If she’d been disconcerted by their nearness before, now she was awash in the sensations. The spark of a burgeoning flame within her core, lit by the juxtaposition of her legs rubbing against his in the compact hack. He was hard where she was soft; straight lines and rigidness where she was curvaceous and delicate.
They sat in silence for a tense moment, neither daring to shift back to their original places, their eyes locked. The heat pooling in his chocolate eyes made her bolder, for it belied his words. He might think he ought to push her away, but in his heart…
“I choose my own friends.” She grabbed for his hand, wrapping her smaller, thinner fingers around his bigger, calloused ones. Careful to avoid the bruises upon his knuckles, she ran her thumb against his rough skin, a direct contrast to the silk of her gloves. “And I choose you, as I did all those years ago when you showed up outside the King of Spades.”
“That was a long time ago.” He tried to draw back from her hold, but she kept a firm grip on him, ignoring the ringing bell in her head proclaiming everything had changed. All she knew was that this was Charlie, and they’d always been stronger together.
As children, they’d held hands. Sat this close before. It had never become something more. They’d known the roles society had decided on for them, known she was intended for one of the Kings, and he’d end up with one of Chapman’s maids. Whatever they’d felt outside of those expected fates had been easier to push aside.
It wasn’t so easy now. He was right—so much of their friendship was mired in how they’d used to be, when she’d wait until Papa went to sleep and sneak out. Charlie’s father was never sober enough to care where he went, so he’d always be waiting in the townhouse, ready to play whatever new game she’d invented. He, unlike her brothers, never minded playing by her rules.
So much of her life was determined by others, but with Charlie, she always made her own decisions.
“We’re not children anymore.” He tugged his hand from hers, yet his eyes, those soulful brown eyes that remained the same no matter how much he grew or changed, never left her face. “Things change.”
“But what if I don’t want them to?” She didn’t reach for him again, even if her body screamed that she should. She wanted him—had wanted him since she’d known what it meant to desire someone. But she’d put all those longings aside, if all he could give her was friendship. She could feel him building walls between them, each abrupt word another brick.
“Charlie,” she said, hating how her voice sounded so pleading, but unable to quiet the fear that he’d soon be gone from her life. All this newness and unfamiliarity created conflict, putting space between them. “We’re friends, aren’t we? I don’t want that to change.”
Pain flashed across his face, yet it was not from the beating he’d received earlier. It was her words. She, who had always been able to comfort him, to understand him.
“We can’t always get what we want.” He turned away from her. “Maybe it’s time you learned that too, Mina.”
The carriage pulled to a stop then, several blocks away from her brother’s townhouse. This was as far as the driver would take them.
Charlie slid open the door to the hack, jumping out and extending his hand to help her down. He had no easy smile for her this time, no cheeky quip. Only this silence. She could not deny the heat that shot through her as he helped her down, but it was gone far too soon, for he’d already pulled away to wait for her to pay the driver.
She’d been raised to believe in the bargaining power of money. Yet no amount of blunt would grout the cracks in their friendship, or make the bruises on Charlie’s body disappear.
Things were changing, and like everything else in her life, Mina was powerless to stop it.
He couldn’t even pay the damn cab fare for her. As if he needed any further example of how vastly wrong he was for Mina, he hadn’t more than a halfpence in his purse. He’d never needed much—never thought about how blessedly little he had to his name until he was around Mina.
She made him so bloody aware of how little he had that was important without her in his life. And she made him want more.
That was dangerous, because a man like him could only go so far, gain so much. It was pointless to long for things he could never have.
Charlie shook his head as Mina slipped the coins into the driver’s palm, the bounder lingering far too long over her hand, the beginnings of a lecherous smile slipping over his lips. Charlie stepped forward, shoulders hunched, pointedly glaring at the man.
The driver retreated, but not before he’d tipped his hat at Mina and murmured something about how lovely she was.
And God, she did look lovely—even with mutton staining her skirts.
