Page 87 of Heart of Iron
Anothermech.
The other woman wore a black leather coat, buttoned up the left breast with brass buttons.Gleaming epaulets crowned her shoulders, and her boots encased muscular calves.She flicked the ash on her cheroot, her catlike hazel eyes raking over Lena.One glance and the cold gaze moved on, lip curling dismissively.“You wasted all that effort onthis?”
A man stepped out of the shadows, the same man who’d answered the door.His hand curled over the woman’s shoulder, slightly possessive.“Patience, Ingrid.That’s no way to treat a guest.”The voice shivered across the skin.A man used to hypnotizing people with that alone.A showman.
A patchwork coat framed his lean body.At first glance the coat looked shabby and mean, but Lena hadn’t spent hours grinding her teeth in boredom over her sewing for nothing.The coat was deceptively fine, the patches quite deliberately placed, she was certain.A stained cravat spilled from the open throat of his shirt, and his black gloves were cut off at the fingers, revealing the tanned skin of his fingers.
But that was not what drew her eye.A leather strap held a monocular brass eyepiece over one eye, his mouth hidden by a brass and leather half mask.Together they obscured his face so that all she could see was one piercing gray eye.His hair was the same dark copper as the first woman’s.
“A guest?”Lena demanded, shaking off her dull wits.“Your hospitality is somewhat lacking.Who are you?What do you want with me?”
“You wished to see Mercury, did you not?”His hands spread wide, palms facing her.
The words stole the breath from her lungs.“Mercury?You’re Mercury?”
“And you, my delightful Miss Todd, are a rather surprising little package.”His fingers absently stroked Ingrid’s thick brown hair.“This is one of our little pigeons,” he murmured to his comrade.“A protégé of the resourceful Mr.Mandeville.And quite resourceful herself.She’s the mind and hands behind our gift to the Scandinavian embassy.”
The way he acted, the slight edge of mocking humor that curled over every word… It made her teeth grate.He’d kidnapped her from the streets when she would have gone willingly.If he’d simply asked, Will would be sitting in the warren, dining with the rest of her family.
Tears sprang into her eyes.The praise was meaningless, the entirecausewas meaningless.She could summon nothing but grief.“Why the charade?Your men could have asked me to come.One mention of your name and I would have been willing.”A dark glare at Mendici.“You’ve destroyed my guardian’s carriage, knocked my footmen unconscious, and…hurt a man I consider a friend.Now you assume I should have some goodwill toward you remaining.”
Mercury’s fingers froze, the smile faltering.He glanced at Mendici as if in search of explanation.
“Her guardian’s a bleeder,” Mendici replied with a sneer.“If I could, I’d smash every one of his pretty little carriages.And your so-called friend, my dear, clearly weren’t human.Not to have taken on Percy in such a way, or to cross that cable so swiftly.”His lip curled.“I don’t trust her.”
“Yet you expect me to trust you,” Lena retorted.“I don’t think I want any further part of this.I thought the humanists wished to be equal, but you don’t.You want to reverse the social order instead, to grind the Echelon and the blue bloods beneath your heel.To make of them slaves, or little better.”
“To make them dead,” Mendici snapped back.
“They’re not all inhuman,” she replied.“I have met some few who I consider trustworthy and heroic.My own brother-in-law is the Devil of Whitechapel and considers his men his family.My guardian is equally kindly and treats his thralls with respect—”
“See?”Mendici snarled to Mercury.“She’s a friggin’ bleeder lover!I’ll bet she’s whorin’ for ’em.Daresay if we ever locate that man’s body we’ll find he’s into the first cycle of the craving.Certainly didn’t like the screamer none—”
Lena turned on him in a rage, her fists clenched.“Will is not a blue blood, you filth.If you had half his courage—”
“Enough!”Mercury roared.He pushed away from the wall and threw a dark glance at Mendici.“I believe I gave orders that you and your men were to seek a warm belly and bed.Why are you here?”
Mendici crossed his arms over his massive chest.“Some of the men are wonderin’ about your latest orders.And the lenience you’ve shown the last batch of blue bloods we caught.”
“You’re questioning me?”The words were silky soft.Deadly.
“Me and the men, we don’t like it none.”Mendici scowled.He held up his mech hand.“You promised us revenge, for this.For those hell-spawned enclaves.We didn’t risk our lives, lose our friends, to break out of the enclaves for nothing.I want blood.Blue blood.I want to see all their heads on bleedin’ spikes.”He pointed a finger at her.“Why’s she so important?”
“Because she is a set of ears where we have none,” Mercury replied.
Another sneer.Mendici took a warning step forward, his hand slipping to his side.When it came up, he was holding a pistol.“There’s some as says you’re growin’ weak.Merciful.We’ve been talkin’, me and the boys—”
A pistol retorted.
A small red hole bloomed in the middle of his forehead and, mouth agape, he slowly toppled backward.The clatter of his steel-plated jerkin as he hit the ground jarred her nerves.
Lena scrambled backward, her spine hitting the wall.The room was still as everyone in it turned tentative gazes toward the woman with the smoking pistol.
Her ink-stained hands didn’t so much as shake as she lowered the weapon.Lips thinning, she gestured to Ingrid.“Get rid of him.See that the others understand what we do with those who speak of mutiny here.”
The brunette ground her cheroot out and rolled to her feet.Lena hadn’t realized until that moment how tall the woman was.Nearly a good inch on Mercury, with broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist.Only the lush curve of her breasts and hips saved her from a masculine figure.
Wrenching Mendici up by his arm, she threw him over her shoulder with the same amount of effort Will might expend.“You’re certain of this, Rosalind?”she asked.“The men liked him.”
