Ticker (18 page)

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There’s a hidden meaning in every flower.

“Dreadnaught, who delivered this bouquet?” I asked, turning to the chatelaine.

Discreetly wiping her eyes with a handkerchief, she paused to study it. “It arrived this morning by courier.”

I eyed the arrangement again, searching for any clue it might yield. “I think it’s also from Warwick.”

Marcus peered closer at it, suddenly intent. “What makes you say that?”

“The flowers,” I said, reaching out to touch each bloom in turn. “Gladioli symbolize sincerity and strength of character.
Purple hyacinths ask for forgiveness. White roses are for secrecy and silence. I can’t think of anyone else who would have reason to speak to me of secrets.”

Marcus pulled out a spotless pocket square. “Has anyone besides yourself and the delivery person touched this, Miss Dreadnaught?”

“No, Legatus.”

He plucked the flowers from the vase and set them to one side, then poured the water into the wash basin. “It’s been quite some time since I sent flowers to a young lady.”

“You ought to study floriography before attempting it again,” I said, telling myself I didn’t care a whit if Marcus sent flowers to anyone, young lady or not. “You don’t want to send the wrong message.”

He made a thoughtful sort of noise far in the back of his throat. “Let’s say I wanted something to serve as a reminder of new friendship. Hypothetically, of course. What sort of flowers should I select?”

Violet poured herself another cup of tea and answered his leading question when she saw I wouldn’t. “I suggest blue periwinkle.”

“That is certainly good to know. May I?” Marcus indicated my desk. Perplexed, I nodded, watching as he ground the tips of several lead pencils into fine powder between two pieces of paper. “What if I wanted to suggest the flower of friendship might be blooming into something greater?”

I knew he only wanted to distract me from the dreadful situation with Nic, and yet my suggestion was a faint, “Honeysuckle? For devoted affection.”

“Or salvia,” Violet added. “For thinking of you.”

I hoped that would be the end of the conversation, but Marcus had other ideas. Taking the lead dust, he applied it to the vase with a horsehair brush.

“What if I wanted to tell a certain young lady that she was in possession of my most ardent affection?” he asked. “What ought I send her?”

“Roses,” I said, praying my voice wouldn’t crack under the strain of remaining detached. “Red ones.”

When next Marcus spoke, it was as though he and I were the only people in the room. “I think I will study this language of flowers a bit further.”

“Will you?” I met his gaze, refusing to play the coquette. “To what purpose?”

“So that when I send the girl of my heart a bouquet,” he said, so softly that I had to strain my ears to the utmost, “it will tell her everything I want to say. But for now, Tesseraria, we will have to make do with hard evidence.”

He held the vase so I could see the fingerprint plainly standing out on the surface.

“It might belong to the delivery person or the florist,” I said, realizing why he’d gone through so much trouble.

“Either of whom might have some clue as to Warwick’s whereabouts.” Marcus passed the vase off to Dreadnaught. “Give that to one of the guards on duty and tell him to have it transported to the Flying Fortress for processing.”

The chatelaine nodded and rushed from the room. Violet went to fiddle with the tea service, and I could have cheerfully strangled her for leaving the conversation. Alone with my frills, my bows, my worries, and Marcus, I stared with great determination at the coverlet. The clatter of his RiPA was a welcome distraction for us all, despite the message being encoded.

He listened thoughtfully before tapping out a brief response. “That was Sebastian. He’s finally arranged a boarding on the
Palmipède
.”

“You see?” I said. “And the very moment I awakened. Fortuitous timing.”

“Fortuitous indeed,” Marcus said with a rueful shake of his head. “Until you consider the fact that you have stitches and most likely a concussion.”

“If you go to the
Palmipède
, I’m coming with you,” I said. “I’m the one they want.”

He exchanged a long look with Violet, then ventured, “Perhaps we’ll see how you’re feeling come this evening.”

When I sat up, I set my lace flounces aflutter. “A clever dodge from someone wholly unfamiliar with my recuperative powers. What sort of firepower are we taking?”

“Everyone who is going,” he said with a pointed look, “will do so with hopes for the best and prepared for the worst. In other words, armed to the teeth and carrying a few extra surprises.”

