but then he wasn’t like any other peer of the realm she’d ever met. Why didn’t he go to parties and balls like other young men his age? From what she had heard of him—and seen for herself—he wasn’t much for society at all. Wasn’t he expected to be out and about? Someday he’d marry a woman worthy of becoming his duchess and have a family of his own. And then she, Emily, Sam and Jasper would be out on the street.
Lord, what maudlin thoughts! They served no purpose, so she pushed them to the back of her mind. She’d go off and get married herself eventually, so what did it matter? It didn’t matter at all, and she certainly wasn’t upset about it. It wasn’t like Griffin could ever marry her. That was a joke!
By the time they arrived back at the mansion, she’d put all thoughts of Griffin and marriage out of her head. Lady Marsden had returned from Devon and wanted them all in the study. They went to her immediately, not even bothering to clean up first.
The elegant lady was waiting for them, pacing the length of the carpet, the silver chains running from ear to nose gleaming in the late-afternoon sunlight streaming through the windows. She took one look at the lot of them and her mouth fell open.
“Whatever happened to the lot of you?” she asked. She had a way of always sounding put out, even when she wasn’t.
Griffin explained what had happened. His aunt didn’t seem to know whether to be horrified or amused at their barging in on the queen. It didn’t take long for her expression to turn grim, however, when Griffin told her that he suspected The Machinist had dug the tunnel.
“But why would he take the figure from Tussaud’s?” Sam asked. “He was right there in the palace. He could have taken anything he wanted.”
“It would be difficult to do that without being noticed,” Finley told him. “You can’t just shove a gown under your shirt or in your pocket. He might have been brazen enough to walk right into the palace, but he was careful not to get caught.”
“He would be very careful not to be noticed,” Lady Marsden agreed. “Because if he were, it would be highly likely Victoria would recognize him.”
Griffin’s head jerked up. He stared at his aunt—they all did. “You know who he is?”
“I believe so. Your steward described him to me, and it fits other accounts I’ve heard, but your steward mentioned one thing no else did. The Machinist has a metal hand. He lost his in a professional accident years ago—an accident I believed he blamed on your father, Griffin.”
Griffin’s eyes narrowed. “So he did know my father.”
“He was part of the expedition,” his aunt replied, holding out a photograph to him. “Leonardo Garibaldi. He was one of my brother’s closest friends—and the only member of the expedition to have died whose body was never found. Obviously that was because he never actually died.”
Finley peered at the photograph over Griffin’s shoulder. There were his parents, looking beautiful and happy, along with several other people, one of whom she recognized as her father. Was it foolish of her to feel sad at the sight of him even though she’d never known him?
Her gaze fell upon Garibaldi. Beside her she thought she heard Sam gasp, but before she could turn her attention to him, Lady Marsden began talking again. “Garibaldi was the one who wanted to go public with the Organites. He thought they could change the world. He was furious when Victoria told them to keep it a secret. She thought there was too much potential for evil if mankind got its hands on something so miraculous.”
“She was right,” Griffin agreed. “It would be awful, especially now that we know the Organites are responsible for all of our special abilities. But Garibaldi already knows what they’re capable of, especially their remarkable ability to replicate human tissue.”
Everyone was staring at him now. “What have you discovered?” Lady Marsden demanded.
Griffin glanced at Emily. “It was Emily who discovered it, really. She saw what the Organites could do when she rebuilt Sam’s arm. And recently we saw how the Organites have become part of Sam’s physiology. If Garibaldi had samples of a person’s skin or hair, he could conceivably construct a copy of that person. A doppelganger—at least, in the flesh. He would have to build some kind of skeleton to support it—like an automaton.”
The awful