Chapter Twenty-Nine

“There’s only one thing to be done. I have to break Mason out of the asylum.”

Ginny exchanged glances with the two other women standing huddled with her and Brendan near the Kellys’ front door. Mrs. Gideon returned her incredulous look before Mrs. Greely made the first objection.

“But that’s illegal, and you are a police officer.”

“I was a police officer. If I pull this off, I expect it’ll put a finish to things.” Brendan frowned, and Ginny caught his eye for an instant. They’d worried about whether their association would damage his career chances. Now he was ready to toss it all away…for the sake of compassion.

She experienced a twinge in the region of her heart. Or maybe it wasn’t a twinge but something letting go—the last bastion she’d held against capitulating to this man.

“But Mason’s a lunatic.” Topaz Gideon made the next, measured objection. “What makes you think he’ll cooperate?”

“I’m thinking a squad of his own automatons bent on a single purpose might just persuade him.”

“The same ones that nearly killed him, you mean.”

“Absent of Pat Kelly.” Brendan shot a look at the door of the inner room. “I have to do this for her, Mrs. Gideon. And for him.”

Topaz Gideon seemed to reach a decision. “You have my support.”

But Ginny hadn’t yet expressed her objection. “That place—we were just there asking for permission to see Mason,” she explained to the other women. “It’s so secure. How will you get in and out of there?”

“Not sure,” Brendan admitted.

Mrs. Gideon asked, “The authorities there can’t be persuaded to give us access to Mason? We could send someone in to consult with him.”

“I would gladly go,” said Mrs. Greely.

“The gentleman we saw refused categorically. Accused me of being an automaton sympathizer.”

“Ignorant reactionary,” Mrs. Gideon denounced. “He’s leaving us few options. Sergeant Fagan, I don’t want to see you ruin your career.”

“At this point, I don’t much care.”

“But you’re injured.” Ginny, feeling more and more desperate, attempted reason once again. “Your arm—”

“Irrelevant,” he snapped.

Ginny ground her teeth. If he was bent on sacrificing himself, she wouldn’t be able to dissuade him. And while it was one thing for her to take chances with her own safety, something she did routinely, she found she liked it far less in the man she…

Mrs. Gideon snapped her fingers, keeping Ginny from completing that thought.

“Here’s an idea. I’ll see if I can get my husband involved. He’s in Canada at the moment, on state business, but he’s due back later this afternoon. I’ll talk to him, yes?”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Gideon. What good will that do?” Brendan asked.

She lowered her voice still further. “He’s a former agent of Queen Victoria, well versed in covert operations and used to chasing monsters. I’d say he’s just the man you need.”

****

“You know you’ll unquestionably be scuttling your career.”

Brendan looked up when Ginny spoke. They’d returned to the parlor of her house at Linwood Avenue to await word from Topaz Gideon. It hadn’t taken long for Ginny to ramp up and face him, her beautiful, dark eyes intent and flags of color flying in her cheeks.

Oh, hell. He dragged air into his aching body and replied, “Some things are more important than my career.”

“This from the man who stood in this very room and told me his career meant more than our relationship.”

“What relationship? You insisted you couldn’t wait to put this city behind you and would be gone by the end of the week.”

“I’m still here, though, aren’t I?” She touched his cheek. “Still with you.”

“Listen, Ginny, I’m not in the mood to discuss this. I’m tired, worried, and I don’t quite know how I’m going to make good on what I promised Rose back there.”

“Sit down.” She planted a hand in the center of his chest and pushed him gently into the nearest chair. “Put up your feet.” She pushed an ottoman into place and lifted his boots onto it one after the other. “Do you want a drink?”

“Better not. Need to keep a clear head.” Mrs. Gideon had vowed to send word as soon as she spoke with her husband.

An agent—former agent—of the British Crown, eh? An Englishman, of all things, joining forces with a bunch of Irishmen. Should prove interesting.

Ginny sank down in a puff of skirts at the side of his chair. He could see the worry in her gaze as it touched and measured him. “You don’t even know where in the asylum this man, Mason, is being housed. There will be attendants, people to keep the patients from straying.”

“Aye.”

She brushed his good hand with her fingers, smoothing across the palm. “Brendan, all this business with Pat and Rose has made me think what it would do to me to lose someone I…needed very badly.”

“That made him look at her, really look. “Are you after saying you…need me?”

