She brought her lips to his, and he rewarded her with a rough, ardent kiss. Devouring her soft moans, he kept up the ceaseless rocking of his hips while her insides quivered over the stiff length of him. His body was so powerful, beneath her, all around her—he could crush her so easily—but his hold was careful and cradling, as if she were something exquisite he was afraid of breaking.

Lowering her mouth to his shoulder, she savored the taste of salt and maleness. He was very deep now—her body had relaxed enough to take more—she rode the upward nudging of his hips, and everything was soreness and delight and wonder. The heavy muscles of his back twitched with pleasure as her fingers scored lightly over the surface, leaving invisible markings of ownership.

His breath stopped as release caught up to him at last, the rhythm breaking. Blindly he nuzzled at her throat and made a quiet sound like a lost, wild creature. She curled her arms around his head, rubbing her mouth into the satiny locks of his hair, while her body contained the shocks of his release, the liquid heat, the slow, unfolding relief.

They lay in a tangle, drowsing and caressing, as the night gradually thinned into a sharp white dawn. At the first hint of approaching daybreak, Ethan stretched and sat up, lowering his feet to the floor.

Garrett rose to her knees and hugged him from behind, her breasts flattening against his back. Don’t leave, she longed to beg, but instead said quietly, “Come to me as soon as you’re able.”

Ethan was silent for a long moment. “I’ll try, acushla.”

“If things don’t go as they should . . . if you should have to go away somewhere . . . promise you’ll take me with you.”

Ethan turned to face her then. “Love . . .” He shook his head slightly. “I wouldn’t do that to you. Your family and friends, your patients, your practice . . . everything is here. It would ruin your life to leave all that.”

“It would ruin my life not to have you.” As soon as the words left her lips, Garrett realized it was the truth. “I could be a doctor anywhere. I have a little nest egg set aside. Once we settle somewhere, I’ll be able to earn enough to provide for us until you find a suitable occupation. We’ll manage. I’m afraid we would have to take my father with us, but—”

“Garrett.” A rapid succession of emotions crossed Ethan’s face, an odd smile twisting his lips. Taking her head in his hands, he imprinted a brief, hard kiss on her mouth. “You wouldn’t have to support me. I have enough to . . . well, it doesn’t matter. It won’t come to that.” He pulled her head against his chest and rocked her slightly, crushing a kiss against her hair. “I’ll come to you if I’m able. I swear it.”

Closing her eyes in relief, Garrett slid her arms around him.

The next evening, Ethan walked along the footway of Blackfriars Bridge, a structure that was cinched across the lowest banks of the Thames like a buckled luggage strap. Five wrought-iron spans set on enormous red-granite river piers supported the bridge’s steep gradient. No matter which direction vehicles or pedestrians came from, it was a long dead pull to get to the other side.

Although the light was fading, the air was still thick with the growls and hisses of factories, the commotion of dockyards, and the bone-jarring clamor of a nearby railway bridge.

Ethan passed a series of pulpit-shaped niches filled by sleeping vagrants covered with tattered newspapers. None of them stirred or made a sound as he walked by. Finding a place to stand at the railing, he proceeded to eat the dinner he’d bought at a fish shop on the Southwark side. For a penny, a customer could have a meal as fine as any wealthy toff in London: a fillet of fresh haddock or cod dredged in bread crumbs and fried over a coal fire in an iron cauldron of boiling fat. When the inside was firm and white, and the outside crust a sizzling deep brown, the fillet was wrapped in parchment along with a hot lemon wedge and a few sprigs of parsley fried into salted green crisps.

Leaning against the curved railing, Ethan ate slowly and considered his situation. He had kept moving throughout the day, wandering inconspicuously among crossing-sweeps and dustmen, sandwich men wearing billboards front and back, shoeblacks, horse-holders, piemen, and pickpockets. He was weary to the bone, but he felt safer out in the streets than trapped in the confines of his flat.

Crumbling the bit of parchment into a ball, Ethan dropped it over the bridge railing and watched it descend more than forty feet until it hit the smeary black water. Despite ongoing efforts—stricter legislation, new sewer lines and pumping stations—to reduce the foul substances released into the Thames, the water’s oxygen levels were too low to support fish or marine mammals.

The little ball vanished slowly beneath the opaque surface.

Ethan’s gaze lifted to the dome of St. Paul’s, the tallest structure in London. Beyond it, a ragged veil of clouds glowed with milky luminescence, flashes of pink and orange piercing through a few places like veins pulsing with light.

He thought of Garrett, as he always did during quiet moments. At this time of day, she was usually at home. Not far from here, slightly less than three miles. Some part of his brain was always calculating her probable location, the distance between them. The thought of her soothed and pleasured him, made him aware of his humanity as nothing else could.

