Reeling from Lord Aldridge’s revelations, Colleen gripped Nick’s arm as they approached his family’s townhome. Though she wished to storm her uncle’s study and demand answers, unsubstantiated accusations and ravings about fairy cats would see her delivered to the mad house.
Had her uncle been abusing his position as her trustee to turn a profit? If so, then her estate manager, Watts, was corrupt. He’d been sending her reports for years, and it made her ill to think how many thousands of pounds she had transferred into his care. Had he pocketed the money? Funneled it back to her uncle? What was the true state of Craigieburn and its lands? Was the roof truly damaged, or was it a ruse designed to keep her dashing about the shadows of London, turning a profit with her skills? Gah! If so, then all these years he’d known she was a sneak thief.
Worse still, had he used those earnings to fund a mad man’s research? Had her uncle himself placed Sorcha in Dr. Farquhar’s hands? She recalled the charred bodies in the burned-out basement laboratory. Exactly how many other cat sìth had been sacrificed to this lunacy? Did cryptid hunters roam her land, unchallenged, collecting the cats to sell to others who believed them capable of magic? And what of those men, women and children who possessed golden eyes? Might such attention incite a modern witch hunt?
Bilious twistings escaped the pit of her stomach and spread upward, constricting her throat.
Not that the repercussions ended there. Though the imprisonment and torment of cat sìth made her blood boil, any good that might have come of it—a possible treatment for heart block—had slipped through her own fingers.
“I’m of a mind to gather a few supplies and head directly to your uncle’s door,” Nick said.
“As am I.” Colleen entertained a brief fantasy of doing exactly that. With Nick at her side, they could— She shook her head. “But he won’t tell you anything, and he certainly won’t admit to any underhanded dealings.” Her feet slowed. “There is, however, a dinner party he’s attending this evening.”
“You think he’s involved.”
“I do. In so many ways.”
“And you want to break into his home, his study, and rifle through his papers for answers and evidence. Before we confront him about Dr. Farquhar’s whereabouts. Properly, over tea and whisky. And perhaps the sights of my TTX pistol.”
“You know me so well.” She managed a faint smile. The brilliant orange sun hung low over London, casting the jagged line of rooftops into a dark profile and setting the low-hanging clouds aglow. Chimney pots spouted smoke, warming homes as the city quieted, hunkering down for the night. “I’ll contact Isabella, make certain she and my uncle still plan to attend the dinner party. I’m certain they do. He’ll want to keep up appearances.”
His face was all business, yet she knew revenge and justice lurked beneath the surface. “A few hours from now, then, we’ll go. Together.”
“Agreed.” They stopped upon the pavement before the entrance of his family townhome. A few feet behind them, Sorcha brushed against a scrolled iron railing, watching. Lights blazed in every window. Not once had Colleen left by roof to return by door, lest she find herself floundering for an explanation before her uncle. Not, apparently, that it had mattered.
She pulled free her dark spectacles and perched them upon her nose.
“No worries.” Nick led her up the stairs. “They’re accustomed to my odd comings and goings. They’ll adjust to the cat.”
The door swung open. Hopsworth lifted haughty wire eyebrows, but said nothing as they entered the foyer, an overlarge black cat trailing in their wake.
“Where have the two of you been?” Lady Stafford cried as she rushed down the staircase and past Hopsworth, the train of her shimmering gold tea gown rustling as it swept behind her. Ruffles edged in daring black lace framed her face, circled her wrists, and cascaded to the floor. “No—” She lifted a hand, palm outward. “I’ve changed my mind. Do not tell me what you’ve been about. It will only color my nightmares. Nicholas, you look a fright. Please change into more appropriate attire. Lady Stewart,” the viscountess held out her arm, waggling her fingers, “do come with me. I managed to persuade the modiste with the loosest tongue in all of London to abandon her other clients and transport her wares to our parlor, but we must make haste if we’re to have a gown ready in four days’ time.”
Colleen blinked at the rush of words.
“Mother—” Nick objected.
“I’m aware of the terms and conditions of your fiancée’s presence, Nicholas,” the viscountess said. “Wedding or not, maintaining appearances means providing society with the finer details of Lady Stewart’s wedding preparations, down to the beads upon her bodice and the embroidery upon her sleeves. Invitations must be engraved. A wedding breakfast planned. And so on and so forth.”
“Your mother is correct.” Colleen found her voice. “A closely chaperoned young woman in the throes of frantic wedding plans is unlikely to have time for other pursuits.” She cast him a significant glance. There were several hours before her uncle’s house would grow quiet. “While we coo over silk and lace, you might best use the time to investigate the positions of other players upon the board.”
Nick hesitated. Furrows of worry lined his brow. “There are individuals I must contact. You’ve no objections if I leave you in my mother’s care?”
