It was the stretch on East Twenty-Sixth Street near the river, where the poorest and the sickest congregated. Where people went when they’d given up. The potter’s field was nearby on Hart’s Island, which Bellevue used for those unable to afford proper burial. It went without saying that Kit and Preston would not allow Forrest to end up there.

They didn’t speak the rest of the way. Kit was too wrapped up in his thoughts of Forrest to be of any use to a conversation. Why hadn’t he tried harder to help his friend? Why hadn’t he taken Forrest from his room that day, instead of offering to come back the next? If he had, Forrest might still be alive.

Because he’d been too busy with Alice and the supper club. Selfishness and lust had consumed him, and he’d abandoned his friend. Forrest had been in the city, alone, miserable and hurting, and Kit had been trying to get under Alice’s skirts. How would he ever live with himself?

In all fairness, he hadn’t meant to sleep with Alice. But this beautiful creature with big eyes and a big heart had looked at him—him—as if he could do anything. As if he had the ability to shift heavens or rearrange oceans. He didn’t deserve that adoration . . . and he certainly hadn’t deserved her innocence. To have been the first man inside her. But he’d been wild for her. Absolutely stark-raving mad to fuck her. He’d tried to be gentle, not to scare her with his inappropriate lust, but she’d driven him over the edge of reason.

I want to do this. I want you to show me.

And he’d given in, unable to resist her when she played the part of willing pupil. God, he was so stupid. She would regret it eventually. How could she not? He knew it with unshakable certainty. She would have a husband—perhaps even Lockwood—who would make her feel cheap and small for taking a lover outside of wedlock, though nearly every man did the same. He could not bear being the source of her shame.

She’d cried, too. A single tear, but it had gutted him nonetheless. He hated the thought of upsetting her. Had she been overcome by the act itself . . . or had it been something more? Had he disappointed her somehow?

There would be no more encounters. That had been clear in her manner when she left, with her parting words and stiff smile. The threshold of acceptable behavior had been crossed and now they must each retreat, try to carry on separately, on different paths. He was about to thumb his nose at all of society with his supper club, and Alice would marry and begin her life as a proper wife. Those two futures were like oil and water.

If only he didn’t miss her so damn much.