Written on Your Skin (36 page)

“I would not believe that,” she said softly.

He shrugged. “Believe as you like. But getting that bastard’s throat between my hands—that had nothing to do with clear thinking. It was…” He shook his head. His hands lay open on his lap; he spread his fingers to look into his palms, his long fingers flexing once. “I would do it again,” he said softly. “Gladly.”

She snorted. “Yes, I should hope so. You were saving my life. I should hope you took some satisfaction in that.”

He looked at her, his expression inscrutable. “True. I think I would kill anyone who touched you with violent intent. That shouldn’t comfort you, you know.” His glance brushed briefly over the pipe. “My judgment stands in question. 1 cannot afford to lose control.”

“I have no fear you will,” she said. “Not unless the circumstances require it.”

“Oh?” Black humor moved across his face. He reached out to flick a finger against the pipe in one of his curiously elegant, almost feminine gestures. “I used this last night.” His self-contempt sounded detached, analytical. “Since I returned, 1 am a goddamned lunatic whose brain cannot be trusted. My thoughts go awry.” He paused. “You’ve seen it. On the train.”

She frowned. Coming into London, he had seemed near to losing his composure. But it would not have been the first time she’d overset a man. Evidently, he believed there was more to it.

Well, perhaps there was. She would be the last person to scoff at the complexities of the mind—she, who had unlearned the art of sleeping peacefully alone; she, whose mother had startled from unseen terrors for a year or more after their return to New York. “The trials you’ve undergone…” She could only begin to guess at them all. “They warrant disquiet, Phin.” He would share them with her, and thereby halve his burden: she silently made the vow. “If they didn’t trouble you, then I should worry about your judgment. But as it is—time is what you require. It gets better; slowly, it does. I promise you that.”

He sat back. “Comforting,” he said dismissively, and she felt her heart fall. “In the meantime, while I wait, I smoke poison to calm myself. As a result, I almost slept through your murder.” He paused, his stare challenging. “You see in whose judgment you place your trust.”

Impatience burned away her sympathy. “Trust is always a risk,” she said flatly. “One you refuse to take, on either yourself or me. Self-pity, though—I see that is a choice you’ll gladly make.”

“That again?” He sprang from the chair with violent force. “I grow sick of this goddamned debate. I will not take it on my head to risk you simply so you can say you had a part in it!”

She scoffed. “A part in it? You think I want the right to brag?”

“What the hell else can it be? Unless you think me utterly incompetent?”

“That’s the last thing I think you,” she said bitterly. “Alas, you don’t feel the same for me. You would have me wait with my hands tucked beneath my skirts so you can fix the matter for me, because God forbid I should have any say in it whatsoever! Yes, you can fix my messes—but can’t I do the same? Certainly I did not require your guidance when I saved your life four years ago!”

“And what a trouble it would be to you,” he said scathingly, “to be given an option for safety—”

She gave a wild laugh. “To be kept like a stuffed bird of paradise. Do you think that’s how I want to live? In a very pretty cage? Do you think I want to live, if that’s the cost? My mother made that trade, and you see how it worked out for her. Thank you very much, but I will not do it, even for you!”

After a long moment, he exhaled. “So. You would play bait in a trap of our making. What difference? It would still come down to depending on me for your safety.”

She slammed the gun onto the table and spread her empty hands. Defenseless. “Yes,” she said. “And here we get to the heart of the matter. I am very willing to depend on you. Of all people, it is you I would depend on. But you refuse to understand that. It’s not enough for you. You say you care for me, but—”

“Mina.” His eyes met hers, dark and unblinking. “Care is not the right word.”

She caught her breath. “Don’t tell me you love me,” she whispered. “Not like this.”

He ran a hand over his mouth. When it fell, a sneer curved his lips. “By some sick and twisted joke of the universe—”

“We’ve found each other like this,” she snapped. “Yes, and love isn’t always a blessing. You want to make this love convenient. And so you will make decisions for me at my expense, knowing that you tread on my nightmares. How comfortable for you.”

