Touch of Steel: A Novel of the Clockwork Agents (11 page)

“Only distinction?” He shook his head. “So the name the Dove, as in the bird often associated with death and funerals, was a mistake? It was meant for someone else?”

“No. I earned it, but at first it was a joke—started by my brother. It only became real because I was hell-bent on proving it to be true.”

“I know the feeling. I struggled to distinguish myself as well.”

“Were you constantly compared to your father and grandfather?”

Something changed in his expression—a slight shuttering behind his eyes that told her he didn’t want to discuss it. “Oh yes, in both flattering and unflattering ways. It was the old man who reminded me that we can be measured only by our own accomplishments, not anyone else’s. You leave yourself open for disappointment if you judge yourself by another person’s yardstick.”

“But comparing yourself to someone else can sometimes push you to do better than you would without that hanging over your head.”

“When was the last time that comparing yourself to your brother made you feel better rather than worse?”

He had a point. “I don’t remember.”

“Indeed.”

Claire glanced out the window. She really didn’t want to get into what she thought of herself with him. There was a sign for Ayr up ahead, but she couldn’t read what it said. “Are we close?”

“We should be. Tavish is making good time. Hopefully he won’t flip the damn thing and kill us all.”

She looked at him. He seemed so calm. Her insides were dancing and jerking like a line of Irish dancers. “Thank you,” she sa kou, Std">Sid.

“For what?”

“For distracting me with this conversation. For not bringing up the kiss from this morning, and most of all, for not expecting more, or reminding me of what a bitch I can be.”

“I do have that whole honorable reputation to live up to. But now that you’ve mentioned it, I am sorry for this morning.”

“Are you? Truly?”

Their gazes locked. “No,” he replied easily. “I’m not really sorry at all. It wasn’t the best idea I’ve ever had, but I don’t regret it. I’m probably going to regret confiding that to you, though.”

Laughter escaped her, despite the anxiety of the journey. “Thank you. No woman wants to hear a man say kissing her was a mistake, if even she agrees with him.”

“So you regret it then?”

“No. I should, but I don’t. I regret the circumstances surrounding us. Were things different . . .”

“Were things different, we’d still be at the inn and we’d still be in bed. I think both of us can admit that.”

“Yes. Impulsive as it would be. So, maybe it’s better that things are as they are.”

“Maybe,” he agreed, and when he looked at her, she saw the desire in his eyes. It wasn’t a burning desire—he didn’t want to take her right there in the carriage, but he wanted her. It made her a little sad—thinking of “might have beens” and “if onlys.” “You can be a top-notch bitch, though.”

She laughed at that, and he grinned, softening the lines of his face. Those brackets around his mouth weren’t a lie after all; they just didn’t get used as often as they once did.

It wasn’t until he turned his face toward the window that she noticed the lines around his eyes and mouth had deepened. There was tension in his jaw and shoulders. He was as concerned about losing Howard as she was.

They sat in silence for what felt like forever, but it was probably only a handful of minutes. Claire watched the countryside give way to more urban surroundings, until they were driving through the streets of a bustling town.

“We’re here, aren’t we?”

“We’re in the town of Ayr, yes. We’ll be at the docks in a few moments.”

She didn’t ask if he thought they’d catch them. It didn’t matter what either of them thought or feared or hoped. They would either catch them or they wouldn’t.

The carriage got held up in traffic, much to Claire’s chagrin. She was literally chewing her nails by the time they started moving again. The fingers of her other hand—already chewed—gripped the strap just above her head, knuckles white.

Finally she saw it—water. There was water ahead. She pressed her face against the glass. “I can see the docks.”

Alastair leaned forward as well. “Yes. I think I see the ship.”

Claire didn’t ask how he could possibly know which one they were after. A port this size had to have any number of ships in and out of it during the course of a day. Still, she hoped he was right, and that they were about to catch their prey.

The carriage stopped, and the two of them practically dove out of it. They ran toward the ship, Claire managing to keep up with Alastair’s slightly longer stride despite wearing a skirt. She’d wrap the damn thing around her neck if she had to.

“There!” she cried, pointing. “The Doctor!”

The thin, unassuming man also heard her as he stood on the docks, looking as though he’d been used as a punching bag. There was blood on his coat, and his face was battered. He didn’t look like the monster he was. Unfortunately, he had heard her exclamation, and he took off running at the sight of them. Or rather, he took off at a hobble. Someone had beaten him soundly. Had she had her pistol, she could have already shot him.

