Page 5

Through watering eyes, she watched her rescuer drive a fist into her attacker’s face with mechanical precision. The blow landed with a sickening crack that echoed off the narrow walls. The mugger staggered but didn’t fall. Blood streamed from his nose as he fumbled at his waistband.

“Watch out!” Abigail croaked.

Her rescuer moved with ruthless efficiency, catching the man’s wrist and twisting sharply. The knife clattered to the cobblestones as the mugger yelped in pain. A swift, calculated strike to the man’s sternum drove the breath from his lungs, followed by another blow that snapped his head back. The mugger stumbled, disoriented but still conscious.

Her savior advanced with the measured calm of a predator, each step deliberate. He seized the man by his filthy collar and slammed him against the opposite wall, holding him there with one forearm pressed across his throat.

The mugger’s eyes bulged, his fingers scrabbling uselessly against the immovable arm. Panic replaced the earlier cruelty in his expression.

“How does it feel?” her rescuer asked, his cultured voice dropping to a whisper as cold as winter frost. “That moment when the air stops coming? When your lungs burn and the world begins to fade?” He increased the pressure incrementally, his eyes never leaving the mugger’s face. “When you realize no one is coming to save you?”

His words were delivered with such clinical detachment that Abigail shivered. He was going to kill him. The realization sent ice through her veins. The mugger deserved punishment, certainly, but this...

“Stop!” Abigail called out, her voice ragged. “That’s enough!”

The man hesitated, his body utterly still except for the controlled rise and fall of his shoulders. For a terrible moment, Abigail feared he hadn’t heard her—or worse, had chosen to ignore her plea.

“Please,” she whispered. “Let him go.”

His head turned slightly toward her voice, though his eyes never left his captive. After a measured pause, he released the mugger with a contemptuous shove.

“I suggest you find easier prey elsewhere.”

The mugger staggered away, clutching his throat, casting fearful glances over his shoulder as he disappeared into the labyrinth of narrow streets.

Her rescuer turned, and Abigail met the familiar piercing blue eyes—the same ones that had regarded her with cool assessment in the cramped storage room at Beacon House just hours earlier. But now those eyes held shadows deeper than the gathering dusk around them, and something in his manner had changed. The controlled physician who had so carefully examined Timothy was still present in his bearing, but layered beneath was something wilder, more elemental.

“Lady Abigail,” he said, her name a statement rather than a question. He crouched beside her. “Are you alright?”

CHAPTER 2

“Can you stand, my lady?”

The world lurched back into focus. Abigail’s throat burned with each breath, and she could feel the rapid flutter of her pulse beneath the tender skin where the mugger’s fingers had pressed. Her hands splayed against the filthy cobblestones—cold, rough, and gritty with substances she preferred not to contemplate. The crushed flowers around her released their sweet fragrance, a strange counterpoint to the stench of the alley.

Dr. Redchester crouched before her—his severe features softened by the fading light, studying her with clinical concern. She had the absurd impulse to smooth her hair and adjust her skirts even as she sat crumpled in the muck.

“I believe so.” The words scraped against her raw throat, emerging as a rasp that hardly sounded like her own voice.

He extended his hand, and Abigail pulled against his steady hold, willing her legs to support her weight, but as she rose, a sharp lance of pain shot through her ankle. Her knees buckled, and she clutched at his arm with undignified desperation.

This is mortifying.Heat flooded her cheeks. She’d prided herself on maintaining at least the appearance of composure through scandal and heartbreak, but all she could do now was cling to a virtual stranger like a drowning woman to driftwood.

“Forgive me,” she whispered, “I’m not typically so?—”

“You’ve suffered a shock,” he interrupted, his arm sliding firmly around her waist. Through the layers of her gown and stays, she could feel the heat of his palm pressing against her side, steadying her. “Breathe deeply.”

Abigail obeyed, drawing a ragged breath that sent a stab of pain through her ribs where she’d struck the wall. Her bonnet hung askew, the silk ribbons torn and stained. Wisps of hair tickled her neck and face, having escaped their pins during the struggle. She must look like a woman pulled from the Thames—bedraggled, disheveled, utterly ruined.

Dr. Redchester’s gaze roamed over her. Abigail looked away as she tugged her beleaguered bonnet back in place and smoothed the bodice of her dress. She pulled her spine straight and lifted her chin.“I don’t suppose there’s a hackney carriage to be found in this wretched place?”

“Not likely.” His gaze swept the darkening street where shadows pooled in doorways and beneath eaves.“What on earth possessed you to walk these streets alone?” His voice was tight with what might have been anger or concern as he led her from the alley.

The question stung, reminding her of her own foolishness. How could she have been so careless? She’d been so eager to escape the confines of that tilted carriage, so desperate to avoid another evening of Verity’s incessant chatter. Pride and impatience—the very flaws her father had always condemned in her.

“My carriage—” Her voice caught, and she cleared her throat, wincing at the pain. “The axle broke near Blackfriars. I thought I knew the way to Reedley Manor from there.”

I thought I knew better.I always think I know better, and look where it leads me.