The Iron Heart

by Leslie Dicken

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to the following people:

  My husband, who helped me to brainstorm some ideas and tried to give me all the time he could to get it written.

  My kids, who put up with me shooing them away over and over and over.

  My awesome critique partner and friend, Lisa Paitz Spindler, who always helped me with ideas, gave me honest feedback, and talked me down from many ledges.

  My friend, AMG, who took the time to read through the book to find any errors and typos before I submitted it.

  The several agents who read it, offered suggestions, and helped make it the story it is today.

  And, of course, my editor Tera, who loves the story and reminded me that it only takes one YES to erase every other NO.

  Chapter One

  Ellie Wilder jerked up from her bed and blinked into the haunting darkness. Soft glowing ashes sputtered in the fireplace.

  Her pulse trembled.

  Across the room, the sheets of the other bed were pulled tight, bed clothes still draped across with care. Jenny should have been back long ago. Hours ago.

  There was a crash down below. A man’s shouts escalated from the lower level. The gear shop.

  Ellie didn’t bother with a wrap. Knees trembling, she hurried from the room and down the steps. A blast of cold air greeted her as she rushed into the front shop.

  Her heart slammed to a stop.

  Miles Young stood before the open door, Jenny limp in his arms. For the briefest moment, Ellie stood motionless. This must be a nightmare. A wretched, disastrous dream.

  But then, a keening wail echoed behind her. Uncle Joseph. Jenny’s father. She heard him slide to the ground.

  “The doctor…” Ellie rasped. She could not find her voice.

  Miles shook his head. His hair swept into his damp, red-rimmed eyes. “Too late.”

  “No!” It was then that Ellie’s legs moved, propelling her to her cousin’s side.

  Her fingers reached forward but then pulled away. Touch would confirm the terrible truth.

  Jenny’s pretty yellow hair lay twisted like a dried rope in the hot sun. Her pink cheeks had lost all color. Even her lips were gray and lifeless.

  Tears, hot and useless, burned tracks down Ellie’s face.

  Jenny. Her cousin. Her best friend. The very life she breathed for the last ten years. The girl who saved her from boredom and emptiness and sorrow.

  She must have slipped, fallen against a stone and broken her neck. Certainly she was too young for her heart to have given up on her.

  Miles shifted, the weight in his arms heavy.

  It was then that Ellie saw it. The blood.

  It dripped from a slit on Jenny’s throat. Ellie looked closer. Miles was covered in it. The lapel of his jacket, the sleeve cradling her neck.

  Shock and agony stole her breath. Oh Lord, no. It couldn’t be true. Jenny had been killed. Murdered. Her life taken by another. No. No. No.

  Slowly, her gaze traveled over the rest of her cousin’s body. Clothes were torn, dirty, blood-splattered. There had been a struggle.

  Anguish burst inside Ellie’s ribs, wrenched her stomach, brought her to her knees.

  She looked up at Miles. The edges of her vision turned red and wavered, blurred.

  “What-what happened?”

  He gently laid Jenny to rest at his feet, only an arm’s length from where Ellie kneeled on the dusty shop floor.

  He wiped away tears. “I went to surprise her. I knew she was making a late delivery.” He gasped, drew in some air. “I thought we might have some time…alone, but instead…”

  His eyes squeezed closed, lips trembled. “Instead I found her in the alley like this.”

  Like this. It wasn’t possible.

  Jenny was dead. Never again would she sing her silly, made-up songs. She could never keep Ellie awake at night with talk of names for babies or make a mess of things in the shop while trying to sort springs. Never, never again.

  “The constable?” she whispered.

  Miles nodded. “I will get him. I can’t—I can’t look at her anymore.”

  Then he was gone.

  Ellie sat with her cousin’s lifeless body on one side of her and her uncle’s shaking and gasping body on the other.

  The depth of his pain must be a hundred fold of hers. She turned and crawled over to him.

