The Iron Duke (10 page)

Perhaps she ought not to have recounted his crimes. Softening accusations of murder and rape by calling them
killing
and
violation
probably wasn’t a distinction he recognized.

She heard Newberry’s heavy approach—and his concern. “Inspector?”

The look Trahaearn sent to Newberry halted the constable midstride, the box of ice secure against his chest. Uncertain, the constable looked to Mina. She shook her head, telling him to remain where he was, and met Trahaearn’s detached gaze again.

In a low voice, he asked, “Do you have a man, inspector?”

“A man?” she echoed, fearing that she understood him. He’d laid in wait and apologized for
this
? A laugh bubbled up, dissipating her fear. Did he truly imagine that an insult and a lover would be her only objections? Oh, but Mina hoped she was wrong. “A man like Constable Newberry?”

“No. A man in your bed.”

She
had
understood. Damn his arrogance. “The only man who interests me is the one whose brain and arm Newberry is carrying. I will not waste your time by pretending otherwise, Your Grace. I ask that you do not waste mine.”

“I wouldn’t. So tell me whether you have a man.”

As if it would matter to someone like him. “And if I do?”

“I’ll discover what he gives you. Then I’ll offer more.”

Ah, she should have realized; this was a business transaction. Last night, when he’d removed her glove, she’d seen his lust. It wasn’t here now—and that made rejecting him surprisingly easy, despite his power and the trouble he could make for her.

“I don’t have a man.” When she saw his triumph, Mina added, “But you have nothing to offer me, sir. I answer to no one. I must make time only for myself. Can you offer better than absolute freedom?”

“The daughter of a bugger earl would never have anything of the sort.”

Well, that was true enough. But she came closer to freedom now than she could ever hope to after sharing his bed. “And you’re a duke, so you have even less freedom to offer, no matter how deep your pockets.”

His expression hardened, like heated steel plunged into an ice bath. But even as she tensed, wondering if she’d finally gone too far, he looked away from her.

It was as if a cage door had been opened. Mina exhaled softly and continued along the walk. Reaching the smithy entrance, she stepped through a solid wall of heat and noise. No smell of the tanneries and slaughterhouses here—only smoke, sweat, and oil. Stokers wearing leather aprons and gloves shoveled coal into the furnaces squatting along the wall. Enormous boilers hissed steam, and the ring of metal hammering against metal came from every direction of the smithy.

Mina started for the stairs at the other end of the warehouse, passing the repair and refitting stations. Standing between two brick columns, a blacksmith gestured for the woman in front of him to walk. With her threadbare skirts hiked up to reveal skeletal prosthetic legs, she took a step. The metal ball of her right heel dragged, scraping loudly over the stone floor. In the next station, a tinker concentrated over pneumatic cylinders protruding from a man’s shoulders like a stunted pair of tubed wings—routine maintenance for a dockworker that cost less than waiting until something broke. Beside him, a female blacksmith tested the fingers of an elderly woman’s new prosthetic. Tears glistened on her wrinkled cheeks; she clutched to her breast a rusted forearm, with the Horde’s sewing apparatus and pincers still attached. Though they could trade the old limbs in, most took their prosthetics home. Even knowing what the Horde had done, it was difficult letting part of themselves go—and that woman had probably worn an awl and pincers longer than Mina had been alive.

The blacksmith working on the old woman’s hand looked up. She shouted to the tinker watching over her shoulder, then jerked her head in Mina’s direction.

The girl jogged toward her, pushing back her welding goggles as she drew close. Her mouth dropped open when she spotted Mina; Mina’s lips parted in surprise. The girl had Horde blood in her. The tinker looked Mina up and down, then up again.

Mina stared back. Grease streaked the girl’s hands, but her black hair and clothes were clean. Probably from the Crèche, the girl couldn’t have been more than ten years old, but she already wore a tinker’s chain tattooed around her wrist. When she became a blacksmith, a hammer would be tattooed below the chain, completing the guild’s mark.

The girl looked away from Mina, focusing on the man behind her. “The Blacksmith said to go up soon as you arrived, captain.”

