His brows rose. “Our others? Or Havistock’s others?”

  She flashed a small secret smile. “Our others. Though I am surprised you claim us.”

  “If I am allowed,” he said. “I’ve never had a crew.”

  With a serious nod she said, “You may try mine on for size.”

  They stood there, wrapped in each other, in the certainty that something had happened between them—something that could not be changed. Whatever Miss Frampton and the Duke of Clayborn had been five days earlier was not what they were in that moment.

  Henry marveled at the revelation, at the shift.

  At the promise of what it might mean.

  There was a wide world of worry beyond these walls. Jack and Helene and The Bully Boys and Havistock and Adelaide’s gang of women—there were dangers around every corner. But there, in that room, the sun rose and chased it all away, leaving only the two of them.

  For a little longer.

  She shifted in his arms, pulling away to fetch her spectacles, cheeks blazing. He understood immediately—his strong, brilliant, solitary Adelaide, who needed nothing but her wits, had liked being held.

  Which worked out very well, as there was nothing Henry liked so well as holding her.

  Still, he resisted the temptation to pull her close again. To return to the bed with her in tow. He might not have the strength to make love to her, but he certainly had enough of it to hold her for a while.

  She tucked an errant lock of hair behind one of her ears, blazing red, and the knowledge that whatever she was thinking had made her blush to her ears made Henry rethink his assessment of his strength for all sorts of things.

  He wondered where else she blushed.

  Vowed to find out.

  Too soon, however, Adelaide regained her composure, and it was clear she had other plans. Turning away, she arranged the small table next to the washbasin and, with a mumbled excuse about food and fresh water, hurried out of the room, leaving him to his ablutions.

  As he washed, he considered his wounds—unwrapping the bandage around his torso, revealing the deep scratch across his belly ending with two inches of stitches at his side. Billy’s handiwork, he assumed, along with most of the yellowing bruises he could see peppered across his ribs.

  Without a mirror, he could not see the rest—but his face was tight with what could only be healing wounds, and he’d most definitely taken a facer in the fight.

  It was embarrassing, really. All he could hope was that he’d done a fair amount of damage himself.

  She returned with a tray, entering with quiet purpose that he suspected she employed to remain unnoticed. Impossible. Refusing to waste precious moments that could be spent noticing her, he took his time drying his face and chest—he’d been bare to the waist in bed—and watched as she busied herself around the room, doing her best not to look at him, poking at the fire in the hearth, pouring water into a glass, straightening his pillows and sheets, and turning down the bed carefully.

  When that task was complete, she straightened, her back to him, and he found he was no longer amenable to not seeing her face.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  She did not turn. “You’re welcome.”

  “Adelaide?”

  Her spine could not get straighter. “Yes?”

  “Am I so hideous that you cannot stomach looking at me?”

  She spun toward him instantly. “What?”

  Before he could reply, her eyes went wide, taking in the whole of him. “You unwrapped your bandages!”

  She was across the room instantly, her hands on him even as she snatched up clean rolls of linen to repair the work he’d destroyed. “If I’d known this was all it took,” he said, softly, unable to look away from her, “I would have taken the bandages off immediately upon waking.”

  “You can’t simply . . . take them off. You’ve a broken rib.”

  He nodded. “More than one, I think.”

  There was a minuscule pause in her ministrations as the words settled. “That doesn’t seem like something a toff would know.”

  “Perhaps I’m not like other toffs.”

  She slid a look up at him. “You forget, Duke, I’ve spent a great deal of time in ballrooms with you.”

  “Watching me?” he said.

  She returned her attention to his bandages. “Lift.”

  “Your ears are turning red, Adelaide.”

  Her head snapped up. “What?” One hand went to the tip of one of those perfect ears. “I don’t know what that means.”

  “In card games, I believe that’s called a tell.”

  She looked away. “Tell me why you know about broken ribs.”

  “Admit you watched me in ballrooms.”

  “I watch everyone in ballrooms,” she replied.

  “Yes, but I’m asking about me, specifically.”

  “I would not take it as a compliment,” Adelaide said. “I spent a fair amount of time watching you and imagining what it would be like to take you down.”

  “Mmm,” he said. “And look where we’ve landed—you nursing me back to health.”

  She couldn’t hide her smile. “A task that would be made easier if you did not remove your bandages.”

  “Ah, but then how would I ensure you would touch me?”

  He expected her to blush and bluster. He did not expect her to look up at him through her pretty dark lashes like an absolute goddess and say, “You could try asking nicely.” He exhaled harshly at the words, loving them almost as much as he loved the wicked smile on her lips when she realized how she’d impacted him. “Sit, please.”

  He did as he was told, lowering himself to the edge of the bed, and refusing to lie down. “To confirm, you do watch me in ballrooms.”

  She rolled her eyes, dropping into the chair in front of him. “Yes. Fine. I watch you.”

  Why did that make him want to crow with pride?

  “Now tell me why you know about broken ribs,” she added.

  “Is everything with you a trade? I answer one question, you answer the next?”

  “Information is the most valuable commodity there is, Your Grace. It brings power and safety and a secure future.”

  “You have all those things.”