“Goddamn it! Can you not be bloody reasonable for once?”

“Reason? What would a madman know of it? My God, I must be mad, too, to think that I love such a mule-headed fool! You think your thoughts are disordered? For God’s sake, Phin, you’re a man who orders his dratted pens! And that’s your problem! If you’d cast off your goat-hair shirt, you would realize there’s no need to be orderly all of the time! But if you insist on it—of course you will drive yourself mad. And me too, if you have your way!”

Turning on her heel, she stalked out, past the guard. She would not go back to his rooms. The hallway passed in a blur; no matter how fast she walked, the blonde was always at her heels. She threw the door to her apartment shut on his nose.

“Miss!” Sally, caught scrubbing blood from the carpet, clamped a hand onto her mobcap. “Oh, miss, it’s glad I am to see you! Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I’m brilliant.” She fell into the chair by the window, glowering out at the blasted garden. The morning sunlight was spilling over the boxed-in flowers. Someone should set fire to it. Someone should turn the soil up and plant nothing but weeds.

“Miss?” Sally spoke hesitantly. “I thought you should know, a piece is missing from the jewelry box.”

She spoke absently, unable to pull her eyes from the garden. “The jewelry box?”

“Yes, miss, they upended it, but all the pieces are accounted for save your locket.”

“I have that,” she said. She had fallen asleep wearing it, but it had scratched her in the night, and she had taken it off and cast it under the bed.

Her thoughts sharpened. Surely they hadn’t been looking for it?

A warm weight landed in her lap. By instinct, she gasped and threw her hands up to shield her face. But it was only the cat. It took a moment to comprehend this. The cat had jumped into her lap.

“Perverse,” she muttered. He butted his head into her torso. Of course, after hiding like a coward last night, he would want attention now, when she had all but given up on him. He hit his head harder against her and then rubbed himself along her rib cage. She sighed and scratched him behind the ears. Such stubbornness had to be rewarded, she supposed.

The door smacked open, frightening Washington to the floor. She came to her feet. Phin paused on the threshold, his face black with fury. “Not even bothering to knock,” she said sarcastically. “Yes, you’re getting the way of it now, aren’t you?”

He strode toward her, his hand reaching into his jacket. “Here,” he said, and pulled out the pistol she’d abandoned.

Sally gave a strangled squeak. Mina did not take her eyes from his face. “Go,” she said to the maid.

His nostrils were flaring with the force of his breath. Even had he sprinted across the house, it should not have winded him so. The latch clicked shut behind Sally. He extended the pistol, the muzzle pointed toward the floor. “Take it,” he said harshly. “You want to kill yourself to make a point about the tragedies of womanhood? Do it here. Now. Make me watch.”

Her pulse was thudding in her throat. “Don’t be stupid.”

He snatched her hand and forced it to the butt of the gun, lifting it so the barrel settled against his chest. “Or maybe you want to shoot me? I’m the villain here, after all. I’m the one who’s driving you mad. The trigger is yours, Mina.”

She forced herself not to recoil. She had never seen him in such a state. His eyes were bloodshot, wild, and his fingers trembled over hers, for all that they gripped her more unbreakably than iron. If she yanked back, he would not let her go. She knew, had learned last night, not to trust guns in such a tussle. “Stop it,” she whispered.

He spoke slowly, each word distinct and cutting. “What do you want, then?”

“Your trust,” she said.

“Christ. Take it,” he said curtly, and she caught the gun as he pulled his hand free. Shoving a hand through his hair, he turned a tight circle. When his eyes met hers again, he looked no calmer, but his exhaustion seemed more marked, the lines around his eyes deeper. “This is not a matter of trust,” he said. “I did not think you so goddamned stupid.”

Her hand tightened around the revolver’s grip. What a terrible weight it exerted on her hand, as cold as the feeling in her chest, pulling her down. “I want to know that you believe me capable. That now and—and in the future, you will let me take risks, not simply try to…protect me.”

