Page 6 of Til Death Duke Us Part
The greater good being reviving Victor’s family’s fortune.
The little gutter rat girl would possibly, though, prove useful if she kept her mouth shut and caused him no trouble. She had more knowledge of alchemists than he did, and considering the number of secrets that lot kept, he’d welcome any insider perspective.
She might try to do him some harm, of course. Shut him up in this tunnel, for instance. But if he could find her greatest fear, then a single glamour would disarm her. The wall and the fog had slowed her down.
He ambled casually down the hallway. Doors began to appear on either side a little farther ahead, and he was going to open every damn one if he had to. But until then, he’d go fishing.
“I hope it doesn't get any darker.” He dropped the sentence into the air like the dynamite it was. Or perhaps it was more like a torch probing into the dark crevices of her psyche. Hopefully she did not catch on to what he was doing.
She snorted. “Scared of the dark, are you? Naturally. I’m not surprised. A man like you is no better than a child.”
That stopped him cold. “Child?” The termagant! She’d given him sass instead of secrets! “I am four and thirty.”
She waved away his age as if it were of no more consequence than a gnat. “Do you dress yourself, your grace?”
“Of course not. I have a valet for that.” He used to. Now he dressed himself, but one must keep up appearances, even with grave digging urchins.
“Do you cook your own food or procure it from market?”
“Never in my life.” His old housekeeper took pity on him and brought him a basket of provisions once a week. Humiliating. “I’ve servants for that. A cook.” He could not see her face, but he imagined it drawing into a satisfied sneer.
“Who”—she fluttered her lashes—“your grace, neither dresses themselves nor feeds themselves nor knows how to obtain their own necessities?” She bounced up on tiptoe and pressed her lips so close to his ear, they almost touched. Her breath, hot and humiliating, spilled over the skin of his neck. “You are naught but a squalling, wriggling, helpless babe.” A jeer. A taunt.
His blood boiled, and he curled his hands into palm-cutting fists. But he would not bite at her bait. “There’s doors up ahead.” They were arched and appeared to be made of some sort of copper or bronze. No… each door was made of a different metal, but each possessed a dim metallic sheen in the soft, glowing fairy light.
“That’s the tombs.” Her heat melted away as she ran ahead to the first door. She rested her hand on it. “Silver, by the look of it.” She ran to the next door. “Copper this one, I think.”
“Do the tomb doors correlate to the metals the alchemist preferred during his life?”
Her eyes narrowed, then her face cleared of all expression, and she leaned a shoulder against the marble wall. “I’ve no idea. I’m surprised you don’t know. Whoever told you about the burial tradition has loose lips.”
Burial tradition? Damned secretive alchemists.
“Of course I know.” He proceeded carefully. “I’m merely checking that you do. I can’t let family secrets slip.”
She kept her mouth locked tight. Pink thinning, a little speck of dirt like a mole above one corner of her lips.
He’d have to be a bit more cunning. He should have been more cunning before setting out this evening. He should have armed himself with a pistol. Then he could have left her bleeding in a grave she’d dug herself.
He shifted from foot to foot. Cunning didn’t have to mean murderous. He could get rid of her without riddling her body with lead.
He rolled a hand at the wrist. “It’s only… my sister’s husband thinks they’ve got the… tradition wrong. They live in Bristol, and he asked me to check on his father’s grave. To ensure the… tradition was carried out properly.” He snorted. “Me? Not know the tradition? I was honored when my dear brother-in-law told me. He trusts me, you see.” He held his palms up, as if offering her his honor on a silver platter.
And she melted a little, some of her suspicion draining away. “That can be upsetting. My own father has written up explicit instructions on which prototype is to be buried with him.” She clicked her tongue. “What a waste. It could help clean water for so many, and it could make our family a fortune. But he can’t quite get it right… or at least he hadn’t the last time I saw him. He may have changed his instructions by now. If he’s figured out the device. That’s the point, yes? Gives them something to do after death, a challenge to conquer in that great forge in the bowels of the earth.”
Prototype. A fortune. Her father, too… They all did it. All the damned alchemists buried themselves with valuable, unfinished prototypes of their inventions. Miserly bastards. Stealing those prototypes was a… well, it was practically a social good. He’d be a hero. Clean water for everyone!
And full coffers for him.
“Open the door,” he said.
“What?” Her gaze, sharp now, whipped to him.
“The tomb. Open it.”
“But is it your brother-in-law’s father’s tomb?”
He didn’t need a specific tomb anymore. He needed any tomb. They were all gold mines of half-completed inventions. “It doesn’t matter. Hell, I’ll open it.” He reached for a door handle, a lock, a mechanism of some sort. Found nothing but smooth silver. “How does it open?”