  His nose was bright red, eyes swollen. Graying hair slipped from the bounds of his usually careful combing. He trembled and panted, but seemed unable to speak.

  Ellie leaned her head upon his shoulder, reached her arm across his chest. He smelled of boiled potatoes and grease and sweat.

  He would be alone now. Utterly, tragically alone.

  She closed her eyes to block the view of Jenny’s prone body. Despair rose up and choked her, emptying her mind of everything but the horror of the night.

  Only one thought took shape. A single, focusing belief: she could not leave Uncle Joseph alone.

  “I won’t leave you,” Ellie said against his sleeve. “I won’t go back to the Greenlands.” Her voice shook. “This…this is my home now.”

  From the shadows he watched. Inside the little shop they wept. The sweet-faced girl was dead. Yes, he’d killed her. The bitch deserved it.

  He’d not be humiliated. Not again. Not ever again.

  Spirals of anger crowded his vision, choked his lungs. He coughed, spit on the ground beside him.

  These girls of Lundun, pretty ones with yellow hair, would submit to him. Or pay the price.

  Just as that first did. The one now crumpled on the floor in the little gear shop.

  Six months later

  The sun had set hours ago, but Ellie continued to work by lamp light. She’d fix this rotten crystal tank of her Lightrider or she’d not see her bed.

  Shadows crept up the walls of her uncle’s gear shop as the noises outside lulled to a whisper. Lundun streets grew quiet at darkness, save for an alley cat or barking dog.

  A knock sounded at the alleyway door.

  Her heart trembled. An ache mushroomed in her chest. Only bad news came this late at night.

  Only very bad news.

  Ellie steadied herself and walked to the side door. She slid the metal cover of the peephole and saw Miles, wet and shivering.

  For a moment, her lungs ceased functioning. Miles did not come in the darkness for good news. Yet, with Jenny gone, what other dreadfulness could equal it?

  She yanked open the door. “Come in, come in.”

  His tall body moved past her and into the shop. His long, brown hair was in need of a cut. It clung to his neck. A wilted police cap drooped over his forehead. He stood by the front windows and looked out onto the wet cobblestones.

  The room stilled into a painful silence, until she could take no more. “What is it?”

  He sighed.

  “Why are you here?”

  He lifted his face. His skin was drawn, pale. Even in the dim light from the oil lamp, she could see the strain of the past several months.

  Finally, “There’s been another murder.”

  “Another murder?” Oh Lord, no.

  The young police sergeant nodded. “’Fraid so. Just like…well, it must be the same killer.”

  Must be the same killer.

  Same as…Jenny?

  Oh God. Ellie’s vision dimmed. She stood motionless, her breath crushed deep in her lungs. A knife pierced deep and sharp into her soul. She closed her eyes briefly, shuddered with the pain of that night’s memories.

  “When did this happen?” Ellie lowered herself to her stool. Not another death. Not another family brought to their knees in despair.

  Miles faced the windows again. “Someone heard a scream. She was dead
when we found her.”

  Gas lamps from the street filtered through the shop windows in a sickening yellow haze. Shadows of gears and springs, tools and parts, stretched outward to make ghastly shapes.

  “When? Where?”

  “Last night. Over in District Four. I wanted to come find you yesterday, but couldn’t leave the station or the tracks.”

  Of course he couldn’t. “How old was she?”

  He shrugged. “Nineteen, twenty. Like you.”

  “What…was there a slice on her throat, Miles?”

  He nodded.

  “And the rest of her…was-was it the same?”

  “Yes.” His voice was quiet.

  Ellie hung her head. Oh God, no one should ever have to suffer like Jenny had. No one. “Where is she now?”

  “The district leader requested an investigation of her remains. She was sent there.”

  She was sent out to the Greenlands! “What gave him the right to have her moved there? He could’ve come into Lundun and done it at the station.”

  Miles shrugged.

  District Four leader Lord Barrington would certainly hear from her about it at the Syndicate meeting tomorrow.

