The Iron Duke (6 page)

He met her gaze squarely. “I don’t know him from a Castilian trapping for furs through American forests or a Hindustani enslaved by the Horde in India. Do you weep over the fate of every man you don’t know?”

She wasn’t weeping over this one, but she did feel the injustice of it. “I don’t know his name, but he isn’t a stranger to me now, some hypothetical individual who lives across the globe. Nor is he to you—and odds are, he is here because of some connection to you.”

His eyes narrowed, and although humor glinted within them again, it was a cold and dangerous light. Mina suppressed the urge to step back and draw her weapon.

“Then find out who he is and why he’s on my doorstep . . . and I will make whoever did it sorry they caught my attention.”

She had no doubt he would. And although Mina had every intention of solving both the mystery of the man’s identity and his death, now she had even more reason not to fail.

She didn’t want to be the one who attracted the Iron Duke’s notice.

 

 

Rhys could think of many reasons to kill a man—but only
fear kept someone from owning up to what he’d done. Whoever had dropped that body onto his steps was a bloody coward.

He had no use for cowards, especially those who turned and ran. Did they think he wouldn’t chase after them?

The inspector had best be quick about finding the direction to go. He hadn’t intended to let her investigate the man’s death, but Rhys wouldn’t have allowed her to take the body if he hadn’t believed she’d be successful. Hell, if not for her examination of the corpse, he might not have realized it had fallen from an airship.

An airship.
Idiots. If the coward had been just one man—or several men—sneaking onto his grounds, he’d have dealt with them quietly. But they’d come after him in an airship . . . and so his response would be in kind.

As soon as he learned who they were.

Holding his frustration in a tight grip, Rhys left the house and stalked the grounds until his temper cooled. Almost an hour passed before he returned and found Scarsdale in the library, already soused. Rhys poured a brandy for himself, his gaze searching the corners of the large room. He hated the size of it. When he’d built the house, he’d filled it with giant chambers, thinking he would enjoy the space after years of sleeping in cramped quarters and ducking beneath low decks. Instead, he was always on edge.

Scarsdale wasn’t. Sprawled on the sofa, the bounder lay with his eyes closed. “Cyclops Cushing swore revenge after you stole
Cerberus
out from under him, but he didn’t strike me as stupid enough to throw a man on your house.”

His words slurred. Even with a gun pointed at him, Scarsdale wouldn’t climb higher than the first yard arm of a mainmast. If he’d guessed the dead man been dropped from an airship, Rhys was surprised he was still coherent.

But though liquor loosened the navigator’s tongue, it never impaired his sense. Rhys couldn’t claim the same. He set the brandy on his desk, untouched.

Scarsdale struggled into a half-sitting position. He covered his left eye with his empty glass and opened his right. “Then again, I’ve heard that Cyclops caught the pox from a Dutch whore, and he wasn’t smart enough to bug up. Once a pox crawls from your jewels to your brains, it might make a man stupid enough.”

“Even with a pox, Cushing wouldn’t have dared this.” And most of Rhys’s enemies wouldn’t have murdered someone he didn’t know—they’d make it personal. Not tossed a stranger off an airship like disposing a piece of garbage.

“Then what of the Black Guard?” Scarsdale suggested. “Maybe they’ve caught on to how you’ve cut off their smuggling route out of Wales.”

Perhaps.
But even if the Black Guard had realized he’d paid for the submersible that terrorized the slaver ships in those waters, until all but the most desperate mercenaries refused to sail along the coast, Rhys didn’t think they’d retaliate. Whoever the members of the Black Guard were, they’d remained secretive about their activities and their purpose—and threatening him would be akin to waving a red flag in front of a bull. Unless they’d changed tactics, they wouldn’t draw attention to themselves. No, they’d simply find another smuggling route, and continue selling the slaves to fund their society.

“Of course, Mad Machen has killed fourteen of their slavers, and they’ve never gunned for him—or dropped a dead body on his ship.” Scarsdale weaved before he rested his head against the sofa arm again. “Maybe the threat wasn’t aimed at you. Someone might have heard I was here.”

