Unraveled (Turner #3)(19)

“I’m perfectly well,” he said.

She frowned dubiously at that. “You can never be sure. I knew someone who hit his head and then dropped dead the next day.”

She reached to touch his cheek, and he grabbed her hand.

“I said, I’m perfectly well.”

But he wasn’t. A flutter of…of something passed through him. Something barely recognizable. His hand fit around hers. She was warm, and he could feel calluses on her fingertips. She wasn’t a lady, no matter how exalted her accent at the moment; he could feel the evidence against his palm. Her rough hands should have reminded him of the gulf between them.

There were too many differences: he was wealthy; she was not. She’d appeared in his courtroom; he might have to see her again.

But when he took hold of her hand, he was most aware of the other sharp distinction between them. He was a man. And she was, undoubtedly, a woman.

She looked down at him, at his grip on her, and slowly, he let her fingers loose.

She pulled away. “Well. My apologies for interfering.”

His hand still tingled where he’d touched her; he made a fist of it. “If I’m going to drop dead, I’ll do so regardless of whether you prod at me.”

“Yes, but if you drop dead here, I’ll be stuck disposing of your body.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “I have enough to worry about.”

It hurt to smile, so much so that he winced when he tried. “Well, then. I’ll do my best to drag my sorry carcass away if I feel the sudden urge to keel over.” He ran his hand over his face. “Why did you go to the records room?”

“Looking for records,” she muttered evasively.

“What sort of records?”

She paused and looked up to her right. “I have a friend,” she said slowly. “George Patten. He was put away two months ago, and due to be released yesterday, yet he’s disappeared entirely. He wasn’t let go. He’s not in gaol. I don’t know where he is.” There was a twitch in her cheek.

“Those records would be kept at the gaol,” Smite said. “You don’t imagine that the records of daily dealings at the gaol would find their way to the Council House a mere day after the events in question. Tell me the truth, Miss Darling.”

She raised her eyes and let out a long exhale. “Someone asked me to get a list of all the men employed by the police force,” she said quickly.

Likely, that was the truth.

“I don’t think you should have anything to do with someone,” he said.

“Of course I shouldn’t.” She stood up and paced away. “Especially as he didn’t even want the list. I don’t like having games played with my safety. But—”

“But you’re in over your head, and you’ve someone else to watch over. It’s not easy surviving by yourself.”

“I—yes.” She looked at him, her eyes crinkled in puzzlement. “I wouldn’t have imagined you would understand. It is, after all, just one of those excuses that you decried the last time we spoke.”

Smite had his own experience of Bristol life, decades old now. But he simply shook his head. “It’s always difficult when responsibilities tug you in different directions.”

“Difficult.” She let out a sigh. “I feel like Antigone, operating under two incompatible directives.”

Smite froze. “Antigone.” He glanced up at her. “How do you know Antigone?”

She waved a hand. “I was raised by actors. You shouldn’t be shocked that I have some passing familiarity with plays.”

“Passing familiarity, yes, but… Antigone has not yet been translated from the Greek.”

“One of the members of our troupe was translating it.” She delivered this airily, with no sense of how remarkable that might have been.

There were only a handful of scholars who could have even attempted such a thing. Men who translated ancient Greek were fellows at Oxford. They didn’t traipse about the countryside putting on performances for rural audiences.

It wasn’t often that Smite was rendered stupid. “But… You were truly raised by actors?” It didn’t come out as quite a question. He’d already noticed that over the course of their conversation, her accent had drifted toward the learned tones of an Oxonian. Her vocabulary was far beyond what he would have expected from a poor seamstress.

“It’s not so hard to understand.” She peered at him. “Are you sure you’re well?” Before he realized what she was doing, she reached out and set her hand against his forehead. A brief flicker of her fingers against his temple—nothing more—and he was transported to a darker place. He was spitting out cold water, his hands rigid and aching from holding fast to wood. The light above him danced and dazzled—

“Ouch!”

Her cry brought him back to the present. He was warm and dry, no matter how quickly his heart raced. He wasn’t there. He was in a garret room, sitting next to Miss Darling. She’d touched his face, and he’d grabbed her hand. He hadn’t squeezed too hard, thank God. She was breathing quickly and looking at him as if he had perhaps passed over into lunacy.

He let go. “Don’t fuss over me.”

She flexed her hand gingerly.

“Will you be back, then, looking for records?”