The Damsel and the Daggerman

.10.



She made him wait.



Back in her conveyance, she refilled Brutus’s tank with clockwork oil, added to her caravan notes and stored them in a new pigeonhole, and, much to her own annoyance, primped in front of the mirror, making sure she looked ravishing but not as if she were trying too hard. She’d put on her fancier corset that morning, along with the new style of stockings she’d picked up in Paris. Even if it was wishful thinking, she’d found over the years that wearing fancy underpinnings gave her the confidence she needed to face up to anything from roaring bludmares to charging warriors in buffalo chariots.



With an odd little twinge of surprise, she realized that she had abandoned completely the idea that he might be guilty. Even without hearing his side of it, even knowing him only a few short days, she felt, bone deep, that he had not committed the crime for which he’d been accused. With renewed determination, she set out for his wagon and the answers she kept forgetting she needed.



She knocked on the door of his trailer first, but he didn’t answer, and she wasn’t willing to break in again, especially during daylight. Slipping past the clockwork bird was no problem, and she was soon exchanging pleasantries around the circled wagons, caught between wanting to win over the carnivalleros and wanting to get close enough to Marco to feel the ripple of acknowledgment her body seemed to experience every time he was near.



She found him by the target, throwing the knives with his usual offhand brand of lazy concentration. Waiting a respectful distance away, she admired his perfectly coordinated movements and the snap of his forearm that sent each silver missile thudding into the target. He didn’t acknowledge her until he’d thrown his last knife.



“Found something better to keep your hands occupied?” His playful smirk was back, so full of promise that she cocked her hips and licked her lips on instinct.



“As much as I hate to leave things unfinished, my time is too valuable to waste. I like playing games as much as the next girl, but I prefer to play to checkmate and have at least a few pieces to move around as I wish.”



“Talking in metaphors. That’s cute.”



“As a button.”



He’d collected all of his knives from the target by then, sliding all but one into their slots on his vest. Walking toward her slowly, he twirled the last one in the air. She wore an expression of bored expectation, but inside, her heart was racing, her toes curling in her boots.



“You ready to try this again?”



She glanced around, one eyebrow raised. “I’d prefer somewhere more private, if you don’t mind.”



“Damn, woman. You’ve got a one-track mind. I meant target practice.” He jerked his chin at the target.



She grinned to keep from showing her disappointment. “Same rules?”



“I’m upping the ante. Twelve knives, one question. You in?”



Jacinda took a deep breath, studying the painted shape on the target.



“Let me get this straight. You want me to let you strap me to a spinning target and hold still while you throw not one knife but an entire dozen? And in return, I get to ask one measly question, which you might or might not answer to my satisfaction?”



He took her hand gently and led her to the target. When he placed her palm against the shiny wood, her insides shuddered with recognition at the last time he had placed her hand, just so.



“You’re good at what you do. Trust that I’m good at what I do. There’s not a single cut in that wood that I didn’t mean to put there. It’s not as dangerous as you think it is. But I need a live assistant, and you need incentive.”



“Incentive?”



“If you want the truth, you have to work for it. You’re a woman who needs an occupation. And I think you like the excitement.”



With a raised eyebrow, she took her hand off the wood and faced him head-on. Putting her palm on his chest with the same gentle pressure he had used on her, she softly said, “You want to tell me the truth, don’t you? But something’s holding you back.”



He looked down at her hand, considering. “Tell yourself whatever you need to hear. But you’ve got two choices: play by my rules, or go interview the lizard boy about his acid spit. You’re the one who wants something here.”



She ran her hand down his chest, hooking a single finger into his belt. “You don’t want anything?”



He pulled her hand away. “Step up or keep walking, woman.”



She detected bitterness, but she also understood that this was a dangerous dance. He wasn’t just toying with her; any misstep on her part could cause him to shut down completely. She wasn’t accustomed to jumping through hoops for a man, to dancing around rules or playing games. But she knew that she would forever regret it if she didn’t find out the truth about Marco Taresque. So she stepped up, right onto the platforms, the wood against her back a familiar caress.



“Strap me in, will you?”



