Delilah Dawson - The Damsel and the Daggerman

“You think I did it, then?” His voice changed as his teeth clenched, and he circled away from her, their connection broken. He pulled the knives from the target one by one, so quickly and roughly that even though she knew there was no danger, she expected to see blood. Jacinda could feel that she was losing him, would have to reel him back in with sure hands.

“I think you’re hiding something. And I want you to tell me what it is. And why.”

He spun, and his fine eyes narrowed at her, taking in her figure, her face. If those attributes would weigh in her favor, she would use them, and gladly. She let one corner of her mouth play up, slow and sly, her eyelashes lowering just a little, just enough.

But instead of softening, he stiffened, cocking his head. “Is this a game to you?”

“A game?”

“Are you as brash as you pretend to be? Or is it part of your little act?”

“My act?”

He grinned. “You’re echoing, sweetness. Might want to work on that.”

Jacinda took a deep breath, trying to focus. He unnerved her, as much as she hated to admit it. “I’m not scared of you, Mr. Taresque. The truth is not a game. And I wouldn’t say I’m brash. Simply that I don’t base my decisions on fear.”

That earned her a wide, toothy smile that made her nervous. And rightly so, considering what happened next. “So prove it.”

And he reached into his vest and held out a playing card.

Jacinda took the card from between his fingers, careful not to touch his black suede glove.

“The Queen of Hearts? Really?”

“Really.”

She held it up to the light. It was an old card, the image in sepia-tinged tones that might very well have been painted by hand. “There’s a knife slash in this card.”

“Let’s add another one.”

Her body stiffened before her mind caught up. “Exactly what are you proposing, Mr. Taresque?”

“A dare.”

She rolled her eyes. “Elucidate.”

He chuckled. “Let’s make it simple. I strap you to the target. You hold this card out, as close to or as far from your body as you wish. I’ll throw one knife. If I hit the card, you go back to wherever you came from and leave me the hell alone. If I miss . . .”

“Yes?”

“Well, if I kill you, I suppose I’m on the run again.”

She shivered but swatted him with her notebook to cover the true frisson of fear. “If you miss?”

“I’ll answer one question with complete honesty.”

“Only one?”

That grin again. “I have fifty-one more cards, if you find you like the game. Should be enough for your book.”

Jacinda turned the card over in her hands. One knife-wide slice through it. Not a drop of blood, as carefully as she looked, and the paper was old and unwaxed, so she would have noticed. Her eyes flicked to the target, where a single gash of knife-struck wood marred the black-painted figure from his throw just moments ago. The bull’s-eye still spun lazily, a constellation of scars outlining a body she could almost imagine as her own, if naked and corseted, the legs delicately spread and the arms up in what almost seemed triumph. Or surrender.

She shook her head. That was ridiculous.

“What if I walk away right now?”

“Then you’ll never know the truth.”

She walked past him in a huff, the card held in one hand, the edges of the paper cutting into her fingers.

“But I don’t think you’re going to walk away, sweetness.”

And that’s when she stopped.

“Consider it carefully. This is your last chance.”

His voice was mocking, taunting, luring. And beneath all the posturing, the cruelty, the danger, there was something else. Pleading? So low, so deep, that even he surely didn’t know it was there.

Could it be possible that he wanted to tell her the truth as much as she wanted to hear it? Even if it was a confession of guilt? But surely if Lady Letitia had seen her dying in a pool of blood in the carnival, she wouldn’t have allowed Jacinda to stay. That had to mean it was safe.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, her ribs creaking against her corset as she focused her will. With a cold, slow smile, she held out the playing card between two fingers. “Then let’s play, Mr. Taresque.”

“That’s the second part of the deal. First, you have to call me Marco.”

“Where do you want me, Marco?”

A lesser man would have betrayed himself at such bold speech. Swallowed hard, gasped, at least allowed his eyes to widen the tiniest bit. But not Marco Taresque. Not the Deadly Daggerman. No, he just raised one eyebrow and grinned. “Right over the silhouette, sweetness. I’ll strap you in as gently as I can.”

That was the first time she noticed the narrow platforms at the base of each painted leg and the leather straps at each wrist. Fear trickled down her veins, starting with numbness in her hands and feet and a chill, heavy feeling that settled deep in her belly. But she wouldn’t show Marco that. He was watching her so very carefully for any sign of weakness, for the smallest betrayal of her determination. After disparaging the flibbertigibbets of the caravan, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of thinking her a coward or a lesser woman.

After a second’s consideration, she took the card in her left hand and held out her right. “A warrior in the forests of Almanica once dared me to something similar involving a tomahawk,” she murmured, low and dulcet.

“And you took the dare?”

“I did. I got a great story out of it. And a tattoo in a very personal area.”

He ignored her baiting and took her hand to help her step up onto the platform, her skirts crushed between her stocking-clad calves and the painted wood. The abrupt change in her posture forced her chest out, knocking it into his arm. He absorbed the blow with a gratified grunt but neglected to make any comment. His fingers skimmed along her left arm and trailed over her bracelet before firmly holding her wrist against the wood and strapping it down gently. She understood then that he wasn’t a man who allowed second chances, that the die was cast, and herself along with it. And she was the kind of woman who preferred it that way, so she tested the leather and nodded her approval.

“Why do you wear no gloves?” he asked. “Do you wish to be eaten?”

“I’ve been to the far corners of the globe, and it was never the sight of my bare flesh that earned me a brush with the stewpot. It was usually ignorance.”

“Or perhaps you simply overestimate a creature’s self-control.”

He stroked the crease down the palm of her trapped hand, and she couldn’t stop herself from shivering.

“But what of the card?” Her right arm seemed oddly heavy and useless, the card suddenly flimsy in her grasp.

His fingers grazed her shoulder, indicating worn, curved prongs of wood a scant inch above her jacket. “These notches will keep you in place. Hold the card as close as you wish.”

As Marco’s hands caught the ankles of her boots, the breath rushed out of her with a whoosh , and she already felt as if she were spinning. What was she supposed to do with the card again? Did she want him to hit it—or did she want him to miss? The terms of the deal had been . . . but no. It was forgotten. No heat passed from his gloves to the thick leather of her boots, sewn thick to ward off the biting creatures of the jungle, but still the warmth crept up her legs as he fastened the leather straps with almost impersonal strength. She’d had men since Liam, sure. But none of them had left her breathless, not before or after the act. And here she was, quivering like a girl under the knife-wielding hands of a supposed murderer.

What in heaven had she gotten herself into? She was just here to write a book. It should have been safe. But, suddenly, it wasn’t.