The Iron Duke (15 page)

The abundant tray of food that the admiral’s staff provided further improved her mood.

Baxter kept his promise not to leave her alone for long. Only a short time passed before Trahaearn appeared at the parlor entrance, wearing his cold detachment like a mask.

Lovely.
That was exactly what she’d wanted to see. She would remember to thank the admiral later.

With a sigh, Mina pushed the orange she had saved for Newberry into her overcoat pocket—an
orange
served as part of an everyday meal; she could hardly comprehend it—and joined the duke in the hallway.

He didn’t appear quite so cold by the time she reached him, and less so the longer his gaze remained on her face. She wished he’d look away from her, but she sensed that if there was one thing on Earth that wouldn’t change, no matter how she railed against him, it was the Iron Duke.

“All set, then?” he said, and she forced herself not to interrogate him there. What had the admiral told him? But she resisted and started for the front door.

A maid was leading another man back to the admiral’s study, a gentle-looking fellow with sandy hair and soft blue eyes. He carried a physician’s bag, which made Mina immediately like him a little better—until they passed each other, and he offered her a smile that said,
I accept you
, the kind that often accompanied a short bow and a greeting in the Horde language.

She despised that smile even more than she despised the blatant hatred. Condescending yellow-toothed lackwit
bounder
. She’d lived in this blasted country longer than
he
had.

Patience suddenly gone, she only waited until the door closed behind them. Spinning to face Trahaearn, she demanded, “What did he—”

Her tongue froze into place. Panic and terror ripped though her mind, spiked through her heart. Blood pounded in her ears, but she couldn’t move, couldn’t scream. Her muscles locked up, and she almost toppled down the stairs and would have if the duke had not leapt forward and caught her rigid body, calling
Inspector!
and shouting at her to tell him what was wrong but all that Mina could think was
The tower has come back, by the starry skies please no no no, not the Horde not the tower again.

From inside the house, a gunshot cracked.

Trahaearn’s head whipped around. For an instant, he stared at the admiral’s door, before gently laying Mina at the top of the stairs. Then he was up, charging through the entrance. She heard his boots pounding down the length of the hallway, a shout—not the duke’s—followed by a crash.

The hold on Mina’s body vanished.

Gasping, she surged to her feet. Beyond the open door, the butler was slowly climbing to his knees. The maid lay sobbing in the hall. Mina sprinted past them, drawing her weapon and bursting into the study.

Baxter lay on the floor, eyes open and unseeing. Blood pooled over the wooden boards beneath his head. Next to him lay the physician’s bag, and a metal box topped by a foot-long spike. Recognition spit through her, cold and sick, but she couldn’t stop to examine it. The window overlooking the garden had been shattered, as if someone had crashed through. Mina rushed to look, and caught a glimpse of Trahaearn’s long overcoat as he disappeared over the garden wall—chasing after the shooter.

Oh, blue heavens.
Chasing after a man armed with a gun . . . and the stupid pirate only had a
dagger
.

She turned and ran, almost barreling into the white-faced butler in the hall. Mina stumbled, recovered, and shouted, “Don’t let anyone into that room!” before racing outside.

Another shot gave her a direction and almost made her heart explode through her ribs.
Don’t be dead, Trahaearn, don’t be dead.
Leaping over a low stone wall, she skidded on wet grass, then sped around the side of the house. A second gunshot rent the air.

Twenty feet away, the bounder collapsed to the ground, the hand holding his gun falling away from his head. In front of him, still in a dead run, Trahaearn shouted, a roar of frustration and fury. He hauled the dead man up by his jacket, slammed him back to the ground. His fist drew back.

“Trahaearn!” Mina caught his wrist in both hands. He turned on her, eyes blazing with rage. Chest heaving, she managed—“Not the face. Not until he’s identified.”

She let him go and stepped back to catch her breath. Insanity. The man had killed himself rather than be caught.

Trahaearn’s fist fell to his side. Though he still knelt beside the body, battering the dead murderer had apparently lost its appeal.

His breath was as labored as hers, his voice rough as he asked, “Baxter?”

