Page 12 of Heart of Iron
Not that she’d be seeing him this time of day.She’d lived at the warren long enough to know the times that Will came and went.Midday usually found him asleep after his nightly sojourn guarding the rookery.
Which suited her perfectly.
She wouldn’t care if she never saw him again.
***
If Honoria was surprised to see him so early, she gave little sign of it.Will growled a greeting and strode past.Sunlight spilled through the attic window, dust motes swirling through its beams.The stink of chemical took his breath, with the faint, underlying tang of blood and chamomile tea.
“Blade’s still in bed,” Honoria said, brushing a lock of dark hair behind her ear.“He’s recovering well, though not as quickly as I’d like—”
Nor as quickly as he once had.Will nodded brusquely.“I seen him.”
“Of course.”
It was the first place he would have gone.
Tugging off her magnifying glassicals, she began to remove her apron.The attic had been sectioned into two rooms, one for Honoria’s laboratory and the other for Blade’s boxing saloon.Will’d never been in here before.It was solely Honoria’s domain, and while he’d expected sterile benches and equipment, he was surprised by the pair of cozy, overstuffed armchairs by the hearth and the mounds of paperwork.Honoria struck him as someone who was obsessively organized.
“Can I help you with anything?”No doubt she was almost as surprised to see him here as he was.
Will dragged the letter from his pocket.He couldn’t make heads or tails of it, but Honoria’s inquisitive little mind took to codes like a duck to water.“Can you decipher this?”
She took it, scratching her thumbnail through the waxy substance that coated it.“Hmm.I can try.It might take a while.Is it important?”
“Could be.”
She shot him a look.
“Found it on the men as stabbed Blade.”
The color drained from her face and she glared down at the letter.“I’ll do my best then.When did you retrieve this?”
“This morning,” he muttered.“Tracked ’em into the sewers.”
“Are they still breathing?”
“Aye.”
Surprise widened her eyes—then they narrowed with an expression that was quite bloodthirsty.“May I ask why?”
“The Nighthawks were on me heels.They’ve got ’em in custody, no doubt.”
“That’s not like you, leaving an enemy behind.”Crossing to the bench, she tapped the letter against her lips.
His cue to leave.
As if sensing it, she glanced over her shoulder, eyelashes shuttering her luminous eyes.It felt like a punch to the gut, the gesture so reminiscent of Lena that he swallowed hard.Definitely time to get out of here.
But as he turned, he heard a set of footsteps on the stairs.
“May I ask a favor of you, Will?”
His hand hovered over the doorknob, nostrils flaring.The scent of leather and blud-wein assaulted his nose.Blade.Which meant Honoria had him neatly trapped.He couldn’t be rude and make his escape.“What?”
“Blade suggested I should take a sample of your blood.”
Of course he did.She’d spent the last three years sticking holes in her husband.No doubt Blade thought it high time she turned that obsessive little mind toward someone else.A chill ran down his spine.Needles.Frigging needles.
