Page 11 of A Lady’s Handbook of Espionage

The abandoned distillery was dark. Shafts of moonlight knifed through gaps in the decrepit roof, just enough to illuminate any assailant trying to sneak up on Isabel.

She crouched in the deepest corner and fought not to fall asleep.

Each sound scraped along her nerves. She’d spent too many nights awake. Not enough real rest.

Just a few days more. Then she’d board the steamer bound for Le Havre at first light and put the stinking cesspool of London at her back. Hopefully, crossing the Channel would throw Favreau off her scent. Then she’d—

A scuff sounded past the shaft of light.

Isabel’s heart seized behind her ribs. She pressed deeper into the blackness, straining to listen past the thunder of her pulse.

There it was again – a careful footfall.

Isabel eased her weapon out of its sheath. Her gaze raked the darkness as a large silhouette detached from the shadows.

She launched herself at the figure, aiming straight for the bastard’s jugular.

He twisted at the last second, but her blade bit deep into his shoulder.

His bellow echoed through the distillery. She ripped her dagger free, but before she could strike again, his arm clamped around her middle. He yanked. Spun her. The air punched out of her lungs as her back collided with a wall of hard muscle. Then the bastard hauled her off her feet.

“Bloody, buggering fuck, Trouble. Must you lead with the stabbing?”

The familiar timbre crashed through her wild panic. She knew that voice, whiskey-rough and insolent. Had heard it in her dreams.

“Agent Callahan,” she said. She’d never admit aloud that she was glad to see him.

She’d missed that voice. Missed him . “Fancy meeting you here. I’d say it was a pleasure, but .

. .” She writhed in his crushing embrace, an exaggerated wriggle that pressed her backside to his front.

“It’s rather difficult to exchange pleasantries while being so aggressively manhandled. ”

He grunted and twisted his hips aside. “Stop rubbing your arse against my cock,” he snapped.

“Just testing whether it’s possible for a man who just got stabbed to still get hard. And look, the answer is yes.”

“Doesn’t erase the fact that you just tried to take off my damn arm.”

Good . If he was angry, he was distracted. Anger made men stupid and more prone to mistakes. And she would once again have to wiggle out of Ronan Callahan’s clutches.

“You snuck up on an armed woman in an abandoned distillery in the dead of night. What in the devil did you expect? Squeals of maidenly delight? Swoons into your manly arms?”

“I expected you to be holed up in the finest suite Claridge’s had to offer, not dressed in the clothes of a filthy little street lad and scuttling through the arse-end of Whitechapel like a sewer rat.”

It shouldn’t have mattered what this man thought of her.

She’d forfeited the right to care about anything so fragile as pride the day she’d first let Favreau press a priceless necklace into her palm and a possessive kiss to the inside of her wrist. When she’d weighed her precious scruples against her family’s needs and made her choice.

And damned herself in the choosing.

“Sorry to disappoint. I’m afraid I’m all out of feather beds and champagne at the moment.” With a sharp twist of her hips, Isabel broke his hold and danced out of reach. “I know my hospitality leaves something to be desired at present, but needs must.”

Callahan glared at her, his hand clamped over the bloodstain spreading across his shoulder. Even in the dark – dishevelled and radiating murderous intent – he was so damn beautiful it hurt to look at him.

Callahan’s icy gaze raked over her. Isabel tried not to fidget.

She was aware she hardly looked her best these days.

There were dark circles under her eyes, a gauntness to her cheeks.

She’d lost weight. Each mark was a tally of the slow, brutal war she’d been fighting.

The cost of betrayal was etched across her body.

The woman he’d fucked in a Hong Kong hotel room had eroded piece by piece until only this remained – a cornered, feral thing.

“Christ, Trouble. You look like a stiff breeze would knock you arse over teakettle. When’s the last time you had a proper meal and not just the memory of one?”

“Why, Agent, I didn’t realise you cared. Here I thought you were only interested in collecting the bounty on my head and hauling me in front of a magistrate.”

“Among other things.” His eyes narrowed. “Tell me. When you scarpered off with my clothes in Hong Kong and left me bare-arsed in the street . . . is that how you treat all the men foolish enough to fall into your bed?”

She couldn’t exactly tell him that it had killed her to leave him like that in Hong Kong. That playing the part of the confidence artist withered a small corner of her heart.

But so had hearing his words.

Temporary madness . That’s what he’d called fucking her. As if they hadn’t been circling each other like two predators in the woods for years.

But she donned that mask again because this man was her walking ruin.

“Oh no. You’re special,” she said, winking. “I’ve never taken my pleasure without an escape route planned.”

Callahan didn’t smile. His hand drifted down to toy with the blade sheathed at his hip – an unsubtle warning. “Careful,” he said softly. “This time, I won’t hesitate to use it.”

“What happened to that famous English chivalry?”

“Must have left it in my other coat. The one you chucked in Victoria Harbour.”

She shrugged. “Then I suppose we’re even. And you’ve long since ruined any chance at getting me on my back again.”

The way his pupils flared said he remembered every filthy, glorious second of having her naked and spread beneath him.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she snapped, a flush crawling up her neck.

“Like what?” Now, he gave her that grin that made her heart give a little stutter. “Like I’ve already had you? The memory of you coming on my cock is seared into my brain, Trouble.”

He was lethal. The way he wielded seduction like a weapon.

“We both know you’re not here for a tumble,” she said.

