“Go about your business. We will wait here.”
Leda shivered, the gun biting into her skin. She felt the Earl’s aggression and insanity, so thick it seemed to burn the very air she breathed. How could he have done this? To her. To himself. He had once been a man with everything.
The sound of hooves clapped along the garden path. Both Fenton and the Earl turned, their gazes drawn to the approaching horseman. He sat high on a spirited mount, the animal’s head tossing angrily as it leapt up onto the lawn, its pale mane thick with moonlight.
The rider was broad-shouldered, wearing a dark coat that whipped at his boots. His hair was cropped short and his hands strong on the reins.
“Fenton,” the Earl growled.
“He’s not mine.”
“Whose then?”
Leda’s heart tripped its beat. “Mine.”
“What?”
“Mr. Anderson. It appears he . . . he has followed me here.”
Fenton rocked back on his heels. “Hard to imagine a pair of boots that badly in need of a shine.”
“Get rid of him.” The Earl snapped at the agent.
“Oh, he doesn’t listen to me.”
The gun muzzle pressed deeper against her temple. Leda cried under her breath and the Earl leaned close, hissing in her ear. “You then. Get rid of him and provoke no suspicion. He’s nothing to me, my lady. Nothing. I’ll kill him the instant he suspects.”
She clenched her teeth. What choice was there?
Fenton melted back into the scenery.
The Earl took her by the arm and forced her into the room, startling the group of maids that had gathered by the window. Hooves clopped to an uneasy halt under the balcony.
“Leda!” The Inventor’s voice was quick and edged with irritation. “Leda, I know you’re up there. I saw you from that landscaped ocean you call a lawn. Tell your servants to be gone an’ come to me. You canna run away from this. I willna let you.”
“Get rid of him.” The Earl threatened, stepping into one of the side rooms where he could not be seen. The maids scurried in the other direction, some hiding in the small antechamber between doors.
Leda drew an unsteady breath, adjusting her robe before walking back out onto the balcony. Ian appeared beneath her, still astride his ill-tempered gray stallion. His expression darkened at the sight of her. The silver bracelet around his wrist caught the light.
She shook her head, straining to keep her voice steady. “This is hardly appropriate, Mr. Anderson.”
“An’ what would be appropriate, Countess? Denial, I assume. I’m not as good at that as you’ve had to be.”
“Now is not the time.”
“Oh, I think it might be.”
“I will not see you.”
He glowered up at her. Reining his horse tightly, he pulled his boots underneath him and balanced on the saddle, then clasped onto one of the stone pillars supporting the balcony. In the span of a single moment, he was over the balustrade and standing before her, his great coat falling like a sheath of midnight around him. He drew breath through his teeth.
“I think ya will.”
She stood helpless, her blood chilling in panic. You don’t understand, you fool. He’s gone mad and he’s dangerous. “What do you want from me?”
“Let’s start with the truth.”
“I’m not one of your artisans.”
He looked at her askance. “Is that the best you can do?”
Oh, Dear God. She turned away, unable to hide the desperation any longer. What could she say? What lies could she tell? He was watching her with such clarity, his eyes so intensely blue. She couldn’t look at him, couldn’t deceive him now. Even for a woman who had worn a mask her entire life, it was an impossible proposition.
He had seen through her already.
“Isn’t it enough? You’ve imagined a woman who doesn’t exist.”
“More like a woman who wants to exist.”
“You see?”
“I dinna imagine that kiss, or the need behind it.”
“I apologize for that—”
“I’m not here for an apology.”
She closed her arms around herself, tilting her gaze skyward. “It’s all I can offer, can’t you see? Whatever else you came for is impossible—and not because of any difference in social standing. I regret that—that you misunderstood—”
“Leda—”
She laughed bitterly, her breath coming up short. What had she to lose? The truth, for once, was everything she needed. “You’re a most unusual man, to which no category or class may apply. You’re free of all the petty things I represent, surely, and that freedom is larger than you, enough to catch fire in others, no matter what they do to resist. And if you and I . . . but it would be such a great disappointment, I’m sure. Let’s be honest about who I am. I am not free, not a creature of this grand new destiny, not filled with its passion or its resolve, not able to love with such wild abandon. No. I am soundly and securely bound, both to an old name and an old world, where love is still a poet’s rhyme and marriages are business contracts legally ratified by the King himself. Where you have gone, I cannot follow, nor would I be accepted in either world if I tried.”
She waited for him to reply but heard only a brush of movement behind her. She felt his solid warmth at her back, his hands brushing an open caress along her arms, forming a loose embrace around her.
“Nothing is impossible.” His voice was dark and insistent against her ear, its rolling burr making an exotic twist of the words. “We are, all of us, just one decision away from becoming something more.”
Beautiful words. She shut her eyes, wishing they were true.
“Hold on to me,” he murmured. “I’ll show you everything you want to know, everything you came to me for. Just don’t let go of me now.”
