The Girl in the Steel Corset

“And Mary’s husband.”

The bottom of Finley’s stomach felt as though it had dropped to the floor. “But that would mean…”

Lady Marsden nodded. “Your father, yes.”

Finley had always despised those girls who fainted anytime something fantastic or surprising happened, but at that moment she felt as though her knees might give way. Her head spun and she clutched at Griff’s arm for support.

She had never seen a photo of her father before this day. He mother said she hadn’t any.

“My father’s name was Thomas Jayne, not Thomas Sheppard.” Even if she said the words, they tasted like a lie. There was enough of her own looks in Thomas Sheppard’s face to prove his indentity.

“Then perhaps we should call upon your mother,” Lady Marsden suggested, a note of challenge in her voice. “I had heard that Thomas and Mary had a daughter they named Finley Jane Sheppard. What a coincidence you made your way here after all these years, your parents having been so closely tied to my brother and his wife.”

Finley stared at her and finally understood. Her ladyship thought she’d machinated all of this to get into Griffin’s household. She believed Finley to be capable of throwing herself in front of a moving vehicle, risking injury to capture His Grace’s attention. Seeing Jack Dandy in her thoughts only solidified what Cordelia King-Ashworth already believed—that Finley was a liar, possibly a criminal and not to be trusted. That her being in that house was simply too much of a coincidence.

To be honest, Finley thought exactly the same thing. She’d never been much for believing in destiny or fate, but it certainly seemed as though she and Griffin had been connected long before they’d ever met.

“Yes,” she agreed, obviously surprising Lady Marsden. “We should visit my mother.” In truth, she’d rather stick pins in her eye. She didn’t want to hear what her mother had to say about the photograph and Thomas Sheppard, not because she thought her mother would lie, but because she was very much afraid of the truth.

Sam was sitting at the dining-room table, reading the paper and eating his usual breakfast of oatmeal, sausage, ham, eggs, fried potatoes, toast and coffee when Griffin walked in.

“Hello, Samuel,” Griff said, going to the sideboard and pouring himself a cup of coffee.

Sam’s spine went rigid. Had Emily put metal in his back, too? he wondered bitterly, waiting for his friend to make some remark about it being closer to luncheon than breakfast time, or to ask what hour Sam had returned home. It was none of Griff’s business, and it wasn’t as though he ever felt the need to explain himself. Sam could come and go as he pleased, as well, but that didn’t change the little worm of guilt swimming uneasily in his stomach.

“Morning,” Sam replied somewhat gruffly.

“Did you sleep well?” the other boy inquired.

Here it came, thought Sam. An interrogation. “Yes.”

Griff nodded. “Excellent. Listen, Aunt Delia is back. She and I are taking Finley to visit her mother. Seems there may be a connection between Finley’s father and my parents.”

This was what he’d missed by being out late and sleeping the morning away. He knew there was more to Finley than they first thought, and now it seemed they were about to find out just what. Though he ought to thank her for taking Griffin’s attention off him.

“Do you need me to come along?”

“No need. Although, if Emily comes down, let her know what’s going on, will you?”

Emily. The thought of seeing her again filled him with a mix of eagerness and dread. He’d been so angry at her, so hurt and…well, he didn’t know what else. He was still angry, still hurt, but he knew he should apologize.

“I’ll tell her,” he said, noticing that Griff had been watching him, waiting for a reply.

His old friend smiled. To Sam, Griffin looked relieved. “Thank you. And, Sam?”

He had lifted his fork in an attempt to resume his rapidly cooling breakfast, and gritted his teeth as he raised his head once more. “What?”

The smile, and the relief were gone. All that he saw was Griff’s unapologetic face. “I told Emily to do whatever necessary to save your life. If you’re going to be mad at anyone, it should be me.”

Too stunned to say anything, Sam just sat there in stupefied silence. Coffee in hand, Griff left the room without a backward glance and all Sam could do was watch him go as betrayal and anger ignited in his gut and slowly set him ablaze.

Were he not so bloody hungry, he would have thrown his plate, but someone would have to clean that up. Instead, he finished his breakfast. Then, he got up and went to Griff’s study. He stood there, in the room he’d spent so much time in during the course of his life, and looked for something to destroy that hadn’t belonged to the former duke, that was solely Griffin’s.

His gaze fell upon the Aether engine Emily had built so Griffin could access the Aether without becoming part of it. It was a testament to Emily’s brilliance and Griff’s power. If he ruined it, both of them would be hurt by it. Both of them would feel as he did at that very moment—betrayed, bewildered.

It would be so easy. The engine was right in front of him now. His mechanical arm would reduce the entire rig to rubble in seconds. All he had to do was make a fist and swing.

“I replaced your heart.” The words rang in his head as his fingers curled into his palm. “If you’re going to be mad at anyone, it should be me.” The voices of Emily and Griff overlapped in his mind, creating a cacophony of misery he couldn’t silence.

They had ruined him out of love. Ruining this thing the two of them had built might ease his anger, but he wouldn’t feel good about it. He would want to apologize later. Neither Griff nor Emily would ever apologize for what they’d done to him because it had saved his life. To them that was all that mattered. Even now, knowing how angry he was and how much he despised the metal parts of himself, they would do it all over again because they would rather have him as a mess than not have him at all.

It wouldn’t even matter that he loathed them for it.

Sam lowered his fist and left the study. He wrote a note for Emily telling her where Griffin had gone and slipped it under her door. Then he went to his own room. He tossed some clothes and a few personal items into a bag before heading to the stables and climbing on his velocycle. He needed to get away. He needed to think.

Most of all, he needed to put as much space as he could between himself and the people who loved him.

Finley’s mother and her husband lived in Chelsea, which was just enough of a distance to make being stuck in a steam carriage with Griffin and his aunt uncomfortable.

Finley had never been in a carriage this fine before. The outside was a glossy black, the driver perched up high in a padded seat. Plumes of white steam rose from the shiny exhaust pipe that ran from the steam engine up the side of the carriage. The interior was all soft velvet, so dark a blue it was almost black. Though there were lamps on either wall for nighttime travel, it was dim inside the coach with the shades drawn.

They didn’t speak. There were a hundred and one questions she wanted to ask, but there wasn’t any point until they met with her mother. If what Lady Marsden said was true, then her mother had lied to her when she was a child and continued to lie until this very day. Why?

She sat next to the lady on the carriage seat. Griffin sat across from them, looking every inch the haughty duke in his pristine cravat, black jacket and dark gray trousers. He wore a long black greatcoat of soft leather over the ensemble, and carried a silver-topped walking stick. She had heard of gentlemen carrying swords concealed in their canes. She wondered if Griffin was such a gentleman.

Every once in a while she caught him watching her with absolutely no expression on his face or in his eyes. He must be a very good card player. It made her nervous. It made that other part of her nervous, too—nervous and indignant. Part of her wanted to slap him, even though she didn’t blame him for thinking the worst of her.

Finley opened the shade on her window just enough so that she could peek out at the passing scenery. She leaned her temple against the velvet-covered wall and watched hackney coaches, still pulled by horses, lumber past. Omnibuses, run by coal-fed engines cast grime-laden soot—like dark thunderclouds—into the damp air. Public transportation was nowhere near as luxurious as this vehicle. She doubted the Duke of Greythorne or his snooty aunt had ever seen the inside of an omnibus, or the third-class seating section in a dirigible—nor the