The Blushing Bounder (An Iron Seas Short Novella) (3 page)

Tall, so tall that the blond woman he faced only came up to his middle, his eyes burning orange like the bowels of a furnace. His legs were long, thin compared to the bulk of his torso, and deeply jointed, bent far over at the knees though he stood upright—almost like the front legs of a mantis, but these were his
only
legs, and she saw the glint of metal instead of green.

And
he
was rumbling, too. It was not only the distant traffic. Wisps of steam wafted from the back of his head. Was it even a man? Temperance could not tell anymore, and it looked as through her nightmare was ending, because the blond woman had turned away from the rattling man, as if they were leaving the alley. But, no—not over yet. The man’s metal hand flicked out to his side, then back around, and came down over the woman’s head.

The woman crumpled to the ground.

Temperance screamed. And screamed again, scrambling away from the window as the man suddenly rose up in a great hiss of steam,
bounding
toward her, springing as high as their second-level flat, his orange eyes glowing with the fires of hell. Her next scream caught in her throat, became a cough, and another. Her bedroom door crashed open, Newberry shouting her name, and she flung herself toward him, because he was horrid but also so big that even a nightmare could not get through him. Strong arms hauled her up against a wide chest, and he demanded to know what had happened, but she could not tell him, she could only cough and point to the window.

Cradled against him, Temperance fought not to hide her face in his shoulder as he carried her over to look—but the man wasn’t there. The alley was empty but for the figure still crumpled on the stones. Newberry’s body stiffened slightly when he saw her, his arms holding Temperance a little tighter.

“I’ll send for the inspector,” he said.

Newberry knew better than to move a dead body before the inspector came—she had said so very firmly when they had met that morning, and she’d laid out her expectations for him. He was not to call her ‘lady,’ even if it chafed his bounder sensibilities to refer to an earl’s daughter as anything else. She would be called ‘sir,’ following the precedent set by Superintendent Hale, who had come to London from Manhattan City after being denied a position on the police force because of her sex. While she conducted an investigation, he was to keep his eyes open and his mouth closed, unless she asked for his opinion; if he could prove himself with sensible replies, she would eventually allow him to offer his opinion unsolicited. And if someone spat at her, if a passerby tried to hit her, if it looked as though a mob might come after her, she would appreciate very much if he stepped in.

He hadn’t needed to as of yet. And though she’d also instructed him to leave any body alone, he bent her rules to verify that the woman didn’t have a pulse, and that he wasn’t leaving her injured on a cobblestone street while he waited for the inspector to arrive.

No pulse. And considering that a gash in her skull exposed smashed brains, the reason for it was clear.

Newberry glanced up to the well-lit window on the mews’ second-level. Temperance stood there, her fingers pressed to the glass. She’d demanded that he leave her alone, that he go perform his duties.

She still did not understand. Above all else, his duty was protecting her, keeping her safe, keeping her alive. And he would do it, no matter how she hated him. So he watched her now, and though pain stabbed through his chest when she deliberately turned away, at least he knew she was well. He would bear
anything
to know she was well.

And he would bear anything to see her get better. The shredding of his heart was the price he’d paid, the choice he’d made when he’d kissed her, when he’d offered to marry her and move her to London. But it would be worth it to see her strong again.

If only she weren’t so all-fired stubborn.

The huffing engine of a steamcoach announced the inspector’s arrival—a cab, Newberry noted, and she was accompanied by a young man and a boy or twelve or thirteen, one brown-haired and the other light, and both of them looking hastily dressed. Buttoned up in her inspector’s jacket and trousers, the inspector appeared irritated with them, but in a familiar sort of way. Brothers, perhaps, though they shared none of the inspector’s Horde features.

She left them behind to pay the driver, her gaze sweeping the length of the alley before coming to rest on the woman’s body. “Constable Newberry.” She gave him a nod before crouching next to the woman. “I suppose you have none of your equipment.”

“No, sir. I am to be issued my equipment and a police cart tomorrow.”

“All right. I’ve called for the body wagon. We’ll ride back to the station with it.” Bending over the head wound, she drew in a sharp breath. “He was either very angry, or very strong.”

Strong, by Temperance’s description. But the inspector hadn’t asked for his opinion or a report yet. “Yes, sir.”

She sat back on her heels, and her gaze lifted to the lighted window. “You have a witness?”

“Yes, sir. My—”

“First tell me what you see, constable.” She gestured to the woman’s body. “Pretend that you have not heard anything at all. What do you see here?”

A test, he realized. She looked up at him, her expression inscrutable, but he felt that her eyes were taking in his every thought, every emotion, looking to see whether he’d cheat and use the information he already knew. Swallowing, he studied the body.

“She’s female, blonde, thirty or thirty-five years of age,” he said, and felt his face heat at the obviousness of that, but the inspector only nodded, as if telling him to go on. “She was likely born in a crèche, because thirty years was before the revolution, and the apparatus on her arm suggests that they altered her, as well.”

“Not always, but go on.”

“It’s a cutting tool. A cleaver? We might find a guild mark on her arm, and that will help us identify her.”

“You know of the guilds and their marks already? How long have you been in London, constable?”

“A few weeks. But we live next to the lockstitch house.” He gestured to the building. “It would be difficult not to see.”

