Winterblaze Read online

  In the gloom, Daisy’s eyes gleamed like star sapphires, the effect of her new GIM nature when emotions were roused within her. “Pity and empathy are not the same thing.”

  “You have brought a GIM to keep me company,” Poppy snapped, “as if you fear I might do something drastic.”

  What nonsense. Poppy did not do drastic things. She simply died a little more inside each day and wished the world to go away. That had not worked particularly well; the world was still here.

  Daisy’s gaze searched hers. “Mary is loyal and discreet. And she is entirely trustworthy. On my life, I swear that.”

  “Good thing to swear, as your life might very well be what I take.” It was entirely too temping at the moment.

  “I am shaking,” Daisy said with an unladylike snort before becoming serious once more. “You need someone to keep you focused. And lord knows that bitch Lena will not do that for you. She’s just as likely to stick her fangs into your neck when your back is turned.”

  “You really ought to get over your dislike of Lena.”

  “Pish,” Daisy said with a wave of her hand, “that woman means nothing to me. And you know full well that I speak the truth in regard to her character.”

  Unfortunately, Daisy was right. Lena wasn’t the helpful sort. She despised weakness even more than Poppy did.

  Poppy sighed, then looked at Mary Chase who hovered just beyond the circle of light where Daisy and Poppy stood. The young GIM had drifted back, having correctly read Poppy’s request for a modicum of privacy. Poppy turned back to Daisy. “I asked you here because I seek information, not a nanny.”

  “Then ask away,” Daisy retorted. “Mary won’t tell a soul, and as she is currently my right hand, I’d tell her anyway. So you can drop that repressive glare, Pop.”

  Just once, Poppy would love to wring her sister’s neck. Hell, Daisy would easily recover so it wouldn’t be outright murder. She studied the unflinching Mary Chase for a long moment. Sensible woman, crafty, discreet. It could all be a lie. Poppy’s life depended on her choices. Which meant she had to use more than logic, but instinct as well, to survive.

  “All right then, Miss Chase,” she said to the woman. “You have your chance.”

  Miss Chase curtsied prettily. “Thank you, Mrs. Lane.”

  “Don’t thank me just yet. A demon has escaped his prison,” she said to them. “I received the report from Lena an hour ago. The only information we have of his current whereabouts is from a telegram, which may or may not have been sent by him. It makes mention of a ship of fire.” Her hand rested upon the cold, stone wall. “It is imperative that the SOS locate him. Immediately.”

  Needing to move, Poppy turned away and strode up the cast-iron staircase that spiraled upward. Heels clanked upon the metal, then Poppy reached the top and turned the handle, which released several heavy bolts. The heavy door pushed open without a sound, and the familiar, comforting scent of books and wood polish greeted her as she stepped into her bookshop.

  Daisy and Mary followed, and then she pushed the door shut and heard the sound of the bolts slipping back into place.

  Daisy’s pretty face was pale. She knew something. Damn. Instinct had Poppy’s hackles rising before Daisy even spoke. “Winston is on holiday in Paris.”

  “Paris? Win hates Paris.” Poppy had tried to get him to take her there on holiday years ago, and he’d outright refused, calling it a heathenish, boorish city, filled with wastrels and gadabouts. Poppy told him he’d overstated his case, but Win had made it up to her by keeping her in bed for their holiday, giving her an interesting demonstration of his own rather heathenish proclivities.

  Thankfully, Daisy responded before Poppy could dwell any further on that time. “All I know is that he went there after…” Daisy nibbled on her bottom lip.

  “After what?” Poppy could not cull the worry from her voice. Win had left her, and still she was fretting over him like a bloody mother hen.

  Daisy’s nose wrinkled. “He beat a suspect to a pulp two weeks ago. The CID let him go, Poppy.”

  Poppy sagged against the counter. She could not fathom Win losing control of his temper. And the CID was his life. Winston Lane was an inspector, first and always.

  What would he do now? How must he feel? Lost, she realized. Win had given up everything to become an inspector, including being cut off from his very powerful family. Daisy’s voice broke through her musings.

  “He is set to return aboard Archer’s boat—”

  “Ship. One does not call an ocean liner a boat.”

