The Diabolical Miss Hyde (23 page)

“That's close enough.” Captain Lafayette aims his sparker at my chest. “What's your business here?”

My thoughts skip, a stone across water, unable to penetrate the depths. He don't recognize us. Not yet. This is good.

But what in hell is he up to? Eliza's nemesis, handsome as the devil, keeper of torture dungeons, burner of weird-folk and on the trail of a killer he thinks is me. Out of twig—it's a damned fine look, mind you, Lizzie enjoys a man in uniform but he's dead lovely all roughed up like this—and roaming around Seven Dials after dark. No Royal Society trappings, outside this damned pistol that's spiking hot fight into my veins.

Against my thigh, my sweet steel sister whispers black murder. My fingers itch. If he wants a fight, I'll give him one. He knows far too much. And while Eliza might mind her manners around him, he don't scare Miss Lizzie one whit.

Badge and commission be damned. In these stinking alleys? Lafayette of the Royal is just one more corpse.

Quick as clockwork, my plan ticks over. Lose the sparker. Disarm him, get him talking instead of threatening, and then . . . well, it ain't no accident that Miss Lizzie hides her weapon beneath her skirts. And the world knows she ain't got no shame.

Besides, I like the fire in his eyes. Hell, I've stuffed my hand down worse pairs of trousers.

“Could ask the same of you, sir.” I cock my chin, feint at him with my saucy black eyes. “Lurking in alleys like a garroter instead of courting me as a proper gentleman should. Oh, wait. It's just my fortune you're after? You heartbreaker. Say it ain't so.”

His aim don't slip. “Don't dissemble. This is a murder scene. But you knew that, didn't you? The police are looking for you, Miss Redskirts.”

“Are they? Jesus, I just shat meself.” I lower my hands, plant them on my hips, lean forward to show off my chest. “Look, I ain't got all night. If you're a copper, nick me and be done. If you ain't, then get your god-rotted sparker out of my face, and let's talk.”

My heartbeat thrums. It's a gamble. He might just shoot me. But I don't think he wants to, not his mystery lady in red. He's too much the adventurer for that.

His smile flashes, brighter than Wild Johnny's and twice as dangerous, and hell if I ain't charmed to the teeth. “Fair
enough,” says he, and lowers the pistol—but he don't power it down. “Consider me unmasked, madam. What's your name, pray?”

I give a crooked smile. “You first, handsome.”

An ironic little bow. “Remy, to you.”

Silently, I taste it, rolling the “R” on my tongue. Exotic, foreign-like. And not a lie. Intriguing. “What's that, froggie?
Vive la révolution,
and all that?”

“Hardly. Third-generation English, I'm afraid. And you are?”

“Lizzie Hyde.” I lift my chin, insolent. Nothing fancy or foreign-like here, and if that ain't good enough for his exotic arse, he can just piss off.

As if I care what he thinks of me anywise.

But he just dips his devilish head, like we're introduced in some snotty salon. “Well,
Miss Hyde
—” He sharpens my name, as if he's mocking me. “Care to tell why you're sneaking around a murder scene after dark?”

“What's it to you?”

“Oh, you know. Truth, justice, crime doesn't pay, that kind of thing.”

Moonlight slants through a gap in the clouds, and my tongue gallops off before I can rein it in. “Cowshit.”

Bugger. But he ain't on Royal's business tonight, and damn it, but I'm itching to find out what he's up to.

He arches an appreciative eyebrow. “To the point, aren't you?”

“Saves time.” Inside me, Eliza wriggles in protest. I should run away, lose him in the maze of Seven Dials. I should just kill him and be done, get him off our backs for good. Why is nothing ever simple?

“Save more, then, and tell me, Miss Hyde: if you had nothing to do with this murder—as I feel sure you're about to insist—then why are you the Met's chief suspect?”

I open my mouth to answer before I realize that my words don't matter a damn to him.

He's watching my face. Cataloging my every tic and twitch, like one of Eliza's clockwork measuring devices, searching for a glimpse of guilt.

My cheeks burn. Damn it. Handsome plus charming don't equal harmless. He's playing my own game on me, and he's winning. And just because he's no crusher don't mean he can't arrest my scarlet-skirted behind, only the Royal don't need murder or thieving or ringing the changes. Looking at him the wrong way will do.

