She looked at him. “Like your father did your mother?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t understand. Why would you even want me to marry someone of the upper class, then?”

“They’re not all awful. His Grace is all right. I want you to be comfortable and taken care of.”

“I can take care of myself,” she said, as the lamps of the carriage illuminated familiar streets. They were almost home.

Jack chuckled. “Physically, yes. But there are still a lot of things you need to learn about the world, poppet.”

“Like what?”

“Like that people lie. They steal. People can hurt you emotionally as well as physically. It’s worse than being hit.”

Mila frowned. “Who hurt you, Jack?”

For a moment, there was an odd vulnerability in his eyes, but then it was gone. “No one.” He reached across the leather seat and took her hand. “I promise you that I will never hurt you—not intentionally. No matter what happens now or in the future, you can always come to me. I will always be here for you. Do you understand?”

She nodded. “I understand.”

But she didn’t, not really. If she had, she would have known that Jack was lying again.

* * *

For the first time in the two decades he’d been alive, Jack Dandy couldn’t think.

Jack could always think. Thinking—plotting, playing out every scenario—was what had kept him alive and built him a fortune. He started thinking the moment he woke up and sometimes he even thought in his dreams. Certainly no girl had ever interfered with the process before.

Not even Treasure.

Mila’s lips turned his brain to gruel. No thoughts, only instinct, and instinct told him to enjoy this a little while, even though his conscience screamed in protest. His arms went around her waist, pulling her tight against him. His hands splayed across her back, feeling the movement of her muscles beneath cloth and skin. She was warm and soft and tasted like peppermint.

And he was not a good man.

Her fingers twisted in his shirt, tearing through the soft cotton as if it were nothing more than candy floss. She could easily crush his bones with those hands. The thought vanished as quickly as it had appeared—nothing more than a flicker in his mind. One of his hands came up and fisted in her wild hair—it felt like silk against his skin.

A loud shredding noise filled the silence—she’d torn his shirt completely open. Warm fingers found their way beneath to touch his chest, roam over his stomach and ribs. He shivered. Her hands moved up to his shoulders, shoving the ruined garment down his arms.

Mila was trying to undress him. Mila.

Mila, who he had first found in a box—not even fully formed. She’d been monstrous and heartbreaking. Guilt had made him take her in and look after her, but something else made him let her stay. Responsibility was only part of it. Watching her grow and change made his head spin, it had all happened so fast. He tried to keep up, but he had to constantly remind himself that, while she was childlike, she grew in maturity by leaps and bounds. She was gorgeous and looked like a young woman. Pretty soon she was going to be just that, but not yet. And he had no right to take advantage of her curiosity.

Logic and sense returned with a vengeance. It didn’t matter that she felt and tasted like a dream. Didn’t matter that she made his heart pound or his limbs tremble. She was his ward. His responsibility. It was his duty to protect her, not to treat her like one of his girls. She was so much better than that. Better than him. She was naive and sweet and good. He would not be the one who ruined that.

But bloody hell, he wanted to.

Jack put his palms against her shoulders and pushed. Her metal skeleton made her heavier than she looked, and stronger, too. Still, he managed to put a couple of inches between them, which was just enough to break the kiss. The moment his lips left hers he felt a profound sense of loss that was both awesome and terrifying. Damnation, what was that feeling?

“Stop, poppet.”

“Don’t call me that.” She tried to pull him close again, but he stepped back, and she ended up with nothing but a strip of his shirt in either hand. She looked at him, eyes wide and full of hurt confusion. She didn’t understand, did she? No, of course she wouldn’t. So smart in many ways, but the subtleties of humanity still escaped her grasp. She wouldn’t understand that he couldn’t treat her like that; she would only know that he’d pushed her away.

“We can’t do this, Mila,” he told her. “Do you understand that?”

“But I thought you liked it.”

A strangled laugh lurched in his throat. Liked it? Liked didn’t even begin to describe how he felt, which was all the more reason to walk out of this room right bloody now.

“It doesn’t matter what I like. What matters is what’s right.”

She frowned and shook her head. “I don’t understand. You liked it. I liked it. How can that not be right?”

He swore to himself. How could he make her understand when she hated all the bollocks about rules and expectations? “You’re right, you don’t understand, and I don’t know how to make you. I just can’t.”

“You could with your doxy.”

“You’re not like her.” No, she certainly wasn’t. “You’re not the same as those girls.” She had the world laid out before her. He could make sure she had an education, employment if she wanted. And when the time came, he’d pay all the right people to make certain she found her way into good society and caught the eye of a man who might someday deserve her.

Mila nodded. “No, I’m not. It’s all right, Jack. I understand. I’m sorry about your shirt.”

His shirt? He didn’t care about his shirt. He had other shirts. He cared about her. “It’s all right, poppet. I can’t imagine what it’s like for you, with all these changes that have been happening in the past weeks.” She’d gone from machine to human—a miracle in itself. She couldn’t possibly understand it all. “I know very little about womanly...things. I’ll ask Finley to talk to you about...how these things work.” He had to assume that by now Treasure’s relationship with His pain-in-the-arse Grace had progressed to a certain level. Not long ago that would have made him jealous enough to drink. Now he hoped for it. Hoped that Finley would know how to make Mila understand that he respected her too much to use her.

Something sparked in her eyes but quickly disappeared. “I wouldn’t want to bother her.”

“It would be no bother.” Besides, Treasure owed him a favor or two. “I’m going to let you rest now. We’ll talk about this more later, all right?” Truth was he was a top-notch coward, running away from the situation because he had no bloody idea what to do or say. His gut told him one thing and his conscience told him another. He didn’t want to hurt her, but he wanted to kiss her again. He wanted it very badly.

