since they’d returned to King House, where Jasper now lived with the rest of them. “I’ll have a talk with him.”

Silence fell around them, uncomfortable and thick. Finley took a sip of tea. It was hot and fragrant, replacing the last of the stench from the Thames that persisted in her nostrils even though she’d bathed and changed her clothes. She had put on a purple blouse and black frilly skirt that Griffin liked, but he wasn’t even going to see her in it.

No one spoke. It wasn’t like them to be this quiet, but it had become more and more commonplace since their return from America. They had saved Jasper from outlaw Reno Dalton, but at what price? The wretched thought refused to leave her alone.

And Griffin, who swore he trusted her, who knew so many of her secrets, wouldn’t tell her what he was going through. She felt as though he was trying to push her away, even though he seemed to enjoy being with her, especially when kissing was involved.

The sound of the doorbell made her jump. She giggled giddily—foolishly—at the relief that came with it. Finally, a diversion! The others looked to be just as pleased as she was.

When the door to the parlor opened, Finley rose to her feet to greet their guest. It was the sort of behavior expected from the lady of the house, and while Griffin had never formally called her such, he hadn’t told her she wasn’t, either. It was just one more confusing aspect of their relationship. His aunt Cordelia was off on some sort of adventure of her own, and no one else seemed to want the responsibility of dealing with servants and such. As someone who used to be a servant, Finley knew how life below stairs worked.

Mrs. Dodsworth, the housekeeper, appeared in the door frame. “Mr. Dandy to see you, miss,” she said. Only the slight tilt of her nose as she looked down it revealed what she thought of receiving such a notorious guest.

Jack? A diversion, indeed! Outside this house, she had very few friends, but Jack Dandy was a favorite, if for no other reason than he always knew how to cheer her up and often catered to her vanity. Finley grinned. “Show him in, please.”

The older woman nodded, clearly not pleased, and left.

“Dandy?” Sam was full-on scowling now. “What the hell does that scoundrel want?”

Finley returned his dark expression with one of her own. “You shouldn’t use words you can’t spell, mutton head.”

He rose to his feet, towering over her. Good grief, had he actually grown? “You shouldn’t invite people into a house that is not yours.”

She climbed onto the low tea table, moving the tea service with her foot, so that they were almost nose to nose. “This is as much my home as it is yours, mandroid.” The two of them had tangled before—Finley still had nightmares about how she had almost killed him—but that didn’t stop her from curling her hands into fists. I dare you, she thought as she glared at the dark-eyed boy. Take a swing.

A hand on her belly—just above the bottom edge of her corset—prevented her from getting any further into Sam’s face. The opposite hand pushed against his torso. Emily stood between them, small and determined.

A rose between two thorns. The wry thought almost made her smile, but then she saw the expression on the smaller girl’s face and she thought better of it.

“Get down from there,” Emily commanded, her Irish brogue thickened by annoyance. “And you, Sam Morgan, sit down, you great, foolish article! Do the two of ye have absolutely no idea of how to behave as proper? You’re worse than two dogs growling over the same bone.”

Shame tugged at Finley’s conscience, but she didn’t immediately step down. She waited for Sam to move first.

“You’ll be waitin’ a long time if you fink she’ll give in first, mate,” came a familiar voice from the door.

Finley didn’t have to look. She’d only ever met one person who spoke so atrociously and eloquently at the same time. “Jack!” She jumped down from the table and ran to him, boots thudding on the carpet.

He looked the same—impeccably dressed in head-to-toe black, hair falling in waves around the points of his lapels. His complexion was as fair as his hair was dark, making him incredibly striking—a fact of which he was well aware. He picked her up as she threw her arms around him, his own closing around her, strong and warm.

“It’s so good to see you!” It was true. She hadn’t seen him in weeks.

He gave her a squeeze before setting her back on her feet. “A right lovely sight are you as well, Treasure. Glad to see your sojourn to the colonies done you no lasting ’arm.” His dark eyes surveyed the room. “Where’s ’is pompousness? I’ve come to speak with ’im.”

Not just to see her then, Finley thought—a little glumly, were she honest. When she first met Jack she had been drawn to him, but not in the way he had wanted. Still, a girl liked attention now and then, didn’t she? Especially when the bloke she wanted was keeping secrets.

