Dukes Are Forever (London Steampunk: The Blue Blood Conspiracy Book 5)

by Bec McMaster

  Jack's face paled behind the mask, and he went down on one knee.

  And then, dart in hand, Balfour turned back to him. "Perhaps a taste of your own medicine?"

  Devoncourt thrashed on the floor as Black Vein wreaked its damage. Adele took one look at this face—mottled with dark veins—and knew he was no longer a problem.

  She scrambled for the knife at his side.

  But as Devoncourt began gasping his last breath, she saw something better hanging from his belt. He must have found one of the Doeppler Orbs Lark had dropped.

  Adele wrenched it away from him, glancing at Malloryn.

  "Do it!" he yelled at her.

  Adele twisted both halves of the orb and threw it at Balfour's feet.

  The orb sprang open, gas hissing from its internals in an inky cloud of pure death—for any blue blood or dhampir in the room.

  Malloryn draped his shirt sleeve over his mouth as Balfour sucked in a startled gasp. He turned on her, Malloryn's blood still dripping off the end of his rapier.

  One step.

  Two.

  Black veins mottled through Balfour's face.

  He clutched at his throat, clawing at the skin there.

  "Auvry!" Adele slid to his side, grabbing two handfuls of Malloryn's shirt and trying to haul him away from the deadly hiss of atomized Black Vein. Where the hell was his gas mask? He should have had it strapped at his belt. She managed to drag him three feet, but he was coughing in earnest now, and she had to presume he'd lost the mask in the melee.

  Something nudged her foot.

  She looked down, and found Jack dragging himself toward them, holding out the filtration mask he wore to help him breathe in London's smoggy air.

  "Take it," he rasped.

  Adele tore the mask from his bloody fingers and slapped it over Malloryn's mouth and nose, holding it there. "Breathe," she told him, praying to every god in the sky that it would filter the poison from the air.

  Malloryn sucked in a heaving gasp, tiny little black capillaries spreading through his cheeks.

  "Don't you dare die on me," she rasped through a raw throat.

  A hand came up. Slid through her hair.

  Then he was pushing her away.

  "Never. Need… to… move."

  Adele wiped her weeping eyes. There was no time for relief. No time for tears. The entire tower was on fire now, though the flames were the least of their problems. She burst into a coughing fit, trying to keep her head low, below the roiling cloud of smoke. Sweet heavens, it was getting worse.

  "Jack?" he asked.

  "Alive," Jack rasped, one hand clamped to his chest. He must have jerked the knife out, but as they watched he burst into a coughing fit, his ravaged lungs no match for the smoke-tainted air.

  Adele tore strips of silk from her gown and hastily fashioned a makeshift bandage for him. Hot red blood wept over her hands, startling her. She was so used to a blue blood's cooler, darker blood.

  "Thank you." Jack's head slumped, but he turned to look at the fallen man nearby. "Is he dead?"

  Malloryn tried to roll onto his side, still gripping the mask. "Came back… once."

  Balfour stared sightlessly at the ceiling, his entire face ravaged.

  Malloryn crawled toward him, bloody knife in hand.

  "This time, I'll make sure he stays dead," he promised, and Adele turned her face away as he set about removing Balfour's heart.

  The air was so thick with smoke that Adele couldn't see a damned thing as she heaved Malloryn to his feet.

  For a second, panic bloomed. How were they going to get out of here?

  A rope suddenly dropped through the open hole where the atrium's glass roof had once been.

  Then a figure in black was sliding down it, wearing a similar mask over his face as the one Malloryn wore. A second figure followed the first.

  "Over here!" Adele screamed, waving one arm.

  She sucked in a lungful of smoke and started coughing as both figures turned toward them.

  Nighthawks.

  She recognized the hard leather body armor and the golden striking hawk embossed on the chest of the lead figure.

  Then Malloryn's weight was being eased from her shoulders, and the leather-clad figure hooked some sort of harness around her husband's waist.

  A breathing mask was clamped over her face as the second Nighthawk strapped Malloryn to him and gave a tug on the rope still attached to him.