The full moon shone on her porcelain skin, setting up a fierce juxtaposition with her jet curls. The purple ribbons and faux flowers binding her hair up in some elaborate coiffure—he could never remember the names for all those fancy hairstyles she loved—had loosened in the scuffle in the bar, and now tendrils of inky black caressed her round, rosy cheeks. Her violet dress was cut to accentuate the luscious curves of her hourglass figure, and his fingers twitched to cup that tight, perfect arse of hers.
He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry with want never fulfilled.
For when she turned around, it was as though a bucket of ice-cold water had been dumped upon his already pounding head. Tears dotted her sapphire blue eyes, and her pert button nose wiggled as she sniffled back a cry.
“Minnie,” he started, his traitorous hand reaching for her even as she strode toward him, a tiny hurricane of ire. Despite those held-back tears, she was, as always, a force to be reckoned with.
“That’s not fair, what you said before. You don’t get to lecture me,” she told him, the hot fury of her words like a lance across his face. “Not you, Charlie. I’ve got too much of that in my life already, and you ought to know what I’m up against. I know bloody well that I can’t have everything I want.”
He sucked in a breath, the winter air harsh against his split lip. He ought to hang his head, ought to apologize. But if he did that—if he admitted that he was wrong, when he damn well was—she’d take it as a sign that they could go back to the way things had been before with them.
And that couldn’t be.
After tonight, if he had any chance at saving his place in Chapman, he’d have to part ways with her. If Zacharias forgave him, it’d be conditional. Any further loyalties to the Masons would have to be severed.
So instead of closing the distance between them, and pulling her snug against him like he wanted, he stuffed his rebellious hands into the pockets of his ragged coat and looked her dead in the eye. He might have flinched at the fire behind her stare, but he didn’t back down. Didn’t give in to the desires of his mutinous heart.
“I do know what you’re up against,” he said, proud of how flat his voice sounded, as if the advice he was about to lay down wasn’t a stab of a cold steel blade to his intestines. “And I know you’d be safe if you follow what your brothers be wantin’ you to do. Marry that toff, have so many bleedin’ kids you need a wagon to tow ’em around.”
The indignant heat of her gaze chilled, as her features took on the imperious cast he’d seen her employ against her brothers—or anyone who disagreed with her, really, except for him. He ignored the stinging slice of that realization, tried to pretend that it was all for the better.
She stalked toward him, getting up in his face. The sweet scent of her, vanilla and innocence and all that was right in this gritty, decaying world, filled up his nose. Melded with his own stink of blood and stale ale, and the mustiness of wet air after a rain.
“If you think for one minute that I will actually marry that cod-lipped, lily-livered, snake-eyed rapscallion—” She punctuated each insult with a stab of her finger to his chest. “Then you are out of your bloody mind. I’d sooner flee from home and trawl the Petticoat Lane market as a flower girl than be Mrs. Donaldson.”
; She notched her chin up, glaring him down. Her index finger was still extended at his chest, an inch away from where he’d cut himself on the edge of the table when he fell, to say nothing of the general soreness of his body from McNair’s attack. Hell, every time he moved the slightest, pain slammed through his body from places he hadn’t even known could hurt. Then there was her, and that sick wound she opened up within him when she looked at him like this, and that was far worse than any hit from McNair.
He was tired. Too tired for a standoff with her. He wanted to get her home where she’d be safe and then drag himself back to his flat and sleep for a bloody week. The likelihood of the later seemed improbable, considering he lived atop the Three Boars and Jason and Harper would surely be waiting for him.
Yet a man could hope.
Foolhardy hope was all he had left, without Mina in his life.
So he backed up from her and grabbed her arm, towing her down the street toward her brother’s townhouse. His boots slipped and slapped against the mud, but he’d lived in London his whole worthless life. The rain and the fog were so ever-present here that they melded into the background like one’s irritating uncle who has too much taste for the grog.
