Of Silk and Steam (32 page)

“And have you figured it out?”

“I think I’m getting there.” Leo pushed himself to his feet, sliding his hands over her hips. “These last few days have cost me everything—power, position, respect…the man that I called a father. Everything that I’ve spent years working to achieve, all gone. I kept thinking that if there was one thing I couldn’t bear to lose, it would be you, and the promise of what I hoped we had, but I didn’t know if you felt the same.

“I want what Blade has. What Will has. I want that, all of that. I want to hold my daughter in my arms and kiss her mother on the cheek. I want a family of my own to make up for the one that I’ve never had, and when I picture that, it’s your face I see. My wife, that’s what I want. But most of all, I would like to hear you say those words one more time.”

“Say what?” Her heart was starting to beat a little faster now, full of certainty.

“That you love me,” he replied, stepping closer, body to body. His hands whispered over her cheeks, tipping her face up to his. “It’s the one thing that makes sense in all of this. It’s the one thing that makes me feel like I haven’t lost anything at all. Or nothing of importance.” His lips brushed hers. “Right now, I feel like I’ve won the world.”

Her heart swelled a little in her chest and she rested her hands on his, still shy enough that she was grateful for the darkness. “I love you.”

“Again.”

“I love you.” This time she nipped his lip playfully, wrapping her arms around his neck and drawing him against her.

“Again,” he growled.

“Leo!” She slapped his chest and he laughed, then leaned down to plant a toe-curling kiss on her passion-bruised mouth.

“You are the most amazing woman I’ve ever met.” A kiss against her cheek now, breathing the words into her ear. “But now…”

“Now?”

“We’d best be getting back. Or Blade will be taking all of the credit for this, no doubt.”

Three days later…

Leo paced through the study, his hands clasped behind his back as he waited. The clock ticked steadily in the stuffy silence of the room, and an enormous tiger’s head mounted on the wall stared back at him through button eyes. Someone had half drawn the heavy velvet drapes, so that the room seemed even smaller, and he had to avoid several ornate mahogany chairs with their studded red leather seats. The chessboard was set out between two stuffed armchairs, the game frozen in motion, as if merely waiting for its players to return.

He avoided the chess game for a good quarter hour, then stopped in front of it. He’d been in check last he looked, but someone had moved one of his pawns, as if trying to draw out the game.

Devil take him, the bastard was actually withdrawing, offering him a chance to pursue this. Leo frowned, his fingers itching toward his own black knight. He could see the strategy behind it, see how in eight moves he could get himself out of trouble if he did something now.

Except he never had any intention of making that move. He was done with the game and what it represented. Caine could sit here and rot, staring at that chessboard and waiting for him to return so that they could finally resume play. A wait in vain. The only reason he was here was because the queen had requested it of him.

Lips thinning, he turned away, flipping the drapes open to let some bloody light into the room.

The door opened behind him. Leo didn’t turn, but he could feel that cool, rational gaze burning over the back of his neck.

“Havers said you had called,” Caine said. “Imagine my surprise.”

“I’m only here to deliver a message,” Leo replied.

A harsh laugh. “Of course. What is it?”

He tugged the envelope from within his coat. “How should I bloody know? The queen asked me to deliver it personally.”

Caine broke the seal and read it. “I’m to be reinstated as a councilor. Along with…” His eyebrows shot up into his hairline.

“Mina, Lynch, Malloryn, Rosalind Lynch, Sir Gideon Scott…and the Devil of Whitechapel,” Leo added with a nasty smile. “Her Highness feels that more classes require representation on the Council.” He bowed. “Now if you’ll excuse me?”

“Is that all you came to say?”

Leo paused. “By the way, I’m getting married. You’re not invited.” With those parting words, he strode toward the door.

“Wait.”

Caine’s demand echoed through the room. Leo ignored it, his fingertips turning on the brass door handle.

“Damn you, wait!”

Leo arched a brow as if to tell the duke to hurry up.

“I have something for you…and for your fiancée.”

Of all the things he’d expected, this was not it. Caine crossed toward the polished walnut writing desk in the corner, hunting through it with an unusual lack of aplomb. He scattered papers and pieces of parchment until he came up with a leather-bound journal. Dusting it off, Caine peered at the cover for a long moment. Not a single change occurred in his expression but Leo wondered what the devil the book was. The gravity with which Caine beheld it…

With a faint sigh, Caine stood, opening the journal to remove a faded photograph. He offered it to Leo.

