The Damsel and the Daggerman

Remembering the momentary flick of his fingers that had sent a knife hurtling toward her body and recalling the split second when she couldn’t tell if she’d been hit or not, she shook her head. “I need to be fully functional, thanks. It takes two hands to do what I do best.”



He smothered a laugh. “Are you saying you doubt my skills?”



“No. But I do doubt the proximity of a well-trained chirurgeon, should something go wrong.”



“I’ve never drawn blood, you know.”



She looked up sharply; he’d divulged more than he had meant to. But Jacinda knew well enough how to lure a witness into confidence, into revealing more. So she calmly pulled out another knife.



“I’ve heard it called the impalement arts.” She stood, three knives in her glove, holding them out with a welcoming smile. “But it doesn’t seem like much impalement actually occurs. At least, not if you’ve any talent.”



Had he been drinking just then, he might have choked, but as it was, he cleared his throat and took the knives, one by one, his fingers lightly dragging across her gloved palm.



“There’s more than one way to be impaled, Miss Harville.”



One fair red eyebrow rose. “It’s Mrs. Harville. So yes, I know all about that.”



The knives slid, one by one, into their loops with a whisper of cloth.



“You’re a very singular girl.” He paused to stare at her lips. “Mrs. Harville.”



He stepped closer, his presence a dark wall. She didn’t move but tilted her head to look up at him. With careful fingers, she slid a knife out of its loop on his shoulder and drew it gently down his shirt, knowing he would barely feel it but enjoying the scratch of steel against cloth and the feeling of slight rebellion against a man who billed himself as the most dangerous thing around.



“You’re just accustomed to girls. I’m a woman. There’s a difference.”



With a quick flick of his knife, she popped off his top button. It flew into the night, landing somewhere in the dry grass, not that he bothered looking for it. In a flash, he caught her wrist in a steel grip that didn’t hurt so much as warn. As he slipped the knife out of her grasp, he leaned close to whisper, “Keep playing games with me, if you like. I know some games, too.”



Jacinda’s pulse was racing, and she realized she was up on tiptoes, waiting to see what he would do next. But he simply put the knife back and returned to his work, collecting the rest of his instruments until he was fairly bristling again. When he ducked around behind the backdrop, she followed him into the shadows. He turned on the machine, and Jacinda stepped back from the suddenly shuddering and twirling spears of metal.



“Let’s say I want to play,” she said, voice pitched low. “Let’s say I agree to play by your rules.”



His eyes raked her from hem to hat. “I have a show to put on. Now is not the time for distractions.”



“Think about it, then. Because I’m not giving up. You might as well have some fun, being pestered to death.”



The moment built, heavy and dark, the clockworks’ ticking as inescapable as sand in an hourglass. Voices began to gather on the other side of the backdrop, and Marco pressed another button to start up the fanfare. His eyes didn’t leave hers as he checked his bandanna, ran fingertips over the knives, and reached into a wooden crate for two round, paper-wrapped packets that smelled of powder and magic.



“Crowd’s gathering. You’re stuck, sweetness. You’ll have to wait out the show back here.”



“Oh, no. Time to myself in the dark with a bunch of well-oiled machinery. Whatever will I do?”



That surprised him. With the smoke bombs in each hand, Marco couldn’t reach out, couldn’t step too close or touch her or even shove her away. He glanced from Jacinda to the backdrop as if weighing his chances. Before he could say something dismissive or discourage her further, she stepped forward, curled her fingers into his shirtfront, and kissed him with the controlled passion only a very experienced woman could handle under the circumstances. He was helpless to do anything but take her kiss, his mouth warm and his jaw rasping against her cheek as she ran her tongue past his lips with playful possession.



“I’ll be right here. Not distracting you. Try not to hurt yourself out there.”



Carefully transferring both smoke bombs to the same hand, he turned his back to her and made adjustments to his costume with a long, shaky sigh. She smirked to herself. If the key to finding out Marco’s past was to keep him slightly confused by constant sexual tension, then she was going to enjoy this story quite a bit.



“What a way to go,” he said under his breath as he stepped around the backdrop.



Jacinda sat on the edge of a crate, the clockwork dog a still and solid presence at her side. She absentmindedly ran a hand over its boxy head and down its metal spine. She was a woman who appreciated a dangerous creature that could be harnessed but never tamed.



And when Marco was done with his show, she decided, she would have a little surprise for him, too.



.8.