  She shook her head. “No woman ever really has those things. At best, she has approximations of them.”

  “Adelaide Frampton, I promise you this—as long as I breathe, I shall keep you safe and secure.” Her eyes flew to his, surprise and something like heat in them. He smiled. “You and your gang of women bring the power yourselves.”

  Her pretty lips went slack.

  Good. Let her sit with that while he answered her question. “I told you that I fought for six years at school. What I did not tell you was that I did not fight in school.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I was an angry boy of fourteen, looking for somewhere to put my fist that wasn’t my father’s face.”

  Her brows rose, but she did not speak.

  “Would you believe I was not the only boy at Eton who was interested in finding such a location?”

  She gave a little laugh. “I would, indeed. Though I would argue you would have all done the globe a great service if you’d found the courage to deliver facers to the men of the aristocracy.”

  He matched her smile with his own. “My father wasn’t a bad man. He was good. And kind.”

  “So, what, you were simply fourteen and angry?”

  “That’s more than enough reason for many fourteen-year-old boys, but no . . . He had kept a secret from me.” He met her gaze. “Do you know it?”

  She shook her head. “I do not.”

  He believed her. “But you wish to.”

  “Of course I wish to.”

  Why? Because information was currency? Or because she wanted to keep his secrets with hers?

  “But more importantly,” she added, unaware of his thoughts, “would you tell me?”

  Maybe. But not then. “No.”

  She smiled. “I have no difficulty imagining that you think this secret was big enough to send you on a six-year underground fighting ring spree. Tell me the rest of the story.”

  “I was furious. I enjoyed putting my fists into other boys’ faces in order to make the anger less . . .”

  “Angry?” she helped.

  He nodded. “While we certainly didn’t fight with all the gentlemen’s rules of boxing, we had a fairly decent set of rules that kept bruises from faces—”

  “And noses from breaking?”

  “And that,” he said, enjoying her more than he should. “How does my nose look, by the way?”

  She made a show of adjusting her spectacles and peering at it. “Like it hurts.”

  It did, but he’d never admit it. “I’ll tell you this—Billy had a damn fine right cross.”

  “Don’t fret, Duke. You did alright.”

  In the wake of the words, Henry recalled the battle, which came in little snippets and then all at once, with a full accounting of what had happened. “What happened to him? Danny?”

  She met his gaze, and he recognized the flash of shame there—wanted it gone. Banished forever. She shook her head. “I sent him back to Lambeth.”

  She wasn’t ready to trust him, and Henry wanted to snarl in frustration. He’d clung to every secret, every bit of information. Patchworked it together. But there still wasn’t enough.

  Who was Adelaide Frampton?

  Not Frampton.

  The words whispered through him as he replayed the scene in his mind, turning it over and over, trying to recall every moment. Every word.

  You’ll always be Lambeth, Addie Trumbull. Clayborn’s gaze went wide, things coming together. Trumbull, like Alfie Trumbull.

  Suddenly, everything began to make sense.

  Alfie Trumbull was the leader of The Bully Boys. And Adelaide—

  The stories she told. The wedding for partnership. The boys on the bridge. Her father, the king. Her comfort in that South Bank warehouse, on those docks battling those South Bank bruisers, sparring with that Lambeth thug.

  She wasn’t simply the Matchbreaker, hunted by criminals hired by Mayfair monsters. She was daughter of the king of The Bully Boys, a South Bank princess, left to her own devices when she’d escaped her father. How had he simply let her leave? If she was Henry’s, he’d do all he could to keep her. To prize her. To love her.

  And Alfie Trumbull had done the opposite. He’d let her go, then sent Danny to fetch her back for punishment.

  Danny. The man had been so familiar with her. There’d been something there. “Who is he to you?”

  Her throat worked, and he willed her to speak, holding back what he suspected. What he knew.

  Trust me.

  “He is my father’s right hand.”

  He waited for a long moment, wanting to ask a thousand questions. Finally, he let it go. “Is there a mirror?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  His brows rose. “That bad, is it?”

  She smiled. “You shall mend.”

  “Show me.”

  While she considered the request, Adelaide worried the edge of her lower lip, and Henry resisted the urge to lean in and kiss her. Finally, she nodded, turning away to her bag, and after a lengthy search within, produced a pocket mirror, smaller than his palm.

  It reflected well enough, however, and he grimaced at the wicked bruising where Billy had landed a decent blow. “Christ. That’s hideous.”

  “Shh,” she said, and he found he liked the little laugh in her words.

  He matched her smile. “All I can hope is that he looks worse than I do.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he does,” she said. “Do not fret. In no time, the ladies of London will titter and swoon to see the stern Duke of Clayborn returned with a handsome bump in his nose.”

  He lowered the looking glass, keenly aware of how fully unhandsome the bruising was. “Is that what women dream of? Broken bones?”

  “It’s not the broken bone. It’s the idea that you might have gotten it—” She stopped as quickly as she’d started.

  He tilted his head. “Go on.”

  She shook her head.

  He extended the mirror to her, and when she reached for it, pulled her close, to stand between his thighs. “Tell me. Tell me the secret ways of women.”