Yes.
Most of his crew had made enemies, somewhere. The inspector might be finding that out now. But even if they didn’t tell her, she had a blasted quick mind. Detective Inspector Wilhelmina Wentworth would fill in the missing pieces on her own.

Damn St. John for bringing her here.

And damn Rhys’s own arrogance, that he hadn’t booted both the inspector and her constable back through the gates the moment they’d arrived. But he’d been certain how their visit would proceed: The inspector would be an ass-sniffing dog, eager to serve. Rhys would decide whether she could be of use to him, at present or in the future. Then he would send the inspector on her way and continue searching for the coward who’d trespassed in his home.

He still couldn’t determine at which point she’d blown him off course. Perhaps the moment she’d first turned to face him, wearing her intelligence and determination like a mask. Or perhaps when he’d seen a flicker of heat as he’d stripped off her glove.

He damn well hadn’t expected the flare of desire he’d felt in return—not for a detective inspector with cold, inscrutable eyes . . . and a glove that belonged to a lady.

Wentworth.
He didn’t recognize the family name. He rarely interacted with the peers who’d been born under the Horde; they had no money to invest or goods to trade. If she was the daughter of a peer, chances were that her mother had been a Horde whore. Most of them had left for the Americas after the revolution, however. So had most of the mongrel children they’d borne. Why had the inspector stayed?

“Who is she?”

Scarsdale lifted his head. After one glance at Rhys’s face, he closed his eyes again. “I know that look. A fine ship comes over the horizon, and you want what it’s carrying. Let this one sail on, captain.”

Rhys shook his head. Scarsdale had mistaken his intentions. He didn’t intend to steal her. He’d met few officers of any sort who weren’t for sale, and he doubted that Wilhelmina Wentworth would be any different. He simply wanted to know her price.

A scratch at the door stopped his response. A moment later, Mrs. Lavery announced the inspector.

She swept in, her back straight, her shoulders squared. A small thing, but not weak. Her dark eyes seemed to take him in all at once, her gaze cool and assessing. He couldn’t detect the spark of heat she’d shown earlier—but he knew it was there. What would it take for her to reveal it again?

In the hall, the red giant stood watching her. Protective, but not as a man was toward his woman.

That shouldn’t have pleased Rhys as much as it did. He didn’t intend to have her. Yet just by looking at her, desire twisted in his gut—not sexual hunger, but an urgent need to possess. Perhaps Scarsdale had read him better than he’d thought.

But no matter the effect she had on him, Rhys wouldn’t let her push him off course again.

“Have you finished?”

“Yes. No one saw his fall or recognized him,” she said. For a woman of small size and clipped words, she had a low, full voice. No breathiness, no softness. “When we establish his identity, however, we may of course have more questions—and perhaps the motive will become clear.”

“You’ll send updates to me.”

Her soft mouth tightened before she nodded. “I’ll inform Superintendent Hale of your request.”

They both knew it hadn’t been a request—and they both knew those updates would be sent. He allowed her the small victory of not reporting to him personally.

Looking away from him, she glanced at Scarsdale before allowing her gaze to skim the library, and Rhys realized it was the first time she’d taken her eyes off him since she’d entered the room.

Wariness or curiosity? Either satisfied him.

Her searching gaze halted on the replica of his ship displayed beside the desk. “Is that
Marco’s Terror
?”

Long ago, at the request of the Great Khan of the Golden Horde, a Roman pope had sent a handful of scholars, missionaries, and scientists along the Silk Road to the Horde’s capital in Xanadu, guided by Venetian explorers: the Polo brothers, and the young Marco Polo. After two decades, Marco had returned alone, raving like a madman about missionaries who’d been put to death, and the work-shops where scientists were forced to invent machines of war. His rantings and night terrors had become a legendary joke, but two hundred years later, when the Horde’s war machines rolled in from Asia, everyone in Europe learned that they should have listened. With
Marco’s Terror
, Rhys had made certain that the Horde, merchants, and slavers had listened to him.

But he didn’t have much worth saying now.

His answer was simply, “Yes.”

