The Girl in the Steel Corset

“Felix August-Raynes?” His voice was soft.

Finley closed her eyes as dread washed over her. Of course he knew. He would have seen the crest on her corset.

“There was nothing in the papers this morning so I assume the blackguard is still very much alive?”

Her chin came up defiantly. “Do I look like a murderer to you?”

Griffin smiled. “Jack the Ripper had a very gentle countenance.”

“But they never caught…” Something in his expression prevented her from completing the protest. “Lord Felix was very much alive the last time I saw him, though I reckon he has a bit of a headache this morning.”

“Rightly earned, no doubt.” Griffin leaned back into the corner of the sofa and brought one booted foot up to rest across his knee. The smooth black leather looked soft and the silver buckles gleamed in the light. “Like the rest of Jack Dandy’s bunch, Lord Felix has an overinflated sense of self.”

“Who?”

He propped his elbow on the back of the sofa and leaned his head against his hand. So open and trusting with her. Even though he knew what she could do, he wasn’t the least bit afraid. It made her wonder what kind of monster lived inside of him.

“The Dandies. They fancy themselves street thugs, but they’re just a bunch of spoiled whelps with metal in their faces. Dandy, on the other hand, is precisely what he claims to be.”

Finley wondered what that was exactly. “What do you want from me?” She was tired of this pointless small talk.

He didn’t look the least bit surprised or offended. “Nothing. Not yet.”

“But you do want something eventually.” Oddly enough, having him live down to her expectations was disappointing, to say the least.

“Eventually, if I’m right and you’re willing, I’d like for you to join us.”

“As what?” For all she knew, Emily was a concubine for the rest of them. They could be getting up to all kinds of perverse things in this house.

Griffin smiled again—it was as though he could read her mind. “Who do you think keeps this country safe so you can sleep at night?”

“I don’t sleep most nights. And to be honest, Your Grace, I don’t feel all that safe.”

He tilted his head. “I can change that.”

And in that instant, Finley believed him. Not only that, but she knew he believed what he said. It made her want to trust him. When was the last time she’d trusted anyone of the male gender?

“First,” he began, abruptly rising to his feet, “we need to get you some new clothes. A seamstress will be here any moment to fit you.”

“But I don’t have any money.”

He looked incredulous at her protest. “You needn’t worry about that. I have enough for both of us, I assure you.” His eyes were twinkling again—laughing at her, but not maliciously.

Slowly, Finley rose from the sofa, tilted her head back and looked him dead in the eye. “I have no desire to be any more in your debt than I already am.”

He looked thoughtful for a moment. “Would it make you more comfortable if I demanded something in return? Would that put you at ease?”

When he put it like that, it made her sound like an awful sort of person for thinking the worst. “It would, yes. At least that would be honest.”

It might have been laughter that came scoffing from his throat, but there was little humor in it. He shook his head, the light reflecting glints of russet in his hair. “I’d like to meet whomever it was who made you so distrusting and pull his teeth out one by one.”

The vehemence in his tone startled her, yet was strangely warming. “’Twas more than just one.”

His face darkened, like clouds overtaking the sun. Suddenly, this was no longer just some seemingly kind, bored aristocrat standing before her, but a young man capable of many dangerous things.

Interesting, she thought, borrowing his own term.

“What I want from you,” he said, and Finley braced herself, “is your trust. Irrevocable and unshakable. I want you to put your life in my hands, and I want to be able to do the same without hesitation.”

Disturbed to her very soul, Finley could only shake her head. “You ask too much.” Put his life in her hands? He was deranged! A bedlamite for certain.

A crooked grin curved his mouth. “Too much? You strange and wonderful girl, that is the least I’ll ask of you.”

Anyone who got within fifteen feet of Sam Morgan could tell the young man was spoiling for a fight. Unfortunately for Sam, everyone in the tavern was either sober enough to give him a wide berth or too drunk to bother indulging him.

He sat at a table in a corner as dark as his mood and as far away from the automated barkeep as he could get. Just the sight of the gleaming brass android caused his left eye to twitch. Thankfully, a human—a young girl —came to his table. She wore a white blouse off her round shoulders, a tight corset that made her waist incredibly tiny and called even more attention to her abundant chest and a short, flouncy skirt that showed off shapely calves in dark stockings.

“Right,” she said, rolling the r in a thick Welsh accent. “What can I gets ye, then?”

“A pint,” he replied brusquely, pushing a half-crown across the scarred tabletop. It was a generous payment. She snatched it up with a grin and hurried off to fetch his drink. Across the gin-and ale-soaked, sawdust-littered floor, a shabbily dressed man dropped a coin into the slot of the automated “Victoria Victrola.” There was a slight clinking sound as the coin hit bottom, followed by a gentle whirring as the torso in the top glass half of the machine stirred. “Victoria” had thick auburn hair and a lovely papier-mâché face with bright blue eyes and painted crimson lips, the bottom of which was designed to open and close, as though she was actually flesh and blood singing a song and not a cheap wind-up doll designed to mime in time to the music. Victoria didn’t bother Sam as much as the shiny creature behind the bar. She was confined to her glass prison, half a woman with no chance of escape.

No, it was the metal behind the bar that set his teeth on edge. Did these people not realize the danger they put themselves in simply being in the same room as that…that thing?

At least he was better equipped to fight them now. Emily had seen to that. He flexed the fingers on his right hand. It felt completely normal. How was that possible when it wasn’t? He couldn’t even discern a difference in weight between his arms, but surely the metal one had to be weightier?

The waitress returned to set a frothy pint of ale in front of him. Some of the foam ran down the outside the mug to pool on the dirty tabletop. “Wanting anythin’ else, will ye be?”

Sam wasn’t dumb. Maybe he wasn’t as smart as Emily and Griff, or even as witty as Jasper, but he wasn’t stupid. He understood things they didn’t, and he understood what the girl offered him. He also knew that no one liked being rejected.

“Not right now,” he replied with a slight smile. It felt forced and false on his lips, but she didn’t notice. She returned the smile, flashing a pretty dimple in her cheek.

“If you change yer mind, let me know.”

“I will,” he promised, knowing full well he wouldn’t.

As she swished away, Sam lifted the mug. Warm ale flooded his mouth, awakening his tongue with its rich flavor. He could swallow three gallons of the stuff and still not be drunk enough to get Emily’s soft brogue out of his head.

“I replaced your heart.”

What did that mean? It wasn’t being kept alive that gnawed at him, or that a machine pushed the blood through his veins. How did this affect him as a human being? Would he live longer? Was it a lie when he saw Emily and the thing in his chest began to beat a little faster? What did a machine know of feelings? Would there ever be a time when he could honestly say that he felt something to be true in his heart and trust in it?

Making it all more confusing was his undeniable thankfulness at simply being alive, no matter what his present form.