“I want a gun,” Violet announced, jerking on her gloves. “A big one. I’m going home to get a frock, and then I’ll return. I expect you—” she jabbed a finger at Marcus, “to see to it that she—” her attention shifted to me, “eats the contents of that hamper.” She slapped the Carry-Away Box. “Watch out for the salted caramel tarts, though. They’re very sticky and won’t do the bed linen a bit of good.”

Marcus caught her at the door. “I’ve assigned a guard to escort you wherever you might go. Check in with us every hour. Don’t take any unnecessary risks. We don’t want anyone else disappearing.”

Stompy boots made their way along the hall and down the stairs. Watching Violet go, Marcus didn’t glance at me when he said, “She’s very much in love with him.”

“Yes.”

“Does he love her in return?”

“Yes.”

“Good. That will keep him fighting.”

“He’s a Farthing. We fight to our last breath and then defy logic to take another.” Realizing we were alone, I suddenly gave thanks for my ridiculous bed jacket. “There’s more tea on the table. And blancmange.”

“You’ll never get back your strength eating that.” Opening the lid on the Carry-Away Box, Marcus pulled out the salted caramel tarts and several molten-middle chocolate cakes before he spoke again. “Penny?”

Some sort of electrical current ran up my spine when he used my name, but I wouldn’t have let on for a million golden aureii. “Yes?”

“When you begin to plan something . . . and I know you will . . . I want to know what it is. Full disclosure.”

“I haven’t any plans yet.” I pointed at the iron bracelets, sitting in a pool of light on my desk. “I will keep you abreast of any future plotting, though.”

“So long as that plotting doesn’t include handing yourself over to Warwick.” Marcus took a napkin off the tea tray and settled it in my lap. “That wouldn’t do either of us any favors, would it?”

I found it very hard to concentrate. My every thought was a Butterfly battering against my skull and wheeling about to fly in tipsy circles behind my eyes. “I don’t know. It might be better for everyone if I did.”

“Don’t ever say that.” Marcus issued the command and followed it by handing me a caramel tart. “Now eat this.”

I smiled, relieved that I could focus my attention on anything other than his hands, his face. “Only if you take half.” I broke it
messily in two and gestured that he should sit down. My Ticker gave a lurch when he obliged, not in the adjacent armchair but next to me.

“Will Dreadnaught have a fit if she comes in here and sees me sitting on your bed?” he queried.

My stomach suddenly realized how long it had been since I’d eaten, and I eagerly bit into my half of the tart. Shortbread crust crumbled to sweet sand on my tongue, and the saltiness of the caramel coated the roof of my mouth. “Are you afraid of our chatelaine, Mister Kingsley?”

“Of all the threats I’ve faced this week, she does seem the most formidable.” Remembering something, he pulled a paper-wrapped parcel from his other pocket and handed it to me. “This is for you.”

“Handcuffs this time?” I guessed. “Surely you’re going to arrest me for criminal stupidity, among other things.”

“That can wait until you’re able to walk on your own.” When he fell silent, there was nothing for me to do but unwrap his gift.

String untied and paper removed, the bundle revealed itself to be a carved wooden display box. Under glass, the elusive Brimstone Butterfly fluttered sulfur-yellow wings at me with the whirring of tiny gears. It was one of the few missing from my collection, the very one I’d been determined to capture that day at Carteblanche. I could hardly believe Marcus had handed it to me like it was no more than a paper bag of Meridian taffy.

“I know you collect things of this nature.” He paused. “This particular specimen is from my personal collection. I hope it pleases you.”

I would have never imagined him hunting
Lepidoptera mechanika
; the good Legatus had taken me quite by surprise this time. “It’s lovely. I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” he assured me.

“I oughtn’t accept it,” I said, splaying my fingers over the glass. “But I shall. It’s a treasure, as well you know.”

“I do.” He reached up, trailing his fingers along my jawline before cupping my face in his hands. “But some treasures are more important than others.”

Wishing I could trade my Ticker for a single kiss—
what good is a clockwork heart if I never give it to anyone?
—I closed my eyes and tilted my head back.

With a small, strangled noise, Marcus pulled away from me. My eyes flew open, and if I’d been pink with embarrassment before, now I was surely the color of the fire department’s Combustible engines.

