The Girl In The Clockwork Collar (18 page)

Griffin was her top priority. “Fair enough,” she lied. “I’d like to go clean up, if that’s all right with you.”

“Sure. You’ll want to get that gown I gave you ready to wear. Tomorrow night, we’re going to the theater. Apparently you and Jasper have work to do there.”

The final piece of the machine was in a theater? Tricky, but at least she wouldn’t have to fight anyone for it—or rather, she assumed she wouldn’t. “That won’t take me all day. Is there anything else that needs to be done?”

He waved a hand in the air. “Nothing you need to be concerned with. The boys will take care of it.”

Finley didn’t argue. The free time would give her the chance to poke about a bit—see if she could find out just what Dalton was up to. What she really needed to do was get word to Griffin that they were going after the final piece, and where. That only gave them a little over twenty-four hours to figure out what the machine was and what Dalton planned to do with it.

She just hoped it wasn’t too late.

Finley took her leave of Dalton and jogged upstairs to the room she had been given. It was nice—nothing like the one she had at Griffin’s, though. Once the door was closed behind her, she withdrew her pocket telegraph from a secret pouch sewn inside her corset. Quickly, she sent a message to Griffin, saying that they were going to the theater the next night and that she would provide more details when she had them. She didn’t want him pushing himself to be there, but he had to make plans.

She wasn’t going to try to fix this on her own, no matter how much she wanted to. Leaving Griffin out would only make things worse, of that she was certain.

As water filled the tub in the bathroom she shared with Mei, Finley gathered up her soaps and creams and the silk kimono Griffin had bought her when she first came to his house. She hugged the garment to her chest, as though it was her only link to him.

She had been so relieved last night when she opened her eyes and found Griffin watching her. She’d never been so happy in her entire life.

Since she’d met him, she’d bounced back and forth between wanting to be with him and wanting to run away. She told herself they couldn’t be together while secretly hoping that they could. Yesterday she’d almost lost him, and now she couldn’t think of anything that mattered more than being with him. Worry about what people would think or say was stupid under those circumstances.

Now she just had to figure out what to do about it. When they got back to London, they’d figure it out.

And that was all the thought she’d give it for today—her head was too tired. She turned the taps on the tub, undressed and slipped into the hot water with a sigh.

She must have dozed off, because by the time she came to her senses, the water had cooled and she resembled a prune from shoulders to toes. She jumped up, sloshing water over the sides, pulled the plug and set about drying off.

When she returned to her room with her bundle of dirty clothes, she found Mei sitting on her bed. The girl looked like a porcelain doll in her high-necked violet gown, her thick hair piled on top of her head. For a prisoner, she was sure kept in fancy clothes.

Good thing she’d taken her telegraph machine into the bathroom with her and now had it in the pocket of her kimono. “What are you doing?” she asked.

Mei glanced up from the book in her hands. Finley recognized it as her copy of
Pride and Prejudice—
the book she was reading for the sixth time. “Waiting for you,” the girl replied. Her English was excellent, touched by just the faintest Chinese accent. “I thought maybe you had drowned in there.”

Finley arched a brow at her tone. Wishful thinking, perhaps? “Your concern humbles me.” She said it with just enough sarcasm to let Mei know that if she wanted to get bitchy, she was more than happy to reciprocate.

Lips tightening, Mei rose from the bed and gracefully approached—as though her feet didn’t touch the floor. She was so dainty and graceful, but Finley knew better than to lower her guard. This tiny little girl was just as much a threat to her as Dalton was, though Finley wasn’t certain why.

“I don’t know why you are here,” Mei said slowly. “I don’t know why he likes you, but I want you to know that I was here first.”

Feeling the urge to kick the bee’s nest, Finley smirked. “Is this the part where you tell me to stay away from your man because you’re afraid I’ll take Jasper away from you?”

Incredibly full lips curved into a smug smile. “Jasper adores me.”

“Really?” Finley tossed the bundle of clothes into a hamper in the corner. “Because it seems to me that if he loved you that much, he would have taken you to England with him instead of leaving you behind.”

