by Anne Mallory
A stream of blood trailed out.
She met his eyes, kneeling between his legs, her hand on his left knee. “Are you sure you don’t want to call someone else?”
He stared at her for long moments, those intense eyes swallowing her. “I’m sure. I would do it myself if you weren’t here.”
She looked back at the gash. She threaded the needle.
Then she leaned up and kissed him, her free hand pressed to his cheek.
He tasted like liquor, unsurprisingly. But also of fire and brimstone. He responded immediately, lips pulling hers against his over and over.
She pulled away, focused her concentration to a pinpoint, and stabbed the needle in.
He didn’t say anything for a few minutes, just let her work and gain a rhythm. She tried to pretend she was working on a needlepoint sampler that needed fixing.
“You are now the third female to stitch me up,” he said finally, tipping the bottle again. His voice sounded resigned. As if all the anger had drained right out with the snip of his clothing. Or more likely, the fifth tip of the bottle.
“Third?” She questioned in the light voice that worked best with him in times of stress. “I believe I’m a bit jealous.”
“Don’t be. Roman’s damn wife was the second.” He grimaced and took another drink.
“You don’t like her?”
“She’s not completely awful.”
She sat on the smile that threatened. “Were you jealous? When they married?”
She figured he wasn’t going to bat her away at this point for asking such questions.
“Shit no. That woman would drive me crazy.”
“No. Of her.”
Charlotte had taken away his partner after all. And it was obvious that Andreas Merrick didn’t believe in superficial attachments. It had to have hit at his core having his brother separated from him, even in a minor way.
“Ah.” He looked drunkenly contemplative for a moment. “Maybe a bit. But Roman is deliriously happy. It’s nauseating. I’m glad.”
That was a patchwork of admissions. She had a feeling he avoided alcohol for just that reason.
“What happened? To your right leg?”
“I irritated someone.”
She clucked her tongue. “I would like to have words with that someone.”
“You have.”
She blinked. “What? Who?”
He smiled darkly, the alcoholic haze clearing for a moment. “It matters little.”
She glanced at the brace, still uncovered. There were tiny steel knobs that looked as if they could pinch. “Do these hurt?”
“Sometimes. I get them modified every few months.”
The tinker. Earlier he had been more at ease. It must have been hurting him previously, and he must have gotten it fixed that afternoon. “Oh, Andreas.”
It was a tactical mistake. She realized it immediately and quickly pushed farther into his space, between his legs, batting his hand as he tried to move her away. “Stop it. I didn’t mean it that way. I simply don’t like to see you hurt.”
His muscles were all tight, but his chest was moving in and out at a good clip.
She concentrated on his leg again and silence stretched.
“It’s a surprise to have the other one injured. Everyone goes for the right leg usually,” he said eventually, sounding even more resigned, like she had finally cut the last string he possessed. “It’s like a curse.”
“Or a blessing,” she said, examining the numerous small scars. “How many times have you been hit in that leg?”
“Too many to count.”
She thought on it for a moment as she briefly wiped her hands on a towel.
“The stories. Someone, or more than one someone, stuck a knife into your brace at one point and lived to tell the tale, didn’t they?”
“Yes.”
“People are terrified you aren’t human because you receive what appears to be mortal wounds, yet walk away.” If it had been a tale about some nameless other soul, she might have been amused.
“Even one’s worst feature is useful sometimes.”
“But surely at some point, someone must have seen your brace or guessed?”
He shrugged, but his eyes were dark on hers. Telling her quite clearly that she should run and run fast—as the reason no one knew was because none of those had lived to tell the tale.
She smiled instead. “It is a good thing I am trustworthy then,” she said lightly.
He didn’t say anything for long moments, but his head dropped back against the chair, throat bared.
She paused. The action of it tugging at her . . . Her mind finally caught up, and something clogged her throat.
When he had turned his back on her in the inn. When he had allowed her the upper position at the farmhouse, sleeping next to the bed instead of across the room from it—she could have dropped anything on him. Exposing his neck now, and his obviously closest guarded secret.
She coughed to clear her throat and focused on finishing the last stitches.
“I assume your brother knows.” She somehow managed to say it without her voice breaking.
“Of course. But few others.” He was looking at her through half-slitted eyes as she worked.
She had absolutely no idea how he had kept it a secret, unless it were true that he had killed anyone who had seen his leg. “I won’t tell a soul. Ever. Even without the threat of death.” She tied the thread and reached for the salve to layer on top.
“I know,” he whispered.
She just barely kept from jerking at the admission. She smoothed the jellied substance on the wound instead of saying anything else.
She cleaned up all the supplies, moved a lamp to the bedroom, then reached down and helped him stand, putting his arm over her shoulder. She was actually the perfect height to do so, to lift his weight just enough. And she was stronger than she looked. She had wrestled too many times with her father—trying to wrest flame from his fist—that she could do this small bit of moving Andreas, even with his superior weight.
