A Matter of Circumstance and Celludrones (Dark Matters)

by Claire Robyns

  Where do you hail from? Who sired you? Who are you? She hadn’t much liked any of his answers then and they hadn’t changed.

  “I’ll tell you everything,” he said now. “As soon as you tell me why you’re so interested. What do you want with Lady Lily d’Bulier?”

  “You are in no position to bargain.”

  Behind her, a shadow filled the doorway.

  Neco. The large man moved with the agility and stealth of a panther. He was dithering, his hands raised to restrain the woman but clearly not sure where to grab or how to attack, clearly reluctant to tackle a lady.

  “If you kill one more person in this room,” Greyston warned her, not wanting to draw attention to Neco but hoping to spur him into action, “you’ll never get anything out of me.”

  It worked. Neco lunged forward, wrapping a massive arm around Lady Ostrich’s waist and swiping her sideways with him into a tumbling fall. Unfortunately, the man made sure she had a soft landing on top of him.

  “Don’t hold back,” Greyston called out. “She has lethal powers and has already used them.”

  “You want me to kill her?”

  “As quickly as you can.” Seeing Neco lock both arms around the lady and roll her underneath him, Greyston rushed over to the others.

  Ana glanced from the fighting to him. Greyston answered her unspoken question with a nod. “She can’t take on both of you and win.”

  And God help us if I’m wrong.

  Ana joined the action to the sound of furniture splintering while Greyston yanked Lady Lily to her feet. Damn the niceties. “Your man was dead before he hit the ground.”

  She hiccupped up a little sob. “I-I know, but I can’t just l-leave him lying there by him-himself.”

  “Yes, well, I can’t have you being an open target.” He lifted her at the waist and deposited her behind the settee. When she didn’t go down, he moved his hands to her shoulders and pressed. Her knees gave in and, finally, on a gasping sob, she was flat on her backside and hidden from view.

  A noxious burning smell turned Greyston around.

  Neco was staggering back blindly, white smoke puffing from beneath his coat and the bottom of his trousers. Not good. There was no sign of flames. His clothes weren’t even singed. As if the fire had started from the inside. The left side of his face was melting, his features blended into a mess of waxen flesh. Steel rods and springs and gears protruded from the gaping hole where his arm had been attached to his shoulder.

  Lady Ostrich had lost her feathers, part of her burgundy gown and one of her heeled shoes. She growled as Ana, holding her skirts up, came at her in a fast twirl, an elegant dance transformed into a rapid series of high kicks that connected with a dull thud against Lady Ostrich’s head on each rotation. Greyston was impressed. He’d seen Neco in more than one brawl over the years, but his man’s style was brute force rather than skilled tactics. Then again, when your skeletal structure was solid metal, brute force was usually all you needed.

  Lady Ostrich regained her senses and managed to get one zap in. That’s all it took. Ana’s spinning dance unwound until she toppled into a heap. A jagged crack straight through metal skull exposed the delicate mechanisms that made up her brain.

  “Christ,” Greyston muttered. He was sweating fear. The kind of fear he hadn’t felt since he’d turned fifteen. He’d run then, and he didn’t know what the hell to do now except run.

  Neco was on his feet again, but Greyston had seen enough to know the battle was lost. Before he could do anything, however, the room exploded in a silent, white flash.

  Lady Lily squeaked.

  “Stay down.” He blinked the blinding stars from his eyes, was trying his damndest to still his mind and concentrate, when his body went into a flying spasm backwards. The intense force plastered him to the wall and pinned him there. He couldn’t move his head, had to make do with rolling his eyes between Lady Lily and the devastation. All that was left of Neco and Ana were spare parts, bits of metal and smoking celluloid skin.

  “I was so looking forward to amusing myself with the two of you,” Lady Ostrich murmured as she approached. Her palm was raised and aimed at him, a weapon shooting some invisible force that kept him trapped.

  The transformation from lady to hell-hound witch was complete. Her garments hung from her body in shreds, her ice-blonde hair stripped from its pins to hang in disarray to well below her waist. Blood, dark and thick, oozed from a deep gash at the side of her head.

