A Matter of Circumstance and Celludrones (3 page)

“How quaint of you.” She changed tactics and direction, scooting
around the settee to stand with her back to the bay window. “I gave up trying
to understand you and your motives five minutes ago.”

A lick of courage and she would have tried her luck at the door. Hell,
he might even have let her slip by. “Why didn’t you accompany your mother that
weekend? Were you ill? Unable to travel?”

“My condition was far worse than that.” She twitched aside the net
curtain and glanced outside. Her profile made the form of a scraggly ‘h’ with
her tight corset, flat stomach and small bustle. “I was still in the
schoolroom.”

He supposed he should reassure her that he had no intention of harming
her. That would be the proper thing to do. But then, Greyston had never overly
concerned himself with doing the proper thing. “Meaning?”

Her chin tilted up at him. Not stubborn defiance. Just a tilt. “I’d
not yet entered society.” When he looked at her blankly, she clarified, “I
wasn’t invited.”

Greyston was ready to give his own version of an exasperated sigh when
the celludrone slipped into the room, barely making a sound as the door clicked
open and closed behind her. She stood there, her hands clasped in front, her
gaze on her mistress as she awaited further instruction. A perfect example of
everything a celludrone should be, if one discounted the superb cut of her grey
broadcloth dress and the fine quality of her celluloid skin and what he could
see of the blonde hair peeping from beneath a white bonnet.

“You’ve been with Lady Lily since birth, have you not?” he demanded of
her.

Ana gave no indication of having heard. She stared straight ahead with
that expressionless face. Her smooth skin held no trace of being lived in.
There were no laugh brackets around the mouth from the occasional smile, no
crowfeet at the eyes or wrinkles worrying the brow. Nothing more or less than
an analytical machine buried in the chest that interpreted vocal instruction
and computed the highest-ranking response using a probability equation. A
thousand tiny gears operating the steel skeletal frame on a relay system of
zeros and ones. The eyes were made of a fibrous glass and attached by a spring
system. He had no doubt that when she opened her mouth, he’d see implanted
ivory teeth instead of the usual shallow cave.

“You’re not familiar with celludrones,” Lady Lily said. “They don’t
possess the powers of deduction required to analyse questions and formulate an
answer. They must be addressed by name and issued an unambiguous instruction.”

He couldn’t decide whether her tone was one of amusement or
condescension. He appreciated neither.

“Allow me to demonstrate,” she went on. “Ana, please come over here.
There’s also never any reason to be less than polite,” she added to him.

Make that condescension.

Greyston reached down swiftly as Ana started toward her mistress. He’d
intended wooing Lily d’Bulier’s trust over the coming weeks. His fingers slid
beneath the left leg of his trousers and unsheathed the dagger strapped to his
calf. Apparently he’d overestimated his patience. Ana was no ordinary celludrone
and there was one sure way to prove it. He took aim as he came up, judging the
distance and angle with lightening speed. Lady Lily’s face stretched in silent
horror as her gaze froze on the steel blade.

Ana’s head whipped around.

With a tight flick of his wrist, the dagger flew toward Lady Lily in a
perfectly executed arc. Ana didn’t hesitate. She hurled herself straight over
the settee in a flying leap. The blood-curdling scream Lady Lily had finally
got around to, cut off in a blunt ‘oomph’ as Ana connected with her and they
both went down. Ana was on her feet again within seconds. She cricked her neck
one way, then the other. Then she came at him.

“Wait.” Greyston backed away. “I would never hurt your lady.”

A soft groan snagged the celludrone’s attention. She paused, tilting
her head so that one spring-loaded eyeball could remain on him while the other
checked on Lady Lily pulling herself up behind the sofa.

“You threw a dagger at me,” gasped Lady Lily.

Her fingers clenched the back of the settee, her elbows locked in as
if to keep her sagging body from hitting the floor again. She was pale enough
to worry Greyston. Maybe he’d gone too far.

“You tried to kill me,” she said with less conviction, as if the idea
was too preposterous to entertain despite the hard facts.

“A small demonstration of my own,” he said. “I don’t recall you
politely asking Ana to leap over the settee to protect you.” The colour of
guilt glazed Lady Lily’s cheeks. “So let’s stop chasing circles around each
other and—”

“—start throwing daggers?”

