Adelaide watched until the body slumped over, then turned her attention to Clayborn. “Impressive.”

  She could not see his eyes in the afternoon shadows, but she could feel his gaze on her as he studied her before speaking . . . the words so even and deep one would never know he’d been in an alleyway brawl moments earlier. “You’re welcome.”

  Ever the arrogant bastard. Her gaze narrowed on him. “Was I to have thanked you?”

  “Yes.” A muscle flickered in his jaw as he stepped over one of his foes, his movements long and graceful. Not that Adelaide noticed. At all.

  “For what?”

  He waved at the ground. “Is it unclear?”

  She considered the men writhing at his feet. “Ah, I am to thank you for your tribute? As though you are a cat and you’ve delivered a fat rat to my kitchen door?”

  “I thought you might thank me for saving your pretty—”

  Her eyes went wide as he cut himself off. “Why, Your Grace, were you about to use foul language?”

  He scowled at her. “I confess, you tempt me.”

  She’d like to tempt him.

  Now where had that come from?

  He extended a hand toward her. “My box, please.”

  So it was a box. Of course it was. She looked down at it, turning it over in her hands as she backed toward the exit to the alleyway, stepping gingerly over the prone body of her own opponent, putting distance between them. “What’s in it?”

  His lips flattened into a thin line and she ignored the way she noticed. “Nothing of import.”

  “Alfie Trumbull thought it was important enough to steal it.”

  “Alfie Trumbull thought it was worth enough money to steal it.”

  Except Alfie didn’t like robbery; he didn’t think it was worth the risk compared to broader, more lucrative crimes. So whatever was in this box, it was worth money. And a great deal of money if her father had risked stealing it from a duke.

  Even if it wasn’t worth money, it had brought a duke to Lambeth, so whatever was inside was a secret worth having.

  As Adelaide had made a life of trading in powerful men’s secrets, and was currently very interested in secrets adjacent to this particular powerful man, she wasn’t about to give this one up easily. She tossed Clayborn a crooked smile. “Those are the same thing on the South Bank, Duke. But here we play by simple rules. She who finds, keeps.”

  With that, she ran again, heading from the alleyway at a clip—aiming for the docks.

  Of course, he followed. “It’s private,” he ground out as he kept pace with her, the words tortured from him, as though he resented having to speak them. Which of course he would—this was not a man who would deign to share with someone as common as Adelaide.

  “That much is clear, or you wouldn’t be skulking about a well-guarded warehouse playing fancy dress.” She slid him a look. “You can’t possibly have thought you wouldn’t be noticed.”

  He ran a hand over his beard. “Forgive me if I am not as deft at disguise as you.” He sent a cool look over her from head to toe, though Adelaide did not feel so cool under his scrutiny. “You thought you could simply walk in there, thieve from the head of one of London’s most powerful gangs, and walk out?”

  “In fact, I was doing just that until you sent the entire afternoon sideways.”

  “I was protecting you!” he growled, matching her annoyance with his own.

  Something thrummed through her at the words, stern and direct, and she found herself wondering when she’d last encountered a man’s protective instincts. In her experience, men left her to her own devices. She wasn’t sure how the alternative felt, honestly. Strange. Warm.

  Not that she would ever admit it. “Really? And how’s that gone? Protecting me?”

  “Did you fail to notice that I brought down several men big as houses? Or do you require new spectacles?”

  Adelaide adjusted the eyewear in question higher upon her nose and made a right turn, then a quick left, sliding into another alleyway. “My eyesight is impeccable.” She was tiring. Skirts were heavy and unwieldy—yet another way the world kept women back. One hand fell to her waist, where wide silk ribbons tucked in at her waist.

  He followed, keeping pace with ease. “And what—you were going to take on a warehouse full of bruisers after stealing from them?” He nodded to the cube in the crook of her elbow. “Poor choice of weapon.”

  She had to get away from him. He saw too much. Asked too much. She should give him the box and cut him loose—it was what he wanted, and it wasn’t as though she needed it. She’d only taken it because it intrigued her.

  The problem was, now that she knew it belonged to him, it intrigued her even more.

