Obsidian Eyes (31 page)

Her heart pounded against her chest. The fact he knew the small details of her life in Egypt stole her breath. She knew the Whisperers had ears everywhere, but she never expected him to listen to what those ears overheard.

Not the man who forgot he had a daughter.

“Certainly.” He crossed the room to where a brandy decanter rested on a dark oak sideboard. He poured a generous two fingers of liquor into a cut crystal glass and took it to Allie.

“It’s been over five years since you ran away.” He handed the drink to her.

Taking the glass from his hand, she tipped her head back and then downed the contents in one swallow. She gasped as the fire seared its way to her stomach and liquid heat radiated outward to her limbs, soothing her anxiety as it spread. Raising her eyes, she met his steady gaze. “I didn’t run. I walked out the door and you never noticed.”

“I am overlord. Did you think for a single moment that I didn’t know my daughter’s whereabouts?” He returned to the sideboard and tipped brandy into another tumbler. The light glinted off the large diamond on his pinkie finger as he drank.

“So you just didn’t care, then?” The alcohol gave her courage to voice some of the words held inside for years.
You left me in the cold for so long
, she wanted to cry.

For a split second his eyes widened and then the iron mask dropped back over his features. “Our lives are not that simple. You were safer on the streets than you were here.”

“Safe?” She spat the word out.

“Yes. I am no banker or lawyer; our politics are lethal. At the time you left, there were others seeking to tear me down. They would have used you as leverage, if they thought for an instant that I cared.”

Her heart ached, moisture formed in her eyes and she dropped her gaze to bat the tears away. “So were you too distracted by business to notice I was in Newgate prison? I was minutes from being hanged, when you decided to appear.”

“I knew. I came when I could wait no longer.”

She let out a snort of air. “And I learned my lesson; that you did not care, my life expendable or not at your whim.”

“Is that what you thought?” He dropped the tumbler to the polished wood with a dull thump. “I meant to teach you I always watched over you and would always be there when you needed me most.”

No, no, no.
The idea contradicted the image she built of her father over the last five years. Allie couldn’t sit still a moment longer. Secrets and betrayals crawled under her skin. The silk swirled around and through her legs as she paced, flowing and changing direction on each spin.

“Your mother used to pace when she was anxious,” Le Foy observed as he watched Allie prowl back and forth, using her hand to manage the long silk skirts on each turn.

The comment stopped her in her tracks and a small frown wrinkled her forehead. Her gaze drifted over him, to linger on the painting hanging on the wall by the door. It showed a young woman in a flowing cream dress with a high empire waistline. She had olive skin and waist length midnight hair tumbled down her back. The depicted woman smiled knowingly at the painter with rounded eyes so dark they appeared to be black.

Le Foy’s voice washed over her. “I haven’t seen you since you were thirteen. You have grown into a beautiful young woman. There is so much of your mother in you, in both appearance and character.”

“Seven years,” Allie whispered, her gaze fixed on the portrait as she curled her fingernails into the flesh of her palms, remembering the day the sun set on her family.

“Yes. And not a day goes by that I do not think of her.”

His words and tone made her turn. For a moment his voice held a chord of pain where she expected detachment. He leaned on the sideboard, arms crossed over his chest, but his gaze never left her face.

Silence. Both lost in their memories.

Allie drew a ragged breath and pushed the snippets of information he set free to one side to examine another day. She changed topic, giving her an opportunity to think.

“You tried to kidnap my friend. This isn’t a social visit for either of us.”

“No.” A single chilling word. The hint of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “You know what we want.”

Like a fly who blundered into the spider’s web, silken threads tightened around her; she could struggle, but there was no escape. “The last words I heard you say to Poppa were to bring me back when I was of use to you. So the time has come, I am a tool for you to wield.” She met his gaze. “You had St. Matthews admit me so I could deliver Zebidiah Lithgow.”

He nodded. “It was a challenge, to see if we could make one of our own a student. We have ears at the school, naturally, but none as close as you. Consider my request a test of where your loyalties lie.”

“And if I refuse?” Her heart pounded so loud it drowned out the ornate grandfather clock in the corner.

He poured himself another brandy, drawing out his response until he replaced the decanter. “You’ll resume the walk that I interrupted four years ago.”

A vice closed around her chest, silencing the drum beat. Only one word managed to escape her throat.

“What?”

“You escaped, you weren’t pardoned.”

Her hand moved to her neck, scratching at an imaginary noose.
I can’t go back to Newgate. I don’t want to die. But if I hand over Zeb, what will happen to him?

“I’m your daughter.”

He took a sip of brandy, savouring the flavour before swallowing. “And I’m overlord of the Whisperers. I have guild responsibilities, buyers who have paid for particular information.”