He saw the stricken look on my face and caught hold of my hands. “I want whatever this is, Penny. More than anything I’ve ever wanted before. But when I swore you into service, I promised there would be no secrets between us.”

Something stuck sideways in my throat. “Yes?”

“There’s a piece of information that wasn’t in any of the files.” Though Marcus spoke with visible reluctance, there was nothing cowardly about how he met my gaze. “Something you need to know before anything else happens.”

The hole in my middle opened up again, dark and bottomless. “Do you know something more about Nic’s condition?”

“No, not that,” Marcus reassured me. “But I’m not certain you’ll think this any better.” He cleared his throat and stared at the ceiling, trying to find the words he wanted to use. “Calvin Warwick’s illegal experiments were funded by a private investor.”

The very idea caused my stomach to clench until I thought the bit of tart I’d eaten might come back up. “Someone knew what Warwick was doing and didn’t stop him? Knew, and
paid
for it?”

“I had no idea that people were dying, Penny,” Marcus said quietly. “I promise you.”

Suddenly, there wasn’t enough air in the room, enough space between us. I wanted to scramble away from him, but I was trapped by my broken flesh and his hands and the sick desire to understand why he’d done such a thing. “
You
paid for Warwick’s research?”

Marcus stared at me as though facing a firing squad. “Yes. He came to me for investment capital. In exchange, he said he would develop battlefield Augmentations for the soldiers. I never had reason to believe he was doing anything else. Certainly not killing innocents he kidnapped off the streets.”

Numbness spread from my head to my Ticker. “It never came out at the trial or in any of the papers. You hid it.”

“I didn’t. As soon as I realized what was happening, I notified the appropriate authorities. The Ferrum Viriae was cleared of any wrongdoing, and our involvement wasn’t revealed at the trial, for public safety.”

All this time, I had believed I was the one to blame for the carnage. For the lives of twenty people, most of them children, all of them dead at Warwick’s hands. But the knowledge that I wasn’t alone in my guilt didn’t comfort me.

“I’ve done my best to make restitution to their families,” Marcus added, eyes still trained upon me.

“No amount of money can bring loved ones back from the dead!”

“Don’t think I haven’t thought of that every day since the killings came to light,” Marcus said, voice tight with regret. “I did it to protect the men and women serving this country. I did it for Viktor. If he’d been Augmented, he might have survived.”

“Is there anything else you’ve kept from me?”

“No.” There was a quiet plea in the single word.

In that moment, the connection between us was a sheet of glass. I had the choice: grip it and safeguard it with forgiveness, or let it fall. Full up with secrets, lies, betrayals, and unwelcome revelations, I made my choice. “Perhaps you ought to leave now.”

His expression shifted, so the look of loss traveled all the way up to his eyes. “If that’s what you want.” Giving me the tersest of nods, Marcus gathered up the daguerreotypes.

I wanted to smack his hand away from the slides, but I was afraid one might get broken. “I suppose you’re confiscating those as evidence?”

Carefully, delicately, he rewrapped them. “You don’t need to sit here and stare at them all day. I’ll have them analyzed for source of origin.”

“You will not. They’re my property, and I’ll analyze them myself.”

Ignoring my wishes, he tied a sturdy knot in the string and tucked them under his arm. “Tesseraria, I understand why you are angry with me, and I wish to take my leave before either of us says anything we might regret.” With that, he exited the room.

Sliding out of bed, I hobbled after him and shouted, “Come back here and get your damned Brimstone!”

Finally losing his temper, Marcus bellowed from downstairs, “It was a gift! Keep it!” Then he slammed the front door to Glasshouse so hard that the windows rattled in their frames.

“I won’t be ordered about.” I would send for a courier and specify that delivery included ramming the box down his throat. Carrying it to the desk through a haze of pain and heartache, I stumbled over the tiniest of wrinkles in the rug and landed hard upon my knees. Flying from my hand, the box smashed against the decorative tiles of the hearth. A tinkle hung in the air for several seconds, followed by silence. I crawled over to inspect the damage
and found the glass shattered and the box cracked along one side. The Brimstone dangled from its diamanté-headed pin, but it had escaped unscathed. I extracted the mechanical creature, watched it flutter in the palm of my hand, then crossed to the open window.