Of Silk and Steam
Authors: Bec McMaster
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Copyright © 2015 by Bec McMaster
Cover and internal design © 2015 by Sourcebooks, Inc.
Cover art by Gene Mollica
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The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.
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To James and Jess
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes…
—“She Walks in Beauty,” Lord Byron
Hyde Park, London, 1872
The first time Leo Barrons saw her, she’d just run a man through with her sword.
Peter Duvall gave a little gasp. Bluish blood dripped down his chest—the color that gave the blue bloods of the Echelon their name.
The young woman stepped back, jerking the tip of her rapier from Duvall’s chest. It had gone straight through the heart, one of the few ways to kill a blue blood. The duel had been serious then, or else they’d have used pistols, which were far less lethal in these circumstances. A blue blood could only be killed by decapitation or severe damage to the heart, so a shot had to be true.
Leo Barrons clapped a little as Duvall fell, echoing the rest of the crowd of young bucks, though he could barely take his eyes off her. He’d arrived late at the Field of Blood in Hyde Park, near Constitution Hill, with evening caressing the skyline of London. Just in time to catch the end of the matter.
Who was she?
Tall and slender, the woman had the proud bearing of a queen, but that wasn’t what stirred the blood in his veins. The steel manica protecting her sword arm, the long leather leggings, and the head-to-toe black of her tight velvet coat only highlighted the shining garnet red of her hair. It was captured in a chignon at the nape of her neck, although wisps of it clung to her serious face. The setting sun caught her hair on fire. Thick, dark lashes shuttered her eyes as she plucked a handkerchief from her second—a young lad, more boy than man—and with considerable aplomb wiped the blood from her blade.
She might have been standing alone in that clearing, deftly ignoring the excited chatter of the assorted young men congratulating her. There was a sense of aloofness about her, as if she existed outside this world and could never be touched.
And she’d just managed to defeat a blue blood in a duel, which was a talent in itself. Blue bloods were faster and stronger than humans, the craving virus that afflicted them giving them exceptional capabilities. How the devil had she managed it? Duvall was…
had
been
no slouch with a blade, though he was hardly a master.
One look. That was all it took. Leo wanted her.
“Who is she?” Leo murmured to the Duke of Malloryn’s heir, Auvry Cavill, without taking his eyes off her.
The faintest of smiles touched Auvry’s mouth. They’d been friends since Eton. “Why don’t you ask her? I wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise.”
A
dare
. “So I shall.”
He strode through the crowd, ignoring the young bucks of the aristocratic Echelon as much as she did. They were unimportant. She was all that mattered, all that he could see.
Some sense of wariness must have alerted her to him, because she looked up, brandy-brown eyes locking on him and piercing him straight through the chest. Or lower.
Handing her second the bloodied rag, she dismissed Leo with a glance and vanished into the grove of trees behind the field of grass.
If she thought that was the end of it, she was wrong. His steps accelerated, and he knew she heard autumn leaves crackling beneath his heels as he followed her. A glance over her shoulder and she stilled, as if realizing he had no intention of giving up.
“You’ve come to congratulate me?” A mocking tilt of one perfectly defined brow. She wore disdain almost as well as she did aloofness. No doubt she was quite used to men’s flattery. With that face and figure, she’d have to be.
“Congratulate you?” he asked. “Perhaps. You were lucky to win that with your form.”
Those eyes flashed fire, and shock pierced her expression. Just for a moment. “Lucky?”
He smiled on the inside. If he wanted to capture her attention, he had to be different from all the others who no doubt fawned at her feet. “You drop your shoulder too low on the lunge,” he said, gesturing to the offending body part, his gloved fingers brushing the puffed velvet sleeve of her coat. “It creates an opening, if your opponent is aware of it.”
She stared at him, then looked down to where his fingers stirred against her sleeve. “Fair warning. I shall take it into consideration if you’re ever my opponent.”
“I doubt we’ll be opponents.”
“Do you?” A slight challenge in the soft words.
This was not going the way he’d planned. “Perhaps I should introduce myself. Leo Barrons, the Duke of Caine’s heir.”
“I know who you are.” Cool, expressionless eyes. “Your arrogance precedes you. If you’ll excuse me?”
The moment she brushed past him, he turned. “Have I done something to insult you?”
That slim figure froze, her spine stiffening. She glanced over her shoulder at him, one hand resting lightly on the sword at her hip. “You have no idea who I am, do you?”
Evidently
. Leo frowned. He rarely paid attention to the young women who formed society. He’d been gifted with two thralls for his eighteenth birthday, and as a man of nineteen, he didn’t need any others. Their blood sustained him and he could not afford to keep more. And then, of course: “I’ve only recently returned from my Grand Tour of the Continent, and I doubt I would have forgotten you.”
