Page 12 of A Lady’s Handbook of Espionage

Isabel pulled her cloak tighter against the damp as she walked.

After so many years, London was almost as familiar as Paris.

She knew who had warm beds and who didn’t ask questions.

The taprooms that opened their doors to her and the shopkeepers who’d accept a few coins to hold their tongues.

The madam in Mayfair who granted Isabel a bed when she needed rest. But none of that mattered now because Favreau would have men watching all those places.

She needed to board a steamer.

Get to Emma. Then the docks. Then anywhere but here.

Her boots clicked against the wet cobblestones as she strode towards Pall Mall. The houses loomed ahead, their windows glowing warm with lamplight. For days, she’d lurked in these shadows, observing her sister from a distance and protecting the only family she had left.

A scream sliced through the night – the kind she recognised. Terror.

Isabel froze. Then a desperate, choked shout came that sent ice through her veins.

She knew that voice.

Emma.

Bolting forward, she reached for the knife strapped to her thigh. She rounded the corner in time to see a man’s fist connect with Emma’s jaw. Her sister crumpled against the wall, blood staining her pale hair.

Isabel recognised the attacker’s stance immediately – shoulders squared, weight forward on the balls of his feet. Syndicate training.

Isabel didn’t think. There wasn’t time for thinking.

She launched herself at the man. Her blade slashed once, twice, biting deep into his side. He was stronger, but Isabel was faster. Favreau had taught her how to use an opponent’s size against them. How to find the vulnerable spots. How to end a fight before it truly began.

She feinted left, then slipped behind the man as he lunged. Her arm snaked around his throat.

“You picked the wrong woman’s sister,” she hissed in his ear.

Her knife opened his throat in a ruthless slash. Isabel released him, letting the body fall with a dull thud. It was a faster death than he deserved, but Isabel couldn’t draw it out, not with Emma on the ground and barely conscious.

She rushed to her sister, kneeling.

“Isabel,” Emma’s voice was a thin rasp.

She hesitated, torn between staying and fleeing. But she knew what would happen if she remained – questions she couldn’t answer, dangers she’d bring to Emma’s door.

Footsteps pounded against the cobblestones. A man’s voice shouted Emma’s name – the Earl of Kent. Isabel had to trust that he would take her home.

Go. Go now.

With one last look at her sister, Isabel turned and sprinted out of the alley.

*

Isabel struck a lucifer and lit the cigarette pinched between her lips. Smoke curled upwards as she leaned against a tree, focusing on the townhouse across the street.

Three days since Emma nearly died in that alley. Three nights of rain and cold and hunger. The earl had whisked her sister away to his brother’s fancy townhouse in Belgravia, and Isabel hadn’t moved from this spot since.

Her muscles ached. Her stomach growled. She ignored both.

She’d missed the damn steamer to France and her chance to put London at her back. Leaving Emma was out of the question.

Favreau was a patient man. Now that he knew Isabel’s weakness, her pressure point, he’d never stop hunting Emma. He’d use her sister to force Isabel’s hand.

Leaving wasn’t an option anymore. Not until she figured out a way to keep her sister safe.

A flicker of movement in the townhouse’s window caught her attention – a man’s tall, broad-shouldered silhouette.

The Earl of Kent. He was handsome, she supposed.

Earlier, when she’d spied on them, she’d noticed a curious softening in his face when his gaze landed on Emma.

It thawed some of that aristocratic reserve.

She didn’t like that look.

It was the same expression the Duke of Southampton gave when he’d pulled Maman into his lap. Isabel had been little more than a girl then, peeking around the doorframe of their lavish Parisian flat.

But then, years later, when disease had ravaged Marie Dumont’s body and Southampton’s ardour had cooled, his expression changed. There had only been disdain. He’d tossed a fistful of francs at Maman’s feet before tossing them out of their flat.

Then he left his bastard daughters to rot in the streets.

A twig snapped. Isabel whirled, knife already in hand.

“Easy, Trouble. It’s just me.”

Callahan emerged from the shadows. He’d traded his usual greatcoat for a jacket, the fabric straining across the breadth of his shoulders.

The light from the gas lamps caught his face, all hard shadows and sharp edges.

He looked like the kind of man that mothers warned their daughters about.

A rogue who’d fuck a woman and leave her heart bleeding.

Isabel’s fingers fell away from her blade. But she kept her weight balanced on the balls of her feet, battle-ready. Just in case.