“None.” On the contrary. Lady Stafford presented a curious mix of co-conspirator and managing mother, and Colleen was curious about which direction the balance tipped.
Within minutes, she stood upon a stool in her undergarments while a seamstress affecting a French accent poked, prodded and measured, calling orders to her two young assistants while eyeing Sorcha—who crouched before the fireplace, front paws tucked beneath the flare of white upon her chest—with deep mistrust. When cats and rustling cloth mixed, the fabric was always trounced.
“Is it possible to remove le chat noir?”
“Entirely possible,” Colleen answered, stepping down. En route to the cat sìth, she snatched up a stray bit of string, tied three knots—a code—then looped it about Sorcha’s neck as she carried the feline to the window. “Tae Isabella,” Colleen whispered. To Isabella. Then cracked the window. “A sasser o cream fin ye return.” A saucer of cream when you return.
With a twitch of her whiskers, the cat sìth leapt free.
She turned to find two partially finished gowns held up for her approval. “Perhaps the silk moiré?” It rippled and flowed beautifully beneath the flickering gaslight.
“An excellent choice, my lady,” the seamstress agreed. Pins and needles flew, securing swaths of heavy silk about her hips, slipping sleeves with raw edges over her arms while her assistant’s needle flashed as she basted panels together. Moments later, a mirror was placed before her, and the modiste gathered her assistants and moved to the far end of the room, giving their patron and her future daughter-in-law a moment’s privacy.
Lifting a shaking hand to her chest, Colleen touched a row of filigree-set amber buttons hastily tacked in place to embellish the simple, unfinished bodice. Sparks of light flashed off the stone inclusions embedded in the ancient resin.
“They match the ring.” First an heirloom of sentimental value, now this. The thought and consideration Nick and his mother had showered upon her was almost too much. She blinked back the tears that threatened.
“And your eyes.” Anna’s voice was breathy. Waif-thin and pale, she made her way across the room. Behind her, an attendant wheeled the bulky, quietly-humming, yet truly terrifying machine into the room, doing her best to be unobtrusive. The name of the device, P.C. Hutchinson’s Magneto-Shock Machine, was embossed across its side. Did Anna go nowhere without it? Anna and her mother shared a conspiratorial look. “What are the odds you’ll stand with my brother before clergy?”
Colleen’s mouth opened. Then closed. This was no hastily arranged fitting. It was a planned ambush.
“From the look upon her face?” Lady Stafford’s smile was rather smug. “Higher than I’d hoped. Nicholas brought her home dusty and rumpled, but smiling. Given those boots laced to her knees and the knife they almost conceal, I think my son might finally have found his match.”
“Agreed,” Anna said. “Only a wife predisposed to similar clandestine activities will ever truly understand him.”
Colleen’s heart constricted. Never could she have predicted such a warm welcome. She’d reconciled herself to abandoning her career and returning alone to Craigieburn, but with Nick waving temptation before her in all its forms, she was reassessing her decision. Thoughts of becoming his wife, of becoming a member of his family filled her with warmth and happiness. “How long ago did he ask for his grandmother’s ring?”
“Months ago, before his most recent, unexpected disappearance.” Nick’s mother clasped her hands to her chest. “I do hope you’ll forgive our attempts to convince you to become a more permanent member of our family.”
The modiste cleared her throat, impatient.
“Ah, we mustn’t keep her waiting.” The viscountess winked. “She’s a gown to finish and rumors to spread.”
Released from the heavy fabric and handed a robe, Colleen pulled Anna aside while the seamstress consulted with the Lady Stafford about details such as seed pearls and knife pleats and the necessity of trim. Choices she was happy to cede to another.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Colleen murmured. It was a struggle to follow the various strings knotted together in her mind. A welcome marriage proposal. A quest to improve Anna’s declining health. The discovery of a mad scientist with designs upon cat sìth. The manipulations and involvement of her uncle.
“And why not?” Anna pressed a hand to Colleen’s arm. “Admittedly, I do not often attend ton events, but did you think I never noticed the dances you and my brother shared?”
“It could have been no more than pity for a dull wallflower in a plain vase set high upon a dusty shelf.” Their first dance had been one shared for mutual convenience, an exercise in moving from one point to another in a manner least likely to draw comment.
“Perhaps at first.” Anna tipped her head. “But I’ve long suspected you might share more than dances.”
As they had. But only out of the public eye and well-hidden in the shadows. A blush crept across her cheeks.
“Ever since that first waltz, every woman we’ve pushed, shoved or dragged into his path has been summarily rejected. So if you think we’ll let you escape without a fight—”
“There are, of course, complications,” Colleen interrupted even as she fought back a smile. “I’ve my own responsibilities—and desires—that lay in Scotland. And your brother has his. To the Crown, to—”
“Me,” Anna finished on a sigh. “He can be a fool, my brother. He drives himself too hard and neglects his own interests. I know very well he’s on a quest to heal my heart, to fix what he did not break. I appreciate his efforts. I truly do, but he should not put the entirety of his life on hold.”
