Tempted by His Touch: A Limited Edition Boxed Set of Dukes, Rogues, & Alpha Heroes Historical Romance Novels

by Darcy Burke

  The Three Boars had become Kate’s second home. It was not by any means an exceptional public house, but it was an easy walk from her flat and she knew the clientele. On the best days, she got wind of pick-ups that would soon happen so she could properly align herself to receive the stolen goods before anyone else heard of the deal. On the worst of days, she witnessed a bar fight; even that had its appeal, as long as she was not the one being pummeled.

  Then there was Jane Putnam, who had worked as a barmaid since Kate had moved to Ratcliffe. The Three Boars was owned by a member of the Chapman Street Gang, and with Jane’s brother Penn being a member, Jane was the logical choice for a barmaid. She was practical and diligent, but most importantly, she was discreet.

  And she was the best friend Kate had, and perhaps the only one she trusted.

  “Whisky is not your normal drink,” Jane noted, leaning on the clean bar counter. On nights when Jane worked, the public house was tidier than most upscale gentleman’s clubs.

  “Sometimes I wish you had the memory of a normal human being.” Kate swirled the whisky in the glass, watching the amber liquid as murky as her current situation.

  “Yes, but then you’d actually have to place your order like a normal human being, and what would be the fun in that?” Jane propped her elbows up and rested her chin in between her hands.

  Kate sighed. “Lord pity me if I should have to make a decision for myself.”

  Jane’s brows furrowed in concern, her voice softening. “I was only quizzing you.”

  “I know,” Kate smiled ruefully. “I’m out of sorts tonight. Nothing is in its proper place and not a single thing makes a bit of sense.” She knocked back the last sip of the six and tips.

  “Your Irishman is back in town, isn’t he?” Jane inquired. “Hearing you talk about him before and with his bit of a brogue, I put the pieces together when he came in last night asking for you.”

  Kate sputtered, whisky burning her throat. Shock turned into a coughing fit that at least allowed her enough time to process. If Jane knew Daniel had returned, then how many other people did? He would be forced to flee before he had a chance to prove his innocence.

  Wasn’t that what she wanted, for him to leave without a trace and never come back? That would be the logical thing to crave. But if the Peelers got to him first…

  An icy hand twisted in her stomach, dousing the fire of the liquor. The tightness was almost unbearable. All she could think of was Daniel on collar day at Newgate, hanging by the loop of a noose.

  Jane passed her another six and tips. “I’ve told no one. It’s been ages, and you didn’t frequent this part of town before. I highly doubt anyone else is going to figure it out.”

  “They will if he pokes into Tommy Dalton’s murder,” Kate said.

  “Faith,” Jane murmured.

  Kate drained half out of the shot before continuing. “He wants me to help him, and has offered to pay me. He gave me a shilling.”

  Jane pursed her lips. For a second, she simply looked at Kate, her green eyes wide.

  “Oh, don’t stifle yourself so. Out with it,” Kate demanded.

  “I have been thinking…” Jane paused, her nose scrunching as she tried to find the proper wording. “Maybe there’s less danger to be had in reuniting with him. You might convince him to leave town with you, protect you.”

  “I don’t need Daniel’s protection.” Kate set the whisky back down on the tabletop, unfinished. “Nor do I want to put my fate in his, or anyone else’s, hands. People are fallible and cannot be trusted.”

  “You can depend on me,” Jane insisted.

  “Of course.” Slowly, Kate smiled. Growing up, she had two friends she had thought she could tell everything to—they’d left like the rest.

  Jane arched a brow at her. “You’d better believe that. You’re family now, and neither I nor Chapman Street takes that lightly.”

  Family. Her mother had left when she was a child, and she hadn’t any relations that lived near London. She had thought she’d build a new family with Daniel. Some days, when the ache of Papa’s death did not consume her, she almost managed to forget what family had felt like.

  She was safest that way, for without those connections she could not be hurt.

