“It’ll have to do.”
Stiles suddenly ripped off the enveloping gag, freeing Georgie’s voice. “Want to tell him goodbye?” The knife pressed against her throat.
She was going to die. It didn’t seem real, but it was happening, and she could think of only one thing to say. “I love you, Jamie,” she said in a choked voice, and closed her eyes.
The explosion was deafening, the fire burned her, and she fell to her knees, then her stomach in the filthy street as she was flattened beneath Billy Stiles’s body. He didn’t move.
She couldn’t hear a thing, she couldn’t breathe, and she closed her eyes, struggling uselessly against the heavy weight. A moment later, she was free, and Rafferty was there, pulling her into his arms, holding her so tightly she would have protested if she hadn’t liked it so much. He was talking to her, but she couldn’t hear a word, she just put her arms around him and clung tight, safe and loved, if for only that moment.
He reached down and cradled her face, and there was blood on his fingertips as he brushed her skin, and some of his words began to penetrate the blank fog. “You’re...bleeding,” he said, pushing her loose hair away from her face. “I was afraid...hurt you...love...”
He said “love” but she couldn’t hear the rest of his muffled words. She put up her hand to her face and it came away smoky and bloody. A moment later, he’d scooped her up in his arms, holding her tightly.
“Is...hurt?” came the truncated words of the young man, and Georgie turned her face to look into Martina’s dark brown eyes. She stared in wonder, and the young man smiled wryly. “You’ll...be...fine,” he said. “Just let...Rafferty...care of you.”
It was too much. She closed her eyes and fainted.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“You’re awake, then, Miss Georgie,” came Martina’s low voice, and Georgie opened her eyes blearily, then wider. The young man by her bedside was fluffing the covers, plumping her pillows, fussing over her with the care that Martina had showed, all as if this was perfectly normal. “We were that worried about you—you never struck me as the kind of girl who’d faint dead away, but this time you had reason to. You’ve been asleep for so long we started to think the worst.”
Georgie picked up on the key word. “We?”
“Of course, miss. We were afraid Stiles had...well, he ‘d threatened, and Rafferty was half mad with worry when you disappeared. What in heaven’s name made you go out all alone, without Rafferty or me?”
“Who are you?” she demanded groggily, but she knew full well.
“I’m Martin.” He hesitated. “Martina’s twin brother, if that makes you feel any better.”
“No, you’re not,” she said, all of Billy Stiles’s odd comments finally making sense.
“No, I’m not,” he agreed. “And I’d better go change before Bertha finds out and raises a fuss. Though I expect she knows.”
“Bertha knows everything,” Georgie said gloomily. “She won’t be shocked.”
“Are you? Shocked, that is?”
Georgie considered it. “No,” she said finally. “You helped saved my life last night.”
“Rafferty saved you. I was just a distraction. You stay where you are, and I’ll see about a bath for you. The girls will bring up the water.”
It answered the question she was too afraid to ask. Where was Rafferty? Didn’t he care that she was finally awake? She lay back among the pillows. “Where is he?” she said finally.
“He left a while ago. He had some things to see to, he said.” Martin started for the door, striding like a young man, and she blinked.
“Is he coming back?”
There was kindness in Martin’s eyes. “I don’t know, Miss Georgie.”
She would have thought the bath would make her feel more human, but despite the delicious soak in the tub, her stomach was still churning. Where was Rafferty? Now that Stiles was dead, he had no reason to stay in Corinth Place, unless he wanted the money himself. But he already had money—he’d been ready to trade his own for her safety. Surely that meant something.
It meant he was responsible for her, and nothing else. She dressed in one of her new dresses, too weary to protest, and slipped on her beautiful leather shoes. Her reflection gave her no solace—she looked exhausted and almost tearful, and she quickly stiffened her back. If Rafferty was leaving, she would give him no reason to repine. It must be true, he really didn’t love her. She’d mistaken his sense of responsibility for more tender feelings. She’d thrown herself at him, time and again, and he’d resisted as much as any man could.
And she wasn’t going to sit around waiting for him. Grabbing her shawl, she made her way up to the fourth floor and the window to the roof, climbing out gingerly to look down over the windswept city. It was warmer than it had been, and down below, people were going about their business without the faintest notion that they were being watched. She searched, but there was no sign of Rafferty on the busy streets below. Maybe never again.
She leaned back against the chimney, closing her eyes. She missed the countryside, the fresh air and the sunshine. The sun must shine as often in the city as it did in the country, but it didn’t seem like it. All of London seemed mired in a gloomy miasma, and the smoke pouring out of the chimney pots only made it worse. At least this one chimney wasn’t belching soot like all the others—it was quiet and unused, newer than the other chimney pots with no smoke stains or heat or...
She turned around, staring up at the chimney, then glanced out at the skies around her. Each chimney, on every house, was pouring out thick, black coal smoke. Every single chimney but the one she rested against, the one that stood on the edge of the roof, above no fireplace or hearth.
