I glanced up to see his lips pursed in disgust. “It’ll aid your healing and sleep. Drink all of it, Phelan.”

I listened to him struggle to swallow my tonic, and I angled my face away, so he wouldn’t catch my smile. I eventually felt the sting in my skin, and I knew that I could not ignore my own wound any longer.

Gingerly, I stood and turned to speak to Phelan, surprised to see his eyes were closed, his head slightly inclined back against the wooden headboard.

Well, then. My tonic had accomplished its purpose.

I walked to his wardrobe to retrieve the medicine box again. A stool sat in the shadows beside the furniture, and I drew it into the candlelight and took a seat upon it, my back to Phelan. I slowly unlaced the last of my bodice’s ribbons and let it fall to the ground with a whisper. Next, I eased my chemise off my shoulders, down to my waist, so I could examine my wound.

A shallow scratch arced above my belly button, already forming a scab.

I reached for the antiseptic and was cleaning it when Phelan spoke.

“Are you wounded, Anna?”

I paused, a hitch in my breath. Here I was sitting half-naked in his room, when my tonic should have dragged him into dreamless sleep. I glanced over my shoulder to look at him still propped up in bed, his eyes heavy lidded but regarding me with attentiveness.

“No, just a scratch.” I returned my focus to the cut, but I felt his gaze linger on me and the bare curve of my back. I was comfortable in my skin, and I didn’t mind his attention, not as I probably would have if this had happened a month ago, or even a week ago.

I drew my chemise up to my shoulders and knotted its drawstring tight. The bodice was ruined, so I left it in the pile with his bloodied clothes.

“Ask your one question, Mr. Vesper,” I said. “Unless you want to wait until tomorrow, when you have a clear head and will remember my answer.”

“I have a clear head,” he said, but his words were slurred as he fought the cloying effects of the tonic. “Come, sit here, Anna.” He patted the bed beside him, and I merely stared at it, the mirror still a threat.

“Lie down, and perhaps I will.”

He heeded me, easing his head to his pillow, his boots close to dangling off the bed.

I approached the other side and sank into the feather mattress beside him, a few generous hand widths between us.

“Ask your question, Phelan.”

His eyes were closed but he smiled. “I want to know your real name.”

“Mm, very well, although I think that’s a sorry thing to waste your one question on.”