Page 68 of The Business of Blood

I tried to picture Croft down on one knee. Courting a woman. I might as well have tried to peek into the afterlife. It was something that could not be imagined, only experienced.

“What about you?” His elbow nudged me back. “You don’t want a husband to care for you?”

I made the most unladylike sound I’d ever made in public. “It is my observation, Inspector, that husbands rarelycarefor their wives. At least, not for very long.”

“Is that so? Did your father not care for your mother?”

“She passed on before I was old enough to note what kind of relationship they endured.”

He inspected me curiously. “So, if husbands do not care for their wives, whatdothey do, in your experience?”

“Men dominate women, or they rely upon them, use them for pleasure, for a dowry, for a family, for society. In the lower classes, men take wives to fulfill what vocations can be hired out to a wealthier rank. For example, a cook, a maid, a nurse, a companion…a prostitute. Women can be many things. Still, they are generally thecaretakersof their families, not taken care ofbythem.”

Croft’s dark brows drew together in a troubled scowl. “Certainly, it’s only fair for a woman to help the man who protects her and provides for her.”

“Oh, certainly,” I agreed. “If that’s the contract one makes. But I provide for myself. I am responsible for the care of no one else, save Aunt Nola.”

“But…don’t you ever get tired of working so hard?”

“Don’t you?”

“Sometimes,” he confessed. “But—”

“But you’re a man?”

His frown turned into a glower. “That’s not what I was going to say.”

“Wasn’t it?”

He looked down.

I continued. “My time is my own. My money. My property. Mywillis also my own.” I ticked all of these off on my silk-clad fingers. “If I were to marry, I’d have to give that all up. Could you do that, Inspector?”

“No.” He regarded me like a circus oddity for an uncomfortably long time. “But what I wasgoingto ask, is if you ever become lonely.”

I blinked. Several times. Suddenly, I was very aware of the flex of his arm beneath my hand. “I am rarely alone, Inspector Croft,” I hedged. “My ghosts provide constant company. And until I put them to rest, I have no room to spare in my life or in my heart.”

“I understand.”

“Do you?”

He was silent until we reached my stoop, where he turned to face me, bringing the umbrella low over our heads. It created a strange world. Just the two of us, the patter of rain, the lily of the valley he pressed into my hand, and his new cologne. “I understand that the dead make for cold companions. Do you have someone to provide you with…heat?”

I leaned back as much as the umbrella would allow. “Heat?”

“There must be balance in all things. Certainly, your memories—your vengeance—can consume your heart for now…but, surely, it isn’t enough to fill the cold, empty places in your life. In your bed.”

Abruptly, my knees lost their starch. “You assume much, Inspector.”

“I know more about you than you think.” His mouth became a hard, alluring threat, hovering above mine.

“Blood on the streets,” a disembodied voice sang.

Heat flooding to my ears, I ducked away from Croft to see Nola standing in the archway of my door, dressed in enough black lace to meet the Pope or mourn the dead.

“They’re gutted,” she informed Croft. “Why aren’t you there?”

“Aunt Nola?” I rushed forward, leaving my umbrella with Croft. “What do you mean?”