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D espite Will’s command for her to stay put, Lucy lasted only a minute or two before she grew too impatient to wait on the front stoop.

Slipping through the gap between the door and the frame as Will had done, she waited for her eyes to adjust to the dimness of the house’s interior. When she could make out the familiar forms of the umbrella stand on one side and a boot jack on the other, Lucy noted that nothing seemed amiss in the entryway, at least.

Above her, she heard the floors creak under the weight of someone. She was very still, listening to see if there was the sound of anyone else. But it was only Will. Or so she hoped.

She was about to check the kitchen just off to the left when she heard the sound of footsteps thundering down the stairs.

When Will emerged, his expression relaxed for a brief moment when he saw her. But just as quickly, he gestured to her. “Come, you must tend to her. She’s still alive. I’ll go down to tell the driver we need the local constable here.”

Lucy was already halfway up the stairs when she thought to turn back and ask Will, “Who is it that is still alive? Is there… has one of them died?”

She meant Miss Fleetwood and Hetty, her maid. And fortunately, Will understood her perfectly. His already-grim expression turned even darker.

“Miss Fleetwood is still alive, though I’m not sure for how long.”

She knew what his next words would be before he spoke.

“Hetty, her maid, is dead. At least, I believe so.”

Unable to find her voice, Lucy nodded. Then, doing what she could to bolster her inner fortitude, she continued climbing until she reached the floor that housed Miss Fleetwood’s sitting room.

Will had left the door wide open, and from the landing Lucy could see the bodies of two women on the floor. As she got closer she was able to make out the figure of Hetty lying on her back on the other side of the room. From this vantage point, she looked too still to be alive, but it was clear that Miss Fleetwood was still breathing.

When Lucy knelt beside the spiritualist, it was apparent from the blooms of red on her light green gown that she had been stabbed, and she noted her eyelids fluttering. “Miss Fleetwood?” Lucy asked, wondering where she might find some clean cloths, then deciding she needed to assess the wounds first. “Miss Fleetwood, Christina, can you tell me what happened?”

As efficiently as she could, Lucy began unbuttoning the front of the spiritualist’s gown. As she worked, Christina Fleetwood shook her head and reached up to grab Lucy’s wrist. “Het-het—”

“Hetty?” Lucy asked, taking the injured woman’s hand in hers to calm her.

At Christina’s nod, Lucy wondered what to tell her about her friend. She saw the tears streaming down into Christina’s hairline and wished with her entire being that she could tell her something other than the truth.

“S-saved me,” Christina murmured with obvious effort. She clung to Lucy with surprising strength. “Y-you s-save her.”

At that moment Will returned to the room and moved to Lucy’s side. “I found a couple of local lads and sent one of them to fetch the constable and the other to find the nearest physician.” In a hushed tone for her ears only, he added, “I also had the one fetching the constable ask for a wagon from the morgue.”

At that last, Lucy shook her head, looking down at the pleading gaze of Miss Fleetwood. “You must go check Hetty again, Will.”

His brow furrowed, and Lucy was certain he was about to object, so she gave him a glare and gestured with her head toward Miss Fleetwood, whose pale face was still intent on Lucy’s.

Understanding what she meant for him to do, Will rose to his feet and went to where the maid, Hetty, lay. She watched as he felt the side of her neck where the blood was said to pump strongest.

Lucy closed her eyes and sent up a quick prayer that she was all but certain would go unanswered.

She was already thinking of how she would break the news of Hetty’s death to Miss Fleetwood for the second time when she heard Will mutter something.

Looking down to where Christina Fleetwood lay with her eyes closed but clearly still breathing, Lucy opened her mouth to explain again that Hetty was gone.

Before she could speak, though, Will spoke up in an excited voice, “She’s alive! Tell Miss Fleetwood that Hetty is alive!”

Gasping, Lucy turned to face Will, where he was staring down at Hetty with something like wonder. “I must not have checked in the right place, before,” he said, shaking his head in what looked like self-derision. “You may believe I’ll never forget how to take a pulse again.”

