The Damsel and the Daggerman

.15.

Late as it was and considering they were both in shock, they blew out all the lamps and left the cottage for the short walk to Jacinda’s conveyance—after tying Petra securely to the target. She was still breathing, and Jacinda planned on delivering her to Criminy Stain’s justice by the light of day. But first, there was business to attend to. With the conveyance door firmly locked from the inside and the sea pounding just beyond, Jacinda dumped her weapons off the bed and stripped Marco of his shirt. It wasn’t the way she had planned to get him naked, but it would have to do.

She tended his wounds with water and a healing salve from her travels, then bound the shallow slices with soft bandages made of her torn stockings. As she fed him biscuits from a tin and brewed the tea, he leaned back against her pillows and rubbed his eyes tiredly.

“So that bracelet you always wear—it’s been a weapon all along?”

Jacinda grinned and sat beside him, careful not to jostle his wounds as she held up the bracelet of reed tubes. “Small, pretty, hidden in plain sight. It’s a traditional Abyssinian weapon, although putting it on the bracelet was my idea. They tend to wear them as necklaces or stuck through their ears.” He traced a finger over the inside of her wrist. “A little ostentatious, for my tastes. Liam said . . .” She trailed off, and he curled his fingers around hers.

“What did Liam say?”

Jacinda squeezed her eyes against the tears that always threatened. “He said I should have a hole put through my nose, as the Abyssinian warrior women do. He was half serious.” A few tears escaped, and Marco caught them on his finger and gently stroked her cheek. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t—”

“There’s nothing wrong with sadness, and I don’t expect you to stop loving someone you lost. Never be sorry for talking about him.”

“He died defending me, you know. It was so stupid. Should have been just another scuffle in the street. But the man who made a vulgar offer for me . . . he was big, and he hit hard, and Liam’s head struck the stone wrong. He died in my arms. And that’s when I decided I had to learn to defend myself.”

Marco held her close, stroking her back. “I can’t complain about that. You certainly saved my life tonight, sweetness. And I’m grateful.”

For a few moments, she finally gave in and allowed herself to grieve in Marco’s arms, feeling safe for the first time since that night. When the kettle whistled, Jacinda took it as a sign to put away her sorrow. She straightened, brushing the tear trails away and getting up to fix the tea.

“Enough about me. Stop stalling and spill. I was promised a story about a handsome virgin.”

“Always so hungry for a story.” He settled back against her sultan’s pillows. “I guess Petra already told you what you originally wanted to know. She caught me on the moors tonight, on the way to your door. She was always too fast and strong by half, for such a little thing, and she said she’d kill you outright if I didn’t go with her. What she told you about our childhood was true—and it’s also true that I saw her as a little sister, not a lover, and definitely not a wife.” Jacinda handed him a mug of tea, and he wrapped his fingers around it with a grateful smile. “But the main issue is a prophecy my grandmother made when I was very young, although I always called it a curse. Nonna’s a fortune-teller. Not like Lady Letitia—she reads palms.” His eyes went far off. “ ‘Listen well, Marco Taresque. Where you sow, you’ll reap. Where you lie, so you’ll stay. Guard your virginity, for the woman who takes it will be your own forever. Choose carefully.’ ”

Jacinda shivered, and not only with the realization of the gift he had given her that afternoon and the repercussions to come, if one believed in prophecies. She remembered all too well that one strange night she had spent with a traveling caravan outside of London on her way to find the famous Criminy Stain. Like a knife in the heart, she recalled exactly the way one old woman had regarded her, eyes twinkling across the bonfire.

“I think I met her. She told me how to find Criminy’s caravan,” she said softly. “She admired my leather corset and told me to be careful.”

“Sounds like Nonna. As I grew up, I asked her again and again if there was a way around it, if she would look at my palm again and see if something had changed. There I was, young and handsome, girls throwing themselves at me, and I couldn’t get my grandmother to elaborate on whether any seed I spilled would shackle me to a woman forever. It was torture. Pure torture. Even if I’d wanted to bed Petra, I would never have taken the chance.”

“But you’re so good at . . .”

Marco smiled sheepishly, looked down, ran a hand through his hair. “If you’re a man like me, living in a caravan, you find a way to please women so well they don’t speak of your noble refusal to bed them. They only talk about your proficiency and generosity in other realms.”

“So today . . .”

He reached over, took both her hands in his own. “I should have told you first, but I couldn’t turn away from you anymore. Everything about you calls to me. I either had to take you or die of longing. I’ve never wanted a woman, wanted anything, so bad.”

She cupped his face in one hand, noting for the first time that his eyes were the same wild violet as the old woman’s. “Do you think your grandmother knew it would be me? And that’s why she told me where to find you?”

He chuckled, nestled his cheek in her palm. “Who knows what that old devil sees? When we sat around the fire as children, she used to beckon us close with a finger. ‘I know a secret,’ she would say. ‘I know who goes to heaven and who goes to hell.’

“ ‘How do you know, Nonna?’ ” I would ask.

“Her smile was twisted and dark and smug as she answered, ‘You go where you think you will go.’ ”

Jacinda chuckled and kissed his cheek. “What does any of that mean, Marco?”

“It means you saved my life tonight, and I’m indebted to you. The night that I disappeared, Petra went mad, out of control. Just like tonight. Threw my own knives at me, raged against me, tried to take me against my will. The punishment for hurting your own in a caravan is death, and I couldn’t bring myself to condemn her for loving me to the point of madness. She ran away, and I ran away. I couldn’t admit the curse of my virginity. I couldn’t send her to death. I couldn’t stay there, among my brothers, carrying scars from a woman. So I ran away and let people say of me what they would.” He pulled her into his lap with a groan, cradling her gently against his bandaged chest. “I’ve never told anyone about what happened. I didn’t think I ever would. I was basically committed to dying a virgin with a very talented tongue because I’d never met anyone I wanted to be shackled to forever.”

She twined her fingers with his. “Why me?”

“Because when I saw you for the first time, I finally understood the obsession Petra had felt for me. I wanted you, no matter what. Even if it meant confessing everything to you, even if it meant driving you away to protect you. And even if it meant that you stabbed me in the heart rather than spend forever by my side. I just knew.”

She snorted. “You didn’t show it.”

“I’ve gotten good at hiding my real feelings behind my smoldering good looks and wicked smile. Besides, if I’d made it easy for you, you wouldn’t have chased me. And I do like the way you chase me.”

“Are you going to miss that, now that you’re stuck with me?”

He stroked her hair and flicked the brass clasps down her leather corset, one by one. “I don’t think you’re ever stuck, Jacinda. If you’ll have me, I figure it’s my turn to chase you—all around the world on your adventures. I want to see more of sang, and once Petra’s gone, I’ll be totally free.”

“Oh, I’ll show you the world.” She smiled and stood, dropping her corset with a thud and walking to her desk. She rolled back the top, selected a new notebook, and cracked the cover, opening it to the front page. “But first, you’ve got to heal. And I’ve got a book to write about a certain caravan. Starting with Marco Taresque, the Deadly Daggerman who never misses a target.”

“I missed once,” he reminded her.

“You might have nicked my leg, but my heart took all the damage.”