Written on Your Skin by Meredith Duran Read Free Book Online Page A

feel a bullet.”
    He felt as if he’d woken into a play whose script no one had shared with him. At least he now recognized the feeling coursing through his body, the cause for his mounting strength and the numbness in his mouth. It was the drug she was feeding him. He knew something of it; they sometimes used it in the field. The effects wouldn’t last for long. He cleared his throat, focused on schooling his vowels. “You have me trussed up like a roast pig.” Passably American, there.
    “You were thrashing,” she said. “But now you must go.”
    She was making no sense. “Where is your stepfather?”
    Her brows arched. “I recommend you avoid him. Unless, of course, you wish to explain why you are so interested in the Pilgrim’s Paradise, and speak in your sleep like the Queen.” She spoke so lightly that he wondered if he were still dreaming. “Oh, also—why nobody in Chicago has ever heard your name.”
    He blinked. He was not asleep. “Christ.”
    “Really, Mr. Monroe! And I thought you were a gentleman.”
    Why was he not dead already? He looked past her, expecting to see Collins holding a gun.
    “He’s not here,” she said. “I didn’t tell him about it. About—whatever you mean to do. What is that, if I may ask?”
    He looked back to her. She gave him another pretty smile. Was this her technique of interrogation? If so, she needed to work on it. Her dancing eyes promised things far too sweet to frighten him.
    The thought echoed in his brain, sounding more ludicrous and unfamiliar with every repetition. His brain was well wrecked, all right.
    She sat back, her smile dimming. “Of course. You must have some sort of code that forbids you to tell me such things. Simply say yes or no, then. Yes, if you plan to do it soon, and no for—for maybe soon. I can’t bear to have my hopes wholly dashed, you see.”
    “Soon.” Good God. Had that just come out of his mouth? He could not blame the poison; the girl was a toxin all her own.
    “Oh, good.” She rose, going to the washstand; when she turned, she had a long, wicked blade in her hand. “Don’t move,” she said, and went to work on the rope at his ankle. “I’m fine with fever, but blood doesn’t agree with me.” As she sawed at the rope, she rambled on. “Now, you must go quickly, because he will be coming to see if you’re dead yet. And I say this because I believe you are not ill so much as poisoned. Otherwise, the morphine would not have worked so well.”
    He considered her as she moved to his other foot. He had no idea what she was about. She considered herself to be aiding a man she thought to be her stepfather’s enemy. It was not the act of a brainless coquette, but he could not imagine another role for her. She’s a fast piece, Bonham had said to him earlier tonight, with ribald good humor. The man who catches her will have to cage her.
    As she freed his left wrist, he muttered, “You’re even faster than he realizes.”
    “Stop that. There will be no more delirium for you, sir.” She cut the final binding, then grasped his forearms and pulled. He sat up slowly, feeling his limbs warm to his command. But when he swung his legs off the bed, his head swam, and scarlet blotches swarmed his vision.
    A hand threaded through his hair, pressing his head down to his knees. The girl’s voice came from above, damnably cheerful. “Take this, please.”
    Something was pressed into his hand. A little vial; more of the coca, he assumed. He slowly straightened, wondering what new surprise she might offer him. She was waiting, face composed, although the foot tapping beneath her skirts and the quick glance she threw to the door suggested she was not so calm as she liked to appear. “The doctor will be coming,” she said. “He sent a note a half hour ago. You will want to be gone before he arrives.” Her mouth curved, wry. “He is Collins’s particular friend.”
    He found himself staring at her. He should be on his feet. This lack