As the anarchist began to speak, a strong ripple wove through the crowd, as if it were a shock transferring from one man to the next. The listeners tensed, leaning forward, and Daniel himself felt the pull of the speaker’s charisma. Uneasiness fluttered along his skin as the rhetoric increased in tone and tempo. Anger flowed through the crowd, fed by Finch’s inflammatory language.

Daniel’s ears perked at the mention of the killing of a mill owner, and his gut tightened as Finch appeared to not only condone the murder of a business owner but to encourage a repetition of the act. You heard what happened in Hammersmith, he’d said. Let that be a warning to all.

Had Finch played a hand in Montgomery’s death? Had he known about it? The explosion wasn’t caused by an anarchist, but the killing could have been carried out by one. If they will not hear our pleas, Finch had continued, we must cease trying to reason with them. We must act!

This would get out of hand if someone didn’t put a stop to it.

A man to Daniel’s left grabbed a torch. “Let’s go! I know the first place!”

In a flash, the crowd changed from discontented gathering to angry mob, rushing past him toward the door. As he was situated at the back, near the way out, he was nearly trampled before he managed to leap out of harm’s way along one of the side walls.

Then he saw her.

Lady Juliette. Her delicate patrician features, caught in the flickering torchlight, those dark-as-night eyes with their heavy fringe of lashes. She wore rough clothing, and a heavy bonnet, and she’d done something to her face … paint, perhaps? But though Bertie had claimed he wouldn’t recognize her in disguise, Daniel would know her anywhere.

Bodies passed between them, and he rose on tiptoe to catch sight of her again. She had managed to avoid the worst of the crush …

Then she was fallen, struck by a man twice her size as he thrust forward, sending her back into the wall. She collapsed like a sail in a sudden doldrum. Rushing people cut off his view, and he struggled against the flow, fighting to get to her before she was trampled.

His chest tightened, and he was not gentle as he tossed men out of his way, using elbows, knees, shoulders, anything he could. When he reached her, she had pressed her hands into the cobbles, but she was unable to rise. Without thought to propriety, he spanned her waist, hauling her up and into the shelter of his embrace as he turned away from the onrushing mob. He tucked her head into his neck and took the buffeting against his back and shoulders.