Two days had passed since Dahlia had seen Mr. Spaulding.

Perhaps the inspector continued to ride past the school once per day as promised. Perhaps he did not. Bow Street Runners were busy men. She had no business trying to monopolize even a fraction of his interest. Not when the entire city could use more men like Mr. Spaulding.

And yet, for the third afternoon in a row, her mind was focused not on the piles of unpaid accounts before her, but on what she might say if she saw him again.

Dahlia had never suffered the slightest hesitation to talking with people.

For better or for worse, her runaway mouth had always started conversations with everyone she ever met. Dukes, modistes, street sweepers, flower girls. She wouldn’t have been able to open this boarding school were it not for her propensity to collect orphans and her fearlessness to beg her betters for donations.

And yet, with Mr. Spaulding, she’d suffered a peculiar reticence. She doubted it was because he was the first Runner of her acquaintance. She had shown no signs of shyness the first time she’d met an earl or a governess or a pie-maker.

Which meant there must be something about Mr. Spaulding that made him different from the rest. Something that made her different. Something that made her sit at her desk mooning out the front window rather than—

Dahlia leapt to her feet, heart pounding. He was here.

Sort of.

He was outside on his horse, staring at the school from the corner of his eye as if he weren’t certain whether the abbey threshold was safe to cross.

If she hadn’t been gazing out the window like a featherbrained ninny, she might not have seen him stop. In fact, he didn’t even look as though he were staying!

Quickly, she raced down the uneven stairs, through the entryway, and out the front door, just in time to see him pick up his reins in preparation to leave.

“Halt, Police!” she shouted teasingly as she ran down the walkway to the horse posts.

“‘Inspector,’” he corrected just as teasingly, and lifted his hat. “I wasn’t certain if you were home.”

She wasn’t home, exactly. Home was with her family on the other side of town, but none of that was the point. “How did you plan to determine my presence without knocking upon the door, inspector?”

He gave her a cocky smile. “I believe I managed, don’t you think?”

Her cheeks flushed as she imagined her inelegant flight out the door.

“Touché,” she said. “But would knocking not have been easier?”

“I’m still not certain I should have stopped at all,” he admitted. “I promised to ride past your school, not deliver crumpets to it.”

“Crumpets!” she exclaimed. “You did not. Did you?”

He reached inside a leather saddlebag and pulled out a brown paper package secured with a bit of twine. “You’ll have to open it to find out.”

“But what of your cat-like sensitivity?” she asked, cradling the parcel to her chest. “Are these special crumpets that don’t make you sneeze?”

“I sneezed over every last one of them,” he informed her cheerfully. “And then I tied them up in brown paper for safekeeping.”

“Incorrigible scamp,” she scolded him. “What a horrid thing to tease.”

He smiled. “If you don’t want the scones…”

“I’ll take them. But you’re not invited to tea.”

“I am much like your girls in that regard,” he admitted. “I cannot recall the last time I stopped to take tea.”

“Well, in that case,” she said with a dramatic sigh. “I suppose we can invite you, just this once. Their first tea, your first tea… I might as well teach the lot of you how to do a proper pour.”

He straightened his hat. “Can’t. Too many open cases.”

“Hopefully nothing violent.” She shuddered.

He shook his head. “Not at the moment. Thieves, gaming hells, that sort of nonsense. Plenty to keep one busy. How about you? No further nocturnal incidents, I hope?”

“It’s been delightfully quiet,” she assured him. “The girls are back to their regular, rambunctious selves.”

“And you?” he repeated, his blue eyes locked on hers. “Are you feeling back to normal?”

“I’ve never been normal,” she said cheerfully. “If you haven’t noticed that by now, you’re not much of an inspector.”

His wide lips curved into a grin. “I notice more than you might care to think.”

“Oh?” She stepped forward, intrigued. “What have you noticed about me?”

He tilted his head. “You’re stronger than you let on. And more frightened. You come from significantly more money than you currently wield, yet you participate in more direct labor than mere bashing assailants with broomsticks. You haul coal, you wash laundry, you tend the hearth. You are exceptionally aware of your environment. You have a big heart and terrible penmanship, largely because you’re left-handed. You skip more meals than just tea, and you’ve curled your hair every day since the night we met.”

Dahlia blinked. How on earth did he know she was left-handed? Or any of the other things? She was not at all certain she cared for him to notice so much. And yet… “What do you mean, I’ve curled my hair every day since the night we met?”

“When I first visited your school on the night of the attack, your lovely chestnut hair was tucked under your bonnet, save for a few flyaway tendrils that had escaped their pins. In the three days since, the only thing escaping your bonnet are perfect little ringlets. Since I have seen that your hair does not form such shapes naturally, I am left to conclude that you have styled it thus on your own.”

“Clearly I style it that way. No one’s hair grows in perfect ringlets. The real question is how you would know what I looked like yesterday, unless you glimpsed me with your own eyes.”

“Ah.” He smiled. “I said you were observant. Now you have caught me. I rode by yesterday, but had no excuse to stop. Today, I have crumpets. And the sneaking suspicion that the pretext would have worked much better if I had stopped myself from explaining it.”

Dahlia couldn’t help but smile. He hadn’t simply been thinking of her. He’d been thinking about all her students. A treat for them was a far quicker way to her heart than some meaningless trifle for her would have been.

“There is absolutely no way your gift will be received badly,” she assured him. “My girls will be thrilled to have a proper tea. It will be their reward for spending an hour a day learning self-defense.”

His eyebrows lifted. “Did you add that to the curriculum after the attack the other day?”

She shook her head. “It has always been an important part of their studies. Molly, however, was not yet a student at the time of the attack.”

“Do you think it would have gone differently if she had been?”

“I hope it helps in the future. No amount of training will enable a young girl to overpower a grown man, but the element of surprise is powerful indeed. Sometimes a mere moment is all it takes to break free or scream for help. And now that they have each other, they no longer have to brave the streets alone.”

His gaze softened. “It sounds like your school really is improving lives.”

“Isn’t that what we both strive for?” She smiled up at him. “Helping others, I mean?”

“It’s the reason I wake up every morning,” he said, his eyes serious. “And it reminds me that I’ve taken enough of your time. Go spoil your hungry girls, headmistress.”

She stepped back to give him room. “Go rescue a few fair maidens, Runner.”

He tipped his hat. “None will be as fair as you.”

Before she could answer, he rode off across the cobblestones, down past the dial tower and out of sight.

She stood there longer than was seemly, clutching a parcel of still-warm crumpets to her chest.