The Iron Duke (27 page)

If he’d truly withdrawn his offer, then yes—it would only be the once.

Her father nodded. “And by the time you return, no one will remember. When will you be leaving, Mina?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps he didn’t receive my message.” She pushed her egg around. “He said they were departing at dawn.”

She glanced up at her mother’s gasp of dismay. “And Andrew?”

Her father caught her hand. “Do not panic now, love. We’ve had a full night to think on this. If Andrew is still on the
Terror
, then he will return with the Iron Duke. If not, we will figure out what to do then.”

“Perhaps we will all go after him.” Her mother gave a laugh, high and thin. “On the run from the Blacksmith, straight into the Ivory Market. It shall be like an Archimedes Fox adventure.”

“Mother—”

With a wave of her hand, her mother cut her off. “I am not panicking, Mina. I am looking forward to our holiday.”

Her father smiled and turned to Mina. “Will you be heading in to your job today?”

“Of course,” she said, just as a knock at the door sent her heart leaping again. Not letting herself hope, Mina pushed back from the table. “There is Newberry now.”

It wasn’t Newberry who stood on the step. Cheeks bright and her blond hair wild, Felicity pushed into the foyer, carrying a black overcoat.

“Oh,
Mina
,” she said.

Mina stopped her. “If you have the newssheet with you, do not show me. I am forbidden to see it.”

“I don’t have it. Only this.” She held up the overcoat. Mina had given Felicity a summary of the previous days’ events while she’d helped Mina dress the night before, and only second to Felicity’s questions about the Iron Duke had been the reason he’d stripped off half of her uniform. “It is too big, but the right color. Use it until you have a new one.”

“Thank you.” Mina slipped on the coat and almost drowned in wool. She looked to Felicity, who watched her with concern. “Was it so terrible?”

“Ah, well. Yes. It’s a portrait, of sorts—but not any worse than others we’ve seen and laughed at.”

“I haven’t laughed at them.” Whenever a caricature of a Horde magistrate appeared in the newssheets, she tried not to even
look
at them.

Felicity arched her brows. “You once sketched a bounder with five missing teeth.”

Mina’s cheeks heated. So she had. Yet she never would have drawn Hale or Newberry that way.

Now, she wouldn’t draw
any
bounder that way.

Felicity blushed, too. “Perhaps that’s not the same. It’s just so terrible because I
know
you. It must be devastating for your parents, too.”

So it was just as degrading and awful as Mina imagined—but it was only bad because it was her.

“And the article was not much better, favoring the Iron Duke’s participation over yours, and the navy’s most of all.”

Mina sighed. “Yes.”

“You expected this?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” Flustered, Felicity stepped back. “I forgot to tell you—your Newberry is outside.”

Relief made her smile. “Thank you.”

Suddenly serious, Felicity stopped her. “Mina. I know I don’t see things as you do. So I can’t imagine . . . I can only tell you, that whatever happens today, your family will be here. I am only next door. And you will have something good to come home to.”

Mina knew. And thank the blessed stars for them. She squeezed Felicity’s hand and rubbed her big belly, and went out into the square.

It was no different. She received a few extra glances from passing maids, and they whispered a little more than usual, but that was all. She climbed into the rattling cart.

“Good morning, sir,” Newberry said.

“Good morning, constable. Let us see if we can avoid both zombies and spoiled brats today,
hmm
?”

With a nod, Newberry threw the drive lever forward. “Yes, sir.”

 

 

The officers at headquarters were all of a good sort. A few
stretched their eyes and loosened their lips, but only to demonstrate how ridiculous the drawing had been. Most were upset that the article had downplayed her participation. What could have been a good mark for the police force had been stolen by the navy, and they took it as an attack on one of their own.

Until today, Mina hadn’t known that they considered her one of their own.

And so when she was summoned to Hale’s office, Mina climbed the stairs with a light heart. Even the worry in the superintendent’s eyes couldn’t puncture the fine feelings that her reception into headquarters had engendered.

“You’re something of a celebrity this morning, inspector.”

“Unfortunately, sir.”

