Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

S avannah didn't know what made her admit that. Offering to work together sounded a far sight tamer than asking for the protection she didn't feel she needed. Her sheathed dagger sat heavy in her pocket, within easy reach at any moment.

She used to wear it on her waist, but that was far too tempting for a pickpocket. Given the last few days, perhaps she ought to reconsider. Reaching for the handle in her specially made pocket took several seconds longer than at her hip. Those several seconds might mean the difference between life and death. Hers.

Perhaps she ought to reconsider a few things. Like the longing that burrowed beneath her skin, tempting her to lean over and kiss Tristan. Taste his lips and feel his skin beneath her fingertips.

Savannah had thought she'd banished such longing once and for all when she'd locked away the memory of her life with Tristan. Obviously not, given the way her body reacted to his. But Tristan, blast him, showed no such feelings toward her. He walked easily by her side, as if they were naught more than old friends out for a stroll.

She angrily shoved aside that ridiculous feeling, that temptation she had no business being tempted by.

"Someone is killing the women?" Tristan's head tilted. The wind blew gently over his hair, ruffling the curls. Damn him and this compulsion to feel those strands beneath her fingers! She used to love running her fingers through his curls.

His eyes narrowed, and Savannah couldn't quite make out his expression. "What does that have to do with the attempt on your life?"

"Let's retire to the church. Mr. Christie has a small office I sometimes use."

"Savannah…" But his gaze flicked around the street, and he nodded. "All right."

"This doesn't mean I forgive you." She had no idea what it meant, truthfully. Her mother's words echoed in her head— a lot to work through . Savannah supposed she and Tristan should talk, though in all fairness, she had no real desire to do that. Ignoring the situation and being done with him sounded much better, if not at all feasible. "It simply means you might be of help in this matter."

From the corner of her eye, she watched him nod solemnly. "I understand."

She doubted that. Doubted she understood either, but the church loomed at the end of the street, and she needed help. Savannah could ask her family; Lyneé would be more than willing to help. Papa, too, of course—she wasn't without resources. Dem would've rounded up every member of his gang for a good fight if she asked, but she certainly didn't need a fight.

She needed answers.

The simple truth was, she didn't want her sister involved. And while she trusted Dem, he was chasing after greater power on the street. He'd been open about wanting to secure his place as head of the most powerful gang in the rookery. There were others, of course, who'd offer their help. She only had to ask.

"How long have you worked the street?" Tristan asked.

She glared at him like any lady would.

He sighed, looking upward. "I didn't mean it like that," he muttered.

Savannah pressed her lips together so they wouldn't curve into a smile, but she couldn't control that slight twitch. Annoyed he'd made her smile, had broken through her walls, she clenched her hands into fists as they exited Denmark Street and came upon the square where the church sat.

"I meant how long have you…helped out here," he corrected ruefully.

"Two years and ten months." She paused again, struggling with her own feelings on the matter. Unfortunately, the short walk offered no answers. Instead, she faced him. "I chose to make myself a resource here, where people were forgotten. Like I was."

Tristan flinched, and she felt a bolt of satisfaction at that, short-lived though it was.

"I deserved that." He took her arm as they crossed the street, his hand warm through the plain linen of her gown. "I deserve a lot more," he admitted before she could retort.

Savannah shook off his arm. She didn't like understanding Tristan, though he always knew what to say in apology. He always meant it, too. Or she thought he had.

They walked around the side of the church and into the sunlight. Savannah took a moment and let the warmth thaw the ice around her heart.

"Why are you here?" she asked again. The words came out tired, drained. Her anger simmered in her heart, but she hadn't the strength to fight, not after Nell. His answer yesterday barely scratched the surface. "You could've returned to Nelda Hall. Or to any of your siblings. Do your parents even know you've returned?"

"No." His gaze scanned the area.

She knew he'd prefer his back to be against the church wall; she'd also prefer to keep anyone from sneaking up on them. But, petty though it was, Savannah wasn't in a conciliatory mood.