She just watched him with those big sad eyes. “Goodbye, Jack.”

“It’s not really goodbye, poppet. We’ll see each other at dinner.”

Mila nodded. “Right.”

Jack walked over to her and kissed her forehead. “It’s all going to be fine.” And it would be. He’d do everything in his power to make certain she had the best life she could ever have. She was not going to be tossed aside like he had been. He would care for and protect her until the world wasn’t such a danger to her.

Only then would he let her go.

* * *

A trip to the library was not what Finley had in mind when she followed Sam from the cellar laboratory. It was not the sort of room that invited violence.

“Is this a new form of fighting?” she asked, glancing around the familiar room. She remembered when she’d first come there, Griffin smiling down at her from the balcony that ran along each wall. That day she’d thought him the finest thing she’d ever seen.

Floor to ceiling was shelf after shelf of books, and the ceiling was very, very high. Griffin had more books than her stepfather’s shop, and he was a bookseller! Large, multipaned windows provided ample reading light during daylight hours, and gave the room an almost churchlike feel. Of course, that might just be her imagination, having grown up believing that knowledge gleaned through reading was close to godliness. “Are we going to throw books at each other?” Of course, she was joking. She’d never risk harming a book by throwing it at Sam’s thick skull.

“Funny,” he replied dryly. “I wouldn’t do that to a book.”

Finley blinked. Sometimes she and Sam were uncomfortably alike. “I didn’t know you read.”

He shot her a sour glance. “Emily helps me with the big words.”

Heat flooded her face. Sometimes she deliberately needled Sam, poked at him like a slumbering bear, but it was never her intent to offend him. Not really. “I mean, I didn’t think you enjoyed books.”

He shrugged before making his way to one of the shelves. “Depends on the book. Em likes to read, and she likes it when we can talk about a story. I like making her happy, so I read. Jane Austen’s not exactly my cuppa, but that Dickens bloke is all right enough. No more Shakespeare, though. Not even for her. That’s just rhyming nonsense to me.”

She couldn’t help but grin—and it was all right because he wasn’t looking. “The things we do for love, what?”

Sam pulled a leather-bound book from a shelf by his head, his expression droll. “Like risking your own death? That’s mad.”

“You’re a fine one to talk. If the suit fit you, you and I would be duking it out to see who got to go after him.”

He paused, then turned to face her, certainty etched into his rugged features. His dark gaze was blunt and clear. “No, we wouldn’t.”

Right. Because, if it was Emily who was missing, she wouldn’t even try to stop him from going after her. In fact, when Emily was kidnapped, Finley had known Sam had to take the lead on bringing her home. She hadn’t dreamed of getting in his way, even though Em was her best friend and she was worried sick about her. She played her own part, but let Sam do what he felt was best.

The big lad’s understanding of this made her turn her gaze away, to the shelves of books before them. She didn’t like that her feelings for Griffin were so transparent. It didn’t matter that they shared a bedroom, feelings were so personal. Private. Love made a person terribly vulnerable, and vulnerability was a state Finley despised. That he understood this made her want to punch him, and then perhaps give him a hug for being more of a dear than he had any right. “Why did you bring me here, Sam?”

He grabbed another book from a higher shelf—one she would have required a step stool to reach—and took them to the large desk at the front of the room. “These are books on the Aether.”

Finley was skeptical. “The Aether was only discovered a decade ago, give or take. Those books look ancient.” Really, one of them looked about ready to fall apart from its bindings.

“This one is,” he replied, pushing the less battered one toward her. “The other was written a century ago by a husband and wife who interviewed people who died and came back to life. Griff and I used to play with it as kids, that’s why it’s in such a state. Boys aren’t taught to be gentle.”

She didn’t care what boys were taught. Girls were lucky if they were taught to read. “I don’t want to read about people who resisted going into the light, or saw God or all their ancestors. I want to save Griffin, and you’re wasting my time.” So much for him being a dear.

“Remember when you told me I was smarter than I looked?”

She might have done that more than once. It certainly sounded like something she might say. “Yes.”

“Well, you’re dumber than you look. The Aether is where the dead go on the first leg of their journey. This book details what those people who came back experienced there. The Aetheric dimension is one of energy, and there are a lot of strange and dangerous things there for people who don’t belong.”

He was right: she was dumb. She should have thought of that—she’d seen enough bizarre things from the Aether to know better. “Like people whose souls are still attached to their bodies.”

Sam nodded. “This is what you’re going to be doing until Emily sends for you. When you go in there, you’re going to be as prepared as you can be. I want both you and Griff back safely.”

A lump settled in her throat, but she covered it with humor. “Aw, Sam. You must really like me.”

One of his dark brows arched, but his black eyes sparkled. “Not usually, but I do care about you, so don’t get permanently killed in there, all right?”

Finley blinked. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

Sam laughed. “I wish I had a photograph of the look on your face right now.”

She shook her head. “Just wasn’t expecting such a declaration, Samson.”

“You have a habit of calling me by Biblical names. Do you find me legendary?”

“In your own mind.” Real annoyance poked at the edges of her mind. “All right, crack open those books. Griffin’s waiting.”

He did as she commanded, and together they skimmed through the narratives until they found the meat of each account.

“This one talks about the Aether demons,” she announced, full of surprise. “I thought Garibaldi made those.”

“Wraiths have been around for a long time,” Sam informed her, turning a page.

“How do you know that?”

“I started reading these books when we got back from New York, more so after we tangled with Garibaldi last time. The demons are nasty things—all hate and anger—ranging in size from small spheres to man-size.”