Kiss an Angel(127)

“Get away! Get back!”

Alex’s voice. Alex carrying her out through the back door. Alex the enemy. The betrayer.

She felt the ground, hard and chill against her back, as he laid her down against the side of the big top. Bending over her, he used his body to block her from the view of the others. “Sweetheart, I’m sorry. Oh, God, Daisy, I’m so sorry.”

Using what remained of her strength, she turned her head away from him so that she was facing the dusty nylon, only to gasp with pain as his hand brushed the torn fragments of her gown.

Her lips felt dry and so stiff she could barely part them.

“Don’t . . .touch me.”

“I have to help you.” His breathing was quick and shallow, his voice reedy. “I’m going to carry you to the trailer.”

She moaned as he picked her up, hating him for moving her and making it all worse. She found just enough breath to whisper, “I’ll never forgive you.”

“Yes . . .yes, I know.”

The scorching trail of fire cut from her shoulder across the inside of her breast, then over her belly to her hip. It burned so fiercely she wasn’t conscious of his gentleness as he carried her across the lot and into the trailer where he laid her on their bed.

Once again she turned her head away, biting her lip to hold back her screams as he slowly eased the ruined gown from her body.

“Your breast . . .” He drew a ragged breath. “There’s a welt. It’s—the skin isn’t broken, but there’ll be bruising.”

The mattress moved as he left her, only to come back much too soon. “This’ll feel cold. It’s a compress.”

She winced as he laid a wet towel over the seared skin. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing time to pass.

As the towel warmed from her skin, he removed it and replaced it with a fresh one. Once again, the mattress sagged as he sat next to her. He began to speak, his voice soft and rusty.

“I’m not—I’m not poor like I let you think. I teach, but—I also buy and sell Russian art. And I do consulting work for some of the biggest museums in the country.”

Tears leaked through her lids and onto the pillow. As the compresses began to do their work, the pain subsided into a dull, aching throb.

His words were awkward and halting. “I’m considered the leading authority on Russian iconography in the—in the United States. I have money. Prestige. But I didn’t want you to know. I wanted you to think of me as an uneducated roughneck living a hand to mouth existence. I wanted to . . . scare you away.”

She willed her lips to move. “I don’t care.”

He spoke rapidly now, as if he had only a short period of time to get everything out. “I have a—a big brick house in the country. In Connecticut, not far from the campus.” With a feather-light touch, he replaced the compress with a new one. “It’s filled with beautiful art, and there’s—I have a barn in the back with a stable for Misha.”

“Please leave me alone.”

“I don’t know why I keep traveling with the circus. Every time I do it, I swear it’s the last time, but then a few years go by and I start getting restless. I might be in Russia or Ukraine, maybe in New York—it doesn’t seem to matter—I just know I have to go back on the road. I guess I’ll always be more Markov than Romanov.”

Now that it no longer mattered, he was telling her everything she’d been begging him for months to reveal. “I don’t want to hear any more.”

His hand cupped her waist in an oddly protective gesture. “It was an accident. You know that, don’t you? You know how sorry I am.”

“I want to go to sleep now.”

“Daisy, I’m a wealthy man. That night we went to dinner, and you were worried about the bill . . . There isn’t—you don’t ever have to worry about money.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“I know it hurts. It’ll be better tomorrow. You’ll be bruised and sore, but there won’t be any permanent damage.” He faltered, as if he realized what a terrible lie he’d just told.

“Please,” she said tonelessly. “If you care about me at all, leave me alone.”

There was a long silence. Then the mattress moved as he bent forward and brushed her damp eyelids with his lips. “If you need anything, just turn that light on. I’ll be watching for it, and I’ll come right away.”

She waited for him to move. Waited for him to leave so she could shatter into a million pieces.

But he had no mercy. He turned back the top corner of the compress and blew softly, sending a soothing ripple of cooling air across her skin. Something warm and damp fell onto her skin, but she was too numb to even wonder what it was.