Alastair caught up with him quickly and tackled him to the wooden slates. People skirted around them, staring and pointing, but no one tried to interfere or help. The difference in their sizes made it easy for the earl to overpower him. But as Claire neared them, she saw something in the small man’s hand. It was a syringe.

“Alastair!” she cried, running closer. She wouldn’t get there in time.

He glanced down, saw the syringe just inches away from his arm and gave the Doctor’s wrist a wrench. Claire’s stomach dropped as she heard bones snap. The smaller man screamed in pain.

Alastair stood, hauling the Doctor to his feet by the throat. “Where is he?” he demanded. “Where is Howard?”

The Doctor snarled at him, clawing at Alastair’s fingers with his good hand. It didn’t matter how much he struggled; he’d never loosen that augmented grip of his. “I’m not telling you anything.”

Lifting him so his feet left the dock, Alastair shook him like a dog would a rabbit. “Tell me where he is and I’ll let you live, you worthless piece of shite.”

The threat seemed to work, or perhaps it was the sight of Claire that loosened his tongue. His pale, scary blue eyes actually brightened. The malicious glee there froze her on the spot. She’d never seen such evil in anyone’s eyes before. Never. “The bastard double-crossed me. Beat me, stole my case, and boarded the ship.”

“Which ship?” Alastair’s expression was a mask o
f fury. If she had been the Doctor, she’d have been afraid for her life at that moment.

“The one that just left,” the smaller man told him with a grin, revealing bloody teeth.

Claire turned her head at the same time Alastair did. Her heart plummeted as she saw the large vessel plowing through the waves at least two hundred feet from the docks. It was already leaving, and there’d be no calling it back.

Stanton Howard had escaped.

Chapter 9

Alastair thought Claire was going to have a hysterical b n="-ce3emreakdown right there on the docks. He’d never seen such rage and anguish on a woman’s face before—on a man’s face, either, for that matter. She literally crumpled to her knees as the ship put more and more distance between them and it.

At that moment, he would have jumped into the water, swum after the damn boat and hauled it back to shore himself if he could have. Instead, he turned to the Doctor, whose jaw was resting between his thumb and forefinger.

“Where’s it going?” he asked, giving the vermin a little shake.

The man had stopped clawing at his fingers, and he now held on to his wrist in an effort to support his own weight. He smiled. It was an unsettling expression, given that his face was already distorted by Alastair’s grip. “America. New York City. You’ll never catch him.”

Alastair tightened his hold ever so slightly. “You seem pretty happy for a man who was just double-crossed.”

“Anything that makes life difficult for the Wardens makes me happy.”

“You know I’m going to send you to the W.O.R.”

“They won’t break me.”

“Lucas Grey might.” He had the satisfaction of seeing real fear flicker in the worm’s eyes.

Tavish arrived then, with the shackles Alastair had brought along for the Doctor’s capture. There was a set for Howard as well.

Damnation.

Once the Doctor was locked up and immobile, Alastair tossed him over his shoulder like a sack of apples and carried him back to the carriage, locking him securely in the boot. For a moment, he leaned against the side of the vehicle and silently swore. If only they’d been a little earlier. If only he and Claire had spent less time needling and challenging each other—flirting—they might have arrived in time.

Sighing, he straightened and looked out at the water. The ship sliced through the waves like a hot knife through butter. He could almost imagine Howard on deck, waving a gleeful good-bye.

As his gaze turned toward the woman still kneeling on the docks—the woman he felt he had disappointed beyond repair—he spied a submersible peeking out above the surface of the water.

“Will we be leaving then, my lord?” Tavish asked.

Alastair shook his head. “We’re not defeated just yet, my good man. Keep an eye on the lady for a moment, will you?” He didn’t think Claire would run off on him, but losing both Howard and her would be more than his pride or reputation could take. People would wonder if he hadn’t taken after his old man after all. Plus, he wasn’t certain that she wasn’t contemplating jumping in after the bastard as well.

It took nearly a quarter of an hour for him to locate the dockmaster, and then another ten minutes to find the owner of the submersible, but another five minutes after that, he returned to where he’d left Claire.

She was gone.

Alastair’s heart skipped a beat. Where the hell was she? He actually peered over the side of the dock to s thm back tomake certain she hadn’t jumped in. He looked down one side of the dock, then the other, panic rising. Then, he glanced toward his carriage and saw her standing outside the boot, which was open.

She was talking to the Doctor.