Leda made a helpless sound, a faint and whispered sob, as if something precious were being ripped from her. “Please, please, please go. Please, please—”
She found herself turned in his arms instead, pulled against his warmth as his mouth found hers. A nudge of insistence, a hard caress followed by a coaxing one, he lured her into a direct exchange of need, truth finally spoken in a hungered kiss, open-mouthed and searching for more.
It was a dream. It felt like a dream, with that same luster of the surreal, that lush and changing landscape that was impossible to navigate with anything other than emotion. She cried under her breath and reached for him, sliding her hands along his jaw and into his hair, holding him tight. It was a possessive act, a desperate act.
His hands spread along her back in welcome, stroking down her spine and arching her against him. No creature on Earth could have been more alive, his skin heating her fingertips, his strength drawn tight with tension and need. It felt so good, too good.
She broke the kiss, pulling back from his warm hold. They watched each other for a moment, still bound and embracing, their breathing echoing the same harsh demand for more.
“Not like this,” she said.
“What’s wrong with this?”
“Tonight. There is an urgent business matter.”
“You have men for that.”
“Please, you know my heart. You have the truth you came here for. I’ll come to you tomorrow, as soon as I can. I promise, but you must go now.”
He made no move to release her, a shadow of understanding forming in the blue depths of his eyes. “I saw you with someone on the balcony. One of your footmen?”
“Tomorrow night, at your shop—”
“Leda—”
“Now, quickly.”
“Who’s here with you?”
“Her husband, actually,” a thin voice slipped from the shadows. “Not the one who usually hides in the closet, but there it is.”
The pistol appeared first, the polished metal of its long barrel staring blankly forward in the moonlight. The Earl materialized behind it, moving silently forward, his bared teeth feral in the darkness.
“I never would have thought of you,” he hissed. “The Great Inventor. How truly amusing it is, and so coincidental, almost as if it were fated.”
Ian watched him without reply, his expression hardening as he glanced from the madman to the pistol. Leda read the logic working its way through his silence. A gun that probably hadn’t been used in years, which required some expertise to properly load, and provided only one shot . . .
It was a large caliber ball, however, and this was very close range.
“I’ve plowed through summaries of your projects for years,” the Earl continued. “They spy on everything you do, did you know that? They actually have a team of military scientists who sit around deciphering codex sheets copied from your shop. Occasionally, they even try building those mechanisms of yours, since you refuse to work with them.”
“I don’t build killing machines.”
“You’d be even richer if you did.”
“E’en so.”
“And now that you’ll be dead, the price will go up.”
Ian registered the threat with another glance at the weapon, his expression darkening. He slid his arms from Leda, gently urging her to stand behind him. She recognized the gesture, but refused to comply, turning her anger on the Earl instead. “What in God’s name?”
“They’ll do anything to save him, once he’s been shot. It’ll be a great distraction, don’t you think? You, I wasn’t sure that I could do it, shoot you and watch like this. Your lover is another matter.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, my lord.” She crossed in front of the pistol. “If you want money, I’ll give you money. I’ll pay you double what your foreign buyers offered for your stolen documents, on the condition that you leave the only useful person standing on this balcony alive.”
“Leda, don’t,” Ian warned.
The gun shook in the Earl’s hand, its cold stare leveled at her heart. She felt a momentary disconnectedness, a sure knowledge that, no matter what happened, Ian would be alright, his colorful world of brilliance and rebellion left unharmed. That was the most important thing she could think of, the responsibility she had somehow assumed.
The Earl scowled, his eyes dark and glittering. “Apologies, my dear wife. You’ll have to live without him.”
The pistol swiveled to the side, taking aim at Ian as he moved from behind her. The world narrowed to a single point. She heard the click of the metal hammer, caught the explosion of smoke, but she had already moved, already stepped forward to prevent it from happening.
Leda felt a sting, a peppering of hot debris across her skin. The force knocked her back. She stumbled into Ian’s arms, hearing a curse slip through his teeth. There was no pain, but there was blood. She smelled it, thick and metallic, mixing with the sharp tang of gunpowder.
Looking down, she saw it, a crimson bloom spreading from her side, swallowing the white satin of her robe. She drew a ragged breath, blinking in disbelief. Ian glanced from her wound to her face, a raw torment reflected in his eyes, disbelief that turned to rage as the Earl attempted to run past him.
Ian rose and tackled him, sending them both careening into the large balcony windows. The glass shattered, raining crystal shards over the stone in a clash of noise. The two men tumbled into her bedroom, locked against one another. Ian shoved the Earl to the carpet and pinned him, throwing a hard punch. The Earl cried out, battered by a series of harsh blows.
Leda shook her head, shivering with cold. She couldn’t let him do it, couldn’t for his own sake.
Ian growled and clamped his hands around the Earl’s neck. His expression twisted, its beauty unrecognizable. Gone was the measured inventor and his thoughtful assessments. This was an animal of desperation, a shadow of the boy who had survived the ruthless conditions of poverty.
“Ian!” she called, her voice a pained rasp.
He didn’t respond, didn’t look at her. Under his grip, the Earl made no sound, his eyes wide and bulging, his mouth forming a silent scream.
