“Cherry!”
I shrugged. “Apparently, the earl doesn’t much care for his younger brother.”
She waved that away. “He’s a younger son, and hardly worthy of attention,” she sniffed. “I gather he prefers to remain nothing more than a wastrel. He’s lost quite a bit at the gaming table, they say.”
They. It always came down to they, didn’t it?
“So Lord Piers is an inveterate gambler,” I mused.
“That is not our business, Cherry.”
I wondered if I could garner any more information from below. Surely, a young lord caught in the net of the gaming hells would leave a trail.
Wait, what was I thinking? Wander on down to become good friends with the earl’s gambling brother? I must have been out of my head. I caught myself before Fanny’s infectious excitement fanned any more of these useless thoughts. It didn’t matter. We’d see what would happen when and if the earl came by again. Brushing the entire conversation aside with a flick of my hand, I repeated, “Where is my paper?”
“It didn’t arrive,” Fanny said quickly.
Too quickly.
I narrowed my eyes at her. “It never fails—”
“Your pardon, miss, but your periodical was only just delivered,” Booth interrupted smoothly. Features impassive—ignoring both my chaperone and his disapproving wife with equal aplomb—he laid the folded paper down beside my tray.
Fanny’s mouth sealed, and she busied herself with arranging the toast and eggs laid out on her plate.
“Thank you,” I told him. With short, sharp gestures, I unfolded the paper, making certain it crackled and rustled as much as humanly possible.
What the devil was my problem that morning?
Speaking of devils. I glanced at the table, and the empty chair at the head of it. “I gather my guardian will not be gracing us with his presence again?”
“I am sure he sends his regrets, miss,” Booth said quietly. “He is not quite recovered.”
I blinked. “Is he ill?”
“Cherry,” Fanny said with a sigh. “Mr. Ashmore travels much too long and keeps unfortunate hours doing it. Allow him the courtesy of recovering in his own home in peace.”
My back teeth ground together. It was my home he recovered in. I said nothing, shaking the paper to align the fold, and removed my attention from the table pointedly.
I only had to scan the headlines this time to learn exactly what was so important that Fanny didn’t want me to see it.
The tableware rattled as I slammed the Times to the surface. “What is the meaning of this?”
“Cherry St. Croix, ladies do not—”
I cut her off, pointing to the bold print. “ ‘Professor Murdered,’ ” I read. Each syllable bitten off as if made of poison and swallowed bitterly. “ ‘Philosopher’s Square now the site of an ongoing investigation. Has Leather Apron moved to more academic pursuits?’ ” I looked up. “Fanny, did you know?”
She avoided my eyes, concentrating on smearing her egg just so with the small tines of her fork. “I may have caught sight of the article,” she allowed. “But I—”
I made a rude sound, once more rustling the paper loudly. Ignoring whatever explanations my chaperone, well-intentioned or otherwise, meant to frame for me, I read the article top to bottom.
Professor Elijah Woolsey had been found dead in the early hours of the evening. Just after eleven o’clock.
One hour after I was supposed to meet him.
Guilt slipped into my heart like a knife. If I had been there, would he still have died?
What if I could have seen that something was wrong? Warned him?
Saved him?
In a bitter twist of irony, half of the man’s stomach had been carved free of his body. But unlike the others found in such brutal circumstances, it wasn’t missing. Nor was it on display in one of his many tanks.
They found it strung across the floor. Sliced to ribbons.
None of the other organs had been touched. Just the professor’s own. His face had been sliced to ribbons, unrecognizable beneath the damage. They were calling it a crime of extreme hatred.
I didn’t touch my plate again. “Professor Woolsey,” I murmured.
Fanny sighed softly. “I’m sorry, my dove.” I looked up, met her eyes and the very real regret there. “I’d hoped to save you the sorrow.”
The paper slipped to the floor as I rose. “E-excuse me,” I murmured. “I don’t feel well. I think I’ll retire for a while.”
“Do you need—”
“No,” I hastened to say before any suggestions could be made. Booth’s fingers caught my arm, a brief squeeze as I passed.
