His brows lowered. He’d seen many a knife or razor secreted on a woman’s person, but he’d never observed a fashionable silken accessory made up with such lethal intent. What sort of woman carried such an article?

“On the contrary,” Miss Flite continued, “you interfered at the very moment I might have learned something useful.”

“About a woman named Grace?” he asked.

“That man said he knew her.”

“And old Ned said you were asking about someone from two decades past. That idiot who made the mistake of addressing you is all of twenty himself if he’s a day. Unless he was an infant when he met this woman—”

“Yes, yes. Very well. But still, it really is none of your business, Mr. Royce.” She paused. “Or should I say Gabriel?” Her eyes betrayed a flicker of curiosity. “Is that really your Christian name?”

“You don’t approve?”

“It isn’t that. It’s only that you don’t seem very angelic.” Stopping at the end of the alleyway, she bent to place her dog on the ground. “And you run St. Giles, do you?” she asked again as she straightened. “What does that even mean?”

“What about your name?” he countered. “Am I not to have the pleasure?”

She looked straight ahead for a moment as they resumed walking down the alleyway to the right. Her dog trotted in front of her at the full length of his lead. “Euphemia,” she said.

“Euphemia,” he repeated.

“You don’t approve?” she tossed back at him.

Gabriel fell silent for the space of a heartbeat. “Quite the opposite. It suits you.”

Even now, clad in unrelieved black, as respectable as a fashionable English widow, there was something of the continental about her. A mysterious quality, conjured by her raven hair and olive-tinged skin, that spoke of warm weather and sultry climes. Gabriel didn’t wonder Compton had assumed she was the offspring of some Spaniard or Italian.

“That doesn’t sound very complimentary,” she remarked.

“Blame the messenger. I’m not one of those fine lords you met at Compton’s, waltzing with you and paying you pretty compliments.”

“No, not waltzing with me, only sending your minions after me for God knows what reason.”

Gabriel thrust his hands into his pockets. “When did you notice the lad? He’ll want to know where he erred.”

“Yesterday at the station. I saw him twice, once at the bookstand, and again at the cabstand. After that, it was easy to spot him.” Her gaze fell to Gabriel’s neck and shoulders. “By the by, you seem to be absent your coat and cravat.”

“Noticed, have you?”

“No lady could fail to. It’s positively indecent.”

An unaccountable flare of heat ignited in Gabriel’s veins. He ignored it, just as he ignored the brush of her skirts. “Violence doesn’t offend you, but my shirtsleeves do? You fascinate me, Miss Flite.”