Heart of Steel Read Online Free PDF Page B

Mattson was the only fool here. Knife still at the actress’s throat, Yasmeen dragged her into the parlor. She stopped with her back to the window, the actress in front of her and facing the parlor entry—an escape in one direction, a shield in the other. If Mattson began firing, Yasmeen preferred that the bullets didn’t hit her first, and the actress’s body hid the gun Yasmeen tucked into the sash at her waist. No need to draw it yet. Her blade would do until she tired of talking.
    As if suddenly realizing what her position meant, the actress emitted a desperate squeak. Yasmeen hissed a warning in her ear, and the woman fell silent, trembling.
    The tread of boots reached the stairs. Slowly, they came into view, Zenobia’s pale bare feet and Mattson’s shining black boots. Her hands had been bound at the wrists. He must have surprised Zenobia while she slept. Rags knotted her brown hair, and she wore a sturdy white sleeping gown. A wide strip of torn linen served as a gag, stretched tight between dry lips and tied behind her head. Her eyes were the same shade as Archimedes’—emerald, rather than the yellowish-green of Yasmeen’s—and bright with anger and fear.
    Zenobia’s gaze locked on Yasmeen’s, but aside from a quick glance at the woman’s face and at the revolver that Mattson held to the side of her throat, Yasmeen didn’t bother to pay her any attention. Mattson served as the greater threat here, and Yasmeen wasn’t a fool to be taken unawares while making cow-eyes at a writer whose work she adored.
    Though Zenobia was a tall woman, Mattson’s height left him completely exposed from chin to crown. Idiot. He ought to have been crouching, but perhaps he considered any sort of cower an affront to his dignity. Sporting a neatly trimmed blond mustache and wearing a pressed jacket and trousers, he stood straight as any soldier, but Yasmeen had never known any soldier who took offense as easily as Peter Mattson. The sun reddened his skin rather than tanned it, so that he always appeared flushed with anger—as he often was, anyway. Belligerent the moment anyone questioned his character and big enough to pose a challenge, he’d become a favorite amongst the regulars at the Port Fallow taverns who found their entertainment by picking fights.
    He stopped just at the entrance to the parlor, standing in the foyer and with Zenobia filling the door frame. He’d have a direct line to the front door—so he also kept a shield and an escape. The fool. If Mattson didn’t want to be shot, he shouldn’t have come down the stairs with his gun already drawn.
    Pale blue eyes met hers. “Lady Corsair.”
    Captain Corsair. Her airship was a lady, but Yasmeen certainly wasn’t. She didn’t bother to correct him, however. Everyone called her by the wrong name. No surprise he did, too.
    â€œMr. Mattson,” she said. “I believe you are here to make an exchange. Your woman for mine, perhaps?”
    â€œI want the sketch.”
    Of course he did—and of course he’d never get it. But as a woman of business, she was curious as to what he’d offer. “In exchange for what?”
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œSo generous, yet I’m not tempted to accept.”
    â€œYou should be. Give the sketch to me now, and my associates might let you live. I’ll tell them you cooperated.”
    Yasmeen couldn’t have that. “And ruin my reputation? I don’t think so, Mr. Mattson—especially since you usually kill your associates. I doubt I’ll have much to fear from them.”
    â€œYou have no idea who you’re up against.” His gaze left Yasmeen and fell to the knife at the actress’s throat. His lips curled. “Do you think I care whether she dies? Go on, slit her—”
    The crack of Yasmeen’s pistol cut off the rest. Mattson’s brains splattered against the foyer wall. His