Page 2 of A Lady’s Handbook of Espionage

Isabel Dumont walked through the agora.

Sweat-slicked bodies and livestock crowded the ancient market.

She inhaled the scent of spices, ripe fruit, and the faint aroma of smoke as she passed customers haggling with vendors.

Their voices rose in a mix of Greek and Turkish, English and French.

She spotted a gull attempting to make off with one of the fresh Aegean sardines from a stall.

It was chaos.

But Isabel savoured it: the heat and the noise and the freedom of travelling without Favreau hovering over her shoulder. She anticipated the jostling elbows and swinging trays, the absentminded steps back and sudden swerves. The key to remaining unseen was understanding the current of movement.

Today, invisibility meant the difference between victory and failure.

Just get the coin , she reminded herself as she headed for the Numismatic Museum presently housed at the University of Athens.

The bruises on her wrists had barely faded from Favreau’s last demonstration of what happened to thieves who failed him. An American client of his wanted a rare antique coin. Favreau wanted to please the American.

And Isabel? She just wanted to survive.

All she had to do was steal it and disappear. A convincing performance of a bumbling American tourist, a quick sleight of hand, and she’d be bound for Paris. She’d deliver her prize to Favreau and lie low until his black mood passed.

A simple plan. Elegant.

All she wanted was to go home. Use a victory to distract Favreau for a few days so she could slip away and see her sister.

Emma still lived in the dingy flat they’d secured after the Duke of Southampton cast them all out. His mistress and two bastard daughters meant nothing once they became inconvenient. Disposable.

And then Maman fell ill.

Isabel still remembered it all – that wet, hacking cough. The doctor’s face when he named his price. Their father’s dismissal when Emma pleaded with him for money to pay for medicine. And later, the cold calculation in Isabel’s heart when she realised what she’d have to do.

Poverty made people desperate. And desperation left you vulnerable to the wolves.

Emma never asked how Isabel earned the funds to pay for the doctor. She never asked why some of the coins came bloodstained, or why Isabel moved gingerly some days.

She never asked why Isabel didn’t stay more than a night to catch her breath.

Emma never asked questions because Isabel always lied. She refused to admit that she learned pretty girls had their own currency. It was part of the bargain she’d struck with Favreau – her body and service in exchange for training.

“Do this, and you’ll never go hungry again,” Favreau had promised, his hands in her hair. “Do this, and I’ll teach you to take whatever you want.”

He’d lied about the second part. Isabel had learned to take, but only what he wanted her to.

And Maman died anyway.

Isabel kept stealing. It had become something else by then.

A mission. A vendetta. She wanted to hurt the rich and take their precious things.

Empty their safes. Make them feel a fraction of what she’d felt when her father – a duke with more money than he knew what to do with – had abandoned them all to die.

Aristocrats believed they could take and discard without consequence.

Left behind their inconveniences to be chewed up and spat out by men like Favreau.

The coin , she reminded herself.

Because her master was never far from her mind.

The white marble face of the Central Museum loomed ahead. She just had to slip in—

“ Stop! Thief! ”

Isabel whipped around towards the source of the commotion – and felt the ground drop out from beneath her.

Through the parting throng of shoppers charged a half-naked man. Bronzed skin glistened in the harsh Grecian sun, muscles flexing. Dark hair, storm-grey eyes, striking features – he could have been Ares in the flesh, stepped down from his plinth to unleash chaos.

Ronan Callahan.

Because of course it was.

He vaulted over an upturned barrow and kept running.

Feathers rained as squawking chickens exploded from their toppled cages.

Baskets overturned, sending fruit rolling underfoot.

Curses in a dozen dialects chased his heels.

And he ran on, shirt torn halfway off and blood streaking his ribs – and still outrageously gorgeous.

If the deities of Olympus had conspired to pluck the most exasperating temptation from her past and plant him square in her path, they could not have set the scene more perfectly. Only Ronan Callahan could transform her simple smash-and-grab into a drama of epic proportions.

Isabel’s mind bellowed at her to leave. To turn her back on this maelstrom masquerading as a man and salvage what she could of the day’s agenda. That’s what any rational woman would do.

Then she saw who was after him: six brawny men armed with blades. Callahan’s odds looked grimmer by the instant.

Strangely, that decided her.