“You’d be surprised how many people see very little in this city, constable.”

“Or hear very little,” he said. Though Temperance had screamed in terror through an open window, no other windows were lit. No one had come out to the alley to help or to see what had happened.

“And most say very little, too. What else?”

Was there more? He studied the cobblestones around the body, noted a broken brick, the smear of blood and hair on the corner. Temperance had not mentioned a brick. In the dark, she probably hadn’t seen it. “He used that to hit her with. But why? If it was a machine, the metal of his arm would be just as efficient—if not
more
efficient.”

“Just as she would have used her cleaver to defend herself, yes? It would be natural, instinctive, to use a weapon in your arsenal that you are intimately familiar with. But he must not have given her the opportunity, struck her from behind.”

“Yes, sir. And if he grabbed a brick close at hand, this probably wasn’t planned, but something done in the heat of the moment.”

“Very good, constable. You’ll find that most of the murders we investigate are the same—for many of us, controlling our more extreme emotions after the Horde’s tower was destroyed became a difficult exercise. Most likely, he became angry, and reacted—but of course we will try to find him and ask.” She paused. “You will not irritate me if you offer your opinion now and again. Now let us go and talk to your witness.”

She stood and looked to the man and the boy, who had been standing quietly at the mouth of the alley. They were both sizing him up, Newberry realized, and he suddenly felt like a lumbering giant next to the petite inspector.

“Henry,” she said. “Please watch over her until the wagon arrives.”

The man nodded. “We’ll be here. Shout if you have any trouble.”

“I think I shall be all right with the constable here.” Turning on her heel, she gestured for Newberry to follow, telling him, “Those are my brothers, Henry and Andrew. You outweigh them both together, and already nag at me less. I think this shall work out very well. Now, tell me of this witness.”

“My wife, sir.”

“She saw the body from your window?”

“She witnessed the murder itself, sir.”

“I am fond of your wife already, constable. Was she able to describe this person?”

“Yes, sir. She said he looked like Spring-Heel Jack.”

The inspector frowned, looked at him. “Who?”

Detective Inspector Wentworth didn’t look anything like the caricatures of the Mongol officials that Temperance had seen in the newssheets. She did not have bulbous lips or slitted eyes that barely opened, and her body was not misshapen, fat-bottomed, and slope-shouldered, with a curving spine. Indeed, she was rather pretty, with smooth black hair wound into a knot at her nape, emphasizing the roundness of her face and the delicacy of her features rather than concealing them…though Temperance wasn’t certain she would
ever
become used to seeing a woman in trousers, particularly snug ones. At least Miss Lockstitch’s had been wide and loose, like the bottoms to a Lusitanian hunter’s habit, so that when she stood it looked as though she wore a long, tailored skirt.

But trousers or no, it was good to see her, to see a face that wasn’t pale. Although none were of Horde blood as the inspector was, men and women of every color walked the Manhattan City streets, and this woman’s presence suddenly made London feel a little more like home.

The inspector’s gaze swept the rooms once and Temperance twice. The straight line of her mouth curved slightly when Temperance gave her the sketch.

“This is what you saw?”

“Yes.” Temperance pointed to the second sketch, where the man’s legs were no longer deeply bent, but almost straight. “And this is how he looked as he sprang toward my window.”

“Will you show me the view?”

“Of course.” Winded by the time she reached her room, Temperance had to slow and catch her breath. “It…is here.”

The inspector gave her another long look before nodding. “Thank you. Constable, you didn’t see this machine?”

The inspector had asked him so that she could take a rest, Temperance realized. All at once, she felt wretched. Miss Lockstitch had called this woman a jade whore, but given the difference between the caricatures and reality, given the Horde’s history within this land, Temperance began to understand that the name wasn’t a literal one.

“I didn’t see it, sir,” he said. “I came into the room after she screamed.”

The inspector glanced at the bed—wide enough for two, but clearly only used by one. Temperance felt her cheeks flame, and her husband’s lit like a bonfire.

It is my illness
, Temperance wanted to say. But it wasn’t. Even if she hadn’t been consumptive, the horrid man wouldn’t have been welcome in her bed.

“I see,” the inspector said. “Do you have a window in your room, Newberry?”

“No, sir.”

She looked down at the sketch in her hand. “Tell me about Spring-Heel Jack. Who is he?”

“He’s no one, sir,” Newberry said. “At least, not anymore.”

“Dead?”

“No. He never was anyone, not exactly. The stories about him started up about fifty years ago. First, in the newssheets, reports from the people he’d attacked: a baker’s daughter from Prince George Island…” He stopped. “That’s the long island that lies east of Manhattan City—”

“I’ve seen maps of the New World, constable,” the inspector said.

“Yes, sir.” He flushed and cleared his throat. “And there was another attack on a vicar, which startled his horses so badly he was thrown from his cart. Those incidents both had witnesses, and everyone described the assailant the same way: with springs on his feet, the wings of a demon, and he spat blue flame.”

“But this one did not have wings,” Temperance put in. “And the flame of his eyes was orange.”

Newberry paused for a moment, looking at her, and she remembered that they had spoken of this once, with him standing beside her bench. She had known of Spring-Heel Jack, but had not known the full truth of the story until he’d told her.