Captain. Even here?
Mina didn’t glance back at him. She turned toward the stairs, but the girl shook her head.

“The quick way,” she said, gesturing to the back of the warehouse. Mina walked alongside the tinker, noting how the girl watched her from the corner of her eye. Mina was little better at hiding her interest than the girl was.

“What do they mean?” The girl nodded at the epaulettes decorating Mina’s shoulders.

“Detective Inspector.”

A thoughtful expression came over her small face. “Is that what they call you?”

“Just ‘inspector.’ ” Which was better than most of the names Mina was called. This girl probably heard them, too. “It’s almost as good as ‘blacksmith.’”

“Oh?”

“A blacksmith can go anywhere. A detective inspector only goes where the dead bodies are.”

“But there aren’t any dead people here today.”

Mina glanced over her shoulder at the chest Newberry carried. “That’s why I brought my own.”

They reached the lift. The shaft rose between two enormous exhaust fans installed near the high ceiling before disappearing into the next level of the warehouse. The girl slid aside the grating and turned, holding the gate open.

“The Blacksmith is on the third level, then all the way to the east wall!” she called over the noise of the fans.

Mina nodded, but didn’t board the lift. “What’s your name, tinker?”

The girl’s eyes widened. “Anne.”

“So it will be Anne Blacksmith. That name will treat you well.” And the Blacksmith’s guild tattoo would keep her safe. “But if it doesn’t, I’m at police headquarters in Whitehall. Ask for Wentworth.”

Anne nodded, her round cheeks dimpling with a huge smile. Mina stepped into the lift, standing to the side to make room for Trahaearn and Newberry. The Iron Duke boarded and closed the cage behind him. Newberry abruptly stopped, staring at them through the grating.

Trahaearn locked the gate. “It will be too crowded and over its weight capacity, constable. I’ll send it back down for you.”

Mina looked at him in disbelief. Though it’d be a tight fit, the lift could accommodate her assistant. Then the duke glanced down at her, wearing that cold detachment she’d begun to hate, and Mina understood.

She’d rejected his offer outside and put an end to the matter. But the Iron Duke wasn’t done.

Anger balled tight and high in her throat. Swallowing it down, she looked through the grating at Newberry. “We’ll meet you on the third level, constable. Anne, will you show Constable Newberry to the stairs?”

As soon as they turned to go, Trahaearn started the lift. Metal scraped as he threw the lever forward. Mina stared at the gate’s flat steel panel, almost blind with rage.

So this is how it would be? When pirates took over a ship, they usually gave the crew a choice between keeping their positions under a new captain, abandonment, or death. What choice would he give to her? She accepted his offer, or he ruined her family? Or would he simply rape her here?

The noise of the fans assaulted her ears, then was muffled as they rose past the second level floor. Unlike the smithy below, this level had been partitioned. An empty corridor led from the lift to the rooms where the Blacksmith grafted his mechanical flesh to living tissue, and where those undergoing the excruciating process waited while the flesh grew. Mina’s mother had waited in one of these rooms, but had forbidden Mina and her brothers from accompanying her. Instead, her father had held her hand through each step, carried her home each night—and every morning, he’d had to convince her mother to return to the Blacksmith’s and finish it. By the end of the week, he’d been as pale and haggard as her mother.

Remembering that, Mina’s anger built into resolution. What could Trahaearn do to her family that the Horde hadn’t already done?
Nothing.
And her family had always fought back, always survived. The only danger he posed was to Mina’s person and her career—but no matter the damage he caused, she would survive that, too.

She looked up. The roof of the lift had almost reached the next floor. The duke still hadn’t spoken. Her tension began to loosen its grip. Had she mistaken his intentions, then? Perhaps he just hadn’t wanted to be crowded.

Metal scraped, and the lift jolted to a halt. Mina stumbled forward before catching her balance—and realized that he’d timed it perfectly. They’d stopped halfway between the floors. The lift’s roof concealed them from above, and if anyone entered the corridor below, the gate blocked the view of the lift’s interior.

Damn him.
Damn
him.

