The Iron Duke (50 page)

“Lord High Admiral, order your men to lay down their weapons.” The line of steelcoats seemed to waver as several marines turned to look. “This is over, Dorchester. You’ll soon be under arrest for conspiring with the Black Guard. Don’t make these marines pay for your crimes against England.”

Yes.
Mina clenched her fists, tempted to cheer along with the others. But she needed to focus on a way to that scaffolding and make the arrest. This mob wanted Dorchester’s blood, they wanted to see him swinging in the Iron Duke’s place, but Rhys had told them an arrest would be enough. So they needed
that
, at least.

She looked to the Blacksmith’s walker. Hale was nearer to Dorchester, but she likely wouldn’t be jumping down from that thing soon.

So Mina needed to get up there. But how would she—

Something hit her head. Mina instinctively ducked, almost throwing Newberry off balance. Suddenly furious, she grabbed for the thing that was
still on her
, and . . . found a rope. She looked up.

Lady Corsair
hovered quietly overhead, her engines silent. Yasmeen peered over the rail and lifted her hands in a clear
What are you waiting for?

“Watch Anne!” Mina shouted to Newberry, and hauled herself up.

Yasmeen didn’t wait for her to climb more than a few feet. Mina’s stomach swooped as the airship flew forward. Clinging to the rope, she sailed over the mob toward the scaffolding.

Her gaze met the Iron Duke’s, and the connection seemed to guide her in.
Rhys.
The pain of him sending her away had gone. At this moment, all that remained was the sheer relief of seeing him unharmed. She dropped lightly to the gallows platform, and he was there to steady her with a firm grip on her hand. Loss speared through her when he let go.

“Detective Inspector Wentworth.”

“Your Grace.” Because it seemed appropriate, she executed a short bow.

That amused him. “The Lord High Admiral has confessed to being a member of the Black Guard, and part of a plot to kill every bugger in England . . . which would include the king.”

With a short nod, Mina turned to Dorchester. “Your Grace, I am placing you under arrest for treason, conspiracy to commit mass murder, and for ordering the assassination of Admiral Baxter.” That was for the mob; more formal charges would be made later, Mina was certain. Her gaze searched the nearby crowd and found a bowler hat. “Constable! Please secure this man, and prepare to take him to headquarters for questioning.”

She wished it had been Newberry. But she would make up for it, somehow.

Though the constable looked uncertain as he approached the lines of metalmen and steelcoats, he walked through them without incident. Almost all of the marines faced the gallows now. Through their helmets’ eye slits, Mina saw dismay, anger, disbelief.

Dorchester waited, tall and dignified. His chest puffed up as he drew in a deep breath.

“Marines!” he shouted. “Open fire on the Iron Duke!”

Mina’s blood froze. But though the remaining steelcoats turned to face them, no one raised their weapon.

“Fire! If you love England, fire!”

Several shook their heads, setting down their guns. Mina began to nod her satisfaction—but from the corner of her eye, she saw one barrel swing up.

A member of the Black Guard—or simply someone who always followed orders, no matter the manner of man they came from.

Rhys saw it, too. He began to turn.

But he wasn’t as fast as she was.

 

 

Mina slammed into his chest. Holding her tight, Rhys pivoted
to take the shot at his back. The echoing crack of the rifle faded. He gave an astonished laugh.

They hadn’t been hit. Only a few yards away, and the idiot had missed. From behind him came a clamor as steelcoats or metalmen downed the shooter. Something burned in his ribs, probably jabbed by a part of Mina’s uniform as she’d thrown herself at him. He felt her relief, as the tension slowly left her rigid form, leaving her limp.

Too limp. She almost slipped out of his arms. Rhys hauled her back up, trying to comprehend her closed eyes, the slackness of her body. The blood, soaking into his shirt.

So he’d been shot after all; the bullet had hit a rib. And—

Shot
through
Mina.

No.
He shook her. “Mina?”

Her head fell back. Her chest separated from his.

Blood gushed down her front.