“Listen,” Colleen caught up Anna’s cool, gaunt hands, unwilling to admit aloud that Nick’s devotion to his sister might well drive a wedge between them no matter how hard they worked to find middle ground. Until they located Dr. Farquhar, Cornelius Pierpont and the contents of a certain rosewood box, deciding upon their future would have to wait.
“I can’t and won’t make you promises about the likelihood that the device we seek—one I’ve yet to lay eyes upon—will offer you any solutions. But we will find it.” She thought of Sorcha locked in a cage. Of the morbid contents within the other wire cages of Dr. Farquhar’s charred laboratory. Was it possible another cat sìth had undergone some kind of testing and survived? “If there’s any hope of its success, we’ll do our best to— Anna?”
Anna crumpled to the floor, and Colleen lunged, managing to catch her about the waist, softening an otherwise hard landing. “Help!” she cried.
“Anna!” The viscountess dropped a length of fabric as both she and the attendant nurse rushed forward to drop to their knees besides Anna’s convulsing form.
The nurse lifted her wrist. “Respiration steady. Pulse absent.” Standing, the nurse pressed a pocket watch into Lady Stafford’s hand. “Mark the time. Three minutes, no more.” She hurried back toward P.C. Hutchinson’s Magneto-Shock Machine, flipping a lever that made the contraption hum and crackle as she pushed it to Anna’s side.
“Fifteen seconds.” The viscountess encircled her daughter’s wrist, searching for a pulse. A tear ran down her cheek.
In two minutes and forty-five seconds they would… what?
Her own heart hammering against her ribcage, Colleen cradled Anna’s head while the nurse ripped open the loose bodice fitted about her narrow chest and swiftly unbuttoned the camisole that lay beneath, exposing the pale expanse of her torso to begin chest compressions.
“Thirty.” The viscountess’s breaths came in short bursts. Her face was ashen and bloodless as she detached a sharp and glinting probe from the instrument’s side.
Every instinct screamed at Colleen to stop this madness. But Anna herself—and her mother and Nick—must approve, for they’d installed both the nurse and the device.
A treatment acceptable only in the face of certain death.
“Forty-five.” A tear splashed onto the viscountess’s cheek.
The whine from the device grew louder.
Crack! Colleen jumped as a blinding flash of white light arced between the point of the metal rod and the device itself. The machine fell silent. A puff of acrid smoke rose from its innards.
Lady Harrington let out a deep wail and began to frantically bang on the device, flipping switches and spinning dials. But to no avail.
While Colleen was swept up the stairs and into a room filled with flowing lengths of white silk, lace and other assorted trims, Nick fled into the study where he scratched out a quick note to Jackson requesting help. Friend and fellow agent, the man was tasked with keeping an eye on foreigners looking to turn a profit by absconding with British ingenuity. Perhaps Cornelius Pierpont was one such individual. Moreover, Jackson was a damned good agent. They’d worked together in the past and, given today’s revelations, backup would be welcome, particularly if he and Colleen found hard evidence upon examining the contents of her uncle’s safe. He dashed up the stairs to the aviary—his new favorite location—and sent the message on its way.
Task done, he tugged his pocket watch from his waistcoat. Seven o’clock. Given Colleen’s presence, would his family insist upon a formal evening meal? Months of flirtation had crystalized into the oddest of courtships, and he hated to leave her in his family’s clutches for even a short length of time while their future was still on uncertain ground. He didn’t keep much clothing in his old wardrobe, but he’d make do rather than return to his bachelor quarters.
He started down the stairs toward his old room.
Distress at Lord Aldridge’s revelations that her uncle and estate might well fund Dr. Farquhar’s studies of the cat sìth had tensed Colleen’s supple frame and stiffened her resolve to see their quest through to the finish line. Cryptid hunters were a blight upon their nation’s natural resources and, if they’d been turned loose at Craigieburn, there was no telling the damage her uncle had wrought upon her inheritance and its inhabitants. The anger such thoughts engendered curled his hands into fists, ones which he’d like nothing better than to wrap around the man’s throat. He would see the man pay. Any connection to CEAP needed to be severed and quickly, before men without inconvenient moral scruples used the existence of cat sìth as an excuse to study human oddities in the name of scientific advancement. With her reflective eyes, Colleen—and others like her—might well end up as unwilling research subjects. He’d not let that happen, not to any of them.
