Heart of Iron by Bec McMaster Page A

here without anyone seeing. If they do, she’s ruined.”
    Will shrugged out of his coat and offered it. Adele flinched but took a slow breath and let Lena drape it around her shoulders. It was deliciously warm and she breathed in, filling her nose with his scent.
    Will rolled the sleeves of his shirt up and candlelight gleamed on his bronzed forearms. Not for the first time, she wondered if his skin was that same molten gold all over.
    Dangerous thoughts. She looked away quickly.
    “Here,” he said, trying in his own way to be polite. “I can carry you.”
    Adele’s eyes widened, but she nodded and let him slip his arms around her. Will straightened, lifting Adele easily. His gaze sought Lena’s. “Where to?”
    With Will at her side, negotiating the dark hallways was easy. His superior senses saved them from discovery several times over. Slipping out through the servant’s entrance and the garden, they hastened toward the Hamilton’s steam carriage.
    Weak from the loss of blood, Adele settled into the carriage sleepily. Lena tucked the lap rug over her and checked her makeshift bandage, then turned to murmur to one of the waiting footmen. “Will you fetch Mrs. Hamilton?”
    There was one last matter to attend to. Stepping up onto the carriage’s step, she turned to face Will reluctantly. “Thank you. For helping me with Adele.”
    He stood with his back to the gaslight, his face cast in shadows. A thin gleam of amber indicated his mood. “You and I need to talk.”
    “There’s nothing to talk about.” She turned, intending to settle inside the carriage, but he caught a fistful of her skirts.
    “I ain’t goin’ away, Lena.”
    A glimpse over her shoulder revealed the aggressive truth of that on his face.
    “Why won’t you let it be? It’s none of your business.” It wasn’t even as though he cared. He was only doing this for Blade’s sake.
    Turning around on the step brought her face to face with him. Though she’d always felt at a disadvantage with her lack of height, it was suddenly far too intimate. The heat of his large body protected her from the cool evening breeze, and her skirts pressed against his thighs. She searched his gaze for something, anything, to tell her that she was wrong. That he was here for her.
    “Why?”
    His gaze flickered away, thoughtful. “Found the same code on a man as stabbed Blade inna heart. Something’s stirrin’, Lena. I’m not about to let him—or the rookery—get caught up in it.” His smoldering gaze caught hers. “And I think you know more’n you’re sayin’.”
    Her lips thinned. Of course. Blade. And the rookery. “Do you really think I would be involved in anything that might hurt Blade—and through him, my sister and brother?”
    “I don’t know,” he said quietly.
    In that moment she hated him. No matter her many flaws, she would never risk Honoria or Charlie’s life. Reaching for the carriage door, she shot him one last glare. “Go home, Will. You don’t belong here, nor are you wanted. Just go home and patrol your little part of London. I won’t visit and I won’t expect to see you in the city.”
    She gave his hand an icy look and he slowly released her, tension riding through his shoulders.
    “I didn’t mean it like that,” he said. “I know you love your brother and sister.”
    “One of the few things you seem to know about me.” Sweeping her skirts inside the carriage, she went to shut the door.
    Will caught it, leaning closer. The sleeves of his shirt strained over his arms. “Lena, damn it—”
    “I say… Is this chap bothering you?”
    With Will so close, she hadn’t realized anyone else was there. Neither had he, by the shock that shuddered through him.
    Giving him one last spearing look, she glanced over his shoulder at the slightly inebriated young lord and smiled. Saved by a blue blood. How ironic. “He was just leaving. Thank you.”
    “My pleasure.” The young buck shot her a wink and a salute. She’d seen