The Girl In The Clockwork Collar (27 page)

Quietly, she opened the door and peered out into the corridor. No one was there. She slipped out and tiptoed along the carpet to the room she knew was Jasper’s. She had remembered to bring her portable telegraph with her in case they needed to contact Griffin.

She tapped softly upon the door. It flew open while her knuckles were still on it. Jasper stood on the other side of the threshold, a disappointed look on his face.

“Hoping for someone shorter and Chinese?” she inquired, tone deliberately dry as she stepped inside.

Jasper closed the door. “Maybe. How are you? Kirby treat you okay?”

She nodded and rubbed a hand over the back of her neck. There was no easy way to do this, and she wasn’t even certain it was her place to reveal it. “Jasper, Whip Kirby is married to your sister, Ellen. That’s why he’s here. He’s trying to clear you of the murder charge.”

His normally tanned cheeks paled. “No.”

“It’s true. You’re going to be an uncle soon. Kirby promised your sister he’d help you so you’d be able to meet your niece or nephew someday.”

Jasper shook his head, an expression of disbelief on his face. “I’m going to be an uncle?” His gaze snapped up. “Are you certain he wasn’t lying?”

“He let me sleep in the guest room. It’s only by chance I was actually in the cell when you showed up.”

“About that—what did you tell Dalton about Griffin?”

“That he had come there hoping I’d give him information about you.”

“Do you think he bought it?”

“Maybe. It’s doubtful, though. We need to get out of here before he decides he can’t trust either of us. He’d kill us both without blinking.”

“You go. I’m going to stay with Mei. If we make it through this, I’m going to ask her to go back to England—or go somewhere else—with me.”

What she thought of that must have been written on her face.

“You don’t think she’ll come.”

“Jasper, my friend, I think many things, only half of which are correct—if I’m lucky. I don’t presume to know what Mei will do. You’ll have to ask her and let her make her own decision.”

“No wonder he likes you,” he mused. “You must keep him on his toes.”

“Who? Dalton?” She waved a hand in the air. “Dalton likes any girl he thinks might slap him.”

“Not Dalton. Griff. I bet he’s never met a gal like you before.”

“I should hope not,” she replied glibly, but heat filled her cheeks. “Nature couldn’t possibly make two mistakes like me.”

“You’re not a mistake. Don’t you ever think of yourself that way. You’re exactly as you ought to be.”

She glanced down at her toes as she shook her head, embarrassed by his flattery. “Sometimes I think awful things.”

“Yeah, but you always do the right one, Miss Finley. And even if you mess up, you fix it. That makes you a good person, in my mind.”

A bright smile spread across her face. He was officially her new favorite person. “Thank you, Jasper. That’s lovely of you to say.”

“It’s true. And I think you’re right to want to get out of here as soon as possible. Dalton already shot the man he hired to put that infernal machine together.”

Finley’s brows arched. “Dead?”

Jasper nodded. “Very much so.”

So Dalton really was as terrible as everyone thought. How had she ever thought of herself as a match for him? She could never kill anyone unless she had to. She sincerely doubted Dalton had killed the man in self-defense. She had seen how easily he threatened Emily—something she would make him pay for—and how he hadn’t hesitated to shoot Sam. He would have shot Griffin, too.

All right, so maybe she
could
kill someone fairly easily. Right now, it was tempting to march downstairs and beat Dalton until the devil himself came to claim him.

Speaking of Dalton … Her gaze flickered to the clock on the mantel. “We need to go downstairs. He’s going to tell us his plans for the machine. Once I know what he intends to do, I’ll make my escape.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “Promise me you’ll run if things go sour.”

He nodded. “I will.” But she knew he wouldn’t go without Mei.

She went downstairs first so they wouldn’t arouse suspicion by arriving together. Dalton, Little Hank and the other men, whose names she couldn’t remember, were already in the library. Mei and Jasper arrived a few seconds later, arm in arm.

The smaller girl spotted Finley and glared at her. It was very difficult to sympathize with her when she made Finley want to slap her stupid.

Dalton called for everyone’s attention. Finley tried to keep her attention centered on him, but Jasper looked so downtrodden, it was difficult to look away.

