Page 33 of This Haunted Heart

I glanced down between our bodies at the mess of blankets and tangled clothing, unsure how to answer her. Then my lips opened, and the words poured out of me without a thought.

“The love of my life broke my heart twice. First, she left me. Then she died,” I told her. It wasn’t the whole truth, but it was the lie I’d lived for nearly two decades. Grief churned in my belly, so harsh and painful it stole my breath.

“Oh no.” Rynn wrapped her arms around my neck and brought my head to her chest, holding me there, her chin resting in my hair. “It’s no wonder, then.”

She smelled like roses and fresh well-water from the basin and like salty pleasure. My scent was all over her: in her hair, on her breath. I would have given up every penny in my vast fortune if I could have just lain there forever, my face cushioned between the soft mounds of her breasts, breathing in the aroma of her and me together, carried on a spring breeze.

The only bother was the gnawing sensation that this couldn’t be real comfort that she was offering me. I wanted so badly for it to be the true sort, the kind she’d once reserved only for me when life was cruel.

And at the same time, I wantednotto want those things. My heart was a shriveled wretch of a thing, and I hated how much it longed for her. The damn organ needed to see reason for once, to stop chasing after the person who’d destroyed it.

“Breakfast is ready downstairs, and it smelled divine,” she told me. “I’m going to go eat before I dress for the day. Are you coming?”

“I’ll follow you down shortly.” With great reluctance, I separated from her, fixing my trousers and rising from thebed.

In a moment of considerable weakness, I stepped over my shredded clothing while crossing to her valise. I picked it up and dug inside, removing the pair of slippers from the bottom where I’d hidden the two hefty stacks of cash I’d stolen from her safe. There were so many bills, they overflowed both shoes. Reclaiming the money, I tossed the bag beside her on the bed.

She gasped. “You villain. So that’s where you put it. You hid it inmythings!”

“I figured you wouldn’t look there.”

“You figured right.” She pouted at me, playing with the blankets beneath her coyly. “I don’t suppose you’d reconsider—”

“Don’t push your luck,” I groused.

Head tipped back, she groaned at the ceiling. “I know the exact amount that was in my safe before you went and pilfered it,” she said, wagging a finger at me. “I had better be getting all of it back! Every last damn dollar, Finley!”

Before she left the room, she blew me a kiss with so much heat in it, it felt more like a threat than her words had.

I attended to my morning habits. When I returned, I took inventory. She’d destroyed so many items from my trunk that I was forced to wear a mismatched outfit: A casual cotton waistcoat, no cuffs or collar, and the more formal black trousers I already had on. At least she’d left me a few clean underthings—or I’d interrupted her before she could get at all of them. That seemed more likely, considering how much attention she’d paid to the drawers currently in tatters.

I reclaimed my folding knife from off the floorboards where it had fallen in the night, and I visited her valise to even the score. Some of her cash I tucked inside an inner pocketin the lapel of my waistcoat, keeping it close in case she needed motivation to behave on the way to Nightingale House. Chances were high she would.

I cut the bottom lining of her valise, just enough to store the remaining bills inside. Then I sewed it quickly with the patch kit from my trunk. I tended to the items she’d laid out for the day with my knife before I headed downstairs.

Breakfast was served family-style on a large table big enough to fit a regiment. Rynn snorted when she saw how I was dressed. I kept a placid expression throughout the meal, not allowing her the pleasure of my irritation. Seated across from her, I ate grits and dried apples quickly, eager to be back upstairs and finally on the road again.

When she was finished, I followed her to our room.

She headed straight for her clothing draped over the chair as I closed the door behind me. Her sharp intake of breath when she realized what I’d done filled me with smug satisfaction.

“What the devil did you do?” Rynn picked up her dress and gasped anew as it slipped through her fingers in ribbons. She lifted her corset next. I’d cut off the cups.

She hurled it at me. I side-stepped the ruined garment, letting it slap against the wall.

Glaring over her shoulder, she marched to the bed where I’d left her valise. Rynn reached inside and growled like an aggravated lioness, scooping out fistfuls of destroyed satin and taffeta. She threw them into the air in a huff, letting them scatter over the bed like confetti.

“I’m adding the cost ofeverygarment to your bill when we’re through,” she snapped.

“I don’t think so,” I said, nudging my foot at an overcoat of mine she’d ruined. It had been made in France and costdouble anything else in the room.

“What am I supposed to wear?” she demanded. “Have you gone mad? You didn’t leave anything for me!”

“Try to think of it this way,” I said evenly. “Your lovely things will make someone in need very nice, very expensive bandages now.”

“You’rethe one who’s going to need bandages,” she spat. Rounding on me, she pulled a blade from the top of her stocking and unfolded it with a deft flick of her wrist.

My eyes went wide. “How in the hottest hell did you get my knife again?” I was more impressed than concerned as she backed me against the door, shoving the blade under my chin. “Tell me how. I’ve got to know. I didn’t even sit next to you downstairs. Did you steal it under the table with your toes?”

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