“Poor poppet,” Mrs. Booth said behind me.
I hurried up to my room, gathering my skirts high to take the stairs two at a time. Woolsey was dead, murdered on the very night I was to meet him.
Like the boy I’d sent to deliver a message, hung with his own innards.
As I shut the door behind me, Betsy looked up. Something on my face must have translated my anger, because she straightened from the corners she was tucking at my bed and reached for me. “What is it, miss?”
I shook my head. “Lampblack,” I said hoarsely. “Quickly. I’m going below.”
“So soon?”
I caught her hand when she would have gripped my shoulder, shaking my head over and over. “Professor Woolsey is dead, Betsy. For me. He was killed over me.”
Her eyebrows furrowed, her hand still in mine. Cautiously, she guided me to the vanity chair and I sat, my legs no longer willing to support me as the guilt rose like a bitter tide in my chest. “Certainly not because of you,” she said, frowning. “The Square is not the most safe—”
“No,” I whispered. “I know it. I’m to blame. I should have been there when he asked. He knew my mother and father, Betsy. He could have told me—” I met my own green eyes in the mirror, my gaze stricken. My mouth set into a thin, white line. With an angry sound, I tore the pins from my hair. “Lampblack, Betsy. Now.”
By the day’s half-light below the drift, the Menagerie became something much less exotic. Simple grounds, with simple workers. There was no violin this time, no laughter or cheers. Empty tents, abandoned stalls, and a ringmaster who became a foreman.
Micajah Hawke was no stranger to difficult labor.
“Put your backs into it,” he ordered. From the full lawn away, I could hear the ringing authority in his trained voice.
In the company of three other men, he stood out even without the mystique of the nighttime masquerade. All clad in shirtsleeves and working trousers, it was Hawke that my eyes pinned on. His broad shoulders, the edged muscle of his arms as he hauled back on a rope affixed to something high atop the largest circus tent.
The queued tail of his dark hair, scraped back from his square features.
“And,” rang out Hawke’s calm order, “heave!” All four men pulled back on the rope as I approached. High above, barely visible, a pulley snapped taut. The whole side of the crimson canvas tent rippled.
Two of the men were white, notable for the lacquered circus spikes one had made of his hair and the unusual thinness of the other. The last was a dark-skinned man, as tall as Ishmael but only a fraction as wide. He was whipcord lean, shirtless even in the cold, and his rangy muscles gleamed with the sweat of his exertions.
“And, heave!”
I drew to a stop, glaring at Hawke. I waited for him to notice me, to say or do anything to acknowledge my all-but-vibrating presence.
He didn’t. “And, heave!”
The men hauled back, muscles popping. The canvas tightened.
I opened my mouth, but then studied the tense rope worked between four sets of hands and shut my mouth. I didn’t want to be responsible if anything broke loose.
I’d seen circus tents fall. Too many pounds of thick canvas could kill a man easily.
Stewing in my own anger, I waited. But I did not do so graciously, pacing as frenetically
as a caged tiger.
Finally, the rope went slack, dropping to the ground. Hawke’s gaze remained up, head tipped back even as the other three men sucked in air.
And watched me.
Hawke frowned. “Kelly?”
“All set!” came a high voice from far above.
My gaze flew up to the circus top. Was there a woman above? A child?
And why not? Monsieur Marceaux had proven time and again that women could do what men could on the rope. In the hoops, high above on silk scarves.
Although they fetched better on the auction table.
I saw no sign of the owner of that voice. But when I dropped my gaze to the men, I found Hawke finally watching me. Silently. Weighing.
One of the men, the tall bloke with his lacquered sideshow spikes, adjusted the flat, worn goggles over his face. The lenses were tinted dark by a thin coat of something I’d never seen before, shrouding his eyes.
The pale, thin man cleared his throat awkwardly.
Hawke only held my gaze, and I knew that all of them were waiting to take their cues from him.
Bugger that for a lark.
