He tightened his grip on her, pulling her impossibly closer, sliding his hand into her hair and holding her still as he kissed her, deep and thorough and with such longing that she lost track of herself. Of him.
It was them. And it was perfect.
And then he ended the kiss and met her eyes, and whispered her name. “Say it again. Please.”
She’d never refuse him the request, but she couldn’t look at him. Not when she knew that tomorrow the sun would rise and he would return to the role of noble protector, and he would convince himself that this had all been a mistake.
She couldn’t look at him. But she could put her ear to his chest and memorize the steady beat of his heart and say, “I love you.”
And then she could revel in the heavy heat of his arm at her back, and the breath of her name, barely-there in the even rise and fall of his chest, and imagine that tonight was forever.
“Stay with me,” she whispered.
A deep breath. Her name again, the ache in the sound an echo of the one in her heart. “I cannot. If I stay, he’ll come for you.”
“He will come for me anyway!” she said, pushing up to look at him. “He will come for me, just as he will come for you.”
“Not if I stop him.”
This infuriating man! “Not you, Caleb. Us. You are not alone.”
“In this, I am,” he said, the words like steel. “You want to know why I leave London? Why I stay in Boston? Why I have always pushed you away? Because of this. Because this is a battle I must fight alone … or I will put you in danger.” He sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, and Sesily stared at his back, his head bowed to his chest. “Sesily. If anything happens to you …”
He trailed off and she waited, her heart pounding, aching in her chest.
“If anything happens to you,” he tried again. “That’s what will destroy me.”
“Caleb,” she whispered, frustration and fury bringing tears to her eyes and a knot to her throat as she felt it all slipping through her fingers. She crawled over the bed toward him, desperate to hang on. To hang on to him.
She wrapped herself around him, pressing her cheek to his shoulder. “Please.”
Don’t do this.
Don’t leave me.
Love me.
She didn’t say any of it, and neither did he, but he didn’t leave, either, instead, turning to pull her into his arms and kiss her, again and again, soft and slow and sweet, his hands trailing over her body and her name on his lips like he was trying to remember her. Like he might forget her.
She let him, glorying in his touch and kiss until his heart slowed and his breath deepened, and he slept, as though he knew he might never sleep again.
And once he slept, she found she could not.
Instead, she pressed a kiss to his warm, wide chest and slipped from the bed, pulling her dressing gown on and heading to the window to draw circles on the glass and look down at Hyde Park spread out before her, dark as midnight.
But there, in the street below, were a half dozen men, big as houses.
Security.
Which meant Sesily was about to receive a visitor.
She dressed carefully in dark colors—a deep hunter green that felt appropriate for what was to come. Tight in the bodice, with trousers beneath split skirts designed for ease of movement. And a quarter of an hour later, she opened the front door onto Park Lane as a carriage came to a halt in front of the house, the insignia on the door ancient and venerable.
The Duchess of Trevescan did not like to be kept waiting.
The duchess’s brows rose when she discovered Sesily waiting. “You realize I could have been anyone.”
“Most people don’t come with bruisers big as yours.” Sesily lifted a chin in the direction of the men beyond. “You don’t think I can take care of myself?”
“I think you’ve your work cut out for you already,” the other woman replied. “So what say you let me share a bit of the load?”
Relief shattered through Sesily, and she opened the door wide.
The other woman stepped inside, peering around the darkened foyer. “Where is he?”
“Who?” Sesily replied, feeling obstinate. Knowing it was unfair.
The duchess ignored it. Which was what friends were for, Sesily supposed. “I understand you had a run-in with The Bully Boys.”
“News travels fast from Brixton.”
“Straight to Coleford House.”
She’d known it. The watchmen outside were not for show. Still, Sesily sucked in a breath. “So. He knows.”
The duchess nodded. “He has your name and Calhoun’s. Crouch couldn’t have come screaming any faster.” She paused. “If ever there were a man who needed killing, Sesily.”
She would have laughed if it all wasn’t so awful. “I shall endeavor to do better next time.”
“See that you do.” The duchess looked about the Talbot House foyer. “There is a great deal of gold in this room.”
“Duchess,” Sesily prompted.
“Yes. Well. It’s only a matter of time until the viscount puts it all together.”
“And you? Have you put it together?”
A head tilt. “Why not save me the trouble.”
Sesily did, leaving out the things that were not hers to tell, and her friend listened, patiently, finally saying, “I told you there was a reason he never took what you offered.”
Sesily’s heart pounded. “It was possible he did not want it, you know.”
Except he had.
I cannot stay away.
“Mmm. And he knew he could not hide forever, and that tying himself to you would only serve to put you in danger.”
“I’m in danger every day.”
“And at some point your gallant knight will have to understand that.”
“He’s not my gallant knight.”
The duchess cut her a disbelieving look. “For someone who is not your gallant knight, he certainly turns up to protect you a great deal.”
I would walk into fire if it meant seeing you.
She swallowed around the lump in her throat and crossed her arms over her chest.