“His Grace is indisposed,” Sam informed him, stepping forward. His scowl had deepened. How was that even possible? “Next time make an appointment.”

Jack was a couple of inches shorter than Sam and at least two to three stone lighter, but didn’t seem the least bit intimidated. In fact, he looked amused. He tapped the end of his walking stick on the floor. “Don’t get your drawers all knotted up, Goliath. If I wants to court trouble I never ’ave to leave Whitechapel. I’ve come into possession of some information the likes of which I believe would interest Monsieur le duc.”

“Why don’t you tell us?” Finley suggested, gesturing for him to sit. Emily had pulled Sam aside and was talking at him animatedly, pointing a finger at him and frowning. Sam looked suitably chastised. “Would you like tea?”

Jack turned the full force of his intense gaze on her. It was as though he could see right down into her soul. Instinctively, she laid a palm over her brown leather corset, as though her flesh and bone might offer some protection against the feeling that she had done something wrong.

“Mistress of the ’ouse are you, Treasure? Can’t say as that I’m surprised.”

Heat flooded her cheeks. Oh, good Lord, she was blushing! Blast him for embarrassing her. She raised her chin. “I’m not mistress of anything. I was just being polite.”

He held her gaze—longer than was proper. It wasn’t what he’d said that bothered her, but rather that he’d said it in front of the others. What she felt for Griffin was…private. Calling attention to it was very un-English of him.

And made her very aware that perhaps Jack’s feelings for her were still much deeper than friendship.

“My mistake,” Jack conceded, his voice soft. “Tea would be lovely, thank you.”

It wasn’t the first time he’d dropped that awful affectation of his in front of her. Doubtful that the others even heard him, especially Sam and Emily, who were having their own conversation, er…argument.

“Have a seat,” she said, and rang the bell for a fresh pot and another cup.

Finley didn’t speak to him while they waited for the tea, but her silence wasn’t because she didn’t know what to say—it was because Jack had gone straight to Jasper, leaving her standing by herself. Her hearing was exceptional, but she couldn’t eavesdrop on Sam and Emily and his conversation with the cowboy.

For a moment, despite being in this beautiful house as someone who belonged there, Finley was struck by the feelings of being an outsider that had plagued her for most of her life.

She did not like it.

“Oi!” she cried. All eyes turned to her, but her gaze was on Jack. Perhaps she was a little mad—certainly her mind seemed to be scattered lately—but she couldn’t stand to be left out, not just by Griffin, but by everyone else. “You said you had information?”

Jack arched a brow at her bad manners. It took all of her strength not to look away. “Quite,” he said, moving toward the sofa. The others closed in, too, and seated themselves around the room just as fresh tea and sandwiches arrived.

Finley poured Jack a cup, fixed it how he liked it and offered it to him. She did not meet his gaze—the bounder already understood her too well.

“You certain ’is Lordship ain’t available?”

“Decidedly,” Emily replied, setting a strange contraption on the tea table in front of Jack. “Would you mind if I record you, Mr. Dandy?”

“Call me Jack, darling. All the pretty girls call me Jack.”

Finley rolled her eyes.

Emily grinned at him, bright eyes sparkling. “No doubt they call you many things, some of which they might even repeat in polite company.”

“You come here to talk or to flirt?” Sam demanded.

Jack smiled. “Unlike you, mate, I’m able to do two fings at once.” He winked at Emily before turning to Finley. “Somefin strange ’appened Thursday last—somefin I reckon you lot will find very interesting.”

Finley perched on the edge of the sofa near Emily and waited for him to elaborate. Instead, Jack picked up his cup and saucer and took a sip. He didn’t even slurp. Then, he reached out and took a little cucumber sandwich off the tray and proceeded to eat it with better manners than she expected.

When he moved to take another sandwich, she pushed the plate just out of his reach. “Talk first. Eat later, Jack.”

His gaze narrowed, but there was a twinkle in his eye. “You’ve become cruel, Treasure. An ’eartless minx what delights in denyin’ a man ’is proper tea. A little suspense is good for the digestion.”

Was everything a joke to him? Yes, she supposed it was. To be Jack Dandy was to treat every day as a novelty and to never take anything—himself included—too seriously.

