Part 4 (2/2)

”Yes. She sent me a gram, and I didn't . . .” Mina hadn't verified the truth of it. Should she have verified it? She'd expected that Anne might have different ideas about living with a family than Mina did. But this meant Anne had lied. Why? Was she in trouble? ”Did she seem all right on Sat.u.r.day?”

Her father nodded. ”Perfectly well.”

With a sick ball of worry in her gut, Mina turned to go. ”I need to look for her.”

Her mother called, ”And what of Viscount Redditch? His murder is all over the newssheets-along with a tale of a bra.s.s wheel that kills men in their gardens.”

d.a.m.n those journalists. But Redditch would have to wait. Mina shook her head, but her father said, ”I'll ask at the Creche, Mina. Most likely she's there, and simply didn't want to worry you. I'll let you know if she's not.”

”But-”

”Where would you go to find her?”

She looked to her father again. Anne had been due at work today. It was still early, but it was Mina's best bet. ”The Blacksmith's.”

”Your husband can be there in a quarter of the time it will take you. You are five minutes from headquarters. Send him a wiregram.”

”And if she's not there?”

”Where would you look next?”

The Creche. She flattened her lips in frustration.

”If it's the Creche, I am already headed there-and the children won't talk to you. But they won't think anything of it if I ask after her.”

Why was her father always so reasonable? And worse, he was right. Creche children might as well have lived in a silent, invisible city. They never saw or heard anything-especially when they were protecting their own.

Blast it all.

”All right,” Mina said. ”I'll be in my examination room for a few hours, then at Portman Square again. Please let me know right away whether she's there-and let Rhys know, too. I'll send him a gram as soon as I arrive at headquarters.”

Then try to focus on work. She couldn't do anything to find Anne that Rhys and her father wouldn't. That was part of being a family, too-relying on them, trusting them.

And there was no one better to rely on than Rhys or her parents. With both helping her, Mina didn't have anything to fear.

But she felt it, anyway.

The gram from Mina had long since crumpled in his hand by the time the two-seater balloon was ready. Throwing the engine to full, Rhys launched into the air and aimed the nose toward the Narrow, trying not to let the worry overwhelm his sense.

He knew the simplest explanation was the most likely: Anne had lied. But he'd lived through too much, had seen too much, and could too easily imagine other possibilities. Like Mina, the girl had Horde blood, and many people who'd lived during the occupation couldn't look past that fact. She might have been attacked, hurt. Slavers abducted people from London for the skin trade or to work in the Lusitanian coal mines, and a tinker was always valuable. Most slavers wouldn't risk taking someone wearing the Blacksmith's guild mark-but although it wasn't common knowledge that the Blacksmith was away from London this week, someone might have known.

They might not have known Anne belonged to Rhys, too. Or they had known-and that was why they continued sending grams, trying to cover their a.s.ses before the Iron Duke came for them. He already had a man heading to the wiregram station where Anne's messages had originated from, trying to discover who had sent the grams. Except for government offices and some of the newer, wealthy residences, everyone had to use a station to send a message, and they could easily be traced. But reason told him that most likely, Anne had sent them herself.

G.o.d, what could have kept the girl away?

Mina must be terrified. Rhys's chest ached with the need to go to her, but he knew the only thing that could stop her fear would be to find Anne.

It would be the only thing to ease his worry for the girl, too.

The balloon roared in over the Narrow, where the Blacksmith's warehouse sat up against the north bank of the Thames. Empty but for the stone rubble that piled at the front of the buildings and into the street, the Narrow would later be crowded with dockworkers and laborers hoping to pick up an odd job for the day. If Rhys hadn't found Anne by then, he'd pay every one of them a year's wages to search every borough around London.

He set the two-seater down directly in front of the Blacksmith's door, and didn't bother to lock it down. No one would dare steal the balloon from him.

Eyes widened as he walked into the smithy. Rhys wasn't a stranger here-in the past ten years, he'd met with the Blacksmith too often for that-but he'd always sent a gram first. Still, his unannounced arrival didn't explain the unease he saw on several faces. His gut tightened. They knew Anne was his, and they knew something. What was it?

Rhys scanned each work station, looking for her, listening for the sound of her voice over the noise of the exhaust fans, the pounding of metal. She wasn't here, but there were two more floors above this one. If necessary, he'd tear the smithy apart looking for her.

The floor supervisor came toward him, pus.h.i.+ng her welding goggles up over short dark hair. Lottie's face was set, her eyes hard, and she folded her gray arms of mechanical flesh across her ap.r.o.ned chest. She offered him a short nod, but no greeting.

”He's not here,” she said simply. ”Come back when he is.”

Rhys wasn't looking for the Blacksmith. ”I'm searching for Anne the Tinker.”

”I know. You won't find her here. She doesn't come back until the Blacksmith does.”

Lottie sounded as if she preferred that Anne never returned. His girl. He unclenched his jaw, evened out his anger into steel determination. ”Why?”

”She broke the guild's rules. He decides whether to erase her mark.”

”What did she do?” Whatever Anne had done, he'd fix it.

”You don't have a mark, I don't say.”

G.o.d d.a.m.n her and their f.u.c.king rules. ”Where is she now? Here?”

”She doesn't come back until he does. Where she is until then is none of my business.”

But Lottie obviously knew.

She knew and was keeping Anne from him. A red haze swam in front of his eyes, and for a brief moment he considered slamming her against the wall, his hand around her throat until she talked. He'd start a war with the Blacksmith, but if it meant finding Anne, he'd risk it. There wasn't a single line he wouldn't cross.

But he wouldn't have to cross any lines yet. He took a deep breath, pushed back the anger. His gaze swept the room before he started for the exit. He stopped at the door.

”I have a heavy purse.” His voice carried across the smithy. ”And I'll give it to the first person who tells me where Anne the Tinker is.”

And he went outside to wait.

Five minutes later, he was heading north to Whitechapel and the Creche. Mina's gram had said that Rockingham would be looking for Anne there, too, but Rhys needed to see for himself. His gaze swept the streets below, searching the upturned face of every dark-haired child he pa.s.sed.

With stone walls rising thirty feet high, the Creche covered an area roughly half the size of Rhys's estate. From above, gardens made a patchwork of the northwest corner. Well-kept buildings sat in rows, and formed narrow streets within the Creche. He'd never been inside-this was the children's sanctuary, with few adults allowed past its gates-but as a boy, he'd been in one much like it during the Horde occupation. They'd fed him, taught him to listen, but not much more than that.

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