“I know how you like to meddle.”
“Nonsense.” Chase straightened one sleeve, brushing a speck of lint from the cuff. “I merely remind you that women are excellent actresses, Temple. Yours is no different.” Temple resisted the thread of pleasure that coiled through him at the possessive. “She was scandalizing London and causing the biggest distraction the Angel had ever seen minutes before her brother stabbed you. The whole situation stinks of collusion.”
“Then why didn’t she run, too? Why did she stay?” The questions had rattled through him for days, since he’d woken from stabbing-induced sleep to find her at his bedside looking grateful. Pleased to see him alive.
Beautiful.
His.
No. Not his. Never his.
“Bourne wasn’t about to let her go,” Chase replied. “The point is, she’s not to be trusted. Your wound isn’t healed, and you’re half the man you were a week ago. Allow her to leave. Asriel will watch her.”
Temple stiffened at the words, disliking their truth. Disliking his weakness. Disliking the way the idea of anyone watching Mara unsettled him. She was his responsibility. His path to truth. “I can’t risk him losing her.”
Chase cut him a disbelieving look. “Asriel has never lost a thing in his life.” When Temple did not reply, the founder of The Fallen Angel leaned in. “Christ. Don’t tell me you’re after her.”
“I am not.” Temple stood, water sloshing over the edge of the bathtub to form great pools on the floor.
He wasn’t.
He couldn’t be.
Chase threw him a linen towel from nearby and tossed another into one of the puddles. “She robbed you of your life—metaphorically, then nearly literally. And now you’re intrigued by the chit.”
Temple dried haphazardly, unable to use his bad arm. “She remembers everything about that night. I remember nothing.”
“What’s to remember? She drugged you, fled, and left you holding the debt for a murder you did not commit.”
There was more. The whys. The hows.
The repercussions. The boy with his hair and her eyes.
He wrapped the towel around his hips, and pushed past Chase, returning to his chamber. “She will tell me everything about that night, and she will prove my innocence to the rest of the world. That’s why I’m—as you say—intrigued by her. That’s why I worry that Asriel will lose her.”
But that’s not all of it.
He ignored the thought that should have sounded like Chase but instead sounded like himself. He was not intrigued by her. Not by her strength and her will and her fearlessness. Not by her long neck or her full lips, either. There were thousands of women in London more beautiful and more biddable.
He was not intrigued by Miss Mara Lowe.
Intrigued seemed a tame description of how he felt about her. Drawn. Tempted.
He was consumed by her.
Chase was silent for a long moment, watching as Temple dressed, sliding into trousers, then a white lawn shirt, and the sling that had been designed for his injured arm.
He did it all with one arm. Perhaps Chase wouldn’t notice.
Chase noticed everything. “How does it feel?”
It doesn’t.
“I could still fell you.”
A golden brow rose. “Big words.” Chase headed for the door, one hand on the handle before a thought occurred. “I nearly forgot. We’ve been watching the orphanage since Lowe attacked you.”
Temple was not surprised—Lowe had no money and no allies now that he’d crossed the Angel. He could not show his face anywhere in London without threat. He only had his sister.
Anger threaded through Temple at the thought. “And?”
“He sent her a message. We intercepted it.”
Idiot boy. “What did it say?”
Chase smirked. “What do you think? He needs money.”
Memories flashed: Mara’s second-in-command hinting that the orphanage could use a charitable donation; the threadbare skirts she wore when she did not expect him; her bare hands, red with cold.
“She doesn’t have what he needs.”
“She doesn’t have anything at all.”
“Did we take the note?”
“No. We read it and let it pass.”
They had set her up to help her brother. To betray Temple.
Again.
“I want to speak with her.”
I want to see her.
I want her.
Chase was quiet for a long moment, then said, “Send her back to MacIntyre’s, Temple. Asriel will have a half-dozen men watching the place ’round the clock.”
Temple’s gaze shot to Chase. “MacIntyre’s.”
Chase hesitated. Chase never hesitated.
Temple pounced. “MacIntyre’s. You are not the type to care about the name of some half-house filled with aristocratic by-blows.”
“Not typically, no, but are you surprised I know of it? Of course I know where our members send their bastards.”
It was information Chase had to know. Information that kept the Angel in power. It was information Temple could not stop himself from wanting. Christ, did he want to shout the question from the rafters.
Is one of the boys mine?
Is one of them hers?