Read Online A Dark Heart by Margaret Foxe - Free Book Online Page A

London from being
blown to high heaven."
    "Yes, damn you!" the Duke muttered.
    He waited a long moment, pretending to ponder it over, before he said,
"I'll think about it," with a nonchalant shrug. Inwardly he was
smiling for the first time in quite a while. He was perversely enjoying himself.
    Both Rowan and the Duke growled at him.
    "While you're thinking about it, could you at least look into
any recent jewel thefts?" the Duke said in exasperation. "They might
be connected."
    Elijah stiffened, his satisfaction fading as his attention was well and
truly caught. This couldn't be a coincidence. "How so?"
    "As I told you, the components needed for this device are very rare.
The engine is built upon a matrix of crystalline carbon. A great deal of it
would be needed."
    Bloody nobs and their bloody vocabulary. "Crystalline carbon?"
    "Diamonds," Rowan explained.
    Precisely what the Gentleman had been targeting for months now. Elijah
started to have a terrible suspicion that the Duke's business and his own
vendetta were going to inconveniently intersect.
    But he did not betray his growing unease. He wasn’t about to involve the
Duke in his secrets.
    "Fine. I will look into it," he said with unfeigned reluctance.
"And you will owe me a favor."
    " If you find the papers," the Duke added, "and the
bastards who took them."
    Elijah started to say something scathing in reply, but the words
strangled in his throat because his damned blood had begun to sing. That was
the only word he'd ever settled on to describe the half-bliss, half-pain he
felt when he was within a hundred meters of Lady Christiana. It was as if every
vein and artery in his body had been electrified, all of the molecules of his
blood bouncing against the walls of their prison like the barmiest inmates in
Bedlam. His body recognized its maker, yearned for her, and he could do nothing
to control his reaction.
    Lady Christiana had returned. Early. And if the growing vibration in his
blood was any indication, she was nearly at the front door of the vast
residence, perhaps even inside by now.
    He turned away from Rowan and the Duke as he felt his fangs involuntarily
begin to descend, cutting his gums to hell.
    “Hell and damnation,” he bit out, wiping away the blood pouring down his
lips.
    "What's wrong, Elijah?" Rowan demanded.
    "I'm late for a meeting at the Yard," he muttered, forcing
himself not to run out of the room.
    "We're not done here," Brightlingsea called to him.
    He didn't dare turn back around. Brightlingsea was liable to take his
head for his obvious and inexplicable loss of control – or worse, guess
the reason why. "I've a date with a needle, Your Grace," he said,
which was true enough. He needed a dose of morphine quickly. "Unless you
trust me to walk the streets without it."
    "Not now, you're too far gone,” the Duke muttered, his dreadfully
perceptive eyes boring into Elijah’s retreating back with dangerous intensity.
    "Then we're done. I'll look into your problem and be in touch,"
he said, before slipping out of the door, praying they didn't follow him.
Praying he could escape out a back entrance before he had to see her .
    He should have known he'd not be so lucky, though how he could have so
grossly misjudged her proximity was troubling. His preternatural senses were
beginning to fail him in the most unfortunate ways. He cursed under his breath
as he caught sight of her approaching down the long corridor, her scent –
so pure and perfect, like country roses in a misty rain – bombarding him.
And her blood smelled loveliest of all.
    She was all beauty, at least on the surface, dressed in an elaborate
green velvet travelling dress, her golden, gleaming hair escaping in wisps from
its moorings, hovering just at the level his lips would be, if he stood near
enough and tilted his head just so. The London Post-Dispatch had once
called her The Most Beautiful Woman in London. And as far as he knew, she still
held the crown. Green eyed,