As soon as the show was over, Jacinda slipped out with the crowd, darting among the shadows with the dog in her wake. She’d said, “I’ll be right here,” but she’d failed to mention how long she would stay there. Although she wasn’t sure exactly how Marco appeared and disappeared with his smoke bombs, she wanted to keep him guessing, out of power. Thus far, he had admitted to never having drawn blood, and the offhand delivery suggested that he had been telling the truth. What, then, had happened to his assistant? Why had there been so much gore?



Walking the caravan against the flow of the crowd, Jacinda had never felt more alone. She’d traveled with Liam for so long and had grown so accustomed to his nearness that even a year later, she would find herself turning with a smile to whisper something or reaching for a hand that was no longer there. At least she’d traded in their larger conveyance for her small one, a private space unhaunted by her late husband’s presence.



She knew that returning to Marco’s act would be a mistake, would make her seem desperate. And she had promised Criminy she wouldn’t interfere with his caravan during showtime. But the charms of the circus seemed tawdry to her at night, when she had a goal to accomplish. The people behind the glitter and paint were far more interesting to her than their magic-spiced acts. If she would move among them, she wanted to know them by light of day and not, as everyone else did, after dark had fallen and the lights had gone up. She wanted the stories of the people behind the show. The truth was more interesting than the artifice.



Try as she might, she couldn’t stop thinking about Marco’s lips, the rasp of his cheek, the cut of his shoulders, the chasm of his eyes. He reminded her of a vein of ore she’d seen in a mine in Africa. Just a few glimmers aboveground hinted at the glittering depths and crystal caverns below. She didn’t usually favor the strong and silent type, much less the darkly dangerous type. But she suspected that he hid the best parts of himself and let the world see only the surface. If he was as razor-fine inside as he was on the outside, it would be worth her while to dig. At the very least, she would enjoy trading kisses and winning his story from him bit by bit, if that was what it took. The book was still her goal, but a scoop that would rock London and the chance to exonerate an innocent man—well, she wouldn’t have turned that down, even if she hadn’t been personally drawn to the subject.



Walking around the perimeter of the caravan, she felt rather the flâneuse, the only person outside of the joy and wonder. She wasn’t surprised when her feet brought her right back to Marco’s trailer. The crowd had thinned as the night grew colder, and the only people left were a trio of troublesome boys conferring about whether or not to nick one of Marco’s knives from the backdrop.



“Shoo, you little creeps.”



They straightened and turned on her, wearing snarls. “Bugger off, lady.”



Jacinda smirked. “Brutus, exsanguinate.”



As soon as the metal dog turned in their direction, the boys scrambled away, and with a roll of her eyes at the foolishness of lads, Jacinda began the work of collecting Marco’s knives. It was always better to have work than to sit around, empty-handed and empty-headed, so far as she knew. She wasn’t tall enough to reach the very highest blades, but she had two handfuls of bristling steel as she rounded the corner of the backdrop.



Strong hands found her waist, swinging her around until her back was against the wood. Brutus lunged forward with a metallic growl.



“Brutus, disengage.”



The dog froze in place, but Marco hadn’t shifted his grip for even a moment. She was on full alert, the wood cold against her back, his hands warm on the narrow waist of her corset. With fingers carefully curled around the blades, she felt helpless. But there was something strangely lovely about it.



“Doing my dirty work for me, sweetness?”



“I like to be useful.”



“I know a good way to use you.”



She lifted her face, her mouth slightly open and waiting. But he held her there, looking down with a teasing sort of smile. “Now’s the part where you kiss me,” she whispered, and he chuckled and bent, ever so slowly, to taste her lips.



Jacinda savored his patience, the warmth of his mouth moving against hers with complete mastery and control. One of his hands left her waist to cup her jaw, just so, and she was surprised to find bare skin where suede should have been. His palm was warm and broad, his thumb stroking her cheekbone possessively as the other hand pressed the corset’s stays into her hip. He opened her mouth with his lips, his tongue darting in, gentle and hot, making shivers run up and down her spine to pool in her belly.



She’d kissed plenty of men since she’d lost Liam, in part to help her forget. Because each man tasted and moved so differently, she’d never had any trouble letting lust overtake her behind closed eyes. She’d never felt anything for any of them, mostly younger men who could appreciate a woman’s body without delving deeper into her heart and mind. But their first kisses had always been fast and sloppy, passionate and rushed, as if she might suddenly change her mind and leave them wanting. Not that she minded—she liked the frantic hunger, liked the distraction of the intoxicating frenzy. Marco, on the other hand, refused to let her set the pace, defied her haste with hands that wouldn’t budge from their places and a tongue determined to enjoy a deep taste before moving on.