Chapter 19
GAbrIEL
I slowly closed the linen press and turned around. She was sitting in a chair in the corner—her legs pressed together and to the side, her hands folded in her lap—the calm presence of a lady but for the nervous twitch in her right foot.
Someone who thought they might have to fight for their life would never sit calmly in that cage.
“Gabriel.”
She had suppressed the spell to alert me of her presence. I had given her access to the wards days ago, but she hadn’t used them. I hadn’t thought to hope she might now.
“Come to do me in?”
“Well, I lost that advantage now, didn’t I?”
Her exhaustion was palpable, her magic thin.
Being here cost her. But she wasn’t afraid.
I leaned against the press and fiddled with my cuffs without looking away from her. “I thought you would be well away from here. The house registered your exit.”
“I did leave. To help Lucian and Alcroft with their tasks.”
“Oh?” The cage I had constructed wobbled, the foundations pulling free.
“Then I returned,” she said. “Here.”
“I see.” I carefully placed a link on the side table without using magic, not wanting to destroy whatever this was with sudden movements.
“Do you?”
I touched my other cuff, for once unsure how to answer. I shook my head without taking my gaze away.
“I know you didn’t murder those women, Gabriel.”
“That is good to know.” I carefully removed the other link and set it down too. “When did you figure that out?”
“I knew by the end of the conversation in the kitchen this morning.” The word conversation might have been amusing at another time. “Hearing you with the others confirmed it.”
“Eavesdropping?”
Her right foot stilled. “Yes.”
I nodded. “That doesn’t explain why you are here. You wanted to be far from this house.”
“And you wanted me far as well.”
“Double the reasons for you not to appear. Why are you here, Marietta?”
I expected, even feared, that she would walk from the room at the question. But it had to be asked—rot took hold in the unsaid.
“I came to apologize. For what I said to you. About—about them. And for thinking you the murderer.”
I undid the last button on my shirt and shrugged it off, pulling one sleeve down at a time. “I was in a rather dubious position, as it was.” I evaded the first part of her apology and answered the second. “I shouldn’t have expected you to trust me.”
“I fail to meet expectations, I know.” Her head was high and she continued to meet my eyes.
“On the contrary, you are quite extraordinary.” I looked down and took hold of my undershirt.
“What?”
“I think you quite extraordinary.” I used the action of pulling off the undershirt to hide my face. Bare to the waist, I didn’t feel as naked now that there was more exposed than just my expression.
“You see me as judgmental and harsh.” The little bob in her throat betrayed her nerves and calmed mine.
I tossed the shirt aside. “Those qualities alongside everything else about you make you more extraordinary, not less.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You told me I use my sexuality against others.” I leaned against the press, my fingers resting at the waist of my trousers.
“You do,” she whispered, her body framed for flight. Or set to prevent mine.
A careful dance, with mirrored steps.
“My body is a useful weapon. I learned to use everything at my disposal.” I slid a finger along my waist. “I will never begrudge others the same.”
“Judgment is hardly as good a spear. But you have plenty of weapons at your disposal now. You don’t need to use your body, if it bothers you. And I can see it does.”
Something thrummed through me. Excitement. Nerves. “You are still watching me, reading me. I don’t know whether to be pleased or worried.”
“It depends on what you have in mind.”
“Yes, I suppose it would at that.”
I undid the top button and ran my fingers along the second.
“Gabriel, I still want to be part of the search. I know you told me to leave…” She looked at her hands. “I don’t think you know how hard this is for me to say.”
“I told you to leave if that is what you wished.”
She looked up. “You said I was a little rich girl gone poor and tattered.”
Hurt flickered through her eyes. I wanted to soothe it, but honesty kept me still. “Aren’t you?”
Her mouth set in a straight line and she rose gracefully. “It’s hardly a flattering description.”
“It won’t take much for you to turn the poor and tattered parts around. To be what you were bred for.”
“Highly doubtful.”
“You are a survivor.”
She searched my face. “And you prize that trait.”
“I do. That is why I help those who come looking for it. Those who are fierce in wanting it.”
“And you saw…this fierceness…in me?”
Bonnet askew, hem muddied, dress creased, just as she had looked that first night. The set of her shoulders, her determined expression, the way her body reacted to mine. There was something about her I found more than beautiful.
Indefinable, beyond appearance and determination—something elemental.
I tipped my head back to rest against the press. “I still do.”
