My Lady Quicksilver (6 page)

“Aye.” Garrett grinned. “That brutal sense of honesty is why you keep a lonely bed.”

Lynch scraped a weary hand over the stubble on his jaw. That hadn’t always been the case. “It could have something to do with the fact I’ve not
been
to bed for two…possibly three days.” He considered it. “Definitely three.”

“I’ll have some coffee and blood sent up. And a plate of biscuits for the lady.”

Lynch gave an abrupt shake of the head. “Don’t bother. She’s not staying. Blood however…blood would be much appreciated.”

Climbing the stairs, he paced toward his study on cat-silent feet. All the better to observe. The door to his secretary’s study cracked open an inch. The scent of her was much stronger here. The heavy overlaying perfume of lemon verbena and linen lingered in the air. Some scent she’d dabbed on her wrists and throat he imagined.

The narrow slice of door presented him with a view of dark blue skirts, the bustle hooked up in a style fashionable almost five years ago. A thick velvet wrap the color of midnight covered slim shoulders and her hat disguised her features. He couldn’t tell whether she was young or old, pretty or plain.

He
could
tell, however, that she was examining the enormous map of London that covered the far wall. Red pins dotted the map, carving out a large swathe of East London and red string ran between each pin, creating an incomprehensible spider web for those who didn’t know what it meant—sightings of Mercury that he’d been able to verify or the location of several humanists he’d uncovered. Some he’d left in place. It was enough to know who they were. He had larger prey to catch.

Lynch’s hand slid inside his waistcoat pocket and the small scrap of leather inside. No perfume there. His fingers had long since rubbed away any trace of scent. But close his eyes and it would be a simple matter to recall the hot scent of
her
, laced with the burning smell of iron slag in the enclaves and the choking pall of coal. Mercury wore no perfume. His cock throbbed at the thought and Lynch ground his teeth together.
Devil
take
her
.

The woman in his study ran her fingers along the map, the jaunty hat swiveling to survey the room. Searching for something? Or merely bored? He hadn’t asked how long she’d been waiting, though since it was but morning, it couldn’t have been too long. Nobody was allowed out at night between the hours of nine and six during martial law.

Easing the door open, Lynch slipped inside without a sound. The woman froze, as if she sensed him immediately. Her head tilted to the side, revealing the fine line of her pale jaw and a pair of rosy lips. From the prickling uneasiness in her stance and the stiffening between her shoulder blades, she hadn’t been around a blue blood often. No doubt she was one of the working class, her ears full of rumors and superstitions about how a blue blood lusted for blood, their hungers insatiable. Or how the Echelon kept factories filled with human slaves.

“Sir Jasper.” She turned slowly, the light striking over her fine features. Eyes the color of polished obsidian met his. Lynch stopped in his tracks. She was just past the first blush of youth, but…no…He looked closer. Her tip-tilted nose and fragile features gave the impression that she was younger than she was. Her sense of poise told another story.

Thirty perhaps.

Lynch raked his gaze over her. Skin like porcelain, so pale and creamy it almost glowed in the soft dawn light through the windows. Her eyebrows were coppery wings, arching delightfully as she examined him back. He couldn’t see her hair for the hat and netting, but he imagined it was the same fierce copper of her brows. She was slender enough through the torso that her heavy skirts swamped her and her hands were hidden by kid-leather gloves that she hadn’t bothered to remove, as etiquette demanded. To present the wrists or the throat to a blue blood was tantamount to exposing a breast.

So she did have some experience with blue bloods. Interesting. Lynch had to amend his previous assessment of her. She was wary enough that the experience had not been a good one, he suspected.

“How do you do?” she asked, pasting a smile on her rosy lips and offering him her right hand.

Lynch stared at it. “Let us get to the point, Miss—?”

“Mrs. Marberry.” Slight emphasis on the first word.

“Married?”

“A widow.”

He frowned. “I’m afraid your services are not required. There was a mix-up with the advertisement. The position has already been filled.” His eye caught a letter on the desk, the address written in gold ink. From the Council of Dukes then. He started toward it. “Garrett will see you to the—”

“Obviously not by a woman,” she replied tartly. “With their weak constitutions and all.”

