Page 80 of The Business of Blood

His laugh drew the notice of many, but none so much as I. It was easy to forget how flattering candlelight was. And hard to remember its tendency to play tricks. In such golden, warm light, a cruel man could appear kind. An older man, younger. A lethal man, friendly.

“Tell me your name,” I breathed.

The air around us altered. Thickened. Until the gilded haze became both a color and a sensation.

“I have many.” I could tell his coy smile had been perfected on many women. That should have incensed me, but it didn’t.

“Don’t be obtuse. What is the one your mother gave you?” I’d not have dared speak so tartly some time ago, but I was beginning to understand that the Hammer enjoyed it when I challenged him. Whether he knew it or not.

“I never knew my mother. Did you?” he challenged back, though there was no real heat in it.

“For a short time, yes. She died in childbirth when I was young. I was raised by my father and four older brothers. And I helped raise two more.”

“Then, you are well acquainted in the ways of men?”

Not in any meaningful way. The boys in the house I was raised in were odious creatures with dubious hygiene and abhorrent manners. I could not even begin to imagine the poised, starched gangster stepping a well-soled foot into the Mahoney household of yore without dissolving into a fit of mirth.

I wrinkled my nose to hide a smirk. “I…suppose I am.”

“Don't let anyone ever tell you that is an unremarkable thing.” He regarded me for a tentative moment. “Would you like to stay here and have dinner with me?”

The thought of taking another hansom back to Chelsea dropped my heart into my belly. Furthermore, I most certainly didn’t have the courage to walk the streets just yet. “I might as well. Until the streets are safe.”

“You might as well…” he repeated as though the phrase delighted him. “Women do not generally accept my invitations with such blatant insouciance.”

“You’ll have to forgive me. I’m not well practiced in what women generally do.”

“Decidedly not.” He didn’t seem to think that was a mark against me.

“I’ll need to send word to Polly, my maid. My Aunt Nola is expecting me for the evening meal, I don’t want to worry her.”

“Let me take care of it,” he offered. “Aunt Nola will be fed and cared for. Do you like lamb?”

Warmed by his generosity as much as the alcohol, I grinned. “We Irish love lamb.”

“As do we. Lamb it is, then.” He made a gesture that produced a waiter as if by magic and ordered something I assumed was delicious and expensive.

I sipped wine and took dainty bites of salty bread, unsure of where to look or how to behave.

“Jorah.”

I forced a dry lump of bread down with a healthy sip. “What?”

“The name my mother gave me, is Jorah. Jorah David Roth.”

Impulsively, I reached my hand across the table for a cheeky handshake. “I’m Fiona Ina Múireann Mahoney. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Jorah David Roth.”

He laughed, and his eyes danced. In that instant, I forgot he’d gutted a man not half an hour before.

“The pleasure is mine.” He kissed my hand. “And, please, when we are in private, I’d rather you call me Jorah. As I’ll never profane your entire name by attempting to pronounce it.”

Did this mean we were friends?

“Jorah, then.”

Our meal was both pleasant and strange. I enjoyed myself so much, it did not occur to me until after the Hammer—Jorah—deposited me safely at Scotland Yard just what his initials were.

Jorah Roth.