“Why didn’t you tell me about the murdered sweets?” I asked flatly.
Hawke’s ungloved hands settled on his waist. “You have your tasks,” he said quietly. The two white men suddenly scattered, as if they couldn’t wait to be as far away from me as possible.
The third, the Negro I didn’t recognize, studied me for a moment with tawny eyes nearly gold. His hair was long enough to reach the middle of his back, braided in a multitude of very tiny plaits and held back with a leather thong.
I glared back at him, raising my chin at the unspoken challenge in his expression.
Micajah said something in a language I’d never heard before, sounding not so much like words as a series of syllables and clicks. The man glanced at him.
His grin revealed even white teeth, startling against his dark skin. Nodding to me, he sauntered away, fishing the tail end of his shirt from its loop at the back of his trousers.
My eyes flicked to Hawke. He didn’t move. He didn’t address me, either, but that muscle in his jaw was pulsing as if he ground his teeth. His eyes pinned mine, razor sharp. I didn’t know what kind of game he was playing, but I was sick of it.
Ignoring the now departed men, I closed the distance between us, raising a finger to shove against Hawke’s solid chest.
“You lied about Cummings, too,” I seethed at him, picking up the trail of thought where I’d left it.
He looked down at me, his eyes as inscrutable as ever. Save for the streak; that devil blue swath of flame. I’d swear it glinted. “Are you here on business, Miss Black?”
I lifted my chin. “Yes.”
“Whose?”
I opened my mouth to say Zylphia’s name, then caught myself before I could. Had she told him anything?
I doubted it. And I wouldn’t be the one to get my friend in trouble. I didn’t even know if the sweets were allowed to purchase or hire anything on their own.
It occurred to me that I didn’t know a lot about Zylla’s life.
I flicked my fingers at him, dismissing the question as unimportant. “That’s twice you’ve tried to manipulate me,” I said, flattening my voice to icy calm. I jabbed my finger into his chest again. “And twice you’ve gotten in my way.”
“Is it?”
“At least.”
“So you claim.”
I snarled. “Do I need to go speak to the Karakash Veil, Mr. Hawke? Is that how you want me to open this discourse?”
By the gray light of day, I’d thought Micajah Hawke would be bereft of the midnight mystery he wrapped himself in. I’d thought him just a man, any man. Flesh and blood.
I hadn’t expected flesh and blood to be so real.
Or to get so close.
He moved into my space, a single step from long, powerful legs, closing even the whisper of distance between us with fluid ease. Before I could leap back, he’d snapped out a hand, caught the wrist of the offending finger I kept poking into his chest, and yanked me forward.
If I thought him close then, it was nothing to the sudden lack of oxygen I suffered as he cupped the long fingers of his other hand around my jaw and tipped my face up, up, up until my world was comprised of brown and blue.
Golden skin, black, black hair. Azure flame.
His white teeth bared. “Do you think this a game, Miss Black?” The very gentleness of his tone belied the aggression of his hold; his fingers were warm and faintly damp with sweat at my cheeks. Roughened, I realized with surprise. Working man’s hands.
His body towered over mine, his breath warm against my lips, and I gasped. Seizing the front of his shirt in my free hand only gave me the barest impression of balance. Of control.
His fingers tensed at my jaw.
Fear and raw awareness flipped to anger. And the even sharper knowledge that his chest was solid with hard muscle. That the bare skin of his arms gleamed faintly with his exertions, and his breathing wasn’t labored at all.
I swallowed the hard knot of anxiety balled in my throat and hissed, “Let me go.”
A flex of one arm, and my face wrenched higher beneath the pressure he applied. Closer to his. I was drowning in the angry glitter of his eyes, vibrating along the awkward curve of my back as I fought to maintain my balance on my toes.
“You are worse than any child,” he said, and I remembered the scathing words he’d thrown at me when I burst in on him before. “Is there nothing you won’t meddle in?”
“I am not a child.”
“Then stop acting like one,” he growled, mere inches from my face.