  Yet Jane was made of sterner stuff. Kate had once witnessed her lie to four Metropolitan Police officers about a theft to protect her brother from harm. Perhaps Jane was the one person left in the whole lot of London who could be trusted.

  “I do believe you,” Kate said, even though she knew she shouldn’t.

  “My point was that if you are bummed for fencing, you might be imprisoned or transported. If Penn had simply been more careful, sought out honest work—”

  “I won’t end up like Penn,” Kate assured her. Jane’s older brother Penn had been arrested for assault and thievery. He was being held at Newgate Prison.

  Worry creased Jane’s brows. “That is what everyone thinks. Then it is off to the gaol with you.”

  Kate reached forward, patting Jane’s hand. “I’ll be careful. I always am.”

  “I know you’ve been hurt before,” Jane started, her tone hesitant. “Not only by Daniel. But you didn’t know how to handle yourself and the whoremongers preyed on that. You’re not that naïve girl anymore. Don’t let the past affect how you conduct yourself now.”

  Raising the whisky to her lips, Kate gulped down the remaining contents. The burn settled in her stomach, warmth to replace the cold chill of memory. No matter how far she came from two and a half years ago, she felt like that same girl in a brothel, clutching the remains of her ripped chemise and fleeing for her life.

  “I know,” she lied. It was what Jane would want to hear: that she was fine and she’d moved on. That she thought of herself as something other than shattered.

  “What about Owen?” Jane asked.

  “I haven’t the foggiest notion,” Kate frowned. “He is charming and we get along well. I suppose that we’d suit nicely.”

  “Which is all one can ask. Passion and intrigue are best left to those tawdry novels read by the lazy bon ton,” Jane said.

  Kate nodded, not from agreement but because it was the safe thing to do. Owen Neal made her feel at home. That was a sensation she should not take lightly. He didn’t have a history of drinking or abandoning her, and he was too damn clever to get caught.

  But he didn’t look at her as though she was the only woman he’d ever love.

  Only one man had ever done that. She would not think of the kiss with Daniel.

  “Daniel wants to see if Emporia was involved, because that’s the only link between Dalton and him that he can find,” Kate explained. “I don’t want to dig further into Papa’s company. If Daniel finds out someone in the company set him up, then it’s Emporia in the papers once more. Papa’s good name will be dragged through the ink again.”

  “So control the information,” Jane said shrewdly. “If you know what he’s uncovering, you can make sure no one sees it. Find another angle to investigate.”

  It’s us against the world, Katiebelle. So Papa had always claimed. She could take Daniel’s money, and leave him without a shred of evidence against her father’s company. Without evidence, Daniel would leave again.

  She would always be better off alone, where no one could hurt her.

  “It’s an idea,” Kate mused. “It’s an idea indeed.”

  Chapter Four

  The knock resonated through Daniel’s small quarters at Madame Tousat’s Boarding House, one solid pound and then another. He crossed the room in three strides, dilapidated Hessians smacking the scratched wooden floor. Once the boots had been new, but now they were as cracked as him.

  Nervous energy flittered through his body. What would she say when he saw her? This unsteadiness was absurd—hell, when they’d been together, he’d buried himself so deep within her he forgot where he ended and she began in the most intimate of couplings.

  He could do this. She couldn’t hate him
forever. Daniel breathed in and pulled the door open.

  Kate’s fist was outstretched to pound the door once more. She wore a worn gray walking dress with puffed sleeves and frayed ebony piping on the hem. He wasn’t entirely sure, but he could guess from Poppy’s work as a seamstress that the dress was not on the cusp of fashion. Underneath her arm was a leather portfolio, ragged and stained.

  “Daniel.” She said his name with little pleasure. “Do you intend to let me in?”

  “Of course.” He backed away from the door and into the cramped room, stumbling over a footstool jammed in front of a sagging armchair. Sharp pain pierced his calf, where bone connected with the wood frame of the footstool. He bit back an oath, pressing his lips together tightly.

  “Stools do have an odious habit of jumping out at you, don’t they?” Deadpan, she peered up at him from beneath her wide-brimmed bonnet.