Her friend watched her for a moment, and then said, “Your man is in danger, Sesily. And he’s no longer alone in it. You were there. Your name is attached to it. And that’s before we bring the sister into play. The boy. Calhoun can no longer hide.”
Sesily nodded. “He knows.”
“Well? Does he have a plan?”
She took a deep breath. “No doubt something truly noble.”
“No doubt something deeply stupid,” the duchess said, irritation in her tone. “Which ordinarily would be none of my concern. But you love him, which means that when he does something deeply stupid, you are likely to do something deeply stupid as well.”
Sesily’s brows shot up. “I beg your pardon?”
“Oh, did you mishear? Love is nonsense, and you are going to need your girls with you to survive whatever it brings next.”
It was not the easiest thing to dispute.
“But the truth is,” the duchess added, reaching for Sesily, “I stand with you, Sesily Talbot, stupid or not. Though I would like very much for whatever plan you devise to be … not stupid.”
“He won’t let me help him,” Sesily said. “He’s already made it clear, he chooses this fight on his own.”
The duchess raised a dark brow. “Has he. And how do you feel about that?”
Sesily met her friend’s eyes—this woman whom she had stood with, shoulder to shoulder, for two years. This woman whom she had followed into battle. Whom she had led there. Sisters-in-arms. “I don’t care for it, honestly.”
“Then you are going to need a plan.”
A light flashed in Sesily’s eyes. “Isn’t it lucky that I’ve already got one.”
In the two years he’d known her, Caleb Calhoun had witnessed Sesily Talbot do any number of scandalous things—including but not limited to, gambling, drinking, f
requenting pleasure houses, stealing from a viscount, going head-to-head with some of London’s most notorious criminals, and breaking a man’s nose twice—but he’d never imagined this.
And yet, here she was, on Thames Walk, a dead body at her feet.
He approached in the darkness as she paused, waving a nearby carriage forward. It was made to look like a hired cab, but absolutely not a hired cab. In Caleb’s experience, hack drivers hesitated to get involved with women in possession of corpses.
Hack drivers were smarter than Caleb, apparently.
Caleb, who’d fallen in love with the only woman in London who wouldn’t think twice about moving a dead body in the moonlight on the banks of the River Thames, where any number of people could see her.
Stepping out of the shadows, he made his way down the steep inclined street toward the place where Sesily stood, back to him now as she spoke to the driver, her words carried away from him on the wild wind that lifted her cloak, revealing silk skirts dark as the night beyond.
Of course Sesily was dumping a body in a gown at three o’clock in the morning, as though she’d just slipped away after the midnight waltz, telling all the world that she needed to fix a hem or whatever women told people to escape cloying ballrooms, and was just going to quickly dispose of this poor blighter before sneaking back in for the next quadrille, the whole world none the wiser.
Except she hadn’t slipped away from a ball.
She’d slipped away from him. Left him in her bed, to wake up in the dead of night to discover her gone, the sheets cold, a hastily scribbled note where he’d expected to find her.
Back soon. Don’t worry.
Like she’d gone to the dressmaker, except it was the dead of night and she’d also left a little oval portrait with the note—a gift.
Something that felt suspiciously, awfully, like a parting gift.
Which had him damn well worried, so it was now in his breast pocket, against his heart, like if he kept it there, he could keep her close.
He approached from behind, making sure he could be heard—not wanting to unsettle her. She didn’t move. Didn’t stiffen or turn or give any indication that she’d heard him.
Of course she heard him. “How did you find me?”
The driver snapped to attention, hat low on his brow, shielding his identity.
Irritation flared at the curious words, made worse by the next. “Don’t tell me. Duchess.”
The Duchess of Trevescan, who’d been calmly reading on a seat outside of Sesily’s bedchamber, Sesily’s cat happily nestled on her lap, when he’d ripped the door open, shirt untucked, coat in hand. He’d pulled up short when she’d turned a page and said, calm as ever, “I don’t suppose I can convince you to let her handle this?”
He’d made it clear he’d allow that over his dead body. It had not occurred to him that there was an actual dead body in play.
“She wasn’t supposed to tell you where I was,” Sesily said. “I told her you wouldn’t be able to resist following me.” Caleb hesitated at the words, and the tone in which they were spoken, cool and calm, as though she hadn’t come apart in his arms the night before. As though she hadn’t told him she loved him.
As though she hadn’t slipped from her bed and his arms and left him to wake alone and worried.
Of course he followed her. And still, he said, “Do I follow you?”
Sesily turned and moved toward the rear of the carriage, not looking at him. “You followed me here. To Coleford’s. To Brixton. To The Place.”
Of course he followed her. He’d always follow her if it meant keeping her safe. “I didn’t follow you to The Place. I stumbled upon you at The Place. And I only followed you to Coleford’s because—” He stopped himself.
She turned toward him, the hood of her cloak keeping her in shadows. “Because what?”
“Because your sister asked me to follow you.”
“My sister—what?” Sesily went still, and Caleb likely should have regretted the confession. But he wouldn’t regret a single word spoken to Sesily Talbot tonight. “Sera asked you to follow me? For what?”
