Shadowdance (Darkest London 4)

“The Nex led Chase to my rendezvous point tonight. Have you sold me downriver, Thorne?” Jack took a step closer, the need to shift shimmering over his too-tight skin. “Because I assure you, it won’t go well for you from here on out.”

Will, unaware or uncaring of the danger, laughed lightly. “ ‘Downriver’? You sound like Lucien Stone.”

That stopped him. Jack cocked his head and studied his old friend. “What do you know of Stone?”

Will slouched, looping an arm over the back of his chair. “Who doesn’t know Stone? Do not let his little lazy effeminate charade fool you. He’s infamous. A killer.” Icy eyes pinned him. “And you’ve always underestimated him. I do wonder what he thinks of you toying about with his former pet.”

How little Will knew. Jack had never underestimated that conniving bastard. He’d never been allowed the luxury.

But Lucien had been correct in one thing. Jack was no good for Mary. He’d failed to protect her tonight, and had exposed her to Amaros.

Jack’s teeth met with an audible click as he stared down at Will. “Why have the Nex involved Chase? What do you want with her?” Though he could guess. The thought was a cold ballast stone in his gut.

Will’s cocksure demeanor vanished. “Jack, you should know, my superiors have not involved me in this. I believe they find our former connection to be a weakness.” It hurt Will to admit, that was clear.

Crossing his arms in front of him, Jack stood firm and pretended that his heart weren’t trying to pound out of his ribs. When would it end? This feeling of disgust? The need to tear free from his own flesh? Few things mattered to him anymore. But Mary did.

He looked at his old friend. “Will, I am asking. What the devil do you know?”

With an unsteady hand, Will raked back his long white hair. “Hell, I don’t know much.” He frowned up at Jack. “I do know that there’s been rumblings about the threat of a high-up member going rogue. Whoever he is, he’s got enough power to have the superiors very worried. And earlier this evening, one of our agents, Ada Moore, was found dead in Trafalgar Square. We thought it might have been you, but she was stabbed with a Christ’s-thorn stake.”

If Jack hadn’t been well trained, he would have sagged against the wall.

“I’ve read Ada’s file, Jack.” Will’s voice dropped. “Didn’t realize that she was one of the ones who…”

Jesus. A strange, happy ache surged into something sharp and cutting, wonderful yet at the same time terrible. Mary had killed for him. He remembered the slight wince and darkness that had clouded Mary’s eyes when she spoke of the Nex agent. Moore had been the agent who brought her to the square.

He cleared his throat, struggling to think of something to say, but all he wanted to do was return to Stone’s barge and… he didn’t know what he’d do. Jack did not deserve her. But he wanted to.

After dressing in one of her older gowns, Mary found Lucien in the dining room. Like a true pirate, Lucien liked to conduct business there while lording over his feasts. She suspected the man had been starved as a form of torture at one point, for he loved nothing better than to glut himself on food. Not that it would affect his form in the least. Perhaps that was why as well, she mused, as she found him sitting at the head of the table, his booted feet resting comfortably upon the arm of a neighboring chair. There was something quite decadent about being able to indulge as one wished without fear of consequences.

“I agree with Jack Talent’s sentiments,” Lucien said as she approached. “I am greatly pleased that you are still with us, my dear.”

“I do not believe that was Mr. Talent’s precise sentiment.” She leaned over Lucien and gave his cheek a light peck. “However, I thank you.” She straightened, and Lucien gave her hand a fond squeeze. He loved to touch, and since she knew she’d given him a scare, she allowed it.

“I think you underestimate Mr. Talent’s depth of feeling,” Lucien added.

So many offerings on the table. Rolls and loaves of bread, a platter of cold meats and cheeses, cakes and biscuits, a tureen of what appeared to be hominy grits—Lucien’s favorite. Mary shuddered and moved on.

His voice went soft. “You can always come back. I do miss you, you know.”

