marring their mirror shine. "The intruder spent a fair amount of time here."
"Do you suppose he came in through an upstairs window? Two were open; strange on a stormy night."
"Do you suppose he was a he?" Garrett answered mildly, moving to the closest of the bedrooms, from which a cold draft flowed. The door stood open; mud on the threshold told her the officers had been through it, and she wished she knew if the door had been closed or open when they arrived.
She paused in the frame of the doorway, letting her eyes take in the room. A young man's, by the schoolbooks and fencing gear, and the bed had been slept in—disconsolately, judging by the crumpled and thrown-back covers and the disarray of the pillows. Unlike the downstairs entryway, there was light enough in this room to see the spatters of wax on the floor, although there was no candle in the holder by the bed.
A chill lifted the hair on Garrett's neck. She moved to the window, aware of Don Sebastien behind her, although the wide wooden boards scarcely seemed to flex under his weight. "Are you a swordsman, Don Sebastien?"
"A notorious one, in my youth," he answered, giving it the slight inflection of a double entendre. Her lips twitched. She did not look, instead leaning down beside the windowframe and tilting her head to examine it against the slanted light. The floor beneath was damaged, the wood already swollen from rain falling inside. That rain had washed away any traces that might have been on the windowsill; Garrett stared until her eyes crossed and found nothing. Still her skin crawled.
"He is restless," Garrett said, straightening and stepping away from the casement. She whirled, noticing Don Sebastien's sudden stillness, as if he set himself for an attack. Garrett pulled her eyes from the Spaniard and paced quickly to the bed. "He rises. He—"
"—kindles a light," Sebastien interrupted. "There is a burnt match in the candle holder, and the box in the nightstand cubbyhole."
"Very good. Except he's neglected a candle—"
"—or perhaps he pulls the candle from the holder."
"To what purpose?"
"I do not know." Their eyes met, and Garrett released the deep-drawn breath she had been holding. The thrill of the chase.
"Were you restless last night, Don Sebastien?"
"I am always restless at night, DCI."
"Then perhaps—" she advanced with a firm step like a duelist's "—you would be better served at home, resting in your bed." She didn't smile to soften it, and again their gazes crossed. Garrett fancied she could hear the ring of steel. "This is still a Crown investigation, Viscount."
Don Sebastien reached up to tip his hat, which he had not removed when they stepped inside. "I am very restless," he answered. "And, too often, very bored. And I do not imagine that this is anything but your case, Crown Investigator."
"As long as you understand me."
She turned away and went to the window again. She was leaning out to grasp the edge of the casement with the intention of swinging it closed when he spoke again from close beside her. "Oh, never that, Abigail I—"
His body struck hers a moment before she properly registered that he had stopped speaking mid-sentence, slamming her forward, belly against the windowsill and her arms flung out like a diver's. Her corset took the brunt of the impact, whalebone bruising her at belly and breast, and she shouted outrage and scrabbled at rain-slick wood. She teetered, Don Sebastien's weight pinning her, and kicked wildly, expecting any moment to feel his hands on her ankles tilting her forward into a sickening, tumbling fall.
She didn't think the rose-bushes would break her fall enough to save her. Especially if she hit the fence. Why would the Great Detective murder a wealthy East Side boy? Amazed by the calm precision of her own thoughts even as she twisted, bringing her gloved hands up to fend him off.
His strength was irresistible. He simply wrapped hands as hard as barrel-hoops around her wrists and—
—hauled her spluttering back into the room and down onto the floor. "Are you hit?" he asked, patting her cheek anxiously. His hat had tumbled off and fetched up in the far corner, and his glossy, hard-looking hair stood up in disheveled spikes.
"Hit?"
"The carriage—" He shook his head. "You didn't see." And rolled on his back, away from her, and raised his right hand to point across his face to the ceiling directly overhead. "There was a rifleman down on the street."