Page 11 of Courting the Duchess (Spy Society #1)

K nowing well he would tear the place to shambles if he stayed in the house, Sterling tore from the room and bellowed for his valet. He needed to get out of these clothes. He needed to burn off this energy before he did something he regretted…above and beyond the horrendous mistakes he’d already made.

Less than an hour later, Sterling slipped through the back streets of Mayfair with one thing on his mind, and after night fell in full force, he found himself in a dingy Covent Garden alley. His entire day had built up to that moment, every frustration and emotion slathering layer upon layer to his foul mood.

Ignoring the scrabble of fleeing vermin and the stench of the overflowing gutters, he closed his eyes and listened. Creaking doors. Vulgar catcalls. A screaming child. A shattering glass in the nearby public house. A peal of overzealous female laughter followed by a slurred masculine tone. He leaned back against the damp brick wall, allowing the shadows to absorb him and his rough, unremarkable dark clothing, as the doxy and her client sauntered toward him. He was so well hidden that they didn’t see him until they’d nearly collided.

“Oy!” snarled the man.

“Looks like this spot is taken,” said the woman, her eyes narrowing at Sterling. “A few pennies’ll earn you the right to watch.” She leaned toward him, her unlaced bodice dipping low enough to display a dusky nipple and several bruises shaped like fingers and teeth. Her hair hung in lank strings from a simple bun at the nape of her neck and her dark eyes were glassy with, Sterling suspected, cheap gin. “A couple more ’n’ I’m yours for a suck or a tup.” Her sizable male companion grabbed her upper arm hard enough to make her wince and yanked her away.

“I already paid me money ’n’ I don’t take no one’s leavin’s.” He jerked the doxy deeper into the alley and began untying his loose trousers. “Now is you going to give me me money’s worth or’s I goin’ ta have ta get rough?” His trousers dipped to his thick, hairy thighs and he began to push the girl to her knees but froze when he noticed Sterling hadn’t moved. “You dumb ’r stupid?” He spat a thick wad of saliva near Sterling’s boot. “This is me alley now. Fuck off!”

A low chuckle rose from deep within Sterling’s chest. It was almost a relief when his muscles tensed with the familiar rage, his senses heightening to near-preternatural degrees.

“Somefink funny?”

“Besides your small, pathetically limp cock?” Sterling pushed off the wall and tsked. “Oh, Angus. The fact that you believed you could continue harming women, and that no one would care.”

“How d’you know me name?” he demanded suspiciously, thankfully hiking up his trousers.

“Why is it always the idiots who think they’re the masterminds?” Sterling asked while looking at the wide-eyed doxy, not expecting an answer. He returned his frigid gaze to Angus. “You’re clumsy, Angus. I will say, it was a nice touch growing a beard to hide your birthmark, but not good enough.”

“I ain’t done nofink.”

Sterling raised a finger at him. “That is where I beg to differ, old fellow. And I’m sure the six women you assaulted and maimed would agree.”

“What? You a bobby?”

“Oh, Angus…” Sterling sighed regretfully. “You only wish I were one. Unfortunately for you, their rules do not apply to me.”

“Them’s just whores!” he bellowed and took a threatening step forward, seeming to forget his earlier denial thanks to the icy bite in Sterling’s words.

“And you are just a cowardly slug who takes his sexual incapabilities out on those who cannot defend themselves.”

The other man’s lip curled to reveal a yellowed, gap-toothed mouth. “You won’t live to regret that…” The man whipped a small blade from the pocket of his brown homespun coat and lunged for Sterling’s gut, but Sterling was faster.

The doxy shrieked as Sterling side-stepped the clumsy blow, pushed the other man’s arm down, and elbowed him in the side of the head. Angus bellowed a curse and stumbled, barely catching himself before he careened into a very questionable pile on the alley floor.

Spittle flying from his loose lips, Angus charged him again and again, the blade glinting in the dim light. Muscle memory from years of training and practice guided his movements. He hadn’t been sent to the Continent until it was determined he could fend for himself in all manners of combat. Close-range was, by far, his preferred method. Far more skilled than this rough brute, Sterling could have disarmed him immediately, but he needed this. He needed the exertion. He needed the fight. He needed to sweat.

Most of all, he needed to punish someone who truly deserved it.

Realizing he wasn’t going to win that way, Angus sought an easier target. His bloodshot eyes flicked over to the doxy, who’d made the mistake of sliding in the direction of the alley’s mouth to attempt an escape.