“No,” Mina said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

He nodded and faced her. Mina’s stomach dropped through to her knees. He
had
been shot. Blood poured down the left side of his head. The bullet had dug a furrow beside his temple, deep enough that a flap of skin and dark hair hung loose over his ear.

Oh, smoking hells.
Mina steadied herself. “Your head, sir. Are you all right?”

“Yes.” He touched the wound, looked at the blood on his fingers. “I have a hard skull.”

She didn’t doubt it, but he didn’t seem in a hurry to stand up, either. A noise from behind her brought Mina around. A maid stood near the corner of the house, eyes wide.

“You there!” Mina called. “Bring bandages for the Duke of Anglesey. Be quick about it!”

The maid darted back to the house. Mina yanked a handkerchief from her pocket, bent closer to him. His eyes were closed, hands fisted at his thighs.

“Keep still for a minute, now.” She wiped at a little blood, and when he didn’t draw away, asked quietly, “Do you recognize him?”

“No.”

Damn.
“Did he say anything before he killed himself?”

“No.” He slammed his fist against his thigh. “He walked past me. Right past me.”

“Right by me, too.”

His head lifted slightly, as if he’d tried to look up at her. She continued cleaning, wincing as slight pressure parted the wound, exposing his gray skull—

Mina stilled.
Gray.
Not white bone, but dark gray.

Iron
gray.

Swallowing, she pressed the cloth against his scalp, holding the flap of skin in place over the furrow. The bleeding had already begun to slow, thanks to his bugs. He’d be completely healed by the time they returned to London.

She heard running steps behind her, heavy enough that she guessed they were Newberry’s. A moment later, the constable appeared beside her, huffing like an engine.

His face paled when he saw Trahaearn. Not the blood, she knew. The Iron Duke had been shot on Mina’s watch. She’d be lucky to walk away with just a reprimand.

“Go into the house, Newberry. Secure the study. If the staff hasn’t notified the locals already, send one of them to locate a constable.”

“Yes, sir.” Newberry immediately turned to go, but halted when Trahaearn said, “Collect the freezing device. We’re not leaving it for the locals.”

So he’d recognized the device, too. Mina stared at him for a moment before nodding. She said to Newberry, “There’s a physician’s bag and a metal block with a spike.”
A small tower.
Shriveling fear scurried up her spine. She forced it away. “Take care in how you handle it, constable. As soon as you’ve secured the room, bring them here.”

“Yes, sir.”

He trotted off. The admiral’s staff had begun to gather on the lawn, watching from a distance.

Armed with bandages, the maid pushed through the group and ran up. Mina selected a length of linen and turned to the duke. “Hold this handkerchief here. The bleeding has almost stopped, but we’ll wrap a bandage around to keep the skin in place until it heals.”

His hand came up over the handkerchief. Mina sent the maid off for towels, hot water, and a clean shirt, though the chances of her finding the right size were nil.

She began winding the cloth around his head. Around
flesh
, over an iron skull. In all of her years assisting her father and opening up corpses, she’d never seen that before. Steel prosthetics, yes. Mechanical flesh. But not human flesh and skin that grew over metal as if it were bone.

And that wasn’t all that was different about him. The evidence that he possessed nanoagents lay in that quickly healing gash. But he hadn’t been affected by that device.

“I was frozen,” she said quietly. “So was the butler, the maid—and since we didn’t hear Baxter yell or fight, he probably had been, too. Why weren’t you?”

He glanced up at her. “The device used the wrong frequency.”

Mina was doubtful, but said nothing.

The intensity of his gaze deepened. “Are
you
all right, inspector?”

“Yes.” Still shaken, but as long as she didn’t think about how the device had stolen her will and her control, she would function. “I’m sorry that the admiral is dead.”

“Me, too.” His voice was grim. “But I’m damned if I know why he is.”

“Perhaps someone in Chatham will identify him.” She looked over his head at the dead man, and a thought struck her. “Could he be one of the Dame’s men?”

“No. This is something else.”

“What?”

“I don’t know yet.” He stood when she tied off the bandage. “But we’ll ask the Dame about him, too, just to be certain. How long will you be needed here?”

