Chapter Forty-Four Theo #2
He pressed his hand over his bullet wound, thinking for a moment that it had reopened and that he was spilling onto the ground.
“Where do you propose I go?” he asked, and now it was he who could not stand to meet her eyes.
“I thought—” he started, but couldn’t finish.
It sounded so incredibly stupid now. He’d thought they’d find each other again.
He’d thought she’d love him. He’d thought all the problems in the world would become negligible if he had that.
“That’s not for me to say, Theo,” she said, looking out at the sea.
Then she forced a painful sort of grin. “Maybe here. You’d have the whole ocean to command.
” Her hand touched his shoulder briefly, and still he felt changed by it, as though there was something tangible passing from her to him. Surely, she felt it, didn’t she?
How many times had they walked along the cliff edge on their excursions to Lavnonshire, him making shapes out of the sea mist, her laughing at his cleverness? But she’d forgotten it all. Still, he could remind her—he would.
He leaned in and pressed his mouth to hers, and she flinched in surprise, then froze, her lips unmoving.
But there was a breath’s moment when she didn’t pull back, and his hands were holding her face again, and it felt like coming home.
Then he was stumbling back, the wind leaving his lungs, Nina’s hands shoving him away.
A charge running wild over his skin. “Nina—”
She was breathing heavily, hair falling free from her cap and covering her eyes. “Are you insane?” she said, furious now. “Have you lost your mind?”
“Me?” he said, laughing without a hint of mirth. “No, Nina. I’m thinking clearly. One of us ought to.”
She huffed out a breath of indignation, mouth agape. Then she stormed off across the lane, and slammed the door to Mrs. Trunk’s shop.
Theo followed.
He watched the back of her vanish through the maze of the shop, ignored John’s queries as he went after her, took the stairs two at a time, and ignored the flaring pain in his side.
He caught up to her in Mrs. Trunk’s living room.
“Leave me alone, Theo,” she said, ripping herself free of the oversize coat.
“You don’t want me to leave, Nina.”
She laughed. “Lord have mercy.”
“Say it, then,” he said. “Tell me that you want me to leave.”
“It’s better this way,” she said. “For everyone.”
“Better for Colson,” he nodded knowingly. “Easier to lead you along without me in the way.”
“He isn’t leading me along, Theo!”
“No,” came another voice, its tenor unmistakable. “Let him get it out.”
Theo turned to see Patrick at the windowsill, his back against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. Mostly shrouded in the darkness of the evening, just now deciding to fall.
He pushed off the ledge—the one with the perfect view down to the ramparts where Nina and Theo had stood not moments before.
Theo’s face heated. Some instinct snarled to the surface.
Patrick stopped two paces away and waited, tilting his head at Theo. He gestured for Theo to speak. “Now’s your chance, Teddy. Tell her how much better off she’d be with you instead.”
“Patrick,” Nina said warily. “We were speaking privately.”
“And now you ain’t.”
He’d always spoken this way. Like a lord, in a sense. Unswervingly. The words already cocked on his tongue, every response measured ahead of time, shrinking men where they stood. Tying them up in their own words.
Theodore felt his hands shaking. He looked at Patrick but spoke to Nina. “He brought you to Kenton Hill with a sack over your head and your hands tied,” he said slowly, wanting her to hear every syllable. “He tried to lock you up in a room.”
Patrick didn’t interrupt, nor did he lift his eyes from Theo. Instead, they seemed to bore further in, waiting for something.
“It’s the same now,” Theo continued. “He has you exactly as he wants you, Nina. Blinded, tied up in his mess—”
“Ah,” Patrick said now, nodding slowly. “Yes. A dirty Craftsman, running off with his little Artisan hostage.” He tsked. “And I suppose, she’d have to be stupid, wouldn’t she? To fall for a trick like that? Defenseless, too. Or how would I overpower her?”
Patrick stalked closer, and Theo felt his fists clench. “That isn’t what I said.”
“But that’s what you’re implyin’, Teddy. That’s what she hears when you tell her I’ve got her eyes covered. That I’m the one pullin’ her strings.”
“I’m scared for her!” Theo shouted. “She was almost shot, not days ago! Have you yet considered her well-being on this fucking conquest? Or will you lead her into any snake pit if it means winning your bloody terranium?”
Patrick’s expression blackened instantly. “I wasn’t aware she’d made you her guardian, Teddy, or did you assume the position all on your own?”
Theo didn’t balk, didn’t turn from him. “Someone ought to look out for her.”
“That’s rich,” Patrick nodded ominously, stepping forward into Theodore’s space so it was obvious just how imposing Patrick’s stature was in comparison. “That’s bloody rich, since you would have left her bleedin’ against the whippin’ post, had your chivalry not awoken at just the right moment.”
“Stop,” Nina said, putting a hand on Patrick’s chest.
“Let’s hope yours awakens soon, Colson, before you’ve siphoned everything you can take from her,” Theo spat.
“That’s your problem, Teddy. You still think she’s the sort of woman who can be managed. Have you met her? She ain’t manageable.”
Theo stood as tall as he could. “Yet she’ll walk where you point. And you’re not pointing her anywhere safe.”
“I’ll point you into a fuckin’ grave, if you’d like.” He looked as though he wished for nothing more than to obliterate Theo where he stood.
“Enough!” Nina called, a hand on each of their chests now.
Theo and Patrick had come almost nose to nose, breathing steam into each other’s faces. Patrick’s breath was laced with intention, like it would mean nothing to him at all to throw Theo over the cliffs.
“Theo,” Nina said, straining to get his attention, her face red with anger. “When we leave this parish, you won’t follow. I’ve made my choice.”
Theo shook his head. “You’ll never mean as much to him as idium does,” he said to her, and he knew he was cruel to say it. He saw the flinch of pain cut across her face. “He’d forfeit your life to win this war.”
Theodore found his head bouncing off the glass window, the pain momentarily blinding him.
Nina was shouting, Patrick’s face looming an inch from his, ice in his eyes. The grip of his wide hand around Theo’s throat, threatening its collapse.
“Wrong,” Patrick growled, the tendons in his hand flexing. “Never met a man who was wrong so often.”
Theo’s hands went desperately to Patrick’s, trying to peel it away. He couldn’t breathe.
“You’ll kill him, Patrick!”
“I would,” Patrick agreed coldly. “Do you feel it, Teddy?” His hand tightened, sent Theodore onto his toes. “I’d do it without losin’ a single night’s sleep.”
Black curtained Theo’s sight, curling inward. But he still felt Patrick’s steaming breath wash over his face.
And then he was on the floor, his legs numb, his side searing, his vision returning in spots of color.
“I told you, it ain’t my place to say whether you stay or leave. She’s the one who decides,” Patrick said, somewhere above Theo. “And if she says leave, best you find that genteel nature of yours and listen to her. I’m only waitin’ on a reason to beat the shit out of you.”
Oxygen rushed into Theo’s lungs, and he bent over on himself, his head down. He didn’t want to see Nina’s reaction, didn’t want Patrick to see the tears that had sprung free. He felt Nina bend tentatively beside him, her breaths too fast, heard Patrick’s footsteps recede.
He wanted to shout at Nina, point to Patrick’s receding back and say, See? That’s the man you’re following. That’s what he becomes in the night.
Theo gripped his throat and shrugged off embarrassment, and with Nina’s wary hand on his shoulder, felt more resolve than he ever had.