Demon Blood

by Meljean Brook

  The high, wrought-iron fence that surrounded his gardens had earned him the nickname the Iron Duke—the iron kept the rest of London out, and whatever riches he hid inside, in. The spikes at the top of the fence guaranteed that no one in the surrounding slums would scale it, and no one was invited in. At least, no one in Mina’s circle, or her mother’s.

  She was never certain if their circle was too high, or too low.

  Newberry stopped in front of the gate. When a face appeared at the small gatehouse window, he shouted, “Detective Inspector Wentworth, on police business! Open her up!”

  The gatekeeper appeared, a grizzled man with a long gray beard and the heavy step that marked a metal leg. A former pirate, Mina guessed. Though the Crown insisted that Trahaearn and his men had all been privateers, acting with the permission of the king, only a few children who didn’t know any better believed the story. The rest of them knew he’d been a pirate all along, and the story was just designed to bolster faith in the king and his ministers after the revolution. That story and bestowing a title on Trahaearn had been two of King Edward’s last cogent acts. The crew had been given naval ranks, and Marco’s Terror pressed into the service of the Navy . . . where she’d supposedly been all along.

  The Iron Duke had traded the Terror and the seas for a title and a fortress in the middle of a slum. She wondered if he felt that exchange had been worth it.

  The gatekeeper glanced at her. “And the jade?”

  At Mina’s side, Newberry bristled. “She is the detective inspector, Lady Wilhelmina Wentworth.”

  Oh, Newberry. In Manhattan City, titles still meant more than escaping the modification that the British lower classes had suffered under the Horde. And when the gatekeeper looked at her again, she knew what he saw—and it wasn’t a lady. Nor was it the epaulettes declaring her rank, or the red band sewed into her sleeve, boasting that she’d spilled Horde blood in the revolution.

  No, he saw her face, calculated her age, and understood that she’d been conceived during a Frenzy. And that, because of her family’s status, her mother and father had been allowed to keep her rather than her being taken by the Horde to be raised in a crèche.

  The gatekeeper looked at her assistant. “And you?”

  “Constable Newberry.”

  Scratching his beard, the old man shuffled back toward the gatehouse. “All right. I’ll be sending a gram up to the captain, then.”

  He still called the Iron Duke “captain”? Mina could not decide if that said more about Trahaearn or the gatekeeper. At least one of them did not put much stock in titles, but she could not determine if it was the gatekeeper alone.

  The gatekeeper didn’t return—and former pirate or not, he must be literate if he could write a gram and read the answer from the main house. That answer came quickly. She and Newberry hadn’t waited more than a minute before the gates opened on well-oiled hinges.

  The park was enormous, with green lawns stretching out into the dark. Dogs sniffed along the fence, their handlers bundled up against the cold. If someone had invaded the property, he wouldn’t find many places to hide outside the buildings. All of the shrubs and trees were still young, planted after Trahaearn had purchased the estate.

  The house rivaled Chesterfield before that great building had fallen into disrepair and been demolished. Made of yellow stone, two rectangular wings jutted forward to form a large courtyard. Unadorned casements decorated the many windows, and the blocky stone front was relieved only by the window glass, and the balustrade along the top of the roof. A fountain tinkled at the center of the courtyard. Behind it, the main steps created semicircles leading to the entrance.

  On the center of the steps, a white sheet concealed a body-shaped lump. No blood soaked through the sheet. A man waited on the top step, his slight form in a poker-straight posture that Mina couldn’t place for a moment. Then it struck her: Navy. Probably another pirate, though this one had been a sailor—or an officer—first.

  A house of this size would require a small army of staff, and she and Newberry would have to question each one. Soon, she’d know how many of Trahaearn’s pirates had come to dry land with him.

  As they reached the fountain, she turned to Newberry. “Stop here. Set up your camera by the body. I want photographs of everything before we move it.”

  Newberry parked and climbed out. Mina didn’t wait for him to gather his equipment from the bonnet. She strode toward the house. The man descended the steps to greet her, and she was forced to revise her opinion. His posture wasn’t rigid discipline, but a cover for wiry, contained energy. His dark hair was slicked back from a narrow face. Unlike the man at the gate, he was neat, and almost bursting with the need to help.

  “Inspector Wentworth.” With ink-stained fingers, he gestured to the body, inviting her to look.

  She was not in a rush, however. The body would not be going anywhere. “Mr—?”

