Revenge and the Wild(76)

After tucking James in, she went downstairs to face Nigel.

He was in his office waiting for her. Alistair and Bena were leaving just as she walked in.

“I’ll get our things,” Alistair said on his way out.

Bena gave her a wink and a gentle squeeze on her shoulder. Westie wanted to stop her and ask about Nigel’s mood, but couldn’t without him hearing.

“Shut the door,” Nigel said when she was in his office.

He was either nervous or angry, judging by the way he kept rearranging his desk.

“I seem to remember things going terribly wrong the last time you were in someone else’s room without being invited—yet here we are again,” he said, but he didn’t sound upset.

Westie sat down in the chair opposite Nigel, propping her boots up on his desk. “And I seem to recall someone saying they’d help take the Fairfields down no matter what scheming had to be done.”

Nigel’s lips twitched but didn’t quite turn into a smile. “I did say that, didn’t I?”

“Are you angry?” she asked.

Nigel leaned back in his chair, looking up at the sepia-painted Vitruvian Man on the ceiling that used to give Westie a touch of the giggles when she was younger. “No, but I am concerned about your healing process should your travels not yield the results you want.”

“You’re talking about me drinking.”

He nodded. “I just want you to be all right.”

“You don’t need to worry about that anymore—trust me on that one.”

He opened his mouth to say more, but she interrupted him, wanting to escape the subject. “James is upstairs in my room. Take care of him while we’re gone. He’s in a bad way now that all his money’s gone.”

“I’ll be happy to have him. While Alistair’s away, I’ll need the extra pair of hands to help me move Emma into the mine. I plan to attach the engine, and once I do, it’ll be too big for the great room..”

“Take care of yourself too. Both your names are on that list we found,” Westie said.

Nigel stood and forced Westie into a hug. Once the awkwardness of the embrace wore off, she settled in and leaned her head against his shoulder.

“Don’t worry about us,” he said. “I’ll take care of James. And we have Jezebel and Lucky looking out.”

“We’ll be back day after tomorrow,” Westie said.

With a final squeeze, she let go of Nigel and went to meet Alistair.

They left soon after Westie’s conversation with Nigel and rode through the night without stopping, and without sleep. Westie had forgotten how peaceful the road could be away from the clicking of so many inventions. Even with the silence and tired eyes, she couldn’t turn off the sound in her mind.

It was morning. An overcast sky threatened rain. Autumn was beginning to show in all corners, but the cold gusts made it feel more like winter. Crisp air stung Westie’s nose with the scent of pine. The closer they got to the city, the more maples they encountered until they were swallowed up by them, enchanting splashes of color in an otherwise dreary landscape. Deep orange, scarlet, and purple leaves fell from the sky like embers from a burning airship. Westie raised her parasol to keep the sugar sap of the leaves from sticking to her hair.

She’d stayed quiet during the ride, but there was a question that had been nagging at her ever since their kiss.

“I want you to tell me something, and I need you to be honest,” she said through chattering teeth. In her haste to leave, she’d forgotten her duster. Her fingers and toes had gone completely numb.

Alistair looked at her, raising his brows. “Of course. What is it?”

Now that she had his full attention, her courage leaked away. She opened her mouth and closed it. After three more tries, she finally found the right words. “Three years ago, at my birthday party, you put on your mask and never showed me your face again. Why?”

He looked down, face going red, mask humming loudly. “Oh, that,” he said.

“Yes, that. It’s hard for me to believe, after all those years of you hating me and avoiding my very existence, that you love me all of a sudden.”

He shook his head and made a sound she thought was laughter. “I never hated you. The opposite, in fact.”

“You could’ve fooled me—and everyone else around for that matter. Everyone saw it. Even Isabelle.”

She choked on Isabelle’s name. It was still difficult for her to say out loud.

He took a breath and let it slowly whistle out through the mask’s air filter. “I’d never seen the way others treated you prior to that party. Once you left school, it was just me and you. I’d assumed they were afraid of you like they were of me—especially after you crushed Isabelle’s hand.”

He chuckled at the memory, but when Westie didn’t join in, his laughter trailed off into a hum. “I was happy that you had friends, and I enjoyed watching you interact with them and be a normal girl for a change.” He sighed, a long hissing sound. “While I watched, I saw how the boys looked at you. I recognized the stares because I’d caught myself doing the very same thing.”

She looked at him, surprised.

“Just one year earlier you were thirteen, all bones and skinned knees, climbing trees and crying when I wouldn’t play stickball with you because you could hit the ball so much farther than I. You seemed like a child then, while I was a man of sixteen. Then suddenly, at fourteen, you didn’t seem so young anymore.” The redness in his face deepened. “I was terrified by the way I’d started to feel about you. I knew that I’d always loved you, but it had changed into a . . . mature kind of love.”