Heart of Iron by Bec McMaster Read Free Book Online Page A

snapping at them when they came near him. That was the worst of the degradation. If Blade hadn’t been in the audience one night and forced Sturrett to free him, he shuddered to think what he might have ended up like.
    “Both diseases dislike the presence of silver,” Honoria mused. “Which suggests a common…ancestor, so to speak? The more we know, the more likely I could find a cure. I’ll examine the sample under the microscope and begin tests. Perhaps it were best if you weren’t here, Will?”
    It wasn’t the sight of blood as did him in, so much as the needles. But he had to get out of here. His skin was itching.
    “Aye. I’ll be off.”
    “Not home,” Honoria said. “You’re not fit to leave just yet. I want to check on you before you go. Lena?”
    Lena’s head lifted like a startled doe. “Yes?” she asked warily.
    Honoria took a shallow breath, as though considering her words. “Can you see Will to the kitchen and sit with him awhile? Make sure he gets something into his stomach. You know how he gets after some excitement.”
    “That ain’t necessary,” he said.
    Lena exchanged glances with him. “I was hoping to speak to you, Honoria.”
    Even Blade stared at her, a silent question in his gaze. Honoria’s eyes met his and somehow the question was answered. Blade growled under his breath and nodded. “Best to get somethin’ into you, Will. We’ll be down shortly.”
    No help for it. He was stuck with her and the room was suddenly far too small. Will opened the door and stalked through. Lena hurried behind him in a swish of skirts with a muttered curse about gentlemen allowing ladies to go first.
    “I ain’t no gentleman.”
    “Well, everyone knows that,” she murmured. “They don’t call you the Beast for nothing.”
    The words shouldn’t have stung. He’d been called worse for years. Indeed, he’d taken the name on, molding himself into it. Using it to keep curious humans at bay and predators on their toes.
    But for some reason, hearing it from her lips felt like a knife to the chest.
    Following his nose to the kitchen, he found it empty. Lady Luck wasn’t with him today. Though a bubbling pot of soup on the stove bore evidence of Blade’s housekeeper, Esme, there was no sign of the actual woman.
    A light touch fumbled at his wrist. The smooth silk of her elbow-length gloves. “Here,” Lena said, tugging his hand toward one of the low stools by the hearth. “Sit. I’ll fetch you some soup.”
    She let him go, but the feel of her touch remained, like phantom fingerprints. Will sank slowly onto the stool, watching as she bustled about the kitchen.
    Lena looked out of place. The hearth dominated the room and emitted a constant blanket of heat. Soot stained the ceiling, and the workbenches were heavy and scarred from frequent use. Strings of onions and herbs dangled over the main bench, along with a row of copper pots strung from metal hooks. It was homey and inviting. Precisely everything that Lena was not.
    Her red velvet skirts were hooked up just enough to reveal a flirtatious froth of underskirt, and her corset narrowed an already slender waist to a size he could span with his hands. Black bands of lace decorated her bodice and the panels of her skirts. As she reached up to try and fetch a bowl, the creamy mounds of her breasts threatened to tumble from her bodice. A hint of black lace edged against her creamy skin.
    Will’s fingers itched .
    He could remember the first time he’d ever seen her, bustling along Petticoat Lane with her gray Serge skirts swishing around her ankles and her battered bonnet barely protecting her from the rain. Clutching a sodden newspaper over her head, she’d slipped on the edge of the gutter and the newspaper had torn in two, disintegrating in Lena’s hands. With a helpless laugh at a pair of street urchins, she’d given a shrug, then tossed the newspaper aside. The sound of her laughter went straight through him; it was the type of sound