"I stayed at Tetya Nadia's last night."

The sun couldn't melt the ice that suddenly ran through her veins. He'd slept down the street? Of course he had—foolish of her to think otherwise. Where else would he have slept? Regent's Park, perhaps, with Esme and her family, or onboard his ship. But no, he'd slept a mere five houses from her. Where he always stayed when in London. She should've guessed.

"Let's get inside." Savannah shoved aside this new revelation and pulled out the key for the office. She didn't look at him as she unlocked the small side door, entering the newly renovated cupboard.

It wasn't large enough to be called anything else. She didn't bother to light a candle; the sunlight that streamed through the small, round windows lit the room enough for her purposes. She used this office mostly for quiet moments after visiting the street. The sheer poverty of the area weighed on her, and she knew no matter how she helped, it'd never be enough.

Tristan leaned against the secretary desk Savannah rarely used. She had no need of letter writing here, and any accounts that needed reconciling were done on the street.

"This isn't anything more than an investigation." She glared at his relaxed pose, annoyed by it when she felt as if a thousand needles pricked her skin and an iron rod had been strapped along her spine. How was he so calm and collected around her?

Oh. Oh, stupid, stupid Savannah.

He didn't love her anymore. He had, after all, left her with barely a word. He'd sailed around the world for three years and took who knew how many lovers. That didn't explain why he'd shown up in her life immediately after making port and with an adorable rabbit. However, knowing he no longer loved her made things easier.

Except her heart ached with every beat, and nausea welled in her throat. Curling her fingers into her skirts, Savannah backed away from him until she hit the opposite wall. Distance did not help. The room closed in on her, but she raised her chin and met his gaze as if nothing happened.

Nothing happened.

"You're the smartest person I know, and the most observant." Her voice cracked, but Savannah sniffed and forged ahead. Emotions had no place here. Even if they clawed at her throat and pounded through her veins with every beat of her heart.

Not as over him as she told everyone she was. But then, Savannah knew she'd lied each and every time.

"Considering the brilliance of your family, I'll take that as a compliment." He nodded in appreciation and crossed his arms over his chest. He never boasted of his intelligence, no matter how brilliant he truly was. "What makes you think someone is targeting the women of Denmark Street specifically?" His head tilted, and in the faint light his face remained in shadow.

"Nell isn't the first one." Savannah held up a hand. "I know people die with unmatched frequency here. This is different. Ailene, Dem's sister, was attacked." She paused and whispered, "Violated."

Tristan growled. "Do you know who did it?"

She shook her head. "No. It was late, the gin houses were overflowing, the gaming hells full to capacity. That's where she works. Worked. She has a son now."

"I'm sorry. Has she food, shelter?"

Damn him for being so caring. As if it never occurred to him to think otherwise.

"Yes. Dem cares for her; he's determined to discover the culprit and have his justice." She didn't blame him. If someone had done the same to her two sisters, Savannah would do all in her power to find them and see they paid.

"She wasn't the only woman violated?"

Savannah shook her head. "No one knows the culprit." She licked her lips and told her ex-fiancé, her former lover, what she hadn't told anyone else. Trust was a strange, finicky thing. "A few of Dem's people saw a group. Three or four men. But there aren't any candles lighting the street, let alone an Argand lamp."

Tristan merely nodded at her weak attempt at a joke. "This group attacked others?"

"Yes. It escalated." Savannah closed her eyes and focused entirely on this. On what happened to these women, on how to stop the attacks. "Several more were attacked, then they just…stopped." She met his gaze again. "Someone killed Nora three days ago. That attack surprised me."

"Because she was murdered." Tristan nodded, easily following along.

That was why she'd confided in him. He easily followed any line of thought to its natural conclusion, and faster than anyone Savannah knew. He'd planned to go to Oxford, to study law and natural history.

After Harrow, he'd returned to her instead, and they'd planned on marrying.

Stop it! She swallowed hard, but the memories crowded her mind, refusing to let her be. They filled her heart until it beat too fast. The letters they'd exchanged over the years while he was at Harrow. The summers they spent together. The promises they'd made.

