Free Moonlight & Mechanicals by Cindy Spencer Pape

just to see if I can. She was sure Dorothy and Nell would conspire to give them a few moments alone. Wink went upstairs to change, trying to convince herself that sounded romantic and appealing.
    * * *
    Liam studied the Babbage engine printout sent over from the Richmond police station. The photographic reproduction was grainy, and the man had been dead for a couple of days, but since the body had no tattoos, it wasn’t Eamon Miller, who according to his mother sported a large anchor on his left forearm. Another dead end. Liam had uncovered reports of several disappearances in Wapping over the last few weeks, but none of them had been deemed unusually suspicious. Bad things happened in the slums, and most of the time, there was little the police could do. Not only were there no leads about these disappearances, the cases were barely being pursued, if at all.
    Liam had spent the morning conferring with the Queen’s bodyguards, the captains of the Household Cavalry regiments and Ascot officials over security for the upcoming royal display. By afternoon, he was more than ready to go do some actual police work. So when he spotted, “Woman foils abduction by automaton,” on the printout of all reports from the Wapping precinct, he decided he might as well investigate. It was just a short jaunt by streetcar to the brothel where the improbably named Miss Lolly Luscious purportedly worked, so he put on his uniform-issue mask and made his way to the steam tram.
    Other inspectors had their own coaches or steam cars and drivers, but Liam preferred to mingle with the rest of the population as much as possible. Conversations overheard on the tram or sidewalk had led to arrests more than once in his career—especially since his lupine heritage meant he had better-than-human hearing.
    On this trip, though, he gained nothing more useful than the rocking motion of the tram soothing him into a near doze as he stood, leaning on a pole. He hadn’t slept much since the duke’s ball last night, his mind busy with a series of overlapping problems. The threat against the royal family at the Ascot races. Winifred Hadrian. The missing sailor, Eamon Miller. And again, Wink. Was he doing the right thing encouraging MacKay to court her properly? The wolf inside his chest howled at the prospect of her in another man’s bed. But Liam couldn’t have her for himself, and better Connor than another man, one Liam didn’t know or respect.
    He’d done the right thing, he assured himself as he walked the last few blocks.
    His thoughts drifted back to his university days, to the one serious relationship he’d ever had. She’d been a sweet young thing, daughter of a local shopkeeper, and Liam had been a hairsbreadth away from offering marriage—until he’d caught her behind the pub with another man. They were laughing about the expensive gifts Liam had given her, debating how to spend his money. Worst of all, the girl was going on about how dreadful it was to have to bed down with a disgusting, hairy werewolf.
    Liam had seen red. He’d thrown the bastard across the alley, smashing him into a stone wall. He’d actually raised his hand to her, only at the last minute managing to turn it away and slam it into the back wall of the pub. When she ran screaming that he was an animal, he damn near shifted and proved her right.
    That’s when he’d known he was just like his father. A good woman wasn’t something Liam could allow himself. Hurting a scheming tart like his first lover would have been a bad thing to do. Hurting someone kind and true—that would be tragic. Liam wasn’t going to put himself in a situation where that could happen.
    He shoved the memories away when he reached a tidy red-brick building with garish scarlet awnings. Madame Toussaint’s Lounge for Discerning Gentlemen. He peeled off his mask as he climbed the chipped granite steps. The odor of cheap liquor, bad perfume and sex met his nostrils even before he knocked. Ha. No one