I’m about to go to the counter, but an elderly man seemingly materializes out of nowhere, obscuring my view.
“Sir,” he mutters, tipping his tall hat and peering at me through his thick spectacles. “I understand you have a job to do, but the ladies wish to shop in peace. Also, there is a ruleabout the police working off-duty.” He glances me up and down. “Or lacking uniform.”
“While I wholeheartedly agree, I am not the police.” I watch his eyes widen—then narrow—at my accent. “I’m an investigator. There’s been a disappearance next door. Are you the owner?”
“No, I’m one of the tailors. Our shop owners are out today, but?—”
“You can leave him, Thomas. I’ll handle it.” The disembodied voice returns, and Thomas utters an apology before sauntering over to the customers, ushering their attention back to the mirrors.
As soon as he’s out of view, a pair of hands plop a towering, teetering stack of dyed silks ranging from cream to a deep crimson onto the counter. The person those hands belong to sprouts up from behind it like a weed.
“I’m in charge today,” she announces, with squared shoulders and the steeled smile of a shop owner—one assessing enough to make my heart skip—despite the several pins protruding from her smock sleeve and patch of soot upon her freckle-dusted nose.
“You’re not Lewis,” I observe. “Nor Allenby.”
“And you’re not English.”
Her tone is just short of cordial, but her large brown eyes study me unabashedly. Her dark hair is pulled back into a sleek bun, held with a silk ribbon, save for the pieces that brush her cheeks.
Maintaining a straight face is almost as difficult as refraining from replying,Neither are you.
“And how may I help you?” Her voice tightens.
I don’t realize I’m staring. I hastily dip into a bow. “My apologies. I was just passing through.”
The seamstress responds with a polite clear of the throatthat is an evident ruse, because she beckons me threateningly forward with one finger. Her skin, rich with the complexion of aged amber, is flushed deliciously pink. I’d be a fool not to oblige; without question, I step to the counter. In all the fuss of the afternoon, I’d almost forgotten my headache, but the pain rails relentlessly into my skull as I close the space between us.
The woman takes it a step further, leaning forward so that our faces are a breath apart, and I think for one ludicrous second she might kiss me. She smells immediately of jasmine and anise. I’m about to comment on it when her hand darts out. She grips me by the lapel and tugs me to her, causing me to lose balance and my palms to slap the counter.
“You wanted to snoop,” she growls. “I don’t need you announcing the nature of your investigation to all of my customers. If this affects business, they won’t find what’s left of you in the Thames. You’re frightening the entire shop.”
My ears have grown atrociously hot; I can sense a multitude of eyes on us. “You’re the one frighteningme.”
“Why? Is it because I am the head of the shop, and not the soft-spoken one in the tall hat?”
“That depends. Is accosting strangers a favorite pastime of yours?” I raise my hand slowly, gently toward hers, but she catches it and presses her fingers into the tendons at my wrist, rendering it slack before forcing it back onto the table. She shouldn’t know how to disarm me, yet something in the precision of her movement tells me she’s trained to deal with men. “What about attacking investigators?”
“Only the ones who come sniffing where they shouldn’t.”
“What is your name?” I ask, determined not to break her glare.
“What are you going to do, arrest me?”
I won’t—I can’t make arrests—but myeyes linger upon her wrists. There’s a jade bracelet on one of them, adorned with a golden clasp. “I at least deserve to know the name of the woman throttling me.”
In truth, I don’t blame her for reacting this way. I’m a stranger. An unwelcome entity in her shop. Perhaps someone once made her feel the same, or the ones who came before her.
The gaslamp above us flares as if it can sense the tension between us. I should pull away. I should say something clever. But all I can think of is how close her mouth is to mine, the heady aroma wafting off of her skin in the brick-trapped heat, and how odd it is that fear and fascination rouse twin beasts within me.
Perhaps she senses it, too, because she roughly releases me and steps back across the counter, studying me distrustfully. “What is it that you want?”
“There’s been a disappearance at the infirmary next door. A young girl was reported dead four days ago, but her parents are suspicious, as they’ve not been permitted to see her.”
I glimpse something like recognition—but only for a moment. “And what do you want me to do about that? People die all the time at infirmaries. In their own beds. You cough one day and are gone the next.”
Now, I’m the one leaning in to whisper. “Have you noticed anything strange about the infirmary?”
“You’re not from here.” She takes my silence as confirmation. “Everything about it is strange. Beecham’s Infirmary is fairly new.”