A nasty suspicion crawled up his spine. He was attracted to Claire, but that didn’t mean he trusted her—not completely. She’d done nothing to make him doubt her, but then, neither had Sascha right up until that fateful moment. Claire was a desperate woman, one who knew the life she’d had before was over. All she wanted was to catch the man who killed her brother and have him tell her why.

Desperate people tended to do desperate things, and their victims ended up with augmentations that weren’t just for the job, but for life. If Evie hadn’t been able to put metal in his legs, he wouldn’t be walking right now—at least not with any grace.

Alistair approached quietly, turning his head ever so slightly so that his left ear was toward them. The W.O.R. had augmented his hearing as well—nothing so startling that he could hear conversations in other rooms, but enough so that it was sharper than ordinary. If he concentrated, he could sort through the noise of the bustling shipyard and eavesdrop on their conversation. Not very honorable of him, he knew, but there were times when a man would rather be dishonorable than a fool.

“Why did he do it?” he heard Claire demand. “Why did Howard kill my brother?”

“You traitorous bitch, if you think I’m going to tell you anything, you’re insane. If my hands were free, I’d kill you.”

“Well, that’s where I have the advantage, Doctor. As you can see, my hands
are
free. And I didn’t just have one of my wrists broken by Reynard. It’s going to be difficult for you with only one good hand to do procedures on people. I wonder how difficult it would be with only one eye?”

Claire raised her hand, and something glittered in the weak sunlight. Alastair didn’t know what it was. He didn’t care what it was. He knew only that Claire was in danger of seriously damaging his prisoner, and if anyone was going to have that pleasure, it was Luke.

He ran toward them, grabbing Claire’s wrist just as she was about to strike. She whirled toward him, and he found himself staring down the barrel of a very fancy, very deadly-looking pistol. She’d gone through the bags and found her gun.

What other items had she reclaimed?

“Alastair!” she admonished. “This doesn’t involve you.”

“Put the gun down, Claire,” he commanded in the most gentle tone he could manage. He wasn’t keen on dying on the Ayr docks.

“I can’t do that,” she replied. “Not until the Doctor answers my questions.”

The Doctor was still shackled, but a strange apparatus had been attached to his head. Little wire arms extended down from his temple and up from his cheeks, holding his eyes wide open, so much so that Alastair could see the curves of his eyeballs, and the ruddy inner flesh of his lids.

His stomach rolled. He hated anything to do with eyes. He couldn’t think about what had been done to s betai his own without gagging a little.

Then he spied what Claire wore on her right hand—claws. They were sharp brass talons that looked perfect for the job of scooping an eyeball right out of someone’s head. He’d forgotten he had them, and now they’d fallen into the worst possible hands—literally.

“Jesus Christ,” he whispered. “Claire, don’t do this.”

Her face was a study in stone. “I want to know why Howard killed Robert.”

She was on the verge of madness; he could see it. It was that cold detachment of emotion that enabled people in their line of work to do whatever was necessary to achieve their goal. Though often a good thing, in times like these, it could go very, very wrong. He knew because he’d felt it himself once or twice.

“The only person who can tell you that is Howard, Belle.” The foolish nickname came easily to his tongue. “We need the Doctor intact.”

She reached out and swiped the smaller man’s face with the claws, leaving deep cuts in his cheeks. The Doctor tried not to scream, but his pain would not be denied and came out as a guttural cry.

Alastair didn’t think. He swatted the hand holding the gun away with his augmented arm. He didn’t want to hurt Claire, but he would if he had to. She cried out as the pistol tumbled from her fingers. It discharged when it hit the ground, blasting a hole in a nearby shack.

“Holy hell,” he swore, and turned back to Claire. She held her injured arm to her chest, and her “talons” were just about to tear into the Doctor’s eye socket. The man didn’t say a word; he just stared at her, daring her to do it. He would rather die than be taken to London as a prisoner. Alastair could not let that happen. He drew back his fist. He hadn’t struck a woman in a very long time, but he would do it now to stop Claire from making an awful mistake.

Suddenly there was a sharp buzzing sound, and Claire fell. Alastair just barely managed to catch her before she hit the ground.

“Sorry, my lord.”

Alastair glanced up from her unconscious face to the apologetic countenance of Tavish, who stood just a few feet away holding one of Arden’s “discombobulators.” It had a fancier name, but he could never remember it. Basically it was a little device that shot prongs into a body and then jolted it with an electrical shock. It was very handy for rendering attackers incapacitated.