  “Ship,” Daisy corrected with an eye roll. “At any rate, the ship is called The Ignitus.” Daisy made a halfhearted attempt to smile. “Archer named it for Miranda.”

  Poppy’s heart stopped. Ignitus, Latin for “set on fire.”

  Daisy’s breath came out in visible puffs as the air about them chilled and ice began to crackle over the counter. Poppy couldn’t rein in the reaction. Dear God, how had Isley known? She’d been so careful to keep this life separate from Win.

  “When is the ship set to sail?” Poppy’s body hummed with the urge to move, to run.

  “I believe it’s due to depart this Friday. That is two days from now.” Daisy’s smooth brow furrowed. “Poppy, you can’t mean to meet it. The bloody thing is in Calais! We are in London,” she added with unnecessary emphasis.

  Rage pushed its way along Poppy’s veins, making her see more clearly than she had in months. “Watch me.”

  Port of Calais, August 30, 1883

  A man cannot run away from his life, no matter how far he goes. It was an uncomfortable truth Winston Lane had learned these past weeks when he’d forced himself to go on holiday. A bit of rest and relaxation, Inspector, and you’ll be right as rails. Winston hadn’t possessed the heart or the energy to correct Sheridan. It was “right as rain” and, no, he’d never be right again. Regardless, he’d taken himself far out of cold, dank London and straight to Paris, where he wouldn’t be reminded of all he’d lost. But the holiday had been a dismal failure.

  So he was going home. To London. And Poppy. Longing hit him so hard that he ached, the dissatisfied feeling within ebbing in favor of sharp, bright pain. He missed her. Missed her so much he could scarcely breathe. He didn’t want to picture her but she came despite his will. Poppy, his Boadicea. She’d always been a warrior in his mind. Her flashing eyes and determined brows were enough to cow most men. As for Winston, her sharpness and strength inflamed him and made him want to slip beneath that hard outer shell she wore, find her softer bits, and do wicked things…

  No, he would not think about her. She was an illusion. A liar. For the fourteen years of their marriage, she’d posed as a simple bookseller, while knowing all along about this other world, this supernatural London, filled with mythical beasts such as werewolves. And she’d kept it from him. Up until the day one such beast had ripped him to shreds.

  But he’d avoided her for too long. It had been a cowardly and small act. He wanted an explanation, and he wanted to say his piece. And he’d have to face her as he was—a shell of a man.

  “Now that’s a bloody big boat,” said Jack Talent at his side.

  Stirred from his self-flagellation, Winston grunted. “Ship. One does not call an ocean liner a ‘boat’.”

  Despite being thoroughly annoyed with his unwelcome and unexpected travel partner, Winston couldn’t help but agree with the young man’s assessment. However, “big” did not even begin to convey the magnitude of this hulking beast that would take them from the French port of Calais to Southampton, and eventually go on to New York. It was a giant, rising five stories above them, so high that they needed to crane their necks to see the topmast.

  Taller than most London buildings, the craft was easily as long as two city blocks. It blotted out the sun. Standing by it, one felt as infinitesimal as a bug. And yet Winston could not help but be moved by this true feat of modern engineering. As was the six-story paddle wheel that gleamed in the morning light. One o
f two, the paddle wheels at full spin would take this leviathan and its four hundred passengers up to a speed of 15 knots.

  “Leave it to Archer to purchase a ship such as this,” he said.

  Talent’s mouth twitched. “Perhaps he felt the need to compensate for something.”

  Winston turned to Talent. “Perhaps you ought to tell him that yourself. It would save me the trouble of dispensing with you.” He’d been trying to rid himself of the young man ever since he had entered Winston’s railway car on the trip to Paris two weeks earlier.

  “What are you doing here?” he’d asked as Talent plopped his carcass on the seat bench opposite him.

  The young man who served as Ian Ranulf’s valet looked back at him, unabashed even though Winston was certainly glaring a hole through his skull. “Ian sent me. I’m here to guard you.”

