Marietta wondered if she had still been standing whether she might have been able to sneak out. Gabriel’s eyes connected with hers, as if he’d read her mind.
“Don’t even think it.”
“Just let me go.” Her voice was barely audible.
The skin around his eyes tightened. “No.”
“Please.”
Something flashed through his eyes and disappeared. “I think you have something to ask me.” His tone was almost pleasant.
“No.”
“Oh, yes. Ask me, Marietta. Ask me now.”
Gabriel tightened his grip on the pistol. Her pistol, which she had been ready to use. From the corner of his eyes he saw the ends of a cobweb dangling from a thread, missed while cleaning. Unraveling now, like everything else.
I won’t implicate him.
So he had come to this. Angrier at her than at his father, for no discernible reason. She had no reason to trust him. He had deliberately withheld the information from her. And yet, her response, without verifying anything with him first, without evenaskingif he had committed a crime, smacked of betrayal. He had known this girl barely a month. Had spent nearly every moment with her since, yes, but she was a speck on the carriage ride of his life. And yet…Yes, and yet.
Her lips pressed together more tightly. “No.”
“Are you sure? Or do you just want to believe whatever your mind has conjured? Anything to get your brother released, correct? Why go after Worley, when you can present the watch—or even better, Dresden—with someone else? Someone Dresden hates? Someone society would love to see brought to his knees to make up for his galling success. A lowly son of a butler and governess. It would rectify the stain on society that I am. Another upstart removed.”
“You are mad.”
“A bit, I presume. Mad surely for believing anything of you.” Bitterness. Fury.
Her lips pressed together and her eyes went watery. “Then we are mad together, aren’t we? For I feel the same.”
Jeremy and his father closed the door to the kitchen, their footsteps retreating through the house. Neither presence missed nor wanted at the moment.
“You were the one who came to me.”
“And I thought I could trust you.”
“No you didn’t. You were brittle and edgy. You trusted no one. Don’t rewrite our relationship.”
“Our relationship? Is there such a thing? It seems you have been leading me around by the nose. Lying to me whenever it suits you.”
“There is little point doing anything other than what suits me.”
He watched the rage come over her face. The red and white mottled together, giving her color and depth and transforming the features he had long since abandoned thinking as plain into a face that was active and alive.
“You even lie to yourself.”
“If it suits.”
“You think that a dozen good deeds, a hundred, will make up for your sins?”
“It depends on the sin.”
“Does it? Is that the justification you use?”
“That is the justification that everyone uses. Have you committed no sins to get your brother released, Marietta?”
“Yes, but I committed each knowingly. I didn’t delude myself into thinking myself blameless. I didn’t withhold information from you that was vital.”
