Inamorata

Chapter Thirty-Three - Wickham is Wicked

Chapter 33. Author's note - I think you will all be happy with the character we meet again in this chapter. After all, I did make this character for a reason. Also: vote, comment, all that jazz! Thanks!

Nightingale awoke the next morning with a man's arm curled around her waist. Based on the boniness of the arm and the way the ribs pressed up against her back jutted into her flesh, she surmised that it was Robin.

Sitting up, she was able to confirm her hypothesis.Twisting around, she could see it was Robin who'd fallen asleep next to her. She was unable to pinpoint at which exact moment the pair of them had sunk into slumber. However, she did remember Robin speaking softly, soothingly to her, in his lovely tenor voice, comforting him when she had spoken bitterly about Clarence's death.

"As if I needed another reason to hate him," she muttered, laughing bitterly. But she did get a vicious pleasure at the idea of Bobby rotting away in some prison cell, manacled with an anklet like hers. She actually smiled when she imagined him tasting for the first time the pain of the shocks he'd used on his slaves.

Thinking of her anklet, she looked down at her own leg, where the manacle was still curled around her ankle, a reminder of what she had been.

She growled again in anger, and it was the sound of that anger that woke Robin.

He woke in the most endearing of manners. He sat up, yawned, stretched like a cat - for Robin was surprisingly flexible - and then ruffled his hair with the back of his hand.

"Good morning, Miss Nightingale," he said, and yawned again.

Nightingale raised her eyebrows, an unwilling smile slipping onto her face as she stared down at him. "I took it that you slept well, Mr. Brightley?" she asked, affecting his overly-stuffy diction.

"Dreadfully well, my dear girl. I always sleep well next to a beautiful woman," said Robin. He treated her to his most charming lopsided smile, his gaiety practically filling the room. The warmth of the expression touched Nightingale in a way nothing else could - not the feeling of Clarence's kisses, or the safety she had with David, or even Rose's joy.

"Like you ever sleep next to beautiful women," Nightingale returned, her jibe playful enough to counter the cruel truth in it.

Robin pressed a hand to his heart, miming being wounded to the heart. "How terribly mean-spirited of you, Nightingale," he said.

Nightingale arched one eyebrow. Then, leaning forward, she kissed him.

It was a welcome feeling, the warmth of Robin's slender lips. It helped chase away the ghost of the cold, bloody touch of Clarence's full ones.

But before Nightingale could so much as press herself into Robin and knot her fingers in his hair, he pushed her away.

"Robin," she said to him. "Don't do that. You know I hate it when you refuse me. Besides, I'm a free woman now. I can do this if I want t-"

He cut her off quite forcefully; more forcefully than Nightingale was used to hearing from him. It was surprising enough that she immediately stopped speaking and watched him with wide-eyed contempt.

"Is this what you want? Really, Nightingale, is it?" he asked.

Before Nightingale could even narrow her eyes at him, he went on in a gentler tone.

"Me? Am I really what you want? I should hardly think so. You're attached to me because of my role in your liberation. I would hazard a guess that, given two months in this city, you would find someone far more interesting, far more beautiful, and far more equal to yourself and you would lose interest in me," said Robin.