Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

L ondon

June 1818

"It was nothing," Savannah Raeni Shaw insisted, for the dozenth or more time in three days. No one listened. She stubbornly held her sister's gaze, even as Lyneé rolled her eyes and muttered uncomplimentary things about her sanity beneath her breath.

Or not so beneath her breath.

Savannah sniffed—a mistake, given they stood beside the overflowing gutter. The sun barely dented the crowded, cramped alleyways of the rookery, preferring to take its light and warmth anywhere else. Still, Savannah stayed.

Someone had to.

"Savannah." Lyneé gritted her teeth and spoke with exaggerated patience. "Someone tried to kill you."

" Pfft ." It was a weak retort, but they'd had this argument every day for three days. All it did was go round and round with no solution. She was tired of arguing about this. "I'm sure they did not. I'm perfectly unharmed, nothing else has happened, and even Dem hadn't heard anything after the incident."

"Incident" was the term she'd decided on when Dem, her self-proclaimed bodyguard and leader of Denmark Street, let slip what happened when he'd escorted her to her carriage. He'd made an offhanded comment to Browne, her footman. Browne, who took his position in the household extremely seriously, then informed her father.

Whoever had thrown the dagger had missed, and by quite a lot. Though the force of the throw had embedded it into the wall beside her.

The dagger in question was now in the Shaw house, as if it might offer any answers. But thus far, it had refused. The nondescript knife, with a plain wooden handle and an expertly sharpened blade, looked like a hundred other knives.

Lyneé gave her a disbelieving look and deliberately cleared her throat.

"I'm certain I'm in no danger," Savannah added.

Probably in no danger—not from that, at least. The odds that it had been anything other than an accident were incredibly slim. So slim, she'd dismissed it immediately as nothing more than idiot boys playing around. Gangs roamed St. Giles Rookery, looking for anyone weaker than they.

She'd never had a problem with them before. Dem kept them at bay, and they knew better than to harass the person who kept them alive. And surely, if someone had meant her dead and missed , they'd have tried again. It wasn't as if Savannah weren't noticeable. As the only healer consistently on the street, she was conspicuous enough. As a Black woman with vast resources at her fingertips, everyone knew her name.

"And the dead man?" Lyneé demanded.

That, on the other hand, was harder to dismiss. Certainly for the poor man who had been killed. She hadn't known him No one had. It wasn't, unfortunately, the first time she'd seen a dead body.

It was, however, the first time she'd witnessed an actual murder.

"Someone clearly aimed for him," Savannah insisted, confident in that. "You don't accidently shoot someone with such precision."

The shot had killed the stranger standing beside her. A single shot through the man's temple. Fast, deliberate, and messy. Even now, Savannah, who had helped her mother and grandmother in midwifery and healing from the time she could walk, swallowed hard against the bile rising at the memory. She'd seen dead bodies before, unfortunately; every healer did. But that had been her first time witnessing a murder.

However, the chances of that shot being aimed at her specifically were slim. Pistols, rifles, musket balls, and gunpowder weren't terribly hard to come by, what with the sheer number of soldiers passing through. A quick hand, a carelessly unattended wagon.

That shot had been aimed at the man alone. It was too precise for anything else.

"All I ask is that you stop coming here for a few days," Lyneé insisted, exasperated.

"On the off chance someone purposely threw the dagger at me and missed ," she stressed, "a couple days won't matter. It's best I remain here with my work. Besides," she added as Lyneé rolled her eyes again, "wouldn't they have tried again? Given it's been three days with no further incident, I think you're mistaken."

Savannah didn't take her safety lightly, however. She carried her own dagger, which now lay within easy reach in a specially made pocket of her dress. She'd also enlisted Dem's gang as additional guards and informants, and she had seriously debated asking some of the dockworkers who worked for her family for protection as well. Just in case.

She'd dismissed that as being overly cautious, paranoid even.

"At least let Browne accompany you instead of keeping him guarding the carriage," Lyneé argued. She looked around the street, but no one bothered them, not that Savannah expected anything else. Most of those living here respected her too much to eavesdrop.

"These women trust me. Me . They accept Browne when he delivers food, but it ends there." They'd never openly speak with Savannah if her footman stood in their cramped room, looming over them. It'd taken her weeks before they trusted her as it was.

