Graham looked down.
Blood.
There was a shallow cut along Eleanor’s forearm, crimson against the sleeve of her blue dress. He meet her gaze. Her face was pale, but her eyes were furious.
“It is nothing,” she said before he could speak. “I am not porcelain.”
“Good,” Graham said, voice flat. “Then we run.”
He took her hand and propelled them forward.
They moved fast—down a side street, then another, Graham choosing turns by instinct and the quiet math of pursuit. He listened for the echo of boots behind them, for the rattle of a carriage matching their pace.
He heard none.
That was often how it went. The first threat was noise—the fracture, the scream, the burst of glass. The second was silence, the kind that invited the mind to fill it with shapes.
Silence did not mean they were safe.
When they reached the mews house, Graham checked the lock before he opened it. He shoved Eleanor inside, barred the door, and threw all three bolts with a force that made the frame shudder.
Only then did he let himself breathe.
Eleanor sank into the nearest chair, cradling her injured arm. “Whoever arranged that,” she said, voice tight, “knew we would be at Lady Mordaunt’s and that we would take that carriage.”
Graham nodded once. “And wanted you alive, for now.”
“Comforting.” Her laugh was sharp and short.
He crossed to her and crouched, ignoring the way his hands wanted to shake.
“Show me,” he said.
She hesitated only a heartbeat before pushing back her sleeve. The cut was long but shallow, bleeding freely because the glass had been clean.
Graham tore a strip from his handkerchief and pressed it to the wound. The linen darkened at once, startling against the crisp white.
Eleanor inhaled through her teeth, and her gaze flicked away. Not from pain, but from the humiliating truth that her body had betrayed her composure.
“You may curse,” he said.
“Not in the presence of company,” she replied, and the fact that she could still be dryly offended made something in his chest ease, slightly.
He rose, fetched water, then returned with a bowl, linen, and the small tweezers folded into his pocketknife. He cleaned the wound with careful hands, coaxing out two glittering shards that dropped into the dish with soft, accusing clinks.
Eleanor watched him, chin high, refusing to show pain even when her breath betrayed it.
When he finished, he bound her forearm neatly and tied the knot with a competence born of necessity.
His fingers lingered against her skin a fraction too long.
Eleanor noticed, her gaze finding his.
Startled he pulled away, then sat back on his heels and forced himself to withdraw.
“You did not ask if I wanted help,” she said.
Graham’s mouth tightened. “You were bleeding.”
