The following morning, Simon breakfasted alone in his tidy flat on Seymour Street. In fact, in the long decade he had lived at this residence, he had only ever dined alone.

His nocturnal schedule prevented him from attending social events. The one time he’d invited his housekeeper to join him for supper, she had politely informed him that she knew her place, and it was not beside her employer at the table.

So he dined with case notes, rather than company.

Previously, it had never bothered him. His aloneness wasn’t loneliness. It was a strategic tactic to ensure no distractions would interrupt his focus. Being personally responsible for the most challenging cases meant work was never far from his thoughts.

Some investigations not only hinged on having the presence of mind to notice unobtrusive details, but also long hours of surveillance or paperwork or any number of other time-consuming tasks.

Indeed, Simon himself barely spent any time in this apartment, save the minimum required for sleep, sustenance, and bathing.

But this morning was different. His dreams were different. He had awoken not with thoughts of edicts to sweep the streets of unsavories or the crimes of the maddening Thief of Mayfair, but rather the laughing eyes of a certain St. Giles headmistress.

What might Miss Grenville think of Simon’s living quarters?

His apartment was far grander than any home her students would have ever seen, yet not situated close enough to Hyde Park Corner to be considered fashionable. Its clean, ordered interior was Spartan at best. No paintings or fluted moldings adorned the walls. While there was no butler or livery on staff, his housekeeper also served as a quite competent chef, and his footman doubled as a valet.

He was neither rich enough to be considered gentry nor poor enough to want for any comfort, making his home unremarkable in every way.

Quite the opposite of Miss Grenville.

Everything about her commanded attention. Her dark, expressive eyes, her enthusiastic gestures, her big heart. The battered abbey she had converted into a boarding school had cracks on every surface, worn edges on every corner, and yet even the most cavernous of rooms seemed filled to the rafters with life and laughter.

Trying not to think about her only worsened matters. Miss Grenville’s infectious high spirits clung to him like the scent of fresh biscuits, making him smile at odd moments even when she was nowhere about.

Another man would have formally courted her by now. Another man would win her hand and make her his bride.

That man would not be Simon. Marriage would not negate the need for long hours in his office, at the court, on the case. Any woman naive enough to be his wife would quickly find herself alone in an empty apartment, taking meal after meal without a conversation partner, because her husband was off interviewing witnesses or jailing criminals.

He respected all women far too much to offer less of a marriage than what they deserved.

Several other men on the force felt much the same way. Whenever they found themselves yearning for female company, they merely sated their masculine urges with one of the city’s countless prostitutes.

Even though he knew that tens of thousands of women—from penny whores to fashionable courtesans—relied on trading their favors for wages, Simon could not join their clientele. He had witnessed what being a kept woman did to his mother. He would not risk accidentally fathering a child. The streetwalker remedy of sponges soaked in vinegar was not always effective.

Simon was living proof.

He was unwilling to lie with any woman he wasn’t proud enough to make his wife. Nor would he wish for any offspring of such a union to feel unworthy, to be an embarrassing mistake his father must lie to conceal. Someone needed to be trustworthy.

If that meant suffering along with neither mistress nor prostitutes, so be it. In the event that Simon did someday fall in love, he wished for it to be with a woman he was honored to court openly, a match he was not only willing to admit to but eager to celebrate.

Looks and familial background mattered little, so long as she shared the infallible ethics and honest nature Simon had dedicated his life to upholding.

Unbidden, his thoughts returned to Miss Grenville. She was simultaneously quite close to and very far from the image he might have conjured in his mind.

Her positive attributes were obvious and abundant. So were the rather alarming qualities that gave him pause.

She was benevolent, but outspoken. Unselfish, but impulsive. Brave enough to take a broom to the head of a miscreant, and foolish enough to have risked it. Girlish enough to curl her hair into ringlets…yet shockingly at ease in a pair of men’s trousers. In short, not the unquestionably above-board proper young lady of his dreams.

And yet, were those passionate qualities not the very things that drew him to her? That enabled her not only to open a school as improbable as hers, and to have the grit and conviction to keep it going despite the odds?

Miss Grenville might not comport herself in the manner that society dictated, but that was only because of her remarkable capacity for kindness and charity, and her utter disinterest in anyone whose nose got bent out of shape over it.

He would stay on as dancing-master because, try as he might, he could not imagine cutting her from his life completely. She gave everyone light, where before there was shadow. Even a soul as hollow as Simon’s.

But just as her life was dedicated to saving the girls of her school, Simon’s was dedicated to protecting the rest of the City. It would be best for all parties affected if he and Miss Grenville limited their interactions only to those that best served her students.

No matter how empty his home suddenly seemed without her.