“Obviously today was a great success,” Dalton said with exaggerated bravado, a drink in his hand. “The device has been recovered and proven to be a great success, thanks to our old friend Jasper Renn.”

Finley frowned. There was a strange light in Dalton’s eyes when he looked at Jasper—a sardonic twist to his mouth. Where was he going with this? That wasn’t praise in his tone.

Suddenly, there was a pistol in Dalton’s other hand. “And now that he’s outlived his usefulness, it’s time for our old friend to pay for screwing with me in the first place!” Dalton’s voice had grown louder with every word until he shouted the last.

No one but Finley seemed the least bit surprised by this turn of events, not even Jasper. That meant that Jasper must have expected this would happen—and that Dalton had planned it with his cronies all along.

“But first,” Dalton continued in a much calmer but still flamboyant tone, “there’s something I want Jas to see. Mei, come here.”

Finley held her breath. Was it wrong to hope that maybe Dalton would do them all a favor and shoot Mei, too? She frowned as every instinct she had screamed for her to run. The tiny little girl moved to stand before Dalton, who handed her his drink, which she then placed on a nearby table. His hand free, he reached down and cupped the back of her head, pulling her close to plant a very passionate kiss on her lips.

There were moments in a person’s life that they would carry with them until their dying day, and Finley knew the moment Jasper’s heart broke would be one of those for her. The color drained from his handsome face, and his eyes— usually full of charm and laughter—flared bright with pain before suddenly going flat and dead.

At that moment, he looked as though Dalton shooting him would be a kindness.

But the two sadistic creatures weren’t done with him yet. Mei wore a slightly smug expression as she reached up, around her neck and removed the clockwork collar, which had supposedly held her life in its cogs. She tossed it to the floor at Jasper’s feet.

“She isn’t yours,” Dalton bragged. “She hasn’t been yours in a very long time. Not since she killed Venton for me. Thank you, by the way, for being such a hero and trying to take the blame.”

“Right,” said Finley. She was not going to listen to any more of this, and neither was Jasper. “We’re done.” Jasper was not going to die today, not if she could help it.

Dalton’s attention snapped to her—as did his pistol. “Yes, you are. You had me fooled, you slag. Did you really expect me to believe the duke was only interested in Jasper? Do you really think I’m that stupid?”

“I had hoped,” she replied lightly. Then she stopped thinking and simply struck—like a snake—and seized the wrist of the hand holding the pistol.

She snapped it like a twig.

Dalton screamed—not surprisingly, like a girl—and crumpled to his knees. Jasper snatched up the dropped pistol, which was his to begin with, and brandished it as Dalton’s gang stared at him and Finley in shock.

Mei was the first to move—and Finley was too late seeing it, but she felt it when the smaller girl landed a stunning roundhouse kick to her temple. It would have knocked a normal human out, but Finley, Mei was about to learn, was not normal. She did, however, stagger a few feet backward under the force of the attack.

Shaking her head, Finley shook off the pain, and when Mei came at her again, she was ready. It took a fist to the throat to make her realize that Mei was indeed the one who had taught Jasper to fight. She was not an opponent to underestimate.

Finley squared off. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jasper—or a streak she thought was Jasper—take out two of Dalton’s henchmen with lightning-quick ease. It was about time the cowboy showed his stuff. When Mei launched herself at her once again, Finley was prepared and punched the girl in the face before she had a chance to take another swing. Mei recovered quickly and flew up into the air as though she had wings, her leg whipping out to deliver a powerful kick.

But Finley caught her by the ankle and whipped her around hard, releasing her so that she flew back against the wall before sliding down, into a stunned heap.

“Finley!” Jasper shouted.

She ducked and whirled around just in time to see Little Hank level a gun in her direction. Before she could react, she was caught in a rush of wind that sent her soaring backward. There was the crash of glass, a stinging in her back, and then she hit the ground hard, sending stabs of pain from her waist to her shoulders. Jasper sprawled on top of her.

“Sorry,” he said, breathless. “I meant to be on the bottom when we fell.”

Finley grinned at him. “Worse places to be, my friend. Think those fast feet of yours can get us out of here before they open fire?” Above them, she could see Little Hank rushing toward the window they’d smashed through.