The slap came so fast, Finley barely saw it. She felt it, though—all the way through her skull. Fire blossomed in her cheek before the sharp sting had even begun to fade. She drew back her fist but caught herself just in time. As much as she wanted to retaliate, it wouldn’t look good for a girl her size—with her strength—to hit a little thing like Mei. Also, Jasper wouldn’t like it.

She touched her cheek. “Just so you know, if you ever do that again, I’m going to make you swallow your own teeth.”

Mei smiled mockingly. “You will do no such thing. You don’t want to upset either Dalton or Jasper.”

Finley poked her in the neck—right where the clockwork collar curved around her throat. “If Dalton thought you were that valuable, he wouldn’t have given you that lovely bit of frippery.”

The other girl shoved her hand away with a gasp. Her own hands went to her throat, clawing at the high neck of her dress. Finley watched in confusion. What the devil … The collar. She had set off the collar, and now Mei was slowly being strangled by it.

She grabbed the smaller girl by the shoulders, holding her upright as her knees sagged. “How do I stop it?” she demanded, fighting the urge to shake her. “How do I turn the bloody thing off?”

Suddenly, Mei stood upright and shrugged off Finley’s grip with a tinkling laugh. Finley froze. Mei had only been pretending to suffocate. “You are not as tough as you boast, Miss Bennet.”

Finley felt both cold and hot at the same time. She hadn’t wanted to be responsible for Mei’s death, but now …

She seized the smaller girl by the twist of hair on the back of her head and pulled.

“Ow!” Mei cried. Her hands clutched at Finley’s, nails digging in. “Let me go! What are you doing?”

Finley didn’t ignore the pain—she let it fuel her anger—as she dragged her captive toward the window. “I’m going to toss you out the bloody window and see if your collar tightens then. The fall might break your legs. You’d have a hard time getting back inside with your legs broken, wouldn’t you? Don’t worry, I’ll save you—eventually.”

Mei struggled all the harder. Blood ran down Finley’s hand to trickle down her arm and drip to the floor, but she did not let go. She opened the window with her free hand and tossed Mei across the sill so she was half in, half out.

The girl started screaming. Passersby looked up to see what all the commotion was about. A woman cried out, and a young man laughed, making a joke about how girls fought.

When Finley was done with Mei, that little cretin was next.

“I’m sorry!” Mei cried. “Let me in. Please!”

While publicly humiliating the girl went a long way to soothing Finley’s anger, the apology was far more effective. She yanked Mei back over the sill and slammed the window shut. Only then did she finally release her hold on Mei’s hair.

The Chinese girl glared at her as she rubbed her scalp. Her face was red with rage, but there wasn’t a tear to be seen, except for the usual watering that came with having one’s hair pulled.

“You’ll pay for that,” she promised, her voice low and even.

Finley smiled at her. “Do your worst, sweetheart.”

Mei shot her another filthy look before sweeping from the room like an arrogant queen. Finley watched her go with a vaguely amused smile, though she knew better than to entirely dismiss the threat. She and Mei were officially enemies now, and the worst thing she could do was underestimate the girl.

Never
underestimate a girl, she reminded herself as she washed the blood from her arm in the basin.

What did Jasper see in the awful little thing? It couldn’t be her personality.

Whatever it was, she didn’t much care. She just made a mental note not to leave her back open anytime Mei was around. The girl was liable to stick a knife in it.

Jasper was sitting in the parlor, whittling an elephant out of a small block of wood, when Mei came in. Dalton might have “given” him his freedom, but Jasper didn’t trust it, and he didn’t like leaving Mei alone with the scoundrel any more than he had to.

When he saw the expression on Mei’s pretty face, his first thought was that Dalton had dared to touch or harm her in some way. He’d put a bullet right between the criminal’s eyes if that was the case.

If he ever got his hands on a gun.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, rising to his feet as she closed the door.

“That Finley girl,” she replied tightly. Her face was flushed, and her eyes looked as though she had been crying.

“She’s back?” Relief swept over Jasper. He’d been so worried when he heard that Finley had just up and taken off after a “little redhead pikey” had shown up. Dalton’s man hadn’t much liked being roughed up by a girl and had made a comment as to what he was going to do to Finley if he ever saw her again. Dalton fired him on the spot.

