She hit the pavement flat on her face, her forehead bouncing on to its hard surface.
She did not move.
‘Phillipa!’ Xavier ran to her.
* * *
Phillipa heard a man call her name.
She scented sea air and heard waves rolling on to the shore. She felt small and frightened and in pain. Her face hurt and she tasted blood.
She tried to move, but the wind had been knocked out of her. ‘Phillipa!’ the voice called again.
A man’s hands turned her on her back. The darkness had melded into dusk and the air was briny.
‘Wake up, my girl,’ the voice said.
She opened her eyes and her vision filled with the face of a man. A stranger to her, but she’d seen him before, in this exact way—or so it felt.
‘Phillipa, wake up.’ The face changed before her eyes, turning into Xavier’s face.
She gasped.
‘Are you hurt?’ Xavier’s hands were all over her, touching her arms, her legs, her torso. ‘Did he hurt you?’
This was not at the seaside?
No, it was London. She and Xavier had been walking home. This was not Brighton. She was not a little girl. This was Xavier with her.
‘I’m not hurt,’ she managed.
She tried to sit up. His arms embraced her and lifted her to her feet. He held her against him. ‘I thought you were hurt.’ He held her tighter. ‘I thought I had lost you.’
She remembered men jumping out of the darkness at them. She remembered fighting to be free.
But for a moment she’d been back in Brighton. She’d seen a different man lean over her. He appeared as real as Xavier appeared now.
She trembled. She’d seen something that was not really there.
Panic rose inside her, kept at bay only because of the strength of his arms. He comforted her. She was safe. Xavier held her.
He loosened his grip. ‘I must get you home.’
Supporting her weight with one arm, he led her out of the mews, past Berkeley Square to Davies Street.
Her head throbbed as she remembered he’d had to fight off two men. ‘Did they hurt you?’ she asked. ‘Did they get your money?’ Her reticule still dangled from her arm.
His voice turned low and fierce. ‘Not that miserable lot of ruffians.’
They reached her door and he embraced her again. ‘I should have prevented that attack. We should not have been walking at this hour. I was wrong to agree to this.’
If he had not been with her, what would have happened to her? There had been three of them.
Her heart pounded, anticipating what would come next. He intended to forbid her to come to the Masquerade Club. He would stop her performances right when she was learning about how to make the music most entertaining. He would take it all away.
She could not bear it.
‘Do not forbid me this, Xavier.’ Her voice trembled and her head ached.
‘It is not safe, Phillipa,’ he insisted. ‘You simply cannot take the risk.’
The hood of her cloak had fallen away, exposing her disfigurement. She pulled it up again and put the key in the lock, turning it.
He covered her hand with his. ‘Phillipa, do not come to the gaming house. Do not try it alone.’
She opened the door and turned to him. ‘May I have my dagger back?’
He hesitated, but finally handed it to her.
‘Thank you, Xavier.’ Impulsively she threw her arms around him. ‘You saved us both.’
To her surprise, he returned her embrace with one of his own. He held her against him so tightly it seemed as if he would never release her.
‘Phillipa,’ he rasped in her ear, as if wanting something more of her, but she did not know what.
She only knew she felt even more shaken when he finally released her and she hurried inside the house.
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