Sterling swore under his breath as Angus charged her. A perfectly timed kick to the man’s wrist sent the blade flying. Angus screamed, clutching his wrist to his chest, doubling over and giving Sterling the perfect angle to ram his knee into his snub nose. A spurt of crimson flew, preceding a garbled scream, and the man fell backward into a filthy puddle. He pressed the heel of his boot into the other man’s doughy gut.

“Are we finished, Angus?” he asked condescendingly as he leaned over the man.

The man whipped another small blade from an inner pocket of his coat.

Apparently not.

In one fluid move, Sterling swiped the blade from the other man’s meaty, bloody hand and rammed it through the fleshy part of his bicep. He gave it a little twist for good measure. Angus’s scream echoed through the alley before it was swallowed up in the cacophony of London’s nocturnal activities.

“Give me a reason to end it,” Sterling snarled, overflowing with feral violence. “I just need a reason.” He recognized in the curl of Angus’s lip that the man was preparing to spit. Sterling deftly avoided the bloody spray by sliding the toe of his boot up and averting the man’s face so it splattered ineffectually against the wall of the nearby building.

Sterling righted himself and found the doxy huddled against the wall, her arms over her head to shield her. He crouched down and held out his hand to the woman. She shied away, tears streaming down her face, and he noticed just how young she actually was. He would have been shocked to discover she was even as old as Alaina had been when they’d married. His chest clenched at the thought.

She flinched when he reached into his pocket, but her eyes perked at the glint of coins. “Have a meal and find a safe place to sleep tonight.” Her eyes darted from his face to his offering only a second before she snatched them, muttered her gratitude, and fled. He hoped she’d do just that, but there was a good chance the coins would be spent on enough cheap gin that she wouldn’t care where she slept.

Sterling cast a glance at the prone, bleeding, cursing man on the ground before he released a loud whistle through his teeth. Five men dashed forward toward Angus and Sterling slipped from the alley into the night.

He made it only a quarter of a block before a shadow peeled itself away from the darkness and matched his stride.

“Isn’t this rather beneath you?” the shadow murmured drolly, its voice as silken and deadly low as if Satan, himself, had deigned to walk amongst the mortals.

“I count locking up a rapist and abuser in Newgate a worthy cause beneath no one,” Sterling replied without turning his head. “Though London would likely have been better served if he’d been killed.”

“You know what I mean.” Sterling only grunted in response to that. “Imagine my surprise when I was informed you’d stopped by the offices requesting an assignment—any assignment as long as it was quick. The last time we spoke, you informed me in no uncertain terms that you were finally returning to your wife and that I should put my head in a rather creative place.”

Sterling’s fists clenched so tightly that his knuckles blanched. He didn’t need a reminder of how hopeful, how pathetically optimistic he’d been when his years-long assignment had been completed. He’d naively believed there had been something to come home to.

But he saw now that the tabloids and the persona he’d been forced to adopt had deprived him of any chance at genuine reconciliation with Alaina. He’d spent years as an agent infiltrating foreign circles, and he’d put his life on the line for king and country for nearly a decade, but he understood now that none of it meant a damn if he couldn’t have the one thing—the one woman—he desired above all else.

Especially not if she hated him because of it.

He learned too late that all the achievements and accolades meant nothing if she was not there to share his peace.

“Someone else could have handled it, you know,” added Adrian Ramsay, Sterling’s one-time boss, and leader of the secret spy society to which he’d once dedicated his life. The man was terrifying in every sense of the word. Bred and born to the underworld, he’d clawed his way out through sheer cunning and a penchant for violence to be drafted by an intelligence agency so secretive that it acted as its own entity and operated without any oversight outside of its self-contained hierarchy.

“They were dragging their feet,” Sterling growled. “You shouldn’t have left unseasoned agents to track down a man like this. He continued to hurt women while they spun in circles.” Potential recruits to the society were often given lesser assignments to hone their skills; these tasks were ones Scotland Yard and the local police force were unable to resolve on their own for one reason or another. The file Sterling had procured focused on a slew of violent attacks on prostitutes. Those survivors who weren’t downright hostile to police involvement described their attacker as rough, brown-haired, somewhat heavy-set with beady black eyes, and a reddish pear-shaped birthmark running from his left ear to curve under his non-existent jawline. The offender paid the women upfront for their services but quickly became enraged when all their…professional efforts produced no results from his limp and ineffectual body. He’d beaten them to within an inch of their life, done unspeakable things to their bodies, and then left them for dead after retrieving his money from their pockets.