“Well done, Tavish,” he said on a sigh, pulling the small sharp prongs from Claire’s hip. “Get that contraption off our prisoner, will you? And shut the boot so I don’t have to look at his ugly face. You’re going to return to London with him tonight.”

Tavish stood there, holding the contraption as though it were nothing more dangerous than a daisy. “What about you, my lord?”

Alastair swung Claire up into his arms. “I’m the new owner of a submersible, and I’m going after Stanton Howard.”

* * *

The world around her was moving. And it smelled like the inside of an old boot. What was th s. Wont sizat noise? It sounded something like a dirigible, but muted, as if the inside of her head were full of cotton wool.

Slowly Claire opened her eyes and sat up. She was on a small bed, and her muscles were rubbery, weak, twitchy. The last thing she remembered was getting ready to take the Doctor’s eye out, and Alastair telling her to stop. . . .

Damn him. He’d done something to her. It had felt like the kind of shock she sometimes got from a carriage door in the winter, only multiplied by a thousand.

She ran a hand over her forehead and glanced around at her surroundings. Was she in a cell? It was small—smaller than the one at the W.O.R. She didn’t like it. It was too small. The walls curved at the ceiling—she could imagine them closing in on her. . . .

She leaped to her feet, knees rubbery as she hurried to the door. It opened, and she stepped out into a narrow corridor. The invisible band around her chest tightened. Where the hell was she? It was not much bigger than the room she’d just escaped, the walls lined with equipment and various gadgets and gear.

Staggering down the corridor, she moved toward the only sound she could hear above the muffled “whomping.” She spied Alastair, sitting at a console where he was listening to a cylinder recording of Beethoven’s “Für Elise.”

“Where are we?” she demanded. And why was it so damn tiny? They weren’t on a train, and this was nothing like any carriage she’d ever seen.

Alastair’s entire chair turned as he faced her. His brow furrowed, and the lines around his mouth seemed sharper. “How do you feel?”

“Like hell,” she replied, her heart pounding in her throat. “What did you do to me?”

“Tavish used one of Arden’s devices to incapacitate you before you could harm the Doctor any further.”

That he hadn’t been the one to injure her didn’t make her feel better. “You should have let me have him. You had no right to do that to me before I got an answer from him.”

“He had no answers to give you, and if he’s going to be tortured, Luke’s going to be the one to do it. You promised him the Doctor, remember? If you had killed him, all of his secrets would have died with him.”

She did remember. She also knew he was right, but that didn’t mean she had to like it. She wrapped her arms around herself and glanced around. “I can’t stay here. It’s too close. Where’s . . . Where the hell is the door?”

He pointed up. Claire followed the line of his finger and saw an airtight hatch above her head.

“Oh my God.” Her knees buckled beneath her. Her head swam as she gasped for breath. “Where are we?” She didn’t really need to ask; part of her—the paralyzed part—already knew.

“Claire?” Alastair was suddenly there beside her, catching her in his wonderfully strong and warm arms. She felt like such a . . . a
girl
. “Claire, are you all right?”

“No, I’m not fucking all right!” she yelled. “You’ve put me in a box! A tiny sa b width= little box that’s going to crush the air right out of me!” As if on cue, her breathing became shallow and labored as she gasped for breath. Her lungs couldn’t seem to get enough.

“It’s a submersible,” he told her. “Claire, we’re going after Howard. Claire!”

She heard him, but she couldn’t respond. It was such a tiny little box inside the ocean. Even if she got out, the water would claim her. Surround and suffocate her. Oh God, it was worse than the closet. Worse than any cell could ever be. Blackness swamped her mind, tugging her down. Blackness was good. If she passed out, she couldn’t panic anymore.

“Claire.” He shook her. “Speak to me. You’re all right. I have you. Close your eyes.”

That she could manage. When she did, he pulled her against his chest and soothed her with a gentle rocking motion. “Just keep them shut and listen to me. Can you do that?”

She nodded against his waistcoat. Her starving lungs continued to gasp for air, but it wasn’t quite as bad as it had been. Large, warm hands stroked her back, easing the chilling pinpricks that assaulted her skin. The darkness behind her eyes, inside her own mind, was the one that didn’t terrify her.

“You’re safe.” The low, rough timbre of his voice washed over her. “The walls are sturdy and strong. They will not collapse on you. We have plenty of air. Slowly breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth, pet. That’s it. I won’t let anything happen to you. You are all right.”