He’d been the one to offer her the choice, and they had been good friends for twelve years, confidants. Remembering it now brought a lump to her throat. “I miss you too.” She smiled wryly. “Some of the time.”

He scoffed. “Oh, well, flatter a man, will you?”

“That would be gilding the lily, Lucien.” She grinned, then sobered. “I don’t want to come back. Nor should I. I left for your sake as much as I did for mine.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” He looked away, petulant to the last.

“You are one hundred and twenty years old—one hundred and fifty, if you count your first life—”

“Again with the flattery,” he muttered.

She leveled him a look. “And yet you’ve hidden behind my skirts like a lad in short pants for a decade.” Mary lowered her voice, coaxing now, because she knew it was a tender spot with him. “We do not live within society, Lucien. You might have a life, not a perfect one, granted. But—”

“Hidden and subversive nonetheless, eh?” he said with a humorless laugh. “That is not how I want to live, mon amie.”

Sadness and frustration crashed within her. Lucien would never be able to live free and open. He desired men, not women. Even if the underworld did not condemn him, should any hint of improper relations reach human society, he could be imprisoned.

“Nor does it matter,” he said quietly. “That part of me is better off dead.” An old hurt Lucien never spoke of. He was silent for a moment, and she could almost see the cogs working in his mind. A rare contemplative look passed over his features, and, as though he’d reached a decision, he straightened his shoulders and looked up at her. “Your Mr. Talent believes we are lovers. He has for some time now.”

A childish parry if ever Mary heard one. She glared at Lucien sidelong. But the bastard merely smiled. “He is not my Mr. Talent.”

“Whatever you say, pet.”

Pet. That’s how he’d always thought of her. Despite missing his wry company, she was glad to be out from under Lucien’s thumb.

Lucien grunted in apparent amusement over her pointed silence, but made no further comment on the sticky subject of Jack Talent. “Physically you are well, but are you happy, love?” He had been gracious about letting her go, but his tone implied that he second-guessed the move.

To her horror, tears welled in her eyes. She blinked them away, but the damage was done. He’d seen. “Mary?”

“I have not been happy for some time, Lucien.” She forced a smile, though it hurt to do it. “Do you want to hear the strangest bit?”

“Yes,” he whispered, his eyes searching her face as though he was seeing her anew.

“Until last night, I was closer to happy than I’d been in years.” A little laugh broke from her.

Her old friend grimaced, his hand going to his chest to rub it absently. He was silent for a long moment before he sighed, a real one, not the dramatic bit of nonsense he used to convey his displeasure or boredom. Tired eyes stared back at Mary. “I know what he did, pet.”

Slowly, Mary turned to fully face him. “How?”

“There isn’t much I do not know about my own people, chère.”

“Do not hedge with me, Lucien. Why are you telling me this now?”

To his credit he did not shy away from her. “That day on the barge when you first met Talent, I followed him and threatened to expose his prior involvement with the Nex to Ian if he didn’t make certain to stay away from you.”

Wind knocked from her soul, Mary slumped against the high back of a chair. “He never said.”

“No. But it is the truth.”

“Why?” she whispered.

“I was jealous.”

“Pardon?” She hadn’t heard him correctly. Surely.

Lucien visibly winced. “I saw the way you looked at each other. He wanted you.” His green gaze turned soft, sad. “And you wanted him.”

A hard lump filled Mary’s throat, and she looked away. That day. She remembered it with knife-sharp clarity. And it hurt. “I thought…” She grimaced, not wanting to say the words. “He seemed different, sweet.” A half-laugh broke from her. The very idea of Talent being sweet. “But I was wrong. Talent spent the good part of four years looking down his nose at me as if I were river scum.”

“Because I walked in that room and deliberately made him think you were my plaything,” Lucien said in a low, rasping voice. He wouldn’t look at her now.

