Read Online The Curious Case Of The Clockwork Menace by Bec McMaster - Free Book Online Page B

you?”
    Dark eyes
glanced his way. “I’m not the only one with an eye for actresses.
No doubt some of my peers sought to steal her out from under me.
She was always receiving flowers. I cannot say she ever had red
roses in her dressing rooms, however.” He grimaced. “Had a thing
for peonies, I believe. Received them every now and then, and
they’re the only damned things she’d keep. I can hardly fathom her
interest, they’re so cheap.”
    Not every
woman liked the best that money could buy. Though he did frown a
little. Nelly liked peonies, did she? It was the kind of thing
someone of less-well-to-do-stature could afford. And she received
them regularly? He’d thought they only came on her birthday.
    Following the
focus of Rommell’s gaze, Garrett realized the lord was
surreptitiously eyeing up Miss Radcliffe, which was curious. “You
were sweet on her?” he suggested, though he didn’t believe his own
words. “Is that why the reward?”
    “ I want to damned well know where she is,” Rommell growled.
“She was my mistress, and I wasn’t finished with her yet. If someone’s
stolen her out from under me, there’ll be hell to pay.”
    “ Why would you presume someone’s stolen her?”
    Rommell looked
surprised. “Well, what else could have happened? Where else could
she have gone? I’d given her the best role in this damned theatre,
and more than enough coin to see her well in hand. She won’t have
run from that. But I have enemies, and those jealous enough of my
success to make me wonder. If they managed to somehow snatch her
out from underneath my nose, they’ll be crowing to themselves about
such a coup. I can’t allow that to stand. No, you mark my words.
You should be searching among the Echelon for one of my rivals.
They’ll have her. I’ll bet fifty quid on it.”
    Nelly wasn’t a
piece of furniture, but it was clear that Rommell thought of her as
little more than a possession. The roses, Garrett suspected,
definitely weren’t from his lordship.
    After all, why
buy a woman flowers when he’d already bought her? That type of
thinking was clearly up Rommell’s alley.
    Garrett smiled
tightly. “Perhaps you could see fit to furnishing me with a list of
those who might wish you harm.” A way to placate his lordship and
see to it that all leads were pursued.
    Rommell
obviously thought he was the centre of his own little world, but
some gut instinct made Garrett wonder. There was more to this than
a petty squabble between blue bloods, and although it wasn’t
entirely unknown for this kind of thing to occur in the Echelon, it
would certainly be frowned upon. Nelly might only be human, but
most blue blood lords kept to strict societal rules dictating which
type of women were to be thralls - those debutantes that made
thrall contracts with lords, exchanging their blood rights for
protection, clothing and jewellery - and those that the blue bloods
could parade around on a leash as a blood slave. A slave had no
rights, but most of those young women were sold from Newgate or
other lowly establishments, upon committing a crime. Only rarely
were they kidnapped off the streets, or out of a theatre.
    That would be
somewhat beyond the pale. And Nelly was too well known for her to
be paraded around as a blood-slave.
    “ And if she doesn’t return?” he asked.
    “ Mistresses come, then they go,” Rommell replied. “You know
how it is.” He was watching Miss Radcliffe again, barely paying
attention to Garrett.
    “ Not really. I don’t need to pay for my women.”
    The insult was
lost on the bastard. Rommell smiled. “Or perhaps you can’t afford
them, hmm?” He flicked at a piece of lint on his sleeve. “I imagine
circumstances are rather straitened as a Nighthawk.”
    “ I make do.” It was none of the bastard’s business about
Garrett’s relationships with women. Any of them. And he despised
the way Rommell obviously thought them interchangeable.
Garrett liked women. He was still