“I shall take mercy on you this once, my lord,” she said, stepping closer and staring him in the eye with a defiance that stirred his blood. “Your father killed mine. You are the last man alive I would ever wish to converse with, let alone…whatever puts that gleam in your eye.”
“My father’s killed a lot of men.” Caine was utterly ruthless when he wished to be. Especially to his wife’s bastard son, though few people knew the truth of Leo’s birth. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
The woman leaned forward on her toes, her breath whispering against his skin. “Perhaps this will help?” The irises of her eyes bled to black, heated anger gleaming in their depths.
She
was
a
blue
blood
. “That’s impossible.”
Only the sons of certain blue bloods were allowed the blood rites when they turned fifteen. The Council of Dukes would never allow a female to be considered, which made her a rogue blue blood, infected by chance.
“I assure you it’s not.” She leaned away from him again, smiling. There was no warmth in that smile. “My name is Aramina Duvall.”
Another blow; a fist to the abdomen this time. Auvry had known exactly who she was, the bastard.
“I see you know the name,” she murmured.
The Duke of Casavian’s only daughter. The man had died but a month ago, leaving his affairs in disarray. Leo’s gaze shot through the slender trunks of the beech trees to Peter Duvall’s bloodied form. No doubt this had been a duel to settle, once and for all, who was heir to the duchy.
“
That
makes me the Duchess of Casavian,” she said. “Your father’s mortal enemy.”
Boldness stole over him. Leo caught her fingers as she turned to leave. “I don’t care.” Lifting them, he pressed his lips against the inside of her wrist, a shockingly bold deed, signaling his interest in her as a potential thrall.
“You should.” She tugged her hand free, furious heat stealing into her cheeks. Her eyes were black again, revealing the depths of her emotions. She must have been newly made a blue blood; it took years to master one’s emotions and control the depth of the predator within. “After all, I’m going to destroy you and your father. And if you ever touch me again, I shall remove the offending limb.”
Then she turned on her heel and strode away. Leaving him slightly breathless but no less determined.
The Chase
There are many facts that we know about that which we call the “craving virus.” That it originated in the Orient, used by the Imperial Family of the White Court to make themselves known as gods to their superstitious subjects; that the aristocrats of Spain, France, England, and Russia sought to infect themselves with the virus to promote their longevity, strength, speed, and increased healing rates; that the one unfortunate side effect—apart from the craving for blood—is the inevitable spiral of a blue blood into the Fade—that moment when the virus overwhelms a body, creating a creature obsessed by its obscene hungers: a vampire.
There is one final fact that until this day has been undeniable—that there is no cure for the craving virus. I do not claim otherwise. I believe there is no true cure for the virus, but the rate at which it colonizes a body can be controlled. As such, no longer shall the Fade—and the threat of vampires—be feared by the human populace of London. And it all begins with a vaccination…
—Transcript of journal entries by Sir Artemus Todd, published posthumously by Leopold Barrons in
Philosophical
Transactions
of
the
Royal
Society
, 1880
Venetian Gardens, London, 1880
Laughter echoed through the night, rough, bawdy, and high-pitched. In the distance, automatons played Brahms’s most recent string quartet. Cloaks swirled as dancers spun beneath an intricate rotunda carved in the rococo fashion. The enormous clock above the dome struck midnight, and the sky suddenly shattered into violent coruscations of fireworks.
It was time, then.
Lady Aramina slid the hood of her black velvet cape into place and slipped out of the crowd watching the dancing. It was an odd mix of both rich and poor, the brightly clothed and soberly hued, but one thing they all had in common here were masks. The Venetian Gardens were the place to be seen on a warm summer’s night, but anonymity was particularly desired during one of the Gardens’ notorious weekly masquerades.
Humans mingled with blue bloods, with none the wiser. Of course, she could tell which were which. The scent of blood in a young man’s wine betrayed what he was as surely as his pale skin. The pair of young women at his side were dressed in matching ball gowns, one with a collar of pearls and the other with a circlet of rubies around her throat. A blue-blood lord and his thralls, then. The collars indicated that they were under his protection and helped to hide the fine silvery scars at their throats, brought about by his small blood-letting knife. Any sign of scarring was considered vulgar in the world of the Echelon.
A burly man in a homespun cloak staggered into the pair of girls, reeling with the scent of gin. The blue blood’s smile slipped, and within seconds, steel flashed in the night. The man fell, blood staining his shirt from where the lord had run him through. The man’s friends, all of them built just as broadly—sailors perhaps, or dockworkers—hurried forward and begged apology, dragging the injured man out of the way. He’d live. Perhaps.
Either way, none of his friends would dare try to claim justice. The Venetian Gardens were on the outskirts of the walled heart of the City, where the blue bloods ruled London from their Ivory Tower, but close enough for fear to rule human hearts. If the same event had occurred outside the walls in the roughened boroughs of London, then perhaps the story would have been a different one.
