He closed his eyes. “You won’t wonder.” He turned toward the carriage, the lantern light illuminating his resolve, and she wanted to scream. He was giving up. He was giving them up. Before they’d even had a chance.
“Tell me.”
“There is only one solution.”
She knew it. From the moment she left him in her bed, she’d known she was in a race against time, with only a few hours to make ready before Caleb woke and did something noble and foolish and irrevocable. “You’re going to turn yourself in.”
He looked away from her, toward the river, where the tide was rising and with it, an enormous number of boats. Lanterns swinging like floating lights, casting the world on the Thames into golden shadows.
“Since I was seventeen, I have done everything in my power to keep the people I love safe. But Coleford will not stop until he has his revenge. And I cannot protect you. I cannot keep you safe. Not now, not ever.” He looked to her. “You think I have not spent the last eighteen years thinking about how to return to this life? To this world? You think I have not spent the last two years thinking about how I might be able to have you?”
She caught her breath.
“You think I have not woken every night in my empty bed and wished that you were there? By my side? That I have not lain awake every night in that same bed, aching for you? Loving you? Christ, Sesily, I went back to Boston last time, intending it to be for good, because the only way I could stop myself from touching you was to put an ocean between us.”
Her eyes went wide. “I didn’t know.”
“Of course you didn’t. How could you? How could you know that I dreamed of purchasing return passage the moment I got off the fucking boat because six weeks was already too long without seeing your face? Your smile? Your eyes? Because I already missed you teasing me and taunting and running me ragged? And for a year, I tortured myself with it. Because I can’t bear to not be close to you, even as I know you are better off without me.”
“I am not better off without you!”
“You are safe without me!”
The words came on a shout, and Sesily matched it, turning to the water and screaming her own frustrated anger, letting the sound roar around them, reverberating against the buildings, before she turned back to face him. “Who cares about safe? I spend my days plotting the demise of men who take advantage of those weaker than them. It is not safe work. But it is mine. And I choose it.” She paused. “In the last two weeks, I have drugged an earl, broken the nose of a thug thrice, and robbed a viscount—three events where you have been by my side and I have been safe, I might add. I carry a blade in my pocket and my dearest friends are a spy-master, a con artist, and a woman who is extremely fond of explosives. I am recklessness personified.”
“You are not,” he snapped, his tone clipped and full of his own anger. Good. Let him match her. “Every one of those events was the result of timing, training, and planning. Every one of them perfected. You are not reckless and anyone who spends a moment in your presence should see it. Anyone who doesn’t see it, doesn’t deserve to be in your presence.”
He came for her then, setting his hands to her arms and holding her in a firm grip, as though he could will her to his way of thinking. Her heart pounded. “You are not reckless, Sesily Talbot; you are regal. You’re a damn queen.”
Pride burst at the words. Pride, and pleasure, that he saw her. That he understood.
She loved him beyond measure.
She lifted her chin. “I won’t take a demotion. I was a goddess before.”
He pulled her to him then, claiming her mouth in a wild kiss, and she met it, eager and frantic and desperate for him in case this was it … the last time. His arms were around her, lifting her high to sit on the stone wall, and he was licking into her, claiming her mouth with long, lush sweeps, and her hands were in his hair, her fingers knocking his hat off his head, lost forever to the wind off the river.
Neither of them cared.
Sesily was drunk with the feel of him, with the scent of him. With the wildness in him. Hers.
But in moments, the kiss changed. Fading from wild to something else. Something not so frantic and still, no less intense. No less important.
It was goodbye.
She pushed at his shoulders the moment she recognized it, and he released her instantly. “No,” she said. “Caleb.”
He backed away, shaking his head. “I can’t. This is how it ends.”
“No,” she said again, and tears came. Hot and angry and devastating. How could he end it here? Just as it began? “No. I need more time. There is another—”
“There is no other way. This is how it ends. You promised me a boon. In the Trevescan gardens. Another outside The Place.”
She shook her head again. “No.”
“You did, though. And I am calling them in.” He reached for her, his hands coming to her face, tipping her up to face him, and she closed her eyes, not wanting to look at him. He waited for what seemed like an age, until she opened them again, and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “You are so beautiful.”
She hated him, this man she loved.
“This is my request: go home. Or go to Maggie’s, or wherever Sesily Talbot, walking scandal and absolute delight, spends her nights. Live your life.”
The tears came in earnest now, his hands warm and firm at her cheeks, his words like wheels against cobblestones. “Love out loud.”
“No.”
“I’ve had eighteen years of freedom, Sesily. And tonight, I had the woman I love in my arms.”
“No,” she whispered through her tears. “There is another way.”
“Look at me.” She did, his gaze clear and beautiful on hers. “You asked me once why I do not like the dark.”
She closed her eyes at the memory of his response, knowing the full story now. Alone and scared and on the run without his sister. In the darkness.
“It wasn’t just the ship all those years ago, love. It was a lifetime in the darkness. In the shadows. On the run.” He was so handsome. So certain. “It is time for light.”
She gripped his hands at her cheeks, her heart breaking.
