The Dark Matters Quartet

by Claire Robyns

  Greyston acknowledged the courtesy with a nod, briefly considering the benefits of small talk. He found none and promptly invited himself to a seat, leaning his cane up against one leg of the desk in front of him. The chair was broad enough for two of him, and the leather sunk an inch beneath his weight. He made the most of the comfort, stretching lower, one leg squared over the other.

  “You declared an interest in the Red Hawk technology.” His arms sprawled along the length of the chair’s broad arms, he trained his gaze on the austere aristocrat. “I may be open to negotiation.”

  Pale blue eyes regarded him with deep suspicion. “What changed your mind?”

  “Curiosity,” he said, sticking as close to the truth as possible. The larger the web of intrigue, the more silk spun with which to entangle oneself. And Greyston hadn’t had much practice. He dealt in a world where men were either upfront about their activities, legal or otherwise, or they shut up about it. “You’ve no doubt heard of George Winterberry’s unfortunate demise. I recently came across a blueprint that was in his possession. The scale of improbability of the design tickled my spine.”

  After another minute of consideration, Harchings left the window for the chair across the desk. He leaned back, his eyes never leaving Greyston, and then he came forward again, elbows on the desk, fingers tented beneath his chin.

  His face was impenetrable, although Greyston had a rough idea of what thoughts were charging through the silence. Harchings could play dumb and clam up. But that wouldn’t bring him any closer to the very thing he desired. Or had desired, if the warship concept had already been scrapped.

  “My dealings with Winterberry were of a confidential nature,” Harchings finally said, his tone cool and tempered. “If such a blueprint has indeed crossed your hands, I’d advise you to turn it over.”

  The warship lives, in theory...

  “Or?” Greyston challenged with a grin.

  “You’ll be hanged for treason.” Harchings didn’t return the grin, but his mouth did soften. Probably at the pleasant image of Greyston dangling by the neck.

  “You’d have to catch me first.” Greyston grinned harder. “Not that I’m admitting to being in possession of anything, you understand. This is a gentleman’s conversation, based entirely on rumour and speculation.”

  Harchings’ brow speared. “What are you fishing for, Adair?”

  “I want to be clear of my facts before I cast my lot,” Greyston said. “I may not be a loyal servant to any country, but I would never betray the Great Isle.”

  “You’re questioning my integrity?” A nerve ticked just above his left eye.

  “You mention treason, which indicates the blueprint is classified material and, therefore, contracted by the War Office…or rather, the Office of Alternate and New Threats. But I distinctly recall our previous discussion regarding the Red Hawk engineering. You told me to name my price, and that your offer was not in an official capacity.” Greyston placed both feet on the floor and sat forward. “Forgive me if I’m confused.”

  Harchings didn’t miss a beat. “Your failure to comprehend the nuances of political finesse is a stigma on your character, not mine. If any potential agreement between us hinges on me elaborating on the matter, then we’ve nothing further to discuss.”

  Pricking the porcupine hadn’t worked. Instead of firing his barbs, he’d tucked his chin in.

  Greyston maintained a neutral expression and dangled his bait a little more blatantly. “We’d first need to determine if the Red Hawk’s propulsion system could generate enough steam to power a warship of this size and weight.”

  Harchings considered his next words carefully before voicing them. “We have leverage to play with.”

  “What kind of leverage?”

  “Features George Winterberry introduced without approval.” Harchings fell back in his chair, arms folded across his chest, brows drawn in deep thought. “I wasn’t convinced at the time, but the man was adamant—”

  “Did he do that a lot?” Greyston asked. “Winterberry?”

  The interruption only served to sharpen Harchings’ attention. He speared Greyston with an impassive look and ignored the query. “Nevertheless, it might work in our favour now, allow us to do weight adjustment trials.”

  God, it’s like drawing blood from a stone. Greyston pulled up a mental picture of the blueprint, scanning for non-essential, adjustable elements. “The guns,” he said. “The aft and fore guns… The reinforced platforms are removable? Interchangeable?”