Like a mouse trapped in a maze, Allie tried another route. “I’m seventeen, I am unmarked.” She held up unblemished wrists.

Le Foy smiled and laughed. “As you pointed out, you are my daughter. Why do we need a tattoo, when my blood flows in your veins?”

She drowned in unfamiliar waters, fate and the ties of her past dragging her under the surface. “Are you commanding me as overlord, or father?”

“Which makes it easier for you to comply?” He tilted his head but the mask remained in place, his expression unreadable. “My daughter is friends with a boy with a very intriguing head on his shoulders. The Reapers have paid an exorbitant sum for the knowledge contained in that head about a certain weapon.”

I can’t do this. I can’t betray my friend.
“He is only seventeen. You are breaking the covenant and will bring their world down on ours.”

“A truth the nobles will overlook since there is a seventeen year old girl they wish to remove. Perhaps there will be an exchange; they will turn a blind eye in return for guild assistance with their problem.” He watched her like a hawk, assessing her reaction to each word.

Victoria
. “They would harm one of their own?” A strange kinship stirred in her gut for the noble girl she had never met. A pawn in the game of men, trapped just as she was in this instant.

Le Foy gave a huff of laughter. “For the crown and a chance at power? Of course they would.”

Allie could barely think straight, let alone form an answer. Her mind needed to focus on the immediate threat to Zeb.
Whose life is worth more, mine or Zeb’s?
She needed time. She needed to talk to Jared, of all people. “What am I expected to do with Zeb?”

The web closed tight, the spider had her positioned exactly where he wanted her. “The Reapers have an agent based in Scotland, Count Gregor Illyich. You’ll be able to find him in Edinburgh when he takes his entertainment at Deviant’s. Deliver the boy to him. Don’t let Gregor take the boy from you. I want confirmation that he holds father and son, unharmed.”

Allie pressed a hand to her brow; her brain took up too much space in her head, threatening to break free of her skull if she forced it to process anything else. “Very well. I’m not exactly keen to resume my walk to the gallows.”

“Keep your ears open. There are new alliances at play.”

Something in her father’s words rebounded in the back of her mind. Snippets collided in a kaleidoscope of phrases, but she could not see the pattern or discern why it nagged at her. She shook her head, trying to clear the way. The air grew over-warm. The liquor slowed her pulse and she feared she might soon faint.

Satisfied, he returned to his desk and opened the drawer and then extracted a glass vial. “When you have finished with the Reapers, send me a message.” The vial had a copper bung with a small chain. He swung it in front of her. She focused on the object within, a tiny mechanical dragonfly at rest. “In case you are running low on little messengers.”

She took the chain, dropped the vial into her reticule and closed the silken bag.

Le Foy strode to the bell pull and rung for his butler. “I’ll have my carriage return you to your accommodation.”

The butler re-entered the room on silent feet, a query in his eyes as to what his master required.

“No thank you.” Allie turned. “I need to walk. I need fresh air.” She inclined her head to her father, keen to escape even if only to inhale the coal smoke hanging in the streets.

“Afterwards, we will continue this conversation, Alessandra. We have much to discuss about your future.” He offered a small formal bow, before the butler gestured for her to precede him out the door and back across the marble entranceway.

She remembered little of the walk back to the Bainbridge townhouse. Those who encountered her along the way probably thought her quite mad. She talked to herself, trying to sort the information into some sense of order.

If only she could survive the choice in front of her.

Monday, 26
^th
September.

ared’s pulse drummed at the thought of seeing Allie but he remained unsure if her hand would shove a dagger through his ribs. He made short time of the trip to the train station. The horse pawed at the ground as they waited, resentful of being hitched to the buggy, but obedient of the command to stand. He heard the commotion as the train pulled in; the steamer’s screams of agony bounced off the solid brick walls of the station as workers restrained its body. The nearby horses felt the pull of their flight instinct as the metal monstrosity fought against the chains leashing it to the rails.

The exclamation rose from the surrounding crowd who came to marvel at the modern wonder and instead met a frightening beast. It heaved steam in all directions after its long run from London, which scattered those of lesser heart. Some more delicate ladies swooned. It took some time before the engine was declared safe for passengers to disembark. Soon a crowd of people swirled under the archway and out into the streets of Edinburgh.

Jared caught his breath at the two girls who walked under the brick arch, separating train track from the road. He barely recognised Allie, wearing a deep green silk walking dress with a tiny hat on her head, cocked on an angle, and a small veil over her face. Eloise was more conservatively attired, in the palest orange taffeta, but the two young women looked like they stepped from the page of one of Madeline’s fashion magazines.

He jumped down from the seat of the buggy, his heart escaping up his throat.

Eloise slowed her pace, hanging back to allow Allie and Jared some privacy.