“I don’t hate you.” She turned to face him.
He brightened, and the hope in his gaze made her heart break all over again.
“I want to despise you.” She knew she was being cruel, yet the cruelty was for herself as well as him. “It is not merely the lies you told, but the fact that you deliberately used me. Collecting coins for you. Having me believe I was gratifying some secret wish, a shared confidence for you and I alone. And I was so bloody eager to give you whatever I could. To help forge our wedding vows into a true marriage.” She shoved her knuckles into her eyes, forcing back the tears that wanted to fall. When she felt in control of herself again, she let her hands hang down at her sides. “None of it was genuine. Just a manipulation.”
He did not look away, did not flinch. Though it was clear that each word she spoke wounded him. Anger drained from his gaze, leaving behind regret and pain.
“True, again.” His voice was a harsh rasp. “I used you, Anne. Most grievously. I’ve no excuse but my own greed. There’s naught I can say but ... I am sorry.” He swallowed hard. “From the depths of my heart, I’m sorry.”
She wanted to go to him. Comfort him. Never had she seen him in such pain, or with such aching want. Yet she kept herself rooted to the floor, the cool of the warped floorboards chilling her feet.
“I do not know what between us is real. What is illusion.” She forced words from her burning throat. “Did you ever care for me, Leo? Or was I simply a puppet?”
He moved stiffly to the window, and braced his hands on either side of the glass. His distant gaze seemed to barely see anything outside. Cold light carved him into sharp planes.
“At the onset,” he began, “my motives were mercenary. Perhaps even more so than one of your typical aristo marriages. I saw you as a key, a way to open doors that had been closed to me. Ours was not a love match.”
His words hit her like thrown rocks, yet she anticipated the blows. “That, I know. Each of us gained something from the marriage. It was a business deal. Commodities exchanged.” She blinked as a sudden ray of sunlight pierced the gloom and knifed into the chamber. It could not hold out against the clouds, though, and shrank away until only its afterimage remained burned into her sight.
“Still,” she continued, “I thought that, in time, we came to share something. Something beyond ... the boundaries of commerce and trade.”
He turned back to her, his expression fierce. “We did. We do.”
“How can I know? What can I trust?”
“Trust this.” He stalked across the room to her. She knew his intent, and stayed precisely where she stood.
She thought he would grab her roughly, crush her to him. Certainly his gaze burned and his visage tightened with hunger. But he was not cruel, nor brutal.
Stepping close so that their chests met, he threaded his fingers into her hair, cupping the back of her head with exquisite tenderness. He tipped her head back. Ravenous, reverent, his gaze moved over her face, as if seeking to commit every inch of her to memory. Slight tremors shook his hands, or perhaps it was she who trembled.
He lowered his mouth to hers, brushing his lips across hers, relearning her feel. Her eyes drifted closed as he took the kiss deeper, lips opening, urging hers to part. She wanted this so badly. When her own mouth opened, allowing him inside, a sound midway between a moan and a growl curled up from deep in his chest, a sound of profound need.
She tasted him, and his flavor was delicious, bittersweet. For he was familiar and strange, wonderful and terrible. Her hands came up to grip his tight biceps. This was as much touch she would allow herself, though she wanted to wrap her arms around him and hold him close.
My God, how tenderly he kissed her. His lips spoke to her; she was the center of everything, the origin and the destination. Sweet and profound.
“Trust this,” he whispered against her mouth. “You seek truth. Here it is.”
“A kiss can lie,” she whispered back.
He shook his head. “Not mine. I’ve not the art of a seducer. Nor the words.” He pulled back enough so that their gazes met, and locked. “In all that has happened, in all that I had, you were the truest thing. Only you.”
She felt herself bleeding inside, torn and agonized. What he wanted from her, she did not know she could give. “Leo ...”
Abruptly, he released her and stepped away. Her hands hung in the air as he tugged off his borrowed coat. Waistcoat and shirt followed, all of them tossed to the floor without thought. Until he stood before her, bare-chested but for the bandages.
He turned, and she saw—for only the second time—the markings on his back. The pattern of flames twisted across his shoulders, emphasizing firm muscles. They were almost beautiful, the markings, but for their sinister connotation. They showed he remained the Devil’s possession.
“The marks have grown,” he said, keeping his back to her. “From the first day to now, they have spread over me. I didn’t know why, not until this morning.
“When they cover you, your soul is utterly lost.” The markings coiled down from his shoulders, along his back in a V-shape. A single tongue of flame wound down the length of his spine. Yet the skin of his back was not fully covered by the images. His lower back remained mostly bare, as did the upper curve of his buttocks, just appearing at the waistband of his breeches.
“Even with my gift of prophecy,” he said over his shoulder, “much of what I do on the Exchange involves hours of research, and careful consideration of available facts and knowledge. But instinct is vital, too. I trust my instincts. Always have. They seldom lead me astray.”
He faced her, chin high. “And I trust my instincts now when they tell me that those markings would have covered me by now ... were it not for you.”
She blinked. “Me?”
“You saved my soul.” He spoke plainly, with no embellishment, no uncertainty. “Had you not come into my life, had you not been who you are, my soul would now belong to the Devil. I know this as I know my own heartbeat.”
Slowly, she walked toward him, and he held himself very still. She moved past him, until she faced his back.
Her hand brushed over the slope of his shoulder. He inhaled sharply at the contact. Beneath her touch, his muscles tightened, responsive and alive. He radiated heat. With careful deliberation, she traced the markings, each image of flame drawn upon his skin.
“I wish ...” She followed the marks, trailing down between his shoulder blades, along his spine. The capability of this man, his will made flesh. “I wish you valued yourself more.”
“When I’m with you,” he rasped, “I do. I see what I can become, the better man I might be.”
“Might be,” she echoed. “But will you become that man?”
He shook his head. “The one future I cannot see is my own.”
“Yet you envisioned mine. You touched something that belonged to me, and you saw.” She placed her hands on his shoulders and turned him to face her. Releasing him, she picked up a scattering of pins she had removed from her hair, then placed them in his hand. “Tell me what you see now.”
Reluctance tightened his mouth. “Anne ...”
“Tell me.”
He exhaled. Then his gaze grew distant—the same distance that had come into his eyes when they stood on the banks of the Thames, and he had taken a ribbon from her hair. Fresh anger surged. He had used his magic against her. It felt like a violation.
His gaze sharpened again. “It was ... unclear.”
“No prevarication,” she bit out. “Honesty, Leo. Or there is no moving forward.”
His eyes narrowed. “I am being honest. I saw more demons, and a struggle. I was there, too. But the where and when of it—that I couldn’t tell.”