She got him to the bed and pulled back the covers. He was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. She tucked him in, then contemplated her next action. She could go back to her sofa and worry about him all night . . . or . . .
The bed was surprisingly big. Large enough for her to lie down on and not disturb him. She crawled under the covers on the other side. She lay there for a moment, hand tucked under her cheek, looking at his dark hair splayed over the pillow. Then she leaned over, pressed a kiss to his hair, and reached back to extinguish the lamp on the side table.
“Good night, Andreas.”
He woke up to a body splayed under the covers next to him, taking up more than half the space, arms and legs outstretched. Light brown hair scattered in every direction as well.
Not some strange dream then.
And he suddenly realized he hadn’t had any nightmares that night. Liquor always made them worse, so he never partook unless he had to.
No, the only thing that had been different had been sleeping next to her.
Dangerous thoughts.
Not even the pain in his legs could diminish them from spiraling.
Andreas gripped his fingers together. Usually he could keep such thoughts at bay in his office. Keep writing, keep adding, keep working. But it wasn’t working here, especially with her sleeping next to him.
There was a forked path in front of him. The path he had always planned to take grew narrower. The second path, a mere suggestion of a trail, was now paved and wide. Enticing.
He touched a lock of shiny brown hair that had migrated to his pillow. He had thought it bred out of him long ago—that simple hope for freedom.
And the entire game was almost at an end on all fronts.
What would he do after he gained his final revenge? Roman had long asked him that question. To which he had always sniped out an automatic response. But now, with an end in sight, he had to question his choices an
d their consequences. What might they bring him after?
After.
It was odd to entertain such thoughts. He trusted few people. But that was his least concern when dealing with Phoebe Pace. She was a trustworthy person. Odd, in the end, that it wasn’t trust that was the problem.
He trusted her. And that said a lot. No, that would say a lot for most people. That said . . . far more than a lot for him.
No, it wasn’t trust in her that he lacked. It was trust in himself. To do the right thing.
He laughed without humor. He had been born to people who took as their divine right, later raised on the streets to take what he could, while he could. He couldn’t rid himself of the fear. That he would invest in something and have it snatched away. Inbred for long enough that he couldn’t shake the dread.
Trust had nothing to do with it. If she discovered . . .
One eye peeked open, and she stretched. He withdrew his hand from her hair.
“Good morning,” she said sleepily, a smile curving her lips. One of those smiles he wanted for his own, with a desire that would destroy him.
“Good morning,” he said hoarsely. Liking the way that she looked on the pillow next to his as the sun rose.
If she discovered . . .
She sat up, cheeks pink, hands pressed against them. Rose was a good color on her. And so unusual. And yet, that smile on her lips was not one of embarrassment. It was one of happiness.
Happiness. His gut clenched. Fortune truly hated him.
For if Phoebe Pace discovered it had been he who had shot her brother, what would happen then?
Chapter 19
It was noon. Andreas should be back from the tinker’s shop by now. In his office.
He had refused to stay in bed—as if there were nothing wrong with him. She didn’t understand such things. It was as if he were immune to pain.
He had tested his weight on first one leg, then the other, walking forward in a variety of motions, shifting, before he figured out how to make his walk look the same as it always did—with one leg bound in steel and the other stitched up only six hours previous.
Astonishing really.
She had thousands of questions, and few answers. But he had said nothing, and she had simply watched him—and even more startling, he had allowed her to watch him—until he’d tightly said he was going to get the brace adjusted.
She wondered if his grumpiness was a result of constant pain and pretending there was nothing wrong.
She carefully arranged food and utensils on her tray, taking a moment to rearrange things until they were suited just so. Her heart began to beat harder.
She had made the trek to his office many, many times before. But never had she felt such a wild anticipation mixed with abject panic.
She knocked and received a brusque, “Enter.”
She poked her head around the door and gave him a sunny smile. “Pardon me for interrupting, Mr. Merrick.” He looked up at her with a raised brow that clearly expressed his thoughts on her actions’ apology.
“Am I interrupting?”
His eyes narrowed. He was obviously contemplating something deep and interesting. He just wasn’t the type to think about mundane subjects for long stretches of time, not like she could, examining for an hour how water dripped down a pane during a storm. His pen tapped against the desk. She always wondered how he didn’t flick ink everywhere. How did his desk stay so clean? It was as if the ink itself was afraid to cause a stain.
“Miss Pace?”
“Yes?” She focused back on his face. “I can return later if you need me to.” Coward, coward, coward. She was so nervous that she could barely make her lips work.
“I said to enter, did I not?”
He turned back to his papers, and she slipped inside and closed the door softly, balancing the tray in her free hand, standing right in front of the door. He finished something with a flourish, then set his pen down in its holder and leaned back in his chair.
“Well? Did you burn down the kitchens?”
“What?” She blinked. His face was a strange mixture of expressions—resignation, anticipation, tension.
“Something dire has obviously happened if you are pussyfooting around me.”
