Page 39 of Heart of Iron
“You next, miss,” Henry said.
Lena stepped up onto his bent knee and then shoulder, catching hold of the gutter.She had to hurry.Mrs.Wade had cost them a great deal of time.Biting her lip, Lena hauled herself up onto the roof, then turned and lay down, peering at Henry.
“Hurry!”
The cavalry was almost upon them.The horses were eight feet high at the withers, with broad, heavily-plated chests and enormous, soup-bowl hooves.Designed like a destrier, steam puffed and snorted from their nostrils.The sight was enough to curdle her stomach.
“Henry!”She extended her arm.His wide blue eyes looked up at her.
“I’ll only pull you down,” he said, shaking his head.
Lena snatched the parasol off Mrs.Wade and dropped it into his hands.“Hook it into the gutter and use it to help ease your weight!Mrs.Wade!”She looked behind her to where her companion sprawled on the tiles.“Hold my ankles and whatever you do, don’t let him pull me off!”
A pair of meaty hands wrapped around her ankles, with the considerable weight of Mrs.Wade to anchor her.
The metal cavalry broke from a trot into a canter and then stretched out into a gallop.A man ran ahead of them and went down beneath the crushing steel hooves.In their midst rode the handlers, each steering a herd of ten with their small, spiked little boxes and the radio signal that controlled them.
“Henry!”Lena screamed, reaching out to clasp his arm as he struggled valiantly to haul himself up.
Behind her, Mrs.Wade cried out and slid a few inches down the roof.Lena shot forward on her stomach, her face and shoulders dangling over the gutters.She wrenched at Henry’s arm, but he’d lost the tentative grip he had on the gutter and was dangling by her parasol.
“Don’t you dare let me go!”Lena yelled.
Henry tucked his feet up desperately, trying not to get hit as the first line of the metal horses thundered by.Choking dust rose from the street.The inch of sleeve she held slipped even farther through her fingers until—
“No!”
Behind her, Mrs.Wade cried out and let go.Lena’s eyes shot open and she fell forward, her skirts sliding over the tiles.She caught a glimpse of Henry’s wide, horrified eyes as she fell toward the street and then—
Something grabbed her by the skirts.
With a wrench she landed flat on her back on the tiles next to Mrs.Wade, blinking up at Will.His broad shoulders were outlined against the inclement clouds, the muscles in his bare arms bunched as his fists curled.“Ought have known you’d be in bloody trouble.”
“Henry!”she gasped, pointing to the edge of the roof.
Will knelt, the leather of his trousers straining over his heavily muscled thighs.He reached down and caught the parasol then straightened as if it were barely any effort at all.
Henry rose in the air, kicking feebly at the end of the parasol.Will snatched his hand and yanked him onto the roof where he collapsed in violent shudders.
“Oh, Lord,” he whispered.“Oh, Miss Lena!I thought you were going!You should never have risked yourself.”
“Well, I wasn’t about to leave you to fall.”Kneeling beside him, she checked him over for injuries.Her own hands were starting to shake.Soclose.Too close, actually.
A shadow fell over her.Lena’s stomach dropped.
When she looked up, Will wore a murderous scowl.“What the bloody hell were you thinkin’?”
“I—”
“You weren’t!”His arms exploded into the air.“You couldn’t have been!What idiot gets out of a carriage in the middle of a friggin’ mob?Did you not once think about how dangerous it was?”
“I was trying to avoid it.Mr.Mandeville’s is two streets over.If we’d—”
“That’s two streets too far!Do you have any idea what went through my head when I found the bloody carriage?Turned on its side and abandoned?With your bloody footmen sittin’ on a roof, smokin’ cheroots!”
Lena stood up, shaking out her skirts.“I didn’t think a riot would erupt so quickly.And obviously the carriage was no safer.”
“Didn’t think?Didn’t think?” The last came out as a roar that made both Mrs.Wade and Henry flinch.
