Page 27 of Bargaining with the Devil

“I don’t believe that, a mhuirnín, not for a minute, and I hope you don’t truly either. And the kiss between us had nothing to do with the past. ’Twas you, here and now, I was interested in.”

“An easy mark.”

“Easy’s not a word I’d ever use to describe you, Miss Muir.” He laced light irony into his voice, used her formal address so she’d catch on that he was teasing her even though ’twas also the pure truth. She was mayhap the prickliest woman he’d been around, at least for an extended period of time.

She half smiled, but ’twas gone quickly, the light on her face. Her eyes were going distant again; he was losing her again to the ugliness roiling inside her.

The circumstances . . . He’d been there while Blackmore questioned her two years ago. They’d positioned him with his back to the door, guarding against anyone coming in and serving as another set of ears to what she’d had to say. He’d stood behind Blackmore’s shoulder, so she’d been faced towards him for the entirety of the interview.

Her dress was bloodied and her throat bruised, and she hadn’t broken down once. Hadn’t even come close, no matter what Blackmore or the French agent Baudelaire asked her. She answered every question without flinching. Without blushing. Her face was icy through most of it, but bitter anger burned beneath every word she spoke, behind each name and place she gave them.

He’d admired the hell out of her for it. ’Twas a rare person, in his experience, who wouldn’t have broken down somewhere during that.

She needed to hear what he’d seen in her that day. “You said that I know what you were before. Well, ’tis true, sure.” The look on her face said ’twas only what she expected, his words, but he meant to change how she understood them. “The first five hours I spent in your company, I saw a woman who answered every question asked of you, unhesitating. Unsparing of yourself, if the information was of use. You didn’t shy away from one single fuckin’ question asked of you, just gave the fuckin’ truth no matter how hard.”

Her face didn’t change in the slightest. He wasn’t getting through to her. He gripped her shoulders a bit tighter. “’Twas that I knew you as before, Lucinda Muir. Courageous. Unshakeable composure. Bleedin’ magnificent, really, and I admired the hell out of you for it, a stór. I have ever since. Still do.”

She looked unconvinced. “It’s easy to be truthful when there’s nothing left to lose.”

“Nay, ’tis hardest to be truthful when there’s nothing left to lose,” he countered. “For what’s the point then?”

Her laugh was rusted at the edges, but ’twas a real laugh. He’d finally reached her, at least a little. “That makes no sense,” she said. “You’re talking in riddles.”

“Makes all the sense in the world. See, when a person has nothing left to lose, why should they bother with the truth?” He’d brought a lot of people to that point over the years—the moment where they had nothing at all left to lose but their lives. “My work, ’tisn’t only the ending of lives, not always. Sometimes ’tis also to get whatever final confessions they might make. I suppose ’tis a bit like a priest offering last rites, just twisted a bit. There are always men who choose to take their malevolence and bitterness with them and go to the grave unshriven.” Jeremiah Compton was a man like that.

Some people also took broken or despairing hearts to the grave as well. He sucked in a breath, pushing that away for the moment.

Lucy and Mairéad were the same age. Should be, rather. The realization his sister should be Lucy’s age struck him like a bolt of lightning to the chest. He breathed through that thought too.

Lucy isn’t Mairéad. I’m not the man who put Mairéad in her grave.

Lucy was silent for a long time. “I suppose there is validity in that. Is that truly how you saw me? Unshakeable?”

“Mayhap not entirely unshakeable but . . .” He searched for the right words. “Unconquered. Resilient.”

“I don’t feel resilient. I’m so . . . tired. So tired.” Her eyes welled. Finally, the tears she’d been fighting broke free. “It’s hard to feel anything else. Anything at all.”

“I know, a mhuirnín.” And he did. “And I’m sorry too if ’tis that kiss that’s sent you out here trying to feel something else.” Or not feel it, more like. He gathered her in tight. “I’ll not kiss you again, ever, if ’tis something you don’t want. Something you didn’t want,” he clarified.

“No, I—” She swallowed hard, then pulled back enough to meet his eyes. “I did want it. I wanted you.” An echo of his earlier words. “I’m just unsure how to feel about it after.”

So was he when it came to it. “’Twasn’t my intent to disturb you or take advantage of you. I swear that on my life.”

“I didn’t request the rather dubious gift of your life.” But her tone was softer, and her face had more light in it again. “And you disturb me regardless. You invade my space, sharpen your knives at my table, and talk to me through—” The way her words cut off and the heightened color in her cheeks said where she’d been going with that comment.

And he had a glimpse now too of what her face had probably looked like last night that up till now his imagination had supplied. “You wanted that too, a mhuirnín. ’Twas my suggestion, sure, but you agreed.”

She looked elsewhere, at his ear, possibly, instead of his eyes. “I was curious.”

“’Twas more than. There was a lot of tension between us needed out, without me laying a hand on you.” She hadn’t been ready for touching. Hell, he hadn’t been either, still trying to be something resembling noble.

Although he was questioning now if he’d been too rash, both with that and with the kiss, if ’twas what led her to drink and walk the cliff’s edge.

He thought she might try denying it, but she nodded, followed by a soft, “Yes. It was more than curiosity.”

She had ducked her head; he tipped her chin up to search her eyes. “Did you want it? Truly? That wasn’t me forcing you into it?”

“You had me lock the door, and I believed you that you’d go away if I asked. Yes, I wanted it.” She drew a deep breath. “And I’ve thought about it ever since. It’s your fault the past few nights that I couldn’t sleep.” Her wry tone took anything accusatory out of the words. “And when you kissed me—no, when we kissed; I’ll not pretend it wasn’t mutual—I was thinking about it then too.”