“Alas, business before pleasure. I’m on the hunt for a person of interest. An Isabel Dumont, to be precise. Dark blonde hair, green-eyed, and petite. Looks and behaviour resemble an internationally notorious thief of my intimate acquaintance, come to think.”

Non. Non. Non. Bon Dieu.

Hearing her real name on Ronan Callahan’s lips sent a jolt of dread through her.

Because of course, he was tenacious enough to discover her identity.

Of course, he couldn’t leave it alone. Of bloody course , he’d show up again at exactly the wrong moment when she needed to run as far and fast as possible.

This was why she’d left him in Hong Kong. Caring was an extravagance she couldn’t afford. Not anymore.

Breathe. Shove up the walls.

Pretend like you always do.

She arched a brow and kept her tone flat. Bored. “And what has this Miss Dumont done to inspire Her Majesty’s hound to chase her through London?”

His eye twitched at the words Her Majesty’s hound .

“Got herself into a spot of bother, I reckon. The kind that ends with corpses rotting in unsavoury corners and a sister worried she’ll be collecting body parts from the Thames. One Emma Dumont paid for any news of her wayward sister’s whereabouts. Poor chit’s near sick with dread over it.”

Isabel swallowed. She hadn’t spoken to her sister in nearly a year. A few months ago, she’d written a terse letter promising she was still alive and sent it through channels she prayed were still secure.

But what choice did she have? This was the only way to keep Emma safe. Isabel had only ever managed to keep two secrets from Louis Favreau. The first was her meetings with Callahan.

The second was the existence of her sister.

“How much is peace of mind going for on the open market these days?” she asked, as if she didn’t care about the answer.

“Seventy pounds. Enough to keep my whiskey cabinet well-stocked for the foreseeable future.” He grimaced. “And I’ll be adding a stabbing surcharge.”

Seventy pounds? Sainte Mère de Dieu.

Where in damnation had Emma beggared herself to scrape together that princely sum?

With the squalor they’d been abandoned to after their father’s desertion, they’d survived on the funds Isabel obtained after Favreau took the lion’s share of her heists.

Last she heard, Emma found work dressing and tutoring courtesans and actresses.

And now she was tossing a small fortune at Ronan Callahan’s feet?

Damn. Bloody hell. Nom de Dieu de putain de bordel—

“How valiant of you,” she gritted out. “Well, I hope you track down this wayward woman, Agent. If she’s half as hardened a criminal as you seem to think, she’ll either slit your throat in your sleep, or you’ll be sending her to the gallows.

What a treat for her sister, wouldn’t you say?

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I will go see what’s on offer at Claridge’s.

Have a nice bath, let a bottle of claret breathe on the sideboard—”

He prowled towards her. She’d seen that coiled menace in him before. In Hong Kong, right before he’d pinned her to the hotel sheets and fucked her until all she could do was pray he never stopped.

Now, all that barely restrained brutality was focused on her again. This was the hunter who’d tracked her halfway around the globe. This was the blade at her throat.

“Drop the act, Isabel. Your sister’s in knots over you.” His voice lowered, turning soft. “That man you left to rot in Charing Cross. He was Syndicate muscle? One of Favreau’s dogs?”

In a blink, she was back in that abandoned flat, with her thumbs in the Butcher’s eye sockets. His blood had been warm when she’d slit his throat.

Monster. Villain . She was those things.

Her fingers skimmed over the raw ligature marks ringing her wrists. Trophies from the Butcher’s tender care.

“What I do and who I kill is my business,” she said.

“The minute details of my sordid life story aren’t yours to collect for my sister or as some contest with the men who want me dead.

You’ve found me. Tell Emma I’m fine, and offer her condolences that you stumbled across my little mess.

Apologies for you finding the corpse I left. It wasn’t meant for you.”

His expression went cold. “And no messages of devotion to relay, I take it? You could send a note. She’s employed as a maid by the Earl of Kent. I imagine you’re familiar enough with Pall Mall to know where he lives.”

She couldn’t believe Emma was in England , of all places—their father’s homeland—and playing servant to their father’s peers. What had put such a foolish notion in her her head?

Isabel shook off the thought and snapped her attention back to Callahan. “I don’t know why you care. I’ve disappointed everyone foolish enough to rely on me since approximately 1850, and I’d hate to break such a winning streak.”

He stepped closer. Too close, his chest brushing hers. So warm and tempting.

“Why is the Syndicate hunting you, Isabel?” he asked softly.

Please, please stop. They’ll use you to get to me. They’ll use anyone.

Better he believe her to be an indifferent, callous bitch. Then maybe he’d leave her alone.

“I’m sure you’d love to slap me in manacles and ask your questions in some ghastly interrogation room. But do us both a favour and stop chasing it. And stop chasing me .”

Please .

But he reached up and skimmed his knuckles over her cheek. “Hong Kong. I’d wager it’s the last time you managed a decent night’s sleep, isn’t it? Secure in my bed.”

The question knifed through her. She had no right to safety. To rest. Her life was calculated in debts, paid for in blood and sweat and pieces of her soul, and there’d be no respite until those scales finally balanced.

Or they buried her.

“Go home, Agent,” she said quietly, resisting the urge to lean into his touch. “Collect your fee. Give Emma my love. And pray that this is the last time we cross paths.” Her eyes drifted to his shoulder. “You’d best tend to that before you bleed out. I promise you, I’m not worth dying over.”

She shoved him away. In the breathless moment before he recovered, she turned and fled.