Page 25 of Dalliances & Devotion (The Truitts 2)

“I suppose we are.” His cheeks were scarlet, even beneath his tanned skin.

“Do you think Meg and Will are in the car yet or can we have a few minutes alone to ourselves?” She edged closer to him. Please say the latter. Please let them continue and talk more and figure out what exactly was going on, or more, sort through whatever happened...

David cleared his throat. “Um, Amalia, I think that might have been a mistake. Until you’re home safe and the agents in Indianapolis apprehend whomever is after you, we may want to pause any discussions or actions—”

No. No, no, no, no. He could not possibly be pulling back on her again. She thrust her hands over her ears before leaping from the carriage without assistance.

He’d said “yes,” and now he wanted to pause? A pause was just a hop, skip, and a jump away from a “no.” A “my work is more important than you.” An “everything is more important than you.”

Well, to be fair, he had every right to change his mind at any point. And it was probably for the best. It’d probably save her from herself but what if she didn’t want saving?

She gave the horse a stroke—at least someone appreciated her touch—and crossed in front of the animal towards the station. She didn’t need help. Not from David, not from the driver, not from anyone. She was an adult. A mature adult. A mature adult—ow!

A whoosh and a thwack and something heavy lodged inside her skirts, thrusting her forward so her knees hit the cobblestones. Dirt streaked her gloves. Pain radiated through her palms and hips, making her vision waver again, liquid skimming over the surface.

Someone—David—called her name. Footsteps shook the ground and strong arms lifted her back on her feet. Her skirts though slipped to the left with a loud rip. She patted around her flounces and her hand landed on something heavy. She closed her hand and yanked—double ow. Blood covered her glove, ruining the white and blotting on the pink all around the object in her hand.

“David?” She gazed up at him and was met with concern. He plucked the thing from her palm and held it in the light. She blinked, her eyes and mind blurring. That couldn’t be a—could it? Shaking, Amalia managed to gasp one word before everything went black.

“Knife.”

Chapter Nine

David pulled off his spectacles, rubbed his eyes, and yawned before placing his head in his hands as the midnight train lurched to a start. Late. His plan for their evening had not included several hours of answering questions for the Pittsburgh police, followed by an hour of composing a rather difficult telegraph to Thad, followed by a barely remembered missive regarding the complaints about her column to the agents in Indiana—not his best work, but it got the unwanted job done.

Now though, he was inundated with visions of needing to write a darker missive. His heart lurched. So much blood. She’d been so pale.

Her hand. A small, non-vital part of her body.

He repeated the words in his head, pounding them into his skull so he could force his mouth to open and shut and his feet to move. So he could do his job. Because that was what Amalia needed him to do. More than anything else. Which is why he couldn’t stop—had to keep going, keep protecting and guarding, keep pushing forward until she was with her family.

At least Meg handled secondary discussions with the witnesses. Not that any reported seeing more than he had.

A dark cloaked specter. A near ghost. At least according to half the yokels milling about when it happened. Not that one of them had done anything to stop it.

Tall.

Large cap.

No one saw a face.

The same retelling over and over.

“Well, the higher-ups can officially eliminate Ethan Bloomenstock as a suspect.” Meg slumped in yet another cushioned armchair, a repeat of the previous night, but the mood far graver. “I was just finishing at the house when you two caught the cab outside the park. No one came or left.”

David rubbed his temple. “No, it had to be someone from the first train. We must’ve lost them for a little when we left this morning. Maybe they tried to follow, maybe they slunk around in the shadows, knowing we’d be back. That’s the only thing that makes sense after the rat.”

But who would want to hurt Amalia? Could someone have followed her from Indianapolis? If someone had, how had he slipped through the other agents?

None of the pieces fit together. How did one protect someone from a phantom? A phantom with seemingly unlimited resources. A phantom after a rather harmless woman. A charming, entertaining, beautiful woman, but a harmless one nevertheless.

Nothing made sense.

His temples throbbed. What was he going to do? How was he failing so much? He was supposed to be proving himself. Instead, he was showing he couldn’t handle leading one simple protection duty.

Simple his tuchas.

Damn the assignment. Damn the tempting promotion in an organization whose values he’d started to question over the last few months.

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