Theremusthave been bloody ones. They’d been taken away.
He’d a packet of cheroots and a flint in his coat pocket. A good smoke would go a long way into jolting him into full consciousness, too.
Barefoot, bare chested, head feeling odd, like a lead bubble, he managed to move, one foot in front of the other, like a man trapped in treacle, across the spotless floor. His first stop was the curtains and he whipped them open. His arms worked just fine.
He exhaled gustily. Never, never would he take for granted sunlight again.
He got the window open and a gust of sea air obligingly whipped through and made the shirt flutter. He lifted it to examine the carnage.
Which was, surprisingly, difficult to find. He studied it, wonderingly.
Some great effort had been made to get the blood out. Some magical elixir—he knew housekeepers and butlers often had proprietary recipes for that sort of thing, passed down through generations—must have been employed. Only a faint tinge of pink remained around the perimeter of what appeared to have been a jagged cut, sewn so neatly, with the tiniest of fine stitches, it was scarcely detectable.
He huffed out a stunned breath. A wayward sort of warmth surged through him.
He didn’t know why this so moved him. It seemed a long time since he’d been thoughtfullytended.
He held on to his shirt for a moment as though it were a talisman. He didn’t know of what.
But it was women who thought of these kinds of things. Who provided life’s little grace notes.
He found his coat and overcoat in the wardrobe. Both, he saw with amazement, seemed to have been brushed.
He plunged a hand at once into the inside pocket and his gut went cold.
He’d suspected as much.
His gun was gone.
Bloody. Fucking. Hell.
He swiftly shoved his hand into the side pockets.
His great wad of bills and purse of coins were missing, too.
He’d been left the cheroots and the flint. In place of his wad of money something else rustled.
He pulled it out and discovered it was a little message.
Dear Sir,
We took possession of your money and your weapons in order to ensure their safety and yours while you were indisposed. In the happy event you regain consciousness and health,we will return them to you. We did take the liberty of using a little of your money to pay the apothecary for his services.
Regards,
Mrs. Angelique Durand
Mrs. Delilah Hardy
Proprietresses, The Grand Palace on the Thames
Sucha polite way to tell him he’d been disarmed and was now at their mercy.
Hawkes was grimly amused by the pretty handwriting and the exquisite politeness. He begrudgingly respected their reasoning. He suspected even the most honest maid might have had to wrestle with her conscience if she’d encountered a fist-sized clip of British currency and a loaded gun.
Perhaps they didn’t realize he felt nearly as undressed without his gun as without his shirt.
He maneuvered his fingers deeply into the pocket, into the lining useful for small secret things, and his fingers found the shape of Aurelie’s miniature. Perhaps they hadn’t found it.