"Happy chance I was there to stop him." My palm still throbbed from the cut he'd given me, but it was shallow, my glove having taken the brunt of it. "That still does not answer the question of why you went to the bridge in the first place."

She lifted her head and bathed me in a haughty stare. "That is my own affair."

Of course she would not tell me the truth, and I had not thought she would. I wondered if the women at the bridge had been right, that she'd gone there to end her life. Suicide was a common enough means of ending one's troubles in these times-a gentleman ruined by debt, a soldier afraid to face battle, a woman raped and abandoned.

I was no stranger myself to melancholia. When I'd first returned to London from Spain, the black despair had settled on me more times than I cared to think about. The fits had lessened since the turn of the year, because my sense of purpose was slowly returning to me. I had made new friends and was beginning to find interest in even the most wretched corners of London.

She offered nothing more, and I carefully touched my cloth to the scrapes on her cheek. She flinched, but did not pull away.

"You may rest here until you feel better," I said. "My bed is uncomfortable, but better than nothing. The brandy will help you sleep."

She studied me a moment, her eyes unfocussed. Then, with a suddenness that took my breath away, she lifted her slim arms and twined them about my neck. The light silk of her sleeves caressed my skin, and her breath was warm on my lips.

I swallowed. "Madam."

She did not let me go. She pulled me into her embrace and pushed her soft mouth against mine.

Primal blood beat through my body, and I balled my fists. I tasted her lips for one heady moment before I reached up and gently pushed her from me. "Madam," I repeated.

She gazed at me with hungry intensity. "Why not? Does it matter so much?" Her eyes filled and she whispered again, "Why not?"