My Lady Quicksilver

down her cheeks and a sob catching in her throat. She jammed her fist against her teeth to stop it from escaping, a hot flare of pain sliding through the wounded limb.

“Damn it,” Lynch cursed. He stepped closer, the toes of his boots coming into her watery vision. “Damn it, Rosa. Please don’t cry.” His hands slid over her upper arms and she stiffened, but he was only rubbing them. Her metal hand was far from his touch.

Then his arms wrapped around her, crushing her close. Rosalind fought for a second, hot angry tears scoring her cheeks, then collapsed into his arms. Hesitantly, she put her hand against his chest. Sexual desire she could fight, but not this… She wanted to be held as if someone cared, just this once.

Hurt bubbled up inside her at the thought. A sudden lurching wave of grief went through her; she missed her husband so dreadfully. Or perhaps simply the touch of a man, the warm companionship, the feeling that someone would look after her, instead of always being the one to look after everyone else.

“What’s wrong?”

Rosalind curled into Lynch’s arms, silently pleading with him to hold her. Shaking her head, she buried her face against his chest and let the tears come.

She’d thought she was strong enough to deal with this but she was coming apart at the seams, fracturing, her entire world shattering like a stained-glass window.

“I’m trying to be strong,” she blurted, not knowing where the words were coming from.

“You are strong—”

“No, I’m not,” she cried. “Everything is going wrong. Everything!”

“I don’t understand,” he replied, frustration edging his voice. He rubbed her back, his hand curling protectively against her spine. “What’s wrong, Rosa? What is ‘everything’? Is it the butcher? Or…me?”

Longing filled her. Rosalind wanted to tell him, to blurt out all of her troubles and stay here in his arms. To have someone else deal with the problem for once. As if someone cared, as if someone would look after her. What a mess. She dragged strands of wet hair off her cheeks and shook her head. If she told him the truth, the caring tone would leech out of his voice immediately. He wasn’t her ally nor even her friend. Not truly. She had to forget this feeling and forge ahead on the path she’d set herself.

You are alone. That’s how it had to be—or had been since Nate’s death.

Dragging in a breath, she wiped her eyes, her cheeks. The tears slid silently now. “I’m sorry.”

“Rosa,” he whispered, cupping her face. An echo of her pain lingered in his expression, as if it actually hurt him to see this. “Tell me what’s wrong. I can help you.”

She shook her head. “It’s just—” Her breath caught again. “I can’t find my brother. I haven’t seen him…for a long time. I don’t even know if he’s still alive.” Her mouth kept saying the words even as her horrified brain screamed at her to shut up.

Lynch’s hands cupped her face and tilted it up. “I can help you, Rosa. I can find him. It’s what I do.”

“You can’t. Nobody can help me.”

His gaze turned watchful. “Are you afraid of what might happen if I do find him? Rosa, you said once he’d fallen in with a bad crowd. Is he… Is he a humanist?”

Her fingers tightened on his sleeve in fear and she looked up, a swift denial on her lips.

Lynch pressed his finger against her mouth, stilling the words. “Don’t,” he demanded in a silky-harsh voice. “Don’t lie to me, please.” The backs of his fingers brushed against her cheek, tracing the path of her tears. “I’m not a monster, Rosa. I wouldn’t hurt him. It’s not the first time I’ve turned a blind eye.”

Disbelief shivered through her. “You lied to the Echelon?”

His hands were almost hypnotic, tracing over the curve of her lip. “Sometimes the Council misreads a situation.” His fingers hesitated. “I’m not the enemy, Rosa. I never have been.”

She closed her eyes, taking a deep, trembling breath. Did she dare trust him? It was so tempting, but she’d had her lessons beaten into her over the years with brutal efficiency. Could she go against everything she’d ever learned?

“Please, Rosa.”

It broke something inside her. She trembled beneath his touch, another hot tear sliding down her cheek. “I wanted to try and find him. That’s why I took the job as your secretary,” she whispered. She needed this, she realized. Needed some sense of honesty between them. “I thought you might have word of him. That’s why I went through all your papers. That’s why I picked the lock on your study. I’ve…lied to you several times.”

He was so still. She looked up, catching his wrist as if he sought to draw away.

“Go on.”

“He’s a humanist,” she replied. The words almost shriveled on her tongue. “Just a boy though. I tried to protect him…”

“But boys will do as they will.” Lynch frowned. “What’s his name?”

Again she couldn’t speak the words. This went against everything she believed in. Lynch watched her silently until she finally tore her gaze away. “Jeremy,” she murmured. “Jeremy Fairchild.” Her voice dropped wistfully. “I call him Jem. He’s so much younger than I. My mother died when he was two, so I had the raising of him.”

“How old is he?”

“Seventeen.”

Another grim silence. “That’s old enough to be tried in the tower.”

“No.” She shook her head desperately. “He’s just a boy.”

“What does he look like?”

The words were starting to come easier now. “He has red hair, like me.” She fingered a strand of hair that hung over her face. “And freckles, though they’re fading now. He’s perhaps six foot, although it seems like he grows an inch each time I look at him.”

Lynch sucked in a sharp breath as if she’d struck him. “And how long has it been since you’ve seen him?” he demanded.

Another hard question to answer. “August 24th.”

They both knew what it meant. The date the Echelon signed the treaty with the Scandinavian verwulfen clans. The date the mechs had tried to blow up the tower.

“Did he have anything to do with the bombing?”

She shook her head. Then hesitated. It was so terribly difficult to answer this question. Did she trust him? Truly trust him? He had said this wasn’t the first time he’d turned a blind eye to events, but she was playing with Jeremy’s life here. “Yes.” A whisper. A plea. “I think so. The men he was involved with…”

Lynch sucked in a sharp breath. “Bloody hell.” He looked at her, then scraped a hand over his jaw. “You realize what this means? A humanist is one thing, but an act of such magnitude?” His voice broke. “Rosa, do you know what you’re asking of me?”

Hope deflated, her chest squeezing tight. Of course she’d asked too much. He couldn’t help her. Nobody could. “Yes.”

Lynch swore under his breath. “I’ll do my best,” he promised. “But I need more facts than this. I need to know that if I found him and set him free for you, he wouldn’t hurt anyone. I can’t—I can’t promise you anything.”

That he was even willing to help her was so much more than she would have ever suspected. On impulse, she reached out and took his hand, sliding her fingers through his. “I know you’ll do what you must.”

As would she. But the weight that had been dragging at her for weeks seemed to have lifted. A flood of feeling swept through her, as alien and uncomfortable as a knife itching against her skin. She didn’t understand it; or perhaps she understood it all too much. This was what had almost destroyed her so many years ago, when she’d slammed the door open on the cell and staggered inside, only to watch Balfour drag the blade across her husband’s throat.

A cold chill swept through her, her eyes swimming with tears again. Balfour had ripped her heart from her chest in one move, destroying her entire world. She’d sworn then that she would never weaken herself ever again, never place another man in such a situation.

Lynch’s head lowered, his lashes falling half-closed over those glacial blue eyes. Rosalind’s heart stuttered in her chest as she realized his intentions. It was one thing to kiss him as Mercury, to tease him as Rosa Marberry, but now she was neither. She had bared part of her soul to him, the first time she had done so in many years. The