Scarsdale sat up and reached for the absinthe bottle on the sofa table. “The terror of the seven seas! The nautical nightmare!” He poured a small amount of green liquor into his glass and lay back again. “Now you are His Bastard Grace.”

Rhys should have curbed his drinking until after the inspector had gone.

A faint smile curved her mouth as she moved closer to study the replica. “My youngest brother is aboard,” she said.

“Training in the diplomatic corps?” One of the pampered brats who used the
Terror
as a pleasure cruise between England and the Caribbean.

“No. Andrew is a midshipman.”

Not pampered, then. Even on a diplomatic ship, that boy would be working, learning an officer’s role from the ground up. “Not an easy position.”

“No.” It was a quiet response, tinted with resignation and worry—and told him that she missed the boy. Then it was gone, replaced by another faint smile as she looked sideways at him. “You inspired him. He’s determined to captain his own ship one day—preferably
Marco’s Terror
.”

If the boy was lucky, he wouldn’t take the same route that Rhys had. But rather than answering, Rhys pointed to the level of the orlop deck, where the midshipman’s berth housed their trunks and their hammocks. “Unless he’s on watch, he’ll be sleeping here.”

The inspector peered closely, as if imagining, then glanced up at him. “Thank you.”

She did seem grateful. No wonder Scarsdale had been quiet during this exchange. Rhys relied on him to manage the aristocracy and to soften his blunt responses, but the bounder must have thought Rhys was doing well enough on his own.

She looked to his friend. “If I need to include you in those follow-up questions, Lord Scarsdale, will I find you here?”

The bounder lifted his glass to her. “The game is up! She is obviously quite adept at discovering identities, and so our liquefied friend is in good hands, captain.”

Rhys lowered his gaze to her hands. Small and finely wrought, her fingers were twisting nervously. They suddenly stilled. When he looked at her face again, faint color had spread over her cheeks.

Scarsdale tossed back his drink and reached for another. “Yes, yes. Well done, Lady Wilhelmina, daughter of the Earl of Rockingham.”

She observed him with wry amusement. “You have the advantage, sir.”

“Because everyone has heard of your unique beauty? I’m crushed. I thought everyone had heard that I was so handsome.”

Was Scarsdale flirting with her? Rhys couldn’t tell, but he didn’t like it. And he didn’t know many English-born aristocrats—but Rockingham, he knew. Like clockwork, the countess sent him a letter every week asking for his support. “Your mother leads the Ladies Reformation League?”

The inspector’s brows lifted in surprise. “Yes.”

He looked her over. The League lobbied to remove women from the factories and the mines and place them back in their homes, in order to repair the damage the Horde had done to English families. The Reformation League wanted the Crown to reward marriages in the underclass, and for raising children at home rather than delivering them to the crèches. Yet here was the daughter of the lady who worked the hardest to keep women out of any profession, the detective inspector in her overcoat and armor.

He almost laughed. “She must hate the sight of you.”

Ice swept over her face, settling in her eyes and her brittle smile. “Not for many years. Good evening to you, Your Grace.”

She left the room in a swirl of yellow skirts. He stared after her, wondering what he’d said to piss her off. Blast it all. He
should
have left the inspector to Scarsdale. He glanced at his friend, and found Scarsdale watching him with a frown darkening his face.

“Bad sport, captain?”

Rhys clenched his jaw.
Bad sport
was terrorizing a woman.
Bad sport
included taking slaves from the Welsh shores and selling them overseas. Rhys had never indulged in bad sport.

Scarsdale’s expression lightened with disbelief. “You don’t know who she is?” When Rhys didn’t reply, he said, “You knew her mother is Lady Rockingham.”

“Yes.”

“So you know who the countess is, but you don’t know what she did? Good Christ, Trahaearn. Everyone knows this.”

Rhys didn’t. Unlike Scarsdale, he didn’t care for the aristocrats’ gossip, whether in conversation or printed in the newssheets. “Tell me.”

“Thirty years ago, the Horde
darga
held a state function. All of the peers were required to attend, of course. Not a single one knew that the Horde planned a Frenzy for that evening.”

All of the buggers would have been affected. Not so the Horde. “Her mother rutted with one of them?”