Page 24 of A Lady’s Handbook of Espionage

Basil House was the kind of place Callahan would have robbed in his youth.

It was a towering stone edifice meant to communicate money more than a warm welcome. He counted the windows and guessed there were twenty, maybe thirty rooms. Four visible chimneys. The doorknobs on this place probably cost more than he’d made in a year growing up in Whitechapel.

Gargoyles scowled down at them as he helped Isabel down from the carriage.

“Quite the pile.” She scanned the facade with that professional assessment he recognised. “Always wanted to see inside when I was casing these homes. Shame we’re here for work rather than pleasure.”

“What, not excited about playing with the aristos? Thought you’d be thrilled for the chance now that honest crime doesn’t pay you anymore.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Do you bill Wentworth separately for the sarcasm?”

“The sarcasm comes free when I spend all night with a woman grinding against my cock and pretending she doesn’t notice.”

Isabel laughed. “What was it you told me? Next time, don’t wait. Ask for what you want.”

Then she tapped him on the nose and started for the house.

Infuriating woman.

He gripped his satchel as they climbed the steps, falling into the role of besotted husband.

Too easy to play that part. The dossier Wentworth had shoved at him this morning laid out his new identity: James Ashford, an American businessman with more coin than sense.

His wife, Lydia Ashford, was an heiress and socialite with scientific interests.

All very respectable. All very false.

The butler who answered Ripon’s door had a look that said he’d slid from the womb wearing livery and judging the doctor’s technique.

“Mr and Mrs Ashford, I presume?”

“You got it,” Callahan replied in his practised New York accent, ignoring Isabel’s small jolt of surprise. She didn’t have time to read their covers before they left that morning.

The butler’s mouth pinched tighter. “Do come in.”

Callahan and Isabel followed him into an antechamber that reeked of old money and judgment. Oil paintings stared down from the walls – generations of Ripons with perfect posture and cold eyes. Watching him.

“Banks.” A voice echoed from the adjoining room.

The marquess appeared in the doorway. He was younger than Callahan expected, with more muscle than your typical nobleman, short brown hair and brown eyes that assessed rather than merely looked. This wasn’t a man who spent his days drinking brandy and reading poetry.

“I’ll take our guests from here, Banks,” Ripon told the butler.

“See to their luggage.” He waited until the servant was out of earshot before turning his full attention to them.

“So you’re Wentworth’s people. James and Lydia Ashford sound like names concocted by a third-rate novelist on a deadline. ”

Isabel grinned. “Isabel Dumont, at your service.”

“Save the charm, Miss Dumont.” Ripon didn’t smile.

“Your flirtation might work on your marks, but I’m only tolerating this charade because I owe Wentworth.

The bastard always knows exactly which debts to call in.

Now, let’s dispense with the pleasantries.

We’ve much to discuss and precious little time to do it. Come with me to your rooms.”

The marquess led Isabel and Callahan up the stairs, stopping at a second-floor door.

“Here,” Ripon announced. “Try not to ruin anything irreplaceable.”

The chamber beyond was larger than Callahan’s entire damn flat. It was sumptuous, with gilt mirrors, tapestries, and rich fabrics in deep blues and golds. And dominating the far wall, a four-poster bed that could fit half of Whitechapel.

Isabel wandered further in, running her fingers along a marble-topped table. “What’s your symposium like?”

Ripon leaned against the doorframe. “Men with too much education and too little practical experience, attempting to impress each other with theories that will never see application. And wives who are simply grateful their hermit husbands have left the house for once.”

“Sounds riveting.”

“I’d rather swallow broken glass. But my father believed in it, so here we are.” He crossed his arms. “Now, perhaps you’ll explain why Wentworth insisted I invite a man I’ve never met to my home. What has this Ramsgate fellow done?”

“Intercepted communications, irregular financial activities,” Callahan said. “All pointing to him being involved with an international organisation we’ve been tracking.”

“Criminal?”

“Would we be here if he were running a charity?”

Ripon levelled him with a withering stare.

“Let me be abundantly clear. You may look. You may listen. You may even speak to the man. But if I find one drop of blood on my carpets or one piece of furniture where it doesn’t belong, I’ll personally deliver you to Wentworth with several new holes in your body. ”

“We’ll be discreet,” Isabel promised, all sweetness.

Ripon must have been the only man alive immune to that little performance, because he just scowled at her.