Still, he had to take some things seriously—he wouldn’t have a reputation as a lord of the criminal underworld without having done something to deserve it.

It was a battle of wills, one she knew she wouldn’t win—not before the others decided to toss her out the window. She pushed the plate toward him. “I would hate to discombobulate your digestion.”

He flashed straight white teeth and snatched another sandwich. “Fanks. So, as I were sayin’, about a fortnight ago I was contacted by a bloke about circumnavigating a transportation dilemma ’e ’ad discovered.”

“I thought you said it was last Thursday?” Sam demanded, stuffing a biscuit in his mouth.

Jack gave him a patently condescending look. “I’m setting the stage, chum. Creatin’ a mood, if you will. Listen carefully and our pretty little ginger will explain the words you don’t understand.” What sort of fellow deliberately baited a creature such as Sam?

Apparently a fellow much like herself.

Sam opened his mouth to respond, but Jack cut him off. “I’m just ’aving a bit of fun. No need to get all red in the face and cosh me over the ’ead with those meat ’ooks you call ’ands. As I were saying, I was approached by a bloke who offered me enough coin to keep me mouth shut and just do the job.” He plucked another sandwich from the tray.

“Which was?” Finley prodded. Honestly, he was being deliberately difficult.

Jack chewed and swallowed. He hadn’t even gotten any crumbs on himself. He’d been taught proper manners, she’d bet her left arm on it. “Transportin’ a crate from the docks to an underground station on the Metropolitan line.”

“Which station?” Jasper asked. Finley hid her surprise that he was even paying attention. He never used to be so quiet or distant. Granted, she hadn’t known him well prior to going to New York, but he had changed when Mei died, and this was not that same fellow she considered a friend.

“St. Pancras. It were a fairly large crate, weighed at least nine to ten stone. I ’ad to ’elp load it onto the carriage.” He shuddered, as though the thought of manual labor was beneath him, but Finley didn’t buy it.

“Where on the docks?” she asked.

“Not far from where that building collapsed a few months back.” His gaze traveled to each one of them. “I reckon you’re all familiar with it.”

Finley’s blood froze in her veins. He meant the building Griffin had brought down with his power—the building the man known as the Machinist had used as his automaton workshop. The Machinist was a man named Garibaldi, and his corpse hadn’t been found when authorities searched the wreckage.

“The man who hired you, what did he look like?” Out of the corner of her eye she saw Emily’s tense expression and knew her friend had the same thought she had.

“Blond and blue-eyed,” Jack responded.

Emily glanced at her, sharing relief that it wasn’t Garibaldi. There was no way he could have survived that building coming down on top of him. Was there?

Jack continued, “Looked almost Albinese. Great big fat ’ead. I didn’t get the feeling ’e was new in town, but I weren’t familiar with ’im. Bit of a Geordie, if my knowledge of dialects is up to snuff.”

Finley didn’t doubt he could identify a person’s regional origin with three miles. “You didn’t ask what the cargo was?”

He looked affronted. “Course not, but somefin about it felt off, right? I’ve survived on luck, intuition and not being a bloody idiot. Every instinct I ’ave told me this weren’t good. So, before I delivered the crate I opened it.”

He’d lost some of his swagger and the sparkle in his eyes. That couldn’t be a good sign. He took a drink of tea and made a face. Perhaps he really wanted something a bit stronger. That didn’t bode well. Dandy was not easily disconcerted.

“What was in the crate, Jack?”

“An automaton. I think.” His accent lost much of its affectation. “Unlike any metal I’ve ever seen.”

The unease pooling at the base of Finley’s spine intensified, but it was Emily who asked, “How so?”

Jack chuckled, but there was little humor in it. “She—and it was definitely a girl—was naked, and she—” he swallowed “—she had bits of skin on her, like she was a patchwork quilt without all its pieces.”

“It must have been a waxwork,” Emily suggested, perhaps a bit condescendingly.

Dark eyes turned to her. “That’s what I told myself—before I touched her. Skin and hair. I fancied I could see lungs beneath her metal ribs. One eye socket was empty, the other had an eyeball in it—it was the color of amber.” He swallowed, and set his cup and saucer on the low table at his knees.