"Could it be someone copying the crime? Different people but the same crime? What do these women have to do with the man who was murdered?"

Annoyed at her own thoughts and Tristan's insistence on bringing that up again, Savannah growled, "Nothing. I keep telling everyone that. That man's death has nothing whatsoever to do with me or the dead women."

"People don't waste rifle shots, Savannah." He watched her, but she still couldn't make out his expression.

"Indeed, they do not," she snapped, hating the way his voice caressed her name. "Therefore, he was clearly the intended target."

"And the knife? Why shoot someone, then throw a knife at them?"

She still had no real answer for that. "Maybe he was one of that gang who attacked Ailene. Maybe he was searching for his own thief." She closed her eyes. "It doesn't matter in this instance."

"I think it does," he corrected, smooth and fast. As if they debated something far more mundane than a killer. "However, for the moment, let's assume whoever has been killing—is it always the same?"

"The method?" He nodded, and she continued, "Yes, both Nora and Nell were killed by a knife. Sliced across the abdomen. Deep and quick."

"Takes strength for that. Precision. Close proximity." He paused, and she waited, letting him think.

Savannah did not think. She purposely blanked her mind and watched the dust motes dance in the scant sunlight. Fate laughed at her.

"Dem. How much do you trust him?"

Surprised by the question, she blinked at Tristan. "Enough that I know he'll find who did this."

"You're certain he's not responsible?"

"I am. He and Ailene are extremely close. She raised him after their father abandoned the family and their mother fell in with the gin houses." Ailene had kept them both clean—no drinking, no opium. Savannah respected that. She considered Ailene a close acquaintance, Dem more a partner, though she knew his place here and respected it.

"And he doesn't know who's responsible?"

"Which is unusual, I agree." She pushed off the wall and paced a few steps. Nerves and memories and anticipation danced just below her skin. "That's why I think whoever is responsible isn't from the rookery."

Tristan tilted his head again, mostly so he looked like he was following Savannah's very logical line of thought. In truth, he was trying to catch a glint of her dark eyes in the few rays of sunlight.

He loved to watch her eyes when she thought through a problem. They always crinkled at the corners, their deep brown sparkling with determination.

Questions about her time here clamored around his brain, but Tristan kept on the subject. She'd made it abundantly clear she didn't wish to talk about anything other than these murdered women, and he'd respect that. If it meant he could spend more time with her, that he'd have more opportunities to apologize and explain how he felt, he'd take whatever time she offered.

More importantly, he'd do whatever was necessary to keep her safe. Tristan didn't care if she liked it or wanted it. He had three years to make up for, and he wasn't backing down.

"Was that man's murder a ruse? A distraction, perhaps?" He shook his head, not sure how that could even be. "He's dead either way. Did he have anything on him? Money, a watch, even a knife we might trace?"

"Nothing." Savannah stood closer to him now.

If he were a betting man, Tristan would wager she didn't realize it. Ah, there were her beautiful eyes, and yes, they sparkled in thought.

"Literally only the clothes on his back," she continued. "Not unusual here. Nora was simply murdered." She grimaced, shaking her head. "If such a word as ‘simply' could be used." She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Like Nell just now. Exactly like her, though late at night, when the gin houses were full."

"We'll return tonight," he agreed, as if Savannah had spoken that plan aloud. No, three years hadn't changed his understanding of her. "I know what you're thinking, Savannah, and I'm not letting you return here alone at night."

She glared, her chin tilted just enough to show him how little she thought of his statement. "I asked for your help because I know you'll offer it. I didn't suggest it so I could listen to your lectures."

Of course he'd help, and it galled him that she might think otherwise. Tristan didn't move from his negligent position on the small desk. In fact, he swung his leg absently, as if he hadn't a care in the world. In truth, he wanted to shake her, though he knew that'd only earn him another slap. Kissing her was also an option, unfortunately with the same outcome. Savannah narrowed her eyes at him, and he nearly smiled.

