Mina Wentworth and the Invisible City Page 8

  Mina could not speak for the others, but she would be equally happy sitting in a corner with her friend Felicity or dancing with Rhys—or, if she was very clever, slipping away with him into some darkened room while the hundreds of attendees had their fun without them.

  Perhaps she would suggest the last plan to him later tonight.

  He waited for her on the front steps again, Anne by his side. Her heart seemed to swell at the sight, and her throat ached enough that she could barely form a word when he opened the carriage door and held out his hand. He frowned slightly when he spotted Scarsdale sprawled across the bench and sawing off snores.

  “Absinthe,” Mina said softly. “A lot of it. He signed a marriage contract today.”

  Dismay filled his gaze, followed by frustration. “Christ. What can I do for him?”

  She squeezed his hand. “Be his friend. And carry him inside.”

  He nodded, kissed her briefly before climbing into the carriage. Mina turned to Anne, waiting a few yards away. Her gaze swept over the girl’s face, her arms. No injuries that she could see. “Good evening to you, Tinker Anne. Are you well? I hope you are.”

  The girl smiled. “I am.”

  With a few steps, Mina crossed the distance the separated them. She slipped her arm around the girl’s shoulders, began walking with her toward the house. “You aren’t at the Blacksmith’s today?”

  The girl’s small frame stiffened. “I can’t go back.”

  What? “Why not?”

  Anne didn’t have a moment to answer. Rhys’s heavy tread sounded behind them before he drew even. He’d thrown Scarsdale over his shoulder, face down and ass up.

  The girl blinked. “What happened to him?”

  “He had a difficult day,” Rhys said gruffly. He looked to Mina. “And you?”

  “I think we all had a difficult day.” Mina slipped her hand into Anne’s, walked up the stairs—with Rhys at her side, and his soused friend over his shoulder.

  Her new little family.

  “But it’s already better,” she said.

  Chapter 5

  Aside from the bedrooms, the library had always seemed the warmest, most comfortable room in Rhys’s house, and so Mina chose to take Anne there. She poured herself a glass of wine. A maid brought in a tray with bowls of strawberries and cream. It would ruin the girl’s dinner, perhaps, but Mina could not think of a better night for it.

  Rhys came down after depositing Scarsdale in his room upstairs. He looked to her, appearing slightly uncertain—oh, that was not an expression familiar to his face—but Mina had no idea how to proceed. She couldn’t interview the girl like a witness.

  Perhaps it was best to start where they’d already begun. “Anne, why can’t you return to the Blacksmith’s?”

  “Oh.” The girl sank a little lower in her armchair. She glanced at Rhys before focusing on Mina again. “I should tell you everything, right? Including my motivations.”

  “If you feel that you can,” Mina said. “Or we can wait until you’re ready. But if you need help for any reason, I hope that you’ll let us know.”

  “I don’t need help. But I thought . . . I thought someone else did.” Her lips quivered slightly, and she touched the side of her face.

  Mina tensed. Oh, she knew that touch. She’d seen hundreds of women make that same gesture. Someone had hit her girl. She glanced at Rhys, saw the same banked rage burning in his eyes.

  “Who did, Anne? Does this person need our help?”

  The tinker shook her head, took a deep breath. “No. It was a mistake. Geordie took an apprenticeship with another blacksmith. An inventor. He didn’t pass his test for work at the Blacksmith’s, but I told him to just wait another year. And I didn’t hear from him for a while, and none of the others did either, so I was worried.”

  Mina decided not to make a point at that moment. “I’d have worried, too,” she said. “Did you try to find him?”

  “Yes. It wasn’t hard. I knew he was apprenticed under Wilbur the Reacher.” She glanced at Rhys when he drew a sudden breath, his lips white. “You know him?”

  Her heart pounding, Mina watched him struggle for an even tone. “I only know of him, and the automated machinery that he builds,” Rhys said. “And that his workshop is in Birdcage Alley.”

  Smoking hells. Farther into Southwark than she and Newberry had ventured the night before, and although not as dangerous as some of the rookeries farther west, Birdcage Alley was still not an area that she’d ever want Anne venturing to alone.