Isabel swore and lunged for the alley where she prayed Callahan was headed. If she timed it right – if she gauged his trajectory without being spotted by his pursuers . . .

She skidded around the corner just as Callahan’s grey eyes locked onto hers. They widened, a single thought written across his face.

You .

“This way!” she hissed, snatching his wrist.

She yanked him into the shadowed backstreets.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Callahan demanded.

“Shut up and run!”

An order he obeyed without argument. They scrambled over crumbling walls and careened around corners. Isabel rifled through her hard-won mental map of the city, the boltholes and dead-end alleys. They needed to catch their breath and hide—

There .

A courtyard tucked between decrepit buildings and concealed by a curtain of wisteria. Isabel hauled Callahan into the tiny refuge.

The space barely qualified as a courtyard, truthfully. More a forgotten corner slumbering behind its veil of flowers, the stone walls bearing scars of past skirmishes long since lost to memory. But it would serve for now.

Isabel stepped back to assess her companion – and the inadvisability of the last fifteen minutes crashed over her.

What possessed her to intervene in Ronan Callahan’s disaster du jour ? Why had she risked herself? One glimpse of his stupid, beautiful face and all her instincts for self-preservation scattered.

She was many things, most disreputable, but she’d never fancied herself an idiot.

Until now.

Callahan braced his hands on his knees, chest heaving as he caught his breath.

Despite him being sweaty, bloody, and exhausted, Isabel couldn’t help but stare.

In New York, she had decided Ronan Callahan was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen.

His black hair fell over his forehead and begged to be pushed back.

When he opened his eyes, they were a grey so pale that they resembled quicksilver.

The few sorry scraps of shirt still clinging to his shoulders exposed far too much bronzed skin. Too many flexing muscles and old scars, each mark telling a story Isabel itched to unravel. He looked like Ares the moment before battle lust consumed him. Magnificent. Dangerous.

Frankly, he was an affront to decency.

Callahan straightened, a faint wince the only acknowledgement of the wound on his side. His scowl promised retribution. Ah. Not gratitude, then. Hardly a shock. The man would probably spurn divine intervention if it arrived without the proper paperwork.

“Now that we’re alone, I’ll ask again. What the hell are you doing in Athens?”

She shrugged. “Some sightseeing. Taking in the local colour. Some of us can travel without turning it into an international incident.”

“Right,” he said flatly. “Because you’re so sodding circumspect.”

“I’m the very soul of discretion.”

Callahan looked like he’d tasted something unspeakable. “You’re the soul of chaos.”

“Why, Agent, it’s almost as if you aren’t overjoyed by my timely assistance. Such ingratitude for the woman who spared you a messy gutting. You’re welcome, by the by.”

She crossed her arms, absently noting her sleeve was now smudged with dirt and . . . was that rotten fruit? Lovely. Yet another thing sacrificed on the altar of Ronan Callahan’s calamities.

“I assume you have a good reason for attracting the violent attention of what appeared to be half the criminals in the Plaka?”

His scowl deepened. “I had it handled.”

“Yes, clearly. That’s why a pack of cutthroats was baying for your blood.”

“It’s nothing I can’t deal with. You didn’t need to get involved.”

For God’s sake. Callahan would drag himself bloody and broken from the underworld itself before admitting he needed aid, let alone from her.

“I’m sure you’d have figured something out,” she said. “Probably around the time they’d carved that lovely body into a more portable parcel.”

He shot her a baleful glare that she ignored in favour of examining the alarming crimson stain seeping through his tattered shirt. Her smile slipped.

“That’s a lot of blood.”

“It’s barely a scratch. A flesh wound at most.”

She arched a brow. He’d probably describe a knife to the kidney as a minor inconvenience . “Your ‘barely a scratch’ is starting to drip onto my boots.”

“They’ll survive.” But he glanced down at the injury. “It’s nothing.”

Isabel debated the wisdom of her next words, but in for a penny, in for the whole bloody pound. She’d already involved herself in this mess. Might as well see it through.

With a sigh, she said, “Remove those rags before you collapse and undo my efforts to haul your troublesome arse out of danger. Let me look.”

He gave her a wicked smile that kindled some warm and reckless emotion in her chest. “If you wanted me undressed, darling, all you had to do was ask.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Agent.”

But she’d be lying if she claimed some part of her didn’t sit up and take notice as he stripped off the shirt.