Honoria shut the door firmly. “Don’t even think about it. You go anywhere near her and I’ll kill you. I swear it.”

He looked down and met her indignant eyes. She might be exhausted and malnourished, but she was prepared to protect her family with her life. In that way he saw a little bit of Emily in her. “Does she know you’re starvin’ yourself to keep her fed?”

Color blossomed in her cheeks. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Shall we? I have an hour, and I don’t believe you wish to waste it.”

She marched down the steps, shivering with the cold. Blade sauntered after her. He’d had vague plans of parading her through the gin shops just to show the world and “Miss Independent” who her master was. Instead he shrugged out of his leather coat and slipped it over her shoulders.

Honoria started, blinking up at him.

“I don’t feel it,” he said with a shrug. “And your shiverin’s gettin’ on me nerves.”

Her fingers clutched at the edges of the coat. Blade thought for a moment that she would reject it. But then she drew it closer. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Honoria gave him an odd look. “Where do you wish to go?”

“This way.” He gestured with his head.

“The docks?”

“I’ve a mind to share a pint.”

Her head swiveled toward him.

“Of ale,” he clarified dryly. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he strode forward into the fog. If he lingered, he just might be tempted to take her up on what she’d thought he referred to.

Honoria scurried after him. Blade listened for a moment, slowing his stride to match hers. She was puffing as she caught up, her cheeks rosy with exertion. He eyed her darkly. How she managed to walk to work each day was beyond him. The bloody woman was on the verge of collapse.

He paused at the intersection of Old Castle Street and Wentworth but then changed his mind. “This way.”

“But the docks are that way,” she protested.

He ducked through an alley leading out of the rookeries. An odd odor caught his nose and he stiffened. Honoria bumped into him.

“What are you doing?”

“Catchin’ me breath,” he muttered, looking around. It must have been his imagination. There was more than enough moldy food scraps and offal dumped in the gutters to account for the rancid, rotting smell that had wafted past. “Come on.”

They came to the end of the alley, passing through the tiny improvised gate of Hoargate and coming out at Petticoat Lane. Some of the late-night vendors of the market were still hawking their wares. A couple of whores eyed him. One smoothed her skirts, then caught a glimpse of Honoria. The woman deflated and started looking around for another mark.

“You,” he said, pointing at a vendor. “’Ow much for that pie?”

The man paled, then stammered, “For you? Ah, why, nothin’ at all, sir.”

Blade flipped him a coin anyway. The man snatched it out of the air, then hastened to wrap up one of his cold pork pies. Blade offered it to Honoria.

She stared at the package. “I couldn’t. Thank you for the offer, but—”

He glared at her. “Just take the damn thing and eat it. This is the rookery, luv. Ain’t no rules ’bout what you can and can’t accept from a man. Your stomach rumblin’s fit to drive a man barmy.”

“I can’t pay you back. I have to pay the doctor—”

“This one’s free.”

He gave her his back and started walking. Behind him the sound of waxed paper rippled, and then came the swish of her skirts as she followed. Gravy and pig fat flavored the air. His lips curved in a smile.

He knew better than to turn around and watch her eating. Instead he led her across the street to a pneumatic rickshaw. The young Han Chinese boy nodded to him, then hopped up onto the cycle seat. “Where to?”

“The White Hart,” Blade said, offering Honoria a hand. “Aldgate.”

Honoria dashed pastry from her lips, then eyed his hand. After a moment’s hesitation, she slid her warm fingers over his. Her eyes widened and he knew she felt how cold his skin was. Taking her by the waist, he lifted her into the seat and then jumped up beside her. The narrow seat pressed them together, thigh against thigh, and when she shot him a nervous look, he stretched his arm out casually and rested it behind her on the seat back.

“I’ve never ridden in one of these before,” she said as the rickshaw gave a jerk and ducked out into the lane. It wove its way between market stalls and people with an ease he’d never gotten used to.