Jasper pointed his pistol at the top of the window and fired, sending a spray of splintered wood into the room and driving the behemoth back. “Let’s see,” he said as they quickly untangled themselves and jumped to their feet. He turned his back to her. “Climb on.”

He didn’t have to tell her twice. “The Waldorf-Astoria,” Finley cried as she leaped onto his back and wrapped arms and legs around him. Then she hung on for dear life as Jasper took off running—faster than any horse or velocycle she’d ever been on. Tears streamed down her face because of the wind, but she didn’t dare lift a hand to wipe them away— didn’t know if she could lift her hand.

Jasper didn’t stop until they reached the hotel lift. The operator’s face turned white when he saw them—probably because both of them had blood on their faces and their hair looked as though they’d been caught in a hurricane.

They went to Griffin’s room first. Never had Finley been so glad to see someone as she was to see the Duke of Greythorne. She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him for all she was worth. He hugged her back.

Then he froze. “Finley?”

She pulled back. His face was white, his eyes wide. “What is it?”

He held up his hand—the one that had, just seconds before, rested on her back. It was covered in blood. “Turn around.”

Finley did as he commanded, a little ball of worry lying hard in her stomach. His expression scared her. “Blast it, Griffin King, what’s the matter?”

“You’ve glass in your back, love.”

“I know. Jasper and I dived through a window, which was unfortunately closed at the time. Can’t you pick them out?” She turned and saw his ashen face.

“No,” he rasped. “I can’t.”

Emily performed the surgery on the desk in Griffin’s room.

“Griffin King,” she said, hands poised over Finley’s bare and bloody back, “if you don’t stop pacing and fretting … ”

Griffin froze at the threat in her voice. He didn’t doubt that she would banish him from the room, and then he wouldn’t be there for Finley if she needed him. Not that she was aware enough to know if he was there or not—Emily had given her chloroform to put her to sleep so there was no danger of the shards moving and severing her spine.

It didn’t matter that Emily was “fairly” certain that, even if the glass did move and do the worst, she would only have to secure the severed flesh together and Finley would heal. It didn’t matter that Finley was amazingly strong. What mattered was that she was hurt and he couldn’t help her.

They had all been hurt recently, and some of those hurts had been life threatening. Who was he to ask his friends to put themselves at such risk? And what for? A country that would probably be terrified of them if they knew what they could do. It didn’t seem right or fair, but they did it anyway. And he didn’t have to ask why. They did it for him.

All this guilt and responsibility sitting on his shoulders was beginning to feel very heavy.

“What can I do?” he asked. “I need to do something for her.”

Emily poured Listerine on Finley’s back to clean the wounds and wash away the blood. “Come sit beside her. Hold her hand.”

He did. It didn’t even occur to him that seeing her naked skin, let alone being so close to it, was highly improper. He had thought about seeing her undressed— what bloke wouldn’t? —but this was not how.

He pulled up a chair, sat down by her head and held one of her hands, which dangled over the side of the desk. There was blood on the carpet, and he didn’t care. He could afford to replace it if the hotel charged him. What he couldn’t replace was Finley.

“Stop being so melodramatic,” Emily scolded as she dropped a piece of glass from her forceps into the rubbish bin. “Saints preserve us, lad. You look like you’re at her grave. You need to stop behaving like everything that happens is your fault. We all have our own minds, you know. In fact, I recall Finley went off and set this plan in motion without you being none the wiser. She knew what she was doing.”

“I still feel responsible.”

She pursed her lips as she nipped another sliver of glass. “Yes, well, I think you
like
feeling responsible. Just so ye know, it’s not a terribly attractive trait in a man, this brooding and moaning.”

“This, coming from the girl who thinks the sun rises and sets on Sam Morgan? Bit hypocritical, don’t you think?”

She blushed, the pink obliterating her freckles. “Sam wasn’t always a brooder. You, on the other hand, have always welcomed the weight of the world. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be a hero, Griffin. Just see that you don’t end up a martyr in the meanwhile.”

There was nothing he could say to that because she was completely right, and he felt like an arse for it. So he remained silent but not brooding.