  Nothing. Not a flicker crossed Harchings’ face.

  “I’d like to see her,” Greyston said.

  “No.”

  “If we’re to collaborate—”

  “I’m in the market for a seller of technology,” Harchings cut through his protest smoothly, “not a partner.”

  Greyston scowled at the put-down. “And what do I get out of this?”

  “A fortune.”

  “My curiosity was roused, not my damn pockets.” Greyston shook his head slowly as he stood, swooping his cane in one hand on his way up.

  “Then we are at an impasse.” Harchings inclined his head, every inch the graceful loser.

  Greyston shrugged. He’d gotten more out of Harchings than he’d dared hope for, less than what they needed. He’d have to refine his approach, maybe send Neco on a search and retrieve mission. Greyston had yet to meet a bottle of Pacific Rum that couldn’t loosen a man’s tongue.

  He looked Harchings in the eye. He almost didn’t. But then he did. “You should speak with your wife.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Evelyn believes you’re indulging in an illicit tryst with Georgina Bonnington.”

  Harchings’ jaw slackened in incredulity, then crystallized. The temperature in the room dropped by at least twenty degrees Fahrenheit. “My marital affairs are none of your business.”

  “Neither are your extra-marital affairs,” Greyston assured him. “But I thought you’d appreciate the insight. Do with it what you will.”

  ELEVEN

  Lily drifted through the morning occupying her mind. As Lady Lily d’Bulier, she’d never been short of invitations. Lady Perth, however, was inundated daily on a scale of massive proportions.

  Sitting at the small writing desk in the parlour, she contemplated a few of the embossed cards delivered this morning instead of declining everything with a sleight of the hand and barely a glance.

  There was a private picnic at Vauxhall Gardens, a mid-morning musical soiree, an afternoon of ladies archery, numerous at homes and afternoon teas, most from ladies who’d… only now received word of your fortuitous nuptials and would be delighted to make your acquaintance.

  There was even a masquerade ball this very evening… we do so hope you will favour us with your company at this short notice. As you know, the Earl is a dear friend of George’s and we’d be delighted to finally meet you.

  Her hand hovered over the card, her heart beating a little faster, a little louder, as she contemplated the invitation.

  Kelan kept himself so insulated, this curiosity to meet any dear friend of his was practically natural. Or was it the thought of dancing in the arms of a publicly devoted, doting Kelan for an evening that set her pulse racing?

  Lily hastily declined the invitation, penning an apologetic excuse about prior engagements, and moved on.

  But there was no way on earth she’d be able to sit through a recital, or even enjoy an afternoon of archery outdoors, while her blood itched to track the demons. She needed something far more distracting, far more consuming…!

  “I’ve hardly seen Aunt Beatrice since I’ve been back.” Lily pushed to her feet. “I’d say a visit is due.”

  Ana glanced up from the book of chess she was studying. “Your aunt has her reading circle at the library on Thursday mornings.”

  “Even better,” Lily declared. She wouldn’t have to explain why she was so desperate to find her mother’s old journals. “Come on, I’ll f
etch my gloves and bonnet, you see if Brinn’s available to drive us.”

  Half an hour later, Lily was walking up to the familiar bright blue door of number twenty-six, Grosvenor Square. This had always been her home, the only home she really remembered. But although the deed had passed to her, held in trust, upon her mother’s death, Lily was acutely aware of the feeling that the Grosvenor house was now more her aunt’s than her own.

  She’d moved out.

  She’d married.

  And even when this was all over, the tear sealed, the war won, the demons gone, her marriage annulled… there’s no going backward. Life marched forward, Lily realised with a note of sadness, even after it circled all the way around to where she’d started from.

  Halver was delighted to see them. He was a reed-thin man with a kind face, and he’d been the butler, and a friend, for as many years as Lily had lived here. “You’ll be staying for lunch, Miss Lily?”

  “Why not?” She beamed a smile at him. “Aunt Beatrice would be livid if I left before she returned.”

  “I’ll let Mrs. Johnston know and order a tray of tea.”

