My Lady Quicksilver

Two

The candle guttered in the chill breeze as Rosalind climbed down the ancient stairwell. Once, a long time ago, it had been designed as access from an abandoned surface station to the underground train platform below. Now it was boarded up and long forgotten, except for the timber slats she’d carefully broken and then forged into a slender gap—access to her world, the musty caverns and dark tunnels they called Undertown.

Water dripped in the distance. The only other sounds were the faint shuffle of her flat-soled boots and the echoing moan of a breeze stirring through the abandoned rail tunnels. Rosalind reached up and dragged the stifling mask over her head. Cool air met her heated skin and she sighed in relief.

The taste of Lynch lingered. Or perhaps that was the mocking burn of memory, taunting her with what she’d done.

Or rather, how she’d reacted.

You liked it.

A horrible, gut-clenching thought. She’d never cared for men, a deficit she’d thought of as a relief until Nathaniel had come into her life and awakened her to the joyous misery of lust. Her husband had been the brightest light in her life…and the greatest sorrow. If his death had taught her one thing, it was never to betray herself again. Never to let another man close.

And she’d succeeded. Until now.

Unclenching her hand around the satin mask, she shoved it into her pocket grimly. Tonight she’d played her game and she’d enjoyed it. It wouldn’t happen again.

Stepping out onto the platform, she had only a second’s warning before a breath of wind blew the candle out. The sudden darkness obliterated her vision but not her senses. She felt something move, and reacted, shoving her arm up in a block. Twisting her finger, she felt the hiss of vibration as the blade slid through her metal knuckle—

A hand hit her high in the chest and Rosalind gasped as her lungs emptied. Then she was smashed up against the brick wall, mortar crumbling around her.

“You’re dead,” a husky voice said in disgust.

Rosalind tilted her head back as her vision slowly adjusted to the darkness, and panted, trying to ease the vice around her lungs. She pressed her hand a fraction forward. The tip of the blade dug into the hard muscle of abdomen. “And you’re gutted.”

A grunt. Then Ingrid shoved away from her. “Wouldn’t kill me.”

Truth. Rosalind’s face twisted in disgust at herself. A distracted revolutionary was a dead one. She eased the blade back into the mech hand, rubbing her thumb over the polished steel. “You’re back early.”

“You’re late.” The dark shadow materializing in the depths of the tunnel was starting to take shape. Ingrid towered over her at nearly six foot, with broad shoulders and shapely hips. She had a warrior’s physique, courtesy of her Nordic ancestry, though she was smaller than many others of her kind. The loupe virus that made verwulfen what they were encouraged growth and muscular development. Or so the scientists said.

Though Ingrid’s words were harshly spoken, Rosalind heard the gruff, underlying fear. “I’m back,” she said, sliding a hand over Ingrid’s forearm. The other woman was almost a sister to her. An overbearing, overprotective sister at times, but Rosalind found she appreciated it. “I had a run-in at the enclaves. The new boiler pack is lost.”

“What happened?”

“I ran into the Nighthawk.”

Silence. Then Ingrid slowly released a breath. “I hope it was with a sharp knife.”

“Unfortunately not. Come. We need to meet with Jack, find out how his night went.”

Ingrid followed as Rosalind leaped down onto the train tracks. A rat chattered in the dark and Rosalind smiled as her friend cursed.

“Bloody rats,” Ingrid said in disgust. But she kept close to Rosalind’s side, just in case.

“They won’t bother you,” Rosalind replied, disappearing into the dark silence of the tunnel.

They walked for several hundred feet, unerringly following the abandoned steel tracks. Ingrid could see in the dark, but Rosalind was forced to rely on memory, silently counting the steps. Her groping fingers found an ironbound door in the side of the tunnel just as a gust of wind blew through the emptiness, stirring her hair. It sounded like a faraway scream, no doubt one of the trains that ran in nearby underground systems.

Some of the locals who ventured down here thought the sounds were the cries of ghosts; those long-dead miners and engineers trapped down here when the Eastern line collapsed. Or those who had died three summers ago, slaughtered by the vampire that had haunted the depths until it was killed.

Rosalind was scared of neither. A vampire was just a blue blood gone wrong and she knew how to kill those. As for ghosts…well, she had plenty of her own.

Shimmying into the access tunnel, her hands and feet found the metal ladder and she scurried down it. Ingrid followed, shutting the iron door behind her with a clang.