“Yes.” Hale sighed. “I find myself in a difficult position, and I need you to tell me true: What is the extent of your involvement with Anglesey?”

Mina had expected this. And thank the blue heavens, she didn’t need to lie. “Yesterday was the extent of our involvement, sir. With the investigation closed, I believe that will end it.”

Hale nodded, but she didn’t look completely convinced, and her worry didn’t recede. “The constables and inspectors are behind you now. But if this continues, and when the newssheets and the flyers begin looking bad on them simply because you are also an officer, they won’t be so friendly. They’ll resent being associated with someone who is always painted as a fool—however undeserved.”

“I understand, sir.” Frankly, it was the reaction she had expected today.

“You are my best, but if you did decide to develop a . . . deeper acquaintance with the duke, I would have to let you go.”

“I know, sir. Thank you. But I do not expect our acquaintance to continue.” She paused, recalling that the superintendent hadn’t just mentioned newssheets. “Flyers, sir? Political flyers?”

“Yes.”

“Was there one?” Her heart sank when Hale hesitated before nodding. Mina had promised not to look at the newssheets. But a political flyer would be aimed at her mother or father. “May I see it?”

“Inspector—”

“Please, sir.”

With obvious reluctance, Hale slid a sheet across the desk.

Mina stared at the drawing. “I—Well. They have the scale all wrong. If I stood next to Trahaearn’s statue, I would not come up to his knee, let alone my mouth to his—”

“Yes.”

Sickness rose in her throat. She couldn’t swallow it down. “And to hold a picket sign thus, I would have to clench my buttocks very hard, I think, or the ‘Ladies Marriage Reform’ would too difficult to read. And I’m not certain it could be done with my skirts pulled up so—”

“Inspector!” Hale’s face glowed almost crimson.

“I’m sorry, sir. I just need some way to . . .”

Laugh.
She couldn’t laugh. If only Andrew were here—but no one knew where he was. She fought the burning in her eyes.

Hale’s voice gentled. “Yes.”

She held out her hand for the flyer, but Mina couldn’t stop looking, even when the drawing blurred and splattered with tears. It was the ugliest thing she’d ever seen. And it was of
her
.

“Mina.” Hale’s use of her name was soft and careful. “This is not something I’ve asked before, but I’ve wondered for so long: Is there nowhere you can go? Somewhere you don’t need a giant to follow you just so that you are not beaten . . . or worse.”

Sucking in a breath, Mina pushed the tears from her face with the palm of her hand. Terrible, to cry here in front of Hale. But better than crying at home. She struggled to find her composure.

“Perhaps I would not be beaten, but even in the New World, they would still stare. They cannot help it, just as people will always look at my mother’s eyes, or those from Manhattan City look at a dockworker’s prosthetics.” She met Hale’s gaze. “If they are from England, it is usually hatred. But everyone looks, and at first, they only see the Horde. It changes when they begin to know me—but until then, and if not hatred, there is always the curiosity, the fascination, and they look at me like a bug on a lens, searching out the differences. You know it is the truth. You did so, too. And you glanced away quickly when the bug looked back at you.”

Hale flushed. “I didn’t realize you noticed.”

“I noticed. And your curiosity did not hurt. I only mean that there’s nowhere that I will be completely accepted. There’s nowhere I can go where I do not draw looks, except for when I’m with the people who know me. And so if I am to be looked at, I might as well be near home.”

“I see.” Hale smiled faintly. “Then in your place, I don’t suppose that I would leave, either.”

A scratch at the door was followed by the secretary’s announcement. “Duke of Anglesey here to see you, sir.”

What?
Mina shoved the flyer into her overcoat pocket and hastily wiped her eyes.

Hale waited. “All right, inspector?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then you’re dismissed.” She raised her voice and called for the secretary to let the duke through.

Heart pounding, Mina walked to the door. It opened before she reached for the latch, and he strode through. He stopped to avoid knocking her over.

“Your Grace.”

He didn’t meet her eyes. His cold detachment froze her through. “Inspector.”

She barely breathed. “Did you receive my message, sir?”