  “I am devilishly clumsy.” He ran a hand through his hair, offering her a small, tentative smile.

  Kate shut the door behind them. Memories assailed him as his eyes trailed down her frame. She sashayed away from him, and he followed the lean line of her neck where his lips had burned against her soft skin to her shoulder blades, which he’d gripped to steady himself as he thrust, to that shapely rear men should’ve written sonnets about.

  His breath quickened as she turned around, shrugging off the giant greatcoat. Her bodice crisscrossed in the front, giving the slight hint of her pert breasts. God’s balls, she was stunning. He couldn’t remember a time in the last four years when he hadn’t wanted her.

  This was the woman he’d lost, too fucking foxed to know where he’d been that damned night.

  He cleared his throat. “I have the funds for you. When we clear my name, I’ll pay you an additional sum.”

  Daniel pointed toward the two-legged desk in the right corner of the room. He felt a kinship to that rickety desk, precariously balanced with one leg in the past, one leg in the present, and neither in complete agreement.

  “I haven’t agreed to help you,” she said tightly. Her gaze locked onto the small purse, a calculating gleam in her eyes.

  He had been clever with the promise of an additional sum after completion. She couldn’t take his money and run if she wanted the full payment.

  He shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “The funds are there for you when you want it.”

  The single shilling from before wasn’t enough to ensure she was safe, and he doubted she’d allow him to pay for her lodgings. Devil take the modern set to her now. It’d been easier to deal with her when she’d been willing to accept his protection.

  “I came to give you these.” Tugging the portfolio out from underneath her arm, Kate dropped it on the desktop unceremoniously. The folder landed with a thud and the coins clinked at the movement. The frayed ribbon around the portfolio split, unable to contain the aged parchment of varying sizes.

  Daniel reached for the papers. Quickly, he leafed through the stack. Three broadsheets in total, more than he would have thought the murder of a warehouse laborer like Dalton would have warranted. But Daniel’s position as assistant to Richard Morgan had made the murder more interesting to the papers.

  “It is a bit odd, looking at one’s name in the paper.” He stared at the clip from The Daily Advertiser, yellowed from age and indented from the folds of the portfolio. His grip tightened on the parchment, creating a crease at the right corner from where his thumb pressed. “I didn’t even know the Caledonian Mercury reported on trials.”

  “I thought it best to add variety. If you only consult one source, you risk biased information.”

  With her ordered mind, he wasn’t surprised she had found success as a fence. She plucked up the article from The Morning Herald and handed it to him. He skimmed the contents. The papers had interviewed Richard Morgan.

  Daniel O’Reilly was a highly competent and skilled assistant. I was privileged to know him, and the charges against him are the basest of falsehoods.

  “Christ.” He rubbed his hand against his neck, squeezing at a knot. “Morgan didn’t have to do that.”

  Her face darkened. “No matter what I said, he believed in you. He was sure you’d come back and fight for me. His loyalty to you made him appear weak to his business partners. They wanted him to disavow you.” She looked toward the purse again, as if weighing her options. She gave a toss of her head, her black velvet bonnet flapping with the motion.

  “I’m sorry, Katiebelle,” he said gently, reaching for her hand.

  “I don’t need your apology.” She pulled back, his fingertips barely brushing the shabby leather of her glove. “But when Papa got sick, he needed you at his bedside. Instead, you were off gallivanting somewhere. Maybe you would have been able to bring Emporia through—maybe if you’d been there, the accountants wouldn’t have stolen money from us. Maybe…I don’t even know. I can imagine a million scenarios, but they all end in you leaving.”

  He hadn’t been there to hold her hand when Morgan died. He hadn’t been there when the bank took everything, and he hadn’t been there to keep her from having to live on the streets.

  “I wanted—” He stopped. It didn’t matter what he had wanted.

  “You wanted to run, from the accusations, from the constable…from me.” Her unflinching gaze fell on him, not the purse of coins.

  “I never wanted to leave you. It was the hardest thing I ever did. I can’t even begin to describe how unbearable it was.” He ached to hold her in his arms, but he wouldn’t reach for her again.