“There is no other way. This is how it ends. With me loving you more than I ever imagined possible. And you walking away.”
“Fuck your boon,” she said, the words without heat. “I renege.”
“You can’t,” he said. “I need this. I need to know you’re safe. Jane. Peter. Sera. Fetu. All of you.”
“Caleb, if you do this … they will hang you.”
Instead, he leaned in and kissed her, one last time. Slow and sweet, like they had a lifetime together. Like they’d had a lifetime together.
And he said the words she’d dreamed of him saying for two years.
Except, he said them all wrong.
“I love you, Sesily Talbot.”
Detective Inspector Thomas Peck was having a bad day. It had begun with the knock at the door of his residence, a modest flat in Holborn let from a landlady who did not care for disturbances before breakfast or after tea, which was a particular challenge when her tenant was a detective inspector at Scotland Yard. When things went wrong at Whitehall, sergeants were sent round to rouse Peck. That was simply how it went.
That morning, after making his apologies to Mrs. Edwards, who was quick to remind him that she had not yet had her breakfast, he exited the building to find that the sergeant had been instructed to wait, which was the detective inspector’s first clue that his day was going to go sideways, and quickly.
Which it had, the moment he arrived at No. 4 Whitehall Place, to discover that Caleb Calhoun had turned himself in for murder. And not just any murder. The murder of Mr. Bernard Palmer, the only son and heir of the Viscount Coleford.
Which was a surprise to everyone, as there was no record of the son and heir of the Viscount Coleford being murdered.
Peck listened patiently to the American, asking a handful of pointed questions before finally lea
ning back in his chair, rubbing a hand over his smooth, dark beard, and saying, “You’re turning yourself in for a murder committed eighteen years ago.”
Calhoun looked annoyed. “That’s what I’ve been saying, yes.”
“And you’re doing it because …”
“Because I did it.”
Peck’s gaze narrowed on the other man, who in different circumstances might have been a friend. “Scotland Yard didn’t even exist when this happened.”
Caleb paused. “I assume that might cause a problem.”
“Indeed. Largely, that I’m going to have to summon the viscount and half of Parliament to dig up the protocol on decades-old murders, and that’s going to take some time.”
Caleb nodded. “I shall wait.”
Peck watched Calhoun for a long moment, feeling no small amount as though something was happening just outside his understanding. “We’ve known each other for what, two years?”
Caleb nodded. “Sounds right.”
“And you’ve been a decent bloke. Helped once or twice. Just last week, you identified three of The Bully Boys who tossed over The Place. I’ve got two of them in custody.”
“That’s good news.”
Peck grunted. “And now you’re here, in my office, confessing to a case in which Scotland Yard has taken no interest.”
“I would think you’d have a bit of interest in the murder of an aristocratic heir.”
“I’ll be honest, mate, I didn’t even know this particular aristocratic heir existed until now.”
Certain that there was more to the story than Calhoun had shared, Peck had found him a bench in one of the overnight cells that had just been cleared of the drunks from the evening before. He’d returned to his office to pen a missive to the Viscount Coleford—truly there was nothing worse than a day that required interacting with the aristocracy.
He’d barely set pen to paper when the second knock of the day came at his door, equally unwelcome.
Over the next ten hours, there would be fourteen knocks at the door—each one revealing a sergeant on duty, each one heralding the arrival of a lady, there to report a crime.
Fourteen women from some of the most powerful families in London—many titled, most rich, all powerful in their own way, and not one of them willing to speak to anyone but Detective Inspector Peck.
Mrs. Mark Landry came to file a complaint about foul language on the public horse trails in Hyde Park—a complaint Peck found odd, considering he’d met Mr. Mark Landry once three years earlier, and the man had cursed no fewer than a dozen times in as many minutes.
Three duchesses appeared in succession, which was more duchesses than Peck had met in a lifetime. The Duchess of Haven began the parade, reporting a stolen reticule. She’d left it on a bench outside Gunter’s Tea Shop six days earlier.
The Duchess of Warnick came with information about a carriage accident in Regent Street, Tuesday, one week earlier. After Peck had spent a half an hour looking for evidence that this particular accident had occurred, she remembered that, no, it must have been Wednesday.
The Duchess of Trevescan arrived to report a missing diamond necklace. She’d left it in the bed of her lover, you see, but couldn’t possibly name him—think of the scandal.
The Marchioness of Eversley reported three books shoplifted from the bookstore she owned with her husband. Mrs. Felicity Culm of Covent Garden was bereft over her missing carriage blanket. Mrs. Henrietta Whittington arrived with her to file a report on a missing dog—a stray from the docks who hadn’t come round for his morning offal three days running.
After insisting that he call her Nora—something he absolutely would never do—Lady Eleanora Madewell, daughter to some duke, filed a wildly elaborate report about a carriage wheel that had been stolen, only to return ten minutes later, not two minutes after he’d completed the damn paperwork, to report that no, in fact, no wheel had been stolen after all.
Maggie O’Tiernen even turned up, which Peck had hoped was something … until it turned out that she was reporting an empty ale keg thieved from the alleyway behind The Place the night before.
