The Girl in the Clockwork Collar (Steampunk Chronicles #2)(84)

She stared at him for a second before bursting out laughing. He laughed, too. She didn’t know what she’d done to warrant this friendliness, but it was nice being able to talk to him without feeling like there was bad blood between them. It was almost as though they could forget that he had tried to kill her and that she had almost killed him.

They arrived back at the hotel and had to use Sam’s telegraph machine—that he had been smart enough to bring— to ask Griffin to come down and pay the driver as neither of them had any money on them. When he arrived Finley noticed, with chagrin, that he had put a shirt on.

“Did Dalton see them?” Griffin asked.

“He certainly did,” she replied. “I’ve no doubt he wants my head so badly now, he can taste it.”

His smile twisted. “Nice image.”

The three of them rode the lift up to their floor, and after checking on Jasper, Griffin walked Finley back to her room. He kissed her on the forehead before she slipped through the open door. Smiling—more from the kiss than from rubbing Dalton’s face in his failure—she closed the window and locked it, then pulled the drapes closed, as well. Then she climbed into bed and pulled the blankets up to her chin. There was so much to think about—so much to do and so much that had already been done—that she doubted she’d get any more rest that night.

She was sound asleep within five minutes.





Chapter 18


Finley liked dressing up, especially if the gown was also designed to give her freedom to kick arse.

The gown she had found at the shop—so pretty and dark purple—was just that sort of dress. The little puff sleeves did nothing to restrain her arms. The bodice was snug, but she wore a flexible corset beneath so she could bend and move without difficulty. But the skirts were the true masterpiece. Today’s fashions were for lean skirts, which created a lovely silhouette, but were absolute rubbish for kicking or anything else that required lifting one’s leg any more than a thirty degree angle. The skirt on Finley’s gown was constructed of individual pieces and layers of fabric. The result looked very much like the petals of a rose. It was beautiful, and best of all she could kick as high as her head in it—it would reveal a shocking amount of her leg if she did, but the mobility was worth it.

She and Emily had helped each other with their hair and in getting dressed. Emily was beautiful in her golden gown that made her skin look like ivory. Finley had coiled the ropes of her hair on top of her head in an elegant topknot, which showed off the length of her neck. In exchange, Emily had gathered Finley’s hair into a loose cloud high on the back of her head. It looked like the whole of it might fall at any moment, but it was as secure as Westminster Abbey.

Neither of them had much jewelry, just the small gold earrings they’d purchased the day Griffin made them go shopping. But with gowns like these—especially Emily’s—little jewelry was better.

“The lads are going to fall all over themselves when they see us,” Emily predicted, patting her hair.

“They’d better,” Finley added. “It’s taken hours for us to look like this. I would hope they’d appreciate it.”

They were just about to meet the boys in Griffin’s room when Emily hesitated. “What’s wrong?” Finley asked.

“It’s Jasper,” the redhead replied, her pretty face all concern. “His poor heart must be broken, being used like that by a girl he loved.”

“This whole mess is because of her,” Finley added. “I wager she was the one who knew Jas would recover the machine to protect her. The collar was probably her idea, as well. She’s a coldhearted slag.”

“Maybe we could find him someone new in London.” Finley smiled. Emily seemed to have a penchant for matchmaking. Maybe her love of fixing machines made her want to fix people, too. “Or we could let him do that himself— when he’s ready.”

Emily obviously preferred her own suggestion but saw the merit in Finley’s, as well. That was the end of their discussion of the brokenhearted cowboy. They had an event to get to and a villain to stop.

And then they could go home. As fantastic as the city was, Finley couldn’t say that she’d be sorry to leave it. Not after the “adventure” they’d had.

Her friend had been correct in one thing, however, Finley realized as they entered Griffin’s room—the boys did look as though they might fall over at the sight of them.

“Amazing what the right dress can do, isn’t it?” Finley asked with a slightly embarrassed grin.

Griffin offered her his arm. “It’s not the dress—it’s the girl.”

She blushed as she tucked her arm around his. She wasn’t certain how to react when he said such things, because she knew he meant them.

Behind her, she heard Sam tell Emily how pretty she was. She could tell he meant it, too.

“I think we’re all dang pretty,” Jasper commented, sounding more like his former self. “Me especially.”

Finley grinned at him. “Perhaps we can simply dazzle Dalton into surrendering, eh, Jas?”

He stared at her, a surprised light in his green eyes. Finley realized she had started to refer to him by the nickname a few days ago. It was a sign of how quickly she had come to think of him as a dear friend, and he knew it.