A sickly green light burned below. Rosalind slid the last few feet to the bottom of an old ventilation shaft. An enormous fan stirred lazy circles in the wall, casting flickering shadows through the phosphorescent light. A man leaned against the pitted brickwork, his arms crossed over his chest and a scowl on his face. He saw her and relaxed, pushing off the wall toward her.

“Jack,” she said, letting out her own breath of relief. Her brother looked tired, what little she could see of his face. A heavy monocular eyepiece was strapped over one eye to help him see in the dark and a leather half mask obscured his lower face. The eerie green tint of the phosphor light-amplifying lens unnerved her. With it, he could see almost as well as Ingrid.

Rosalind lifted a hand to touch him, then paused when he flinched. Jack didn’t like to be touched anymore, even through the heavy layers of his coat and gloves. Rosalind’s fingers curled into a hard fist. That was one of the things she missed so much about Jeremy—the way he’d wrap an arm around her shoulders and drag her close, taunting her about the fact that he’d outgrown her. The way she’d kick his feet out from under him and take him to the ground with a laugh. “You might be taller,” she’d say, “but I’ll always be your older sister.”

Jack’s hard gray gaze ran over Ingrid. “No trouble?”

“Not for me,” Ingrid replied.

Rosalind found herself the recipient of that stare. She shot her friend a hard look. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

“Well, I’m curious,” Ingrid said, stalking past. “Just how did you get away from the Nighthawk?”

Gritting her teeth together, Rosalind ducked past her brother’s startled gaze and hurried after Ingrid. “I seduced him.”

“Rosalind!” Jack snapped, trailing in her wake. Three long strides and he was close enough to fall in beside her, the phosphorescent flare stick in his hand highlighting the harsh planes of his face. “Tell me you two are jesting.”

Ingrid laughed under her breath.

“Unfortunately not,” Rosalind replied. “I lost the shipment and five men.”

“Steel can be replaced,” Jack replied.

“So can men,” Ingrid called back.

But not the money for either. Rosalind ground her teeth. The money was filtered through the Humans First political party, along with information from several sources in the Echelon. The humanist network had already been in place before she stepped into her husband’s shoes and tried to fulfill his dream; it was only lately that she’d begun to wonder where so much money was coming from.

Ahead of them, a rectangle of darkness was limned by bright yellow light. Home. Rosalind’s shoulders drooped, starting to feel the exertion of the night. The excitement with Lynch had driven her through the streets on the run from his men, but now, in the shadowy darkness of safety, her energy began to flag.

Beyond the door a single candle sputtered on the table at their entrance. The furnishings were sparse and mostly scavenged. They didn’t need much for their purpose and everything could be left behind in a hurry.

Jack shut the door behind them as Rosalind sank into one of the stuffed armchairs. A spring dug into her hip and she shifted.

Jack crossed his arms again. “Talk.”

“You haven’t told me about your night,” she said as Ingrid lit the gas boiler to make tea.

“I’m more interested in yours.”

There would be no shaking him in this mood. “We were ambushed as we left the enclaves. Lynch and his men were waiting for us, no doubt given the tip by somebody.” Rosalind frowned. “I need to discover who—that could be costly.”

“What’s he like?” Ingrid asked, looking up from the kettle.

Intense. Rosalind stilled as unwelcome memory flooded through her body. “Exactly as they say. Hard and cold. And very determined.” The way he’d looked at her—as if he’d tear apart the world to get his hands on her again. She shivered. “I don’t think I’ve seen the last of him.”

“You should have put a bullet in him,” Jack said.

“I wasn’t in the position,” she lied, dropping her gaze. “The best I could do was paralyze him with hemlock. His men came while I was getting away and I had to flee.”

Rosalind could feel Jack’s gaze boring into the top of her head. Looking up, she smoothed the expression from her face. “So tell me about your night. Any luck?”

Tension lingered in his shoulders, then he blew out a breath and glanced at Ingrid. “We intercepted the coach carrying the London Standard’s editor toward the Ivory Tower. The escape went as planned and one of our men got him out. Unfortunately, a group of metaljackets came and we were forced to separate.”

Another avenue lost tonight. The editor had printed a caricature in the London Standard of the prince consort with a monstrously deformed head, dangling puppet strings over a wan image of his human wife, the queen. He wouldn’t be doing that again.

“No casualties?”

“Not on our side.” Though she couldn’t see it, she could sense the vicious smile behind the mask.