But then again, he didn’t have an uncle, irritating or not. He had no living family. No one but Chapman. That thought sobered him, reminded him of how much was at stake. His livelihood. His friends. Life as he knew it.
He had to let Mina go, because she’d never been his to begin with.
“Here’s how this is gonna work,” he said through gritted teeth as she slapped at his hand, trying to loosen his grip. “You’re gonna go home. Your brothers are gonna do what they do best. They’ll keep you safe.”
“And what will you do?” She stopped resisting to pierce him with that wide-eyed stare that always melted his heart and his ill-fated willpower.
“I’ll deal with my boys.” His hold tightened, for that was the only contact he’d allow with her and he ached to tug her to him and wrap his arms around her. “You don’t need to be worryin’ about me. I’ll fend for myself, as I’ve always done.”
He had no other choice. Even if Mina would take him, and her brothers didn’t gut him first, he didn’t deserve her. So he’d do what he always did: salvage as much of his life as he could, and survive.
Her mouth dropped open, a protest about to form. He bit down a curse, not sure he had the energy to fend off another verbal riposte from her.
But for the first time that night, God seemed to be looking out for him, because she closed her mouth. In silence they continued, his hand wrapped around her wrist, towing her forward. One foot in front of the other, her shiny slippers out of place amongst the muck and mire of back alleys, parts better suited to his cracked leather top boots. The slime of the streets clung to the hem of her gown, becoming a solid two-inch line of brownish silt, another stain on what had once been pristine.
Another reminder that he had failed to protect her.
He dropped her wrist as they approached 37 Stepney Green, where the underworld’s premier family had lived since her grandfather bought the brick seventeenth-century townhouse from Dormer Sheppard, a merchant with a reputation almost as unsavory as the Masons. It was not the tallest home on the street, boasting only three stories, yet it was by far the largest and grandest. Whilst the rest of the neighborhood slipped into disrepair, the so-called “Mason Manse” was a precise reflection of its current owner: well-manicured, elegant, and private. The doorway alone, with its paneled pilasters and carved scroll brackets, was worth more than Charlie’s entire flat.
Ducking his head, he stopped outside the iron gate and scanned the front yard through the slats in the bars. No sign of life. That didn’t mean much, not when Joaquin employed a staff of twelve to guard the property. At any minute, one of those men could appear on patrol. He stole one last look at Mina; attempted to imprint every line of her moonlit face upon his faulty memory.
Tell her you can’t stay, then leave.
He’d never been good at doing the right thing.
Instead of turning around and leaving, he lingered, trailing his bruised fingers across the cool wrought iron. Mina had always hated how the gate caged her in, as though she were a pretty bird on display, ready to sing for her supper.
Even now, she eyed it with distaste, her red lips pursed as they always did when they stood here, her brows furrowing with the disdain he’d always found so comical. Tonight, he didn’t laugh. He didn’t do anything except stare, though the quiet had gone on so long it bordered on awkward, because he couldn’t comprehend how to he was supposed to say goodbye to the girl who had been his first real friend.
Mina, in the matter-of-fact way she always had, broke the silence first. “You’ve barely spoken since the carriage.”
“Not much to say.” That was a lie, of course. There was so much to say that all the possible speeches weighed down on him until it became impossible to know where to begin.
She arched a brow at him. “That’s never stopped you before. I remember Jane having to tell you fourteen times not to chat up the customers.”
“Gotta keep the line movin’.” He repeated the barmaid’s line automatically. She’d been right—as she was about most things—for he was able to assist thrice the number of customers if he kept his remarks short as he served them their drinks.
“Well, there’s no line here,” Mina pointed out, regarding him skeptically. “And I’m waiting for your usual banbury story.”
“It’s been a long night. Let’s just…” He sighed, scrubbing his hand through his hair. “Look, Mina. There’s no easy way to say this. We gotta stay apart, don’t you see? Or my boys, they’re gonna come for you. And I won’t—I can’t—be the reason you get hurt.”