He obliged, silent as he gently tightened the leathers around her ankles, her waist, and, this time, both wrists. When he knelt to pin down her skirts, she waited, breathless, to feel his hands brush her legs. Because the game was so very tenuous, her senses were on alert, desperate for his attention. It was maddening. And intoxicating. When the pad of his thumb caressed her calf, the heat in her cheeks told her that he was right: she needed the thrill of this man and his knives.



For the flash of a few heartbeats, he disappeared behind the target, and then she was spinning slowly, wondering whether the drop in her belly was from gravity or from the man staring at her as if she was the only thing on earth.



“Six knives.”



He stopped twirling one and cocked his head. “What?”



“Twelve is insane. I want a question for six knives.”



“You can’t change the terms that you’ve already agreed to.” He walked up closer, close enough for her to count the holes in the buttons on his pants when she was upside down. “For the love of all that’s holy, woman. You’re strapped to a target. I could come at you with a hatchet, and you couldn’t do a damn thing about it.”



“But you won’t.”



“Just because I’m a gentleman doesn’t mean I’m about to let you tell me how things are going to be.”



“Eight knives.”



He chuckled and turned away, walking back to his bare patch of ground. She was so riveted with the progression that she very nearly forgot that deadly steel would soon be flying at her body with only the meager armor of her corset, and that only protected her vitals and her heart. Her head, arms, and legs were utterly vulnerable. And she didn’t know how many knives he would throw, although she swore to herself that it would be fewer than twelve, because she was betting he was an honorable man with a soft spot, somewhere under the dark clothes and darker eyes.



With a smirk that echoed down all of her own soft spots, he said, “This time, don’t move.”



She barely stopped herself from saying, Yes, sir.



The first knife surprised her, slamming into the wood by her hip. They came in quick succession after that, none of them coming close enough to really frighten her. She sensed he was going easy on her, that he could have outlined her every curve with steel had he so chosen, the blades pressing against her with the tenderness of fingertips. But they were all crowded in the vast plains of red and white rings between her arms and her body. She lost count, but as he walked toward her, she noticed three knives still in his hands.



“Nine?”



“It’s a square number.”



He disappeared behind the machine, and she giggled.



When he stood before her again, he asked, “What?”



The machine slowed to a stop, and he turned the target until she was head up. “Nothing. You just didn’t strike me as a mathematician.”



“Woman, what you don’t know about me could fit in a Kraken’s belly.”



“I know. That’s why I let you throw nine knives at me. Now I get a question. What really happened that night?”



“That’s too broad. Like wishing for a million wishes.”



“You never said I couldn’t ask a perfectly reasonable question.”



He said nothing, simply pulled the knives out around her. She felt exposed and ridiculous and realized suddenly that she hadn’t given any thought to her question. The first time she had asked him where the body was, and he had told her there was no body. Which meant she’d asked the wrong question.



“Where is Petra?”



“I have no idea.”



The answer came quickly, and in a flash, he was behind her, turning on the machine. The target began to spin again and, with it, her mind. She couldn’t concentrate with him staring at her, so she closed her eyes and wracked her brain as the knives landed, one after the other, in the wood around her.



Thwack.



There was no body.



Thwack.



He didn’t know where Petra was.



Thwack.



That meant his ex-assistant had to be alive.



Thwack.



But if she was alive, where had the blood come from? He said he’d never drawn blood.



Thwack.



And why had he run, if there had been no crime? Why would he tell no one the truth?



Thwack.



She’d read every word of the newspaper, gone through her archives. There was no mention of the name Marco Taresque, not even on the broadsheets.



Thwack.



And Letitia wouldn’t have let Marco stay if she’d seen anything unsafe in his past or his future. And she wouldn’t have let Jacinda herself stay had she seen danger.



Thwack.



She was missing something.



Thwack.



Her skirts felt oddly tight, and she opened her eyes and looked down. The last knife quivered between her thighs, piercing the layers of her skirts and drawing the cloth tightly over her legs.



“What—”



His mouth quirked up in a hungry, amused smile as she spun around slowly, and she pinned her lips together before the words escaped her and she stupidly wasted a question. What on earth are you trying to do? was not the question she’d suffered near impalement to ask.