A young woman stared out at the viewer with wide, luminous eyes, the faintest of smiles curling the edge of her full mouth. A monstrous hat, smothered in ostrich feathers, dominated the picture, but Leo could see that she was pretty, and that the edges of the picture had been handled often enough to show signs of wear. Something cherished then, perhaps.

“For you,” Caine said bluntly. “It’s of your mother.”

Leo’s gaze jerked to his. “My—”
Mother.
He hadn’t even recognized her. A heavy feeling settled in his chest.

Words were written on the back of it.

For Marguerite… Here’s to more stolen waltzes, skating in the park, and lemon-flavored ices.

Your friend and admirer, Corbet Duvall

“The Duke of Casavian was courting my
mother
?”

Faint contempt flickered in the hooded depths of Caine’s eyes. “He wasn’t a duke then, just a fool freshly up from Oxford.
I
won her.”

Of course he did. Caine rarely failed whenever he set his mind to something. Leo’s jaw locked. Was this what had sent the Great Houses of Caine and Casavian into their deadly feud over the years?

“I am not a good man, nor a kindly one. I am what my father made me, as I have tried to make you. A duke. A man of power. Marguerite…for a brief moment in my life, she made of me something else. She made me happy. And when she was gone, so was her light in my life, and all I had left was you.

“It took me a long time to be able to look at you and not see what I had done.” The duke toyed with his sleeve. “I know you think I despised her, but the truth is…” His voice roughened. “I shall never forgive myself for what I did to my Marguerite. The doctors said afterward that she wasn’t built to accommodate children. I should have left well enough alone.”

No.
Caine wasn’t going to do this to him. Leo steeled himself. “Who wrote that pretty speech?”

To give him his due, the duke didn’t try to lie. “Madeline. She seemed to think…” He sighed, then added stiffly, “The sentiment was mine. The words…”

Hers.
“You should take care of her. She may be all that you have left someday.”

“Leo—”

“Why did you never let me speak her name? Or show me her photographs?” The sleep deprivation, the strict discipline and harsh training as a child…he thought he understood that now, but the rest…

“I did not wish to be reminded of her. I did not wish to show the world my weakness.”

An awkward silence reigned between them.

“I am not like you,” he told Caine. “No matter how many times you tried to whip me into your shape.”

A dignified nod. “You are like her. You always have been. Questioning everything, championing causes that have no financial worth or personal gain. Disobeying me at every turn. She always spoke her mind, arguing that we were too harsh on the human classes…” His voice trailed off. “She would have been proud of what you have become, what you have achieved.”

More silence. A glimmer of the mother he had never known.

“Do you think this changes anything?” Leo demanded. In the past few days he’d thought he’d finally found peace with his past—and with the man he called a father. He had Mina now, and his sisters and brother, a family that Caine could not even
begin
to comprehend. He’d even begun to renew his friendship with Malloryn, despite being fairly certain about what had caused the rift between them. Malloryn had wished him well on landing Mina, but there’d been a hint of sadness hidden behind his cynical smile.

“You are my son,” Caine said. “No matter what the world says. I have lost her, but I will not lose you, no matter what I must do.”

Leo barked a laugh. “You manipulative son of a bitch. You had the chance to prove yourself my father in Council chambers.”

“I never…I didn’t expect it. I didn’t know what to do.”

“You didn’t know who to choose,” Leo corrected icily. “Your loyalties to that bastard, or your ties to me.”

“That’s not true.” This time there was a hint of steel to the words. “I made my choice. I killed my prince and broke my word, for you. Everything that I have ever believed in… Change…change does not sit well with me.”

Leo shook his head. Everything that he thought he’d settled within himself in the last few days was thrown into turmoil. In spite of everything, a part of him wanted to believe Caine’s words. His own personal weakness. “I’ve delivered my queen’s message. Consider my familial duties finished.” He turned and strode toward the door.

“Wait!” Caine shuffled across the carpets, pushing the journal into Leo’s hands. “Here! Before you go. Take this! For your…for your fiancée. Perhaps this will explain some matters for her.”

Not that there was any choice. Leo’s fingers curled around the leather-bound spine. “What is it?”

“An abomination,” Caine said. “And a miracle.”

Leo flipped the journal open.

Project: Dhampir.

An initiative undertaken by the Dukes of Lannister, Casavian, and Caine.

1864.

That caught his attention. More than fifteen years ago. What in blazes had Caine and Casavian been working on together, especially when they’d despised each other?