“And no word of Jeremy?” she asked, looking toward Ingrid with deceptive casualness. Though it rankled, there was no use in her looking for Jeremy when Ingrid’s senses were far better suited. She’d spent the entire month blundering along behind Ingrid, no doubt hindering her. Tonight had been the first night she’d forced herself to let go, to let Ingrid do what she did best.

This time it was Ingrid’s turn to drop her gaze. “Nothing. No sightings, no scent trail.” Ingrid took a deep breath then looked up, her bronze eyes gleaming. “He’s not outside the city walls, Rosa. If there’s any hope that he survived—”

“He survived,” she snapped. There could be no other option, for if there was, then she had failed him. Her baby brother, the one she’d practically raised. The world blurred, a haze of heat sweeping behind her eyes.

Jack’s hand slid over hers and Rosalind looked up in shock as he squeezed her fingers gently, then let go.

“It’s not your fault,” he murmured, then turned to Ingrid. “And nor is it yours. If you can’t find him, then he’s not there.”

It was her fault though. Rosalind had been too wrapped up in her cause to pay attention to her brother. Jeremy had fallen in with the mechs, lured by their rough talk and bawdy laughter. He was almost a man, and she couldn’t blame him for wanting the company of other men. It was only when he went missing that she realized how much she’d been ignoring him lately.

“So he’s not outside the city walls,” she murmured, rubbing her eyes. So tired. “That leaves the city.”

“No,” Ingrid snapped. “You can’t even think it.”

The thick wall that circled the city borough kept the riffraff out and the blue bloods in. Inside it was their territory. Their stalking grounds. A world of glittering carriages, fancy mansions, silk, and steel.

Rosalind slowly lowered her hand. “Where else do I look, Ingrid? He was last seen in the Ivory Tower during the bombing and the bodies were all accounted for. I’d hoped he’d escaped with the few mechs that got away but we’ve hunted some of them down and nobody knows where Jeremy is.”

“Which leaves the blue bloods,” Jack murmured.

“Or the bloody Nighthawks,” Ingrid snapped. She shoved to her feet. “And none of us can get near the Guild Headquarters.”

Nighthawks. Rosalind stilled. The very men who were hunting the mechs—and Mercury. Why hadn’t she thought of it before? “If anyone knows what happened to the mechs who blew up the tower,” she said quietly, “it would be the Nighthawks.”

Sensing trouble, Jack shot her a sharp look. “What are you planning?”

Rosalind looked around. “Where’s my file on my lord Nighthawk?” She spotted it on a pile on the table and pushed out of her chair eagerly. “There was an advertisement,” she said recklessly, tearing open the file and hunting through it. Pages and pages of notes on Lynch and his comings and goings scrawled across the page. Know your enemy. “Several weeks back in the London Standard.” Her fingers closed over the piece. “An advertisement for a secretarial position—”

“No,” Jack snapped, knowing precisely where her mind was going.

Ingrid looked between the two of them, then frowned. “The position might be filled.”

“Then we’ll have to ensure it’s vacant again,” Rosalind said flippantly, not averse to kidnapping anyone temporarily for her needs.

“Roz, this is insane,” Ingrid said. “We don’t have anyone to play the part. I can’t do it, not with these eyes.”

“But I can.”

Her words fell into an abrupt silence. Ingrid’s jaw dropped and Jack took a menacing step toward her.

“No,” he said.

“This is what I do,” Rosalind replied, knowing where the trouble was going to come from. “This is what Balfour trained me to do.” And perhaps the only thing she was truly good at. Though she hated him, the prince consort’s spymaster had recognized her talents and nurtured them early on. He knew her in a way even Jack did not. The only thing he had ever misunderstood were her limits, what even she could not be coaxed to do.

Like the day he had asked her to kill her husband.

The only time she had ever disobeyed him—the cost of which still haunted her at night. Her hand sacrificed to save the man she’d betrayed. And Nathaniel lying dead at Balfour’s hand in punishment.

“You were too late, mon petit faucon,” Balfour murmured, cleaning the blood from his hands with a rag and eyeing her dispassionately as she’d slumped to the floor from the blood loss. “I gave you five minutes to prove your loyalty.” A furious glance at the bloodied stump with its rough tourniquet. “And so it is proven.” Throwing the rag aside.

She could barely see him or Nathaniel. Her vision was bleeding black around the edges.

“Come,” he whispered, lifting the wrist and making her scream as her vision went white. “I shall make you a new hand. And you will serve me again.”