“Mina? No.
Mina!
” Roaring her name, he hauled her close again. His hands found blood at her back. No, no. Dropping to his knees, he lay her down, ripped off his shirt and pressed it to her chest. Blood pooled beneath her. “Help me! Ah, God.
Help me!
”

The hissing of boilers answered him, silence from the crowd. Feet pounded across the gallows platform. Scarsdale dropped to the boards beside him, tearing his shirtsleeves away. Rhys shoved them beneath her, trying to stop the bleeding at her back.

God help him—he didn’t know if it was.

Raggedly shouting her name, he pulled her up to half-sitting and dragged her between his legs, cloth clamped to her chest, pushing her back hard against his thigh. She convulsed, coughing up a bubble of blood.

“No, Mina. No, no.” Rhys held her tight. He bent his head to hers. “Please.
Please!
”

A hand on his arm brought his head up. With bleak eyes, he stared at the white-faced man kneeling beside him. Realization snapped through him.

Father. Surgeon
.

“Help her,” he whispered hoarsely. “Help her.”

The man nodded, leaning forward. A woman in a billowing blue skirt fell to the platform next to him. Rhys recognized the white hair, disheveled and falling over her shoulder, the tinted lenses.

“William?” Devastation lined her delicate face. “William? Can you—”

“Trahaearn, keep pressure here and here.” The father’s hands covered Rhys’s at Mina’s front and back. “If you value her life, don’t let up.”

Rhys pressed hard. He didn’t think she’d be able to take a breath, he pressed so hard.

But he didn’t think she could breathe, anyway.

The father looked to the mother. “The bugs are helping, Cecily, but they can’t do it alone. I need a heart. A pump like you made for Beatrice Addle. Do you remember?”

She glanced at her empty hands. “But I don’t—”

“Look, Cecily.
Look.
”

Her mouth firmed. Nodding, she stood, her gaze sweeping the crowd. She pointed.

“You! Come here. You! And you! All of you, up here. You! The dockworker! You two steelcoats. The rest of you, make way for them. And
run
, damn you all.” She spun around again, grabbed Scarsdale. “You, help me. We’ll hold them down and rip the pieces off, if we must.”

They hurried off, but Rhys didn’t watch where they went. Only Mina. The father withdrew her opium gun and shot a dart into her neck. Rhys held onto her, faintly aware of the murmurs from the crowd, the cries from the mother, Scarsdale’s cajoling voice. Faintly aware that the woman was taking parts from prosthetics and putting them together.

“Hurry, Cecily!”

Another convulsion ripped through Mina’s small frame. Drifting away, and taking Rhys’s life with him. He buried his face in her hair, whispered her name over and over. Trying to give her a line to hold on to. Trying to give her an anchor.

His was slipping, and her name was no longer a whisper, but a cry through clenched teeth.

The mother rushed up, winding a pump made of pistons within a tin canister. Narrow rubber tubes capped with steel valves projected from each side. “It’s dirty. I couldn’t—”

“It doesn’t matter,” the father said sharply. “The bugs will clean it.”

“And she’ll rip it off. The moment she wakes up. She wouldn’t want this.”

“Let that be
her
choice, Cecily! Now, which tube is the intake—?” His voice broke. His wife tucked the right tube into his palm, and clasped her fingers over his. His hand stopped trembling. “Yes. Thank you, my love. Be my eyes, now. Hold her still, Trahaearn.”

He pushed Rhys’s hand from Mina’s chest. The mother and father bent over her. He had to look away when he saw Mina’s dagger in the father’s hand.

If he saw what the man did with it, Rhys feared he would kill the only man who could save her. Even the Blacksmith couldn’t graft a mechanical heart more quickly.

Saving her . . . He pictured the mechanism that would be her heart—a crude pump. He’d heard of others who’d been saved the same way. The clockwork pump only had one speed, and so it was too dangerous to be excited. Too dangerous to move around. Even climbing the stairs could overtax the windup heart. Mina would be stuck in a single room. Trapped, for the rest of her life.

But that was only if she survived. With an injury like this, bug fever became a certainty.

The mother’s breath hitched. “They’re grafting it on,” she said.

Scarsdale’s shout rang out beside them. “The bugs are grafting on her new heart!”