This pose might have fooled nearly everyone else, but it wouldn't fool her. Never her.

"What makes you think there's more to these murders than drunken idiots with daggers?"

"A feeling," she admitted quietly. "Drunken idiots with daggers don't disappear into the night—or day in Nora's case—without a trace. Nothing was taken from either Nora or Nell. Not their clothing, whatever coin they carried. Nothing. Ailene wasn't the first woman violated, but she was the last. After her, those attacks seemed to stop."

"Almost as if this group, whoever they are, had their fill of such distasteful things?" He scrubbed a hand down his face. It didn't erase the surge of anger that choked him. The bile that coated his throat at the thought of what happened here. "They could've been a completely random group that someone saw and pointed a finger at. An easy target." That sparked another nagging thought. "If they are responsible, why? Why attack women? What's the connection, if any? Why stop the violations and start murdering them? The thrill of it?"

"I'd hardly say that's thrilling, but people will do anything for a lark. Or a coin." She sighed and rolled her shoulders. "I promised Papa I'd sup with him."

"He's worried about you being here." Tristan nodded and straightened, offering his arm. "I'll walk you."

"You aren't invited."

He threw back his head and laughed. "Whatever you think of me now, Savannah, I'm not that foolish."

A smile graced her lips, there and gone in a breath. Progress. Maybe. Enough that he felt confident she wouldn't literally stab him in the back as they left this cupboard of an office.

"Why do you need an office in the church?"

He waited, watching the street as she locked the door. The day hadn't necessarily warmed, but it had brightened. He watched the clouds race along the sky, small puffs dotting the blue. Not the same as over the sea, where he could watch the endless sky and barely make out a stretch of land.

Beautiful nonetheless, because this was home.

It'd taken him three years to realize that. Less to admit his mistake, the mistake his family had let him make even while they shook their heads at his folly.

"It's not far from home, but some days it all gets to be too much." She took his arm, almost without thinking, as they strolled around the front of the church where her carriage and footman waited. "There are so many who need help." That determination crept back into her voice. "I do what I can, but there's always more. Lyneé helps sometimes, but she has her suffragist meetings."

Suffragist meetings? That was new and intriguing. He'd ask about that another time. "You care, which is more than many can say."

"Hmm," she agreed, but he heard the wariness in her tone. She didn't believe what she did here helped—that it was enough.

"Enjoy your meal with Hugh." He handed her into the carriage, mindful of the glares from both footman and driver. Tristan almost waved at them cheekily but held back the impulse.

He hadn't left those childish impulses behind, but he'd learned to control them. Somewhat.

"I'll pick you up tonight, what time—nine?"

"All right." She watched him from the doorway, and Tristan knew she had second thoughts. "Tristan."

"I'll help you find them, Savannah," he promised. "Then we can talk."

She didn't answer, and he stepped back, closing and securing the door. Nodding at Browne, the footman who continued to glare at him, Tristan turned for the wharves. He hadn't taken a hackney from Grosvenor Square—too on edge for that when a good walk would help clear his mind.

But the two-mile walk only added to his questions. Why murder the poorest of poor women, other than for a game? A sick game, at that. He let the question turn over and over again.

The walk back at the wharves provided no answers. Once there, Tristan headed for the berth that held his ship.

"Ah, Tristan. Back already?"

"Arnault." He nodded at his first mate. Frederic Arnault towered over Tristan's own tall frame. With his shining blue eyes and thick, curly blond hair, he looked more like a Roman statue than a seaman.

"Alone, I see." Arnault clucked his tongue, his Flemish accent heavy with his disapproval. "I told you to bring flowers instead. Women love flowers." He nodded sagely. "Or cheese. You never listen."

"I'll keep the cheese in mind," Tristan promised. Savannah wasn't partial to cut flowers; she preferred walking through fields of them in the country. Cheese, on the other hand, she enjoyed very much. "However, Savannah took to Jiesha immediately."

