Meena stared across the empty street at the burned-out building she and Alicia had so recently escaped. She squinted at the dark opening as if that would enhance her vision. “We should wait for Burke and the rest of them. They won’t be long.”

The spice shop across the street afforded a perfect observation point, but the air, heavy with the scents of cinnamon, ginger, and pepper, teased her appetite, making her stomach growl. She tried to refrain from fidgeting while Edison studied the scene through his new prism binoculars.

Shaking his head, he lowered the glasses. “We’re out of time.” He pointed across the street. White’s giant protector was just slipping back inside.

“Damnation.” Meena pressed a fist against the window frame. “He’s rather large. I was hoping we could avoid tangling with him.”

Rather than reply, Edison rummaged in the canvas sack he’d brought along. He held up three of his disodorizers in one broad hand. “Nothing to worry about. Better we take both of them out together.”

“It’s already dark in there. I can’t imagine more smoke will help.”

“These two aren’t disodorizers.” He held up several of the strangely-shaped spheres.

Meena cocked an eyebrow, awaiting an explanation.

“Sleeping gas.” Edison studied the two, slightly larger pieces indulgently. “Knock a man right off his feet. They won’t produce the full effect in an open space, but they’ll buy us a few moments of disorientation.”

Meena shifted her gaze back across the street. Edison was right. They were out of time. She could feel White’s impatience. His desperation. They had to rescue Spencer before White demanded the gramophone.

The likelihood that he’d make an honest trade was over.

She and her cousin had broken into the spice merchant’s shop not five minutes after they followed White’s carriage from the Old Wapping Stairs. They’d watched the two villains force Spencer into the bowels of the building and—she had to assume—secure him in the strongroom she’d just escaped.

“What if they shoot him?” Meena curled her fingers so tightly her fingernails bit into her palms. “Once White realizes he’s not going to get the recordings, he’ll bolt and—”

“He’ll shoot Crane before he does,” Edison completed her thought.

“Exactly.” Meena considered her cousin’s plan for all of a heartbeat. “Sleeping gas it is.”

Edison nodded. “You start on White. I’ll take out his man and help you finish him off.”

“If necessary,” she added with far more bravado than she felt.

He grinned at her. “If necessary.”

He pulled two thick scarves out of his bag, handing one over to her. “Put this on. Make sure you cover your nose. At the worst, the gas should disorient them for twenty or thirty seconds. It’ll take at least ten seconds for the effects to begin. Once I activate them, we’ll have to be patient.”

He secured the black scarf just underneath his eyes. Without the bow of his sensual lips to soften his face, he looked mean and angry and more than a touch wicked.

Edison hefted his sack. “Let’s go.”

Meena secured the square of fabric over her own nose and mouth, then grabbed the heavy pistol Briar had given her. For all the good it would do. Marksmanship was not among her talents.

She followed him out the front door of the spice shop. They took care not to be seen from across the street, choosing silence over speed.

Edison pointed at the left side of the building. He loped across the street to the right. Once they were in position, he set the bag down and pulled out the first grenade. He held it up so Meena could see and commenced a silent countdown with his other hand. One, two, and then a piercing whistle. He jumped in front of a broken window, silhouetting himself in the burned-out doorway.

Eyes straining to make out anything inside the dark building, Meena gritted her teeth. Did he have to be so blasted daring about everything?

“Hello there.” Edison waved his arms over his head. “White?”

He jumped back out of the doorway before he could become too much of a target. “Got something for you.”

He heaved the grenade deep inside. It landed with a metallic thud. The scratch of a match, and a lamp flared to life. Then a second. Beams of light danced crazily through the broken doorway as White and his man searched the floor for Edison’s device.

“Hah.” White held Edison’s grenade in his hand. “Another of your ridiculous smoke bombs, Sweet?” He palmed the device. “You caught me off guard the last time. Won’t do you any good now.”

Even as White tossed it lightly in his hand, a familiar hissing sound started up, along with an insistent stream of pink smoke. Despite his bluster, White eyes widened. He heaved the bomb back out toward the street.