“They come out o’ Limey when the Chinese moved in. Good way to get ’round the East End. Ain’t no steam cabs or omnibuses ’ere, luv.”

The young driver hurled them into the corner onto Whitechapel High. Honoria sucked in a breath, tumbling into Blade. He caught her close, tucking her protectively under an arm. Her palm was on his thigh. She realized it the same moment he did and jerked it away.

Blade’s hand tightened on her shoulder, reluctant to let go. But then he felt her body tense and forced himself to release her. No point scaring her off. He’d have to move slowly, let her get used to him. For he intended to have her. It was just a matter of when.

Honoria cleared her throat and righted herself, patting an errant curl back into place. “Your accent. It isn’t entirely cockney.”

“Ain’t it?”

Honoria gave him a sidelong glance. Whatever goodwill he’d won with the pie was gone with the enforced intimacy of the rickshaw. Her shoulders were squared like a woman facing the gallows. “You sound horrendous most of the time, but sometimes I find a trace of…of…proper speech in your words.”

“You mean of inside the city walls.”

Her head rested close to his arm. He could almost reach out and touch one of those errant brown curls that trailed from her rumpled chignon.

“The upper class,” she corrected. “The Echelon.”

His fingers brushed the soft silk of one curl. She didn’t notice. “You think I sound like one o’ those fancy lords?”

A pained expression crossed her face. “Not at the moment. Mostly when you forget yourself.”

“Are you askin’ where I come from?” He wrapped the curl around his finger, staring into her eyes. Her hair was very soft, like spun silk. And thick. What would it look like tumbled over her shoulders?

His mind took a swift detour. He wanted to taste that milky-white skin, to run his tongue over the na**d curve of her br**sts and the rosy, puckered ni**les. His c**k stirred. With her head bowed in thought, he could see the fine tracery of veins that traversed her throat. Saliva pooled in his mouth, and his vision narrowed to the pulsing, heady throb of her carotid artery, casting the world into a chiaroscuro landscape.

“I’ve heard several theories,” she replied, her voice sounding as though it came from a great distance. “I heard you escaped from the Inquisition in the New Catalonian prisons, where you were infected with the craving virus. Or that you led the resistance in France when the revolution guillotined the entire blue blood aristocracy there.” She was breathing rapidly, not quite as unaffected as her cool, crisp tone presumed. Blood pulsed through her veins, beating in time to the throb of her heart.

Want it… “What do you think?” he whispered, leaning closer.

“You don’t have any trace of French or the Catalan dialects. You sound like you were born in the gutters and somehow learned to mimic the sounds of the aristocracy.” Honoria chose that moment to look up, and he tugged the curl that he’d wrapped around his finger. She clapped a hand to the back of her head, her fingers sliding over his. Her eyes widened.

Take it, Blade thought. The knife against her throat, nicking her just enough to bleed her; his mouth on her skin, the sudden hot flood of blood against his lips as she struggled in his arms at first, then slowly, slowly succumbed…

He shut his eyes. I ain’t an animal.

And then Vickers’s voice, whispering in his ear. Yes, you are. Remember the guards? Remember that old woman? Remember Emily?

He would never forget her. And God help him if he did—God help them all.

Sound washed back in upon him. Blade opened his eyes. The world was a riot of color again, not the grim, stark shadows he saw when the hunger forced itself upon him. He could feel it receding, unsatisfied.

“What are you doing?” The words died on her lips as she saw his expression.

He gently disentangled his finger. “Your hair’s as soft as silk.”

He almost laughed to see the bewildered expression on her face as she evidently searched his words for some hidden meaning and failed to find it.

“I’ll thank you to keep your hands to yourself,” she finally said. “And you managed that sentence without a trace of the rookeries in it.”