"Do I ask so much that you can't stay home for a few days? A week?" Lyneé muttered under her breath again, but Savannah didn't miss her disparaging words.

Yes, it was too much. She couldn't stay home. She hadn't been able to stay still for years. Working, moving, exhausting herself was by far the better option than sitting and remembering. Or wallowing.

"At least let's ask Uncle James for more protection…"

Lyneé trailed off, staring wide-eyed over her sister's shoulder. Savannah's heart skipped, and her stomach dropped. Spine straight, her gaze flew to her sister's, but Lyneé didn't say a word. She didn't have to.

Standing beside the foulest gutter she could have chosen, tired, annoyed, and worn down, Savannah hoped it might be her father with the armed guard he'd threatened to hire. Or her Uncle James and a platoon of men. She grasped for any other options—perhaps her family had hired someone, such as a former soldier, to follow her around.

It didn't work. She couldn't lie to herself. She knew who walked behind her. That knowledge shot down her spine, making her skin tingle like a caress. Or a warning.

Her feet turned her body around, even as her brain screamed at her to run. She never listened to her brain, only her foolish, traitorous heart. Which brought her around, one inexorable step at a time, until she saw him.

Because of course she saw him. Of course he was there. Of course, of all the imaginable days and times, he'd decided on today. Her appetite fled.

So, too, did her common sense.

Savannah's heart skidded to a stop, then galloped far too fast. He looked the same. Tall and confident with that stupidly wide smile and sparkling blue-green eyes. His hair curled over his collar, longer than the last time she'd seen him. The last time she'd run her fingers through his soft, dark curls as they laughed together in bed.

This moment might've been better, Savannah thought, if he'd grown ugly or lost his hair, as inexplicable as that would have been. She hadn't fallen in love with his looks. The way he made her laugh, yes. The way he listened, definitely. Savannah had loved the way he devoted his entire person to simply being with her. Or had, once upon a time.

Before he'd left her.

He held something, but she couldn't concentrate on what. No, she saw only him. No matter how much she wished to run in the opposite direction, instead she walked forward, drawn to him, as she had been since the first time she saw him, aged five.

"Tristan Conrad." His name flowed from her tongue, though it had been three years since she'd seen him, since she said his name, since she dared think of this meeting.

When he left her, she banished him from her mind and her heart. She banished his name from the house she lived in with her parents and three younger siblings. No one mentioned his name. Ever. Not even when the Conrads visited, or that single time afterward she'd traveled to Hertfordshire to visit their grandmother. Who, of course, lived at Nelda Hall with the Conrads.

Never. Ever.

Until today.

The past three years' heartache rushed back in a blink, stealing her breath and crushing her chest. The din of the street faded as muted as the sunlight. As if the sun shone solely for him, only the man approaching her made any sense. Except he didn't, because he'd abandoned her.

"Savannah." She heard Lyneé's voice, a distant echo. Her gaze remained on Tristan.

She didn't know what she expected. A laugh, perhaps, with that wink that always made her smile. A joke about her missing him. Honestly, she'd stopped imagining—dreaming—about this reunion two years and eleven months ago.

Tristan smiled, that soft, intimate smile she knew better than her own. He stopped just out of reach, which was probably a good idea since Savannah couldn't decide whether to kiss him or slap him.

"Hello, love."

Her arm shot out, and her hand connected with his cheek.

Clearly, the urge to slap won out.

He deserved that.

Tristan didn't even bother to cover his now throbbing cheek. Perhaps their first conversation in three years shouldn't have started with Hello, love , but it'd slipped out, as natural as breathing.

"And here I brought you a gift." He worked his jaw slightly and grimaced. She'd always had a terrific arm.

Her beautiful brown eyes narrowed, and as foolish as it seemed, he wanted to kiss her. He always wanted to kiss her. He wouldn't—even he wasn't that stupid—but the instinct pulled him forward.

"You hired him?" Savannah's hand shot out, her finger jabbing him in the chest, as she whipped her head around to accuse her sister.

He shifted his sack away from her anger. Obviously, she and Lyneé had been in the middle of a conversation. He hadn't expected to see Lyneé, but then, the sisters had always been close. For all the ways he'd envisioned this reunion with Savannah, her jabbing at his chest hadn't been on the list.

Unfortunately, the slap definitely had been.

"Hired me?" he repeated, somewhat bewildered. No one knew he'd returned. He'd put to port only on the morning tide. However, he masked his confusion and looked between her and Lyneé, who held up her hands.