He should've asked after the rabbit, but he'd been caught up in this new mystery surrounding Savannah. Tonight, on their way back to Denmark Street, they'd have plenty of time to talk. And he could apologize.

"The rabbit?" Arnault asked dubiously. "Flowers," he reiterated. "Tulips, roses, gladiolas. Something bright. Or perhaps white lilies, hyacinths even, or violets. Yes, violets. Something forgiving." He shook his head and folded his arms over his wide chest. "That cheese from the abbey, offer her that."

"I'm seeing her again tonight." Tristan looked over the deck of his ship, where his crew diligently worked at cleaning the exterior after her long voyage. They didn't watch him, though Arnault's voice boomed over the deck as a good first mate's ought.

"Good." Arnault nodded decisively. "You're taking her to a ball? You'll need fresh clothing."

"A ball?" Tristian shook his head and brought himself back to the present. "No, we're looking for a killer."

As soon as he said it, he realized how odd it sounded. Finding a killer wasn't a courtship. It wasn't even proper, he'd wager. Arnault believed Tristan was wooing Savannah, trying to win her back. Not track a killer in the St. Giles Rookery. Tristan pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. He already knew what Arnault was going to say.

"A killer? Bah." He huffed. "How is that pursuing her? Dancing. You need to take her dancing."

Savannah loved dancing, loved the freedom of movement it offered. It didn't matter what the music was, she loved to move to the rhythm. When they were younger, Tristan had briefly debated learning the fiddle simply to watch her dance. But it hadn't taken him long to realize he'd rather dance with her than watch from the sidelines.

"I shall," he promised, not entirely certain how to go about that when the only reason she'd spoken to him was to ask for his help. Help in solving a murder. Not dancing, unfortunately.

"Good." Arnault nodded. "That's how you woo a lady."

"Someone is murdering women," he admitted, his voice low though he doubted anyone eavesdropped. It wouldn't matter if they did. He trusted his crew implicitly; all but two of them had sailed with him for three years. The two additions came from Antwerp, the last time they'd made port, when he'd stolen Jiesha and two abused footmen from that corrupt merchant, Van Zanten.

Arnault hummed and nodded slowly. "Perhaps spending time with her while investigating this is not a bad idea. She is passionate about these women?"

"Yes."

The entire street worshipped her. He'd seen that immediately. And he knew it wasn't because of Dem and his iron-fisted control. When he'd returned from his travels, Tristan had expected to find her in the offices, reading over manifests, seeing to other captains and cargo. Where she belonged, overseeing Shaw Shipping.

He'd been surprised when Arnault discovered her elsewhere.

"She's—" He didn't know how to explain Savannah's being in St. Giles. "Helping" sounded too tame. Many women helped, but usually with money or a donation of old clothing. Sometimes food, if it suited their image. "She does ," he settled on, though that also sounded too insipid a phrase. "She sees what needs done and does it. She doesn't wait for others to make things happen."

She hadn't waited for him, and that small part of Tristan that thought she would deserved the sneering laughter and slap he'd gotten. Idiot.

Turning sharply on his heel, he strode across the deck and looked out over the wharves. The workers moved around, unloading and loading cargo, some laughing while they sat on crates.

He'd seen a dozen such wharves in the last three years, but none hit home quite like this one. Because no matter how he always searched for Savannah in every port, he knew he'd find her here.

"What did you think would happen when you returned?" Arnault leaned against the railing, hands clasped in front of him. He didn't look at Tristan, but at the vista below.

The slap, definitely. Perhaps a chance to speak with her, explain his actions. Though he supposed he could've done that the second he'd committed to leaving. Instead of instantly boarding the ship, he could've taken an hour. If they missed that tide, there was always another one.

"I'm staying at my aunt's house in Grosvenor Square," he said instead. He hadn't a real answer for his friend, anyway. And the confessions in his heart were for Savannah alone.

"What should I tell the men?" Arnault faced him, serious now, quiet. "Do we sail again, or are you staying?"

That was the question, wasn't it?