Written on Your Skin (38 page)

But the silences required by his routine had led to this. He looked at Sanburne now and saw a stranger, and a stranger looked back at him warily, asking for help with no confidence at all that he’d receive it. “I’d appreciate it,” Sanburne added. It was as close as he would ever come to saying please.

And why should he have to say please? They had known each other since boyhood. Phin ran a hand over his eyes. Did his skills so diminish him? He would always regret the applications to which they’d been put, the pain he had inflicted and the death he had dealt. He would carry that regret to his grave. But he had also aided people in his time. And last night, he had saved a life more precious to him than his own. When she had called that a talent worth having, nothing in him had been able to disagree.

Surely regret could exist side by side with hope. An unsheathed knife was not dangerous so long as it was wielded justly, and put to a deserving target. There was no shame in being able to help, and he excelled at what he did. He was a natural. Didn’t she realize that? Why didn’t she trust him?

I will trust you if you trust yourself.

He looked at Sanburne. He’d thought the man childish in his concerns. But wasn’t it the height of childishness to disavow one’s own abilities and sulk in a corner over a past that couldn’t be changed?

“Yes,” he said, testing it out. “No question that I can help.”

Sanburne exhaled, nodding once, and gave him a grateful grin. “Just like old times,” he said.

No, Phin thought. Far better, from now on. Let her dance as close to cliffs as she demanded. He had it in him to catch her if she fell.

Mina sat on a park bench, watching geese graze the bank of the Serpentine. It was noon, and the sun had yet to emerge from behind the clouds; fashionable society was still abed, and she sat waiting for the arrival of a criminal. Bonham had chosen the location very cleverly. Elms flanked the opposite shore of the lake, but a bullet could not travel so far with any accuracy, and on this side, nary a tree grew for cover. The flowerbeds and carefully tended lawns and shrubberies of Rotten Row lay ten minutes distant; the grass here cropped up in sparse patches, too discouraged by foot traffic to grow more ambitiously.

She was nervous. She was armed, a gun hidden beneath her skirts where they spilled across the bench. She was taking action. That was what she had required, and it was the opportunity that Phin had finally offered her.

He was watching. She would not look for him, but the knowledge that his eyes were on her from a distance somewhere made her feel as warm as though she were standing in his embrace. He had left her at the edge of the park and, with a press of her hand, had told her not to glance back. She had gone on tiptoes to kiss him, because the look he gave her brought home what a great leap he was taking; he looked at her as if trying to memorize her face, and the deep breath he’d drawn had made her heart turn over for him.

She would make it through safely. She felt it. A dozen pedestrians strolled past, couples and lone gentlemen, some of them charged to protect her. The manpower and discretion required for this operation had forced Phin to work closely again with Ridland, who’d seemed positively jovial during their morning conference. “I confess,” he’d said over coffee, “I was uncertain at first of the traitor’s identity. But I felt quite relieved when Bonham incriminated himself. Much trickier to pin treason on a peer of the realm.”

A gentleman walking past spared her a sharp look. She avoided his eyes and focused on the geese. But he halted and turned back, approaching her hesitantly. Her heart quickened. It made sense that Bonham would send an emissary, but she had not thought of it. How sloppy of her.

“Forgive me,” the man said. His hair was silvered at his temples, and the skin beneath his chin hung loosely. But he was well dressed, his black chesterfield of a fine cut and quality, and his blue eyes looked more bewildered than conspiratorial. “I do not mean to be forward, but you look so…I must ask you: is it possible that you’re a relation of Mrs. Harriet Collins?”

Her hand slid under her skirts, her sweaty fingers slipping across the butt of the gun. She had not confessed it to Phin, but she half feared she would shoot herself in the leg. She much preferred to hold her weapons than to sit on them. “Yes,” she said. “I’m her daughter. Who are you?”

Her rude address made him blink and clear his throat. “I did not mean to give offense.” His voice was shaking a little, which made her frown. “I know this is most untoward. My name is Robert Thompson. I had the pleasure of her acquaintance once.”