"I did not," Lyneé insisted. She composed her face into an impassive look, though her eyes couldn't mask the fire she shot at him. "Papa wouldn't have either. Not him. Never him ," she added with enough force to shoot a cannonball. "Though you do need protection, Savannah."

Savannah whirled around and glared at him once more. "Why?" she demanded, jaw clenched. Her hands fisted at her sides, and she raised her chin.

"Why the present?" he asked, lifting the sack. "Why am I back?" He thought that was obvious. Still, he rocked back on his heels, ready to dodge another slap.

"Yes," she spat.

Oh, but Tristan knew her better than that. She had more words she wanted to spit at him. He knew she also didn't want to be anywhere near him, but here they were.

Fate did like to laugh at him.

"Would you like to meet Jiesha?"

She stilled and sucked in a sharp breath, her gaze roaming the area behind him. Tristan mentally rolled his eyes at himself. Idiot. He used to be so good at talking with her. Flirting with her, seducing her—being seduced by her, for that matter. Apparently not any longer. Three years couldn't have addled his brain that much. Given how wrong he'd been to leave her in the first place, perhaps it had.

Of course, she thought he meant a lover or—heaven forbid—a wife. As if anyone compared to her. Carefully maneuvering his canvas sack, he kept his gaze on hers, lest she strike again. Then he lifted the flap and gently took out the rabbit, a soft white with black spots.

Savannah hadn't reached for her dagger, which was a definite plus. Lyneé had uttered a disgruntled sound and melted into the background, smart woman that she was. Savannah's gaze flicked to the rabbit and back to him, then focused on Jiesha.

"Oh," she said softly. "She's beautiful." Her gaze remained on the rabbit as she reached for her. "Where did you find her?"

"A merchant." He'd stolen her from a rather abusive merchant in Antwerp, but that was a story for another time. "‘Jiesha' means ‘beautiful rain.' Or so I've been told."

The merchant could've made it up; he wasn't exactly what anyone would call honest. However, Jiesha was a beautiful name no matter the meaning.

"She's lovely." Her head jerked up, and her eyes rained fire. "This doesn't mean I forgive you."

"I didn't think it would," he said honestly. He reached out and ran a finger down the back of Jiesha's head. She looked at him, eyes large and scared. "She's been through a lot," he added, dropping his hand. "She's skittish."

Savannah cuddled the rabbit against her chest. "Why did you return?"

His eyebrows shot up. "In general, or today?"

Lips pressed tight, she looked like she might hit him. Again.

He wondered what she'd expected. What he'd expected, for that matter.

She carefully petted the rabbit's head, head tilted as she watched him cautiously. When she spoke, her words barely dented the busy street. "I never thought I'd see you again."

For three years, all he'd thought about was seeing her again. About the last time they spoke, right before he left when he very foolishly didn't ask her to join him. When he left her, and his heart, and boarded his ship, setting off on his own adventure.

Alone.

"I arrived on the morning tide," he admitted. It didn't escape his notice that the crowded street gave them a wide berth.. "One of your father's secretaries let slip where I could find you."

"I'll have words with him," Savannah muttered. She sniffed, wrinkled her nose, and raised her head. "Why bother? You could've arrived and left for Nelda Hall, or your next grand adventure, or whatever you chose." She blinked against the wind, though he swore he saw tears in her eyes. "Alone," she added without inflection. "Why seek me out?"

He missed her. He ached for her. He had a hundred thousand apologies on his tongue, none of which were good enough. He missed her laugh, her smile, the sound of her voice as they walked the wharves and talked about their future. His fingers ached to feel hers around his. Tristan longed to kiss her again, taste her skin as they made love. Hold her close.

"Why are you in St. Giles?" he asked instead, gesturing around the cramped, filthy, derelict street.

He noticed the man then. Tristan knew he hadn't been there a moment ago, but had appeared silently, stealthily. He looked as if he usually stood there, just out of earshot, three paces behind Savannah. A guard? Hadn't she said something about that? About her father hiring someone? Why?

The wind whipped down the street, sending rubbish skipping through the gutters and stirring up a truly foul stench. When Arnault, his first mate and closest friend, had informed Tristan that Savannah visited St. Giles daily, he hadn't believed him. Yet here she stood, wearing an old gown, glaring daggers at him.