Spidery scrawl filled the journal. Test notes, tables of subject names, CV levels… Leo flipped through the pages swiftly. “What is this?”

“An undertaking. A means to transmute the effects of the Fade by means of an
elixir
vitae
. There was word of it from an ancient Oriental transcript that spoke of the origins of the craving virus.”

Leo’s heart quickened. “Did it work?”

“Only on seven of the test subjects. And…myself.”

Leo’s gaze jerked up, interested despite his feelings. Focusing on Caine’s silvery hair—not gray with age, so much as faded—and his pale, unblemished skin and eyes. “Who else tried the elixir?”

“Casavian, of course.”

Their eyes met.

“What one ventured, the other must as well.” The slightest curling of Caine’s lip. “Only one of us survived it. In a way, he poisoned himself.”

Leo’s hands trembled as he kept flipping through the pages. Mina would be devastated, but perhaps this would bring her some peace of mind. The truth behind her father’s death.

“And the
elixir
vitae
?” he demanded. Honoria’s vaccination could reverse the effects of the craving to a point, but what if one could change the fate of all blue bloods? To control their evolution, as Caine had?

“The secret to the elixir…you will find that at the end of the journal.”

Leo hurriedly riffled through the pages to the back, where he found an entry written in a less than steady hand.

It has been decided to destroy all records of this project. All of the test subjects are to be executed by Vickers, the Duke of Lannister, and all documents destroyed, after the debacle of Subject X. The testing facility suffered a fire and all that remains of my work is this one journal. I should destroy it, for the elixir is a most dangerous tool in the wrong hands.

However, I cannot bear to see all of my work—of the last fifteen years—turn to ash. Perhaps, if I were a stronger man, I would consign these records to the fire myself, but pride—vanity—compel me to keep some record of such flawed genius.

If you read this, you will know that I have created a creature of such utter perfection that God himself has cursed me for my impudence, and that perhaps, for the first time in my life, I understand the consequences of dabbling in matters best left to the Almighty.

I pray only for redemption now.

With regret,

Dr. Erasmus Cremorne

“It is dangerous knowledge,” Caine said softly. “A weapon in the right hands.”

And
you’re placing it in mine.
His curiosity was stirred, an itch beneath the skin. Perhaps an inclination inherited from Todd, and Caine, the bastard, knew it. “What happened to the doctor?”

“He hanged himself shortly after writing this appendix. He sent the journal to a compatriot of mine. However, I managed to intercept it in time.”

Leo shut the book with a hard slapping sound. “Do you think this can buy my goodwill?”

“Perhaps I think you will know how best to use such knowledge. I have no need of it now.”

Eyes narrowing, Leo gave a terse nod. “Thank you.” For what it would mean to Mina.

The duke took his seat again, folding into his padded armchair with a stiff kind of grace that made a blue blood seem clumsy. His fingers laced over his middle. “You should continue our chess game. You still have deplorable lack of foresight. I can teach you how to—”

“I’ll think about it.” He eyed those laced fingers. Left hand over right, the same as his own manner of sitting at times. A disconcerting thought. “And now, I believe I have an appointment at my club.”

“Leo?”

Leo jerked the door open, tucking the journal beneath his arm. “We’re done here.”

“I am proud of what you have achieved. You have done what I could not see was necessary for our country.”

The words followed Leo through the doorway, and if he slammed the door a little harder than necessary, nobody was around to see it.

The easiest thing to do would be to walk away and close this chapter of his life. Caine had done little but cause him pain over the years, and nothing about this sudden revelation spoke of any change to that. Caine was—and obviously always had been—a manipulative, cold-hearted bastard. But Leo paused at the bottom of the stairs as the maids rushed forward with his coat, hat, and gloves. …
I
killed
her. I killed my Marguerite
… Something had quivered in the duke’s voice then. Not the sound or words of a man who’d married for a political match, and if he truly had been raised the way he’d raised Leo, could Leo blame him?

Perhaps his mother’s death had more of an impact than Leo could ever realize. Caine had no one else to show him how to live any differently. It was true that Caine did not understand change. He
was
a relic of the past in more ways than one.

The footmen holding the doors open waited impassively as Leo stewed over the matter. He
could
walk away, but a part of him would always wonder. Perhaps now that he understood why the duke was the way he was, they could form some sort of relationship. It would never be the one he’d desired. Never the father he’d always wanted. But maybe he didn’t need one now.

“Tell His Grace to move my knight to D5.” Taking his top hat, Leo fit it to his head and sauntered down the front steps of Caine House to go find his fiancée.