The Damsel and the Daggerman

It only took one breath, and she knew.



“If you didn’t do what they accused you of doing, why won’t you tell the truth?”



He switched the target off and spun her upside down. All the blood rushed to her head, and she found her mouth inches away from his thighs. She was about to ask him what the hell he was doing, again, but she knew: he was trying to confuse her, muddle her senses, keep her off balance. It was the same tactic she was using on him.



He sat on his haunches and leaned close to whisper, “Because a man has his pride.”



“Pride? Your pride is worth allowing the world to think you a murderer?”



He spun her right-side up and began to collect his knives as she went over woozy.



“Is that your next question? Because I can throw the knives faster, if you like. My aim is actually better when I remove my mind from the equation.”



“You’re being purposefully evasive.”



“You want something I don’t want to give. You’re lucky I haven’t taken off for the hills.”



“Why haven’t you, then?”



He stepped close, wrapping a fist around the knife he’d thrown through her skirts. His knuckles brushed her body, making her shudder, and he held his hand there, warm and solid, his wrist against the tender curve inside her thigh.



“Because you’re like an itch I can’t scratch. I keep telling myself to disappear.” He leaned even closer, his mouth near her ear and her hands pinned, unable to reach out in any way. “And yet I keep coming back for more.”



She shuddered, licked her lips. “For which I’m glad. Gladder still if you came closer.”



“I told you from the start: I can’t give you the things you think you want.”



He jerked the knife out of the wood, and the target shuddered against her back. That blade had gone deeper than most.



“Are you going to let me down?”



“Depends. You want one more question?”



She nodded, hoping that he would throw that knife again, so close to where she wanted other sorts of impalement. Instead of turning on the machine to spin her, however, he walked to his usual spot and said, “Really, this time, don’t move. Not a hair.”



“What are you going to do?”



His grin was fatal. “I don’t think you want to know.”



Before she could protest, a knife thunked into the wood, right against her ribs, touching her corset. Then another on the opposite side. Then one on each side of her waist. Then around her hips, the flat blades a whisper, a leaning away from her dress. Two more around her thighs, then her knees. The penultimate knife thudded beside her left ankle, and the last one glittered briefly in the weak sun before quivering in the wood beside her right ankle. But something was wrong. It burned.



“Marco . . . I think . . .”



Blood bloomed in the green of her dress, and she tried to pull her leg away, but the blade was firmly stuck. With the skirts in the way, she couldn’t see what exactly had happened, but the pain was radiating out. It was clear enough he’d struck her, for all his bravado.



“Oh, sweet Ermenegilda.”



He was beside her in seconds, yanking out the knife and unbuckling her, ankles first, then waist, then wrists. She all but fell into his arms, the blood drained from her arms and legs.



“Is it bad? I can’t see anything. It stings.”



Marco glanced around before carefully placing her on the crate where she’d once taken his carved pins from Demi and left all but one behind. He released her as if she might break, and she curled fingers around the splintered wood and tried to make the world stop spinning. He fell to his knees, running his hands up her ankles without asking permission and pressing the place that burned.



“It’s not as bad as it might have been. Dammit, woman. You’re too pretty. It’s distracting.”



He held back her skirts, and she leaned over to see a cut just above her boot top, her new stockings sliced neatly and blooming with blood. She’d had a lot worse. But she was shaken by the combination of excitement, fear, pain, and the strange sensation of having all of the blood in her feet and nethers instead of in her brain and fingers where it belonged.



“Let me fix it up for you. Can you walk to the cassowarrel? Stupid clockwork guards shouldn’t be on during the day.”



With a shaking hand, she reached into her pocket and pulled out her disruptor. “I’m in a hurry. Let’s make trouble.”



He shrugged and stood, putting his arm around her to help her hobble to the nearest clockwork, a gangly giraffe that she froze with one jolt of blue sparks. They struggled past the automaton and around the corner of the wagon to Marco’s door. Her ankle was bleeding down her stocking and into her boot, and it stung, and she had trouble getting the disruptor back into her pocket. By the time she paid any attention to her surroundings, he was closing the door behind her and helping her onto the couch. He’d soon pulled a stool up and fetched an old wooden cigar box. Without asking, he picked up her damaged leg and laid it across his lap.