“Charlie, no.” Her impassioned plea echoed in his mind as she reached for him. The silk of her gloves was smooth against his bare skin. Warmth flooded his chilled flesh. Her touch was so welcome, felt so right, that he had to fight back a groan as her hand wrapped around his arm.
“You’d never hurt me. You kept me safe,” she murmured, her big, beautiful blue stare transfixing him. “You always keep me safe. Not by imprisoning me in a fortress, or forcing me to submit to a life I don’t want. You protect me, but you don’t act like you own me..”
“No one has that right,” he said gruffly. “You of all people deserve to be determin’ your own fate. But there’s no harm in listenin’ to those who care about you.”
She shivered as the wind picked up, blowing the last stubborn pins of her coiffure free. Her dark hair tumbled down around her shoulders in a gloriously raven halo, as the noise of the street devoured the clink of the pins hitting the ground. Every muscle in his body screamed to pull her closer, and when she shuddered again, he couldn’t resist.
Placing his hand over hers, he tugged her to him. The wind howled around them, but he ignored that, ignored everything but the sheer glory of Mina in his arms, her hot, soft flesh pressed up against his, the sweet scent of vanilla wafting up from her dark hair. He’d embraced her at the bar, yet that had been a quick hug, nothing more. Now, with her head resting against his chest, the sound of her breathing mingling with his in sweet rhythm, it felt more real. More risky.
To hold Mina, out in the open where anyone could see them, was an act of rebellion.
Charlie didn’t want to follow the rules anymore.
Chapter 4
Once, when she was but a little girl, not more than six years of age, Mina’s father took her to visit the seashore. She’d skipped across the beach, delighting in the grittiness of the sand between her toes, the slap of the waves against her bathing dress. The ocean, she thought, was magnificent, and she wanted to stay forever in those briny waters.
Her Papa, for all that he doted on his youngest child, was not the most vigilant of parents. So when she wandered away one day from the wharf where he smoked cigars with his men, he did not realize she was gone until the screams reached his ears from way down the be
ach. Mina had strayed too far out into the water, and high tide had come.
That was the day she learned that the world was unpredictable and wild. That day, Joaquin dove into the water, his swift, determined strokes chomping the space between them. He’d plucked her up from the grasping ocean and carried her back to shore.
That was the last day she felt true freedom, as from that day on her eldest brother became her unwanted guardian. In her youthful ignorance, she’d signaled that she was a damsel, in need of constant rescuing.
She wasn’t a child anymore, and she didn’t need saving anymore, damn it.
Yet tucked up against Charlie’s white cambric shirt that was too thin to hide the raw definition of his hard chest and abdomen, Mina felt again as though she was back at the Kent coastline. He scooted them so that her back was up against the gate, and she was as swept away by his motions as she had been with those rushing waves.
She’d thought she knew what it was like to be close to him when they were in the hackney, and in all those friendly clasps over the years, but she’d been very, very wrong. Because this, this was overpowering. The heat of his body pressed against hers seemed to scorch through the layers of her dress, cloak, stays, and chemise to her soul. Her heart clenched impossibly tight. She couldn’t take a breath without inhaling the earthy, masculine scent of him—and when the wind changed, she smelled that undertone of sickly sweetness from his cuts, injuries earned in defense of her.
If he hadn’t been there to stop McNair…
No, she wouldn’t think that way. Devil take it, she might not need rescuing, but she was so bloody glad Charlie had been there. And he would stay with her, if it was the last thing she did. None of this goodbye rubbish.
Greedily, she grabbed at the fabric of his shirt, holding on tight. Wrapped up in each other’s arms, they remained like this, as the minutes passed. It wasn’t enough. She pressed up closer, angling herself so that she could close that one little inch of distance between them. She felt something quite rigid in his lower regions. Something that definitely bore further investigation. So she squirmed against him, trying to decide how best to proceed with this distinctly male part of his anatomy.
When a Rogue Falls Page 14
