“We can never bother our betters.”
Frustration bent her brows. I felt little sympathy. The bile was too immense, all I could do was spew it forth.
“Is that how you see me? As someone who thinks herself better?”
“Do you not? You think yourself better than feckless Ferris. Better than hapless Kennen. Better than your wastrel parents. Tarred by your own tongue as judgmental and harsh.”
The scathing condemnation came so easily. Inflicting pain beyond my own. I ruthlessly crushed the knowledge that I was hurting her. She was of the upper class. She had betrayed me. She had pretended to care.
Why had I believed it? Why had I let myself think she might care for me? I was tainted.
“Nothing to say, Marietta?”
She lifted her chin. “You are right, of course. I am judgmental. And at times harsh. But I’m not a liar.”
“Never?”
“I prefer frankness, even in my tactless,harshmanner.”
“How refreshing.” The skin along my wrist went tight.
“Then let me befrank. How did I come to be at your door? It was not a coincidence. How did you convince Frostwood to send me your way?”
An unsettling sensation fell over me, a shadow I had missed. Pieces clicking together, just out of sight.
“I haven’t spoken to him in months. You came to me of your own free will. Unless you will lay that too at my feet. Have I overcome your will?” I leaned forward, looking at her through my lashes, cocking my head. “Made you do anything you didn’t want to do?”
Her eyes hardened. “You use your sexuality well, Gabriel. It is hard to escape. Hard to avoid. You are good. Too good. Your teachers taught you well.”
Anger, fear, and something darker coiled in my gut. It seemed we were both willing to get dirty in this game.
“Didn’t you know?” she asked. “You look surprised. Sick, even.” Grim satisfaction edged her short smile. “You didn’t know you were using all the tactics they taught you? Using them and hating yourself evenmorefor it.”
I stilled.
“You didn’t.” Her breath hitched. “Did you just expect that your self-loathing, your obvious hatred of the responses you receive from women, was motivated by—what?” The grim satisfaction turned to pity then hardened once more. “Well, Gabriel?”
“You have no idea of what you speak.”
“Don’t I?” She laughed, no humor in the sound. “Everything became as clear as the peal of a spring bell when I realized who you were. Who the man in thejournalwas. Octavia Winstead knew you well.”
“She knewnothing.” The household spells spiked. The book flew from her grasp, crashing against the wall. I heard the spine break. “She knew how to terrify little boys. She knew nothing about me.”
Marietta swallowed and looked down. An odd sound registered. My own harsh breathing.
“Did you murder those women, Gabriel?”
“Right now, I wish I had! But why would Igivethem that power over me? Iruinedthem. I made themlivewith it.”
I tossed her pistol on the table. “Leave, if that is what you wish—little rich girl gone poor and tattered. I’ll get your brother out of prison. After that, nothing more.”
I didn’t know how I got from the room.
~*~
MARIETTA
He slammed the door so hard it clicked from its lock.
