The Girl in the Clockwork Collar (Steampunk Chronicles #2)(47)

Finley arched a brow at her tone. Wishful thinking, perhaps? “Your concern humbles me.” She said it with just enough sarcasm to let Mei know that if she wanted to get bitchy, she was more than happy to reciprocate.

Lips tightening, Mei rose from the bed and gracefully approached—as though her feet didn’t touch the floor. She was so dainty and graceful, but Finley knew better than to lower her guard. This tiny little girl was just as much a threat to her as Dalton was, though Finley wasn’t certain why.

“I don’t know why you are here,” Mei said slowly. “I don’t know why he likes you, but I want you to know that I was here first.”

Feeling the urge to kick the bee’s nest, Finley smirked. “Is this the part where you tell me to stay away from your man because you’re afraid I’ll take Jasper away from you?”

Incredibly full lips curved into a smug smile. “Jasper adores me.”

“Really?” Finley tossed the bundle of clothes into a hamper in the corner. “Because it seems to me that if he loved you that much, he would have taken you to England with him instead of leaving you behind.”

The slap came so fast, Finley barely saw it. She felt it, though—all the way through her skull. Fire blossomed in her cheek before the sharp sting had even begun to fade. She drew back her fist but caught herself just in time. As much as she wanted to retaliate, it wouldn’t look good for a girl her size—with her strength—to hit a little thing like Mei. Also, Jasper wouldn’t like it.

She touched her cheek. “Just so you know, if you ever do that again, I’m going to make you swallow your own teeth.”

Mei smiled mockingly. “You will do no such thing. You don’t want to upset either Dalton or Jasper.”

Finley poked her in the neck—right where the clockwork collar curved around her throat. “If Dalton thought you were that valuable, he wouldn’t have given you that lovely bit of frippery.”

The other girl shoved her hand away with a gasp. Her own hands went to her throat, clawing at the high neck of her dress. Finley watched in confusion. What the devil … The collar. She had set off the collar, and now Mei was slowly being strangled by it.

She grabbed the smaller girl by the shoulders, holding her upright as her knees sagged. “How do I stop it?” she demanded, fighting the urge to shake her. “How do I turn the bloody thing off?”

Suddenly, Mei stood upright and shrugged off Finley’s grip with a tinkling laugh. Finley froze. Mei had only been pretending to suffocate. “You are not as tough as you boast, Miss Bennet.”

Finley felt both cold and hot at the same time. She hadn’t wanted to be responsible for Mei’s death, but now …

She seized the smaller girl by the twist of hair on the back of her head and pulled.

“Ow!” Mei cried. Her hands clutched at Finley’s, nails digging in. “Let me go! What are you doing?”

Finley didn’t ignore the pain—she let it fuel her anger—as she dragged her captive toward the window. “I’m going to toss you out the bloody window and see if your collar tightens then. The fall might break your legs. You’d have a hard time getting back inside with your legs broken, wouldn’t you? Don’t worry, I’ll save you—eventually.”

Mei struggled all the harder. Blood ran down Finley’s hand to trickle down her arm and drip to the floor, but she did not let go. She opened the window with her free hand and tossed Mei across the sill so she was half in, half out.

The girl started screaming. Passersby looked up to see what all the commotion was about. A woman cried out, and a young man laughed, making a joke about how girls fought.

When Finley was done with Mei, that little cretin was next.

“I’m sorry!” Mei cried. “Let me in. Please!”

While publicly humiliating the girl went a long way to soothing Finley’s anger, the apology was far more effective. She yanked Mei back over the sill and slammed the window shut. Only then did she finally release her hold on Mei’s hair.

The Chinese girl glared at her as she rubbed her scalp. Her face was red with rage, but there wasn’t a tear to be seen, except for the usual watering that came with having one’s hair pulled.

“You’ll pay for that,” she promised, her voice low and even.

Finley smiled at her. “Do your worst, sweetheart.”

Mei shot her another filthy look before sweeping from the room like an arrogant queen. Finley watched her go with a vaguely amused smile, though she knew better than to entirely dismiss the threat. She and Mei were officially enemies now, and the worst thing she could do was underestimate the girl.

Never underestimate a girl, she reminded herself as she washed the blood from her arm in the basin.

What did Jasper see in the awful little thing? It couldn’t be her personality.

Whatever it was, she didn’t much care. She just made a mental note not to leave her back open anytime Mei was around. The girl was liable to stick a knife in it.

Jasper was sitting in the parlor, whittling an elephant out of a small block of wood, when Mei came in. Dalton might have “given” him his freedom, but Jasper didn’t trust it, and he didn’t like leaving Mei alone with the scoundrel any more than he had to.

When he saw the expression on Mei’s pretty face, his first thought was that Dalton had dared to touch or harm her in some way. He’d put a bullet right between the criminal’s eyes if that was the case.