“Agent.” She took a deep drag on her cigarette. “I should’ve known you’d be stalking me.”

“I’m always up for a bit of recreational stalking. Someone’s got to keep an eye on you. Wouldn’t want that devious mind getting into mischief without proper supervision.”

“Don’t you have actual crimes to solve? Monarchs to defend from the terrifying prospect of stolen unmentionables? Murderers to catch?”

“Like you haven’t been leaving behind corpses, Dumont.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said with a shrug.

“Of course you don’t. But I go where the job takes me. And lately, that seems to be whichever festering rathole you’ve tucked yourself away in. If I had a shilling for every time I’ve had to track your scrawny arse, I’d be a wealthy man.”

“If you had a shilling for every time I’ve been tempted to stab you, you’d be the richest corpse in London.”

Snorting, he plucked the cigarette from her fingers. She watched as he raised it to his mouth, his lips fitting over the space where hers had been a moment before. Something fluttered low in her belly at that indirect caress.

“Always a delight conversing with you,” Callahan drawled around a mouthful of smoke. “Like pulling teeth, only less pleasant.”

“I do try.” She snagged the cigarette back, ignoring the way her fingers brushed his in the exchange. “So tell me, how did you track me to Belgravia? Bribing street urchins? Shrubbery skulking? Carrier pigeons?”

“Nothing so cunning. Didn’t take a genius to deduce you’d be keeping watch over your sister after that unpleasantness in the mews. Had a few informants do a bit of nosing about, and voilà .” He swept out an arm. “One thief located.”

Isabel grunted. “How’s your shoulder?”

“Still attached despite your best efforts.”

She chuckled. “I’ve many skills, Agent, but gentleness remains elusive.”

He held her gaze, their history stretching between them. Suddenly, she was back in that Hong Kong hotel room. His damp skin against hers. Their limbs tangled. Those rough hands learning every inch of her as if she might disappear.

I like looking at you.

And she liked him looking at her. So hungry. So warm and alive. He’d made her feel beautiful, scars and all.

And she rewarded him by doing what she always did: taking what he had and leaving chaos in her wake.

“So,” she said, looking away. “What do you want with me? Or did you simply miss my voice?”

“You have me all figured out, don’t you? Yes, I pine without that insolent mouth to enliven my days. Must be why I’m out here freezing my arse off watching you sulk in the shadows. Brooding doesn’t suit you, you know.”

“Oh, and I suppose you’re the expert on what does suit me?”

“I’ve watched you for years, haven’t I? Seen you work ballrooms and gambling dens where men can’t take their eyes off you. And now I’ve had the dubious pleasure of cleaning up your messes. Seems everywhere you go these days, a man ends up with his throat slit.”

“I’ve denied any involvement.”

“Oh, you deny it,” he said, a little mocking. “Tell me hypothetically, then. What other deadly talents have you been hiding up those sleeves?”

She glared up at him, refusing to step back. Refusing to give ground. “What if I told you I hypothetically strangled one of those men with my thighs first?”

That shut him up. His mouth fell open, and for once, the great Ronan Callahan had nothing to say. Ten seconds ticked by while his gaze dropped to her legs, encased in the tight trousers she’d stolen to pass as a lad in the dark.

She felt it then – that liquid heat pooling low in her belly. The one that only ever appeared when he looked at her like this. Like he wanted to consume her.

“Picturing it, Agent?” She smiled.

He let out a slow breath. “Thinking there are worse ways to die.”

The air between them crackled. Isabel almost reached for him, almost gave in to the urge to grab his shirt and pull him into the shadows. Almost.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said. “I only kill when I have to. If I hadn’t acted, you’d be scraping what was left of my sister off those cobblestones.

” She nodded toward the townhouse, needing to change the subject before she did something stupid.

Like touch him. “What do you know about the people keeping Emma?”

Callahan shrugged. “Decent, as far as the Quality goes. The earl is sharp. Keeps his hand in at Parliament, from what I’ve gathered.

His brother’s got charm enough to coax a nun from her habit, but he’s not soft.

And their sister—” A hint of what might have been genuine amusement lurked at the corners of his mouth.

“She’s got a mind like a razor. Fancies herself a journalist, much to her brothers’ despair.

Goes swanning about in the East End interviewing pickpockets and scriveners and God knows what else.

She’s the one who put up your finder’s fee. ”

She thought of the earl’s expression when he looked at Emma earlier. “Kent and Emma. Are they lovers?”