She wet her lips. “Why?”
“You’ll have to trust me.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Oh?”
“What happened at the market?”
Her fingers gripped her skirt. “I ran into Thorne Worley.”
Of course. It had been there, in her eyes. As soon as I’d gotten the information required, I’d started running. Gone around to the kitchen, knowing that something was wrong.
“And what did he have to tell you?”
“That you were the killer. That his precious ‘Lissa’ was next.”
“His precious high lady is next.”
“And then it would be my turn.”
Magic skittered, escaping my grip. “You should be nowhere on the list.”
“Perhaps it was his way to scare me.” She gripped her skirt. “It worked.”
“Why did he think you were next?” The wards pulsed as my control slipped. “What did he say?”
“That was everything.”
I walked forward and touched her chin, lifting it. “What did he say?”
She swallowed, her eyes locked with mine. “He said you would kill me, just like you killed the others. He said I had to kill you first.”
“He only mentioned me?”
“Yes.”
I stepped back and opened the linen press door. “I will take you to the house where your brother is. It will take an hour to make sure we aren’t followed. Gather your things now.”
“What?”
I undid the other button on my trousers and reached for a new shirt. A hand curled around my arm and turned me. The shirt dropped to the floor.
“I am not going anywhere.”
I turned into her, letting her hand wrap more firmly. “Marietta, Worley is mad. He didn’t have to kill them in order to do you harm. If he targets you—”
“Why would he? I had nothing to do with—”
I grabbed the hand branding my arm. “It doesn’t matter. We aren’t dealing with someone who has a full set of faculties. What if instead of doing me harm, he decides to hurt you?”
The shaken look in her brown eyes echoed in the pit of my stomach. “No.”
“Yes. Now go pack.”
She crossed her arms, and tilted her head, exposing the smooth curve of her neck. “I’m not leaving.”
“Now is not the time for heroics. You have helped your brother. I will find out who is responsible. Your family will be back together by the end of the week. You will be safe.”
She poked me in the chest, hard, her fingertip resting against my bare skin. “I’m not leaving you.”
“You are.”
“You are in far greater danger than I.” Her finger trailed an inch down my chest before dropping to her side.
“I’m in no more danger than I’ve ever been. Especially from myself, it seems.”
“Oh, Gabriel.”
I bent over to pick up my shirt, unwilling to look at her any further.
She touched my arm. Lightly. “I’m so sorry for what I said.”
“It was only the truth. It should be me on bent knee before you. For my cruelty and cutting words.”
She cradled my face in one hand. “No. What I said wasn’t the truth.
Please.” She pressed her other palm flat against my chest, over my heart.
“You are nothing like them. Any gestures you might have picked up are just gestures, nothing more. It is the will that is important. It’s the intention behind the action.
Pleasure, not guile. And when I look in your eyes, I see. ..I see you.”
I threw the shirt down and pulled her to me, lips crushed to hers, hands cradling.
I spun her toward the wall, pressing her against it.
Her legs climbed mine, pushing my trousers down, heel pressing into my calf.
One freed leg pressed between hers, rubbing up, making her ride my thigh, causing deliciously caught cries.
Her hands pressed into my hair, her legs pulled me flush.
I pulled a hand down her side, down her back, cupping her buttocks and grinding her against me, pressing her back into the wall and tilting her hips up.
My fingers wound under the fabric and between her thighs where she was wet and hot and pushing into my hand.
I slid a forefinger along her heat. Spirits, all I wanted to do was to push into her so hard that we wouldn’t know how to separate.
I curled the tip inside, the sounds of her body pushing me farther over the edge.
“Please, please.”
I wasn’t sure who said it, but I brought my hand up to touch her cheek and aligned our bodies, hitching her higher against the wall, then sliding her down onto me. I pressed my face into her hair, against her throat, and thrust upward, her cries breathy and stuttered against my ear.
I withdrew and pushed into her harder and farther.
Incredible and frustrating. Almost, and not enough.
I wanted, needed, to be deeper. I pulled her against me, away from the wall.
She wrapped her fingers around my neck, her eyes drugged and unfocused, and I quickly spun us to the bed, pushing her down on top.
Bending over her, driving into her. Spirits, yes, this.
Her head thrust back, her dress crushed and splayed up her chest. Her heels climbed the small of my back as I pulled out and thrust as deeply into her as it was possible to go.
Power shot from me straight into her.