But she hadn’t. It had been Jack who broke her out of the healing ward where she lay delirious, his own skin acid-burned and bloody from the cost of her betrayal. And Ingrid, the young verwulfen girl from Balfour’s menagerie whom she’d always felt sorry for.

Because she too knew how it felt to be trapped in a cage.

“I don’t give a damn,” Jack snapped, his hand slicing the air in a sharp gesture. “Balfour used you. And me. He didn’t care whether we came back from our missions alive or dead, Rosa. Well, I do. I can’t find my brother and I’m damned well not going to watch my sister walk into such a dangerous situation.”

She couldn’t bear the cost of Jeremy’s loss on top of what she already owed those she loved. “You can’t stop me,” she said simply. “And I can manage Lynch. I know I can.”

“I’ll chain you to the bloody—”

“Why are you so certain you can manage the Nighthawk?” Ingrid asked.

Rosalind backed away from her brother. Avoid rather than fight. “He’s attracted to me—to Mercury rather. I can manipulate that. Lynch might be a blue blood but he’s still a man.”

“Christ, are you listening to yourself?”

She ignored Jack. “It’s perfect. Almost too perfect. As his secretary, I’ll be given free rein to examine his paperwork at my leisure. If he knows anything about the mechs and Jeremy, then I’ll be able to find it. If not, then I walk away and he never sees me again.”

“That’s if he offers you the position,” Ingrid replied.

“He will.” Jack shot her a cutting look. “Rosa always gets what she wants, doesn’t she?”

Rosalind curled her hands over the back of the chair and stared at him. Hard. He didn’t realize it, but that was capitulation in his voice. “Then that means I’ll find Jeremy.”

“If he’s there. If he’s still alive.” One last parting shot.

Rosalind hid her flinch. She felt better now that she had a plan. “True. But I need to find out if he is. It’s the only way I’ll ever be able to move forward.”

Ingrid frowned. “You’ll need to disguise yourself.”

“It’s one of my talents.”

“Even your height and scent,” Ingrid muttered.

“Find someone roughly my height. ‘Mercury’ can make an appearance while I’m with Lynch. He’ll never suspect me.”

Jack’s face tightened. “So be it. But we do this the way we were trained—and you get out the moment you find the Nighthawk doesn’t have him.”

“Deal,” she said softly, knowing that she had won.

Fog swirled at his feet as Sir Jasper Lynch strode through the narrow alleyway, his great cloak flapping around his ankles and his cane echoing on the cobbles. Each slap of his boot soles seemed to echo the frustration beating in his chest.

Crossing Chancery Lane, he caught sight of the grim building that housed his men. Almost all of them were blue bloods, but their infections had been by chance or accident, rather than intention. Only a son from the best bloodlines of the Echelon was offered the blood rites when they turned fifteen. Any chance infections were considered rogues, and they were offered either a place in the Nighthawks or the Coldrush Guards that served the Ivory Tower. Or death.

Lynch had been the original Nighthawk, but over time the entire guild had come to represent his name. The Nighthawks were legendary in the city, a threat used to cow criminals and revolutionaries alike.

They’d never once been unable to track their prey.

Until now…

The streets were starting to bustle with pre-dawn traffic. A young paperboy with ruddy cheeks from the cold shoved a copy of the London Standard in front of him. “Murders in Kensington! Read all about it! Blue blood gone mad!”

Lynch slipped him a shilling. The Haversham massacre was being investigated by his man Byrnes, a task he’d usually save for himself but for the importance of capturing Mercury. It had been an effort to keep it out of the papers so far. “Any other news, Billy?”

The lad wasn’t the only one he used for information. Though they stood in plain sight, the paperboys were almost invisible in the city. “The Coldrush Guards arrested the London Standard editor yest’day, sir. Found ’im in a cellar with a printing press and a pair of ’umanists.”

“A shame.”

Billy’s eyes gleamed. “Not really. They was escortin’ ’im back to the Ivory Tower when they was attacked last night. Bunch o’ lads swarmed the metaljackets guardin’ ’em and knocked the Coldrush Guards out some’ow. Them ’umanists, they says.”

Hemlock darts no doubt. But the interesting thing was that they’d taken out the metaljackets. He’d have to look into how they did that. Slipping Billy another coin, he took a paper for show and hurried across the street.