  “St. John.” He said it like a bounder, rather than the two abbreviated syllables of someone born in England. “Steward to His Grace’s estate.”

  “This estate or his property in Wales?” Which, as far as Mina was aware, Trahaearn didn’t often visit.

  “Anglesey, inspector.”

  Newberry passed them, easily carrying the heavy photographic equipment. St. John half turned, as if to offer his assistance, then glanced back as Mina asked, “When did you arrive here from Wales, Mr. St. John?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Did you witness what happened here?”

  He shook his head. “I was in the study when I heard the footman—Chesley—inform the housekeeper that someone had fallen. Mrs. Lavery then told His Grace.”

  Mina frowned. She hadn’t been called out here because someone had been a clumsy oaf, had they? “Someone tripped on the stairs?”

  “No, inspector. Fallen.” His hand made a sharp dive from his shoulder to his hip.

  Mina glanced at the body again, then at the balustrade lining the roof. “Do you know who it was?”

  “No.”

  She was not surprised. If he managed the Welsh estate, he wouldn’t likely know the London staff well. “Who covered him with the sheet?”

  “I did, after His Grace sent the staff back into the house.”

  So they’d all come out to gawk. “Did anyone identify him while they were outside?”

  “No.”

  Or maybe they just hadn’t spoken up. “Where is the staff now?”

  “They are gathered in the main parlor.”

  Where they would all pass the story around until they were each convinced they’d witnessed it personally. Blast. Mina firmed her lips.

  As if understanding her frustration, St. John added, “The footman is alone in the study, however. His Grace told him to stay there. He hasn’t spoken with anyone else since Mrs. Lavery told His Grace.”

  The footman had been taken into the study and asked nothing? “But he has talked to the duke?”

  The answer came from behind her, from a voice that could carry his commands across a ship without shouting. “He has, Inspector.”

  She turned to find a man as big as his voice. Oh, damn the news sheets. They hadn’t been kind to him—they’d been kind to their readers, protecting them the effect of this man. He was just as hard and as handsome as they’d portrayed. Altogether dark and forbidding, his gaze was as pointed and as guarded as the fence that was his namesake. The Iron Duke wasn’t as tall as his statue, but still taller than any man had a right to be—and as broad through the shoulders as Newberry, but without the spare flesh.

  The news sheets had shown all of that, but they hadn’t conveyed his power. But it was not just size, Mina immediately recognized. Not just his looks. She’d seen handsome before. She’d seen rich and influential. Yet this man had a presence beyond looks and money. For the first time, she could see why men might follow him through kraken-infested waters or into Horde territory, then follow him back onto shore and remain with him.

  He was terri
fying.

  Disturbed by her reaction, Mina glanced at the man standing beside him: tall, brown-haired, his expression bored. Mina did not recognize him. Perhaps a bounder and, if so, probably an aristocrat—and he likely expected to be treated as one.

  Bully for him.

  She looked to the duke again. Like his companion, he wore a long black overcoat, breeches, and boots. A waistcoat buckled like armor over a white shirt with a simple collar reminiscent of the Horde’s tunic collar. Fashionable clothes, but almost invisible—as if overpowered by the man wearing them.

  Something, Mina suspected, that he did not just to his clothes, but to the people around him. She could not afford to be one of them.

  She’d never been introduced to someone of his standing before, but she’d seen Superintendent Hale meet the prime minister without a single gesture to acknowledge that he ranked above her. Mina followed that example and offered the short nod of an equal. “Your Grace. I understand that you did not witness this man die.”

  “No.”

  She looked beyond him. “And your companion . . . ?”

  “Also saw nothing,” the other man answered.

  She’d been right; his accent marked him as a bounder. Yet she had to revise her opinion of him. He wasn’t bored by the death—just too familiar with it to be excited by yet another. She couldn’t understand that. The more death she saw, the more the injustice of each one touched her. “Your name, sir?”

  His smile seemed just at the edge of a laugh. “Mr. Smith.”

  A joker. How fun.

  She thought a flicker of irritation crossed the duke’s expression. But when he didn’t offer his companion’s true name, she let it go. One of the staff would know.

  “Mr. St. John has told me that no one has identified the body, and only your footman saw his fall.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did your footman relate anything else to you?”

  “Only that his landing sounded just like a man falling from the topsail yard to the deck below. Except this one didn’t scream.”

  No scream? Either the man had been drunk, asleep, or already dead. She would soon find out which it was.