“Ian, you can’t. You can’t because I’m in love with you.”
He heard that. His teeth clenched, his eyes glittering. He shouted through his teeth and released the Earl. The smaller man gasped and rolled over, unable to rise, unable to do anything but writhe and cough in agony.
Ian pushed up, leaving him behind as he dropped to his knees beside her. He looked again at her wound, defeated.
“Ian.”
He met her gaze. “Why?”
She smiled. “Just one decision away, from becoming more.”
“I didn’t mean this.”
“I would do it again.”
He cursed, scooping her into his lap and cradling her there. “Leda, what a bloody fool you are.”
A shadow jumped over the balcony wall with a scuff of boots and a rip of fabric. The outline of Fenton appeared against the stars, grunting as he righted himself. He glanced at her, then cupped his hands around his mouth and called over the wall.
“Send for the King’s surgeon!”
There was a muddled reply from the lawn.
“There, there.” Fenton knelt down on the stone and lifted the fabric from the wound. He grimaced. “It’s not so close to the vitals, is it?”
He and Ian exchanged a glance, one that said it might not matter how far away a large caliber lead ball passed from vital organs. The damage was grave. Her body would fight or fail as it would.
Ian looked down at her, unable to hide his conclusion. He didn’t have to. She was already weak, already losing his image in the night sky.
“Kiss me,” she whispered.
He lowered his mouth to hers, offering a gentle caress that spread its warmth through her, vivid in its longing and its pain, beautiful in its vulnerability.
A Clever Ruse
Ian drew a dark line at the bottom of his schematic, listening to the soft hiss of pen along paper. He skimmed along the edge of his ruler until the points intersected, then glanced at the symbols that noted paths of logical functionality. The design was beginning to work, beginning to find its form.
It was this first moment of confirmation that, in years past, would have pulled him so deeply into the process, spinning days and nights into mere seconds, demanding that complicated work be done with barely a touch of food or sleep, driven only by that madness that passed for creative obsession.
But it was different now.
The pull was there, a seductive whisper in the heart, but the will to follow it like a blind zealot had faded. He now found himself distracted, obsessing about other things entirely.
He grimaced, removing his spectacles and squinting through the white glow of the electric shop lights. Summer insects spun around the bulbs, circling and colliding, snapping in their haste. The work tables around him spoke of a good day’s work, cluttered with brass instruments and analyzers, strewn with stained papers and unintelligible scribbling. His welder still whirred expectantly in the corner, as if he might change his mind about the hour. But it was late. He was late.
A knock echoed from the door at the top of the mezzanine, followed by a hard screech of hinges. “Ah, there you are. Hard to find you these days. Lost your appetite for the midnight oil?”
Ian frowned, cutting his gaze to the railing as Fenton appeared from the shadows above him. The agent sported a new black suit, its fabric offering a subtle sheen, altogether a much finer garment than the one he had torn in the protection of his Majesty’s scandals. He offered a respectful nod and tipped the brim of his bowler.
Ian ignored the gesture, turning to pack his bag for the night.
Fenton descended the stairs and cast an appreciative glance across the work tables. “The Earl was convicted today. I thought you might want to know. He received several life sentences.”
“I’m glad they took the matter seriously enough to be redundant.”
“For what it’s worth, the King appeared at the sentencing.”
“It was official then.”
“The King was also made
aware of your contribution.”
Ian shook his head, trying not to let that rankle him.
“Look, the details are confidential, of course, but there was talk of him bestowing you with a title.”
“Inventor is a title.”
“Oh, c’mon, Ian. Where’s the harm in taking a little credit?”
“For what?”
“For helping us to apprehend a dangerous traitor.”
“For attempting to choke and kill a man lying on the floor, ya mean. I’ll have none of it. You know I wouldn’t have done anythin’ to the Earl if he hadn’t shot her. I don’t care about your secrets or your traitors and I couldna give a damn about your stupid titles.”
“Truly surprising.”
“I dinna ask you to come.”
“No.” Fenton looked uncomfortable.
“What is it?”
“There’s just one more thing.”
“An’ how long will I have to wait for that?”
Fenton sighed, reaching into his breast pocket and drawing out a sealed document with an official stamp. He pursed his lips, considering it for a moment before looking at Ian. “As you know, the Countess was taken to a private facility after her surgery, before the fever became too high. There was time . . . she had time to adjust her will.”
Ian stared at him, caught off guard. “Her what?”
“Her will, Ian. She donated to the hospital and the doctors and left you a great fortune, an enormous endowment for your submersible project.”
How could she have done that? Ian felt the shock overwhelm him, then wear thin, a bright glimmer of anger burning in its place.
We had an agreement!
“Fool woman,” he said.
“Come now, she had her reasons.”
“Not for this.”
“You’re not through the woods yet, are you?”
Ian glowered at that, struggling with the memory of her blood dampening his clothes, slick on his hands. They were images that would never fade. Even now, they consumed him at times, woke him from sleep or sent him into a panic that took every ounce of willpower to control.
The Inventor Page 6