The guild loomed over Chancery Lane, an alley running along both sides, as though the row houses on each side feared to touch it. Leering gargoyles kept watch on the roof; inside each gaping mouth was a spyglass that—by use of a clever mirror system he’d designed—transmitted inside images of the street so that his men could keep watch without being seen. Stepping through the pair of glossy black double doors, he found himself in the main entry. It looked like the typical London manor and it was easy to penetrate—not so easy to escape. If he pressed the security breach button a chain-and-lever system would drop heavy iron bars over every opening.

A faint creak on the floor above drew his eyes upward. From the faint hint of bay rum in the air, he recognized Garrett. Nobody else wore bloody aftershave.

Lynch took a step forward, then froze as the scent of something else caught his attention. Warm flesh. Linen and the mouthwatering tang of lemon. Just a hint of woman.

His hunger stirred. He was overdue for his allotted measure of blood. That had to be the problem.

Garrett appeared at the top of the stairs, lean and stark in his black leather body armor.

“There’s a woman here,” Lynch stated. “Who is she?” His men knew the rules. All assignations were to be on their own time and not in the guild.

Garrett sauntered down the stairs. “She’s here for you.”

“Me?” He paused.

“For the secretarial position. To interview with you.”

“Bloody hell,” he muttered, stripping his great cloak off. He tossed it on the hatstand. “I forgot. I thought I said no more women? I want someone with a stronger constitution and more fortitude.”

“She insisted.”

“It’s the nature of a woman.”

“Aye.” Garrett grinned. “That brutal sense of honesty is why you keep a lonely bed.”

Lynch scraped a weary hand over the stubble on his jaw. That hadn’t always been the case. “It could have something to do with the fact I’ve not been to bed for two…possibly three days.” He considered it. “Definitely three.”

“I’ll have some coffee and blood sent up. And a plate of biscuits for the lady.”

Lynch gave an abrupt shake of the head. “Don’t bother. She’s not staying. Blood however…blood would be much appreciated.”

Climbing the stairs, he paced toward his study on cat-silent feet. All the better to observe. The door to his secretary’s study cracked open an inch. The scent of her was much stronger here. The heavy overlaying perfume of lemon verbena and linen lingered in the air. Some scent she’d dabbed on her wrists and throat he imagined.

The narrow slice of door presented him with a view of dark blue skirts, the bustle hooked up in a style fashionable almost five years ago. A thick velvet wrap the color of midnight covered slim shoulders and her hat disguised her features. He couldn’t tell whether she was young or old, pretty or plain.

He could tell, however, that she was examining the enormous map of London that covered the far wall. Red pins dotted the map, carving out a large swathe of East London and red string ran between each pin, creating an incomprehensible spider web for those who didn’t know what it meant—sightings of Mercury that he’d been able to verify or the location of several humanists he’d uncovered. Some he’d left in place. It was enough to know who they were. He had larger prey to catch.

Lynch’s hand slid inside his waistcoat pocket and the small scrap of leather inside. No perfume there. His fingers had long since rubbed away any trace of scent. But close his eyes and it would be a simple matter to recall the hot scent of her, laced with the burning smell of iron slag in the enclaves and the choking pall of coal. Mercury wore no perfume. His cock throbbed at the thought and Lynch ground his teeth together. Devil take her.

The woman in his study ran her fingers along the map, the jaunty hat swiveling to survey the room. Searching for something? Or merely bored? He hadn’t asked how long she’d been waiting, though since it was but morning, it couldn’t have been too long. Nobody was allowed out at night between the hours of nine and six during martial law.

Easing the door open, Lynch slipped inside without a sound. The woman froze, as if she sensed him immediately. Her head tilted to the side, revealing the fine line of her pale jaw and a pair of rosy lips. From the prickling uneasiness in her stance and the stiffening between her shoulder blades, she hadn’t been around a blue blood often. No doubt she was one of the working class, her ears full of rumors and superstitions about how a blue blood lusted for blood, their hungers insatiable. Or how the Echelon kept factories filled with human slaves.

“Sir Jasper.” She turned slowly, the light striking over her fine features. Eyes the color of polished obsidian met his. Lynch stopped in his tracks. She was just past the first blush of youth, but…no…He looked closer. Her tip-tilted nose and fragile features gave the impression that she was younger than she was. Her sense of poise told another story.

Thirty perhaps.