“I guess I am.” She swallowed, her eyes holding his. “Not easy for me to admit, I’ll have you know. After my last experience”— She broke off, and the color came and went in her face once more. “I vowed I’d never again allow myself to be so vulnerable.”

“Aye, you did mention it. Thus your penchant for ugly men.”

“Yes. I find ugly men, by and large, more honest. What you see is what you get, with them. There are no layers of charm and deception, no games or lies.”

“I see.” Brendan wondered who he’d been, this handsome devil who still haunted their relationship. Each time they made love, he got curious about the other men with whom she’d shared herself and whether she’d done so as generously as she did with him. He’d wanted to ask, but it seemed too possessive, and he knew instinctively Ginny Landry wouldn’t react well to a man coming over all possessive.

Now he wondered if she also believed him a liar and a user just because he had a face women might favor.

“Everyone warned me about him—my father and my friends. Even my stepmother, who rarely interferes with me. Did I listen? I thought we’d been destined to meet. I thought it was forever. It lasted till he got bored with me and another woman caught his eye.”

Softly he asked, “And do you think I’m like him? I’m stable; I’m invested in this city. I’m not going anyplace.”

“Yes, well…” She questioned him with her eyes. “That’s another problem, isn’t it? You’re not going anywhere. Your life is here. And no, you’re nothing like the charming Hank.”

“Hank, is it? Thank you very much.”

“I can’t say you’re not charming—you must know you are. But you’re also strong, serious, and dedicated. Honest. A good man.”

“Well, so.” He lifted a brow. “And how is that a problem?”

“I don’t know if I’m ready for serious, Brendan, or ready to stay put. I thought you were going to be just another fling. But now, well, I know how I felt when I saw you injured. And I find I very much dislike the prospect of you going off to try and break into that awful place in search of the madman who once almost killed you. I’m so afraid something terrible will happen to you, I can scarcely think straight.”

She bent her head and pressed it against his shoulder. Brendan’s heart, weary and uncertain at this point, promptly melted. He caressed her dark hair—soft as silk—with the fingers of his good hand, absorbed the scent and feel of her, warm and vital.

Oh, aye, he understood what she felt—she’d meant to keep things casual between them. Now she suddenly found they no longer were so casual. He, several steps ahead of her, had begun worrying about this days ago.

Yet, as she pointed out, she was still here.

“Listen to me, Ginny—bonny lass.” He curled his fingers around her jaw and lifted her face gently. “You needn’t fear for me. I’ll be in the presence of an English agent and several deadly automatons.”

“But you’re afraid of him—I know you are.”

There was that. The very idea of facing Mason in the flesh made his balls try to climb up into his belly. But a man had to do a lot of things that frightened him, especially in this job.

If he still had a job after tonight.

“Not something I’d choose to do, certainly. But if he can resurrect Pat…”

“But what if he can’t? He’s mad, after all. Or what if you get him out of there and he refuses to cooperate? What if he turns on you?”

“You’re not after doing a lot for my confidence.”

“Brendan, I’m scared for you.”

“Here, come here.”

He gathered her up from her knees and drew her into his lap, close against his chest. The contact made his broken ribs hurt for an instant before she tucked her dark head into the crook of his neck, her lips only inches from his, and he began to feel a lot better.

“Ginny, darlin’, we never know what the future holds. Life as a policeman is risky even at the best of times.” It made one reason why he’d determined never to marry. In his experience, it made a bad proposition.

How did that fit with his impulse to spend forever with this woman in his arms?

She murmured into his neck, “On the frontier, too. With my father being a doctor, I’ve seen it all. He always says that in Dakota there are a thousand ways for men to die. But Brendan, none of those men…none of them is you.”

“And I matter that much to you, do I?” He couldn’t have held back the question to save his life.

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. You matter very, very much.” Each utterance of the word “very” came accompanied by a kiss to his jaw. She reached up, touched his cheek, and turned his face so their mouths met instead.

And what did he taste in her kiss? Her fear for him, aye, closely followed by the heat that came to them so easily. Was there more? Could he sense a measure of devotion? Love?

That word possessed his mind as he explored her mouth luxuriantly with his tongue.

God, he loved the flavor of her, loved her strength and that streak of wild independence. No man would ever completely tame this woman, nor bend her. She would only stay with a man because she wanted to. And what a blinding privilege to be that man.

“Brendan, Brendan.” She ended the kiss at last and laid her hand against his cheek. “I’ve only one thing to say to you. You’d better come out of this in one piece, understand? You’d better come back to me. I’ll never forgive you if you don’t.”