  Blast it all, Mina would not venture there alone.

  “That’s right.” Anne nodded, apparently oblivious to their horror.

  “Did you go there?”

  “I sent grams to the workshop from the Blacksmith’s,” she said, but Mina’s relief was short-lived. “Geordie never answered them, though. So I went across the river a few times during the day; Wilbur the Reacher said Geordie was busy. He was always busy. So I realized I needed to go at night, instead.”

  Mina barely stopped the moan from passing her lips. Anne was here, in one piece. She’d obviously made it through. Looking a little ill himself, Rhys came to her side. The sofa legs creaked when he sat heavily next to her, took her hand. She held on for dear life.

  “So on Saturday, I sent that first gram to you,” Anne said. Her fingers began twisting together. “But I didn’t make it to the workshop. Mary and I didn’t like the way a pair of lamplighters were looking at us. So we stayed on the bridge and played knucklebones at a lemon ice shop.”

  “Mary?” Rhys asked.

  “My friend. She’s got a hammer.” Anne clenched her right fist, imitating a hammering apparatus. “I wouldn’t go alone. I’m not daft.”

  “Of course not,” he said. The grip of his hand didn’t loosen on Mina’s. “And you went again last night.”

  “Yes. We thought midnight was a good time, just in case Geordie was working a second shift. So I saw him open a shutter in the workshop, and I catted to him.” She took in their blank stares. “Miow. We signal that way in the Crèche. Then Geordie came out and he was . . . he was all in a rage. ‘You just want my apprenticeship, you jade whore, you get out of here!’”

  Oh, Anne. Mina’s eyes filled and she slipped across the space between them, kneeled in front of the girl’s chair. She took the small hand in hers. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It wasn’t you who said it.” With a hunch of her shoulder, the girl firmed her trembling lips. “I pounded one into his face.”

  “Good,” Mina said.

  “He got me back. Then Mary was shouting to wake the dead, and the next I know there are two constables, and Geordie was telling them that I was trying to steal Wilbur the Reacher’s designs. So they dragged Mary and me up to the Blacksmith’s, and Lottie sent me away for stealing.” Brimming with tears, her eyes locked on Mina’s. “I didn’t. I swear I didn’t.”

  “I believe it.” She smoothed her hand down the side of the girl’s hair. “I absolutely believe you.”

  “The Blacksmith will, too,” Rhys reassured her.

  “Do you think so? But he might not. Will you still want me then, if I can’t be a blacksmith?”

  Mina frowned. “Of course we would. That wouldn’t make a bit of difference.”

  “But I’ll only be a tinker.”

  “You could spend your days scooping shit out of the river and making piles on the lawn, and it wouldn’t make a difference to us,” Rhys said from behind her.

  Mina’s lips smashed together, and she met Anne’s eyes. The girl giggled.

  “I hope it will be something other than that,” Mina said. “But I have a question for you: Why didn’t you come to us so that we could help you find Geordie?”

  The tinker squirmed a little in her seat. “I didn’t want to be a bother.”

  “You’re not,” Rhys said. “You can’t be. If you need help, if your friends do, come to us. Please.”

  Oh, but Mina loved him for remembering to add the last bit. />
  Anne’s small hands tightened on hers. “I will.”

  “There’s more,” Mina said. “Rhys and I, we consider you our family. That means we think you belong to us. It means we’ll take care of you, help you any way we can, never let you go. Is that all right? Tell us now if it’s not.”

  Even if Anne said it wasn’t, Mina wasn’t sure she’d be able to let go. Her heart didn’t seem to beat in the long second before the tinker nodded.

  She heard Rhys’s soft exhalation of relief behind her, but Mina wasn’t done. “It also means that we belong to you. So you have to take care of us a little, too. We worry easily.”

  Understanding glimmered in the girl’s eyes, and she nodded sagely. “Because you’re so old.”

  Mina huffed out a laugh. “Yes, because we’re old. So if you’re going to be late, try to let us know. If you’re going to be out, let us know where. If you need something we haven’t given you, tell us. And it’s all right to let us worry. It only means that we’re thinking of you, and that we care for you.”