Blade ran the words back through his head. She was right. He’d sounded exactly like Vickers did, with his hard, crisp vowels and the slight sibilance he placed on certain letters. The comparison annoyed him. “You were right. I were born in the gutters, but I weren’t always street scum.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“No?” He leaned back in the seat as they passed beneath the massive bricked edifice of Aldgate and into the heart of the city, hiding his face from the pair of metaljackets guarding the gate. The pair stood almost seven feet tall, with burnished metal breastplates and overlapping plates to protect the delicate steam-driven mechanisms that made them move.

The enormous spire of the Ivory Tower gleamed in the distance. Since Parliament had been overthrown, the Ivory Tower had become the heart of Echelon power, and its soaring tower served as a watchful reminder of who ruled over London.

There was no place in the city where you could escape the sight of it. Not even in the stews.

“Have you ever been inside it?” Honoria asked, following his gaze.

“Once.” He tore his eyes away. “Painted the floors wet with blood.”

Her gaze shot to his.

“Themselves don’t like rogue blue bloods runnin’ ’round. Only saw the sheriff’s ’otel, mind. Spent a few months there, rottin’ in the dark before I sprang meself. They come after me, but I convinced ’em it weren’t wise to chase me down. Found me way to the ’Chapel and stayed there.”

“Do you think this is wise then?” Honoria said. “Coming into the city?”

“Who’s goin’ to stop me?”

She gave him a dubious look.

Blade laughed. “They got better things to do than make sure I stay out. Too busy stabbin’ each other in the back and pretendin’ they didn’t do it.”

“I think,” she said, “that you like playing cat and mouse with them. Proving that you can go where you like, when you like.”

“Mebbe.” He smiled. “There’s a bit of the blue blood in me after all.”

“Manipulation isn’t a symptom of the disease,” she replied primly. “But a manifestation of the individual’s own nature.”

“Near every bloodsucker I ever met’d sell ’is mother for a bit o’ the ready. And how do you know what the cravin’ does or doesn’t do?” He examined their surroundings as though the question was an idle one. “You ever met a blue blood before?”

“No,” she replied. “But I’ve read a lot about the disease.”

Liar. Blade smiled to himself. She’d spill her secrets to him one day. Half a century of life had taught him patience if nothing else.

The rickshaw came to a halt and the young driver ground the brakes on. “Here, sir. The White Hart.”

Blade leapt to the ground and turned to offer a hand to Honoria. She blinked and he realized she’d missed the movement. “It’s warm inside and the grub’s good.” He gave her a disarming smile. “Or so I ’eard.”

She didn’t want to take his hand. But her skirts were long and made the jump down somewhat precarious. The warmth of her fingers was somewhat intoxicating. That was what he missed most; he hated the clammy feel of his own skin. Sometimes he wondered if touching him felt like touching one of the Echelon’s cold metal drones. Did Honoria find the sensation disgusting? Other women had turned away from him in the past.

He caught her around the waist before he could find out, and set her on her feet. She barely came up to his shoulder, and it felt as though there was more weight in the material of her full skirts and bustle than in her flesh.

“Wait ’ere,” he told the driver, flipping him a bull.

The boy looked down in surprise. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

Honoria watched as the five shillings disappeared and the boy dragged the rickshaw out of the way. “That’s far more than what he earned.”

“Aye.” Blade shrugged, then set his hand into the small of her back. “After you, milady.”

The White Hart was tucked between two buildings. It was probably a good thing, for the roof was crooked, leaning drunkenly against the building on its right as though that was all that held it up. A gas lamp lit the coat of arms hanging over the door and gleamed on the glass windowpanes that formed the front.

Inside, the room was in full roar. Timber panels with carved bas-relief lined the wall, and green leather booths offered a modicum of privacy. There was an embossed bronze panel—depicting a stag fleeing from hunters—over the bar, blackened by years of smoke from the enormous hearth in the corner.

Honoria stopped and Blade almost stepped into her. The heat from her body shimmered in the inch between them. He drank it in. So warm. So full of life. He wanted to sink himself into her, drown in her heat. But then she was stepping forward, toward a narrow booth near the window.