  “Before you go…” Lily paused him with a hand on his arm. “Could you help me get into the loft? I’m looking for one of my mother’s trunks.”

  Access to the loft was through a square trapdoor in the upstairs ceiling. Halver had to stand on a chair to reach the trapdoor, but as he pulled it open, a hinged ladder dropped to the floor.

  Halver put one foot on the lower rung. “Which trunk were you looking for, Miss Lily?”

  “Um.” Lily blinked at him. “How many are there?”

  “Goodness, it’s been some years, but if memory serves, at least four.” His eyes went to the black hole above. “It took some shoving to store them up there.”

  “Then there’s no point in hauling them all down,” Lily said. “In truth, I have no idea which trunk I’m looking for. I’ll have to go up myself.”

  He gave her long skirts a doubtful look.

  “I’ll manage,” she said firmly, waving him aside.

  She hitched her skirts up with one hand, but soon discovered one needed a minimum of two hands to climb a ladder. From then on, it became a trying feat of kicking out her skirts before each step, which didn’t always work and she heard the sound of seams ripping more times than she cared to check.

  I should have brought my new breeches.

  Somehow she made it to the top without breaking her neck and, much to her amazement, without her dress falling to pieces around her knees. She plopped her backside on the edge of the loft floor, her legs dangling through the hole while she waited for Halver to pass up the gas lamp.

  “There’s no need to wait,” she told him. “I’ll shout when I’m finished.”

  He frowned up at her, clearly not happy.

  “Very well,” she conceded. “Ask Ana to come stand watch, then, although I assure you I won’t plunge through the ceiling.”

  Although she was somewhat less sure when she took her first tentative hobble on creaking planks.

  There was plenty of space for her to stand, and she couldn’t weigh half as much as the three—not four—enormous trunks lit up in the yellow glow when she swung the lamp in front of her, but crawling somehow made her feel lighter. And safer from the cobwebs dangling from the beams and cuddling every conceivable corner.

  Leather straps and buckles bound each trunk, but thankfully there were no locks.

  There was no rush of sentimentality, no watershed memories or choking breaths as Lily dug through her mother’s belongings, mostly discarded clothes and accessories. She’d been here before. She’d relived hours and hours of her mother’s vivacious smiles, her generous hugs, her wicked quips and warm glances and fierce, all-encompassing love when she’d packed each item of that vivid personality, one stocking, one dainty slipper, one silver clip, one pearl-studded negligee at a time, into dull, lifeless crates.

  One of the trunks, however, threatened to plunge her back in time.

  This one held reams of gossamer lace, gold-threaded silk and ivory satin, all carefully layered between sheets of tissue paper. The kind of delicate, expensive, exotic materials that might have been collected, or inherited, certainly cherished…for a lady’s trousseau.

  Lily’s fingers slid through the layers, and her heart almost cracked. She could be wrong, of course. Her mother might have fashioned her wedding wardrobe from this very trunk, then replenished the contents for her daughter—for me—but there was an ageless, timeless, forgotten presence that filtered from the silky depths. Here lay dreams and fantasies, promises of love that had never faded into reality.

  Her fingers touched on something solid near the bottom, flexible, yet firm…she pushed aside the cloth and pulled out a black, leather-bound journal. And another. She searched the trunk thoroughly, taking care with the delicate fabrics, but there were only the two journals. Incredibly slim, not more than a dozen pages each.

  She held them to her chest for a moment, her breaths shaky with excitement. Then shuffled closer to where she’d set the lamp down and flipped the top journal open.

  There was no date. Bold writing scrawled across the page this way and that, deep scratches lined beneath the short sentences, sometimes just a word, everything punctuated with an explosion of exclamation marks.

  So!!! This is what a journal is for!

  Alive!!! This. This. This!!!! This is me!! Alive!

  Scream! Scream!!

  Jump and laugh and shout and scream!!!

  Too much inside me Not enough places in me to contain all this!!!! I need to get it out Need to write it down Need to shout it out here!!!!!

