The Blushing Bounder (An Iron Seas Short Novella) Read Online Free Page B

man’s legs were no longer deeply bent, but almost straight. “And this is how he looked as he sprang toward my window.”
    “Will you show me the view?”
    “Of course.” Winded by the time she reached her room, Temperance had to slow and catch her breath. “It…is here.”
    The inspector gave her another long look before nodding. “Thank you. Constable, you didn’t see this machine?”
    The inspector had asked him so that she could take a rest, Temperance realized. All at once, she felt wretched. Miss Lockstitch had called this woman a jade whore, but given the difference between the caricatures and reality, given the Horde’s history within this land, Temperance began to understand that the name wasn’t a literal one.
    “I didn’t see it, sir,” he said. “I came into the room after she screamed.”
    The inspector glanced at the bed—wide enough for two, but clearly only used by one. Temperance felt her cheeks flame, and her husband’s lit like a bonfire.
    It is my illness , Temperance wanted to say. But it wasn’t. Even if she hadn’t been consumptive, the horrid man wouldn’t have been welcome in her bed.
    “I see,” the inspector said. “Do you have a window in your room, Newberry?”
    “No, sir.”
    She looked down at the sketch in her hand. “Tell me about Spring-Heel Jack. Who is he?”
    “He’s no one, sir,” Newberry said. “At least, not anymore.”
    “Dead?”
    “No. He never was anyone, not exactly. The stories about him started up about fifty years ago. First, in the newssheets, reports from the people he’d attacked: a baker’s daughter from Prince George Island…” He stopped. “That’s the long island that lies east of Manhattan City—”
    “I’ve seen maps of the New World, constable,” the inspector said.
    “Yes, sir.” He flushed and cleared his throat. “And there was another attack on a vicar, which startled his horses so badly he was thrown from his cart. Those incidents both had witnesses, and everyone described the assailant the same way: with springs on his feet, the wings of a demon, and he spat blue flame.”
    “But this one did not have wings,” Temperance put in. “And the flame of his eyes was orange.”
    Newberry paused for a moment, looking at her, and she remembered that they had spoken of this once, with him standing beside her bench. She had known of Spring-Heel Jack, but had not known the full truth of the story until he’d told her.
    Still holding her gaze, he continued, “There were other sightings, and the description always the same. The newssheets speculated that he was a man who’d lost his legs in an accident and had them replaced with springs—which turned him into a madman, bounding up and down the island and Manhattan City. Everyone else held the opinion that he was the devil.”
    “Only bounders would be so terrified of prosthetics and demons,” the inspector said. “And what was it truly?”
    Newberry looked a trifle disappointed—and Temperance had to admit she was, too. This had been one of her favorite shiver-tales as a child, but the inspector did not look a bit impressed.
    Though compared to the horrors of the Horde occupation, Temperance supposed a springing man-devil was nothing.
    “Well, sir, no one knew who was behind the attacks until the incident in Cromwell Square. Spring-Heel Jack bounded in front of a countess’s carriage as she was leaving a ball, and the fear gave her the vapors. She didn’t recover for several weeks—and never ventured outside her home again.”
    “So, the lower classes were tormented and no one could stop it. But a countess fainted and the game was up.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “And someone either pointed a finger or confessed,” the inspector guessed.
    Temperance met Newberry’s eyes again, saw his suppressed smile and had to stifle her own. Truly, this woman could take the fun from everything.
    “Yes, sir. Apparently, a group of young lords—including the countess’s eldest