  “If you’ll pardon me, Your Grace.”

  With a nod, she turned toward the steps, where Newberry tested the camera’s flashing light. She heard the Iron Duke and his companion follow her. As long as they did not touch the body or try to help her examine it, she did not care.

  Mina looked down at her hands. She would touch the body, and Newberry had not thought to bring her serviceable wool gloves to exchange for her white evening gloves. They were only satin—neither her mother’s tinkering nor her own salary could afford kid—but they were still too dear to ruin.

  She tugged at the tips of her fingers, but the fastenings at her wrist prevented them from sliding off. Futilely, she tried to push the small buttons through equally small satin loops. The seams at the tips of her fingers made them too bulky, and the fabric was too slippery. It could not be done without a maid, or a mother.

  She looked round for Newberry, and saw that the black powder from the ferrotype camera already dusted his hands. Blast it. She lifted her wrist to her mouth, pushed the cuff of her sleeve out of the way with her chin, and began to work at the tiny loops with her teeth. She would bite them through, if she had to. Even the despised task of sewing the buttons back on would be easier than—

  “Give your hand over, Inspector.”

  Mina froze, her hackles rising at the command. She looked through her fingers at Trahaearn’s face.

  She heard a noise from his companion, a snorted half laugh—as if Trahaearn had failed an easy test.

  The duke’s voice softened. His expression did not. “May I assist you?”

  No, she thought. Do not touch me; do not come close. But the body on the steps would not allow her that reply.

  “Yes. Thank you, Your Grace.”

  She held out her hand, and watched as he removed his own gloves. Kid, lined with sable. Just imagining that luxurious softness warmed her.

  She would not have been surprised if his presence had, as well. With his great size, he seemed to surround her with heat just by standing so near. His hands were large, his fingers long and nails square. As he took her wrist in his left palm, calluses audibly scraped the satin. His face darkened. She could not tell if it was in anger or embarrassment.

  However rough his skin was, his fingers were nimble. He deftly unfastened the first button, and the next. “This was not the evening you had planned.”

  “No.”

  She did not say this was preferable to the Victory Ball, but perhaps he read it in her voice. His teeth flashed in a smile. Her breath quickened, and she focused on her wrist. Only two buttons left, and then she could work.

  She should be working now. “Were the dogs patrolling the grounds before the body was discovered?”

  “No. They search for the point of entry now.”

  Mina pictured the iron fence. Perhaps a child could slip through the bars; a man could not. But if someone had let him through . . . ? “Have you spoken with your man at the front gate?”

  “Wills?”

  She had not asked the gatekeeper his name. “If Wills has a prosthetic left leg, and often saves a portion of his supper in his beard for his breakfast, then we are speaking of the same man.”

  “That is Wills.” He studied her with unreadable eyes. “He would not let anyone through.”

  Without my leave, Mina finished for him. And perhaps he was right, though of course she would verify it with the gatekeeper, and ask the steward about deliveries. Someone might have hidden themselves in one.

  His gaze fell to her glove again. “There we are,” Trahaearn said softly. “Now to—”

  She pulled her hand away at the same time Trahaearn gripped the satin fingertips. He tugged. Satin slid in a warm caress over her elbow, her forearm.

  Flames lit her cheeks. “Your Grace—”

  His expression changed as he continued to pull. First registering surprise, as if he had not realized that the glove extended past her wrist. Then an emotion hard and sharp as the long glove slowly gave way. Its white length finally dangled from his fingers, and to Mina seemed as intimate as if he held her stocking.

  Her sleeve still covered her arm, but she felt exposed. Stripped. With as much dignity as she could, Mina claimed the glove.

  “Thank you, Your Grace. I can manage the other.” She stuffed the glove into her pocket. With her bare fingers, she made quick work of the buttons at her left wrist.

  She looked up to find him staring at her. His cheekbones blazed with color, his gaze hot.

  She’d seen lust before. This marked the first time that she hadn’t seen any disgust or hatred beneath it.

  “Thank you,” she said again, amazed by the evenness of her voice when everything inside her trembled.

  “Inspector.” He inclined his head, then looked beyond her to the stairs.

  And as she turned, the trembling stopped. Her legs were steady as she walked to the steps, her gaze unflinching, her mind focused.

  “You were to assist her, not undress her,” she heard his companion say. Trahaearn didn’t reply, and Mina didn’t look back at him.

  Even the pull of the Iron Duke was not stronger than Death.