It landed a few feet inside the doorway. As it rolled, a thick stream of cheerful, cherry-scented smoke wafted about, lending an odd, festive air to the ruined space.

Now Meena watched her cousin intently. As he’d warned her, they’d have only seconds once the gas began working.

If it worked at all.

She answered his questioning look with the firm nod and held up her handgun. Once he activated the bombs, they would wait.

Again, Edison showed his silhouette in the doorway. “Best I’ve got, White. Perhaps you need another.” He heaved the last two bombs into the building, managing to get one within arm’s reach of each man.

An excellent start.

Unlike the first grenade, the sleeping bombs hissed immediately. No smoke spiraled out. They looked to be defective disodorizers. White appeared to think so. Both he and his man ignored them.

White laughed. “Nice work, Sweet.” The humor drained from his face, replaced by an angry glare. “Watch them,” he ordered his henchman. “I’m going to shoot Crane. Then we’ll take care of these two.”

Meena’s breath froze in her lungs. Too soon. He was moving too soon. They needed a few more seconds.

She dug her fingers into the ruined window sash, forcing herself to stay put, willing Edison to give the signal. It took everything she had to wait. It seemed minutes rather than seconds until he nodded.

Arms flailing and yelling like a wounded banshee, he burst through the opening.

Before the hired tough could raise his pistol, Edison was hurling scraps of wood, broken glass, anything he could grab. Instead of shooting, the man backed away.

So the gas was working.

Determination—and a good dose of desperation—lent her extra speed.

Meena ran into the building after her cousin, taking care to keep to the walls, hoping to make herself a smaller target. The hissing from the gas bombs covered the noise of her feet crunching over the broken glass and old papers.

With their lanterns still glowing, White and his giant were easy to spot. White was moving toward Spencer’s cell, his gait oddly slow.

“Hey there, bruiser. Over here.” Edison waved at the big man. Even as the larger man raised his weapon, Edison hurled something at his head.

Meena had already turned her attention back to White before the missile landed. A solid thunk and an angry roar told her he’d hit his target.

White was now halfway to the storeroom. Ignoring the commotion behind her, she focused only on him. She needed a plan. The gas, still hissing from the grenade now twenty feet behind him, was having an effect. Even accounting for the debris strewn floor, White was swaying about like a drunken sailor. His hands were full, occupied with a lamp and a pistol.

Those were her advantages, such as they were.

Now he was within feet of the door. She had but an instant before he yanked it open. She didn’t think. Didn’t debate. Didn’t hesitate. She launched herself at him, striking him square in the back with the full force of her body.

White toppled forward with a guttural grunt as if she’d knocked every bit of air from his lungs. His lantern went flying, scribing a yellow arc through the air.

The force of her attack sent them both skidding across the floor. She pressed her cheek into White’s coat, letting his body shield her from the debris-strewn surface.

She had no idea where White’s handgun was, but she was terribly aware that she’d dropped hers the instant she hit him.

They came to a stop not a foot from the store room door. “Bleeding hell!” White thrashed beneath her like a madman. “You’re dead,” he screamed. “You’re dead. You’re dead. You’re dead.”

Breathing hard, Meena struggled to stay atop the larger man. If he righted himself, she’d be no match for him in his crazed state. She flattened herself across his back, trying to keep her weight on his back and shoulders, trying to quiet her mind, to concentrate her energies. But with his struggling, the hissing, the hypnotic gas, she couldn’t call up that calm force.

White bucked up and rolled to the side, throwing her off. Meena scrambled to her feet, ignoring the bite of broken glass in her palms, and her knees. If he still had his weapon…

She risked a look. It all but sunk her. White was on his knees, swaying in the faint light from his bodyguard’s lantern. His arm rose, the tip of his pistol like an extension of his hand.

Meena froze, bracing for the explosion, the impact, the searing pain.

“Duck!” The command came from behind her.

