Page 36 of Caging Darling (The Lost Girl #3)
CHAPTER 36
“ A re you certain you’re ready for this, Darling?”
Astor and I are in an alley in Kahlia, the city in which Vulcan’s manor resides. One of the Nomad’s henchmen drove us here in a carriage and dropped us off. We’re several blocks away from the manor, the idea being that Vulcan’s guards won’t be able to follow the carriage of the newcomers back to the sea, and then to the Gathers.
“Last I checked, I was never the one nervous about this plan.” It’s not true, not at all, but I’ve been dealt so few upper hands in my life, and I don’t have the restraint to keep from playing it.
“Are you claiming I care for you, Darling?”
“I don’t have to do much claiming, do I, considering how quickly you opposed the idea of putting me in harm’s way?”
Astor’s green eyes flick upward, pinning me through his long black eyelashes. “I wasn’t trying to deny it. I just wanted to hear from your lips that you know I care.”
Irritation and another emotion I don’t care to acknowledge has the hairs on my arms standing up. I yank on my shawl over my evening gown to mask my body’s reaction. “I fear you’ve lost the privilege of claiming that.”
Astor stares at me. “In that case, our fears are aligned.”
Heat creeps up my exposed chest. Thinly made would be a generous description for the gown the Nomad gifted me for the occasion. When I’d told him as much, he’d shrugged and reminded me that if I wanted to act the part, I needed to dress for it as well.
Astor’s eyes land on the splotches at my chest, but his gaze doesn’t dip further than my clavicle, despite there being plenty on display. His restraint fills me with a mixture of warring emotions. Aching, because of the respect he continues to demonstrate toward me, refusing to see me as something to be valued because of the vessel I came in. Shame, because I can’t help but wonder if in the end, I’m simply not all that tempting to him. Not to keep, certainly, but not even to look.
“May I ask you something?”
“May?” I repeat, incredulous.
“I’m trying out a new vocabulary. It’s at Charlie’s recommendation.”
I wait.
“You seemed less than eager earlier to assist the Nomad in finding your faerie friend. Why help now?”
I scratch at the back of my neck. “It’s not as if I have much choice in the matter.”
“Yet you’ve resisted its pull this long.”
I shake my head and choose to stare at an oblong brick in the alley wall. “My time is running out. Besides, it’s more difficult to resist the closer I am to the Nomad.”
“You were going to let yourself die, Darling, before you gave her up. Why go along with the plan now?”
I snap my neck back. “Why ask?”
“Because if you’re planning on sabotaging us in there, I need to know in advance.”
My stomach clenches at his challenging stare. “It was different, when I assumed she was free. If it’s true that Vulcan has her…well, whatever the Nomad has planned, I can’t imagine it’s a worse fate.”
A chill runs over my entire body at the thought of Vulcan’s touch, his wet kiss in the carriage right before a horse had run into it and wrecked it. I’d hoped Vulcan was dead. But I rarely get what I hope for, so I don’t know why I assumed he was.
“So it’s the lesser of two evils for her, then.”
“You’re not exactly in a position to judge,” I snap. Not after you planned to trade me for your dead wife, is what I don’t say. But I don’t have to. Astor shifts on his feet, and it might just be a trick of the light, but I think I catch his neck reddening. “Besides, I’ve lived my entire life having to pick between the lesser of two evils. Between degrees of pain. I’m rather experienced by this point.”
Astor glances up at me from where he’s shrugging off his overcoat and replacing it with a slick tailcoat. “And if there was an option that wouldn’t hurt?”
I open my mouth to answer, but the way he’s staring at me as if he’s not talking about Tink anymore has me swallowing and turning away. “We both know no such option exists.”
Astor doesn’t argue with me. The pitiful part of me wishes he would.
As I fidget with my shawl, tugging it tighter around me as I swivel back and forth in the cold, Astor says, “I know I hurt you, Darling.”
My heart hammers in my chest. “Do you?” I ask. “Do you really know?”
“No. No, I don’t. But I’d listen while you delivered a detailed account.”
I blink back tears and draw close to the alley wall, running my fingers over the grainy bricks, feeling the divots of grout underneath my fingertips. “I thought you would have been cleverer than that. Could have figured it out yourself.”
Footsteps pad against the cobblestone. When Astor sighs, his warm breath just barely grazes the back of my neck. “I let my obsession with bringing Iaso back warp how I saw you. I was selfish, and it led me to treat you like a commodity.”
I frown, because it’s still not enough. Because he still doesn’t get it.
“Darling, please. Just tell me how I can fix it.”
Pain cracks my ribs. “I’m afraid you can’t do that.” Because John is already dead. I’ve already taken up residence in Peter’s bed. I’m bound as a slave to him for the rest of my life, and there’s no way out for me. Even if I didn’t hate Astor for what he did to me, even if I forgave him, there’s no fixing it. No fixing us.
No fixing me.
Astor is buttoning his sleeves with the golden clasps at his wrists. When he gets to the right sleeve, he hesitates. He blinks twice and swallows.
“Here,” I say, grabbing his sleeve and pushing the button through the clasp with my thumb. The side of my left hand grazes his wrist, just barely. My hands are usually covered by my gloves, but tonight they are bare, my arms wrapped in black ribbons from my wrists to my biceps. Astor’s skin is warm, and at the edge of my finger, I can feel the hair on his forearm.
“Thank you,” he says, though he doesn’t draw his hand away when I’m done.
I glance up at him. His green eyes land on my face softly. Tenderly. My heart uses my ribcage like a ladder. Realizing I’m still clinging to his sleeve, I cough, dropping it like I might a cast-iron pan I’d recognized too late was still hot.
“Well,” I say, wiping my palms on the waistline of my coat, “it’s the least I can do, considering.” I gesture with my chin toward his hook, and the captain presses his lips together, pinning down an amused smirk.
“Your turn,” says the captain, gesturing to my satchel. I nod and dig through it, procuring a mask. It’s blood-red, to match Astor’s coat. To send a message.
That I belong to him. Until enough money passes hands, of course.
I draw the mask to my face and feel it settle against my cheekbones, covering my Mating Mark. I already applied cosmetics to my jawline and neck, thinking the entire time of Astor’s thumb against my jaw the night we met.
You missed a spot.
I shouldn’t, but I wish I could return to that moment. Back when Astor was the captivating stranger who stole my breath, but not my heart.
As I go to tie the ribbons behind my head, I realize my fingers are trembling from the cold. After a few minutes of attempting, Astor impatiently tapping his foot, he whips behind me, grabbing the ribbons with his right hand. “Allow me, please. Unless you’d prefer to freeze to death.”
“How are you going to tie my mask when you couldn’t even button your own sleeve?” I ask.
But a moment later, the mask goes taut against the back of my skull, and Astor steps back in front of me, an amused smirk on his face. “I’ve become quite adept at doing menial tasks one-handed,” he explains.
I glance at his sleeve button. “But…”
The corner of Astor’s mouth twitches. “I did so enjoy your help, Darling.”