My Lady Quicksilver (34 page)

If the mechs were here, they’d know him on sight. They wouldn’t, however, recognize the pair of Nighthawks unless he did something to draw attention to them. Lynch glanced away, focusing on the liveried servants that mingled with the crowd. None of them looked as though they’d led a hard life and he could see no sign of a distinctive mech limb anywhere.

“Not the servants,” she murmured. “These men are from the enclaves. There’s no way they could blend in enough for the Echelon to mistake them.”

She was right. They’d be somewhere deep within the bowels of the building, perhaps posing as workmen behind the scenes or maintenance workers.

A blue blood minced past with a pale young woman on a leash, her gaze downcast and a thin, gauzy white robe revealing inches of decadent skin. Rosa’s eyes hardened and Lynch steered her away with a hand to the small of her back. One glance told him she knew exactly what he was doing; that diamond-sharp gaze scored him and for a moment he felt a flush of shame, as though by his very complicity, he himself had put the golden shackle around the young blood slave’s throat.

“There’s nothing I can do about it,” he told her. “Nor you.”

“So we simply ignore it?”

Swallowing her champagne, she slammed the glass flute down on the tray of a passing servant drone and jerked away from his touch.

“
We
keep our minds on the business at hand.” He grabbed her elbow in a hard grip and Rosa stilled, her back rigid with barely suppressed fury. Lynch sighed under his breath and stepped closer, lowering his face close to her ear. “I have no influence here. I’m as much an outsider as you are, Rosa.”

One look at Rosa’s face, at those implacable black eyes told him she wasn’t swayed. “If you could,
would
you help her?”

Something about the stillness of her figure told him the answer was deadly important to her. She looked right through him, as though seeking to bare his soul, to find something inside him that she desperately needed to find.

“Do you have to ask?” His hand gentled on her arm. Hell, he couldn’t believe what he was thinking, his mind branded with shock. She’d admitted her brother was a humanist, but her own thoughts on the matter were dangerously revealing. “Rosa, you need to keep such thoughts close, especially here. If anyone overhears…”

Rosa sucked in a sharp breath, her entire body quivering beneath his touch. “They would think I had humanist tendencies. Perhaps I should say something. Perhaps this eternal damned silence—this hold-your-tongue-or-die attitude is what keeps women like that in shackles. This lack of a voice—it’s the very reason we are here. The reason there is a war going on, played out in secret beneath the Echelon’s very noses.”

She was shaking so violently he could barely contain her. Darting a look over his shoulder, he pressed her against the wall, using his body to screen hers. For once, he was relieved at the oppressive laughter and gossip nearby, for it kept Rosa’s damning words from common ears.

Their eyes met. She was angry and he didn’t quite understand.

“If I said something—”

“Then you would die, and I with you,” he said curtly.

Rosa’s lips parted, her eyes widening. He watched thoughts racing in rapid emotion across her face, like the shadow of cloud cover over the ground.

“They would have to go through me first,” he explained. “But I would die, and you too, and perhaps there would be some to cry ‘martyr,’ but in the end it wouldn’t matter. Nothing would change. That girl will go home with her collar and leash, and her master will take as much blood from her as he desires.” The back of his gloved fingers trailed over her jaw. She looked so lost, so crushed. “That is why I must stop these humanists, these mechs. They will bring war and death down upon the Echelon, but they will trample the innocent in their path just as much as the enemy. If we don’t find them, theirs will be a hollow victory, earning them nothing but hate and fear. And when the Echelon fear something, they destroy it.”

She quivered, her lashes drifting shut—but not before he saw the diamond glimmer of a tear in her eye.

“Thousands will die,” he said. “You know I’m hunting humanists, but the Echelon shall not be as discreet. They’ll simply round up whoever they can and execute them all until they get what they want.”

“That’s not true,” she whispered hoarsely. “There has to be a way. We have to have some way to fight—”

His mouth tasted like ash, his worst fears springing to life.
We
… She’d named herself amongst them as surely as if she’d claimed it directly to his face. Doubt assailed him—a moment where he wondered just how deeply she was involved, how much trouble a spy in the Nighthawks could cause.