He shook his head slightly, whether in disbelief or denial, she could not tell. “All I want to do is protect you,” he said, but there was something resigned in his voice, as if he loathed himself for it or thought she would mock him for the sentiment. “It’s not weakness that makes me worry about you, Mina. It’s love, and you bloody well know it. I love you.”

She drew a hard breath through her nose. “Yes,” she said. “I know. And—I love you as well.” As his frown faded and he stepped toward her, she retreated a pace.

“But…” Love does fizzle, with time. Her mother had said that once. And if it did, what would remain but this? Obligation, worry, concern, if she was lucky. Otherwise—only his power over her, to keep her in this house when she might want to leave.

“You are testing me,” he said flatly. “You don’t even realize it. You want to prove something. How do you not see that it will come at your own expense?”

“I’m not trying to prove anything.” Was she? It was true that she wondered how hot a flame his feelings might manage to withstand. But she did not want to hold his hand to the stove. She had no desire to hear him cry uncle. “It’s only—if this is what your love means—if we are not to be equals, if you can’t believe in me…” Then I can’t accept it.

Did she mean that? If she did, surely she would be able to bring herself to speak the words. But they lodged in her throat, a solid pressure difficult to breathe around. “I expect nothing from so many people,” she said haltingly. “But from you, I find myself expecting…so much.”

His face shuttered. “And I fail to deliver it, you mean.”

“No, I—”

“Yes, let’s be honest here.” His voice had sharpened into a jibe. “Of course you can’t leave it to me. I’ve failed you. You’ve never forgiven me for Hong Kong. Those scars you wear—they’re what stands between us.”

“No.” His idiocy astonished her. “Why won’t you listen to me?”

“Oh, I’ve been listening. And it all seems very clear to me, suddenly. I ran out on you, yellow as a dog. You have no cause to depend on me.” His laughter hurt her ears. “And you are wise for it, no doubt. I’m the fool here. If my father—”

She raised the gun to his heart, and he fell silent. Her hand was shaking with the force of her revelation. “Coward,” she said. “At least I own up to my fears. I vowed never to make my mother’s mistakes. But you? You’re rationalizing your actions on the assumption that you will make his mistakes. You think I’m testing you? What is the opium but a test for yourself?”

His mouth thinned. “Mina. If something were to happen to you—”

“What? Do you think you would turn into him? That the demon inside you would take hold? That you would turn to the drug every night?” Her laughter sounded ragged. “I take it back. It’s not me you need to trust, Phin. It’s yourself. You’re right. I would make myself bait only because I trust you. And damn you,” she added fiercely. “I am not wrong to do so.”

Slowly, very slowly, he raised his hand. His fingers closed over her wrist, steering the gun away, toward the wall.

She loosened her grip, letting him pull away the weapon, watching as he crouched to set it on the floor. As he straightened, long-limbed, loose, and rangy, she whispered, “I know you. You know I’m right.”

He stared at her, expressionless. And then all at once he moved. His fingers plunged through her hair, painfully hard, hairpins springing free. He dragged her head to his. He was trying to prove his own blackness, perhaps; the kiss was hot, punishing almost. She kissed him back just as hard; she was not afraid.

He stepped into her, making her stumble over her skirts. Her palms came up to his hands where they gripped her, her nails cutting into his flesh, digging in for balance as he walked her backward out of the sitting room. Her calves hit the bed. Down she fell, and he came down atop her, his lips fierce, brooking no objection.

If he thought to ravish her, he was in for a disappointment. She closed her eyes to block out the sight of this room like a jewelry box; she closed her mind to the objections she’d entertained so successfully for two weeks now in denying herself this pleasure. She would take it again; she would ravish him.

The sunlight felt warm on her face, but his lips were hotter; beneath her roaming hands the muscles of his arms bulged stubbornly, immovable. Their mouths made soft sucking noises of communion, belying the rough scrape of his teeth. Her skirts rustled as he yanked them up, and the starched sheets protested as he came down fully atop her; the rub of cloth sounded like shocked whispers from a distantly observing crowd.