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I return to tying the binding. “That should hold until we can get you to a doctor.”
Gray clears his throat.
“A doctor’soffice,” I say. “With the supplies to stitch you up.” I glance at the young man. “Is there someone trustworthy nearby? We can pay.”
“Oh, I’ve no doubt you can pay, but no doctor lives in this part of the city unless his real skill is providing Dr. Gray with new clients.”
He has a point, and it’s not as if there’s going to be an after-hours clinic or emergency room nearby.
“I can walk,” Gray says. “Which means I can return home and tend to myself.” He pushes himself up as he fastens his shirt. Then he pulls his jacket and buttons it, covering the blood. “There.”
I point at his sleeve, where the knife earlier tore a slash in it. He twists it, pushing the slash out of sight. Then I point at his collar where blood smeared from below as I’d worked to stanch the bleeding. He grumbles and adjusts his jacket.
“I would not be too concerned, sir,” the young man says. “Around here, people will presume you took that fancy shirt and jacket off a dead man in an alley.”
“True,” I say. “And you’re usually walking around with a smear of blood on you somewhere.”
“That is ink.”
“Also blood. I think you owe the laundress a raise. I don’t even want to know what she uses to get your shirts clean.”
Gray glowers at me, adjusts his collar again, and looks around. I walk across the street and retrieve his top hat from a doorway. Yes, it’s an actual top hat. That’s the fashion these days, and I’ll admit it doesn’t look nearly as ridiculous as I might have thought. At least, it doesn’t on Gray. He runs a hand through wavy dark hair, which only succeeds in unsettling it more and smearing blood on his forehead.
I look at the young man and sigh.
“Still a sight better-looking than most toffs we get around here,” he murmurs under his breath. “Though that fellow you met up with earlier…” A low whistle. “Presuming he doesn’t truly have the pox, I’d take an introduction.”
“Introduction to whom?” Gray says, apparently catching that last part.
“To a hansom cab,” I say. “We ought to get you home as quickly as possible.”
“Cab in these parts? At this hour?” The young man shakes his head.
“No,” Gray says. “I would trust such a conveyance even less than I would a local physician. Also, we need to tell Hugh that we lost the scent.”
“Right,” the kid says. “You were following that lass.”
I glance a question at Gray, who shrugs, and I say, “We’re looking for the same thing those men were looking for. Queen Mab.”
His brows rise and his gaze drops to my midriff. “If you need to rid yourself of an unexpected guest, you ought to talk to your man here. A doctor can fix that better than a chemist.”
“He’s not my man,” I say. “He’s my employer.”
His brows shoot up. “Really?”
“It’s complicated. Also, I do not need an abor—to rid myself of anything. We…” I consider my options and glance again at Gray, who only shrugs again, which I’ll continue to interpret as permission to say what I like.
“We’re concerned that locals may consider Queen Mab a person of interest in a recent poisoning,” I say. “Dr. Gray works with the police, and we fear locals might take matters into their own hands, which seems even more likely after that encounter a few minutes ago.”
“You have an odd manner of speech,” the young man says.
Gray clears his throat. “My assistant possesses an extensive and varied vocabulary, including words and turns of phrase more commonly found in her homeland.”
The young man frowns at me. “You sound even more Scottish than me.”
“I sound like a lot of things,” I say. “But no, I’m not from around here. I hear Queen Mab is, though.”
He grins. “Nice bringing us back around like that. No, Queen Mab is also not from here. And no, I’m not going to tell you where to find her, but I will pass along your message warning her to be careful.”