  She laughed at the words, and reached out to push a lock of his hair behind his ear, almost absently, as though she didn’t even know she was doing it. The soft stroke of her fingertips along his temple set fire coursing through him, aching for that stroke in other places.

  “It’s just . . . we wonder where the nose was broken. Under which circumstances. Were you hero of the play? Or villain? And if you were hero . . . were you fighting for another?”

  The last question faded away, until it was more breath than sound.

  He met her eyes. “I was.”

  She nodded. “That break . . . it’s . . .”

  Her hands were on his shoulders now, soft and warm, her touch a lick of temptation. She wasn’t moving, but God, he wanted her to. “What is it, Adelaide?”

  “It’s not hideous,” she said. “It’s not. It’s . . .”

  He would give his entire fortune for her to finish that sentence. He ran his hands over her sides, tracing over her curves, memorizing the feel of her. The shape of her. The way her breath came ragged in her chest like it betrayed her. “Tell me.”

  “It’s mine.”

  Yes. He was hers.

  He would soon sort out how to make her his, but this was a start.

  She was close now, and he was wrapped in the scent of her—the mint of her breath and that beautiful, rich rosemary that he knew now was the product of her caretaking.

  “You touched me,” he said softly, his lips so close to hers, testing both their sanity.

  Her fingers flexed on his shoulders. “Yes.”

  “I was at your mercy.”

  Her eyes found his, the dark centers of them blown out with excitement and something he identified instantly—desire. “You were.”

  “You noticed the places I needed you. You rubbed salve on my wounds and placed cool cloths on my brow.”

  She nodded, the movement shaky and perfect.

  “Tell me, Adelaide Frampton, who has noticed me in ballrooms for years . . . did you notice me then? Here? The parts that were not harmed?”

  She closed her eyes, and triumph consumed him. She did not wish to admit the truth—the taboo of it.

  He wanted every word.

  “Tell me,” he commanded.

  “I noticed.”

  He nodded. “Good. And did you want to touch?”

  “Yes.” He swore harshly at the confession and her eyes flew open. “I’m . . . sorry.”

  “No.” The word came harsh and firm. “Don’t apologize for it. Don’t ever apologize for wanting to touch me. You may touch me whenever you like. Wherever you like. It is only that I find myself in a strange predicament.”

  “How?”

  He pulled her close and set his forehead to hers, breathing her in. Letting her fill him up. “Somehow . . . I am jealous.”

  “Of whom?”

  “Of myself, because I do not remember it.”

  She let out a little relieved laugh. “You will require additional salve soon enough, Your Grace. And I hope very much you will be conscious for it.”

  The words—the promise in them—made him instantly hard. Apparently, he’d had plenty of rest. It would take more than a knife to the side and a few broken ribs for him to stop wanting this beautiful woman in his arms. In his bed. In his life. “Adelaide?”

  “Yes.” Christ. She would be his undoing. The word should have been a curious reply. Should have been punctuated with a question mark. But instead, it came out breathless and aching, and when it reached him, it was full of all the things he wanted to do to her.

  How was he to resist kissing her? He licked into her mouth, sucking on the full, pretty swell of her bottom lip until she whimpered her pleasure. Good. He wanted her aching. Christ, she was sweet and soft and warm, and the way she leaned into him, her fingers sliding into his hair as her tongue met his . . . She was perfect.

  The kiss went on and on, until temptation had them both gasping for air, and Henry released her for a heartbeat, ready to pull her down and have his way with her. He couldn’t look away from her, her hooded eyes, her pink cheeks, her mouth, full with the raw pleasure of their kiss. And there, faint on her skin, the scrape of five days of beard.

  He stroked a thumb over her skin, hating the marks on her. “I hurt you.”

  She shook her head, her hands coming to his face, her nails scratching over his beard. “I don’t even feel it.”

  “You will,” he said, leaning in for another kiss, this one soft and lingering and as gentle as he could make it. Not enough. “And so, first things first.”

  That furrow was back, and he couldn’t stop himself from leaning up to kiss it smooth. “I require a shave.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Adelaide was known for steady nerves.

  She had been trained as a pickpocket and tested on the streets of London, and she was notoriously unflappable, which made her an ideal partner in criminal enterprise and information gathering.

  But that morning, as Henry sat on the edge of the bed, newly conscious and impossibly handsome, smiling at her and teasing her and asking her questions that set her aflame with a heady combination of embarrassment and desire, she was unsteady.

  Unsteady, and grateful for the way he caught her and pulled her close and gave her something to cling to—his firm, warm flesh. His soft hair. Those lips she’d once thought were unyielding but now, as he kissed her, were a tempting reminder that he was alive, and not simply alive, but hers for whatever time they had left—until the world returned and he remembered that Adelaide was an imposter, playing at being a part of his world. Born and bred on the South Bank—no kind of woman for the impeccable Duke of Clayborn.

  But today, here, in the middle of nowhere, as the sun rose over the countryside, she let herself imagine what it might be if they were a different kind of people—the kind who lived in a little house on a hill, surrounded by farmland, where they woke with the dawn and spent their days with each other—full of each other.