She dropped to the floor just as a dark object flew overhead. It looked, to her gas-addled brain, like a great black crow. It hit the side of White’s head more like an anvil. Even from knee-height, the man dropped like a stone. His firearm clattered off into the shadows.

His breath coming shallow gasps, Edison skidded to a stop next to her. He held out a hand and pulled her to her feet. “You all right?” Even muffled by the strange scarf, she detected a note of concern.

She nodded. The hissing had stopped, but the air smelled both metallic and medicinal, which made her realize the gas would soon affect them as well. Even as she reached into her corset to pull a lock pick from her bodice, she noted that White had left the key in the lock.

While Edison pulled White to his feet, she turned the knob. But she couldn’t bear to swing it open. Not yet. Not without preparing herself for the worst. There’d been no sound from the storeroom, no indication that Spencer wasn’t already dead.

Her hand shook, her fingers nerveless and weak.

Waiting would solve nothing. She took a slow, deep breath. Either he was breathing, or he wasn’t. Dithering about, breathing in more of Edison’s gas would make her less useful by the second.

Eyes narrowed in fear, she yanked the door wide.

He was standing.

In the dim light left from the one lantern still burning, he was standing. His face shadowed, all she could make out was his outline. A silhouette etched into her memory.

Relief flooded her, draining the last of the tension that was keeping her upright. Her knees shaking, she pressed a hand to the doorframe. Not two feet from her, he swayed alarmingly. She reached for him, and he toppled into her arms, his legs no longer able to hold him.

Unprepared for his full weight, she staggered back and wrapped her arms around him. He melted to his knees before she could stop the slide. Legs spread wide, she dug her fingers into the back of his shirt, pressing him against her thighs to hold him up.

He lifted his head and blinked up at her, puzzlement plain in his eyes.

The mask. She’d forgotten. Meena yanked the scarf down off of her nose and mouth.

A grin. A silly, sloppy grin curved his lips. “Hello there, beautiful.”

It was the gas.

His euphoria. It was the result of Edison’s gas. The gas, and the intoxicating giddiness that came after a harrowing event.

Still, it didn’t prevent his complement from setting her aflame.

Beautiful. A hard lump swelled in her throat. If only.

She patted him on the back, much the way one would soothe a young child. “Hello yourself. It’s good to see you in one piece. We need to move along now.”

It took a moment of awkward scrambling to get Spencer to his feet. Then, with one arm braced across her shoulders, they moved together out of the storeroom.

Just as she felt she was achieving a rhythm, pulling him forward, ever forward, he stopped, almost throwing her off her feet. She looked up at him, ready to protest, but the anguished look on his face froze the words in her throat.

“I thought he got you.” His Adam’s apple jerked up and down as he swallowed. He sagged against her. “Thought he killed you. Killed Alicia.”

The grief in his eyes was so stark she had to look away.

Meena shrugged, trying to throw off the emotion. “He failed miserably, as you can see.” Again, she patted him reassuringly. “We best find the others. Alicia’s waiting for you.”

The evening’s events had been terrifying, but Edison’s gas was amplifying things. Emotions, especially. Spencer would be much more sensible in the morning. As would she. All of this excess feeling would dissipate with a good sleep.

“Gas, you say?” Spencer leaned against her.

The arm around her shoulder tightened. His strength was returning. Next, his emotions would return to their normal, rational, unsentimental state.

A good thing. But for the life of her, she couldn’t make herself like it.

* * *

Spencer let Meena steady him as they followed Sweet and his prisoner out into the street. He allowed himself the luxury of soaking in her steady strength as they crossed the pavement and headed into the empty street itself.

One hand curled into the fabric of the man’s coat, Sweet pushed their prisoner ahead of them. With his rounded shoulders and shuffling gait, White looked to be a broken man. Gone were the bluster, the arrogance, the sheer force of will that made him so terrifying.

The bright glitter of anger and madness that shone from his eyes had dulled to a simmering hate.

It had gone full dark hours past and gas lamps were scarce in the rundown wharf area. At least the air seemed softer outside. It still reeked of mud and foul Thames water, but the old smoke and metallic gaseous scents where left inside.

