A ripple of emotion she couldn’t quite identify tingled through her veins as they stood face-to-face, until the moon finally peeked out from behind the clouds to give her a full view of him.
Hannah bit back a gasp. Handsome wasn’t the half of it. Cropped brown hair beneath his neatly clipped and properly inconspicuous yarmulke; full red lips; deep, near black eyes with impossibly long lashes; a strong, firm jaw—if not for his rather outsized, thick eyebrows, he’d have seemed almost unreal, a storybook prince instead of a man. However, even those were not a flaw. They suited him. Somehow.
More than any feature on her face had ever suited her. Even when she was young and fresh and naïve enough to believe fairy tales were real. Or that she could thrive as anything but a villain.
Oy, she needed to leave. She coughed into her arm as she worked to stare at the debris-filled cobblestones instead of him. “Yes. Well. I would, um, advise you to move along.” She indicated westward, to where she presumed he was traveling, or at least where he belonged.In Aldgate proper, or farther, where the princes among their people had started settling alongside the gentiles they tried to emulate. Something at which he almost succeeded. “Stick to the populated streets. Ones with taverns,” she added.
He cocked his head, almost as if he was trying to read her thoughts. “Sound advice.” But he stepped toward her, close enough for her to study the shape of his ears and the flecks of ash in his brown hair, and the smooth planes of his face.
“I—” Any and all words caught in her throat as his eyes bored into her, smoldering despite the chill, taking her breath.
“Thank you for that as well.” He pulled off his gloves, stuffing them in his coat pocket. “And for rescuing me. It’s not every day the damsel rescues the knight.” His lips settled into a rather self-satisfied grin, which shouldn’t have made her stomach flip, but for some odious reason it did.
She rolled her eyes. “I’m hardly a damsel. And you’re no knight.”
“How do you know that?” He reached out to stroke her cheek.
An action done by another man less than an hour ago. However, this time, it sparked not merely desire inside, but something akin to longing. Not for the past and the opportunities she’d missed, but for now. For him. This handsome stranger.
Which was ridiculous. She didn’t know him. And what she did know of him, of his set, made it clear that if he knew who she was, what she had done, what she continued to do—
Pulling herself backward, Hannah indicated tothe white edge of his tzistzis, which had presumably popped out from beneath his trousers during his jump. “They don’t make us knights. Even if we try to dress like Beau Brummell on the outside.” Blood pounding in her ears, she turned away from him. “Go home.”
And before he could respond, she broke into a run, racing around the corner, not stopping until she reached the door of her pawnshop.
Quick as she could, she scrambled upstairs, past her softly snoring sister. Fingers trembling, she managed her buttons and stays, before splashing water over herself at the basin. She didn’t dare meet her own reflection in the glass.
When she slid into bed, pulling the prickly, faded wool blankets over her head, she forced herself to sleep and not give him another thought.
There would be no dreams about the past, the present, or the Jewish prince she’d left behind.