I sucked in a shuddering breath. Smelled warm male, honest sweat and something raw. Something all him. Edged, angry.
I let go of his shirt to grasp at his wrist. Tendons moved beneath my grip. Muscle and sinew. “Let me go,” I demanded again, but it wasn’t more than a whisper.
“Will you behave?”
I opened my mouth to retort, but my voice lodged in my throat as his furious gaze dropped from my eyes to my lips. Traced them. As if it were his fingers sliding along my damp lower lip.
As real as any caress.
I gasped.
His eyes narrowed.
“My gardens are open to all manner of creatures,” he finally said. I stiffened, but he bent his wrist, forcing my head to the side. I saw only the bare skin of his shoulder in my straining vision as he lowered his mouth to my ear to murmur, “All manner of monsters, Miss Black. You are not the most dangerous pet in my Menagerie.”
His breath ghosted against my sensitive skin. Gooseflesh rippled over every inch of my body and I shuddered. “I am not your pet,” I said between clenched teeth. “And I don’t belong to the Menagerie.”
“Not yet.” And suddenly, he let me go. Left me standing alone, so fast that I stumbled. When I regained my balance, he had already put distance between us, half turned away. “And for that reason, Miss Black, you’ll turn around and return to wherever it is you come from. I’ll give you the promised payment for Cummings, but leave the murderer to better men. This is not your problem.”
Better men? Red colored my vision. I was “better men.” I’d accepted the bounty. I’d made the deal.
I’d found the evidence leading to Woolsey, who had died because of my interest. I was sure of it.
I glowered at him, rubbing at my cheek. At my still-tingling skin. “People are dying, Mr. Hawke.”
His shoulders moved, a powerful roll of indifference. “People have that tendency.”
“They’re dying because of me!” I realized only once the fog sucked it from my lips that I had shouted it, but as I took a step—perhaps to grab his arm, perhaps to gesticulate expansively, even I didn’t know—his head came around. As sleek as a predator. Aggressive and intent.
His eyes glittered again, telegraphing something I wasn’t capable of translating.
Menace, I thought. Or warning.
/> “Don’t,” he said quietly, “flatter yourself. Go home.”
“I cannot,” I told him. Threats hadn’t worked. Perhaps honesty would. “I need to find this killer.”
“You won’t find him here.”
“How do you know?”
His jaw ticked. Once. “This is not a charity. You’ll get nothing for nothing, Miss Black.” He looked away. “Go home. You cannot pay this fee.”
I frowned. “What fee?”
His lips curled. Mockery. A sneer. “Exactly my point.” As was his wont, he turned his back on me, dismissing me so thoroughly that I could only stare. The nerve.
The sheer bloody-mindedness!
“Very well,” I said, drawing myself up. Lifting my chin, which even still ached from his grasp. “If you won’t help me, Mr. Hawke, I’ll find somebody who will.”
He turned, then, a graceful spin of powerful, lethally sinuous grace, and I was reminded once more of the fallen angel he truly was. The bow he sketched me was contemptuous at best. “You will not find someone to help you here, Miss Black. Good day.”
I stared at him, fuming silently as he strode away.
And wishing desperately that I wasn’t imagining the bare expanse of that muscled chest, slick with humidity and rippling with muscle as he tipped his dark head back and laughed beside a nude woman.
“Satan, indeed,” I muttered.
I’d show him. I’d solve this bloody riddle, and show him once and for all.
With or without his help.
But perhaps with someone else’s.
Chapter Twelve
The last child to run a message for me into the Brick Street Bakery had been murdered. I could have gone in myself, but Ishmael had been clear in his warning.
There was no jury of my peers to convict me here. Or to exonerate me. If his lads found me on their beat, I’d be as good as dead. Even I couldn’t take on the Bakers and hope to survive.
With misgivings, I found another child to run courier for me. I paid him handsomely to ensure he was careful, bid him to run swiftly and trust no one.
I was on tenterhooks the whole of my wait. I didn’t dare pace, but every fiber of my being strained to do something. Anything. I was antsy. Nervous.
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