“It weren't me, if you must know,” I say at last, giving him another eyeful of my bosom. “Some stupid snout dropped me in it because her fancy man made eyes at me. Not my fault her bloke's got good taste.”

Inside, Eliza whispers fiercely at me to back off, for heaven's sake, before he recognizes us or arrests me anyway for the suspicion of it. She's near the surface tonight. Too near for my liking.

But dark mutiny mutters in my blood. I ain't backing off. I've had enough of his insinny-ations. If he's got words for me, he can bloody well say 'em and be done.

“So,” says I. “You believe me, or do we have a problem?”

A knowing smile. “I find your half-truths quite convincing. Even without the view.”

I have to laugh. “Was wondering if you'd noticed.”

“I'd have to be dead not to.”

“And how do you like it?” I inch closer, daring. I like him. I think he likes me. No dancing around the issue tonight.

He allows himself a good look, and then it's back up to my eyes, a fresh smolder of interest. “I like it well enough to know you're using your charms to distract me.”

Heh. He's good. A man who knows how to get what he wants. But still, screw him and his attitude. He'd never dare speak that way to
her
. Am I so far below her?

“Is that so? From what?”

“Oh, I don't know,” says he, offhanded. “Evidence. The murder scene. Breathing.”

The nerve,
sniffs Eliza in my ear.
Lizzie, he flirts with anything in skirts. Don't lower yourself.

Oh, aye. As if you ain't thought about it, missy.

I cough. Lower meself, indeed. Rich gents like him want women like me, no matter what they all pretend in their fancy salons and soirees. That's what they come here for: to shed their virtuous mask and be real. Wife for duty, dolly for desire. At least whores get paid, for all the wife gets is grief.

But envy glitters in my blood, green like fairy fire. Damn her. Is it so hard to believe he'd mean it?

Now, I'm itching inside. I want to flirt back. I want to punch his arrogant face. “So what's your game, sunshine? If you're no crusher, why d'you even care about the Bastard?”

Lafayette toys with his pistol's charger, a restless
hiss-flick, hiss-flick
. He squints up at the cloud-wreathed moon and pops his neck bones. “Truthfully? I couldn't care less.”

“Then—”

“But I do care for the manner of his death.” Steel glints in his violet-blue eyes, same as I seen on that dangling beam at
Her Majesty's, and it's a side of him I like. “I care for that very much. So I'd appreciate it if you'd tell me what you know.”

The manner of Billy's death? Stab, slash, die. Ain't no mystery . . . But an ugly thought strikes ice into my bones. What if Lafayette killed Billy? And now he's back to clean up some clue or other? Cover his tracks, eliminate all the witnesses?

Well, now. That'd be interesting.

But why the hell would he kill Billy Beane? No. It ain't true. Not he. Because everyone knows that handsome plus charming never equals killer. Right?

I finger a loose curl. “And what if the coppers are right, and I killed him?”

“If you killed him,
Miss Hyde
”—he holsters the pistol at last, as if he's decided I'm no threat—“then you'd be just the woman I need to speak to, wouldn't you?”

I drift closer, and I can't help but admire the strong line of his throat, the tempting shape of his lips. My, he's pretty, for a torturing son of a dog. He smells dark and warm, the inviting scent of
stranger
. “What, you don't believe me?”

“That you're a murderess? And you'd admit it to me? Not for a moment.”

“But clearly there's reward in it. If you're so interested in how Billy was done . . .” I trace a fingertip over his shoulder. Time to show your quality, Captain Blue Eyes. “. . . Maybe we can come to an arrangement?”

“Mmm. What did you have in mind?”

I slip my finger inside his shirt, where his bare skin is warm. He swallows, but he don't back off, and my mouth sours. He might talk fancy and polite to Eliza, but down here
in the slums, he's the same as all the rest. Just a man with an itch, be it gin or gambling or girls who don't say no.

Either that, or the lady in red's just next on his murder list.

“I could show you evidence.” I ease my skirts higher, rub my stockinged ankle against his calf, a kitten purring to be stroked. “And you could help me get away with it. Y'know, if I was real nice to you.”

He grips my waist, and now I can feel his heartbeat, invasive against my breast. An enemy that wants to take me, force me, mold my rhythm to match its own.