“See that you are. The staff knows to accommodate you within reason. Guests arrive tomorrow. Try not to embarrass me.”

The door closed behind him.

Callahan exhaled, feeling the emergence of a spectacular headache. “I need a whiskey.”

Isabel snorted, still inspecting the priceless baubles around the room. If she stole anything, he’d never hear the end of it from Wentworth. Hell, Ripon would probably shoot them.

“Want to tell me about that fetching accent you put on downstairs?” she asked. “Are we American Ashfords?”

“Unfortunately.” Callahan yanked the file from his satchel and spread the papers on the table.

Americans. Of all the bloody covers Wentworth could have chosen.

“Courier delivered this while you were still drooling on your pillow this morning. Our identities and the schedule. There’s a formal opening tomorrow.

I figure we mingle, try not to commit any felonies and murder each other in the process. Think we can manage that?”

“I’ve already managed to endure one night in your bed. I’m sure I’ll find the fortitude to withstand a few more.”

“So kind of you,” he said. “And can you be a fawning newlywed? Or is that too much of a stretch?”

“Please.” She slanted him a look. “I once convinced the Archduchess of Austria that I was a long-lost Romanov cousin. I think I can play a besotted bride.”

“Of course you did.” He shook his head. “Why am I not surprised?”

“Because I’m just that good. Now, I intend to take advantage of these fancy accommodations and get more comfortable.”

She reached back and slipped the first tiny button of her bodice free.

Everything inside Callahan stilled. The room. His breath. Time itself. For one disorienting moment, he was back in that Hong Kong hotel room thinking of each button as a piece of armour being peeled away.

They were professionals with a job to do. He meant to tell her as much. Truly. Opened his mouth to say in no uncertain terms that whatever this was between them had to be shelved, boxed up, and shoved into some dusty corner of his psyche.

What emerged instead was, “Do you need help?”

Isabel froze. Her stare locked with his, and she cleared her throat. “Yes, please.”

He closed the distance between them. He didn’t touch her – not yet – just reached for the fastening behind her neck, listening to her breath snag.

The buttons were tiny, so delicate. He worked them slowly, one after another, revealing the smooth skin of her back. Skin he’d tasted. Skin he’d marked.

By the time he finished, he could hear the shallow, quick rhythm of her breathing.

“There,” he said.

She slipped it off, then began unhooking her bustle and front-fastening corset to reveal her thin linen combination. He swallowed, hypnotised by the shift of muscle beneath pale skin as she plucked the pins from her hair until it spilled over her shoulders.

God, he wanted to devour her.

He cleared his throat and turned away, listening to the rustle of fabric as she donned her nightdress. Then, as if she hadn’t just reduced him to a speechless idiot, she sprawled on the counterpane and opened the dossier.

“Well?” she said. “Are you going to come over here and review these with me?”

He stripped down to his smalls and settled beside her, trying and failing to find a comfortable position.

She tossed some papers onto his chest. “Take these.”

He should say something clever. Something about the mission. The cover identities. Anything to distract himself from the expanse of her thigh left bare by her nightgown and how badly he wanted to push her down onto the mattress.

“Do you ever blink?” Isabel asked.

His gaze snapped to her face. “What?”

“It’s like you’re attempting to vivisect me with your eyes.”

“I’m looking at you.” He let his gaze drift deliberately down her body. “That’s what normal people call it. Looking . Maybe ‘observing’ if they’re feeling fancy. Anyone ever tell you that you have a remarkable gift for killing the mood?”

“What mood is there to ruin? The one where we pretend we aren’t imagining all the filthy things we want to do to each other?”

Memories rose – her pulse beneath his fingertips, the slick glide of skin on skin. Isabel twisting a hand in his hair as she urged him faster, harder, more.

He was so monumentally fucked. His brain shut down while his body took over, like a drunk falling off a cliff.

“I’m thinking,” he said, “that James and Lydia Ashford aren’t the hands-off type.

He’s a scoundrel who somehow convinced this gorgeous woman to marry him.

She’s clearly fallen for him despite her better judgment.

Americans don’t have that English reserve.

We should consider establishing an easy intimacy so we’re comfortable in each other’s space. We’ve been apart for five months.”

Isabel, who had been reading the dossier, finally looked up at that. “Should I expect darbies and commands and punishments? Or do you have something else in mind?”