“No.” He pushed past her.

Too shocked and numb to respond, Mina left Hale’s office, closing the door behind her. She lifted her eyes and met Scarsdale’s gaze.

Leaning against the opposite wall, he said, “I think you’ll want to wait here with me, inspector. We’ve just been to your home. I must say, your mother is a lovely woman.”

“Sir?”

“She was quite forgiving about the butler. Probably more forgiving than my clumsy entrance deserved.”

That was enough. Mina’s temper snapped. “Tell me, sir!”

He blinked. “Ah, well. On the advice of His Grace, the Duke of Shrewsbury, and the most discerning of the Lord Regents, the king’s regency council has made Trahaearn a special investigator into the matter of the weapon for auction, and they have allowed him to choose his consultants. Due to the display of intelligence and resourcefulness you demonstrated yesterday, you’ve been conscripted. You have no choice but to accompany us to the Ivory Market, where we are to determine if that was where Baxter’s murderer purchased the device used to freeze you in Chatham, and the status of the auctioned weapon. Moreover, you are to investigate whether the Black Guard is merely a rumor, or something more . . . sinister.”

He waggled his brows on the last word. The knot in Mina’s chest began easing.

“So I’m to go with you.”

“By order of the Lord Regents,” he confirmed. “
Lady Corsair
waits outside. May I ask a favor of you?”

She would do anything. “Yes, sir.”

“Do you have any opium handy?”

 

 

After shooting Scarsdale with an opium dart, Mina left him
slumped against the wall and raced down the stairs to find Newberry. Chest heaving, she pulled the constable into an unoccupied corner, and forced him to stoop to her level.

“I have not much time,” she said quietly, urgently. “I am leaving for Africa—I can’t explain. You’ll find out soon enough, and I need you to do this for me while I am away.”

“Do what, sir?”

“The
wiregrams
, Newberry. And the freezing device. And Haynes’s bugs.” Poor man. She was rushing through. Mina tried to back up. “Yesterday, Dorchester said that they’d pursued the weapon after learning that Haynes’s bugs had been destroyed. But as I was shooting Scarsdale I realized that
we
did not include that in our updates. Did you?”

“No, sir. I never stated what killed the captain.”

“And why kill Baxter at that moment? It makes no sense. Except that Baxter knew why the
Terror
had been sent to the Ivory Market. I believe someone was trying to stop Baxter from telling us about the auction. They knew Trahaearn would pursue the
Terror
. But
no one
knew that the Dame had thrown Haynes on Trahaearn’s house, or had reason to believe that Trahaearn would know the
Terror
had been taken. So after we identified Haynes and sent the update, they had to try to beat us to Baxter—which meant someone had to send a wiregram from London to Chatham, to alert their assassin. And there is only one wiregram station in Chatham. Either the clerk or the message runner will know
something
.”

Newberry’s face cleared. “You want me to find out who sent it?”

“I don’t know if we’ll be lucky enough to find out
who
. But from
where
it was sent? Yes. But be careful about it, constable. Someone told the Admiralty that Haynes’s bugs were destroyed before they sent those ships from Dover. That person is probably connected to the Black Guard.”

The constable paled a little. “The Blacksmith, sir?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps someone at the Admiralty already knew what had happened during the weapon demonstration. But yes—it could be the Blacksmith.” She held his gaze. “And that is why you must be careful, and
only
ask at the Chatham station so that you don’t arouse suspicion in London. Find out who sent that gram. Very quietly, and with care. And then keep a lid on it until I return.”

“Yes, sir.”

 

 

Yasmeen had given Rhys the cabin across the passageway
from the inspector’s, and reconfirmed his belief that her airship was worth every single livre. With Scarsdale a heavy weight over his shoulder, he entered the small cabin long enough to dump the bounder on the forward bunk. When he left, Mina’s door was ajar.

An opportunity Rhys wouldn’t resist. He pushed open her door. The narrow space had room enough for a bed, a shallow wardrobe, and a tiny writing desk that doubled as a washstand and vanity. Standing over the open valise on her bunk, she glanced at him and raised her brows.