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high pale forehead, luminous in the afternoon sun, a pink mouth nearly the shape of a heart, a pair of extraordinary aquamarine eyes ablaze with panic and outrage. And freckles, a collection of tiny asymmetrical splashes of gold, across her nose. Almost unconsciously, he began to count them. One, two, three, four—
    “Oof!”
    Gideon dropped to his knees, gagging for breath. While he had been counting her freckles, her knee had come up between his legs with brutal accuracy.
    And she was gone, absorbed into the crowd as though she had never been anything more than a shadow.
    * * *
    Lily ran. Her skirt clutched in both hands, her bare feet slapping down hard on the dirt street, she expertly weaved and dodged through the crowds of men and women and horses and the piles the horses left behind. She ran until her lungs were as hot as a blacksmith’s forge, until her heart was a hammer in her chest, until, at last, she was in St. Giles again.
    The difference between St. Giles and Bond Street was like noon and twilight. Prone bodies reeking of gin, prostitutes leaning against walls and out of windows, street urchins skulking, buildings sagging under the weight of their years. Raucous laughter and arguments, competing vendors calling their wares. Home. Thank God . On the heels of her alarming near-capture, it was all strangely comforting.
    It was his hair that had caught her eye—longer than most fashionable gentlemen wore it, and dark, but with red hiding in it: when he’d yanked off his hat, it had briefly glowed like a coal burned almost all the way down to ashes. She’d seen the gleam of gold in his pocket when he’d thrust his hands into his very fine coat; a watch , she’d thought. He was very tall, taller than most of the crowd, but he’d seemed so restless, so absorbed in his conversation with his friend, a man with the pale, open face of someone who’d known little of worry or care… so oblivious…
    She’d been so wrong.
    And his eyes …
    Later. She’d think of his eyes later.
    As she rounded a corner into the alley where McBride kept his shop, a hand fumbled out to grip her shoulder. “Oi, Lily, give us a kiss, luv—”
    Lily threw her elbow back sharply; she heard a grunt and a torrent of good-natured curses as the hand dropped away.
    “ Always wi‘ the elbow, Lily Masters! Just one kiss, is that too much t’ ask, I ask ye—”
    “Ah, but yer too slow, Tom,” she tossed over her shoulder, grinning. Lily had deadly sharp little elbows. They made splendid weapons. Nearly as good as knees.
    They tried, the boys did, but none of them could catch her—unless she wanted to be caught. And she had wanted to be caught—once. It was partially McBride’s fault: he’d given her a copy of Pride and Prejudice and—unwittingly, as McBride could not read—a collection of erotic stories written entirely in French, and though Lily was fairly certain this wasn’t exactly how Mama would have wanted her to apply the little bit of French she’d insisted Lily acquire, she’d found the book riveting. Both books made the goings-on between men and women sound so much more complicated and elegant than the sort of tiring that went on in alleys all over St. Giles, or what Fanny did upstairs for money at the lodging house, and Lily had wanted to discover the truth of it for herself.
    Nick, the boy’s name was. Blue eyes and a clever wit, lips more clever still; he’d known what he was about. The kiss, brief though it was, had been like a match touched to a rush light: the sweet warmth wicking through her, the beginnings of weakness, of want , had taken her quite by surprise. She’d put a stop to it immediately, pushing Nick away; she’d seen the lodging rooms filled with starving women and children and screaming sickly babies. She wasn’t about to allow curiosity, or an occasional yearning to touch and be touched, to trap her forever into a life of squalor. Never willingly put yourself at the mercy of a man, Lily ,