25. Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-five

Phineas threw himself at the door. A sharp spasm of pain radiated through his chest as he collided with cold steel, and in the smothering darkness, he knocked an elbow against the shelves.

‘No!’ he shouted, the word swallowed by the tight confines of the safe. ‘Not now. Not like this.’

Darker than midnight in winter, shapeless and compressed, the small world inside the safe contained not even a blink of light. He raised his fist to thump against the door, but his fear dissolved into despair and sunk from his stomach, unbuckling his knees before pooling in his heels. Phineas pressed his hand against the steel, then scrunched his fingers into his palm, his nails scraping the flesh. He collapsed, huddled awkwardly in the small gap between the door and the shelves, defeated. It wouldn’t matter how loudly he cried. No one would hear him. Even as the office filled, the safe would not allow a peep to escape. He could holler all day if there was enough air—and in a fireproof safe, there was not. Not to last an entire day. If they figured out where he was, maybe they’d fetch one of the senior clerks and bring him across town to the bank to dial the combination. Maybe, when they came down to fetch the money for the bank tellers upstairs, they’d open this safe and find him.

Maybe they’d get to him in time.

The little bud of hope shrivelled and died. He was too much of a realist to hold fast to such a notion. Too good at calculating outcomes and assessing situations. And the forecast for him, now…

Insurmountably bleak.

Phineas pinched his eyes tight against the sting. Goddamn feelings were a waste to him now, but he couldn’t stem the pathetic flood of self-pity. How he loved her. How very much he’d been looking forward to learning how to live with her beside him. So extraordinary, so full of vitality and confidence. Worthy of so much more than a no-name bank clerk, but deigning to love him anyway.

Pennington was right—she’d be better off without him. She’d gain the chance for a proper new beginning. A slate wiped clean. After a year in black dress, she could step out into the world on her own terms. She’d create her own tomorrow. And he, who should be dead a dozen times over, would slip into the ether with the knowledge that an exceptional woman loved him. Quick as a whip, sharp and calculating, eyes like spring and skin that smelt like roses and sunshine. His enchanting Rosanna.

It was more than he should have hoped for, more than he’d ever dared to wish for. He’d experienced an eternity in an evening, forever in a day, and heaven in a sunbeam. At least he would die a redeemed man.

This would be his happy ending. A happier ending than any he deserved.

Tick.

Tick.

Like a watch, but not. Not the right rhythm. Not the right pace.

Tick.

Tick.

Clunk.

Light flared, white and ghastly. Phineas scrunched his eyes against the bright onslaught until it squeezed its way between his lids. Coughs, shouts, and clamouring voices bounced off the safe’s walls. Gradually, the world shifted into focus. Someone sat before him, crouched low. Someone with dark hair and a familiar smile.

‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.

Lawrence tapped Phineas’s cheek. ‘No one fucks with my family, Babbage. I told you. Having people to care about makes us stronger, not weaker. If you plan on being Rosie’s husband, you’d do best not to forget that.’

Phineas squinted, and as the fuzzy outlines sharpened, he picked out the sprawled form of Pennington, flat and comatose on the floor with a towering Johannes over him alongside someone else.

‘Robinson?’

Robinson hopped from foot to foot, tight and trembling. ‘I listen, sir. Just like you told me. I didn’t know all the numbers, but Mr Hempel here guessed the last one.’

‘Guessed?’

Lawrence winked. ‘Some habits die hard.’

Phineas braced himself against the safe and heaved himself up, then slumped backwards. Lawrence reached out to assist, but as Phineas extended his own shaking palm to meet him, Rosanna shoved her father aside.

‘Phineas Babbage, don’t you dare do that again.’ She grasped his shirt and hauled him towards her. His side creaked with pain, but when she kissed him, he found comfort in her touch and solace in her lips. She pushed him away, and he sagged again, then slid onto the floor. ‘Don’t you dare sacrifice yourself. Don’t you ever think I will be better off without you when I would be destroyed.’

Phineas gripped his side as he coughed into a laugh. ‘You are better without me.’

‘No!’ She flared with anger and hurt, her words so honest he had to close his eyes against her fierceness. ‘How dare you? How dare you assume to think on my behalf? How dare you decide that I, who has had to suffer through your views on jam and your missives on boots, do not love you enough to be utterly devastated if something were to happen to you?’ She grasped his cheeks and kissed him before withdrawing. ‘You said I was your equal. Don’t ever assume to think on my behalf. You are a stupid man, Phineas Babbage. You will not dictate to my heart ever again.’ And then she flung herself at him, wrapped her arms around his neck, and sobbed against his shoulder.

He kissed her cheek and pulled her tight to counter the dark and fear that had subsumed his senses. She tasted like fresh air and honey, like days stretched naked in bed in the sunshine and nights huddled by the fire. She smelt like burning oak in a hearth and sugar-coated almonds and any other good scrap of memory that had slipped from his life. More than anything, as she shoved him away with one hand and drew him close with the other, he held tight to his Rosanna, his ferocious Mrs Babbage who met the world like a firecracker in whisky.

Why had he thought she needed to be saved, when all along, she had been saving him?

He coughed, and his chest pinched. Lord, he’d cracked a rib. ‘I’m sorry,’ he spluttered, then laughed, which made his whole body shake with joy and pain again. ‘I won’t think to protect you ever again. I swear it.’

‘Good.’ She settled against his chest. Phineas took another strained breath and stroked his wife’s gloriously soft hair. All for him, all his own. ‘But seriously, Phineas,’ Rosanna chastised. ‘Kidnapped in your own home. Some bloody spy you are. You will never live this down.’