“Lucien…” She cleared her throat, but that only made it ache more. “I never resented acting the part of your lover.” He’d given her a new life and protected her in so many ways that she had wanted to do the same for him. Lucien’s machinations had never truly hurt her because they’d both known precisely what they were doing.

Frowning, Lucien shook his head. “It was one thing to play that part when we were working, but that was not why I did so then. And deep down you know it. Admit it, you resent me now because of it.”

She did. Mary closed her eyes and tried to breathe. Oh, God, she did. She’d wanted to kill Lucien that day. And she’d wanted to kill Jack Talent for believing the worst of her every day since.

Lucien studied her face and sighed again. “Ah, mon amour, I did you such a wrong.” His booted feet hit the floor with a thunk as he rested his arms upon the table. “I do not think I realized how great until just now.”

He looked up at her, his jade eyes imploring. “I knew he would take you from me. And I would be alone. I ought to have let him, chère. You deserved happiness, something real. I’m so very sorry for that, Mary. I miscalculated. Badly.”

Emotion welled up within Mary, and she quelled it with a vicious clench of her jaw. “You berate yourself too harshly. Did you give him instruction as to how he ought to treat me?”

“Well, no—”

“I did not think you did.” Mary picked up a silver spoon, not knowing what she was doing, only that her hands shook. “And now he says that he needs me, doesn’t want to let me go.” She laughed. “Can you imagine?”

“Yes.”

The spoon landed with a loud clang. “I confess, I am a novice to love, but I cannot believe one should feel this…” She punched her chest, where the deep ache would not go away. “This agony. Should one?”

“Ah, mon amie, you are asking the wrong man. The brief glimpse I’ve had of love was a vision of pure hell.”

Mary winced, sorry that she’d broken open that tender subject. But she could not refrain from adding, “The only thing I know for certain is that, until I allowed him certain liberties, he was content to treat me with scorn.” Until she said the words, she hadn’t fully realized how much it burned her pride. And how angry she was at Jack.

Lucien looked as though he would argue, and Mary cut him off. “Please.” It was a rasp, desperate and pained. She blinked hard, refusing to look at her old friend.

He was silent for a moment, then he leaned back in his seat, once more insolent and undemanding. “Very well. Tell me what happened tonight, chère.”

Mary turned away, inspecting a lovely cornucopia of fruit spilling down the center of the table. “It was vicious, brutal.” She swallowed hard. “He drew a weapon.” Her nail edged a groove in the mahogany. “It appeared to be like a baton, with two spikes on the end. But when he touched me with it”—on a sigh, she faced Lucien again—“a bolt of pure electricity coursed through me, then I knew no more.”

Lucien wiped a hand over his face. “Damnation.” They both knew what electricity could do to their hearts. “So”—Lucien idly tapped one toe against the edge of the table—“we now know what killed those GIM.”

Mary wandered over to the table and selected an apple before going to the window to peer out. “And then there is Talent, who is in danger of being driven over the edge by what has happened to him.” Mary could confide that much, because Lucien knew. The blasted man knew everything, it seemed.

“As much as I dislike the prig,” Lucien said quietly, “revenge is not always the loss of sanity, but sometimes its very balm. And if that is what all of this Bishop mess is about, then devil take the SOS and the Nex, leave it be and let the boy have at it.”

She glanced down at the apple in her hand. “I killed tonight, Lucien.”

The chair he sat upon creaked. “Tell me.” The command was so soft that she almost did not hear it.

Her nail broke through the bright red apple skin with a little pop. “A Nex agent. She was one of them. Who hurt him.” Mary blinked rapidly. “I know what you’re thinking.”

“What am I thinking, chère?”

That I’ve fallen for him. Her eyes burned but no tears came. “That I was foolish to risk so much for a man such as he. I cannot explain it well, only that I know he’s damaged, but he is not destroyed. You see revenge as a balm.” Mary shook her head, still looking at the apple. “It is a toxin. He has a family who loves him. Should he fall, they will be destroyed too.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “What is one more kill to me? I am already dead inside.”