She examined the lines on her palms, the crisscrossing creases.
“Did you see what he looked like? He spoke to you?”
“He was behind me the whole time. He whispered.” She traced a line. “He thanked me for finding the journal. They are connected, Gabriel. They were part of the same club.”
Hands touched beneath her elbows, pulling her up. Fingers lifted her chin and eyes examined hers.
“That man was the murderer,” she whispered, green eyes wavering in her view. “He had me.”
Arms pulled her into his chest. “I have you now.”
She hugged herself inside the carriage. She was glad they had taken the carriage for once. “Why do you think he let me go?”
Gabriel watched her. “If the journals are connected, then likely for the same reason that Kenny was left alive. That it is only his victims he intends to harm.”
“He said—” She clutched the dress material under her fingers. “—that he would be interested to see who you choose in the end.”
Though he hadn’t been moving other than with the rocking of the carriage, his body stilled.
“What did he mean?” She watched him. Watched the flurry of emotions flit through his eyes.
He leaned forward. “Do you trust me, Marietta?”
Her fingers curled further into the material. Did she trust him? She had put all of her trust into him. If he betrayed her too, she didn’t know what she’d have left. “Yes.”
He ran a hand up her arm and loosened her fingers, pulling them away and into his own. He repeated the gesture on the other side.
She let him pull her toward him, and he placed soft kisses on her neck, along her jawline, on her lips. He was trying to distract her, but at the moment she didn’t care. She didn’t want to think, just wanted to accept what he was offering.
He rapped on the trap five times in succession. They turned a corner, going in the opposite direction of the house.
He pulled her on top of him, so she was straddling him. The carriage rocked over the cobblestones, the swaying brushing them together. A thrust of her dress to the side and flick of his fingers across his own clothing and he was pushing inside of her, filling her, her body already ready. She kissed him fiercely and he clutched her hips, pulling her closer.
If he betrayed her…but no, how could he? Silly fears rearing like spitting snakes.
He hit that lovely spot deep inside. Over and over. And what was she doing thinking about trust and betrayal? She had hired him, she had come to him. He might not be hers forever, but he was at this moment.
He attacked her neck and she let her head dip back, clutching the hair at his nape as they rode to the rhythm of the stones. He kept pressing exactly where she needed him to, a lethargic, heavy, hot feeling overtaking her as she reached for that peak. She let him wash away the itchy skin and disgust of Anastasia Rasen’s pink dollhouse, the sheer terror of the murderer’s hands. Cleansing waves, but no answers.
She closed her eyes and let him push her over the edge, stifling her breaths into his silky hair as she clutched him to her. He followed a second later, washing the lingering ill traces away.
She rested her forehead against the velveteen seat back. A mixture of drugged laxity and energy encompassed her. “There must have been something in Anastasia’s journal.”
He stiffened underneath her. “Do you really want to talk about that right at the moment?”
She smiled against the velvet, unable to see his expression, though she had no doubt it was put out. “I suppose not.”
His whole body sighed. “There are a few places where we can inquire. Then I’m going to take you back to the house and make sure you can’t walk for a week.”
Marietta walked through the market, hair back in proper place, clothes back together. Gabriel was chatting with a crone selling trinkets in a ramshackle stall. He had stopped to chat with at least ten different vendors, none of whom would talk while she was present.Too highborn,one had said.
Gabriel had joked that she was bad for business. She couldn’t help but begin to seriously agree. Any woman could take her place, following him around and going from tavern to tavern. Most women would do a long sight better at it than she. Her crisp accent did little to endear her to the lower classes and she was an anathema to the upper classes.
She was quite useless. And feeling quite maudlin, it appeared.
She sighed and touched a checkered scarf slipped over the edge of a stall, her eyes skimming Gabriel as the crone handed him something. It seemed impossible that such a man could move between different levels of society so easily. Starting with only a smile—no, it was not hard to believe he could have started with his charm and succeeded with his intelligence and hard work.
Gifted by the heavens. Blessed beneath a star.
