Page 34 of A Lady’s Handbook of Espionage

“Lily,” Callahan called, careful not to startle the poor woman who just witnessed a gristly murder. “A word.”

She approached him warily. The strain of the evening was etched into her face. Her hands trembled before she clasped them in front of her.

“Yes, sir?” Her voice shook.

“I need you to listen, pet. Can you do that?”

The tiniest dip of her chin was his only answer.

“Good girl. I want this place locked up tight as a drum, you hear? No one in or out. And that room” – he jerked his head towards the door where Harrington’s corpse was cooling – “is to stay exactly as it is. I don’t care if the Second Coming of Christ manifests in there, not a single thing gets touched.

The coppers’ll be here soon. You tell them that verbatim. Understand?”

Lily nodded, some panic in her eyes receding in the face of clear instructions. “Is there anything else you need, sir?”

“Send someone to Basil House. A fast runner who can keep their mouth shut. Tell them to fetch the Marquess of Ripon. Say it’s urgent business regarding one of his guests.

” Callahan withdrew a handful of coins from his pocket, pressing them into Lily’s hand.

“For your trouble. And your discretion. Might want to grab yourself a tot of gin, settle your nerves.”

She curled her fingers around the coins. “Consider it done, sir.”

Callahan turned to go, then paused. He glanced back at Lily, taking in how she seemed to hold herself together through sheer force of will.

“You likely won’t see me again tonight, but I’m sending round a man named Mattias Wentworth.

Tell the girls he’s safe to let through.

He’ll have his lads take care of that body for you, quick and clean. No one the wiser, come morning.”

Relief flickered over Lily’s face. “Thank you, sir.”

With a final nod, Callahan strode out into the night. He quickened his pace, hunched against the chill. The sooner he got to Wentworth, the sooner they could start damage control.

And the sooner he could get back to Isabel.

*

Callahan’s boots echoed in the foyer of the Home Office. Even at this late hour, a few gas lamps burned, and staff crossed his path. There was always someone here who never slept.

Which included Wentworth.

He took the stairs two at a time. When he reached the office, the spymaster was bent over his desk, working late as usual. He didn’t startle at Callahan’s abrupt entrance, merely glanced up with a raised brow.

“We have a problem,” Callahan said without preamble.

At that, Wentworth straightened. He was already reaching for his coat. “I assume this is more pressing than whatever sent you off in your evening kit?”

“Right. It’s a bloodstained, body-shaped problem currently growing cold on the floor of a whorehouse, to be precise.”

Wentworth pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fuck. Tell me.”

“One of Ripon’s guests was murdered tonight. Viscount Harrington. A gent with particular scientific inclinations, as it happens. Specifically, an interest in Ramsgate’s work.”

“What do we know?”

Callahan fell into step beside the spymaster as they strode from the office. “It was a professional job. Quick and clean. Harrington was dead before he hit the floor, his throat slit. The killer slipped in and out again while the viscount was intimate with a doxy. Poor thing saw it happen.”

“And Harrington? Did you glean anything from him before he bled out?”

“He let slip that Ramsgate was mucking about with some chemical combination the viscount considered ‘concerning’. Isabel believes it might be a weapon.”

“We need to contain this. Keep it quiet so Ramsgate doesn’t know the Syndicate is cleaning up loose ends.”

“Already ahead of you. I’ve got the staff at the Crimson Veil sitting tight, and I sent for Ripon.”

“Good thinking. Your cover. It’s secure?”

“As secure as it can be, given the circumstances. Why? Having doubts about my ability to play the bumbling American?”

“I have doubts about everything, Callahan. It’s why I’m still alive.” Wentworth hailed a hack and turned to Callahan before getting inside. “I’ll go and run interference with Ripon and have a few of my men keep eyes on the house to make sure Ramsgate doesn’t leave, just to be safe.”

Callahan nodded. The urge to return to Isabel was a physical ache in his chest. “I’d best be getting back. Wouldn’t do for Mr Ashford to be absent.”

*

Callahan was relieved to see light spilling from beneath the bathing chamber’s door when he returned to Basil House. A muted sloshing came from within – the shift of water in a bath.

Thank God. She was safe.

“Isabel? Did you find our killer?”

“He ran off. I’ll just be a minute.” Her voice sounded wrong – thready and distant.

Unease prickled Callahan’s nape. He shucked his coat, setting it over the chair.

“Wentworth is keeping word of tonight’s unpleasantness at the Crimson Veil contained for now. One of his men is watching the house to keep Ramsgate secure. We’ll need to search the room before the symposium concludes.”