  To her surprise, Anne sat forward, wrapped her arms around Mina’s neck. “I care about you, too.”

  “Well.” Her throat ached. Oh, damn, she was beginning to cry. “That’s settled, then.”

  “Perfectly settled,” Rhys said.

  Almost.

  * * *

  Later, Mina waited until Rhys was unhooking the back of her dress before saying, “You can’t kill the boy for hitting her.”

  His hands stilled. “I wouldn’t kill a boy.”

  She knew. “But for a second, he wasn’t a boy—he was just someone who’d hurt her. And you wanted to strangle him.”

  His arms came around her waist, hauling her back against his chest. His mouth searched out her ear, and she heard the laughter in his voice. “So did you, Mina.”

  She smiled and leaned her head back against his shoulder. “Yes. But just so that we are clear: We do not even seek this boy out—no matter how tempting it would be to frighten him a bit. If Anne is done with him, so will we be.”

  There was no humor now. “You ask a lot.”

  “I know. I also asked it of my parents. I’m asking the same of myself, too, and it’s harder than I ever dreamed. I think that we will definitely wait a few more years before having more children.”

  He grinned against her cheek. “But we’re so old.”

  Her laugh turned into a gasp as his teeth closed over her earlobe. She forced herself to concentrate. This needed to be said. “And you are afraid.”

  Rhys stiffened behind her. “No,” he said gruffly.

  “Every day I leave for work.”

  His body shook. “No.”

  “Rhys.”

  “What would you do with a terrified husband?” His arms tightened, almost cutting off her breath. “What use is a man always in fear? I have never been . . . And I can’t bear it if you—Ah, God.”

  Realization struck her, the root of his fear. “I would never leave you.”

  “Mina.” His harsh breaths rasped against her ear. “It is fear of everything. I can’t control it. I worry that a boiler will explode in your steamcoach. I worry that you will slip as you run. Christ, I stay awake at night and worry that if I fall asleep, I’ll roll over and crush you.”

  “But you still hold me through the night, and manage to sleep.”

  “I shouldn’t even risk that. God, Mina, you deserve better.”

  “You are the better I need.” She turned in his arms, lifted her hands to his tortured face. “Did you know my mother did the same to me? After she realized that she’d been raped, after she’d mutilated her eyes, I was still hers—and she slept beside me every night. Later, she said that she lived in fear of rolling over on top of me . . . but that a part of her always knew I was there, even in sleep. A part of you knows it, too. Trust that.”

  He closed his eyes. “I want to.”

  “I know it’s difficult for you.” She smoothed her fingers down his rough jaw. “This is new.”

  His laugh was harsh. “It is that. I have never belonged to someone before. I’ve been a slave, I’ve been used—but they never owned me. But you, Mina. You could destroy me with a word.”

  “Trust that I never would.”

  “I do. But if I lost you, if you were hurt . . .” He shook his head, met her eyes again. “I know you’ll be fine. You’re clever, strong, and fast. Newberry is devoted. I know that I worry too much. Yet when you come home with just a scratch, I can’t even think until I—”

  “Shag me.”

  His laugh rumbled through his chest again. “You’ve noticed.”

  “Yes.” She rose up, touched her lips to his. “But this is part of being family. We worry. We trust that we’ll take care of each other, that we’ll find a way. And we can’t solve every problem, but we’ll try to make them easier for each other to bear.”

  “I’d bear anything for you.”

  “I don’t want you to have to.” Her fingers traced the shape of his mouth. “Perhaps only time can solve this one. Until then, I swear that I will do everything in my power to come home every night, and I will keep coming home. Eventually, you’ll be more comfortable with the idea of me being out there.”

  He kissed her in reply, a soft and searching taste. When his head lifted, they were both short of breath. “And is there anything that you fear, Mina? Anything I can make easier for you to bear?”

  There was so little. Only—“I wonder, sometimes, if you enjoy being married to me. If it suits you.”