And so it went, one woman after another, for a full day, and not one of the crimes a worthy report. Over the hours, Peck had attempted to send the missive to Coleford a half dozen times, but without fail, the moment he began to write, another knock would come.
Until, finally, knock number fifteen.
“No more,” he said, standing up from his desk and marching across his office. “I’ve honest work to do. I don’t have time for women,” he called out, pulling open the door.
There was no sergeant on the other side.
Instead, there was a woman. Short and plump with a pretty round face, enormous dark eyes, and a wild mane of black hair. He recognized her instantly. Lady Imogen Loveless, the youngest child and only daughter of a baron or earl or something. More importantly, she was a regular frequenter of The Place, and had been inside when The Bully Boys tossed it over the week earlier.
He remembered her. She was not the type of woman one forgot.
He looked out into the empty hallway. “How did you get here?”
“You’ve terrible security,” she said, happily.
“I do not,” he replied.
She shrugged. “You’re right. I was escorted direct to your door by a handsome and now invisible policeman.”
He considered her for a long moment, noting her deep purple cloak and the large carpetbag in one gloved hand.
“Are you taking up residence, my lady?”
“I like to be prepared.” With a nod into his office, she said, “May I?”
He followed her gaze to his desk, piled high with files and paper—much of which had accumulated that day—and said, “I don’t have—”
“Time for women,” she finished for him. “Yes. So you said.”
Well. Now he felt like an ass. He stepped back from the door and waved her in. “How may I help you, ma’am?”
She entered and approached the desk, setting her bag at her feet and considering the piles of folders. “You’ve a great deal of work here.”
“Yes. It’s been a busy day,” he said, rounding the desk to put it between them. Feeling somehow as though it was important to keep a distance from her. “May I help you?”
She looked up at that and smiled, and he was struck again by how pretty she was. He recalled her giving him a thorough once-over at The Place. What had she called him? Strapping?
Not that it mattered.
“You may, in fact.”
“You are here to file a police report.”
She looked at him as though he was mad. “Good God, no. I find there’s rarely a need to involve the police when one can handle a problem oneself. You tend to overcomplicate everything.” She sat. Which meant he could sit. But he didn’t want to sit. He wanted this woman out of his office. He had work to do. Real work. “Please, Detective Inspector. You needn’t stand on my account.”
He sat, annoyed at the long history of chivalry that made it impossible for him to boot this woman from his office. And the long history of aristocracy that made it very impossible for him to boot this woman from his office.
“Now,” she said, folding her hands primly in her lap, which shouldn’t have amused him as it did, but truly the woman did not strike him as at all prim. “I am here because you have Caleb Calhoun in custody, and I think you should release him.”
Well. He wasn’t expecting that.
“I beg your pardon, Lady Imogen.” He leaned in. “How would you know who I have in custody?”
She sighed and picked at a little piece of lint on her skirt. “Detective Inspector Peck, you have Caleb Calhoun in your holding cell one floor below us. You’ve had him there for just over …” She pulled a tiny watch chain from beneath the cuff of her frock. “Ten hours. He arrived this morning just after dawn and confessed to the murder of Bernard Palmer, the only son and heir of the Viscount Coleford. After waiting a surprising length of time
for you to arrive, I might add.”
“I arrived within the hour of being apprised of the situation, ma’am.” Not that he owed her the clarification.
She did not seem interested in it. “Mr. Calhoun gave his confession at half-eight, at which point you plonked him in a holding cell. And you’ve been dragging your feet on the situation all day, because you think there is something strange about it.” She looked up, her wide eyes finding his. “It’s now half-six. That’s ten hours.”
Well, there absolutely was something strange about it now.
If Lady Imogen Loveless had stripped nude in his office and stretched herself across his desk, Peck could not have been more surprised. It was only fifteen years of training as a Bow Street Runner and Scotland Yardsman that kept him from falling directly out of the chair he instead leaned back in, before tenting his fingers at his lips.
She met his eyes again.
The woman wasn’t pretty; she was mayhem.
“Now that we all agree on the facts,” she added, as though it was a perfectly ordinary conversation, “I believe you should let him go.”
“Why?”
“Because Viscount Coleford’s heir deserved killing.”
Peck exhaled on a shocked laugh. “Ma’am … that’s not how it works.”
A pause, and then, “Well. Certainly you can admire the effort.” While he considered the possibility that she was, in fact, mad, the lady leaned forward and reached down to the bag at her feet. He couldn’t see what was inside for the angle of the desk, but after a moment’s rifling, she brandished a folder.
He narrowed his gaze on it, light blue, with an indigo bell painted on it.
“I brought you a gift.”
“I don’t want a gift.”
“Are you sure? You could consider it an olive branch.”
“For what?”
She stood and set it atop one of the many piles on his desk. “My ruining your day.”
“Alright. That’s enough, then.” He’d had enough of this woman, who clearly delighted in leaving chaos in her wake. He stood and came around the desk, pausing while she collected her carpetbag, and he found himself wondering what was inside.
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