Page 35 of A Lady’s Handbook of Espionage

Each cut of the dagger was a prayer. A silent litany spilled out in blood, consecrated by pain and the sweet sting of a hurt that healed.

With each delicate, deliberate stroke, Callahan unmade Favreau’s brutality.

In its place, he planted his own claim – the initials he wanted her to wear not as a brand but as a promise.

They flowed like calligraphy, elegant. This, of all things, deserved to be done well. To be made lovely, even in its savagery.

He splashed away the blood, wiping the canvas clean so he could perfect his masterpiece. Each scar became a story, written in steady strokes.

I love you , his hands said.

I love you , his heart said.

And the years he’d endured under Whelan finally yielded something he could be proud of.

R.

L.

C.

“The L,” Isabel said with a soft sort of wonder, the emotions too tangled to pick apart. “What does it stand for?”

“Liam.”

“Ronan Liam Callahan.” Her accent wrapped around the syllables like a caress, nestling them close to her heart. “Your mother must have loved you very much to give you a name that beautiful.”

“She did.” A pang, soft and bittersweet, behind his breastbone. “More than anything in the world. And I loved her just the same.”

“What happened to her?”

Callahan exhaled slowly. “She fell ill when I was small. Lingered for a time, but in the end . . .” He shook his head. “There was no one else after that. No family to speak of except the lads I ran with.”

He could paint his history in shades of abandonment, of the aching absence of a boy left behind.

A hard-won survival in the streets. A kingdom of stray dogs fighting for scraps.

His life before he’d crawled his way up with Nick Thorne, when he’d let his knuckles and knives do his talking, carving out his place in a city that didn’t care for lost Irish boys.

Isabel squeezed her eyes shut. “Mine was ill, too. And after – there was only Emma. She was the reason I—” She broke off, jaw working. “The things I let Favreau do . . . the things I did for him . . .”

Callahan set the knife aside. “You don’t need to explain. Not to me.”

He understood better than most the unholy bargains struck for love, the pieces of yourself you carved away to keep another whole. Because that’s what this was. His knife cut into the woman who held his battered heart in her bloodstained hands. He loved her. Viciously, tenderly.

Hopelessly.

Isabel kept studying the labyrinth of wounds and scars, old and new. At the initials etched so carefully between her breasts.

“Thank you,” she breathed. “You have a master’s hand.”

“I wanted it to be beautiful. Wanted you to look at it and feel . . .” He fumbled, the words tangling. “Feel cherished.”

A beat. Their eyes met and something passed between them, bright and aching. Too raw, too fragile to be given voice. Her fingers fluttered at the edges of the fresh cuts, tracing them with reverence.

“I do,” she whispered. “I do.”

Callahan’s heart stumbled, lurching against his ribs. He cleared his throat. Looked away before she could see too much.

“You should rest now. Let me tend these, and then sleep.”

He rose, pulling Isabel gently up. He dried her off, scrubbed away the last traces of blood, and carried her to the bed.

From the depths of his valise, he withdrew a tin of salve and bandages.

The tools of his trade, though he usually employed them in the aftermath of violence rather than tenderness.

“This will sting,” he warned as he unscrewed the lid.

The ghost of a smile. “I’ve had worse.”

Callahan’s fingers gentled as he smoothed the ointment over her skin. “I know,” he said simply.

Once the salve was applied, he wound strips of linen over her injuries. Isabel held still, only the flutter of her lashes betraying any discomfort. When it was done, he tied off the last bandage and sat back.

“Isabel.” Callahan’s voice fractured around the shape of her name. “May I kiss you?”

“You’re asking tonight?” she said in surprise.

He skimmed his thumbs over her cheeks. “I think tonight you deserve to be asked.”

Some emotion flickered over Isabel’s face. Complicated. Wanting.

She swallowed. “Kiss me.”

He leaned in, brushing his lips over hers. A whisper, the barest graze of skin. And again. Soft. Coaxing. Asking permission with each tentative foray. No heat, no scorching urgency. Just connection, a tether of touch. His lips moved against hers, almost hesitant – a supplicant before an altar.

An unspoken language, a solace that a man like him had always fumbled to give voice to.

He was a creature of sharp lines meant for dealing death.

But for her . . . for her he could be gentle.

Soft in all the ways that mattered. He painted his devotion into her with touch, with taste.

A wordless confession too fragile yet for the hard edges of speech.

Long moments later, Callahan forced himself to retreat. To lay his brow against hers as they traded air.

“Would you like to sleep now?”

A slight nod.

“And would you like me to hold you? While you rest?”

A stuttering inhale. “I’d like that very much,” she whispered. “Ronan Liam.”