Shit. I recoil, but he yanks me in, possessive, a crude gesture of
mine
. A shaft of moonlight spills over his face, illuminating it with eerie living fire, and like a genie sucking back into a bottle, his refined façade melts away.

“And I should be nice to you in return, is that it?” His whisper is rough, almost a growl. His fingers clamp tighter on my waist. He ain't polite. There's a wild, primitive glint in those heaven-blue eyes that says he ain't playing by the rules no more.

Well, now. Suddenly I'm hot, itchy, thirsty for vengeance and destruction.

“Oh, most definitely,” I whisper. “I warn you, I'm armed.”

“You'd best hope so.”

My laughter bubbles, seductive. I knew it. He's the very devil, make no mistake. A violent man, just like all the rest. Is this the side of him they see when they're chained in the Tower to a rusty dungeon wall, weeping and begging for their lives? Because this bloke here—this shadow-Lafayette with the beast behind his eyes—he could torture them to death and skip home afterwards for tea and kisses.

Eliza thinks the captain's a civilized man. That when the time comes, she'll be able to reason and cajole and parley. That he'll listen to sense and let her go.

Eliza don't know shit about the real world. And this is what I'm here for.

I pull his hand beneath my skirts, between my thighs, an inch above my garter where the stiletto sings. “See?” My breath is sultry against his neck. “Told you I had a weapon.”

“Consider me ambushed.” His palm on my skin is big, hard, a little rough. His fingers are long and warm and he
strokes
me, sweet Jesus, just a light touch but it pleasures me deep, I'm hot and eager and my breath comes faster and can't we just . . .

No. No, we can't. I curl my fingers around the warm hilt and whip out my blade.

But he grabs my wrist and twists. Pain spikes up my arm. I cry out. Damn, he's quick.

Easily, he wrenches the stiletto from my grip. I struggle and kick, but his other arm's like an iron bar in the curve of my back and for an instant here we are, chest to breast and a
knife
between my legs, and I must say, that weren't what a moment ago I'd expected to find there.

“Predictable,” he hisses, just a lick away from my mouth. “Don't bait me, Miss Hyde. You might not like what you catch.”

His eyes glitter, demented. He knows what I'm thinking. No one around here will help a woman yelling. He could bleed me out in the dirt, stand there and watch me die. Rape me with the blade and swallow my screams. Eat me alive.

I can do what he wants, or die.

I want to scream at the stupid injustice. Evil drums thunder in my head, drowning out my reason. This is what it's like to be insane. I work up some spit, ready to launch it into his face.

But he just shoves me away and tosses my stiletto into the dirt. “Get out of here.”

Careless. Contemptuous. Like I don't matter.

Dizzy, I scrabble for the weapon. I'm sweating, trembling. Moonlight glares, dragging that hungry heat through my flesh, it's the shadow, the ugly black beast is strong tonight and Jesus, what's that bleeding racket now?

Wildly, I swat at my ears. Beneath the drumming, Eliza is screaming. She's been screaming a while now. I just didn't hear. Shut up, you bitch. Enough.

I snarl and brandish my blade. I'm struggling to be still, to calm my shrieking soul before I kill him, take him, tear his pretty face off and goddamn him for treating me like scum . . .

But Lafayette won't look at me. He's breathing hard. He swipes a forearm across his cheek, and I realize he's sweating, too. Fidgeting. Glancing up at that greedy moon as if he's got somewhere to be, someplace to go, and never time enough to get there.

I know that look.

He swallows, throat glistening. Damp curls stick to his face, and sweat trickles over one cheekbone, moonlit silver. Our gazes lock, and in his eyes, something wild and impossible catches alight.

Oh, hell. Eliza fights, yelling at me to stop it, run, get out of here. For once, I agree with her. We've got nothing, no one. It's always been that way. We can't share our secrets.

But like a murderess plagued with guilty dreams, I burn to tell. To scream my truth to the heavens, drag all my squalid secrets into the light and finally be
free
.

Damn him. I want to stab him in the throat for threatening us. I want to shake him, demand to know why the devil he's bleeding harmless folk to ruin for the god-rotted Royal when clearly he's got problems of his own. I want to crush his hair in my hands, drink the threat from his skin, kiss the danger from his lips, strip off that rough-spun coat and feel his battle-scarred body under mine . . .