“Hetty is alive,” Lucy said to her own patient with tears springing into her own eyes. “She is alive, and we will ensure that the two of you stay that way.”

Christina’s eyes widened and she murmured something that looked like “Thank God.” Then, as if she’d been staying awake only long enough to reassure herself of her maid’s well-being, she closed her eyes and succumbed to unconsciousness.

The door downstairs opened, and Lucy heard a man’s voice identifying himself as Constable Sam Frost. Lucy called down, and when the sturdy man of around thirty (if she didn’t miss her guess) hurried into the room, he gaped at the sight of the two bleeding women and Will and Lucy tending to them.

Reaching up as if he wanted to run his hand over his head but then recalling his helmet, Constable Frost simply dropped the hand by his side.

“Lord Gilford?” he asked Will, his voice reedy with alarm.

Will gave the man a brisk nod and had just opened his mouth to speak when a tall, lean man with ginger side whiskers entered carrying a doctor’s bag. Then, another man, this one older and clearly related to the first in some way, followed, also carrying a doctor’s bag.

They were trailed by a pair of burly men shouldering stretchers.

“Not that I am complaining, Frost,” Will said as he allowed the younger of the two men to take over caring for Hetty. “But I only asked for one doctor, and you’ve brought me two.”

“I am Dr. Thwaite, and this is my father, also Dr. Thwaite, as it happens,” said the younger man. “Now, unless you plan on assisting, I must ask you all to clear the room so that we might prepare the patients for transport to our surgery.”

Lucy didn’t want to leave Miss Fleetwood and Hetty.

Slipping an arm about her waist, Will said gently, “You’ve done all you can for them now. Let the doctors get to work.”

He led her toward the door, and after one last glance toward where the physicians tended the injured women, Lucy let Will guide her toward the stairs.

Once outside, Will was startled to see not only Eversham waiting for them, but also a crowd of newspaper reporters only just being kept at bay by a line of bobbies.

Lucy’s cousin took one look at her bloodstained clothing and moved forward to usher her toward his carriage, which waited a little way down from the crowd.

Her silence worried Will, but he allowed Eversham to help her into the vehicle before speaking to the detective superintendent.

“This is the third occasion in less than a week where Lucy has had occasion to tend to an injured or dying victim. Why haven’t you caught this bastard yet?” His own anger coupled with fear for the lady he was almost certainly in love with made him rail at the older man.

“Because until a few hours ago, I didn’t even have the man’s real name, much less a viable location to search for him,” Eversham snapped. “If you would stop escorting Lucy to crime scenes as some sort of bizarre courting ritual, perhaps she wouldn’t be faced with the sight of bullet and stab wounds every other day.”

“If your cousin weren’t a stubborn, headstrong girl,” Will retorted, “then perhaps I could escort her to tamer affairs, but before I can try she is running toward danger as if able to sniff it out.”

Neither of them heard the carriage door swing open.

“Would the pair of you kindly lower your voices?” Lucy asked with a scowl. “This is not the way to keep the press away.”

Wincing at behaving in such a childish manner, Will glanced over to see that, just as Lucy had said, the newspapermen who’d had all eyes on the door of Miss Fleetwood’s house were now focused exclusively on Will and Eversham.

Eversham closed his eyes in frustration. When he opened them, he looked over at Lucy and said simply, “My apologies.”

“Apologies,” Will echoed. Then, to Eversham, he said, “I am sorry to you as well. I know you’ve been doing your best to catch Hamilton.”

Dragging a hand over his bloodshot eyes, Lucy’s cousin sighed. “My best has clearly not been enough. But I will most certainly do whatever it takes to apprehend the fellow. Every time he strikes, he leaves clues behind, but we simply haven’t been able to piece them together yet.”

This time, it was Will who gave the detective superintendent a comforting clap on the shoulder. “We will find him,” he told Eversham firmly. “Because I’m damned if I’ll allow him to bring any harm to Lucy or put another injured soul in her path.”

And with that, he climbed into the coach and allowed it to take them back to Mayfair.