Lynch stopped and looked at her. She’d overheard him in the entry. Cool brown eyes met his. A challenge. If she thought he would be embarrassed, then she didn’t know him very well.

Opening her reticule, she tugged out a sheaf of papers. “I have references from my last two places of employ. I worked for Lord Hamilton in the War Office, and then for Lady Shipton as her personal secretary. I assure you”—her voice became a drawl—“after that, nothing could shock me or turn my stomach.”

Lynch crossed his arms over his chest. He’d dealt with the Shipton case. A jealous blue blood husband and an adulterous consort whose predilections had surprised even him. He’d thought he’d seen it all by now. “You are aware that both your previous employees are dead?”

“Not by my hand, I assure you.”

A bold piece. He straightened in interest. “I meant that I would be unable to check your references.”

“Let me be bold…I assume that is your preference anyway?”

Lynch gave a brisk nod. She was observant at least.

“My previous employers are dead, as you noted, which means I have nothing but two pieces of paper to prove my aptitude for employment. This leaves me in somewhat of a quandary. I need to earn a respectable living, Sir Jasper. I have a brother…” And here she faltered, showing perhaps the first lack of composure. “He’s young. And assorting with certain types of people I don’t approve of. I should like to let an apartment in the city, away from these influences, but at the moment I am unable.”

She needed a steady job and a good wage. Lynch’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not unmoved,” he told her, leaning his hip against the desk. “But I’ve had five secretaries in the last three months. My work involves certain grisly details and long hours, and nobody seems able to keep up with me. I’ve spent more time in the past three months training new secretaries than working, and I haven’t the inclination to waste any more of it.”

Mrs. Marberry squared her shoulders. “I’m aware of that. Garrett informed me of the nature of the job. He said you would work me into the ground, forgetting human needs such as sustenance and sleep, squire me all around the city to take your notes and examine dead bodies. You told your last secretary to hold someone’s head, so you could examine the angle of the cut that decapitated the body and that was why they resigned.”

For a moment Lynch was taken aback. “And you’re still here?”

“It’s all correct then?”

“There are some matters I believe he forgot to mention, but mostly yes. The men call me ‘that uncompromising bastard,’ though they’re not aware that I know that. It’s not the worst thing I’ve been called. Still want the job?”

“Sir Jasper.” Mrs. Marberry leaned toward him, completely unaware of the fact that her bodice gaped. He, however, noticed everything. Smooth skin, the veins tracing their way beneath her flesh, blue and pulsing with blood. Shifting slightly, Lynch glanced away. She would be trouble. He shouldn’t hire her. With her pretty little mouth and stubborn chin, the men would be all over her.

“You can’t frighten me nor can you drive me away,” she said. “You need someone who’s not afraid of you.”

Lynch’s gaze locked on hers. Her eyes were truly fascinating—dark pools that seemed to hint at infinite depths. He wondered briefly if they echoed her personality; were there hidden depths there too? Then he shook the thought off as foolish. One had only to observe to understand the true measure of a man—or a woman. He’d not met one yet whom he’d been unable to decipher down to the last iota of their soul. People were predictable. “And that person is you?”

She didn’t look away. Instead, she looked right through him, as though she could see inside him. Not once had he been on the receiving end of a stare like that. “That person is me.”

By gods, she would be trouble. And yet he was strangely tempted. The girl had gumption, glaring at him as if daring him to employ her. Not even a hint of the vapors, though she was clever enough to be wary. He was what he was, after all.

Perhaps she
could
manage to deal with him? Perhaps she might last longer than a week, unlike the previous Mrs. Eltham, she of the decapitated-head incident.

Mrs. Marberry glanced away, her fathomless eyes hidden beneath thick, dark lashes. Lynch’s breath caught. Devil a bit.

“You’re too pretty,” he growled.

“I beg your pardon?”

Lynch gestured at her, striding away from the desk. “This…” He made a curving motion in the air to indicate her. “This won’t work. I hire ugly women. Ones with moustaches. Ones my men wouldn’t look twice at.”

“I hardly think I’m the sort of woman to inspire riots in your guild quarters.”

“That’s because you’re a woman,” he said. “We’re speaking of four hundred and fifty men I work into the ground. They barely have time to speak to women and now you want me to place a pretty one in the middle of them all?”