  “But you’ve quite spoiled my mood,” she said, sighing. “You should not have set your dogs on me.”

  Lily, he cried out, only no words reached his lips. His vocal chords were paralysed.

  Lily didn’t move or make a sound. For all he knew, the bitch had her under a spell as well.

  “You really should not have,” Lady Ostrich went on. “Now I have to prove to you how very serious—” she gave him one last glance before turning her full attention on Lily “—my intentions are.”

  The palm aimed at him dropped away and, with it, the restraining force. Greyston plunged to the ground.

  “There are so many ways to do this,” she said in a sing-song voice.

  Greyston came to his feet into a ready lunge, but froze when he saw the woman’s hands clasped around Lily’s throat.

  “But there’s something incredibly tantalising about getting one’s hands dirty.” She glanced over her shoulder, showing Greyston a hard smile. “Don’t you think?”

  Snap.

  “Lily.” Greyston lunged then, falling over her crumpled form, trying to shield her with his body, trying to protect her. As he gathered her into his arms, her head dangled at an unnatural angle.

  Too late. No. By God, no!

  “I pray my lesson serves you well, Lord Adair. Beware the powers you seek to play with, for such…”

  He blanked out the menacing words, shutting himself off from the outside world as he held Lily close. He searched inside his head, found the memory he wanted and clung to it, weaving his senses through the clutter until he was right there, gazing down on Lady Lily as she busied herself pouring tea.

  A hand landed on his shoulder. It was the witch, hissing a stream of words at him as she gripped hard, tugging. Greyston delved deeper into his mind, concentrating on a single moment in time, inhaling the lingering scent of rose water and wondering, for the first time, what hid beneath Lily’s polite smile.

  Chapter Three

  Lily kept her smile in place as she tipped the spout of the teapot over a cup. Awareness of this man tingled at the base of her spine, but that couldn’t be helped. She’d applied an extra layer of white powder to her cheeks and throat before coming downstairs in anticipation of warm flushes. Lord Adair was quite simply, to quote Evie, dashing.

  In looks, anyway. His manner left much to be desired. Which was just as well. Any distraction tempted by that chiselled jaw, or those warm brown eyes, was quickly upstaged by the memory of his abruptness last night. Not to mention his less than exemplary behaviour this afternoon.

  She glanced up at him. “One lump or two?”

  A sensation of déjà vu overcame her.

  “Two,” he rasped.

  She startled, spilling a trail of hot tea over the two cups and saucers laid out. Her strained smile faltered.

  “We don’t have time— We need to talk. I need you to—” His hand went to his neck cloth, tugging until the starched linen hung in two loose ties down the front of his shirt. “Lily, I don’t know—”

  “Lord Adair!” She placed the pot carefully on the trolley and stood.

  The feeling of déjà vu settled around her like a dense cloud. In that mist, Lord Adair was setting down his cup and saucer, strolling to the mantelpiece, pointing out the miniature of her mother and about to blast her with inappropriate questions and probing insults. Not tugging his neck cloth loose and taking liberties with her name.

  A sour, curdling feeling churned her belly.

  Something felt very wrong, even b
efore Lord Adair shoved the tea trolley aside and swept her up against him. One arm hitched around her waist, trapping both her arms as well. A hand clamped her mouth. Her feet were off the ground and the rest of her was pressed to lean muscle and far more male than she’d ever encountered.

  Lily screamed uselessly into the large palm slapped over her mouth as Lord Adair carried her from the drawing room. By the time she remembered to wriggle and kick, they were halfway down the hall. Not that her efforts or anything else broke his stride until he reached the front door. He put his back to the door with some awkward movements that stretched her spine.

  He can’t turn the doorknob without hands.

  A moment later, his hand fell away from her mouth and she let loose a shrill scream that wasn’t nearly as loud as the one she’d prepared in her head. As he hauled her outside, she caught a glimpse of Halver barging through the doorway at the far side of the hallway.

  An unlikely image accosted her wits.