Though his head still swam, Spencer’s thoughts were clearing. Not so the blasted ache in his head. He reached above his ear, gingerly fingering the nasty welt White’s man had dealt him. Not even the blinding pain pulsing through his head could dampen his thoughts, his determination. If anything, the terrors of the night had stripped away all indecision.

He loved Meena. Always had. Always would.

If there was the smallest chance she might let him prove it to her, he planned to take it.

He wasn’t at his best, but she fit so well against him, her warmth and her strength reassuring. And stirring. Always stirring. He closed his eyes against the memory of her arching beneath him as he thrust into her, his hands cupped around her swelling breasts. He wasn’t sure he could wait much longer.

Perhaps as soon as they—

“Meena!” Briar’s jubilant greeting rang out from up ahead. The cobbles echoed with her footsteps as she ran full tilt toward them, skirts billowing.

Behind her, Burke followed, slowed by the addition of White’s henchman, hands secured behind him. Just as Meena’s cousin reach them, a coach rolled toward them from the opposite direction, making him tense, until he saw the Sweets’ houseman handling the reins.

Briar pulled up an instant before she would’ve crashed straight into the two of them and grabbed her cousin by the shoulders. “You’re all right. Everyone’s all right.” She favored Spencer with a grin of his own. “And we have that horrid giant. Inspector Burke spotted him trying to sneak away.”

The detective nodded as he pulled the giant forward. “A bit too coincidental,” he observed. “A large man with a freshly blackened eye running off.”

“How did you—?” Even as the words left his mouth, Spencer noticed the rents in the man’s coat, a cluster of three horizontal slashes in the middle of his back. Briar’s throwing stars. He twitched, imagining the thin metal blades slicing into his muscles.

“Nice aim,” he complimented her. She pulled back from hugging Meena and grinned. “No challenge. He’s a large target.”

Unlike White, his henchman seemed in no way diminished by his reversal of fortune. He didn’t sag, didn’t sulk or simmer. Rather he continued to radiate the same thuggish strength even when trussed up like a Christmas goose.

Edison joined them, dragging White along with him. “Where do we dump this trash?” he asked the detective.

Burke sighed and ran a hand over his face. “There’s a station several blocks east, but I don’t know the men. Don’t know who White would have in his pocket. I’d just soon as soon take them to my own station. I’ve got men I can count on there.”

Sweet eyed the family carriage. “Coach’ll hold four.”

“Five, if someone rides up top with me,” Hapgood called down from his perch.

Seeming to sense he was regaining his faculties, Meena slipped out from under his arm. “Mrs. H and Alicia are waiting at that pub by the Old Wapping Stairs. Detective, you and my cousin should be sufficient to guard these two. The four of you take the coach. Briar can ride up top with Mr. Hapgood.” She turned look at Spencer. “The pub is a league away. Can you make it that far?”

Despite his pounding head, Spencer grinned. If it meant having her to himself the entire time? He could make it there and back again. Twice over. But he didn’t want to appear too giddy.

He restricted himself to a sober nod.

Sweet shoved White toward the coach. “Good enough. Night’s not getting any younger.”

As he pushed White past the giant, he reared to life, jerking forward. “You’ll be dead soon, you useless toff.”

White paled and cowered behind Burke.

“Bloody earl’s git.” The giant spat at White’s feet. “Don’t mean nothing now. I’ll be the one ordering you about on the inside. See if I don’t.”

Burke urged the taller man ahead, toward the coach. “Enough of that. The two of you’ll have years to sort this out.”

The giant sneered. “If he ain’t dead soon.”

“There’s a comforting thought.” Sweet was leading White toward the carriage. His smile was the most genuine Spencer had seen from the man yet.

Once the group fitted themselves into the carriage and the houseman slapped the reins, Spencer and Meena were left alone on the quiet street. He held out his hand and was inordinately pleased when she slipped her smaller one in his.