  For a second, her expression softened, and he thought he’d infiltrated her stony defenses. Then her spine stiffened as she drew herself up to her full height. She peered down the bridge of her nose at him.

  “I don’t despise you for running,” she said flatly.

  He sensed there was an addendum to her statement, something that would tear his heart out from his chest and stomp upon it with her half boots. “Then why do you?”

  “Because you got yourself entangled in this hellish situation. If you’d been sober, maybe you wouldn’t have ended up in that damn alley.” She frowned. “You taught me to drink gin, Daniel. Did you really think I wouldn’t know the depth of your problem?”

  He shifted under the weight of her gaze. Boring into him, reminding him of everything he’d ever done wrong. “I hoped you thought I drank socially.”

  “Casual drinkers are not found with flasks in their offices.”

  “I didn’t want you to worry about me.”

  She flinched, wounded by his words. “I loved you, Daniel, with everything I had. Of course I worried about you. When you love someone—when you care so deeply about them that the very loss of them breaks you in two—that’s what you do.”

  “I never meant to hurt you, Katiebelle.” He stepped closer to her.

  “Don’t.” She held up a hand to stop him. “Don’t think that we can magically repair things because you want to. I would have stuck by you through anything, if you’d let me. But you didn’t.”

  “I thought it would be better if I gave you a clean break. I thought you’d move on to someone better. Get married. Live in the sort of big house I couldn’t buy for you.”

  “You thought wrong.” She scowled. “But that is the past, and we can’t change it. We were meant to live separate lives.”

  Separate lives. He could not think of a worse fate than to live without her. He had nearly imbibed himself to death because he could not have her.

  She looked toward the dingy window in his flat. He wondered what she was thinking, if she’d rather be anywhere but here, with him. His confidence was waning—he’d been so sure he could convince her to take him back. But this Kate, this hardened woman who spoke like there was nothing between them at all, baffled him.

  He moved his thumb on the broadsheet to cover up the word “murder,” as if he could hide the horrendous details if he didn’t allow Kate to see it. From the soft texture of the paper, she’d read the contents many times,
the oils from her fingertips smoothing the print.

  “Why did you keep these, Kate?”

  She flushed, fists balled up at her side. “I kept them to remind myself of the truth.”

  “Whose truth, Kate? The constable’s? Mine? Yours?”

  She flinched, eyes narrowing warily. He’d struck a nerve. Woodenly, she sat down on the chair by the door and arranged her thick smoke-gray skirts. She looked down at her hands, examining her gloves. When she finally met his gaze again, the sadness in her eyes caught him off-guard.

  “I don’t even know anymore.”

  “Then help me find Tommy Dalton’s murderer. We’ll find the truth together.” He sounded too earnest.

  “Truth is a particular notion, Daniel. I have found it can be bent and twisted to fit the speaker’s best interests.” She laid her head back against the chair, arm draped across the side, appearing to all others like she could not be bothered to care.

  But he knew better. Life might fatigue her, but she’d fight and crawl her way to the top.

  He held up the purse, giving it a shake. The coins tinkled. “So twist the truth for our benefit. I’ve got a list of names from Atlas to go over. Have a look and tell me if you recognize any of them.” He went for the foolscap on his bedside table.

  “Very well then,” she nodded. “We’ll start with why you were too foxed to remember a damn thing. What in your life was so bad you had to drink it all away? Was it me?”

  “God, no.” The words came out quickly. “You were the only thing in my life that made sense.”

  How could he explain to her the pressure from the long hours at Emporia, the newness of their love, constantly feeling like he had to prove himself? She’d think him mad, or worse, weak. He would be a better man if it killed him. With Kate facing him, disbelief struck upon her pale, thin face, it just might.

  Instead of picking up the list, he crossed to the teapot, perched atop his trunk. He had boiled water in the tea kettle downstairs in the fireplace before Kate arrived. Adding tea leaves into the pot, he poured the water in on top to let it steep.