Finley reached out and put her hand on his arm. She’d never seen him so rattled, but then she’d only known him a few months. “It must have been a frightening sight, but it was just a machine, Jack.”

He stared at her, then at the hand on his sleeve. It was as though a curtain was pulled back into place, and he was once again the Jack Dandy she knew. “No, Treasure. I don’t fink it were.”

She removed the hand he seemed to find so offensive. If he hadn’t called her “Treasure” she’d start to wonder if he was angry with her. “Why not?”

Jack’s jaw tightened. “It…she spoke to me.”

She had asked the handsome man not to put her back in the dark, but the fleshy stub in her mouth didn’t move the way she wanted and refused to form the words, so all that came out was a moaning noise.

He had looked at her in horror, as though she were a…monster. That was the word. She didn’t quite know what it meant, but she knew it was right. He was disgusted by her. That made her sad, even though she wasn’t sure why, except that he had looked so very pretty to her.

But then, everything looked pretty when your eyes were brand-new, as hers were. She had two now. The second one had started to appear the day after the man opened the ceiling on her wooden domicile.

Domicile. That meant home. She lifted her chin and looked around the room. The other machines had put her here after removing her from the crate. Was this to be her home now? It was ever so much nicer than the hot, smelly box, even though they had set her inside a casket of iron. At least the casket allowed her to stand upright. If only they hadn’t shackled her inside, she might move about a bit. Perhaps that would ease the incessant pressure in her abdomen. It was almost unbear…

Oh.

Hot, wet liquid splashed against her feet. It was coming from inside her. Was it oil? Some sort of chemical for her inner workings? It smelled funny, but at least her belly didn’t hurt. In fact, the release of the liquid felt wonderful. Whatever it was, she’d had a surplus that obviously had to be evacuated. Would this be a regular occurrence?

The door to the room she was in opened, and in scuttled two automatons. One had a shiny porcelain doll head perched atop its squat metal body, and eight reticulated limbs that made it move like an insect. The other appeared as an elderly woman in a tattered gown. It appeared as though her head had been removed at one time and reattached by a clumsy child. It was pitched forward and slightly to the side.

She tried to draw back from them, their monstrous countenances frightening, but there was nowhere for her to go while trapped in the lead box.

“I told you it was going to be female,” the spider said to the woman. Its voice was like the clattering of discordant notes on a piano keyboard.

“We must find some clothing,” the other replied in a voice that was almost human, but with a slight hitch. Whoever had put its head back on hadn’t aligned the voice box correctly. “It would not be proper for her to be seen naked, but we can no longer keep her restrained now that biological function has begun. Bring someone to clean up her mess.”

The short one made a skittering sound. It wasn’t any kind of language her logic engine could identify, but she understood it, regardless. It was the language of metal, and the spider didn’t like being ordered about.

A clawlike hand lashed out from the “old woman” and struck the other. “You will do as told, or face the wrath of the Master.”

The Master. The mention of him made the gregorite vertebrae of her spine cold. Part of her insisted she bow to him, but another part…that strange part responsible for the gooey eyeballs in her head and the fleshy thing in her mouth, was afraid. Why would she be afraid? She was machine, and machines were not capable of feeling.

Something jumped in her chest. She looked down. Between the two swells of flesh on her chest there was a small expanse of her framework not yet covered over by skin. There, through the gleaming rungs of her chasse she spied a red, wet lump of muscle, ebbing and receding in time with the pulsing throughout her form.

What was happening to her?

The old woman came to her, every step halting, punctuated with a dry, grinding sound. Her thin lips clicked upward into a grotesque parody of a smile.

A smile with no emotion behind it. No humanity. The skin of the machine’s face was gray and lax. There was something wrong with it, but what? Her mind knew she should be horrified, but not why.

And it stank. Stank like death, though she had no idea how she knew that. In fact, she didn’t even know her own name. Did she have a name?

“What are you going to do with me?” she asked. The thing in her mouth was bigger now, and moved when she spoke, so that the words that came out sounded almost as they ought.

How did she know how the words were supposed to sound? Why did she know so much and so very little? Why was she so afraid?

“Don’t worry, little one,” the old woman said, reaching out and touching her with cold, foul fingers. “We have great plans for you.”