Lynch raked his gaze over her. Skin like porcelain, so pale and creamy it almost glowed in the soft dawn light through the windows. Her eyebrows were coppery wings, arching delightfully as she examined him back. He couldn’t see her hair for the hat and netting, but he imagined it was the same fierce copper of her brows. She was slender enough through the torso that her heavy skirts swamped her and her hands were hidden by kid-leather gloves that she hadn’t bothered to remove, as etiquette demanded. To present the wrists or the throat to a blue blood was tantamount to exposing a breast.

So she did have some experience with blue bloods. Interesting. Lynch had to amend his previous assessment of her. She was wary enough that the experience had not been a good one, he suspected.

“How do you do?” she asked, pasting a smile on her rosy lips and offering him her right hand.

Lynch stared at it. “Let us get to the point, Miss—?”

“Mrs. Marberry.” Slight emphasis on the first word.

“Married?”

“A widow.”

He frowned. “I’m afraid your services are not required. There was a mix-up with the advertisement. The position has already been filled.” His eye caught a letter on the desk, the address written in gold ink. From the Council of Dukes then. He started toward it. “Garrett will see you to the—”

“Obviously not by a woman,” she replied tartly. “With their weak constitutions and all.”

Lynch stopped and looked at her. She’d overheard him in the entry. Cool brown eyes met his. A challenge. If she thought he would be embarrassed, then she didn’t know him very well.

Opening her reticule, she tugged out a sheaf of papers. “I have references from my last two places of employ. I worked for Lord Hamilton in the War Office, and then for Lady Shipton as her personal secretary. I assure you”—her voice became a drawl—“after that, nothing could shock me or turn my stomach.”

Lynch crossed his arms over his chest. He’d dealt with the Shipton case. A jealous blue blood husband and an adulterous consort whose predilections had surprised even him. He’d thought he’d seen it all by now. “You are aware that both your previous employees are dead?”

“Not by my hand, I assure you.”

A bold piece. He straightened in interest. “I meant that I would be unable to check your references.”

“Let me be bold…I assume that is your preference anyway?”

Lynch gave a brisk nod. She was observant at least.

“My previous employers are dead, as you noted, which means I have nothing but two pieces of paper to prove my aptitude for employment. This leaves me in somewhat of a quandary. I need to earn a respectable living, Sir Jasper. I have a brother…” And here she faltered, showing perhaps the first lack of composure. “He’s young. And assorting with certain types of people I don’t approve of. I should like to let an apartment in the city, away from these influences, but at the moment I am unable.”

She needed a steady job and a good wage. Lynch’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not unmoved,” he told her, leaning his hip against the desk. “But I’ve had five secretaries in the last three months. My work involves certain grisly details and long hours, and nobody seems able to keep up with me. I’ve spent more time in the past three months training new secretaries than working, and I haven’t the inclination to waste any more of it.”

Mrs. Marberry squared her shoulders. “I’m aware of that. Garrett informed me of the nature of the job. He said you would work me into the ground, forgetting human needs such as sustenance and sleep, squire me all around the city to take your notes and examine dead bodies. You told your last secretary to hold someone’s head, so you could examine the angle of the cut that decapitated the body and that was why they resigned.”

For a moment Lynch was taken aback. “And you’re still here?”

“It’s all correct then?”

“There are some matters I believe he forgot to mention, but mostly yes. The men call me ‘that uncompromising bastard,’ though they’re not aware that I know that. It’s not the worst thing I’ve been called. Still want the job?”

“Sir Jasper.” Mrs. Marberry leaned toward him, completely unaware of the fact that her bodice gaped. He, however, noticed everything. Smooth skin, the veins tracing their way beneath her flesh, blue and pulsing with blood. Shifting slightly, Lynch glanced away. She would be trouble. He shouldn’t hire her. With her pretty little mouth and stubborn chin, the men would be all over her.

“You can’t frighten me nor can you drive me away,” she said. “You need someone who’s not afraid of you.”

Lynch’s gaze locked on hers. Her eyes were truly fascinating—dark pools that seemed to hint at infinite depths. He wondered briefly if they echoed her personality; were there hidden depths there too? Then he shook the thought off as foolish. One had only to observe to understand the true measure of a man—or a woman. He’d not met one yet whom he’d been unable to decipher down to the last iota of their soul. People were predictable. “And that person is you?”

She didn’t look away. Instead, she looked right through him, as though she could see inside him. Not once had he been on the receiving end of a stare like that. “That person is me.”

