He tossed the coat to the floor, already reaching for the ties of his equally shapeless and bulky shirt. Against the pale linen, the blood looked more sinister, Beaumont’s entire left arm soaked and darkening. Flynn cursed and pulled at the stubborn laces of the ruined shirt, needing to see the extent of the injury. Beaumont groaned again, his head twisting to the side, one of his hands coming up to push at Flynn’s.

“Stop,” the boy whispered faintly before he went limp again.

“Shut up,” Flynn snapped, not certain Beaumont could even hear him. “Lie still.” The laces gave way, and Flynn grasped the worn linen in his hands and pulled, the fabric tearing easily. “I can’t see where the blood is—” He stopped.

Stopped speaking, stopped moving, stopped breathing.

Though he could see Charlie Beaumont’s chest moving up and down. No, he thought numbly, not Charlie. Or Charles, for that matter. He didn’t know who the hell was on the bed in front of him, but it wasn’t a he.

It seemed obvious now, in the way that hindsight makes complete fools out of otherwise intelligent men. But Flynn hadn’t seen it because he hadn’t been looking. Because he’d never had a reason to look. Because he’d been so inwardly focused and consumed by his own bitter struggles that he hadn’t bothered to look at hers.

The initial shock was starting to fade, and Flynn fought to put his thoughts in order and examine what lingered. The anger that had instantly welled with the unwelcome surprise had also diminished, and he recognized that response was more a product of his damaged pride than anything else. Because with it, there was admiration that she had been able to hide in plain sight so deftly. There was wonder at the measures that she had felt she had needed to take so that she could do what she was clearly born to do.

But most prominent was the peculiar protectiveness he had first felt in that narrow lane. A protectiveness that had suddenly taken on a whole different slant. It was probably better that Flynn had believed himself to be defending a boy named Charlie Beaumont because, had he been defending the nameless woman lying so still before him, he wasn’t sure he simply wouldn’t have slit the throats of both thieves. Which was a ridiculous sentiment, he knew, because in theory, nothing had truly changed.

And yet everything had changed.