The attacks had taken place over the past five weeks, but it had taken Sterling no more than an hour to map and triangulate the attacks, uncover a pattern, and narrow his options down to three public rooms where he believed he’d be most likely to find the villain. Sure enough, at the second, he’d spotted a hulking man bending an elbow at the far end of a poorly lit bar. Sterling supposed the atmosphere was for the best because he’d rather not have seen what caused the soles of his boots to stick to the floor.

Claiming a seat in the opposite corner, Sterling smoothly assumed a rough accent, ordered ale he had no intention of drinking, and ingratiated himself with a boisterous group of drunken men…one of whom he’d seen speaking with the suspect when he’d walked in.

Some time into a game of cards, Sterling had tipped his chin toward the man at the bar, feigning inebriation with a slight slur to his speech. “That man’s name John?” Always use a common name; it would either be correct or it would not draw attention to the inquiry.

The grizzled, gray-haired man beside Sterling looked where he was gesturing and shook his head. “Nay,” he hiccupped. “That be Angus Smith. Why? Ye lookin’ fer a John?”

“Aye. A John that owes me coin for a job. Same build as that’un.”

“Well I pity John,” the man had chuckled drunkenly and clapped Sterling on the shoulder. “Ye got the Devil in yer eye.”

That he did.

Shortly thereafter, Sterling watched from the corner of his eye as the man he now knew as Angus Smith snatched one of the milling doxies and hauled her into his lap. This particular establishment allowed prostitutes to procure business within its walls for a fee.

Sterling’s keen eyes were just able to make out a port wine birthmark beneath the shadows of the man’s patchy beard…and Sterling knew Angus was his man. He held himself still as Angus settled his tab and all but dragged the girl toward the exit.

Sterling counted to five before tossing a few coins on the table and excusing himself for a piss. Once outside, he doubled back to head Angus and the doxy off before they could reach the closest alleyway first, and…it did not end well for Mr. Smith.

“That is regrettable.” Ramsay’s voice was flat regarding his failed trainees. “And they’ll be handled appropriately.”

Sterling nodded. Not every man had the skills or training to become a member of Ramsay’s spy society. It took considerable abilities to be considered, and even those select few would fail further testing. Whoever had been assigned to this case would be dropped from Ramsay’s list of potentials, but they’d likely continue on with their lives and careers none the wiser that they’d once been in the running to be a part of the most exclusive, highly trained secret society beneath the Crown.

When he was younger, Sterling had liked to think he’d been selected because of his wit, knack for languages, and uncanny physical stamina. In truth, his title and innate charm had been the biggest draw. Few members of the spy society were peers, and none so high-ranked as he. A duke with blood as blue as Sterling’s could enter even the most impenetrable social circles without suspicion.

“Am I to take tonight’s adventure as a sign that you are ready to return to the fold? Is domestic life not suiting your tastes? Too tame?”

“No,” snapped Sterling, finality deadening the single harsh word.

Ramsay’s shrug was nonchalant.

“I will watch for any interesting developments I believe might suit you and keep you apprised.”

“Don’t bother. I’m finished with that.”

“Ah, but we are not necessarily finished with a man of your talents. And tonight’s performance indicates you may not be done either.”

Sterling’s jaw clenched; his fists itched to deal more blows. Ramsay was a master manipulator and the best interrogator the society had ever seen. He’d also been watching Sterling for more than a decade at that point; he was keenly familiar with Sterling’s ingrained sense of duty to one’s country. This was precisely how Sterling had become wrapped up in the society in the first place, and Ramsay knew tugging at that string would give him pause. What Ramsay didn’t count on was the intensity of Sterling’s desire to begin a life with Alaina—most likely because Ramsay did not possess a heart of his own. That argument had kept Sterling in the society far, far longer than his initial agreement had stipulated, but no more.

Hadn’t he given enough of himself already? Hadn’t he sacrificed enough?

“Sod off.”

Ramsay’s chuckle was cool and mirthless. “I’ll be in touch.”

The footsteps beside Sterling stopped, and he needn’t look around to confirm his former boss was nowhere to be found, vaporized into the nighttime fog like the specter he was.