By gods, she would be trouble. And yet he was strangely tempted. The girl had gumption, glaring at him as if daring him to employ her. Not even a hint of the vapors, though she was clever enough to be wary. He was what he was, after all.

Perhaps she could manage to deal with him? Perhaps she might last longer than a week, unlike the previous Mrs. Eltham, she of the decapitated-head incident.

Mrs. Marberry glanced away, her fathomless eyes hidden beneath thick, dark lashes. Lynch’s breath caught. Devil a bit.

“You’re too pretty,” he growled.

“I beg your pardon?”

Lynch gestured at her, striding away from the desk. “This…” He made a curving motion in the air to indicate her. “This won’t work. I hire ugly women. Ones with moustaches. Ones my men wouldn’t look twice at.”

“I hardly think I’m the sort of woman to inspire riots in your guild quarters.”

“That’s because you’re a woman,” he said. “We’re speaking of four hundred and fifty men I work into the ground. They barely have time to speak to women and now you want me to place a pretty one in the middle of them all?”

Her gaze hardened. “Should I be concerned?”

“Concerned?” Then he realized she was speaking of assault. “Good God, no. They wouldn’t dare. I’d have them eviscerated. And they know it.”

“Then your objection stems from the fact you think I’d be a distraction?”

A distraction? A damned catastrophe. Lynch scowled, turning toward the window with ground-eating strides. He’d never been a man to stand still for long. It helped him to think. “I know you’d be a distraction.”

“But shouldn’t I be at your side at all times?” she asked, following him in a swish of skirts and perfume. “I daresay your men wouldn’t dare risk such foolery in front of you.”

“They wouldn’t.”

Lynch spun on his heel and found her in his path. Acres and acres of navy skirts with that tight cinched in waist and…the breasts. The dress was modest, but at his great height, he couldn’t help that the angle gave him a certain view.

Perhaps I wasn’t speaking of the men?

Heat tightened in his abdomen and he clasped his hands behind his back. Damn her, this would be a mistake. He had a thousand things to think of and a revolutionary leader to find. He couldn’t afford to have a buxom, determined redhead under his nose. Especially one who smelled like lemons and soft, freshly laundered sheets.

The thought conjured to mind the image of her upon his own sheets, that pale, flawless skin laid bare for his inspection. Her pretty little mouth parted in a gasp as he ground his hips down upon hers.

Lynch’s cock stirred, reminding him of what it felt like to be a man. Damn it. She was already affecting him. This should be evidence that this would be a bad idea.

But he needed a secretary. One who wasn’t scared of him.

A faint hint of color rose in Mrs. Marberry’s cheeks but she refused to look away. He was staring, he realized.

“Are you going to employ me or not?” she asked.

Instinct told him to say no. But as he opened his mouth, the words changed. “Yes,” he found himself saying. “On a trial basis. I’m desperate.”

“And a charmer,” she noted with an arched brow. A little smile toyed over her lips. Relief. “I shall have to watch myself with you, I see.”

I shall have to watch myself.

After the disastrous encounter with Mercury and now this, it was becoming clear that he needed a woman to take the edge off. Mercury had done this to him, left him on edge, and now his body hungered for release.

“What’s your given name?” he asked bluntly.

“That’s highly informal, sir.”

“You’ll find I rarely bother with formalities. I’m not going to bark ‘Mrs. Marberry’ whenever I want you. It’s a mouthful.”

A slight hesitation. “Rosa,” she said, her full lips forming the word softly. “My name is Rosa. And you?”

He’d already turned toward the desk, determined to get away from that lingering scent. “Me?”

“What should I call you?”

“Sir Jasper will be perfectly fine.”

Lynch gave her his back and Rosalind finally had a chance to take as deep a breath as she could in the unfamiliar corset. The other night hadn’t done him justice, with the darkness and the red glow of the enclaves. She’d realized then his great height and cold, penetrating stare. They said fully grown men broke into confessions when he looked at them and women quivered at the knees.

What she hadn’t expected to find was a coldly handsome man, his dark hair cropped neatly and raked back out of his face with an impatient gesture. His jaw was darkened with stubble and a pinched line swept his dark brows together in what seemed a permanent frown.

Rosalind examined him, little goose bumps prickling over her skin. The other night had left its mark on her body. She’d long since thought herself impervious to men, especially dangerous ones, but she’d dismissed Lynch as merely another blue blood and that had been foolish.