  Halver sprawled on the floor, his body broken, his eyes dull and sunken in his ashen face.

  “Get us the hell away from here.”

  She didn’t see who Lord Adair had called out to, but she did remember to start screaming again as he shoved her inside a carriage. The carriage lurched even before the door slammed shut. Lord Adair piled up beside her on the velvet bunk. He dragged her sideways onto his lap and slapped that damnable hand over her screams.

  Lily couldn’t see anything beyond the drawn curtains. Suddenly it dawned on her that Lord Adair was no longer attempting abduction. It was fait accompli.

  She went limp against him, overwhelmed by her own powerlessness and the shock of his audacious behaviour. Pressed to his chest, she heard his heartbeat race beneath her cheek. She doubted his scramble down the path had exerted him overmuch, even with her added weight. The man was all muscle, hard and tense. She felt it in the thighs she sat across. The arms wrapped around her. The slab of abdomen and chest she was crushed against. Which meant his heart raced for another reason. Possibly, hopefully, because he was realising exactly how appalling his actions were. Abduction. In Grosvenor Square in broad daylight. It seemed impossible.

  Her own pulse wasn’t racing; it was quivering, as if her heart had to pause and peer around the corner before each beat.

  The horses slowed to a walk, the carriage gently bumping along to their gait. They’d turned onto a busy street, the sounds of drivers directing cattle and pedestrian clatter an arm’s throw away. It may as well have been a desolate mile for all the help it was to her. What did Lord Adair intend? How could such a ruffian have been introduced into polite society?

  She sucked in a breath of nothing but fleshy palm. She’d never been this scared…well, not since she’d…died?

  The fog peeled from her mind like a winter blanket to reveal a nightmare. The glint of steel as Lord Adair flung his dagger at her. Ana leaping over the settee, flattening her to the ground. The woman with the plume of ostrich feathers; Halver tossed through the air; the large man with expressionless eyes; the fight tearing up her drawing room; Lord Adair plastered to the wall; the crack of bone as her neck snapped; the slow descent into blackness; the last thought she should have ever had. Instant death isn’t instant at all.

  Except here she was, breathing and feeling and having all kinds of new thoughts. Both her arms were once again trapped within Lord Adair’s steel embrace; otherwise she would have pinched herself. Lord knew where that impulse came from. It wasn’t as if she could wake herself up from death.

  “Lily,” came Lord Adair’s gruff burr near her ear, “I’m sorry. There was no time to explain, nothing I could say that you’d believe. This is the only way I know to keep you safe. I swear I won’t see you come to any harm. Not from me or anyone else.”

  His words were strangely soothing. Perhaps because as long as he was talking to her, she couldn’t be dead.

  The carriage gained speed, swaying dangerously as the driver took the horses into a full-out gallop. They’d left the traffic behind for open road.

  “I’m going to release you now,” he said. “I trust you won’t do something silly like try to fling yourself out of the carriage at this speed.”

  If she was right, and they’d left the main roads behind, there’d be no one to hear her scream for help either. Lily had more pressing matters to worry about anyway.

  Lord Adair slid her from his lap and she immediately scooted to the furthest corner of the seat.

  She flicked aside the curtain to peer outside. “Where are you taking me?”

  He didn’t answer.

  Cultivated fields stretched out to the right as far as the eye could see. If she craned her neck, she could just make out the beginnings of a clump of trees straight ahead. She recognised the densely wooded common. “We’re approaching Clapham Common.”

  She glanced across to find him staring out of his window.

  In profile, silky brown hair stroked the hollow below his cheekbone and his clenched jaw formed a rigid line. His trousers were a dark grey, matched with a waistcoat worn over a crisp white shirt. Broad shoulders filled a meticulously tailored jacket that was left unbuttoned. He’d crossed one leg over the other and rested an elbow on the door ledge.

  He looked every inch the well-groomed gentleman who’d been admitted to Lady Cheshire’s Mummy ball.

  Every inch the heart-stopping Lord Dashing.