  "Adele first," Malloryn insisted, but the taller man by her side made an impatient gesture with two fingers, and suddenly Malloryn was vanishing up through the hole in the ceiling with the second Nighthawk.

  "Your Grace," the stranger said, his voice echoing through the mask. He clipped a harness around her waist, and she barely had time to realize one of his arms was made of metal.

  Jack presented a problem, but the Nighthawk solved it by offering the looped footstrap at the end of the rope to Jack. He lashed the pair of them together.

  "You're not coming?" Adele screamed.

  The handsome stranger winked at her, drawing a grappling gun. "Don't worry about me, Your Grace. My wife would have my hide if I did something foolishly heroic. I'll be on the roof."

  And then she and Jack clutched at each other as the rope suddenly retracted.

  The last she saw of the Nighthawk, he was pointing the grappling gun through the hole.

  The pair of them swayed on the rope as it was winched toward the solid hull of the dirigible. The sudden lack of smoke and heat felt like a blessing that left her lightheaded. If she hadn't been harnessed to Jack, she'd have probably fallen.

  Adele caught her first glimpse of the tower below.

  Flames licked through every opening and window. Smoke circled its brow like a crown. Despite the hundreds of tiny figures in the yard around it, there was clearly no hope for the Ivory Tower.

  She blinked, and then voices were shouting.

  People hauling at the rope, leaning through a pair of retractable doors to snatch hold of her and Jack.

  Somehow she found herself in the hold of the dirigible the Nighthawks owned. The Nightingale, Malloryn had called it.

  Adele slumped against the steel hull as someone held a glass of water to her lips. She slurped at it, her dry, cracked lips raw and painful.

  "Here." A cool, wet cloth wiped her face and eyes, and Adele finally got a good look at their rescuer.

  The woman was tall and leanly muscled, her blonde hair braided tightly. Something about her appearance spoke of a quiet, solid sense of power, as if she'd faced the worst the world could throw at her and survived unscathed.

  Lady Peregrine of the Nighthawks.

  Which meant the Nighthawk with the bio-mech arm had most likely been her husband, the Guild Master himself.

  "How did you even… know we were there?" she whispered hoarsely. Every inch of her hurt.

  "Don't talk," the woman replied. "Byrnes waved us down from the rooftop. When we brought them up, he was beyond frantic. Said the duke was battling Balfour in the throne room and required assistance. If we didn't offer it, he was going to go back down himself."

  Stoic Byrnes, with his callous shrugs and sarcastic rejoinders. "Is Ingrid all right?"

  "We've got her in one of the bedchambers. They're trying to keep her immobile, but Doctor Gibson is hopeful that the loupe will repair the damage if given the chance."

  Adele saw her husband then, pushing irritably at a pair of Nighthawks who were fussing about him. Lady Peregrine saw her attention shift and helped her to her feet.

  "Your Grace, I believe you're upsetting Her Grace," Lady Peregrine told Malloryn. "Please let Fitz and Dr. Gibson see to your injuries."

  "I'm fi—"

  "That wasn't a request," Lady Peregrine cut in. "Don't make me hemlock you, Malloryn. It would be undignified."

  "Though she'd probably enjoy it," said her husband, Guild Master Reed, as he was winched through the trapdoor.

  Malloryn subsided with a thinning of his l
ips.

  And then Adele was in his arms, and Malloryn gave her a gentle squeeze and a sigh as if to say, fine, he would submit this one time. For her.

  The doctor finished checking Malloryn over before pronouncing him fit as a fiddle. "Your wife, on the other hand, is going to require rest," Dr. Gibson said firmly, and started reciting a list of herbal remedies and honeyed teas she would need for her throat and lungs.

  Adele slumped against Malloryn's side as he slid his arm around her. Jack's ventilation mask hung undone around his throat, but the mark of it remained on his skin, as smoke had blackened the top half of his face.

  She'd hate to know what she looked like right now.

  A pair of Nighthawks was hastily bandaging Jack's wound. Adele couldn't believe it. They'd escaped.