As his list of tasks grew longer, they’d begun to circle back upon each other, winding tighter with each revelation. Save his sister. Assist the woman he wished to marry. Locate a mad scientist and his device. Shut down a shadow committee by ripping control of his fiancée’s estate from her guardian’s hands. All while wondering at the ethics of employing a life-saving contraption that tainted money had financed.
Life had grown immeasurably complicated these past few days.
Screams echoed up the stairwell. Shouts followed. As he ran down the steps, he could feel the hum of electricity as P.C. Hutchinson’s Magneto-Shock Machine came to life. A loud pop sounded and his mother cried out. He burst into the parlor, trampling silk in his rush to reach his sister’s side where the nurse administered percussive pacing and chest compressions.
Anna’s eyes flew open and she dragged in a great, horrible and stertorous breath. Her face flushed red as blood began to flow through her veins and arteries, her heart once again condescending to continue its labors.
“It happened again?” his sister whispered, staring up at her brother.
“It did, darling.” His mother wrapped her arms about her daughter, ignoring the tears that still trickled over her cheeks. “For about one minute and thirty seconds.”
The nurse nodded, confirming his worst fears. “And the device short-circuited. I’ll send for the technician.”
Colleen, eyes wide, looked at him.
“Longer than before.” He answered her unspoken question as the sound of his own heartbeat thrashing in his ears faded.
“She’ll recover?” Colleen’s voice was a whisper.
He nodded. This time.
Only then did he glance at the Magneto-Shock Machine. A faint wisp of smoke rose from deep inside its mechanisms. So much for its usefulness. He was almost grateful, and yet, had his sister not revived, a functioning device—horrible though it was—might well have saved her.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, turning his attention to his sister, ever careful to maintain a calm, clinical pretense after each attack, watching closely as color returned to her face.
“Fine.” She rubbed her chest. There would be bruises. “Mostly.”
“Is there anything more that can be done?” Colleen pushed a loose lock of hair behind her ear with a shaking hand.
He shook his head. “These episodes come on without warning and don’t seem to cluster, though she’ll be watched closely.”
“As always,” Anna sighed. She threw Colleen a wan smile. “Privacy is in short supply when your heart can’t be relied upon.”
“It’s necessary,” he commented. “Come. I’ll carry you to bed.”
“In the nursery,” Anna insisted.
Nick knew better than to argue that point. He scooped his sister into his arms and turned to leave the room. “Where you will let me listen to your heart.” To be certain he could detect no further progression of the damage. He gave Colleen a speaking look. “Don’t… take any actions without me.”
“I’ll wait,” Colleen assured him. “In your—my—room.”
Where there was a fire, a bed, and a few hours until they could take once more to the roofs.
Anna snickered softly. “Convenient,” she muttered under her breath, just loud enough for her brother to hear.
He gave her arm a pinch. “Hush, lest I accidentally drop you.” He wouldn’t, but light-hearted sibling sparring always brought a grin to her face.
“Let me see the modiste out.” His mother pressed a kiss to Anna’s cheek. “I’ll be with you directly.”
“Of course.” As their mother hurried to the flustered dressmaker and her assistants, Anna dropped her head against Nick’s chest. “I’ll be fine. Well, as fine as I ever am. I’ll feel even better if the ‘actions’ you have planned for tonight have to do with that miracle mentioned earlier?”
“They do.” If they didn’t find answers inside Lord Maynard’s safe, he’d hunt the man down himself and drag forth the whereabouts of Dr. Farquhar in a most ungentlemanly manner. “We’ve a new lead to chase down.”
“Progress?” Her eyes held a cautious hope.
“Perhaps,” he warned.
“I won’t keep him long.” Anna caught Colleen by the sleeve of her dressing gown. “There’s nothing he can do that my nurse isn’t equally capable of—save hunt down whichever scientist is jealously guarding this secret you seek. Promise you’ll come visit me tomorrow and tell stories about your toe-curling adventures?”
“They’re more of a scandalous nature.” Colleen gave his sister a wink. “I can’t—and won’t—tell you all the details, but you might ask me questions about the gossip rags, and we’ll see what I can confirm or deny.”
“Excellent.” His sister’s cheeks were pale, but maintaining a healthy glow. “I’ve a full year of missed ballroom scandals to inquire about.” She released Colleen. “Let’s go, brother.”
Colleen turned away to gather her things, and Nick began the climb to the nursery. “I hate to leave you so soon after an attack.”
“But you will,” Anna answered him. “Go find this device you’ve been carrying on about and, while you’re at it, convince Lady Stewart to marry you. I’d like nothing more than to attend your wedding before—”
“Don’t say it,” Nick stopped her, frowning. “I’ve every confidence you will live to hold your grandchildren.”
She slapped him lightly on the chest. “So long as it’s not at the expense of being able to hold your own. You have an hour, no more, before I toss you from the nursery.”