  Her gaze settled on the ruined neck cloth and loose ties hanging down his front. A blush heated her throat as she recalled the unfamiliar hardness of lean muscle and his particular scent of pine forest and ash and something altogether male. She’d danced her share of waltzes, but this took intimacy to an entirely new extreme.

  He brought his attention from outside to meet her brazen stare with a quirked brow. “At least you haven’t leapt to your death yet.”

  The heat drained from her skin. Lily lowered her eyes, clasping her fingers in her lap to hide the trembling.

  I’m not dead.

  She couldn’t be. Not when life still felt so real. The only other explanation lay with the troublesome spells she’d suffered from since her mother’s death.

  Neither Lily nor her aunt, nor Dr. Ragon for that matter, had suspected her recurring spells to be anything other than flashes from an overactive, traumatised imagination. Usually the place was familiar, often she’d recognise faces, but Lily herself had always only ever been an observer, disconnected and unaffected.

  This time she remembered every vivid detail with the intensity of someone who’d lived through the action, the emotion. She knew what it felt like to have her neck snapped, to draw that last ragged breath, to slip away into the beyond.

  She lifted her gaze to him. “What do you want with me, Lord Adair?”

  The ghost of that exact question, asked as she’d served him tea in her drawing room, answered. I knew Lady d’Bulier. Lily held her breath.

  Lord Adair grimaced. “I knew your mother, Lady d’Bulier.”

  She let that breath out on a trembling sigh. “You mentioned something about keeping me safe. From what?”

  In response, he half-rose and rapped hard up against the roof with his fist. A moment later, the carriage drew to a halt in a clearing alongside the road.

  Lily’s hand quickly went to the door handle on her side. She hesitated. There was no urge to run for her life. She was more afraid of her memories, of what might or might not be real, than of Lord Adair.

  When Lord Adair alighted and offered her a hand, she shifted along the seat and allowed him to help her out. Neither of them wore gloves. Skin touched skin as she stepped from the carriage.

  One more intimate social transgression; she was beginning to lose count.

  She slid her hand from his as soon as her feet touched the ground. Her slippers were no protection from the mulch of fallen leaves and damp soil as she walked beneath a cluster of trees.

  She spun about, determined to get some answers, but her gaze stalled on the large man in the driv
er’s box. “He’s the celludrone,” she gasped. “He’s the one who fought that woman.”

  She’d only caught snatches of him before Lord Adair had pushed her out of sight behind the settee. The aftermath, however, was burned into her skull. This man, and Ana, torn apart at their seams, nothing left but mechanical pieces strewn across her drawing room. Dear Lord, had these spells she suffered from evolved into some type of visionary premonition? Had she witnessed her imminent death?

  “You remember that?” Lord Adair marched up to her, blocking her view of the celludrone. “Lily, this is important. Tell me what you remember.”

  “The lady, the one in burgundy and the plume of ostrich feathers.” Lily backed away until she hit a tree and gratefully leaned against the thick trunk. “She killed Halver, then your driver was there, he attacked her…Ana tried to help but the woman tore them both apart. You—” She looked up into his eyes. He wasn’t snorting his disbelief or consigning her to Bedlam. The scowl on his face was intense and serious. “She had you pinned to the wall. Somehow she could…what is she?”

  Lord Adair shrugged, shaking his head slowly.

  Lily took a deep breath. “She snapped my— I mean, she’s going to kill me if she finds me, isn’t she?”

  “I won’t let that happen, Lily.” He came closer. “I don’t know how you’re aware of all this and I’m too grateful to care. I had no idea how to convey the danger you’re in, how to gain your trust.”

  “But how did you— Oh! You suffer spells too.” There was no other explanation. “You had the same vision as I did.”

  “Vision?” His gaze sharpened.

  She nodded. “I thought I was losing my mind. Is this why you were following me? Why you came to see me today? Did you have a premonition about what would…um, about what was about to happen?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly…” He seemed to forget he was talking, simply looking at her for the longest moment. He put a hand to his throat, as if to loosen the neck cloth that was already loose. “No, that’s not it at all. I came to talk to you about something altogether different, but that will hold until the morrow.”