  "Balfour is dead," Malloryn said incredulously, his head slumping back against the hull of the airship. "And we survived. We both survived."

  "Good," she rasped, then clutched at her throat and winced. "You owe me… future."

  "And I plan to live it with you for a very long time."

  Chapter 36

  "What now?" Gemma asked, bustling around his bedchamber at the safe house. "Barrons has called. Twice. The queen's demanding to know what happened, and they're trying to set a council meeting. What should I tell them?"

  Malloryn shook his head as he slumped in the armchair by the bed. "For the first time in years, I don't give a damn, Gem. I just want some peace and time alone. Tell them I nearly died and I will be with them as soon as I can."

  A faint smile crossed her mouth.

  "What?" he demanded.

  "The Duke of Malloryn taking a moment for himself? My, my, what is the world coming to? One would almost think you a changed man."

  Malloryn scowled at her. "Peace, Gemma, includes you."

  She glanced at the woman asleep in his bed, her lips curving in a secretive smile. "It seems the mighty have fallen."

  He sighed. "I'm never going to hear the end of this, am I?"

  "Love is for fools or those who want to punish themselves," Gemma said, pitching her voice to match his. "'Love clouds your judgment,' 'love is a weakness people like us can ill afford,' 'love is a disease that afflicts even the most rational-minded of individuals and turns their brains to mush.'"

  "I never said that last one."

  "I beg to differ," she said, crossing her arms over her chest. "And considering I've been on the receiving end of many of your lectures over the years, I do feel as though I have them virtually memorized by now."

  "So is that a no, I will never hear the end of this?"

  "No, you will never hear the end of this." Her smile could have warmed the world. "Byrnes is going to rub your nose in it until both of you finally cease drawing breath. And Kincaid will be beside himself."

  Byrnes he understood, Kincaid.... "Why?"

  "Because," Gemma told him, "it seems Ava won the kitty. She was the only one of us who gambled on the duchess stealing your heart. She scoops the entire pool."

  Malloryn tossed his crumpled cravat at her. "Get out of here and leave me in peace. Some of you need more to do in your lives."

  "Haven't you realized yet, Malloryn?" she teased, crossing to the door. "The Company of Rogues is family. And if there is one thing family does best, it's meddle. You may as well accept it, for you're not getting rid of us now."

  He groaned as he collapsed back against the headrest of the chair and heard the door snick shut.

  "What have I created?" he asked himself.

  "A monster," Gemma called through the door cheerfully. "Give our love to your duchess when she finally wakes. Herbert and I will bar the door."

  "And so the Ivory Tower fell," Adele whispered as Malloryn carefully tucked his coat around her shoulders in the predawn chill and rested one hand there.

  It was several days after the city's fire crews and Nighthawks had managed to get the fires under control. Malloryn had only allowed her out of bed this morning, as her coughing had finally subsided to the occasional bout, and Adele had insisted upon getting out of the house.

  One small carriage ride, she'd begged.

  Which suited his purposes perfectly.

  They stood before the ruins of the tower, watching as workmen cleared the rubble under harsh lights. It would take months to clear the worksite completely, and they'd been working through the night.

  "Do you know—despite the verbal thrashing I received from the queen—I actually think I'm quite glad to see its fall," Malloryn murmured as a sliver of light lit the east. From the ashes, a new London could be rebuilt.

  All those who'd held back its progress were gone.

  He'd handed over the membership lists of Angel's Fall to Barrons, and the few remaining members of the Rising Sons had been rounded up and either executed or imprisoned.

  Balfour was finally dead, and his schemes with him.

  And Malloryn could finally lay to rest the ghosts of his past.

  Adele glanced up, resting her gloved hand on top of his, and he sensed her quick mind trying to chase down his reasons.

  "Because it was a product of the prince consort's reign?"

  "Precisely. He had it built—he and Balfour—to remind the citizens of London that they were forever in its shadow. When we overthrew the prince consort, his legacy ended, and yet it somehow remained. Watching. Looming. I could never walk the tower's halls without seeing his and Balfour's hand in every piece of it."

  "How utterly phallic of them."

  He flashed her a smile. "Men do that, I'm told."