Her gaze hardened. “Should I be concerned?”

“Concerned?” Then he realized she was speaking of assault. “Good God, no. They wouldn’t dare. I’d have them eviscerated. And they know it.”

“Then your objection stems from the fact you think I’d be a distraction?”

A distraction? A damned catastrophe. Lynch scowled, turning toward the window with ground-eating strides. He’d never been a man to stand still for long. It helped him to think. “I
know
you’d be a distraction.”

“But shouldn’t I be at your side at all times?” she asked, following him in a swish of skirts and perfume. “I daresay your men wouldn’t dare risk such foolery in front of you.”

“They wouldn’t.”

Lynch spun on his heel and found her in his path. Acres and acres of navy skirts with that tight cinched in waist and…the breasts. The dress was modest, but at his great height, he couldn’t help that the angle gave him a certain view.

Perhaps
I
wasn’t speaking of the men?

Heat tightened in his abdomen and he clasped his hands behind his back. Damn her, this would be a mistake. He had a thousand things to think of and a revolutionary leader to find. He couldn’t afford to have a buxom, determined redhead under his nose. Especially one who smelled like lemons and soft, freshly laundered sheets.

The thought conjured to mind the image of her upon his own sheets, that pale, flawless skin laid bare for his inspection. Her pretty little mouth parted in a gasp as he ground his hips down upon hers.

Lynch’s cock stirred, reminding him of what it felt like to be a man. Damn it. She was already affecting him. This should be evidence that this would be a bad idea.

But he needed a secretary. One who wasn’t scared of him.

A faint hint of color rose in Mrs. Marberry’s cheeks but she refused to look away. He was staring, he realized.

“Are you going to employ me or not?” she asked.

Instinct told him to say no. But as he opened his mouth, the words changed. “Yes,” he found himself saying. “On a trial basis. I’m desperate.”

“And a charmer,” she noted with an arched brow. A little smile toyed over her lips. Relief. “I shall have to watch myself with you, I see.”

I
shall
have
to
watch
myself
.

After the disastrous encounter with Mercury and now this, it was becoming clear that he needed a woman to take the edge off. Mercury had done this to him, left him on edge, and now his body hungered for release.

“What’s your given name?” he asked bluntly.

“That’s highly informal, sir.”

“You’ll find I rarely bother with formalities. I’m not going to bark ‘Mrs. Marberry’ whenever I want you. It’s a mouthful.”

A slight hesitation. “Rosa,” she said, her full lips forming the word softly. “My name is Rosa. And you?”

He’d already turned toward the desk, determined to get away from that lingering scent. “Me?”

“What should I call you?”

“Sir Jasper will be perfectly fine.”

***

Lynch gave her his back and Rosalind finally had a chance to take as deep a breath as she could in the unfamiliar corset. The other night hadn’t done him justice, with the darkness and the red glow of the enclaves. She’d realized then his great height and cold, penetrating stare. They said fully grown men broke into confessions when he looked at them and women quivered at the knees.

What she hadn’t expected to find was a coldly handsome man, his dark hair cropped neatly and raked back out of his face with an impatient gesture. His jaw was darkened with stubble and a pinched line swept his dark brows together in what seemed a permanent frown.

Rosalind examined him, little goose bumps prickling over her skin. The other night had left its mark on her body. She’d long since thought herself impervious to men, especially dangerous ones, but she’d dismissed Lynch as merely another blue blood and that had been foolish.

Her gaze slid over his broad shoulders as he clasped his hands behind his back. Shoulders she’d dug her nails into, her lips caressing the smooth skin of his throat. A little flutter of excitement started low in her belly, tempting her. She sucked in a breath, her fingernails digging into her palms. This was what she hadn’t dared admit to her brother or Ingrid. Lynch might be attracted to Mercury against his will, but the truth was a delicious irony, for she too had been caught in the trap.

Rosalind stole a calculating glance at the room as she took a step forward. Tonight, she’d be able to recall almost every little detail. Her gaze slid to the wall with that damning map. She wasn’t stupid. She knew what all those little pins meant, because they were the location of dozens of humanists hidden in the general populace. Some had been discovered and arrested, but a great deal of those pins were humanists who were blissfully unaware that their identity had been compromised.