He knew why her sister glared. However, the mystery of why Savannah was standing in St. Giles confused him. Lyneé mumbled something about the carriage and disappeared into the crowd.

"I choose to be here." The words shot out, almost as if she'd memorized them. "This is where I chose to pursue my future."

"Chose—" He swallowed the rest of his words. She didn't have to say more. After he left, she meant. Tristan nodded, a slow movement. She'd kept her voice even, but he knew hurt lay beneath the surface, waiting to explode at him.

The man behind her hadn't moved, watching him with a wariness Tristan appreciated, even if that wariness was aimed at him. With an impatient grunt, he pushed the man's presence to the back of his mind. Savannah had to know he was there; she had always been highly aware of her surroundings.

"You have no right to question me, Tristan Conrad." Savannah's cold gaze met his, and he once more wondered just what he'd expected from this meeting.

For her to fall into his arms? That was not the woman he loved. A quick and easy forgiveness? Ha, that hadn't even crossed his mind. Tristan had simply wanted to see her again. Start over, mend the rift he'd caused.

Such a tame word for what he'd done.

"I'm not questioning you." He kept his voice steady, though a flare of annoyance crept in. "I'm asking why you're here . I expected you in the offices."

Something passed over her face, he couldn't tell what. He knew her so well, or once had. Now, he had only more questions.

"I never expected to see you again." The bite in her voice chilled him. She stepped back. "We're talking in circles. Thank you for Jiesha. I shall take care of her. Don't come round again."

So saying, she stepped around him, no doubt toward the carriage Lyneé had mentioned. Her guard followed.

"Who's your guard, then?" Her earlier words about hiring a guard echoed in his mind. "I thought you didn't need one."

"Dem isn't my guard." Though she kept her voice low, the heat of her anger boiled hot enough to singe him.

"No, but you need one. Are you going to tell me why?" He watched as the street cleared for her, people moving around her as she strode toward the church. "What happened that has Lyneé so worried?"

"Nothing."

"Savannah." He stopped her with a light hand on her arm. Beneath his touch, her taut muscles quivered with anger. "Lyneé doesn't worry easily. Neither do you."

"A misunderstanding about certain circumstances." She shot him a withering look. "Once again, it has nothing to do with you."

His mind raced with questions about what the misunderstanding might be. What could be dangerous enough that both her father and sister insisted she needed an armed guard?

"Did someone accost you?" Tristan searched her face, but it gave away nothing. "Try to harm you or?—"

"I forgot how meddlesome you could be," she muttered, but she didn't move away.

"I'm not meddlesome," he insisted, offended at the very thought. "I'm worried."

"Tristan, I'm tired. I have an afternoon engagement, and now I need to find food for Jiesha. Whatever you think you know, you do not. Whatever you think you want to know, I do not care. My life is no longer any concern of yours."

Afternoon engagement? Jealousy burned through him. It didn't matter how many years had passed or what happened between them. Time hadn't changed his feelings for her. She was right, of course— strictly speaking, it wasn't any concern of his. But his jealousy threatened to have him spouting words he probably shouldn't.

"Be that as it may," he finally managed. His tone wasn't exactly even, and Savannah's narrowed gaze told him just how much she appreciated that. "I care for you, and I want to see you safe."

"I've seen to my own safety for the last three years without you, thank you very much," she snapped.

"I deserve that." Would her afternoon engagement keep her safe? Or even know how to?

"Your acknowledging what you do or do not deserve doesn't make anything better or right."

"I didn't say it did," he insisted, his control slipping further. "I owe you more than an apology; I owe you explanations and atonement."

She flinched then. It was slight but clear as day to him. "Tristan." She sounded weary now. "Please don't. Whatever happened three days ago is no concern of yours. As I said, a misunderstanding. My family is overreacting because they worry."

Tristan let loose a string of curses. How thick was he? "Someone tried to hurt you."

"No." Her weariness dissipated with that harsh word. "I witnessed a murder, that's all."

"Witnessed a murder," he repeated, but his anger and fear for her safety simmered beneath his skin. "That's all." She made it sound so blasé that Tristan could only blink at her in disbelief. "And you think your family is overreacting?"

"Things happen here. Murders, violence, especially amongst the women. I can watch over myself."

"Damn it, Savannah!" The words exploded from him. His control vanished. "Someone tried to kill you!"