The Ripper Affair

“He is a slightly useful tool, nothing more, and will serve to distract my quarry quite handily with his bumbling about.” Her tone cooled, and the movement on the stairs above her was Mikal, a gleam in darkness. “You would do well to be cautious of the good inspector, Archibald. If he may do me a disservice through you, he shall no doubt try.”

“And what did you do to earn such treatment from a gentleman?” Unjustified, perhaps, but the way she rocked slightly back onto her heels, paling a shade or two–though she was already much whiter than her wont, almost drained-looking–made a certain hot bubble rise under his breastbone.

No trace of paleness in her tone, however. “I saved a somewhat-soiled innocent from his clutches, and consequently he bears me a grudge. It nettles a certain type of petty man to be denied something by a woman.”

Did she mean it as a return cut? Clare’s head had begun to pound as he struggled to lower his voice. “What baseness you attribute to a gentleman who—”

Her chin lifted, and her eyes were flashing dangerously now. “On what do you build your assessment of his good character, mentath? Let me hear your logic.”

“I would grant you a full explanation, if I could be certain of your understanding it.” Was he actually sneering? Clare had the exquisitely odd sensation of falling into a hole, watching himself from its bottom as his face twisted and took on a rather ugly cast.

“Likewise, sir.” A dot of crimson had appeared on each soft cheek, yet she was iron-straight. “You are relieved of the need to give any further attention to this matter. Do try to stay out of trouble while I attend to the Crown’s business.”

With that, she swept down the stairs, turning so sharply at the foot her skirt flared and almost touched his knee.

Mikal drifted in her wake, but her pace was such that he had no time to do anything but glower in Clare’s general direction, the flame in the Shield’s yellow irises waking.

She goes to her study, instead of to the drawing room. Angry? Perhaps. Nettled? Hurt?

What on earth had possessed him? A mentath did not behave so. Nor did a proper gentleman.

He found he was wringing his hands, and forced himself to stop. To let them hang loosely, fingers throbbing and the appendages afire because he had driven his nails deep into palmflesh. His shoulders loosened, and he cast about for something, anything, to distract his aching head.

Nothing was to be found. He made it to the stairs before sinking down, dropping said tender head into his hands, elbows on knees, and there he stayed until Philip Pico found him an hour later, to bring him to the dining room, where Miss Bannon–and Mikal–were both absent during a long, exquisite, and tortuously silent dinner.

Chapter Twenty-Six With Whatever Means Are To Hand

“Prima?”

“Hm?” She glanced up from the large leatherbound tome, her eyes for a moment refusing to focus as she was pulled away from creaking ropes and singing sails. The book–Marina Invicta–which her well-trained memory had dragged forth the remembrance of from a dusty room, contained several passages about Britannia.

Nothing of any real use, however. Just as every other blasted book she had pulled from the shelves was useless in the current situation.

Mikal closed the door: a soft snick of the latch catching and the lock thrown. “Shall you be attending dinner? Or shall Finch bring you a plate?”

“Neither.” She waved a hand, her gaze already straying back to the pages. “Rum, perhaps. Thank you.”

“Emma.” He had approached her desk, soundlessly, and the study came back into focus around her. The shelves were arranged as they should be, though holes had been created by her rummaging, and a stack of tomes large and small lay heaped upon the table she had pulled from its place behind a leather chair she was wont to sink into on certain nights, watching the coal in the grate shed heat and ætheric force while it built its white jacket. Bits of paper covered in her handwriting–sketches of charter symbols and Name-glyphs shifting uneasily as their ink shivered–littered the entire room, but the sopha was bare. It was perhaps where she would sleep tonight, did her researches take her in any promising direction.

She was being rather untidy. And there was a line between Mikal’s eyebrows, though his expression was just the same as usual in every other regard. Trouble was brewing in that quarter.

Of course, she had ordered him to cool his heels outside the door and vanished; normally, she did not mind his company while she worked. But she had not wished him to see her discomfiture. Or the tears that had blistered a spare page of notes, tossed unceremoniously into the grate and lit with a hissed imprecation.