Mina wouldn’t make it out of the Narrow alive if she shot him, but he couldn’t know she wouldn’t be crazy enough to do it. She pushed back the sides of her overcoat to expose her weapons.

He remained silent, staring at her from the opposite side of the lift, his dark gaze searching her face. Was he waiting for her to protest, or just trying to intimidate her?

She
was
afraid. Not of him, or what he could do to her body. Her bugs could heal bruises and tears, inside and out. But by forcing her, by taking her choice, he’d rip away everything that he’d given when he’d destroyed the Horde’s broadcasting tower.

Never would Mina allow that. And on second thought, maybe she
was
crazy enough. Her hands slid from her hips to her holstered weapons. His gaze fell and lingered on her weapons—or her thighs. She repressed the urge to let her overcoat fall closed. He looked up again, meeting her eyes. Mina arched a brow.

His slow smile didn’t soften his hawkish features. “You’ll come to my bed. And you won’t think it a waste of time.”

“You’re wasting it now. Start the lift.”

“A blacksmith earns more than an inspector, yet you didn’t say that to the girl. You placed the ability to go anywhere ahead of money.” As he spoke, his detachment turned to speculation, but his gaze never wavered from her face. “I can offer you enough that you’d be able to go anywhere you’d like, too.”

Anger and unease mixed with surprise. He’d listened to her conversation with Anne? She’d have to be careful never to reveal anything of herself in his vicinity again, not if he’d use it against her.

“I’m happy where I am,” she said. “Except I’d rather be ascending.”

His short laugh made her stomach drop, her fingers tighten on her weapons. He crossed the lift in two strides, each step rattling the cage around them. Mina held her ground. He stopped with only a few inches between them—and blast his monstrous height, the top of her head barely reached his shoulder.

What did he mean to prove by stopping so close? Did he intend for Mina to tilt her head back, making it appear as if she lifted herself to his kiss? Resolutely, she stared ahead at the small brass buckles that fastened his waistcoat—and suddenly realized that her refusal to look up made her seem afraid.

No matter what her response was, she couldn’t win.

She stiffened as his palm cupped her nape. Hard fingers tilted her chin up; he lowered his head. Mina jerked her face to the side. She felt his rough laughter against her neck, the gentle touch of his lips to her throat. His hand tightened in her hair, holding her still as he inhaled, as if drawing in her scent.

Tremors started low in her belly. Fear, she recognized. Anger, she welcomed. But not the burn beneath her skin, so similar to when he’d taken her glove.

He lifted his head, but didn’t release her. His thumb brushed her bottom lip. “You will accept me. And now I will know you, even if you come to me in the dark.”

Know
her? Arrogant, insufferable knacker. He knew
nothing
about her.

And she didn’t need her weapons to get him away from her. Not when he was so stupid as to come this close.

Her hand shot to the front of his breeches, making claws of her fingers and trapping his genitals in a tight grip. He froze. As if testing, she hefted the firm weight she found. Heavy, but so very delicate.

She bared her teeth. “And even in the dark, now I’ll know that I’m ripping off the right cods.”

His eyes narrowed, and the hot interest she saw in his gaze sent shivers skittering down her spine. That wasn’t just business now. She tightened her grip.

“Back away from me, Your Grace.”

He suddenly grinned. The thick flesh beneath his breeches stirred, hardening against her palm. Mina snatched her hand away.

The duke stepped back—but not, Mina thought, in retreat. He looked too amused and too self-satisfied for that. Wary, she watched him return to the opposite side of the lift and throw the lever forward.

“I’d have offered you a job.”

Mina blinked. “What?”

“Make no mistake, inspector: I intend to have you under me, in one way or another. It didn’t need to be in my bed, though that was my preference. But if you refused me, I planned to offer you a position on my staff, with a salary only a fool would turn down.”

As much as Mina loved her work, she wasn’t a fool. And she could tolerate five years of employment by an insufferable knacker—time enough for her mother to pay off the Blacksmith, for Henry to make a go of their Northampton estate, for Andrew to buy a lieutenant’s commission. When she and her family had a comfortable cushion and no longer pinched every penny, the dead would still be waiting at the end of it, and she could return to the police force.