A little shock prickled through her. “Robbie,” she said.

He pressed his lips together for a moment, as though struggling to contain some strong emotion, then cleared his throat. “She spoke of me, then?”

“Yes.” He did not look like anyone’s idea of a hero; his hand, clutching so desperately the gold knob of his cane, was freckled with age, the veins prominent.

But he was still handsome in a slim, unassuming way, and there was a terrible dignity in the way he squared his shoulders and nodded. Mama had not done right by him. She had fallen in love with him at a country house party and accepted his suit in private, only to jilt him a week later, without a word of warning. A richer prospect had appeared on her horizon, and ever since, she had regretted reaching for it. “She spoke of you often,” Mina said softly.

“Spoke?” Now alarm made him pale. “Is she—”

“No,” she said. Pray God not. The thought drew her back to the moment. He must leave, and quickly. If Bonham spotted her in company, he might not approach. “A pleasure to have made your acquaintance,” she said, and forced her eyes back to the geese.

But in the periphery of her vision, he lingered, staring at her with a sort of helpless wonder. “She spoke of me,” he said. “I have—I have never forgotten her. Please tell her that, won’t you? If you can take pity on a stranger, who will regret his forwardness in an hour and rue it ever after.”

His hushed words spoke far more than that. Some love does not fizzle, Mama. She blinked rapidly against a misplaced surge of emotion. “Yes,” she managed. “Yes, I will tell her.”

“Thank you,” he said, and turned away.

From the corner of her eye she watched him go, marveling. His hand had been bare of rings. What did that signal? Had he never married? Some Englishmen did not wear wedding rings, but surely, if he had a wife, a man so concerned with manners would not have shared such a message?

All at once, she became aware that she was no longer alone on the bench. Her hand closed on the pistol butt. A soft breath touched her neck, lifting the hairs at her nape. She turned, and something hard came into her ribs.

“Unclasp it very slowly,” said Bonham. He smelled strongly of sweat, and his beard was well on the way to a tangle.

She lifted her hand and shoved her own gun against his belly. “A standoff,” she said hoarsely.

His eyes were no less green than she’d remembered; the eyes of a poet, a visionary. They locked on hers. “All right,” he said slowly. “I throw mine away, and you do the same.”

She hoped Phin was watching closely. “Very far away.”

He nodded. “On the count of three. One…two…three.”

His pistol went flying, a splash announcing its arrival in the Serpentine. Her own aim was not so good; her weapon landed on the bank.

She rose, and he did as well, in one sudden move that left her no time to spot how he managed to produce the knife. But its touch against her throat was unmistakable; she went very still.

“I would remove the necklace myself,” he said quietly, “but I fear, with one hand, I would botch the job. Your neck would not like that, and I need you in one piece to escape. So, very slowly, I want you to unclasp the locket.”

She reached for her nape. Her fingers were shaking; they fumbled on the clasp. “Where is Mama?”

“With Ridland, I expect.” At her indrawn breath, he laughed sourly. “You’re surprised? He found them in Providence before I could get there.”

“You’re lying,” she said.

The blade twitched. “Hurry. Carefully. Don’t damage it.”

The moment the necklace came loose, he snatched it from her hand and gave her a push forward, one arm around her waist, the other still holding the knife to her neck. “Better to let me go,” she said, forcing herself to keep her eyes on the ground, lest he see her scanning the green for Phin. “Easier for you.”

“I would prefer it,” he said. “Money is a problem. Once I’ve decoded the account numbers, we’ll revisit the question.” His arm abruptly stiffened. “Tell him to get back.”

Phin was walking toward them, straight and calm, his arms outstretched, his gun leveled at Bonham’s head. “She’ll be dead before you fire!” Bonham yelled.

She met Phin’s eyes and shook her head almost imperceptibly. To her astonishment, he smiled at her, nothing grim or dark in it: thus might he have smiled at her at their wedding altar, or over their newborn lying in the cradle.

