The Map of Chaos (Trilogía Victoriana #3)(25)
Clayton looked at her impassively, saying nothing.
“It would all be a lot simpler if I were just wearing a belt made of wolf hide, wouldn’t it? Because I would only have to burn it. Unfortunately, what changes me into what I am is also part of me.” The countess tried to make light of the situation. “But I promise you, that isn’t the real me. No, that isn’t me. Believe me when I tell you that each of those deaths weighs on my conscience.”
“Assuming you have one,” Clayton muttered.
The countess smiled weakly.
“But the thing I shall never forgive myself for is failing the man who gave me everything,” she went on, ignoring the inspector’s remark, “the man who considered me beautiful, despite knowing what I was, who made me feel, not like a monster, but like a worthwhile being—the most worthwhile being in the entire universe . . .” Her voice faltered and her eyes filled with tears. “And you remind me so much of him . . . The first time I saw you, I felt I was looking into my husband’s eyes anew . . .” She edged toward Clayton, reaching out a hand to touch his face. The inspector could feel the scorching heat from the fire on his back, and yet the countess’s fingers burned more than the flames themselves. With neither the strength nor the will to resist, Clayton let her run them over his cheek in an ardent caress, scarcely brushing his lips before withdrawing her hand. “You have the eyes of an old man, Inspector, eyes that view the world from somewhere remote and unassailable, that endeavor to understand it whilst remaining outside of it. And yet . . .” The countess moved her face closer to Clayton’s, who could smell the salty aroma of her tear-stained skin. “Your lips are made for love.”
Clayton gripped her wrist, restraining her.
“Don’t even try,” he warned. “You cannot prevent me from doing what I have to do. I am going to arrest you, Countess. It’s my duty. I shall deliver you to Scotland Yard handcuffed, in chains if necessary . . . and may God save your soul,” he murmured, giving an impression of coldness that belied his true feelings. “I shan’t deny that I feel a sense of horror at your tragic fate. Our scientists will strip off your splendid clothes, strap you naked to a chair, and examine you as if you were an animal. They won’t stop until they discover what sort of monster lives inside you, and afterward they will lock you in a cage for the rest of your life.”
The countess simply smiled at him, the way a man would smile when recalling the stories that frightened him as a child. It was then Clayton saw, from close up, that the countess’s eyes were not totally black: a fine ring of gold, like a solar eclipse, encircled her irises.
“What you said earlier is true,” he heard her say, her lips within kissing distance of his. “I manipulated you. I used my smiles to cloud your thinking. But all the time I was dazzling you . . . I was also falling in love with you.”
“You’re lying,” Clayton said between gritted teeth.
The countess pulled an amused face, as if he were joking.
“Do you know why you love me, Clayton? You love me because you don’t understand me, because I am a riddle to you. I intrigue you, I trouble you, I keep you awake at night, and I take away your appetite. You want to solve the puzzle I present you because that is the most powerful form of possession there is. And I confess that for the first time in my life I feel the same way,” she said, her breath quickening. “It’s true, from the moment I saw you I felt the need to discover what lay behind your eyes . . . Believe it or not, I fell in love with you, Clayton. But I forced myself to struggle against those feelings that were growing stronger and stronger. I am a monster and cannot permit myself the luxury of falling in love. But I don’t want to struggle any longer, Inspector. Not now. I, too, deserve to know at least once in my life what it feels like to love. So, I am begging you, Inspector, let’s forget who we are just for tonight and give way to our desire. I promise you that tomorrow we will go back to being a Scotland Yard inspector and his prisoner . . . But the night is still young.”
As she spoke, Clayton felt her hot breath on his face, he smelled the sweet fragrance of her hair, and he noticed the blood pulsing fiercely in her slender wrist, still firmly clasped in his hand. And, perhaps because at that point it was his only way of resisting, Clayton squeezed that part of her as hard as he could, hoping to cause her pain, to hear her fragile bones snap in his grip. The countess groaned, but that didn’t stop her. Her smoldering lips slid across his cheek toward his mouth.
“I only want to know what it is to love, before the day dawns and everything comes to an end . . . ,” she whispered to him before her lips melted in his.
Clayton slowly released the countess’s wrist, opening his fingers almost without realizing it, like a tree letting the fruit it has been cradling for months fall to the ground. For a few seconds his arm hung in the air, orphaned, purposeless, until at last the countess flung her arms around him. After a moment’s hesitation, Clayton clasped her by the waist with a fervor he had never imagined he could feel. A mysterious, powerful desire raged through him like a fire, searing his veins and setting his reason alight, threatening to rip open his body from the inside, to blow him up like a keg of dynamite. And in his urgency to smother that fire, Clayton pressed his body hard against hers, as though he hoped to break through the frontiers of her flesh and plunge headlong into the muddy depths of her soul. He knew he wanted to possess her, to put an end to the sudden hunger overwhelming him. The countess pulled her mouth away from his and Clayton felt her run her lips excitedly over his neck, nipping him with her teeth. Incapable of thinking rationally, Clayton pushed her from him, ready to throw her down on the rug and make her his, take her roughly until he had extinguished the flames of desire burning him up. At that moment, their eyes met, and the inspector was jolted out of himself. The countess’s gaze wasn’t what he had expected. A cold, calm light flickered in her eyes, belying the abandon of her body.