She’d probably have time for a quick examination of the bounder before the local police arrived, followed by the naval authorities. Both would boot her out, and she didn’t want to fight them over this. When they discovered his identity, and if this murder connected to her investigation, she’d step back in then—with the full power of the London force and the Iron Duke behind her, if necessary.

“An hour,” she said. “We’ll have to answer their questions.”

“Only for an hour.” His tone said that if the locals weren’t done with them by that time, he’d leave anyway.

“Yes.” She looked to Newberry as the constable returned, carrying the physician’s bag. She traded him the orange for the bag, feeling the weight of the device inside, and hushed his exclamation of gratitude. “Find the town’s wiregram station and update Hale. The admiral has been murdered. We don’t yet know if it’s connected. We’re pursuing Dame Sawtooth, who likely possesses information regarding Captain Haynes’s murder.”

“Yes, sir—”

Trahaearn cut in. “While you’re at it, send a runner to
Lady Corsair
. Tell her to expect us in an hour, and to ready for departure.”

The infamous mercenary airship?
Mina frowned at him. “Can’t we use another? Surely when the
Terror
has been taken, the navy can—”

“She’s the fastest of them all, and there’s no better flyer than her captain.”

All right.
If he paid for it, then she didn’t care. She turned to Newberry again. “Meet us at the airship in an hour. Inform Hale that we are crossing the Channel on
Lady Corsair
, but don’t wait for a response.”

Newberry’s brows rose. “Sir?”

“She’ll order us not to board the airship,” Mina said. “But if we never receive a response, we won’t have disobeyed orders.”

“Yes, sir.”

Mina sighed as he left. The poor man. “He looked rather faint, didn’t he?”

“Yes.”

Was that amusement in the duke’s voice? She couldn’t tell. But she felt the need to defend her assistant. “He’s a brave man.”

“Yes.”

Still no mocking note, though in Mina’s experience, immoral scoundrels like the Iron Duke held good men like the admiral and Newberry in great contempt. She didn’t know what to make of it.

Disconcerted, she left him for the dead bounder lying on the grass. Hopefully, she would soon know who he was and where he’d come from. But even if she didn’t learn any of those things from his body, she already knew something about him: He hadn’t been a brave man.

This one had been a coward.

Unlike the enormous bullet-shaped dreadnoughts that Shef
field made for the aerocorps,
Lady Corsair
sported a long, cloud-white balloon over a wooden ship that resembled a brown seal—ridiculous and awkward if stranded on its belly, but sleek and maneuverable in its element. At the sides of the ship, the yardarms that should have been extended like oars in preparation for their journey were still tucked against the hull, the sails furled. The propellers at the tail of the ship twirled slowly in the breeze, and Mina couldn’t detect the quiet rumble that always accompanied an idling engine. Despite the duke’s message,
Lady Corsair
hadn’t been readied for departure.

Beneath the bloodied bandage that still wrapped his head, Trahaearn’s expression didn’t appear either surprised or angry. He glanced at Mina, who was watching him warily and waiting for an explosion.

“She’s never liked being told what to do,” he said, and before Mina could ask
Who?
a rope ladder swung past her face. Startled, Mina stepped back, looked up.

Her heart caught in her throat. A woman was sliding down the ladder, too fast, as if she couldn’t find her grip and couldn’t stop herself on one of the rungs. Mina’s fingers clenched, urging the woman to hold on, waiting for the inevitable horrifying drop to the ground.

Then the woman kicked her legs, twisting her body around. Flipping like an acrobat at a Horde pony festival, she rolled twice in the air and landed in a crouch at Trahaearn’s feet.

Mina wasn’t certain whether to applaud or to draw her weapon. No doubt this woman was the airship’s mercenary captain, who went by the same name as her ship: Lady Corsair. She rose from her crouch, a head taller than Mina and armed with a cutlass across her back, pistols at her hips, and daggers tucked into the tops of her long leather boots. She wore a ruby kerchief over her black hair, the silk knotted at her nape, its trailing ends twisting around her braids. Wide cheekbones tapered to a pointed chin. With her cat-green eyes narrowed to slits, she was obviously spitting mad—fury she directed straight at Trahaearn.