Reno Dalton was a lot of things, but he was a might protective of what he thought of as “his,” and Finley was a valuable possession, as far as he was concerned.

But for Finley to just up and leave—for Emily to come for her—something bad had to have happened. Something to either Sam or Griffin.

“Yes, she’s back.” Dark eyes snapped with anger. “You don’t have to sound so pleased about it.”

Her tone made his brows rise. “I’m not pleased,” he lied. “I’m surprised. I figured she skipped out.”

“I hoped she had.”

“Why don’t you like her?” He was genuinely confused. He had liked Finley the moment he met her, and that was when she had been almost two separate people.

“I don’t trust her,” Mei said, lips settling into that little pout he found so cute. “She came out of nowhere, and Dalton took her in without question, even though she’s English and the duke of whatever was asking questions about you.”

Her astuteness made a frisson of discomfort run down his spine. “Dalton did ask questions. I told him she wasn’t in league with the duke. She’s not his class.”

“Neither are you,” she reminded him sharply. “He associated with you.”

He wasn’t sure why, but her words stung a bit. “Because English society treated me like some kind of strange being. You know they sometimes display people like animals in a zoo.” It was true, but it was nothing that wasn’t done in America, as well. Griffin, however, had never treated him like that. “Miss Finley doesn’t strike me as the type to allow herself to be treated as such.”

Dark eyes lifted to meet his. He had never seen her like this before. It was as though she was bitter. His Mei had never been bitter. “You like her.” It was an accusation, not a question.

“She’s all right. I got her into a brawl in Five Points, and she never complained.” That was true. “Dalton likes her, too, so I’m not sure what that says about her character.”

“Hmm.”

“Are you jealous?” He couldn’t stop the grin that spread incredulously across his lips.

Mei shrugged. “
She’d
never be a victim with a collar around her neck.”

Jasper placed his hands on her shoulders and gave a gentle squeeze. “You’re not a victim.”

She sniffed. “I feel like one. First Dalton and his collar, and then that girl threatened to throw me out the window.”

“What?” Jasper frowned. “
Finley
threatened you?”

Her dark eyelashes glistened with tears. “She grabbed me by the hair and held me out the window. She said the fall would break my legs, and then I’d probably die when the collar choked me.”

He didn’t know Finley well, but it sounded like something she might do. He didn’t think she’d ever really kill anyone, but why would she say such a thing to Mei?

What had Mei said to her? a little voice in his head asked. He pushed the suspicion away. He’d talk to Finley about it later.

“Probably for the best if you just stay away from her,” he suggested. “Soon this will be over, and Dalton will let both of us go.”

Her gaze swept up to meet his. “Are you sure of that?”

“He’s a scoundrel and a thief, but I’ve never known him to be a liar.”

Silence grew between them, but when she stepped close, he took her into his arms and rested his cheek on her soft hair as she placed hers against his chest.

“Jasper, you care about me, don’t you?”

He closed his eyes. “You know I do.” Once, she had been his sun and his moon. She wouldn’t be in this mess if it weren’t for him.

“Then promise me you won’t do anything foolish like try to double-cross Dalton. Just get him the rest of his stupid machine and let him do whatever he’s going to do.”

“I will.” It was a promise he didn’t think he’d be able to keep—not the part about letting Dalton go off and have his fun. “Tomorrow night, I go for the last piece.”

“At the theater. He’s making us all go, you know.”

He nodded. “I know.” Probably so they could all witness what Dalton would see as his triumph and Jasper’s defeat. He wouldn’t be surprised if Dalton put a bullet between his eyes afterward. That stuff he’d said to Mei about Dalton not being a liar wasn’t exactly true, which he supposed made him just as much a liar lately, since untruths had been coming out of his mouth with ease.

Mei’s arms tightened around his waist. “I can’t wait until he releases me from this collar, and we can be together again. We can go back to San Francisco.”

“We could,” he remarked—another lie. He could never return to San Francisco while he was wanted for murder there.

“We could go anywhere,” he added. This was something they could discuss later. First they had to survive the next couple of days. If they were still alive the morning after Dalton got his machine put together, there just might be hope for the two of them.