“I don’t want to go,” he whispered.
“I know.” She ached for what she had to say next. “But it’s time. Vale will be back soon.”
“Be…careful of her, Selina.”
She frowned at his continued doubt. He wasn’t wrong in his assessment of the situation, of course. On paper, Vale looked to be a good suspect. But Selina couldn’t believe her partner, her friend, would turn on her. Their bond might be strained at present, but she believed it was powerful enough to withstand the troubles Selina had brought down on them.
“How will I give you my location in London?” she asked.
He got up, and she stretched as she watched that remarkable body move through the small room. Muscle and sinew, grace and command. Scars brought by war and life that told a story he rarely spoke about. She loved it all. She wanted to know all the details of it all.
He scribbled down a place to address her letters on a piece of paper on the table, then dressed, his gaze slipping to her. When he was finished, he sat on the edge of the bed and traced her face with his hand once more. “I’ll never stop looking for a way to fix this,” he promised.
Her heart stung. Fix what she’d broken. Fix what she’d done. “I don’t deserve that,” she whispered.
He didn’t answer, but leaned in and kissed her. Then he went to her door. One last look, a long one, and he said, “Goodbye, love.”
She couldn’t bring herself to say the same as he left her room.Goodbyefelt final. She knew it might be, despite his hopes and promises. She knew how the world worked, perhaps even a little better than he did. It was a dream that she could be saved.
But it bought her time.
She rose slowly and dressed herself, though when she looked in the mirror, she appeared well loved. She could fix her hair, but didn’t. She wanted to leave it, to feel that feeling a little longer. To know it was his fingers that had run through her curls.
The door behind her opened and she pivoted with a gasp. But her fear subsided as Vale came into the room. Her friend had a slight scowl on her face as she looked around.
“You’re back early,” Selina said, happy Vale hadn’t come even a few moments sooner or else she would have walked in on quite a scene. “Was the music not good?”
“It was passable,” Vale said, folding her arms. “And how was your love?”
Selina froze, staring at her friend. “My love?”
“I know Derrick Huntington was here, Selina,” Vale said with an exasperated shake of her head. “I saw him. You ought to thank me for giving you the chance to talk. Or whatever you two are calling what you did.”
Selina bent her head. “He did come to me. Why should I lie?”
“Because that’s how we’re built,” Vale said with a sigh. “Women like us move through the world and protect ourselves with lies. We tell men what they want to get what they’ll give in return. To keep them from taking what we don’t want to provide. Welie, Selina. And when you stop lying, you don’t just endanger yourself. That man is a hunter, sent here to find you.”
“That man was hired to hunt me, yes,” Selina said. “But that’s not why he came. We love each other, Vale. Truly love each other.”
Vale frowned. “And where does that leave me?”
“I’m getting you to London, just as I promised,” Selina said. “You’ll disappear into the world, like you’ve wanted to do for so long. But I…I won’t. I can’t anymore. I have too much to protect. I’ll stay. And I’ll accept whatever punishment comes.”
“You idiot,” Vale murmured. And then she reached into her pocket and pulled out a tiny pistol, which she aimed at Selina’s heart.
Selina cried out, staggering back even though there was nowhere to go in the small room. “Vale,” she said. “What?Why?”
“I wasn’t going to do this until we got to London. But if you’re going to blow up our lives, I don’t see any reason to wait even a moment longer.”
Chapter 25
Derrick had let a room at the finer inn in the little village and he trudged through the main hall and up the stairs, barely marking his surroundings or the loud music thundering through the packed hall below. All he could think about was Selina, all he could do was make plan after plan about how to save her.
But he was a strategist, he always had been. And he feared that all those plans would play out with her in Newgate or transported or…or hanged. He could do nothing to stop it.
He tried to focus on breathing as he unlocked his chamber door and stepped inside. But before he could close himself in, perhaps even allow for a collapse before he shored up his strength, he heard a voice from the fireplace.
“I knew you wouldn’t be able to stop yourself.”