But she couldn’t feign everything, could she? If she was a humanist, then she never would have kissed him, never would have…

Mercury
did
.

That was different. That was lust, a burning brand between them. A flickering match thrown on a puddle of oil. Whatever lay between he and Rosa, it was more than that.

Or it could have been, if he let it.

Still, his thumb stroked over her chin, doubt crippling him. He had to know. Was this real, or was she the greatest actress to ever grace a stage?

He took her mouth, capturing a gasp. Rosa’s hands fisted in his coat instantly, her body pressing against his as she kissed him. This was madness to take such liberties here. The corner was in shadows, weak golden light dripping down the red and white wallpaper throughout the foyer, but he knew this would be noticed and remarked upon.

Still…the taste of her set the darkness roaring inside. A need to claim, to take her as his. Damn her. His hand fisted in the base of her elegant chignon. He was losing himself in her, no matter what he promised himself.

Just once he cursed duty and pushed it aside. Fuck the Council. The prince consort could go to hell. He wanted this—he wanted her, with all his heart. A lifetime would never be enough.

And he only had one more night.

Lynch dragged in a shuddering gasp, breathing hard against her mouth. With barely an inch between them, he could see the wild hunger gleaming in her eyes. It tempted him but he fought it, licking the taste of her from his lips. He could lose himself here, lose himself in her, but if he did, if he took her home and let the mechs do whatever they wanted, then he knew that no matter how frantically he kissed her, he would hear the clock ticking slowly in the background.

“I need you to know something,” he breathed, fingers trembling on her jaw. “No matter what happens…I need you to know.”

“What?” She clutched at his coat as if some sense of premonition shivered through her.

“I lied when I said that I wasn’t sure what I felt for Annabelle. I lied when I said that I didn’t once think of revenge,” he said roughly. “I did. Losing her hurt a great deal, so much so that I swore I’d never let myself feel that way again.” Lynch’s gaze cut to hers, forcing her to meet his eyes, no matter how much she stiffened. He didn’t care if she was afraid of this; he needed her to know, before it was too late. “You make me forget the hurt. You make me wish that there were more days ahead of me. So that we could—”

Rosa put her finger to his lips, stilling the flow of words. Horror rounded her eyes. “No,” she whispered. “No, you barely
know
me.” Hysteria laced the last two words.

“I know you’re frightened—”

“You don’t know anything!” She pushed past, pressing her gloved fingers to her lips.

Lynch followed, hard on her heels, ignoring the sudden scattering of curious debutantes. They couldn’t say this here. It was too crowded, every ear and eye suddenly turning their way.

He caught her wrist, his fingers locking around something hard. Rosa spun like a scalded cat, yanking at his grip and clutching her hand to her chest. Lynch’s fingers rubbed slowly together, as if his mind sought to assimilate the sensation of that touch.

Hard.

Like iron.

She froze like a trapped animal, a vicious, desperate look on her face. “And now,
me
lord
Nighthawk
? Do you still feel that way now?”

The noise and laughter around him drained away, the world narrowing in on the woman in front of him as she stared at him, almost daring him. He barely saw it. Everything in him turned to lead, darkness obliterating his vision as the hunger surged.

No. It couldn’t be.

Me
lord
Nighthawk…

As if a veil had been lifted, everything he knew about her—everything she’d explained away so well—crashed together. Her hands—
don’t touch my hands
—the pistol she carried, and the way she could pick a lock with barely a thought.
No!
He’d seen her hand, seen Mercury in the park while Rosa sat in the carriage beside him… Or had he? The truth hit him like a bucket of icy water, washing away the willful blindness, making him feel sick at the deception. The way she’d fooled him and so easily too.

Or perhaps, if he were honest, he had let himself be fooled.

“Mercury,” he whispered, and realized that she had been right.

He knew her not at all.

Twenty-two

Rosalind panicked.

What had she done? The look in his eyes—
oh
God, his eyes
—like little black pinpricks of blazing fury. But she couldn’t cope, couldn’t face the oppressive weight of his declarations without ruining it. She had to. Before he said something she wouldn’t be able to forget. Before the sickening bite of her own secrets strangled her with guilt.