  As if the boy were a bloody nanny. Winston had wanted to be outraged. Except, after the attack, Ian and his other nosey brother-in-law Archer had given Winston the one thing he’d desperately needed, a sense of control after he’d been ripped apart and pieced back together. Not quite good as new. But alive.

  Since the day he could move without biting pain, Ian and Archer had cajoled, hassled, and finally harassed him into coming to Ranulf House to train his body. They’d taught him how to fight, both with hand and sword, thrown medicine balls at him, and made him lift sacks of grain until his scarred and battered body screamed in protest. It had been a systematic torture of the flesh that had put nearly twenty pounds of muscle on his weakened frame and had made him capable of taking down a man twice his size with one punch. Unfortunately, that didn’t help when the nightmares that haunted Winston were not of men, but of monsters.

  So, having been unable to get rid of the pest, Winston was stuck with a pseudo-valet on a holiday that had made him more out of sorts than before. At the moment, Talent looked no less thrilled. His eyes scanned the sky, and a frown grew. “Something is off. Have you not noticed the sky?”

  Indeed, for days now, the sky had been a boiling red sea shot through with streaks of black and vermilion. An ominous tapestry that sent a queer feeling through Winston’s gut. “The color is a result of Krakatoa.”

  News reports had already come in that the far-away Pacific island volcano had erupted with cataclysmic devastation; half the island was gone in an instant. So great was the fallout that, even in Europe, volcanic ash filled the skies.

  “See, now there is your first mistake, being a human and all.” Talent’s expression turned grim. “A volcano eruption is always cause for worry. For something always gets out.”

  Winston pushed the brim of his hat farther down on his forehead as a wind flew over the docks and sent bits of rubbish airborne. Around them, fellow travelers clutched their own hats and hurried toward the grand gangplank that led them up into the Ignitus. “Gets out?”

  “As in gets out of hell. A volcano blows, and all sorts of nasty beings use that crack in the earth’s crust to get to freedom.”

  Yet one more thing Winston would rather not know. He pulled in a lungful of briny air and then grabbed his valise. “Not to worry, Talent. Should a messenger from hell come calling, I will do my best to protect you.”

  Talent snorted. “And they say you don’t have a sense of humor, Inspector.”

  Chapter Two

  Like all the other passengers, Winston and Talent stood on upper decks to see the Ignitus get underway. The ship’s horn blew, long, low, and resonating with such strength that his flesh vibrated. As if awoken by the horn, the ship shuddered to life like a great beast coming out of hibernation. Far below, blue-green water began to froth and foam as the heavy paddle on their side of the boat started to spin. Most travelers were on the port side of the ship, wanting to see Calais fade away. Not Winston. He faced the sea, and where it would take him. Home.

  He almost missed the subtle change in the air. At first, he thought the cold wind a sudden sea breeze, but the air had gone oddly still. The strangeness had him pausing. He glanced at Talent. The man’s eyes narrowed as he peered out over the sea. He felt it too, then. In the next moment, distinct cold surrounded Winston. Colder and colder, until his breath came out in a puff.

  Talent backed up a step. “What the bloody hell?”

  Winston opened his mouth to answer when a faint crackling sounded. Before their rather shocked eyes, a lacy ribbon of frost began to race over the rail. Winston snatched his hand back as white fingers of ice spread out in rapid fire, covering everything in its path. Around them came the sound of confused murmurs.

  The crackling sound grew as the temperature dropped to frigid. And then the great ship groaned and shuddered. Winston and Talent both leaned over the rail and looked on with fascinated horror as the water about the ship turned to thick, unimaginable ice, and the bloody ship began to rise, trapped as it was within the ice’s clutches.

  Talent’s mouth fell open. “Bugger me.”

  Winston was inclined to agree. “Come.” He plucked Talent’s sleeve to get the man’s attention. “To the port side.” Something was coming. He could feel it.

  Stumbling and treading with care along the slick, icy deck, they made their way to the port side, shouldering past gawking passengers, most of whom milled about in a frightened and confused state. Crewmembers called for order, stumbling along much like Winston and Talent, as they tried to figure out what was happening.

  “Look,” said a young girl. “Someone is boarding the ship.”

  Several people shot to the rail and craned their necks to see.

