But Patrick was seething.“Where is she?”
“Having her arm tended to by our staff, receiving blood, resting.”
A voice rose from the corner, from a figure Patrick hadn’t noticed until that moment.
“This conversation can wait until tomorrow,” Theodore said. “Nina should be here for it.” He leaned against a wall as though he wished to melt into it. His arms were crossed, his expression hollow.
“You little shit,” Patrick hissed at him. “What thefuckdid you do?”He tried once more to shake free his guards. He’d kill both Theo and his father; he’d never salivated for a revolver more. He imagined it in his grip, his palm collapsing around the cool metal, trigger on the pad of his finger.
Theodore only looked at him though the husk of himself.
“For efficiency, we’ll wait for the rest of our party to arrive before discussions begin, Mr. Colson. This conversation is long overdue.” He straightened his lapels, smoothed his oily hair, took a teacup from the desk and sipped at its rim. “Kilmartin? More tea, I think. Perhaps some sandwiches.”
The guard to Patrick’s left hesitated. “Sir?” He glanced questioningly at Patrick.
“Oh, do not mind Mr. Colson. He is not a stupid man.” Lord Shop sat on the high-backed chair behind the desk and lifted a small pistol from the inside of his robes. He turned the barrel to Patrick. “I’m sure he’ll comport himself like a man of business.”
Kilmartin nodded, releasing his grip on Patrick warily.
“Ridgeback, stand outside the door, if you please.”
The arm wrapped around Patrick’s neck fell away. Footsteps retreated.
And Patrick took a step in Lord Shop’s direction.
The pistol hammer clicked. “Ah, ah, now,” Lord Shop tsked. “Be wise, boy. I was promised you were the astute sort.”
Patrick eyed the small pistol as though it were more an irritant than a threat. He nodded at it. “I shot rats in alleys with a gun bigger than that when I was a boy. You ever shot anythin’ before, swank?”
The lord didn’t answer. He only leaned back in his chair and sighed.
At that moment, the door opened once more. In filed John, his eyes finding the lord’s pistol immediately. He was followed by a maid, a silver platter of sandwiches balanced in her hands.
John looked warily to Patrick. “Go easy, son,” he said redundantly. “Haste never wrought no reward.”
Patrick heard the warning. The man had perfected a language of sortswith his sons. His words turned to a kind of poetry when there was something delicate to convey among close ears.
But Patrick paid it little mind. He saw red. “What was promised to the Craftsman who pulled the lever?” he spat at Lord Shop. For it was clear that Rose Harrow was never meant to live.
To his credit, the lord did not smirk. Patrick doubted there was a mite of humor in him. He was cold all the way through.
Well, so was Patrick.
“Idium,” the lord said blankly. “Which I’ll require you to siphon, of course.”
Patrick gritted his teeth. “Why Nina?” he asked, pulling at his own hair. “I waswillin’.”
“A couple of reasons,” Lord Shop said. “The first is that Miss Clarke—”
“Harrow.”
“Miss Harrow, then, was exceedingly prejudiced against the House. I had hoped that taking Tanner’s life might sate her bitterness and leave her more sympathetic toward… new management.” The lord placed the gun down before him, steepling his hands atop the desk, and to hell if the bastard didn’t look like he belonged there, in a politician’s seat.
Patrick growled, “You had her kinkilled.”
“Nina has had almost no contact with her mother in the past two decades,” Shop said prosaically. “In fact, I was concerned her mother’s death might not be motivation enough. I’m glad to be wrong.”
“You used her,” Patrick said, and it was so dark, so thick with violence, that Lord Shop picked up his little gun once more.