“I wasn’t—am not—pussyfooting.”
“You usually charge right in and plop down in front of me, at a desk you added to this room, lips bleating away.”
“I don’t bleat,” she said, disgruntled, more so that he had correctly identified her tactics than that he had compared her to a woolly animal.
“Well?”
She inclined her head, watching him, a smile pulling at her lips the more she watched him. “Do you need to beat back the silence now too, Mr. Merrick? You don’t usually prompt answers verbally.”
His eyes narrowed, his expression closing. “What do you want, Miss Pace?”
She was glad to see he wasn’t becoming complacent with her. It pushed her into motion. She saw the way he stiffened as she walked toward him, and it made her relax a measure more, as he picked up his pen, pretending to ignore her again. She took a deep breath and softly let it out between her lips.
Perhaps the unabated tension between them was not so one-sided. Their shared intimacy, discovering such a closely kept secret when she stitched him up, then waking up next to him, had simultaneously broken everything open between them, which in some odd fashion had thrown up an awkward barrier that even she did not know fully how to breach. Like two people who suddenly knew each other faster than regular pacing dictated and had to figure out how to acknowledge that fact.
She did not know how to proceed after yesterday’s events. She was willing to wait, but when Andreas Merrick’s defenses were at their weakest spot, they were still difficult to scale. And any lag she allowed would just allow him to fortify his defenses more.
“Let me begin again. Good afternoon, Mr. Merrick,” she said cheerfully, and twisted her palm in a circle, placing the tray on his desk with a flourish. “I’ve brought lunch.”
He was working hard on something. He always was, really. She had been beyond surprised to realize that he really did control all financial and operational aspects of their empire. No wonder he rarely left this room.
Sometimes he disappeared into another room on the second floor. She had been told by a few boys that when Roman Merrick was in residence, the two sparred frequently in the large room, and that it held all manners of weapons. But she hadn’t been witness to such activity. Apparently only Roman was privy to whatever happened inside. Andreas always entered alone and always locked the door behind him.
She had heard him though. It sometimes sounded like he was determined to destroy the building from the inside.
She saw him peek through the hair hanging in front of his eyes as he kept his head bent to his tasks. “You cooked it?”
“Yes. I assure you, though, that I didn’t use anything rotten.”
She waited for him to joke back, but he nodded, reached for one of the biscuits, and brought it to his mouth.
She took that as an invitation to sit. She had brought enough for two on purpose.
They ate in silence for a few minutes. It was usually nice simply to sit with him—the silence pleasant and full. But after what had happened yesterday, she couldn’t sit still and silent for very long.
“You seem determined to ignore me now, Mr. Merrick,” she said in between bites. “Are you embarrassed that we kissed in the kitchen?”
She could have raised a different subject but she had a positive feeling about this less threatening line of questioning. She licked her lips in anticipation.
He paused for only a moment in his litany of work, work, work, bite, work, work, work. “No.”
Bite.
From previous experience she knew if she let it, he would allow the conversation to drop until it was well within his own best interest to raise it again—to disconcert her. “Well, good. For I am not embarrassed,” she said. “I quite enjoyed mys
elf. It was a singularly gratifying experience that I hope to remove from the singular.”
A splotch of ink splattered the page. He cursed and reached for the blotter.
She leaned forward. “I think that is the first time I have seen you make a mess. Does that mean you are unnerved by me saying I enjoyed kissing you and wish to do so again? Even with my inexperience in such matters, I would say that you seemed to be enjoying yourself as well.”
“Miss Pace.”
“Yes?”
“Do you have no decency?” It was said almost in resignation.
“No. Not if it interferes with good sense.”
His hand dropped, and he looked at her. “You believe decency and good sense unrelated?”
She gave a firm nod. “In this case, yes.”
He sighed and threw his pen down on the desk. A tiny trickle stuttered out. It was a week for amazement apparently. He rubbed a hand over his eyes and sighed again. “Yes, I enjoyed myself.”
She beamed at him. A slew of normal, human gestures and an admittance of happiness. Or, at least pleasure. Her smile grew larger as he peered at her through his long fingers.
“I am going to regret admitting that to you.”
“Come now, Mr. Merrick. You do not regret. You have said so yourself.”
“You’d be surprised,” he muttered.
She leaned forward, entreatingly. “Would it make you feel better to curse or threaten me with something horrendous?”
He shut his eyes and leaned back in his chair. He looked tired, resigned. “No. I would simply be wasting my breath.” He opened his eyes and looked at her. “What do you want, Miss Pace?”
She leaned as far forward as she could, leaning on her elbows. “May I kiss you again?”
He stared at something in the corner over her shoulder. “Just when I think I can fall no deeper into hell, the hole just keeps going.”
She blinked. “Oh.” That smarted a bit, even through the armor she had constructed before entering.
He looked back at her, and his face was unreadable for a moment, but there was something almost vulnerable about him. “Fine.”
“Fine what? Fine, as in, yes, I can kiss you?”