The Girl in the Clockwork Collar (Steampunk Chronicles #2)(73)

All this guilt and responsibility sitting on his shoulders was beginning to feel very heavy.

“What can I do?” he asked. “I need to do something for her.”

Emily poured Listerine on Finley’s back to clean the wounds and wash away the blood. “Come sit beside her. Hold her hand.”

He did. It didn’t even occur to him that seeing her naked skin, let alone being so close to it, was highly improper. He had thought about seeing her undressed— what bloke wouldn’t? —but this was not how.

He pulled up a chair, sat down by her head and held one of her hands, which dangled over the side of the desk. There was blood on the carpet, and he didn’t care. He could afford to replace it if the hotel charged him. What he couldn’t replace was Finley.

“Stop being so melodramatic,” Emily scolded as she dropped a piece of glass from her forceps into the rubbish bin. “Saints preserve us, lad. You look like you’re at her grave. You need to stop behaving like everything that happens is your fault. We all have our own minds, you know. In fact, I recall Finley went off and set this plan in motion without you being none the wiser. She knew what she was doing.”

“I still feel responsible.”

She pursed her lips as she nipped another sliver of glass. “Yes, well, I think you like feeling responsible. Just so ye know, it’s not a terribly attractive trait in a man, this brooding and moaning.”

“This, coming from the girl who thinks the sun rises and sets on Sam Morgan? Bit hypocritical, don’t you think?”

She blushed, the pink obliterating her freckles. “Sam wasn’t always a brooder. You, on the other hand, have always welcomed the weight of the world. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be a hero, Griffin. Just see that you don’t end up a martyr in the meanwhile.”

There was nothing he could say to that because she was completely right, and he felt like an arse for it. So he remained silent but not brooding.

An eternity later, Emily finished removing all the glass from Finley’s back and draped a sheet over the sleeping girl. Then she took Griffin by the hand and pulled him over to the bed where the two of them sat side by side.

“You care about her, don’t you?” Emily asked, nodding at Finley.

“I care about all of you.”

“But you don’t want to be kissing Sam or me.”

“Hell, no.”

Emily laughed. “I didn’t t’ink so. So what’s the problem, lad?”

He glanced at Finley’s prone form. A little blood had soaked through the sheet that covered her. It turned his stomach, despite knowing that her wounds had already begun to mend once more. Her body had even tried to start healing around the glass fragments.

“What if it turns out that her darker nature is her true self? What if she decides she’d rather be bad than good?”

The expression on her face spoke volumes; she thought he was an idiot. “Griff, my friend, if she wanted that, she would have gone that way weeks ago. She wouldn’t be with us now.”

“I just don’t know if I can trust her to do the right thing.” He looked away. “I don’t like it.”

“You think I don’t wonder if Sam’s going to run off and get mixed up with the wrong sort again?” she asked. “You think I don’t wonder if someday he’s going to decide that he can’t forgive me for turning him into a mandroid? Everyone has doubts, lad. What you have to decide is if the risk is worth it. Is she?”

He glanced again at Finley, thought of that sharp pain in his chest when he saw the glass in her back—how he’d actually prayed for her to be all right. If Dalton had hurt her, he would have not only brought the house down on the bounder, he would have ripped him apart—just as Sam had threatened.

“Yes,” he whispered. “She is.”

*

Jasper was very much aware of Sam watching him as he cleaned the pistol he’d managed to take back from Dalton. With any luck he’d be able to retrieve the other, as well. If not, he’d have to hire Emily to build a replacement.

“You got a problem, Morgan?” he asked, without looking up.

“Just wondering what happened to seize up that normally flapping tongue of yours.”

“Maybe it’s the company,” he retorted coolly.

“Perhaps.” The bigger fella didn’t seem the least bit offended. “Or maybe something happened that’s got you all holed up in your head.”

“You mean like being kidnapped and forced to work for a criminal against my will?”

“No. I mean like whatever it was that made you leave your girl behind.”

Jasper stilled, but he still didn’t raise his head. Sam was smarter than he suspected. “She’s not my girl.”

“But she was. Wasn’t she?”

“I thought so. Seems I was wrong.”

“So what happened? She toss you over?”

Jasper’s head came up, and he glared at the darker boy. “It’s none of your damn business.”

Sam’s face lost all traces of humor. “She did, didn’t she? Devil take it. I’m sorry, Renn.”

He buffed the sides of the pistol with a soft, clean rag. “Don’t need your sympathy, Morgan. I was stupid, and I got played. That’s how the world works.”