Polly nodded once, her eyes empty.
“Tamir,” Patrick said, “we can send word to Kenton Hill that you’re comin’. They’ll give you a place to sleep.”
Tamir nodded dolefully, touching the wallpaper of his brothel as though he were saying goodbye to an old friend.
“Teddy,” Patrick said next. “Do the honorable thing and be on your way.”
Theodore glared back at him. At least he was man enough to do that. “I’m afraid myhonorcompels me to stay, in case I need to fish Polly from a canal.”
Polly gave him a weak nod of gratitude.
Nina simply stared down at the Stewards’ book.
Patrick wished that she’d say the words and send Theo on his way, save both men from the contest that would soon come.
But she didn’t.
And Theo stayed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVENPATRICK
They were to leave that very evening.
The police would be out in numbers tonight, hoping to corner the earth Charmer.
Patrick checked the barrel of his pistol and counted the bullets. Three missing.
They’d parted to their rooms to redress, Tamir providing them with clothing fit for travel. Before dawn, they’d be gone.
In the hour before, Patrick paced his room, vowing not to go to Nina’s.
He saw her again as she’d been in Rickers, face white, eyes fixed on something far off, the tendons of her neck and hands so taut they threatened rupture. The whole world shaking on its axis.
She was breaking a little more each day, with each new blow. There was no preventing it.
Patrick was accustomed to fixing things. He was a man of solutions, a man who obtained what he wanted.
Lord, if his body didn’t still want hers.
He’d crossed a line with her earlier, so soon after vowing he wouldn’t. He had no trouble admitting he was weak where Nina was concerned. One look from her, and his mind was sprinting ahead to dim lighting, flushed skin, her skirt above her hips, her hips above him, trust be damned. He could feel her weight still. What harm would it do? To have that just once more?
Some things, though, were too broken to be rebuilt. He’d resist the urge to taper his hands to all the cracks and fissures of her in a desperate ploy to salvage what they’d had. Or at least, what he’d imagined they’d had.
I was going to marry her, he thought. God, how deep had she entrenched herself in him? How far would he have to cut to get her out? He’d been stupid with love. Blind with it, just as his mother had said. Hadn’t he felt that miner’s shiver? How quick he’d been to ignore it.
But surely, he hadn’t imagined all of it. He wasn’t so creative that he could have invented feelings where there were none. He’d seen love requited when she’d looked at him. No one, not even Nina Harrow, was that good an actress.
But therein lay the truth of the matter. He would long for her, even as she lied to him. And she would scheme against him, even as she fell for him. Round and round it would go, the web tightening, constricting.
It had to be left alone. Patrick had turned away from the adjoining door, jaw fastened, head shaking a reproach. “Get your wits about you,” he muttered to himself, pulling his shirt over his head and letting it fall to the bed.
He was running a wet cloth over his skin, avoiding the healing flesh on his shoulder, when he heard the door open, Nina’s distinct steps walking through.
Patrick grimaced, made a poor attempt to gather himself, then looked over at her.
And immediately away.
She was still in that fucking dress.
