his green eyes flickered up to meet mine. “That’s what you were doing in Dern?”
I nodded, swallowing hard. “I’m sorry.” The words broke in my throat.
The crease in his brow deepened. “For what?”
“For all of this.”
I wasn’t just talking about what happened that morning at the gambit. It was everything. It was Holland and Bastian and West burning Zola’s ships. It was for everything he didn’t want to tell me about what he’d done for Saint. When I’d stepped off the Marigold, I’d set our course to this moment. And I didn’t want to admit that West looked different to me now. That he looked more like my father.
He touched my face, fingertips sliding into my hair.
I didn’t know what he’d done in the Narrows, trying to find me. But the weight of it was heavy on him. He was darkened with it. In that moment, I only wanted to feel his rough hands on my skin and swallow the air around him until I could taste him on my tongue. To feel as if I were hidden in his shadow.
His face lowered until his mouth hovered over mine, and he kissed me so gently that the burn of tears instantly erupted behind my eyes. My hands moved down the shape of his back and he leaned into me, inhaling deeply, as if he was pulling the warmth of me inside of him. I put what Clove told me out of my mind, closing my eyes and imagining that we were in the lantern light of West’s quarters on the Marigold.
His teeth slipped over my bottom lip and the sting resurfaced from where the skin was still healing. But I didn’t care. I kissed him again and his hands reached for the skirts, pulling them up until I could feel his fingers on my legs. His touch dragged up, and when his hand wrapped around the stitches in my thigh, I winced, hissing.
West pulled away from me suddenly, his eyes running over my face.
“It’s nothing,” I whispered, pulling him back to me.
But he ignored me, pushing the skirts up to my hips so he could look at it. The clumsy stitches puckered in a jagged line at the center of a trailing purple bruise. He brushed a thumb lightly around it, his jaw clenching. “What happened?”
I pushed the frock back down between us, embarrassed. “One of Zola’s dredgers tried to make sure I didn’t come back up from a dive.”
West’s eyes were bright and sparkling, but the set of his mouth was still. Calm. “Who?”
“He’s dead,” I murmured.
He fell quiet, letting me go, and the space between us again grew wide and empty. The warmth that had been in his touch was gone, making me shiver. The last ten days flashed in his eyes, showing me a glimpse of that part of West I’d seen the night he told me about his sister. The night he hadn’t told me about Saint.
I don’t need to know, some part of me whispered. But the lie in the words echoed behind them. Because eventually, we would have to unearth those buried bones, along with whatever else West was hiding from me.
SIXTEEN
I sat on the floor against the wall, watching the beam of morning light crawl across the tassel-edged rug until it touched my toes. The hours had passed in silence, with only the occasional sound of boots outside the closed door.
West stood at the window watching the street, and I could see the finery of his coat much better in the light. The burgundy wool fell to his knees, the color making his hair look even more fair, and I wondered how in the world anyone had gotten him into it. Even his boots were shined.
I hadn’t slept, watching West’s tired eyes stare out the window. He looked as if he hadn’t closed them in days, the cut of his cheekbones sharper.
As if he could feel my attention on him, he looked over his shoulder. “You all right?”
“I’m all right,” I said, my eyes dropping to his hands. The last time I’d seen West, he told me he’d killed sixteen men. I wondered how many it was now. “You’re worried about them,” I said, thinking of the Marigold.
“They’ll be fine.” I could tell he was reassuring himself, not me. “The sooner we get out of here, the better.”
A soft knock sounded at the door and we both stilled. I hesitated before I got to my feet, grimacing when the stitches in my leg