Page 22 of The Business of Blood

The moniker never made sense to me. The Hammer was an elegant monster. A gentleman gangster. Nothing about him spoke of a propensity to bash or thunder. As far as I knew, he never even wielded his own weapons.

He was much too powerful for that.

“Whoever cut you did so with the intent to frighten you, I think,” he observed. “Your assailant missed arteries and trachea. The wound is too low to be deadly, and barely deep enough to have disturbed the delicate muscles of your neck.”

His thumb lightly traced said muscles on the unwounded side of my throat.

The cuts had been deep enough to require a few stitches, so his assessment ingratiated him to me not at all.

“You were found bleeding in Crossland Alley.” He glanced away from me. That, in itself, unsettled me. I’d never known the Hammer to flinch. “Were you…otherwise molested?”

Color flushed his cheeks, and a vein pulsed in his forehead near his hairline.

He was asking me if I’d been raped.

“No,” I whispered. I’d have known if I were. I’d been told that some women might not notice should the deed be done during a loss of consciousness, but I could scarce believe it.

There was no doubt I would know. At least, in my current condition.

“I did not credit you as a woman with enemies, Fiona. Perhaps I was mistaken?” The prospect obviously caused him more delight than dismay as he finished his last stitch.

I drew on my hard-won stoicism, successfully fending off a wince as he tied the stitched knot and clipped the thread.

“Do you feel you can stand?” He reached down to assist me.

I nodded, testing the muscles of my neck and finding that careful motion didn’t cause too much pain, only a strange, warm sting.

I tried my voice next. “You know I have one veryparticularenemy.”

The other corner of his mouth joined the first, turning a quirk of his lips into a dubious smile. “Yes, but was it the Ripper who cut your neck?”

“I—I think so.”

His gaze sharpened. Suddenly, I wondered how I ever considered it mild.

Or kind.

“Tell me.” His command leeched all the warmth from the room, reminding me of mydishabillewith a hair-raising shiver.

Crossing my arms over my chest, I whirled around in desperate search of my blouse, noting the fine marble floors, the desk fit for a king, dark leather furniture, and the golden Japanese-style partition behind which any number of things could hide.

“Where are we?” I wondered in the direction of an unfamiliar potted plant. A fern, maybe? “More importantly, where are my clothes?”

“Iaskedyoua question, Fiona. I am not in the habit of repeating myself.”

“AndI’mnot in the habit of telling stories in my undergarments,” I remonstrated.

When he stepped toward me, I found that swallowing was more painful than I’d expected.

My ill-concealed fear seemed to appease him, and he merely cupped my bare elbow and led me to the only feminine piece of furniture in the room, a gold velvet settee with remarkably intricate scrollwork.

I glanced at it, at the floor I’d woken up on, and then sharply back up at him before joining him upon it. He had a comfortable chaise, and yet he’d left my unconscious body on the floor?

“You were bleeding,” he said by way of explanation, though his strong shoulders lifted in a Gallic shrug. “And this is a priceless, irreplaceable Louis XIIIV antique.”

I, on the other hand, was neither priceless nor irreplaceable. Though I wasn’t an antique just yet either, I’d thank everyone to note.

Needless to say, I kept my back straight enough to support a Bible on my head, and my thighs quivered with readiness to spring away from him.