  The second page was less scrambled, but only slightly so. Her mother wrote the way she’d lived… In dramatic phrases and statements of emotion.

  Still no dates.

  He loves me.

  The way he looked at me today!! How did I ever think green was cold? Green is hot. Burning!!! He looks at me and I melt!

  His smile. His smile!!! His smile punched my heart!

  His kiss!!! His kiss was!!!!!!

  I’m alive.

  Lost.

  Drowning!!!

  Bursting.

  I love him. Love him. Love him!!!! Love him.

  He loves me!!! He has to. I know he does!!!!

  Lily’s gaze snapped from the page. Her heart pounded inside her chest. Fingers trembling, she slapped the journal closed.

  What if…?

  She couldn’t. Not now. Not here.

  Her eyes went to the leather cover. All the answers she’d ever wanted, maybe…But she couldn’t do it. She was a coward. She wasn’t ready to meet the man her mother loved. The man who most definitely wasn’t Pierre d’Bulier. The man who could, maybe, be her father.

  TWELVE

  Greyston was saddling an inky black stallion, a proud beauty that stood at least nineteen hands, when he discovered Georgina hadn’t left the country.

  She came bounding up the shaded lane, perched on the high driver’s box, the reins sliding over and around her hands like silk ribbons as she guided the open-topped carriage to a halt before the stables with a natural ease.

  Evelyn popped up from the brocade and velvet depths of the sunken body, squinting at a clockwork watch with more dials and gauges aboard than the Red Hawk’s pilot dashboard. “Twelve minutes and fifty seconds,” she called out. “That’s two minutes and fifty seconds more than ten minutes.”

  “The road has more bumps than I recall and I forgot to factor in my fragile cargo,” Georgina declared on a laugh, throwing the reins down. She hurtled down from the high box and gave her lopsided straw hat an ineffectual tug.

  Evelyn pushed open the door and descended the two steps that sprung down to the ground. “I’m not an egg.”

  “An egg is incredibly tough, you know, impossible to crack in your palm so long as you hold it upright.” The women exchanged a moment of silence before Georgina went on in a low voice that only barely reached Greys
ton’s ears. “It’s only a few months, then you can roll about to your heart’s delight.”

  Greyston gathered the reins and led the horse from the shadows of the stable. “I thought you’d disappeared into thin air again.”

  The ladies turned at the sound of his voice, but there was no doubt as to whom had been addressed. His gaze feasted on Georgina. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright with mischief, and she wore a stained apron that covered her gown from throat to booted foot.

  “I took Evelyn to the mid-week market in Godalming,” Georgina said.

  “We sat on up-turned barrels around the back of the market hall, drinking ale and gossiping with the women while eating fried pork straight from the fire.” Evelyn’s smile dazzled. “I haven’t had this much fun since… since I pedalled the skies on my Pedallosopede.”

  Georgina’s brow arched in her direction. “What in heavens is a Pedallosopede?”

  “I’ll show you when you’re next in London,” Evelyn promised. Her eyes came to him. “You should have seen Georgina hawking. She sold ten bushels of carrots and a bag of turnips to a man who needed none.”

  “To be fair,” Georgina said lightly, “that man was Jack Hornsbill and he’s been sweet on me forever and a day.”

  The last trace of Greyston’s restless mood buckled beneath his grin. Learning the smallest thing about Georgina Bonnington somehow felt like the greatest victory. “You appear familiar with the area,” he drawled.

  “I spent most summers around here,” she told him. “My favourite uncle’s farm is a quarter mile west of Godalming. In fact, I was visiting when I received the invitation to Harchings Castle.”

  That’s where you run to when you run. Greyston’s grin softened, creasing into the corners of his eyes as he looked at her. “Would that happen to be a pig farm?”

  She shouted out a laugh. “Not anymore.”

  “I’ll leave you two to your shared secrets,” Evelyn said from the side.

  Greyston’s attention shifted to her. She was smiling, but he still worried about her. “Or you could stay and allow us to explain.”