"I don't think so. Still a little hot, but I'm beginning to cool. What about you? Your hands must be painful. You weren't wearing gloves, but I at least have some layers to protect me."
"They're fine. Don't worry about me." He crossed his arms and tucked his hands away.
"Let me see." I reached for him.
He stepped back. "Don't touch me!"
I blinked. "Right. Of course."
He strode off and stopped near one of the arches that must have been a doorway once, but now had no walls on either side of it.
I followed. "Jack, let me see your hands."
He blew out a breath then turned around, palms out flat for me to inspect. They were unmarked. No burns, not even a slight reddening.
"They're perfectly fine." I frowned. "But that must have hurt. Your skin was unprotected."
"My skin doesn't burn. Neither does yours. You weren't aware?"
I shook my head.
He fingered the jacket slung over my arm. "It's ruined."
"I'm sorry."
"Whatever for? It's not your fault. It's not mine. It's this cursed talent."
"It doesn't feel like a talent, does it?"
"Not always," he muttered.
We stood in silence until I could stand it no longer. I was bursting with questions. "You said you don't burn."
"We don't burn. Not our skin anyway."
"That doesn't make sense. Are you saying there's some part of you that does burn?"
He pressed his lips together and for a moment I thought he'd refuse to answer. "You ought to know," he said. "Since it affects you too."
"Jack, you're scaring me."
He went to reach for me again, but stopped himself and let his hand fall. "Have you heard of spontaneous combustion?"
"That's when someone burns, yet there's no evidence of how they caught alight, isn't it? I always thought it was a hoax or a way of covering up a murder."
"Perhaps it is. Perhaps not."
"Oh God." I felt the color drain from my face, and the lingering heat too. "Are you saying that you—we—can spontaneously combust?"
"I don't know for sure since you and I are the only fire starters in existence and neither of us has suffered that fate, obviously. But when the sparks come I feel like I'm boiling inside. Ever since I heard of spontaneous combustion I've wondered if that's how those people died. If they were like me, burning up inside."
"Oh," I whispered. "But you can control your fire, can't you?"
He lifted his gaze to mine. "The sparks and heat come only when I'm very angry. Or so I thought."
"You're not angry now."
He turned away. "No."
"Then...why? I don't understand."
"It's not important."
"It is important!"
"Don't, Violet." He spun back round, and I was shocked by how pink his cheeks were. From the fire within him?
I reeled back. "I'm sorry. Don't be angry with me."
The color quickly vanished and his face turned ashen. "Violet, I'm not angry with you. I doubt I ever could be." Again he went to reach for me, and again he lowered his arms before we touched. "Bloody hell," he muttered. "I hate this."
I sat on the base of what must have once been a column. I watched him as he too sat on a large stone and picked at the long grass licking up its sides. He seemed to be avoiding my gaze on purpose.
"I've seen you hold Sylvia's hand before and that didn't happen," I said. "You patted Clover's nose and nothing. Indeed, when you kidnapped me, you touched me. Admittedly I passed out, but I'm sure I would have felt that heat beforehand if it had been there. So why now, Jack? What was different about this time?"
"Do you have to ask?" he muttered.
"Yes, and you must answer. If you're going to let off sparks every time we touch now, I need to know."
He scrubbed a hand across his chin and lower lip, all the while avoiding my gaze. "August warned me before I went to spy on you that if we developed feelings for one another, we may not be able to control the fire when we...uh...that is, at certain moments."
Oh. Oh! He had feelings for me? Me? The little freckly redhead from the attic? I tried to think of something to say, but I knew I'd sound like a blathering fool, so I bit my tongue and concentrated on remaining unruffled. Unfortunately he wasn't looking at me and my efforts went unnoticed.
He grunted a harsh, humorless laugh. "I don't know what bothers me more. That you know I have feelings for you, or that August was right. It didn't matter when he first told me." A beat passed before he added, "It does now."
I pressed my hand to my chest. My heart felt like it was being squeezed by a fist. "Do you mean that your feelings for me have grown so that now when we touch, we may combust?"
He jerked a thumb at Clover, nibbling the grass contentedly beside her stable mate. "I only held you at your waist. Imagine if we...kissed."
I touched my lips. "Yes. Imagine."
His mouth gave a harsh twist. "Ironic that I finally find a girl I like, but a single kiss could kill her."
"And you," I whispered. "It could kill you too."
CHAPTER 7
The mist rolled in while Jack and I sat in silence. It draped the ruins like a ghostly veil, and only the taller structures rose above it. The cooler, damper air doused the last remnants of heat inside me. It could not, however, dampen my raging thoughts. There were so many, and picking them apart proved impossible.
"We'd better go back," Jack said, standing. "I'd offer my hand to assist you, but I don't think that's wise."
I rose unassisted and put on my jacket. I would have to mount Clover without aid too.
Jack must have been thinking the same thing because he led my horse to the column base I'd been sitting on. "Stand up there and put your left foot in the stirrup." He held the stirrup for me and I did as suggested, careful not to touch him.
Once I was safely in the saddle, he mounted too. His horse shifted restlessly, as if he wanted to race off, but Jack soothed him with gentle words.
Clover moved behind the other horse, and my gaze shifted to Jack's broad back and shoulders. They were strong, capable shoulders and looked magnificent straining the seams of his riding jacket.
Now that the shock of discovering that he liked me had worn off, I was able to think about our situation more clearly. Or rather, my situation. I should have told him that he had the wrong girl. I should have told him about the real Violet Jamieson. She needed the training, not me. She needed to know there was someone else like her.
The lie was beginning to eat me up inside, turning me cold where the heat of Jack's blast had warmed me only moments ago. Would he ignite like that if he touched Vi? Or had that only happened because he liked me, and it was something only I had the power to do?
Despite my doubts, the notion that Langley would use Vi as a test case still gnawed at me. If it were just August Langley who'd kidnapped me, I would have been certain that he wanted Vi so he could study her, but it was Jack and Sylvia's involvement that threw water over that theory. They seemed quite harmless. What I needed was a test of my own to determine once and for all if I could trust Jack.
"Are the police following up that information you gave them about the boot print?"
He half turned in the saddle to look back at me. "Why do you ask?"
"I'm simply curious. Don't you think it's unusual that a thief entered the house, stole some papers, then got out again without anyone seeing him?"
He focused on the path ahead once more, but I saw the slight stiffening of his back. "Unusual, but not impossible. It's a big house."