She was a dog with a bone. Greyston let out the sigh that had been
building since the beginning of this conversation. “Ana has been with you since
birth. She was assigned to you for protection. I know all about—”

“Protection?” Her body seemed to get some solidity back into it. Her
fingers slid from the settee and out of sight, probably fluttering around the
havoc he’d caused with the perfect pleats of her dress. “Protection from what?”

“I knew Ana would jump into action if your life was in danger.” He
folded his arms and tried his best to keep the smug grin under control. Well,
maybe not his best. “My point proved itself, I’d say.”

“And would you say that’s a fair trade?” Her voice was squeaky and
breathless. “My life for your point? What if Ana hadn’t pushed me out of the
way quick enough? What if you’d been wrong about her and me and everything?
What if—”

“You were never in any danger.” He cocked an eye at the curtain pallet
behind her.

She glanced over her shoulder, and up. Unfortunately the sight of his
dagger, firmly wedged into the stiff material a decent three feet above her
head, failed to placate her. There was some commotion from outside, loud voices
muffled by the door and the length of the hallway, but not even that distracted
her from the task at hand and the frown she turned on him. “I don’t care what
kind of barbaric society you grew up in. In England, we do not bring weapons
into the drawing room, let alone use them.”

“I’m well aware of that.” It was one of the many reasons he found
polite society, drawing rooms in particular, so uncomfortable.

“You’re an uncouth lout impersonating a gentleman.”

“Not very well,” he agreed amiably.

Her eyes narrowed on him. “Mock all you want, my lord, but I am—”

The door flew open, hard enough to bang against the wall. Greyston
took one look at the tall woman, her plume of ostrich feathers stroking the top
of the doorway as she passed through, and reached for his dagger. The dagger no
longer sheathed at his calf. Cursing himself for a damn fool, he came back up
empty-handed.

Halver dogged the woman’s footsteps. “Miss Lily, I beg your pardon,
the lady refused to—”

The lady in question twirled a hand in Halver’s
direction and, without so much as a glance his way, without much more than a
flick of her index finger, flung the butler in the air and clear across the
room at a speed that blurred his hurtling body.

Halver slammed into the wall with a cracking sound that might have
been the plaster or his bones. Probably both. Arms and legs splayed at an awkward
angle, he seemed to stick there for God-awful seconds before sliding to the
floor.

“Ana!” shrieked Lady Lily. “Dear Lord, Ana, help him, help him…” She
fell beside Halver’s broken body, shaking his arm in an attempt to revive him.
“Wh-what is happening?”

Greyston was relieved to see Ana take a defensive stance rather than
fussing uselessly over Halver.

“Well, now that that’s taken care of,” said Lady
Ostrich, as Greyston had dubbed her after yesterday’s encounter, “perhaps we
can have an honest talk?” She looked at him with those chilling eyes that were
more silver than grey. “Who are you?”

“I already told you.”

“Tsk, Lord Adair, you should be able to do better than that.” Her gaze
went to Lady Lily, who was still huddled over Halver. “Hmm, what do we have
here?” She took a few steps in that direction, glancing back and forth between
Greyston and Lady Lily. “How interesting.”

Greyston leapt in her path. His first instinct was to get them out of
this mess right now and figure out the rest later.

Lady Ostrich’s lips twisted into a scornful smile. Her hand was poised
to making a swatting motion that would, considering what he’d seen so far,
likely smite him from the face of the earth. Yesterday she’d knocked him out
cold with a mere tap on his shoulder. Today she’d tossed a man through the air
with a flick of her finger. Whoever she was, whatever she was, later was not
guaranteed. He may well run out of time while trying to stay two steps ahead of
the witch.

 
“I’m ready to talk,” he told
her. He was ready to tell her anything, except he had no more an idea of what
she wanted to hear now than when she’d questioned him on the green.

Who are you?
Lord Adair.
Where are you from?
Scotland.
Answer
me, maggot. Where have you come from?
Perthshire.
Who are you?
My name
is Greyston Adair.
That is not what I’m asking. Answer me or you will not
live to regret your foolishness.

Something about the icy hardness of her silver eyes. Or perhaps the
way she’d swirled that lethal index finger and he’d felt his gut winding into a
knot of excruciating pain with each question. But he hadn’t felt any
inclination to laugh off her melodramatic threat.

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.