Page 11 of Caging Darling (The Lost Girl #3)

CHAPTER 11

I don’t know why I’m surprised that Peter’s allowing me out on the town. It’s not nearly the change of heart letting me leave Neverland was.

Then again, Peter doesn’t like to watch me hurt.

And Neverland is strangling me.

I examine the hole-in-the-wall pub he found down the street from our inn. I’d heard the music from a block away, and despite the wickedness clinging to my heart like tar, the fate of little Daisy sticking to my bloodied hands, the music had lifted my heart.

It’s been so long since I’ve heard music. Music that wasn’t from Peter’s flute, lulling me to a dreamless, emotionless sleep. This music is calling to me, soothing yet lively. I didn’t know such a combination was possible. It makes me want to move.

I haven’t wanted to move in so very long.

I’d clung to Peter’s coat and begged him to take me. “Whatever you want, Wendy Darling,” he’d said as if that were close to the truth.

I’m too wrapped up in the music, in the feel of this place, to care all that much.

The band is lovely, their sparkling golden suits shimmering in the faerie lantern light. The woman singing, her voice throaty and seductive, is in a ruby-red ballgown, but her silky black hair and broad smile remind me of Charlie, so I avert my eyes.

Round tables draped in scarlet silk line the walls, men and women gossiping over the rims of faux-crystal glasses, their chatter maneuvering out from behind bared teeth precariously holding their cigars in place.

Then there’s the laughter, as foreign to me as another language. One I’ve heard spoken before, can recognize, but can’t understand.

I’m not sure what gets into me, but I spin toward Peter, who’s standing arms crossed against the wall, and offer my hand. “Dance with me?” It’s more of a plea than anything.

Peter smirks, but he pushes himself off the wall all the same. Takes my hand in his and leads me out onto the floor.

This music is nothing like what my parents would have chosen for entertainment. Not that the purpose of the music was ever entertainment. To them, music’s sole purpose was for elevating status, or perhaps climbing it if you happened to be in search of a spouse.

This music has nothing to do with prestige, and everything to do with movement. There are no pre-planned steps, no patterns to be memorized. In fact, by the way the musicians are glancing at one another with a delight that only comes tied to surprise, I’m fairly certain half of this music is improvised.

I love it.

No steps, no rules, no patterns. Nothing to mess up. Nothing to ruin.

Peter twirls me, and though most in the crowd hand off dance partners throughout each song, Peter keeps a hand on me at all times. There’s no use in being bothered by it.

I’m not bothered by much at all.

A few times during the song, Renslow’s face flashes before my eyes. The moment before the life left his eyes.

The music and dance chase it away, the silk gown Peter stole for me from a tailor’s shop on the way to replace the one stained with Renslow’s blood now flowing like molten gold through the air as I twirl.

“Beautiful,” Peter says, eyes never wandering, though we’ve been dancing through two songs by now.

“What?” I ask.

“You smiling. I thought I’d never see it again.”

I let out a snort. “I smile at you all the time.”

Peter purses one corner of his mouth. “Not like this.”

“Well, maybe you should get me out more often,” I say.

We dance for what feels like hours, until the skin at the tips of my toes peels away, until my feet cramp, begging me to stop.

I don’t stop.

But my body isn’t used to this much physical activity, and my stomach soon begins to cramp.

“Peter, I need to go to the ladies’ room,” I practically have to yell over the music.

Peter’s eyes narrow immediately, his unwillingness to let me out of his sight more than evident. “It’s not a lengthy walk back to the inn.”

“But I’m not ready to go.”

He flashes me a smile. “I’ll walk you back here four times a night if you keep smiling at me like that, Wendy Darling.”

Just then, my stomach turns over, and my cheeks go clammy. Peter must see the blood drain from my cheeks as the urge to relieve myself punches me in the stomach.

I can see the calculation in his face, whether it’s worth it to let me go on myself in a crowd just so he won’t have to let me out of his sight. But when I keel over in pain, he takes me by the hand and steers me toward the pub washrooms.

“Don’t be long,” he tells me, though I can hardly hear him.

Scrambling into the washroom is an ordeal, but by the time I’ve had a movement on the latrine, I no longer feel as if I’m going to collapse. When I reach the basin to clean my hands, a pair of women walk in, chattering excitedly.

“The men here tonight are rather dashing, aren’t they?” asks one, a blonde girl with red-painted cheeks that remind me of the tomatoes Peter grows in his garden.

The other woman stares into the mirror, examining her perfect reflection. She’s tall and curvy, with long silky red hair and pale white skin that almost glimmers, even in the low lighting. I can’t help but wonder if she’s treated it somehow, with the way it sparkles, almost like faerie dust itself.

This woman seems less impressed with their picks for the night. She flits her hand, simultaneously signaling her displeasure and mussing her hair so that it falls in front of her face, partially covering one of her beautiful green eyes. She smiles at herself, admiring her stark, high cheekbones. “They’re fine, I suppose. Nothing like the catch last week.”

The blonde girl giggles, pressing her palms together in front of her bosom. “I do love when sailors come this far into shore.”

The red-headed woman rolls her eyes. “Keep calling them that if it makes you feel better about bedding pirates.”

The blonde girl slaps the other playfully with her beaded bag, and the two women giggle.

But my mind is stuck on one word.

“Pirates are technically sailors, are they not?” asks the blonde girl, refreshing her lip paint in the mirror. “It’s not as though I’m lying to myself.”

“Soon you’ll be going about calling them privateers.”

The blonde girl blushes, gaze far-off, clearly thinking of last week’s dalliance. “Mine didn’t seem all that bad.”

“I’m sure none of them do, until you’re the one with a price on your head and they have a knife to your throat,” says the red-headed one, though it doesn’t seem as if she heeds her own warnings. She more seems like the type to make others feel as if such dalliances are dangerous to heighten the intrigue of her own.

“They’re just doing what they’re told,” says the blonde one, brushing her fair hair behind her ear.

“Well, yours was. Mine was the one giving the orders.”

Jealousy, faint but present all the same, sparks in the blonde girl’s eyes. “What else did you expect from the famous Captain Astor?”