  Winston and Talent followed suit. The gangplank, which had been in the process of being removed, had been frozen in place. A woman strolled, pretty as you please, up it. Winston’s heart flipped over in his chest. He drank her in, the steady clip of her legs beneath a fetching gown of black and white stripes, the determined set of her shoulders. A matching parasol obscured her face, but he’d know that walk anywhere. Christ. His body hardened painfully.

  As if she felt his eyes upon her, the parasol tilted back, and she lifted her head. Even though he had to be a mere dot among the throng from her vantage point, she found him immediately. Those severe red brows, that dark, knowing gaze. A bolt of pure heat and lust shot through him, strong enough to make him suck in a draught of air. Bloody. Buggering. Hell.

  An old gent beside him scowled beneath white, shaggy brows. “Who the deuce is that?” he asked no one in particular.

  “Trouble,” muttered Talent, his glare fixed on the young lady walking at Poppy’s side. Winston recalled her as Mary Chase, assistant to Daisy Ranulf.

  Winston did not know how Poppy had found him, or what the devil she was doing here. The only thing that he knew with absolute certainty at that moment was that Talent had been correct. Here came trouble.

  Getting onboard had been a bit of a… spectacle. It could not be helped. Poppy wasn’t about to watch the blasted ship sail away. Upon meeting a very harried looking first mate, who wanted to know what the devil was going on, she handed him Archer’s card and letter of introduction, which simply told the captain that Poppy was to have carte blanche while aboard, bless her brother-in-law.

  “Bring this to your captain and have someone see to my trunks. They are to be placed in Mr. Winston Lane’s cabin directly.”

  Her little show had taken almost all of her energy. And she would need so much more of it before the day was out. The first mate’s befuddled gaze went from her to the ice surrounding the boat and back. With an inward sigh, she addressed him once more. “Yes, it is rather strange weather we’re having. Now,” she nudged him with the tip of her parasol, “you’re dawdling, sir. I suspect your captain will want an update.”

  Twitching as if coming out of a trance, the man finally glanced at the card. As it belonged to the owner of the ship, he started before giving her a curt nod. “Yes, madam. Of course. Welcome aboard.”

  He promptly left. As soon as he did, Poppy pulled in a long, deep breath and closed her eyes. The air a
bout her warmed, and with a final pull of power, the ice that held the ship captive dissipated, causing the air to mist. The ship shuddered and swayed a bit, and a good many of the passengers shouted. Gods, but it hurt more to rein in her power than to set it free.

  Miss Chase caught her elbow as she wavered. “Very well done, Mum.”

  “Child’s play.” Poppy straightened her spine. “Now to the real task. My husband.”

  Poppy found Winston as the ship left the harbor and the throngs of people dispersed, happy now to have gained something to speculate over for hours. He was by the rail of the first class deck where she’d initially spotted him. Waiting for her. The sight of him in the flesh was too much. He was the sun on a cloudless day, burning bright, making her vision blur. Would he speak to her? What would he say? Three months. Three months of not seeing him, not hearing his voice.

  He stood, not in his usual straight-backed manner, but slouched against the railing in indolent repose. Watching. Like a leopard lazing in his perch.

  The man she knew as Winston Lane had been lithe of form, his wheat blond hair swept back and neat, his mustache always trimmed and a point of pride. She remembered the day he started to grow one. It had been the same day he’d joined the CID. Most Yardmen wore mustaches, and thus, he announced, so would he. And while she’d missed the smooth feel of his upper lip, it had looked quite distinguished so she did not complain. But that elegant man was gone.

  The man who faced her now had much broader shoulders and arms swelling with muscles evident even beneath his loose-fitting sack coat. His once short and orderly hair was a shaggy mess, hanging about his face, which she surmised had been in an attempt to hide his maiming. It hurt her to look at those four parallel scars that ran down the left side of his face. Archer had done a neat job of stitching, but the scars were still vivid red and taking up the whole of his cheek, the cruelest one tugging the corner of his upper lip into a permanent sneer. His beloved mustache was gone, the scar obviously making wearing one difficult now. Poppy wondered if he mourned the loss.