The tenderness of it, the absolute certainty, seemed so weirdly miraculous that her heart filled with an answering joy. She smiled back at him.

He pulled the trigger.

The explosion deafened her. It took a moment to realize that Bonham’s arms had fallen away, and the knife was caught harmlessly in her skirts. She kicked it to the ground, then caught sight of the locket glimmering in the dirt. She picked it up and walked forward, her ears ringing. Phin had lowered his gun. Men were racing down the green now, their guns drawn, but his eyes remained fixed on hers as he strode forward. He looked at her as though she were the world and the world was his.

She had never seen the point to patience. She broke into a run.

They collided hard. The breath went from her as he dragged her up against his chest.

For a long moment she was content to be gripped by him, and to dig her fingers into his back, so solid, her shield. When she located her voice again, there was no creativity in her. “I love you.”

“Never again,” he said hoarsely into her hair. “Don’t ask it of me, Mina.”

“Oh, I won’t,” she said, and laughed, giddy in the sunlight. “I’ll make sure I don’t have to. From now on, I borrow no jewelry.”

A commotion caused them to turn and look down the field. By some miracle, it seemed that Bonham was not dead, despite the bullet in his brain. Ridland’s men were making frantic preparations to transport him. One man broke off to run toward a coach that had drawn up at the edge of the grass. After a brief conference through the window, the pane slammed shut and the door opened, disgorging Ridland.

Mina pulled away from Phin. “Bonham said he has her. Since Providence!”

Phin gave a soft curse. “Of course he does.” He took her arm, leading her forward.

“Of course?” she asked in bewilderment.

“How else would he have ensured that you stay in England?” His laughter was dark and harsh. “Pawns on a chessboard.”

Mina’s glower did not appear to faze Ridland; he paused a few feet away from them to sketch a congratulatory bow. “Excellent work,” he said. “I was just asking after the locket. Do you have it?”

Mina stepped forward and slapped him.

Her palm stung, but the old man barely blinked. “Ah,” he said. “Figured it out, did you?”

“Yes,” spat Mina. “I have the locket. What say we make a trade?”

He rubbed a hand over his cheek. “Surely thanks are in order. I know your mother was quite grateful when I fetched her from Providence. I rather doubt she’ll complain.”

Phin sighed. He dropped her arm and took Ridland by the throat, shoving him back against the glossy side of the coach and pinning him there. “Enough,” he said flatly. “Where is she?”

“Be sensible,” Ridland wheezed. “We needed Bonham. He’d taken an interest in your lady. And if she’d known her mother was safe, what would have persuaded her to stay and draw him out? You?”

“I am going to destroy you,” Phin said. “Delicately, gradually. It will be greatly amusing.”

“Phin,” Mina whispered. Someone else was in the coach, hands struggling with the window latch. And she thought—despite the shadowy interior, it seemed possible—

“If she is hurt,” Phin began grimly, but Ridland cut him off, sounding anxious now.

“I took her from Collins, didn’t I? That bastard is six feet below ground now. She was thanking me for it. I have never done you wrong.”

The window slammed down. A blessedly familiar face filled the frame, a frown of disapproval on her pale brow as she eyed Phin head to toe. “I am well,” Harriet Collins announced. “Although why it concerns you, I can’t guess.”

“Mama!” Mina clapped her hands over her mouth. “Mama—oh, step aside!” She grabbed the handle, trying to yank the door open, but it was obstinate and slipped from her sweaty palms.

“Do calm down, Mina.” Mama peered over the window. “No one wants a public scene. Mr. Ridland, if you would be so kind?”

Phin stepped forward and gave the door a yank. Mina tried to clamber up inside, but the height was too great. She found herself being lifted by Phin into the compartment, and then her arms were around her mother. Mama went tumbling back onto the bench, crying a protest which Mina roundly ignored as she squeezed harder.

For a minute Mama bore her attentions, patting her awkwardly and making soothing murmurs. Then she grew impatient. “All right,” she said, “enough. Calm yourself, Mina. What is this—tears?”