  “Her parents would let her body go out there?”

  “I’m not sure she had any.”

  “A streetwalker?”

  Miles shrugged, then turned abruptly and knocked into a low, wooden shelf. Metal pieces crashed around him. They scattered over boxes and clattered on the floor. Gears rolled across the long table by the window until they finally spun to a stop.

  Head hung low, dark hair in his eyes, he walked past her. “I’ll let you know if I learn more.” Miles slipped out the alley door without another word. He was just as lost as the rest of them.

  Ellie forced herself to gather the fallen items. Her fingers brushed smooth brass and slick copper. She reached absently, pawing in the locations she’d heard them fall. But like her life over the past few months, she couldn’t locate everything and put it back the way it was.

  Everything changed that day Jenny died. Everything. Her uncle had not smiled again, rarely left the shop and rooms. Nights giggling with her cousin vanished into barren, dark hours. No more were there secrets whispered by firelight or days spent exploring green hills.

  Then Jenny was gone. Gone.

  Through the gray blur which followed, Ellie tried to resume her life. She focused on her newspaper, on her Lightrider. She spent hours flying in the single-person vehicle just to see the endless sky in every direction.

  But beneath it all lurked the agony and hopelessness, the rage and frustration. Her best friend was dead. And the man who had done it was not only still free, he had killed another.

  Perhaps it was time to stop losing herself with distractions and trying to forget. It was time to do something. It was time to find Jenny’s killer, in whatever way possible.

  Pain trickled away to be replaced with a rising surge of determined anger.

  No more waiting to hear from the constable. No more nights of “what if” and “if only”. Tomorrow she would return to her original home in the Greenlands and face the leaders of Lundun. They would learn of Jenny’s death and this latest. They would stand together to fight this monster.

  Tomorrow she would start the hunt.

  Bennett Pierce, Lord Barrington, watched out the window to see the district leaders gather on his lawn below. Several looked over to the dirigible, no doubt anticipating the ride planned for later.

  Yes, he would show them his latest creations, bring them up in his father’s aircraft and none would be the wiser of the disaster in his soul.

  His father, dead of pneumonia, had never permitted the Syndicate of Provinces to be held at Barrington Hall. Secrets. Shame. The reasons didn’t matter.

  Bennett would change that. The Barringtons would not be judged by their silence or aloofness. Curiosity brought thieves and snooping. Neither of which he could tolerate. He needed privacy.

  He breathed in the sheltered air, swept a mask of calm across his face. He remained in the small room, where extra chairs and tables were stored. He would wait until all had been seated at the table.

  At long last he heard them shuffle about the large meeting room. Their voices carried to him on a wind of trepidation. He must be skilled, like a master player of cards. No one in that room should know of the dead girl who lay in his cellar.

  Bennett pulled his shoulders back, cracked his neck. Loose of all tension, he scripted a smile and opened the door.

  He ignored the murmurs as he swept by the other leaders and stopped only at the head of the table. His rightful seat.

  Slowly he scanned the room, catching everyone’s gaze. Each district leader nodded back at him in turn. They said nothing but their gazes told him everything.

  They questioned why his father had never opened their home and even more, why Bennett had decided to do so. He felt no compulsion to relieve them of this curiosity.

  At long last, his gaze had circled the entire table. In the last seat, the one immediately to his right, his stare settled on brilliant green eyes. Miss Wilder. Leader of District Eight.

  She looked back at him with an enchanting, if not treacherous glare. Her shoulders were forward, as if she were a moment’s notice from leaping from her seat.

  She had something to say, this one. He sucked air between his teeth. Pray, let it not be about the dead body several floors below.

  With a calculated move, Bennett brought his gaze to the sweet roundness of her bosom. He liked what he saw, but then, there wasn’t many a bosom he did not enjoy.

  Only when he felt the fire of lust burning in his eyes did he return to her sharp glower.