He paused, waiting for her response. But there was only the rasp of his own breath.

“Isabel?”

“Right. Tomorrow.” The words were hollow. As if some vital spark had gone out of her. “One day left to accomplish our mission. I haven’t forgotten.”

To anyone else, the words might have seemed ordinary. Unremarkable. But Callahan knew that voice – all its shades and permutations.

Every instinct clamoured a warning.

He closed the distance to the washroom, pushed through the door, and went utterly still.

There was blood in the bathwater.

Isabel sat huddled in the tub, knees hugged tight to her chest. Blonde hair clung to her face and throat in damp tendrils, water droplets glistening against her skin.

She looked impossibly young. Unbearably fragile in a way someone so fierce had no right to be.

“Isabel,” he said. Tentative. As if the slightest misstep might shatter her into pieces too small to gather. “What happened?”

Gently, gently. The way you’d coax a wild thing closer. Isabel Dumont had endured a lifetime’s worth of cruelties and careless brutalities by men who sought to break her. He would not add to it now.

For a long, airless moment, she said nothing. Callahan barely breathed.

Then, so quietly he almost missed it: “It was Favreau.” Three words. Toneless. Devoid of inflection. “He knew Wentworth was intercepting intelligence on Ramsgate. He planted them deliberately to draw me to London.”

He didn’t give a damn about that. She was bleeding.

“Let me see.”

Their gazes locked. The armour of the Spectre fell away to reveal the shattered woman beneath. Slowly, she leaned back.

And Callahan saw it – jagged letters carved between her breasts.

L.F.

The ugly scrawl of possession. Of ownership.

He sucked in a breath. “ Christ fucking God .”

“He gave me all of them. Every scar.” Distant, detached. Almost cold. Her fingers skimmed over the silvered slashes – the violence etched into her flesh. “Favreau liked to cut me. Liked to see me bleed while he—” A sharp, hitching inhale. “While he—”

“Stop.” Callahan gentled his voice. “You don’t need to say it. I know.”

He sank to his knees beside the tub. This close, he could count every bruise, every scrape. The delicate fan of her lashes against too-pale cheeks, the purple smudges exhaustion had thumbed beneath her eyes.

And Callahan opened his arms.

“Come here,” he murmured.

She leaned into him without protest. It terrified him, this sudden malleability. As if Favreau had reached into her chest and scooped out all her spark and fire.

“I have you,” he told her. “I have you.”

Her fingers dug into his shoulders. A shudder rippled through her. “In the alleyway . . . it felt like before. Before I left him in Hong Kong. I felt like that woman again. Letting him—Letting him—”

“Shhh.” Callahan tightened his hold. “He hurt you, Isabel. He tortured you.”

“I was so scared.”

“Isabel. Look at me.”

He tipped her face up to his. Her eyes were wide and dark.

“I have you,” he murmured. “Let me take care of you.”

She gripped his wrist. “You’ve a talent with a blade, don’t you?”

“Little thief, you—”

“Carve over them,” she said, her breath coming fast. “Reshape the letters into yours. Put your name on me. Please .”

Fuck. Fuck, fuck.

“Sweetheart, after what Favreau just did—”

“Pain I choose, remember? That’s the difference. The only man’s name I want to wear on my skin is yours.” She made a soft noise. “It doesn’t have to mean anything. I’m not asking for promises or—”

“It means something,” he said softly. “To me.” Sighing, he reached for his ankle and slid his blade out of the sheath. “Tell me if you need me to stop.”

Callahan held her stare as he palmed his knife. Patient. Waiting for permission.

“I trust you.” A whisper.

Oh, his heart. She was killing him.

“Deep breath, love.”

And he began to cut into her.

When Callahan was a lad, Whelan used him for wet work. He had a pretty face and a body good for selling, sure, but he was also strong, fast, and good with a knife.

And he never flinched when he mutilated people.

That takes a certain talent, Whelan claimed. Many men could kill and make it brutal, but most didn’t have the talent for the small agonies that made someone cry and yield. They didn’t have a talent for carving.

Carving, Callahan learned, was a more precise art.

It took patience. A strong stomach. Steady hands.

Things most lads don’t have. And that’s because when Callahan did Whelan’s dirty work, he wasn’t present.

His mind left. It took with it all the complicated emotions like empathy and humanity and tucked them away in favour of survival, because a carving done well meant an entire month of food in his belly. That was how well his expertise paid.

He refused to tuck away those emotions now; he didn’t go to that quiet place in his body.

Callahan wouldn’t leave her. He would stay present. Because she needed both his steady hands and his care.

She needed him .