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“And you never miss? Lots of practice shooting fellows?” He spoke through gritted teeth.

“What makes you think the man was a poor wretch? Did you see him?”

“Who else would set upon a lady in broad daylight in a London street?”

“I expected the low ruffian. He was just what I imagined a pickpocket would be. Except for the stink.” She managed to free the long tail of his shirt.

“You imagined a ruffian stinking of beer and gin?”

“Oh, that would be a cliché. This fellow reeked of something much worse. But you … you just appeared, you know, completely out of character with the place.” Viv gathered the ends of his shirt in her hands. She had been falling backward, reaching for something to catch hold of when she heard him speak in a voice fit for a Mayfair drawing room. It had turned her attention from the fleeing purse snatcher.

“I was on my way to Lincoln’s Inn on business. You’re the one who was out of place, staring at those titles. Don’t you have any female …”

The cab lurched into motion. Viv pressed the folded handkerchief against his side. Her fingers brushed his skin, sticky with blood and pebbled with a chill. He sucked a breath through his teeth. She placed his hand back over the wound to hold the handkerchief and tied the ends of his shirt in a knot. He might look a little odd, but her arrangements would hold the wound until they arrived at Henrietta Street.

“Decency? Is that the word you’re looking for? I have no use for it.” She settled back in her seat. “I suppose you are one of those men who think women must be sheltered and coddled their whole lives as if we had no right to walk the streets?”

“You don’t mean that you were walking the streets,” he said. “And, if you’re so keen on an unaccompanied stroll, there are a thousand other streets to choose.”

“Why should women not freely go where men freely go?”

“Because they’ll be treated as doxies … or pigeons.”

“Wait. You think we women are helpless.”

“I don’t think it. I saw it. You were falling backward, and a bundle of rags, and probably lice, was running away with what? Your purse?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Things hadn’t gone exactly as she’d planned, but there was no need to tell him the true contents of that purse. He was already annoyed by her shooting him.

“I think it does. You looked quite disappointed to lose that purse.”

Somehow, he’d got the upper hand in the argument again. “Fine, if you must know, I was waiting for a story to happen. I collect them. A different story for each street. That’s what London is—a book of a thousand stories. Your pickpocket was my story. He’d already passed me once.”

“You were trying to lure the pickpocket to you?” He sounded incredulous. “You wanted him to snatch your purse? Are you cork-brained?”

“I did not want him to take my purse. Well, maybe I did, but only because I wanted to talk to him. A pickpocket must know London, and he must be a keen observer of his fellow man, don’t you think?”

“The way a stray dog is a keen observer of crumbs. A pickpocket sees his fellow men, as you put it, as gulls.”

“You are too harsh. I’m curious. I want to know London as it really is not merely its polite spaces.”

“Babylon Street is definitely not a polite space for a woman to be in.”

She twisted to confront him directly, and poked him in the chest. He pressed back against the side of the cab. “Well, is it any better a space for a man? Why didn’t the pickpocket target you? You are a no less a prize, a fine gentleman with a watch.”

“I was not standing idle with my head in a book.”

“Hah,” she said. “Next I suppose you’ll accuse women of being overcome by fiction.”

The cab halted in front of the house on Henrietta Street, and Viv reached for her purse, which wasn’t there. She clasped her hands in her lap. Again, her deception came back to bite her. Shooting Mr. Larkin over the few pebbles she’d weighted her purse with to lure the pickpocket was most inconvenient. She could hardly pull up her skirts to reach her concealed stash. She looked up at the house. Its neat stone exterior gave no indication of who might be standing ready to answer the door. She stiffened her spine.

“Let me guess,” he said, leaning to speak in her ear. “You just realized that it might be awkward to bring a bleeding stranger into your family’s drawing room.”

“Not at all.” She hopped down from the cab and turned to grin up at him. “But you’ll have to pay the driver, as my purse was pinched.”