“She was concerned that you were in trouble.”
“Amazing,” she retorted, and he heard the irritation in her words. “One would have thought she’d consider asking me if I was in trouble.”
“Perhaps she thought you would take affront.”
The dry humor in his tone was a mistake. She cut him a look. “Oh, I most definitely take affront. And I shall have words with my sister. But first, I shall have words with you.”
The reply should have felt like a threat, but instead felt like a gift.
More words.
More time.
More of her.
He continued his advance. “I believe it is my time for words with you, Sesily. After all, you skulked from my bed, and I told you … I like the chase.”
She caught her breath. He liked that. Even as he grew more frustrated with her. With this madcap plan she’d concocted. “First, it was my bed.”
As though he didn’t know that. As though he hadn’t woken hard and wanting, cloaked in the scent of her. Almonds and sunshine.
“And second, you didn’t tell me you like the chase. You told me you like the catch.”
He liked all of it with her.
She stepped toward him, the carriage’s exterior lantern illuminating her face.
“It doesn’t matter why I followed you before,” he said as she pulled the carriage door open, leaning in to fiddle with whatever was within. “Tonight I follow you for me.”
She turned to face him at that. “Why?”
The ache was back in his chest. To say goodbye.
And it wasn’t as simple as sailing back to Boston. That play was gone now, the route closed off. And the next move was the only one left if he wished to keep them all safe. Jane and Peter. Sesily.
What used to be as simple as removing himself from his world once more, running, finding a new name. A new city. A new life, had become exponentially more complicated because Coleford knew the truth—that Sesily was on the table.
And that threw every well-laid plan into chaos.
Because Caleb loved her, and he could see that at another time, in another place, he might have had her. He might have lived out his days with this magnificent woman by his side.
He’d spent two years searching for that play. That path. Two years, imagining all the outcomes if he let himself take the one thing he wanted. Sesily.
He’d never been able to find it. And now, with Coleford knowing everything, there was no hope of finding it. That place, that time, that life, this woman … he could not have it. Not without taking her away from everything she loved. From her friends and her family and her world—and the work she did with power and passion to change the world in which they all lived.
Even if he left on the boat to Boston, swearing never to return, he could not keep Sesily safe.
Which was the only goal now.
And so, there was one path.
He would turn himself in.
He’d dashed off a letter there in her rooms, making sure Jane and Peter were cared for. Making sure Fetu and Sera had access to everything on both sides of the Atlantic.
Making sure Sesily had everything she would ever need.
Secured the Duchess of Trevescan’s promise that she would see it delivered.
And he told himself it would be enough. That he could walk into Scotland Yard and give himself up to Thomas Peck without seeing Sesily again, because it would be enough that she was cared for.
And then the duchess had asked, as though they discussed sport or weather or the latest bill in the House of Lords, “Don’t you wish to say goodbye in person?”
As though he could avoid it once it was offered. The chance to see her once more. He wasn’t a fool. He had an opportunity to look into her beautiful face once more … and he took it, heading for the address in an unsavory part of London, wondering the whole time what he w
ould find when he got there. What he would say when he got there.
And somehow, after all he’d known Sesily to get into, he still hadn’t expected the corpse. But he certainly wasn’t going to say goodbye before he understood it.
“What are you up to?”
“Your favorite question.”
“If you ever gave me a straight answer, perhaps I’d find another.”
“In my experience,” she said, stepping back from the carriage and waving the driver forward a few yards. “The more people know what I’m up to, the less likely they are to support it.”
“I cannot imagine why anyone would be unlikely to support you,” he said, drawing closer to her. “This all seems perfectly ordinary.”
She looked over her shoulder, and he resented the shadows of the carriage for the way it cast her face in darkness, making it impossible to see her eyes as she said, “Are you here to help? Or not?”
She stepped into the carriage’s wake, and Caleb’s instincts about the vehicle were proven right. It wasn’t a hack. It wasn’t even an ordinary carriage. It was small and black, and clearly made to move easily through London’s narrow streets, but it had a rear door. Two of them, which Sesily opened on easy, well-oiled hinges.
The kind of conveyance that was designed to move things quickly and quietly.
He moved behind her, so that he, too, could see into the gaping dark space, the blackness within absolutely impenetrable. Instead, he turned to the dark shadows of the buildings facing the river, a mass of shadows that made for excellent hiding places if someone were interested in watching the activities of a wild woman as she dragged a body into the tide.
“Whatever you’re about to do, you know you’re going to be seen by at least a dozen tide pickers.”
“It’s not low tide,” Sesily replied, moving several boxes out of the way in the dark carriage.
“Oh, well. You’re right then. In that case, anyone watching from the shadows will find this endeavor to be absolutely unremarkable.”
“Tell me something,” she said, all casual, as though the moment wasn’t heavy with awareness of what had happened earlier that evening. Of what would come next. “In your experience, do people who lurk in shadows spend a great deal of time involving themselves in the questionable activity of others?”
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