A thunderous sound heralded a train crossing along the railway between Blackfriars and Southwark bridges. Although Ethan was well accustomed to railway noise, he flinched at the violent rattling of metal plate girders, ironwork rail supports, and rolling stock couplings. Continuous earsplitting puffs of steam were punctuated regularly by the combustive roar of the firebox. Turning from the water, Ethan began to resume his walk along the footpath.

He was stunned by a tremendous wallop to his chest, as if someone had struck him with a cudgel. He was thrown backward onto his arse, the breath knocked out of him. Wheezing and choking, he worked to pull air back into his lungs. A strange buzzing feeling circled through his insides.

It took all his strength to rise to his feet. His limbs weren’t working properly, muscles quivering and bunching in response to the confused signals of his brain. The buzzing turned into something searing and terrible, hotter than fire. It didn’t seem possible that human flesh could harbor so much pain. Unable to identify the cause, Ethan looked down at himself in bewilderment. A flooding dark stain spread over the front of his shirt.

He’d been shot.

His numb gaze lifted to behold William Gamble walking toward him, a short-gripped bulldog revolver in hand.

The deafening roar of the train went on and on, while Ethan backed up to the bridge railing and leaned against it to keep from collapsing.

“Counting on Felbrigg’s honor, were you?” Gamble asked when the noise had faded. “He’s a bureaucrat at heart. He’ll always defer to the next man up the chain. Tatham and Jenkyn convinced him their plans were all for the greater good.”

Ethan stared at him dumbly. Christ Jesus. The commissioner of police was going to allow scores of innocent people, including women and children, to be maimed and murdered . . . all for the sake of political advantage.

“. . . robbing Tatham’s safe on my watch, you bastard,” Gamble was saying irritably. “The only reason Jenkyn hasn’t put a bullet in my head is because he was the one who made a hash of it by inviting Dr. Gibson to the soiree in the first place.” He approached Ethan slowly. “I didn’t want to finish you off like this. I wanted it to be a fair fight.”

“’Twas fair enough,” Ethan managed to say. “Should’ve . . . seen you coming.” There was a salty liquid rattle in his throat. He coughed and saw blood spatter on the ground. As he leaned over, he glanced through the stone balustrades at the expanse of dark water below. Lifting himself up, he braced heavily against the railing.

There was no way to win. No path to survival.

“You should have,” Gamble agreed. “But you’ve been distracted for weeks, thinking of nothing but that green-eyed bitch. She’s brought you to this.”

Garrett.

She wouldn’t know he’d been thinking of her at the last moment. She would never know what she’d meant to him. It would make dying so much easier if only he’d told her. But she would do well without him, just as she had before. She was a strong, resilient woman, a force of nature.

He only worried that no one would bring her flowers.

How strange that as his life was spinning down to its end, there was no anger or fear, only soul-scorching love. He was dissolving in it. There was nothing left but the way she’d made him feel.

“Was she worth it?” Gamble jeered.

Gripping the railing behind him, Ethan smiled faintly. “Aye.”

In the next moment, he tipped back and let the momentum bring his legs up, his body rolling into a backward flip before heading into the water feet first. During the dizzying plummet, he was vaguely aware of more shots being fired. Holding his breath, he braced for the impact.

The world exploded into foul, freezing blackness, like hell after all the fire and brimstone had been extinguished. Liquid death. He struggled feebly, unable to see or breathe. Finally he had reached the level of damage his body could not endure.

He was pulled downward into a cold, insistent silence where there was no time, no light, no self. He vanished beneath the great river and the city of millions and its inscrutable sky, his body nothing but mites and motes of fleeting mortality. The throbs of his failing heart echoed the rhythm of one name . . . Garrett . . . Garrett. She was somewhere. Not far. He clung to that thought as he was pulled by the ancient current to his fate.

Chapter 15

“Eliza,” Garrett said wearily, rubbing her eyes, “just because my father wants something doesn’t mean you have to give it to him.”

The cookmaid faced her defensively as they stood in the kitchen, where the heavy, ripe sweetness of mincemeat pie hung thickly in the air. “I gave ’im the thinnest sliver, no wider than your finger—look, I’ll show the pie to ye—”

“I don’t want to see the pie. I want you to follow the weekly menu I gave you.”

“’E can’t abide eatin’ like an invalid.”

“He is an invalid.”

After working long hours at the clinic, Garrett had returned home to discover that Eliza had taken it upon herself to make one of her father’s favorite dishes, an enormous mincemeat pie that was too heavy and rich for his sensitive digestive system. It was also frightfully expensive, made with six pounds of currants and raisins, three pounds of apples, three pounds of suet, two pounds of sugar, two pounds of beef, a pint each of wine and brandy, and a variety of spices, all loaded into a flour crust and baked into a dark, sticky mass.

There was no sound from her father’s room upstairs—Eliza had already carried a slice up to him, and he was undoubtedly gorging on it as fast as possible. “In an hour or two, he’ll be complaining of stomach pains,” Garrett said. “Mincemeat pie is made with everything that’s bad for him, from suet to sugar.”