For years, humans had been considered nothing more than cattle, and mechs—those men or women forced by accident or circumstance to replace limbs with metal—even less so. But recently the tide seemed to be turning. Whispers filled the city, those so-called “humanists” speaking of revolution, of throwing off the yoke of their blue-blood masters. One day those whispers would become shouts, and then the whole city would burn.
Dangerous thoughts to be having these days. The prince consort had ordered dozens of people cut down simply for murmuring such dissidence. There’d been a riot barely a day ago, with dozens of humans crushed beneath the steel Trojan cavalry the prince consort commanded.
Even here the rumble of discontent echoed, with one of the dockworkers glaring hatred at the lord as he escorted his thralls away. The injured man lay on the grass at his friends’ feet.
It’s not your concern
, Mina told herself, slipping a champagne glass from the tray of a passing servant drone. She had other business to attend to this night. Raising the bloodied liquid to her lips, she glanced around. Nobody was watching her.
An explosion of hot gold sparks rocked the skies, reflecting off the gold lace of her gown and the waters of the nearest canal. Mina walked unhurriedly, her cape fluttering around her and the filigreed gold mask she wore eclipsing half her face. Men glanced at her, but she ignored them, steadily making her way over several bridges toward the back of the pleasure gardens. Here, the trees held no lanterns and the walkways were lined with hedges. Distance blanketed the sound of music, leaving her able to hear crickets chirping in the long grass. A place for secret rendezvous and scandalous liaisons. A dangerous place for a woman alone.
In most circumstances.
A tall shape formed out of the shadows, his cloak swirling around his leather boots and a sharp-beaked black mask hiding his face. There was no hiding the confidence in his manner or bearing, but nothing of a swagger about his stride. He simply had the air of a man who knew exactly what his worth was.
“You look ravishing, my dear,” he murmured, taking Mina’s gloved hand and leaning over it. “As a blond.”
His lips didn’t quite touch her glove.
Mina’s gaze slid past his shoulder into the shadows that clung like dense fog. The wig in question itched like the devil. “Sir, you do me too much honor. I’m not here to be ravished.”
“No?” He straightened, a smile twitching behind his neatly groomed beard and moustache. “You’re right, my dear. Ravishment wouldn’t interest you. My apologies.”
Mina arched a cool brow, but his words, as polite as they were, stung a little. She had no choice but to prove herself made of ice. It was one of the few weapons she had at court, but it didn’t mean she felt nothing. “You’re playing a dangerous game.”
“Straight to the point.” His smile deepened. “Like a knife. I like that about you.”
“Goethe—”
He gave his head a tight little shake and her lips compressed. Too many here knew what that single name represented. The Duke of Goethe was one of the seven dukes who ruled London—or six dukes and one duchess, to be more precise. She knew, though, what the rest of them thought. The House of Casavian was virtually powerless on the Council of Dukes, just one more vote among many.
She wanted them to think that. “Sir—”
“Do you have the note?”
“I do.” Their eyes met. “I shouldn’t give it to you. I shouldn’t encourage this.”
“You’ve hardly been encouraging,” he replied blithely, holding out his hand.
And she had her orders. Mina’s lips thinned again as she reached into the valley between her breasts and produced a tiny waxed note from a pocket inside her corset. It was cool from her skin—just another difference between a human and a blue blood.
Goethe reached for it, but she held on just a fraction longer. “What you’re doing puts you at risk. If the prince consort finds out—”
“He’ll push me into a duel.” The pressure increased and Goethe came away with the note. “Be at peace, my lady. I know the consequences and I accept them.” He tucked the note somewhere inside his coat and then, with a faint bow of the head, strode past her.
Bloody arrogant man. Ten years ago this might have ended in a duel, but she suspected the prince consort was no longer firmly in command of his darker nature. Something every blue blood faced eventually—or would have without the recent discovery of the vaccination for the craving virus and its effects on a blue blood.
Drinking a vaccinated person’s blood could hold the Fade at bay, though it was too late, in her mind, for the prince consort. His madness was only escalating, his thirst dangerously uncontrollable.
No, the prince consort wouldn’t challenge Goethe to a duel if he realized the duke was courting his wife in secret.
He’d kill him.
Wind whispered through the nearest hedge, and a prickling sensation rose on the back of her neck. Mina tugged her velvet hood tighter around her face and kept walking. The scent of the breeze off the nearest canal left much to be desired. She took a deep breath and turned her face just as something blurred out of the hedges.
An arm wrapped around her throat, a knife coming up sharply. “Don’t move, lov—”
Mina caught her attacker’s wrist and used his own momentum to flip him over her shoulder. The heel of her slippered foot struck him a glancing blow to the throat, and then she wrenched his shoulder behind him, using her heel to roll him onto his front.
