Page 27 of The Business of Blood

I knew how unyielding my eyes were when I looked back at him because my heart was twice as hard. “I haveMaryto look after.”

“Yes. Yes. Your revenge.” He went to his desk and leaned upon it, folding one long leg across the other at the ankle. The very picture of a reclining rake. “You know what they say about those who dedicate their lives to revenge?”

“Theysay lots of things.” The infamous they. The invisible they. The all-knowing they.

“Dig two graves, Fiona. One for your enemy… And one for yourself.”

Once again, I had nothing in way of reply and found myself wishing for an escape. Yet, I didn’t want to go back out into the night alone.

Alone, and rather undressed.

“I could ask you the same thing.” I redirected the conversation back to his favorite subject: himself. “Jews are faring as well as the Irish in America, by all accounts.”

“That won't last,” he predicted dryly. “We never fare well anywhere for very long. While Prime Minister Disraeli is still remembered fondly by the Queen, we are more or less safe here. And I have heard that the Irish are gaining power in New York by sheer force of population.”

“A boon for the Irish, maybe,” I murmured. “But not for the population of people already claiming that land as their home.” I thought of Mr. Night Horse and wondered what had brought him here, so far from his native land. America was an incomprehensively large place…but no one seemed to believe it large enough to share with the indigenous peoples.

“Yes, well...they say the land of the free, but they don't mean everyone, do they?”

“Better the chains you know?” I lifted a brow at him.

“Or no chains at all.” He opened his arms as though to advertise his liberty.

Pushing away from his desk, he stalked toward me like a cat. His eyes focused on my every ticking muscle, and yet he came at me sideways. A finger traced the coarse wool of the shawl he’d given me, dipping beneath it to skim my bare shoulder. His head dropped below his shoulders toward mine. “Some restraints are velvet.”

As was his voice.

My breath became the canary in a cage, sensing the danger and beating wildly in search of escape from the confines of my ribs.

“And some fists are iron.” I made certain my reply was as frigid as he was scorching, his body throwing off heat in waves.

He pulled back as though stung. “You fear me, even now.”

“Tell me I have no reason to.”

He regarded me for a long time. “Sometimes, what we want and what we fear are one and the same.”

Before I could retort, a door behind the partition opened and clicked shut as someone entered.

Both of us froze as a whispered congregation was held behind the partition.

Though I’d only heard one set of footsteps enter the Shiloh room. Hadn’t I?

The tracks returned from whence they came, and the familiar sounds of the Velvet Glove drifted through the crack in the door before a soft snick shut it out completely.

Before I had a chance to formulate an extrication plan, Aramis Night Horse stepped from behind the screen.

My limbs went cold. Colder. I could no longer feel the fingers that clutched the shawl to me.

Of course. Aramis Night Horse was one with the shadows. He was the Blade, never far from the Hammer’s side.

He’d been here the entire time.

He’d heard me accuse him of murder.

“Croft,” was all he said, his fathomless eyes never leaving mine.

No, his voice was nothing like I’d heard in the alley. It fit him to precision, dark as midnight, and sleek as a black cat.