Rosalind couldn’t face him anymore. Couldn’t stomach the look on his face, as if she’d punched him in the chest with a knife. Betrayal. That’s what she saw and it hurt her so much she couldn’t breathe.

Heart thundering in her ears, she turned and ran toward the staircase. All around her blue bloods pressed close in their powdered wigs and extravagant velvets.

Rosalind sucked back a sob, the world blurring around her in a golden haze of melted candlelight. Why the devil hadn’t she kept her mouth shut? Let him profess his undying love for her; it meant nothing. It shouldn’t.

Why had she blurted out the truth?

She’d wanted him to know
. So he wouldn’t love her anymore. So he wouldn’t torture her with these false declarations. So she’d never have to see him again, never feel the aching pain of her secret gnawing like a tumor within her. Never let herself wish for something she couldn’t have…

This felt like a nightmare. The stairs were endless, as if no matter how hard she ran they would never end. She kept waiting for a hand to yank at her skirts, for him to grab her by the shoulder and wrench her to her knees. Finally! The top. She pushed into a pair of blue bloods and came to a staggering halt, trapped by the crowd.
Where
was
he
? Why hadn’t he grabbed her yet?

Rosalind risked a glance. Her eyes met Lynch’s, dark brown clashing with icy gray and something in her chest constricted at the way he stood at the bottom of the steps, staring at her as if she’d ripped his heart out and fled with it.

Her pulse thundered raggedly in her ears. As if he shared the same nightmare, he shook his head, shaking off the spell. The expression on his face hardened and something hurt deep within her at the sight of it.

Why? This is what you wanted!

His first step was slow, deliberate. Light gleamed in the polished shine of his boots, the blackness of his coat absorbing every shadow. Somehow the crowd gave way to him as though sensing the danger that prowled within its midst.

Rosalind’s lungs caught until she could barely breathe. Panic flared. She took a step back and Lynch’s gaze flattened. He was furious. Beyond furious. Sudden terror made her turn around in a swish of skirts and press into the crowd.

An elegant little bell rang and the doors to the theatre opened. Laughter echoed, so rough and raucous against her skin that she felt as if it rubbed her raw. The swarm of the crowd pressed through the doors, heading for their seats, and she was dragged along in the tide, trapped by the current of people. Buffeted on all sides, panicked, almost blind to the world around her, she shoved and pushed her way through, not caring what they thought anymore. Lynch was the danger. If he got his hands on her…

She sucked in a sharp breath. Nearly clear of the crowd. Just three more steps and then she was going to grab a handful of her skirts and flee across the blood-red carpets for the exit.

Two steps. One. A hard hand gripped her elbow, the other settling on her waist. She was shoved free of the crowd, then the grip on her tightened.

Rosalind stiffened.

“Don’t,” Lynch murmured, leaning close to her ear. His hard body pressed against her back, driving her against the wall.

Rosalind spun, the bodice knife clutched in her gloved fingers. Lynch pressed her against the velvet embossed wallpaper, examining the crowd around them with a dangerous glare. As if he felt her gaze on his face, he slowly looked at her.

“Are you going to use it?” That voice… So cold.

“Use what?” she whispered, unable to break the hold of his gaze.
I’m sorry
.

“The knife,” he said, enunciating each word with a diamond edge. He let her go, his nostrils flaring and his gaze black with fury. “Go on. Use it.” His arms dropped to his sides, presenting the vulnerable expanse of his abdomen and chest.

Rosalind stared at him. She had barely realized what she’d done; drawing the blade was always her first instinct. Only there was nothing to fight here. She couldn’t knife the brutal crush of feeling in her chest, the weight that made her feel like she was slowly drowning. Her fingers opened nervelessly and the knife fell to the floor.

If anything, his gaze narrowed further.

Then he was hauling her toward the next staircase—the one that led to the boxes. Trapped by the ruthless steel of his grip, Rosalind could do nothing but stumble along in his wake. Her mind was blank. No clever escape routes, no witty rejoinder. She was numb all the way through.