Her gaze slid over his broad shoulders as he clasped his hands behind his back. Shoulders she’d dug her nails into, her lips caressing the smooth skin of his throat. A little flutter of excitement started low in her belly, tempting her. She sucked in a breath, her fingernails digging into her palms. This was what she hadn’t dared admit to her brother or Ingrid. Lynch might be attracted to Mercury against his will, but the truth was a delicious irony, for she too had been caught in the trap.

Rosalind stole a calculating glance at the room as she took a step forward. Tonight, she’d be able to recall almost every little detail. Her gaze slid to the wall with that damning map. She wasn’t stupid. She knew what all those little pins meant, because they were the location of dozens of humanists hidden in the general populace. Some had been discovered and arrested, but a great deal of those pins were humanists who were blissfully unaware that their identity had been compromised.

The map told her a great deal about the Nighthawk. He was patient, for one thing. He was also clever enough not to flush them out of their holes. The red string became a spider web, and Rosalind had the feeling that he was the one who’d woven it.

Just waiting for a little fly, a certain revolutionary, to get caught in its sticky web.

Thank goodness she’d decided to risk infiltrating the guild. Now she knew the trap was there and could warn people, or perhaps use it for her own gains.

“Sir Jasper,” she forced herself to say. “That is rather a mouthful too.”

The Nighthawk shot her a hard look over his shoulder as if surprised she’d spoken up. Those icy gray eyes stole her breath, leaving her feeling as if the room had faded away and there was nothing beyond the two of them.

A horrible, uncomfortable feeling for it gave her the impression that he could see every little secret she was hiding. And she was damned good at hiding her secrets.

Light played over the straight, hawkish slant of his nose. “Lynch, then.”

“When would you like me to start?” Rosalind toyed with her gloves, a habit she’d never broken herself of.

“Would you like to discuss your wages first?” His gaze dropped to the fiddling of her fingers and Rosalind forced them to stillness.

“I already asked your man, Garrett.”

“Then as soon—” His head lifted, stark, gray gaze tracking something beyond the door. A hint of dark shadows flashed through his eyes, signs of the hunger within, the voracious predator that lurked beneath the sophisticated skin of every blue blood. The craving.

Rosalind stilled. There was a gun strapped to her thigh fitted with firebolt bullets that exploded on impact, and a sheath of needles at her wrist that were dipped in hemlock. But the creeping fear still prickled at her skin.

Lynch might look and act like a gentleman, albeit a brusque one, but she would never forget what he truly was.

The door slammed open and an older man with a bald head and leather jerkin stormed in. He saw her and stopped, ruddy color infusing his cheeks. “Beg pardon, miss.” A faint Irish accent. His blue eyes shot to Lynch. “Didn’t know you ’ad anyone ’ere.”

“Doyle, this is my new secretary,” Lynch replied, stillness emanating from him. “Mrs. Marberry.”

“Another one?” Doyle arched a brow. A brisk nod in her direction, then he returned his attention to his master. “This just came in. More bad news.” He tugged a letter from within his jerkin and tossed it at Lynch.

Lynch snatched the missive out of the air. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

“Park Lane,” Doyle replied. “It’s a bloodbath. Lord Falcone slaughtered ’is entire family. Women, children, thralls…all of the servants. Lord Barrons wants you there now.”

As the Duke of Caine’s heir, Barrons would be reporting directly to the ruling Council of Dukes, despite their friendship. Lynch frowned. “This is the second incident in a week. Byrnes has barely begun to go over the facts of the Haversham case.”

“Seems it weren’t an isolated incident after all.” Doyle shrugged.

“Curse it.” Lynch spun on his heel, pacing the rug. “I don’t have time for this.”

“I don’t think that excuse will suit ’is Royal Pastiness,” Doyle replied bluntly. “Not with nob’s gettin’ their hands all bloodied. Might be different if it were just us rogues.”

Interesting. Rosalind’s gaze flickered between the men, wondering if Lynch would chastise his man for the insubordination, but his expression remained coolly neutral.

Division in the blue blood world? She went very still, her mind racing. All along she’d thought the enemy was one, but if she could use this information to somehow turn the Nighthawks against the Echelon then she would have a powerful weapon on her hands.

The men seemed to have forgotten her for the moment. “Excuse me,” Rosalind asked. “But what is going on?”

Lynch shot her a piercing look that went straight through her. “A murder scene, Rosa. Now we’ll see whether you are suited for the job. Fetch that writing case and follow me. I’ll need to see the bodies while they’re fresh.”