  “Do I enjoy being married . . . ?”

  He trailed off as he stared down at her, his face darkening. Determination set his jaw. Her heart stopped as he swept her up and started for the bed.

  “I love being married to you, Mina.” His voice was rough. “Let me show you how much.”

  * * *

  Mina was his. Absolutely his.

  Rhys had never realized how completely he’d become hers, too. He didn’t know if marriage—or love—typically worked in this way, and Rhys didn’t care. Whatever marriage was supposed to be, they’d made a better version of it.

  At the breakfast table, he watched Mina sip her coffee, her beautiful mouth pursing against the rim of the cup. His gaze caressed the straight center part of her hair and the rounded softness of her cheeks.

  Across from her, Anne muttered curses as she stabbed her egg with a fork. Every one of Wilbur the Reacher’s inventions had been reviewed by the surly girl and found to be lacking. “Stupid designs, all of them. Who wants to pedal in place? He ought to stay with his automatons. And I would not steal any of them, either.”

  Mina looked up at him from beneath her lashes, her eyes bright with laughter. “When does the Blacksmith return?”

  “Next week,” he said.

  Her gaze thoughtful, she nodded. “I won’t wait for him. I’ll stop by the Narrow this morning and ask if anyone in the guild knows of anything like this giant wheel. How can no one see such a thing?”

  Anne stopped muttering. “You’ll ask the blacksmiths if they saw a what?”

  “A big brass or copper wheel, three feet wide. It runs on a track and clicks.”

  Flipping the newssheet around, Rhys showed Anne the illustration on the front page. He deepened his voice and read the headline. “The Wheel of Death.”

  Mina burst out with a laugh, shook her head. The girl’s lips parted. Her brow furrowed.

  Rhys narrowed his eyes on her. “Did you see it?”

  After a short hesitation, she nodded. “When Geordie opened the workshop shutters, there was something like that behind him. It resembled an influence machine—a big one—with pedals on the inside instead of a crank. But I don’t know if it’s the same.”

  “Perhaps not, but we’ll go have a look.” Mina tapped her fingers against the side of her coffee cup, as she always did when she was thinking. “Anne, could an influence machine that large power a rail gun?”

  “If there were layers of spinning disks buildi
ng up the electrostatic charge, instead of just one,” the tinker said. “I couldn’t see if there were.”

  “That’s all right. I’ll look for myself soon enough.” She looked to Rhys. “Did Redditch ever mention who was providing the automatons for Percival Foley’s spark-lighter manufactory?”

  “No. But you’re thinking that’s motivation, too.”

  “Yes. If a bill prevents factories from fully automating their systems, the inventor loses money, too. That’s reason to kill Redditch.” Her brow furrowed, and her gaze sharpened on his face. “And you, too.”

  “What?”

  “Foley was under the impression that you were supporting Redditch’s bill. Others might be under that impression, too.”

  Ah. She was afraid the Wheel of Death might come for him. “I’ll be fine.”

  Sudden worry darkened her eyes. “Avoid any routines. That was how they killed Redditch—someone knew exactly where he’d be and when, and then got access to the location. Be careful when you leave the house.”

  He couldn’t stop his grin, and after a moment, Mina was laughing with him. Rhys reached for her hand, brought it to his lips, and pressed a warm kiss in the center of her palm.

  “Go on, then,” he said. “Do your job. And come back.”

  “I always will,” she promised.

  Chapter 6

  In the daytime, they were less likely to lose their tires again, but Mina still had Newberry double-lock theirs after he opened the police cart’s valves and quieted the engine. Birdcage Alley didn’t quiet. Noise from the nearby road leading to the Borough market and London Bridge underscored hammering metal, the screech of sawblades. Wilbur the Reacher’s workshop was but one of many in the Alley—but the only one that didn’t have a curious metalworker or two standing at an open-fronted shop. The one-level building appeared boarded up, shutters closed and the storefront locked.

  Mina pounded her fist on the door, listening for noise from inside. She tilted her head. There seemed to be something . . . but she couldn’t be certain if it were from inside or one of the nearby shops.