They walked in silence for several blocks. The cobbles wove and dipped beneath them, pulling them farther apart, until their hands parted.

As each stride brought them closer to the pub, Spencer searched for to the words—and the courage—to voice the question that had been burning in his brain since he realized what an idiot he’d been to let her walk away.

“Fine night.” He thrust the words into the silence.

Meena turned to look at him. She leaned close, close enough for him to feel the soft puffs of breath as they escaped her lips. “Are you quite all right?”

“I am. Perfectly clear-headed.”

Her answering snort was somewhat disconcerting.

“That Burke’s a good man,” Spencer observed. “White’s done for this time.”

As they came into the yellow circle of a gas lamp, he saw she had her arms crossed over her waist, her head down, eyes on the street ahead. She seemed closed in, preoccupied, as if she were shutting him out.

Not the ideal situation, but it was the best he had. When they rounded the next corner, he spotted the familiar sign hanging over the dark doorway. The Town of Ramsgate.

He bit his lip, debating. He could wait, see her in the morning, after they’d all had a good night’s sleep. But after the horrors of the night, he couldn’t imagine spending even a few more hours without knowing she’d be his.

He cleared his throat.

Meena glanced up at him, but continued on.

He reached for her hand. So soft. So warm. So strong. He was glad she hadn’t seen fit to wear gloves.

His thumb traced circles over the back of her hand. He took her other hand, turning her until they were face to face, only inches separating them.

The light bathed her cheeks, her eyes, that delicious, sensuous mouth, in a warm glow. He couldn’t wait. He could not wait to know he’d wake up every morning and see the sun light her face.

As he spoke, his gaze slid away. “I’ve been a fool. I should have—”

“There’s no need to apologize. You couldn’t have known Ramsay would team up with that monster.”

He blinked, the spell broken. “I wasn’t going to apologize.”

She stiffened. “I see.”

Spencer squeezed her hands. He was making a hash of this. He shook his head and pulled her close, pressing her palms to the center of his chest. “What I’ve wanted to say… What I need to say is, I was wrong when I said we wouldn’t suit. I couldn’t have been more mistaken. We do suit. We suit in every possible way.”

He studied her face, desperate to read her response, but caught nothing. Her expression seemed a studied mask.

After a long, deep breath that sounded more like a sigh than a swoon, she responded.

“I see.”

* * *

There it was.

A second chance to have him. Her last chance. Her very last chance.

But it wasn’t right. He wasn’t right. Profound relief—and a good dose of Edison’s gas—were standing in for reason.

Not to forget guilt. He carried enormous guilt. They could’ve all been killed because he’d had the misfortune to cross Ramsay. That, too, was eating away at him.

She couldn’t look at him.

The weight of her own feelings crashed down on her. Sadness. Grief. Ever grief. The emotions racing around her brain made her dizzy.

Tipsy, exhausted, grateful Spencer wanted marriage. But once morning broke, clear-eyed, clearheaded Crane would not.

Much as she wanted her fairytale ending, she couldn’t hold him to it.

And so she spoke. “I can’t agree.”

She twisted her fingers together, her eyes focussed on the yellow flame of the street lamp. Anything but his face. She couldn’t look at his face.

The flame swirled and danced through unshed tears. “You were right before. In the park? When you said we don’t suit? You were right.”

She risked a quick glance in his direction. He nodded thoughtfully. Again and again and again.

A bruised hand reach up to tug at his collar as if it were choking him. As if he were imagining the noose from which he’d just escaped. “Perhaps we don’t.”

The sad smile that tugged at his lips broke her heart.

Spencer lurched on toward the pub, his gait more that of an old man than the strong, confident Jonquil.

He looked back at her from over his shoulder. “It would have been a great deal of fun to find out.”

His words sank into the mud between the cobbles and seeped between the bricks of the storefronts, closing in around her, surrounding her with regret.

Regret. Regret. Regret.

She couldn’t move. Her legs weighed a hundred stone. How exhausting it was to be so very sensible. Exhausting, and so terribly lonely.