“I don’t remember the night I”—he swallowed, finding it hard to say the words—“held a knife to your throat.”There.Best to get the words out.A reminder.To her.To him.“Not much anyway.My head hurts thinking about it.I’d been using a potion that simulated glamours.Badly.I’d been smoking opium.I’d been drinking from the moment I woke up until I didn’t remember anything.Better not to remember I didn’t exist anymore.”
“You did exist.I felt the blade.”
A black void inside him threatened to swallow him whole.Somehow he kept it back.“But…” How to explain it?“If you suddenly found out you were not Sybil Grant, that you were, in fact, Mary Sullivan instead, what would you do?”
“I don’t know.I suppose I’d find out who Mary Sullivan is, and if she’s very different from Sybil Grant.”
“Yes, well,youare intelligent.”
“Ah.I see.You found out you are Mary Sullivan.”She took a drink of the wine and handed the bottle over.“But Mary was a stranger to you.”
“Precisely.Only I did not think about finding out who Mary Sullivan is.I obsessed over bringing the Marquess of Fordham back, even though he didn’t exist anymore.I want you to know”—but didn’t know why he wanted her to know—“I don’t blame the opium and potions.Not really.Everything I did was my fault.It’s why… after that night…” He closed his eyes.He’d never told anyone this.Had hoped to go to the grave with no one else finding out.“I asked your brother to kill me.”
She inhaled, a soft little gasp as she tilted her face to him.Pale still, mostly, cheeks flushed warm from the wine.“He didn’t.Clearly.”
“A great difficulty for him.But apparently becoming a murderer didn’t suit him as well as it suited me.”
“I’m glad he refused.”
“Bah.”He crossed his arms and glared at the ceiling.
“I am!How would I have made it out of the dungeon if you’d been in the ground?I mean, in a graveyard.We were both in the ground at the moment, just—” She sighed.“I think I’m drunk.”
“That was the goal.”He placed the bottle on the floor by the bed.“You would have figured a way out of there on your own.Eventually.”
“Perhaps.I’m still glad you’re alive.”
And what did one say to that?So was he.But he wouldn’t have thought anyone else was.“I think I’m drunk, too.”
She squeezed his arm, digging the tip of her chin into his shoulder.“You’ve shrunk.Your shirt fits now.”
But he wasn’t shrinking everywhere.Not with her curled up beside him.Not with those hazy blue eyes blinking at him and her breasts pressed innocently against his arm.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed.“I should leave.”
She caught his wrist.“Please don’t.”
He returned, stretched out on the mattress beside her, stared at the ceiling.His brain was buzzing.His body was eager.The wine had primed him for something that would never happen.
She laid down beside him, their bodies parallel, touching only lightly along the arms.“Thank you for helping me find a doctor today.”
He grunted.“I caused the injury.”
“That’s taking a lot of credit for an accident.”After a pause, she said, “It was nice to have someone take care of me today.I’ll be sure to tell Temple you took extra good care of me.”Another pause.Then: “I know that’s… that’s why you did it.You don’t want my brother to kill you, so you carried me all the way to a doctor and?—”
“That’s not why I did it.”
A rustle.He couldn’t bring himself to look at her, but he felt her regarding him.“Why then?”
“Because… You’re…” Something squirmed inside him.“Oh, hell.I can’t say.I did it for you, I suppose.Because we’re… I mean, I suppose you could call us— Shit.”
“Friends?”
“That.Yes.That’s fine.”
“Apollo, will you kiss me?”
He held his breath, unable to look away from her upturned face.