The effort left her breathing hard, warm darkness rolling through her vision as the hunger of the craving urged her to finish the task. He was bleeding. The rich, coppery scent left her a little dizzy and made her swallow.
Mina closed her eyes and let out a slow breath. For years she’d thought herself the only female blue blood in London. The Echelon had long feared a woman’s nature too sensitive to deal with such dark hungers, and she
had
to ensure she comported herself with decorum.
It wouldn’t do to let the hunger control her. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of being proven correct. And so she forced the hunger down ruthlessly, deep inside her heart of ice.
“I don’t have anything worth stealing,” Mina whispered, bending low and locking his shoulder just shy of dislocation. “And unfortunately for you, I am more than capable of defending myself when called upon. However, you didn’t know that. You expected to find a pigeon, ripe for the plucking. Now…” Another hard yank on his arm that made him grunt in pain. “If this had been another young woman, she would have been at your mercy. For her sake, should I be merciful?”
The man gathered his fingertips beneath him. “B-bugger y-you.” Then somehow he spun, rolling in the direction of his trapped arm to free it and shoving her out of the way. A boot lashed out at her but Mina darted to avoid it, cursing her skirts. As the man found his knife and rolled to his feet, she triggered the small pistol strapped to her wrist and it slid into her palm.
“Drop it.” When his hand clenched on the knife, she took a step forward. “You move too fast to be human, which makes me assume you’re a blue blood, though you don’t have the look of an aristocrat. A rogue blue blood, then. Which makes you dangerous.”
A flash of white teeth. “You have no idea, Duchess.”
That was the problem with being one of the two known female blue bloods in London—for she too had moved too fast to be human. “I do wish you hadn’t said that. I’ll only ask this once more: drop the knife. I’m using firebolt bullets, built to explode on impact, and I assure you, I won’t miss.”
With the chemical components in the firebolts, Mina wouldn’t need to be particularly lucky. She’d seen them take a shark-sized chunk out of a man’s chest.
Frustration gleamed in the man’s dark eyes, but he dropped the knife. Then his gaze flickered over her shoulder. Something behind her.
Mina wasted no time, bringing the flank of the pistol down sharply across her attacker’s forehead. He fell unconscious at her feet, just as she jerked the pistol up and stared through the sights at the newcomer.
A tall man coalesced out of the darkness as if he’d been made for shadows. He moved with a dangerous, deadly grace that spoke of speed, of strength…of restrained violence. The predator in her recognized another predator. Her heart stirred, a restless sensation sinking through her skin.
The world faded around her as she focused the pistol directly between the eyes of the black velvet mask he wore. He was tall, but the cloak obscured most of his body. It didn’t, however, disguise the broadness of his shoulders or the lean flash of his thighs. A man in his prime.
“Stay back,” she warned.
The black-clad stranger held his hands up in a gesture of surrender, a dangerous smile curling over half of his mouth. “I meant only to offer assistance—before I realized you had matters well in hand. I saw him shadowing you from the rotunda.”
That smile seemed hauntingly familiar, and his clothes were considerably richer than those on the man at her feet. “Ruffians often work in pairs.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why should I trust you?”
The smile widened. He looked almost piratical now as he lifted a hand to the stark velvet mask and slowly removed it, revealing a pair of eyes that were almost black in the night. Eyes she knew only too well and a dangling ruby at his ear.
“Because if I wanted you dead, Mina, I would have done it a long time ago.”
* * *
Only he dared call her Mina.
The brief hint of shock in her brown eyes was almost worth it as Leo lowered the mask.
Eight years of simmering tension lingered between them, since he’d made that reckless decision to pursue her. She’d hardly been welcoming, throwing the feud in his face at every chance as though to protect herself, but their encounters fascinated him in a way he’d never experienced with another female.
You
just
can’t help yourself, can you?
“Barrons,” she said flatly, her fingers unconsciously clenching the butt of the pistol. “I hardly expected you to play hero.”
“Ah, but then you don’t know me well enough to predict such a thing.”
The filigreed gold mask hid most of her features, but he was certain that he saw a hint of wariness in her eyes. The duchess didn’t understand his motives; she never had. And he fully intended to keep it that way.
“I thought you were in Saint Petersburg, cementing the Russian alliance.”
“I was. The treaty was signed three days ago. I arrived home by dirigible this morning. Are you going to lower the pistol?”
“Should I?”
The frigidity of her voice made him smile. She didn’t like being caught off guard, even for a second. Only when she thought she was in control did she allow herself to soften, just a little. He was curious to find out if there was more softness beneath the steel, having seen just a hint of fire beneath the ice. It was the only thing that had sustained his hope during the long years of coming up against that frost.