  He watched her breath still, a blush burn across her cheeks, and then, at last, she glanced away. Victory, however, remained to be seen once he spoke the next words.

  “I am Bennett Pierce, Lord of Barrington, province leader of District Four.” He glanced about the room. It was protocol for him to next announce any issues or problems in his district. Something like an outbreak of disease, or a rash of robberies. Or a murder.

  He would say nothing of the sort.

  Each of the leaders stared back at him, waiting, as the silence festered in the room.

  He drew in a deep breath and then, “There are no issues to report with District Four.”

  Bennett lowered to his seat.

  Instantly, Miss Wilder sprang from hers. Alas, his triumph was short-lived. “But what of the slain girl?”

  A collective gasp went up around the room. Spikes may as well have stabbed his palms, but he did not blink. He would maintain control. “If there were a murder, I would know, Miss Ella Wilder.”

  Her gaze narrowed. “Why are you hiding this?”

  A revealing tic pulsed near his left eye, but otherwise he did not move a muscle. “We’re moving on.”

  She turned from him to the rest of the table. “There is a killer in Lundun. This latest murder in District Four is actually the second death. If we do not act fast, others may fall victim next.”

  The District Six leader, a large man with thinning hair and a red face, raised his eyebrows. “Two ratty commoners, streetwalkers no doubt, isn’t a reason for alarm, Miss Wilder.”

  Her cheeks bloomed a brilliant shade of scarlet. “How could you say such a thing?”

  The man shrugged. “One or two less to worry about, if you ask me.”

  Shouts exploded about the room. Bennett quietly rose from his seat. The noise grated at his tenuous composure. He must leave this chaos immediately. And Miss Wilder would accompany him.

  He reached for a silk-covered elbow.

  “Miss Wilder, may I see you in private?”

  Her intense glare settled on him. There was a dangerous purpose in her lifted chin. “Indeed.”

  Chapter Two

  Bennett stalked into the large ballroom adjacent to the meeting room. Who the hell did Miss Ella Wilder think she was renouncing what he’d just said—and in h
is own house, by God?

  He flipped switches on the wall and shut the door behind them. The room glowed with a soft light from the overhead chandeliers.

  Bennett cleared his throat. “Miss Wilder.”

  Her murderous green gaze landed on him. He would be dead if looks could kill. Perhaps he should drag that District Six leader in here to absorb her ire.

  “You have stepped out of order. It was not your place to reveal the murder to the other district leaders.”

  As in the meeting room, when his heated stare lingered, she was not intimidated. She would be a challenge, this one. Her blonde eyebrows arched. “Tell me, Lord Barrington, why keep such a heinous crime a secret?”

  Bennett balled his hands into fists. “I shall deal with the crimes in my district as I see fit.” Echoes of haunting darkness and screams of rage whirled in his head.

  Miss Wilder put her hands on her hips. “What good could come of keeping something like this from others? Surely, you want help in capturing this man and preventing him from killing someone else.”

  Bennett turned on his heel and stalked away from her. He stared out the small window, but saw only his own harrowing memories. Memories of loss, devastation and disappointment. Memories of a life, someone he once knew, suddenly coming to an end.

  “Her name was Rosemary Sanders,” he said, a practiced control in his voice. “She was twenty years old.”

  Miss Wilder breathed a heavy sigh. “Where is Rosemary being buried?”

  He shored up every muscle, every nerve in his body. He’d not been prepared to speak of this tonight. “She was brought here first thing this morning. I will have her doctor examine her body and take thorough notes, then she will be buried here.”

  Dear Lord, it was the least he could do. He once knew Rosemary, long ago spent countless nights pulling his brother from her arms. Hugh was enamored with her sweet baby face. So much so, he shirked other responsibilities, spent more nights at the brothel than at home.

  Now Rosemary was dead. Hugh had gone missing.

  Bennett winced as his heart hammered, cruelly reminding him of each night’s fate. Nights spent searching and living a nightmare mired in lost moments of reality. No living man should fight such demons.