After rolling back her skirt, he unlaced her boot and slipped it off, seemingly unaware of the effect his businesslike touches were having on her body. Taking the thin silk stocking in two hands, he tore the rip wider, exposing her calf and the freely bleeding cut that she no longer really felt, thanks to his closeness.



“I don’t think it needs stitches. Do you?”



“Hmm?”



He palmed the back of her head, directing her gaze down to her own leg. “Stitches. Do you want them?”



“Not particularly.”



He chuckled and dabbed at the wound with a clean handkerchief. “It’s refreshing, a woman not losing her guts over a little cut.”



She slipped farther down on the sofa, enjoying the strength of his hands. He’d shed his gloves at some point, and she felt the heat of his touch, not to mention every move of his body as he cleaned off the wound.



“One time in Freesia,” she began, “we were beset by a peacock and a unicorn—they work together, you know. As the men fought the unicorn, the peacock went for me. Although I’d heard their beaks were razor-sharp, I didn’t quite believe it until he was licking the blood from my arm with his black tongue. That cut was far deeper than this one.” She held up her arm, rolling back her sleeve to show a white scar cutting across her forearm.



“What happened next?”



“I beat him to death with my umbrella and put his tail feathers in my hat.”



He sat back, eyed her as if she was edible. “Really?”



“I can show you the hat.”



“So fierce.”



He was still dabbing gently at the cut, and she flicked her eyes to it. It was dry and clean and no longer hurt much at all. But he didn’t stop touching her. “Hold on. I can make this easier for you.”



She bent over, her foot still in his lap, and ran her hands under her skirts to pull the bow that held the stocking up at her thigh. She carefully rolled down the dove-gray silk under cover of the green fabric, smiling coyly as the thin material skimmed over the rip and the cut. His dark eyes widened, his breath catching with a satisfying pause. She pulled off the ruined stocking, tossed it onto the floor, and nestled her bare foot back in his lap. When she resettled herself against the sofa, he gently grasped her ankle, ignoring the wound as his thumbs massaged her arch and the ball of her foot. Her head fell back, a moan escaping her.



“I’m sorry about this, Jacinda.” His voice was low, husky.



“You’re forgiven, provided you keep doing that.”



His hands froze. “I suppose it’s the least I can do.”



She wiggled her toes at him, and he sighed. There was something sad in the sound, some unknowable sense of loss, but she forgot it as soon as his touch changed, his thumb pressing with warm intimacy against the sensitive arch of her foot and running down to the cleft between her toes. With her eyes closed and the welcome but unfamiliar feeling of having one leg completely bare, she gave in to the eddies of warmth and electricity whirling through her.



“I should tell you to leave, woman.”



“You’re not going to.”



“I should pack up and hit the road. Find another caravan to hide in.”



“I’d find you.”



“I should treat you badly. Say cruel things. Set fire to your conveyance.”



“You should kiss me, Marco.”



“I most definitely should not do that.”



“But you want to.”



“What’s wanting got to do with anything?”



She leaned forward, her lips a breath away from his. “You think you’re so tough, don’t you, Marco Taresque?”



He tilted his head, his lips almost brushing hers. “Pretty sure I stabbed you today, and I wasn’t even trying.” He kissed her, lightly, teasingly, pulling back almost instantly. “You should see what I can do when I actually put my mind to it.”



“Oh, I’d like to see that.”



She tried to kiss him, but he pulled away. Her temper flared, but she tamped it down. There had to be some way past his defenses. With a sly smile, she leaned back and slowly unlaced her other boot, kicking it off and slipping her stockinged foot into his lap with the one he still held, cradled in warm, callused palms. It wasn’t difficult for her toes to find what she was looking for, and he groaned, his fingers tightening on her other foot.



“I’m going to be blunt. I want to bed you. It has nothing to do with the story. This is for me.”



She felt the effects of her words under her toes and smiled at the truth he couldn’t hide. He closed his eyes, his mouth falling open deliciously for just a moment before he groaned and stood, dumping her feet angrily on the floor. “I can’t. I flat-out can’t. You think I don’t want to?”



“I know you want to. You certainly seem . . . able. I just don’t know why you won’t.”



“I have my reasons.”



“You’ve already got a girl? You’re married? You took an oath? You’re cursed?”