He pressed his lips to mine.
Coldness flooded into me like a splash of springwater on a winter morning. I gasped with the sensation, feeling suddenly painfully hungry.
I kissed him back, breathless, wanting so much more.
Fourteen
I WOKE BURNING WITH sweat. The dream was still fresh in my mind, so fresh I touched my lips with shaking fingertips. I told myself I’d had the dream because of the almost kiss with Montgomery, I told myself. It had nothing to do with Edward. And now it was daylight, at least midmorning. Mottled sunlight and the distant sound of waves filtered through the bars on my window.
I’d slept through dinner and all night. I might have slept for days, for all I knew. I wiped my damp palms on the bedcovers. When had I crawled under the sheets? I was wearing a nightdress I didn’t recognize, something expensive with lace at the collar. But when I’d fallen asleep, I’d still been wearing my dressing gown.
Someone had undressed me.
I pushed back the sheets as if they were on fire. The memory of the dream flooded back, making me dizzy. Edward’s hands on my na**d body. The crisscross of cuts on his hands from peeling back the metal dress. Had Edward undressed me? Was that why I’d dreamed of him?
No, surely not. He was a gentleman and so shy he’d barely look at me. But then who? Had one of Father’s beastly servants removed my clothes? The thought made the fibers of my stomach shrink.
I threw open Mother’s trunk, looking for something plain, and found a simple blue dress. I unlaced the unfamiliar nightdress hurriedly, but a breeze from the window made me pause.
Whispering. The rising and falling cadence of words, carried on the wind, spoken in a language other than human.
I drifted to the window, watching the trees. Beyond the jungle the sea stretched forever. There were no curtains, making me feel suddenly exposed in only the half-unlaced nightdress.
I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror. My arms and face were tan. The meager food and harsh weather on the Curitiba had stolen the softness from my face. I slipped the nightdress off my shoulder, turning to see my back in the mirror.
The puckered flesh of a scar I’d carried since I was an infant ran the full length of my spine. When I was a child, Mother dressed me only in high-collared shirts to keep it hidden. She said it reminded her of my difficult birth and deformed back. My father’s gifted hands had put it right, but not even he could operate without leaving scars.
Mother was long gone, but not her spirit. Keep it covered, she seemed to whisper. I hurried out of the nightdress and into a chemise, then pulled the blue dress over my head and tucked the collar high around my neck. I’d have to skip a corset. Mine was filthy, and Mother’s were so old-fashioned that I couldn’t lace any of them without assistance. Without it I felt strangely light, and I touched my ribs, thinking of the metal dress in my dream.
Someone knocked at the door. I squeezed the strange latch, expecting Father or Montgomery or one of the natives.
But it was Edward.
“Oh.” The one word was all I could manage. Seeing him brought back the dream with a powerful rush. I bunched my hands in the soft fabric of my skirt to remind myself I was dressed. This wasn’t a dream. He wasn’t some shifting specter. I closed my eyes and leaned in the doorway, dizzy.
“Juliet? Are you well?” Concern crinkled the skin around his eyes. He took my arm and led me to the desk. He poured water from a pitcher into a glazed glass. “Sit down. Have some water.”
I took the glass with shaking fingers.
“I came to see if you were awake. You’ve been asleep nearly eighteen hours.”
“My carpetbag. In the corner. Bring it here, please.”
He picked up the ragged thing and set it on the desk without question. I dug through it for the stamped wooden box that held my medication. I opened it and removed one of the glass vials and the syringe. His eyebrows raised, curious.
“It’s a chronic illness,” I said. “A glycogen deficiency. I have to take a daily injection or . . . I get dizzy.” I left out the part about the coma. Edward had his secrets. I could keep a few of my own.
“I’ve never heard of that.”
I set the tip of the needle against the vial’s opening. “It’s rare.”
He watched, fascinated, as I punctured the vial lid and drew in twenty-five milligrams of the treatment. My hands knew the movement by habit, but I’d never injected myself with someone watching.
I concentrated on the needle. When it was full, I set it aside and unbuttoned my shirt cuff, rolling it slightly past my inner elbow. Edward shifted closer. I cleared my throat, the dream still too fresh.
I pressed the tip of the needle to my elbow, above the ghostly blue vein just below the skin. I slid it past the surface, barely flinching, and pierced the vein. My thumb depressed the lever, and the treatment melted into my blood. I let out a sigh.
Edward watched from the corner of his eye. I withdrew the needle, wiped it carefully, and put it back in the box.
The sunlight flickered over the walls. Clouds were forming.
“You spoke with Father yesterday,” I said. “What did he say?”
The flecks in Edward’s eyes glowed. He didn’t answer.
“Did he apologize for nearly drowning you at least?”
His gaze drifted, cataloging every item in my room. “He strikes me as the sort who’s never apologized for anything.”
“You are perceptive.”
“We worked out a bit of an . . . arrangement. I don’t think he has any intention of murdering me in my sleep, if that’s what you’re asking.”