Stomps and cheers rose over the steam from the steelcoats and the mechanical clicking of Mina’s heart. Rhys watched her blood surge through the tubes. He pressed his lips to her black hair, just above her ear, and said the words he needed to say. The words he’d tell her again, the moment she opened her eyes.

He looked up as heavy steps shook the boards beneath them. The Blacksmith crouched beside the father, studying the mechanical heart.

“You’ve done good work.”

The mother’s small hands fisted, and she said fiercely, “We will pay you anything.
Anything
.”

Rhys met the Blacksmith’s eyes. There’d be no payment from them.
Not ever.

“She’s already paid enough,” the Blacksmith said. “Take her home, Rockingham, and keep her quiet and still. If she survives the bug fever, I’ll come to you. Do you have enough ice and opium?”

Tears leaked over the father’s cheeks. “I have some. I’ll need more.”

“I’ll see that you get it.”

The Blacksmith stepped back, making room for two prison guards carrying a stretcher. He gestured to someone above—Yasmeen, Rhys realized, when the cargo platform lowered to the gallows.

Though it almost killed him, he laid Mina on the stretcher. The heart lay on her chest, subtly rocking as it clicked and pumped. Carefully, the two guards lifted her and carried her onto the platform. The mother followed.

The father stopped Rhys from boarding with them.

“Sir. Thank you for all of your help. But there is nothing left for you to do, and I must insist that you let her recuperate in solitude and privacy, surrounded by those she loves.”

That had to include him. Feeling scraped and raw through to his heart, Rhys told him, “She jumped in front of me. She saved my life.”

Though sudden pity warmed the other man’s eyes, Rockingham shook his head. “My Mina would have done that for anyone. Now, if you care for her, leave her be for now. She can have no stress or excitement—and both seem to follow you about.”

It was true. Stricken, Rhys stared at him. But he stepped back. His gaze fell to Mina’s still face, and remained there until he couldn’t see her anymore. He’d wait. And if she loved him, she’d come for him.

She might come for him, anyway. His inspector went where the dead bodies were. Without her, that was all that Rhys would be.

And until then, Rhys still needed to make certain that when she finally came, that she could stay. He looked to the crowd. They’d all cheered for her. They hadn’t seen the Horde, but a woman who’d risked everything to save someone that belonged to them—the Iron Duke. He wouldn’t let them return to seeing her as they had.

So he would give them
Mina
.

Snow came two weeks before the New Year, the flakes fat and pale gray. Huddled within her overcoat at the foot of the statue in Anglesey Square, Mina watched them come down, sticking to the wet pavers before melting away. By evening, perhaps it would be cold enough for them to stay.

Mina hoped not. As lovely as the snow was, the cold always brought more death—and London already gave Mina quite enough. No need to add freezing temperatures into the mix. Outside the square, traffic seemed to immediately snarl, as if snowflakes hit the carts and steamcoaches like cannonballs. A stalled steamcoach driver stood on his bench to shake his fist at a spider-rickshaw pedaler. Drivers who had installed horns were merrily using them. A shouting match broke out between two lorry drivers, drawing as many glances from the people walking through the busy square as Mina did. A few men and women peered up at the sky in dread, as if expecting the gray to open up and dump piles of snow around them.

But others were enjoying it. Three children who’d been playing knucklebones on the nearby steps while Mina ate her noodles were racing about now, mouths open to catch the flakes on their tongues. One stopped to stare at something beyond the statue.

Mina followed that awed look, and her belly dropped through to the pavers.
Rhys.
Striding across the square—striding toward
her
. The brim of his top hat shielded his eyes from her, but not the determined set of his jaw.

In the street behind him, his steamcoach stood with the carriage door open, and the driver looking after him with surprise.

Her fingers tightened around her bowl. He’d seen her, then. Had jumped from his steamcoach with the intention of speaking with her.

Three months had passed since she’d been shot on the gallows, and they hadn’t met in all of that time. She had no idea what he’d say now. What
she
would say.

He stopped before her, sweeping off his hat. His gaze burned into hers, his voice like a rasp over iron. “Are you well, Mina?”