  "Worship their manhood?"

  He brushed a kiss against her cheek. "As for myself, I'd prefer to leave such adoration in your capable hands."

  Adele blushed.

  They hadn't been intimate since she'd woken, as the doctor had warned Adele against exertion until her lungs had fully healed, but he was enjoying this newfound affection between them.

  He hadn't felt this free in years.

  "My hands?" she whispered. "Or my mouth? As I recall, you seemed to enjoy that very much."

  "Behave," he teased. "We're in public. And such behavior is only to be found in the bedroom."

  "Or the carriage. Or the library. Or your study...."

  "Yes, well. When one's wife is pushing you to the brink, you make do with what you can."

  "I hereby promise to push you to the brink on a regular basis."

  "What more could any husband desire?"

  Malloryn stepped down over an immense block of white marble, then turned and reached up to lift her down. Dawn was definitely on the horizon, which meant he'd have to hurry.

  Adele's hands slid over his shoulders, and when he set her on her feet she lingered there, her skirts caressing the tightly pleated folds of his trousers. "What now? The queen has forgiven you?"

  "It seems she's in a forgiving mood," he replied, enjoying the brisk whisper of the breeze through his hair. "Something to do with her holiday to Sir Gideon's house. Though I'm not quite certain what precisely went on there."

  Adele's laugh was low and husky.

  "Will she rebuild?"

  "Alexandra's uncertain. She's taken up residence at Windsor Castle for the moment and seems in no hurry to return to the city."

  "I wonder why?" Adele mused.

  He had to hand it to her. He'd been watching the queen's face when he made his report, and the glance she'd bestowed upon Sir Gideon Scott… had been unexpectedly warm. "It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact I placed Sir Gideon in charge of her loyal Coldrush Guards and insisted he watch over her until the city was safe."

  "You're trying to play matchmaker," Adele accused, "and steal my idea."

  Malloryn lifted her knuckles to his lips. "I never look a gift horse in the mouth, my dear. You ought to know I cannot resist meddling. Though I shall grant you half the credit for it."

  "Half?"

  Malloryn rolled his eyes. "Three quarters of the credit."

  "That's better. And wha
t do you intend, now your ancient foe is vanquished?" she asked, sliding her arm through the crook of his elbow as he led her along the Thames embankment. "I've noticed you haven't been attending to 'business' quite as often as you did."

  "Even a duke needs a holiday."

  "Does he?"

  "And he has plans."

  "What sort of plans?"

  Malloryn shook his head. "Always trying to ruin the surprise."

  Adele shot him a startled look. Then her eyes narrowed. "You are up to something. I wondered, when you insisted upon leaving before the crack of dawn."

  "I am always plotting something," he purred.

  "Will I like this surprise?"

  Fine. Here ought to do.

  He paused and clasped both of her hands in his. "Perhaps. I thought—for so many years—that only vengeance could save me. I thought it was the only thing worth living for. And then you ran into my life—right into my arms as a matter of fact—and turned everything on its head.

  "Love ruined me once, and I've never wished its acquaintance again. But it seems even the Duke of Malloryn is not entirely immune." He took a deep breath. "You saved my life, Adele. You have plagued me and vexed me and engaged in marital warfare with me... but you brought me back to life. You made this"—he pressed a hand to his chest—"start beating again, even when I wished it was not. Even when I wished you to the devil because I could not take my eyes from you.

  "I love you. I love your devious mind. I love the way you challenge me and the way you refuse to back down when anyone you love is in danger. I love the way you tease me and remind me of what it's like to be Auvry again. We make an exceedingly good pair."

  "That was almost the nicest thing you've ever said to me," she whispered.

  "I'm not finished yet."

  "Oh?"

  "I have a proposition for you," he said, reaching inside his coat, his hand closing over the small leather box there.

  Adele tried to pretend her eyes weren't gleaming with unshed tears. "A proposition? Does it involve something ridiculous, like an intention to seduce one's wife? Or an act of war?"

  "No. Gemma wanted to unleash doves, but I told her to stop being ridiculous."