  Which was as irritating as he was, frankly. She tucked the box under her arm and increased her speed. “A girl must make do in this modern age. So sorry, Duke, but I have somewhere to be, and I do not have time for . . . you.”

  With a tug, she pulled the final fastening at the waist of her drab, grey skirts, the fabric flying out behind her, revealing a pair of slim navy trousers adorned with a thigh holster for her blade and tall leather boots, releasing her to unencumbered speed.

  He made a sound of utter surprise behind her, and she dearly wished she could turn to see the shock on his stern face. Resisting the urge, Adelaide slipped into the narrow gap ahead, grateful for the element of surprise and the additional speed the loss of her skirts had provided . . . she had gained enough ground to topple a pile of barrels and leave her gentleman scoundrel behind.

  Not her gentleman scoundrel. She wanted nothing to do with him.

  His curse followed her—but he did not.

  Triumphant, Adelaide burst from the dim light into the late afternoon sun of the Thames hard at work, tide high and packed with boats and people hurrying to and fro to complete their work before dark. She looked upriver, relieved. She’d make her appointment after all.

  She slowed her pace, removing her coat and cap and tossing them behind a pile of wood crates, sliding her snuffbox and Alfie’s book into her trouser pockets before detaching a peaked cap from where it had been pinned at her waist. Pulling the brim low over her eyes, she lowered her hips and broadened her stride. The woman in the drab dress was gone, replaced by an ordinary dockworker, tall and slim and headed straight for the riverbank, invisible again.

  She leapt down from the riverbank onto the nearest barge—heavy and piled high with coal. A shout sounded—surprise from one of the men on the far end of the boat, but Adelaide was already gone, leaping down to the next barge, piled high with sacks of mortar.

  There wasn’t time for any of this. No time for being chased by Bully Boys. Certainly no time for thinking about sharp, angled jaws and dukes who leapt into the fray.

  No time for distracting men who caused the fray.

  Another leap. Another boat, this one already half empty of its cargo. There was no traffic like the traffic on the Thames at high tide. No better place to disappear, either. Adelaide had learned that young.

  She tucked herself behind a high tower of crates and consulted her watch before looking upriver.

  The flat-bottomed barge bobbed and swayed as someone landed on the deck.

  Adelaide stilled, slipping her blade from the strap at her thigh and setting her cargo to the ground. Dammit. For a lifetime, she’d been able to disappear in a crowd, and suddenly, the skill was gone.

  The Duke of Clayborn had somehow ruined it—as though, in seeing her, he’d made it so the rest of the world could, too.

  She adjusted her grip on her knife and listened, trying to hear her pursuer’s heavy steps over the sounds of the working river.

  Peeked around the edge of the crates.

  “Dammit,” she muttered to herself before narrowing her gaze on him, tall and strong and not remotely worse for wear considering he’d been dockside brawling for the last three quarters of an hour. “You’ve missed the turn for Westminster, Duke.”

  “Mmm,” he said, the noise low in his throat and rather delicious, if Adelaide were telling the truth. She shouldn’t like it. He was the Duke of Clayborn. She’d spent a year not liking him.

  He stepped into her hiding place and collected the cube at her feet. “Stealing is a crime.”

  “Are you going to call the magistrate?”

  “No,” he said, softly. “But what did you intend to steal?”

  He was close enough to touch, and Adelaide knew she should step away from him. Even if he wasn’t a duke, it was still daylight and half the Thames could see.

  No one on the Thames was watching.

  “Who says I was stealing anything?”

  There was something about him. About this. Something wild and unfettered and exciting . . . and dangerous. He stepped closer, his words low and dark as he continued, “You don’t have to admit it. I know a thief when I see one.” He reached for her, and she held her breath, wondering where he’d touch her. What the leather of his glove would feel like on her skin.

  Except he didn’t touch her skin. Instead, he said, softly, “Red.”

  For a moment she didn’t understand, and then she felt a tug at her temple, where a lock of her hair had escaped. She reached up, knocking his hand away and pushing it behind her ear.

  He watched the movements, his gaze unreadable, and Adelaide went hot with his discovery and the sudden realization that he was close and warm and he smelled fresh, like citrus—a scent that did not come with the South Bank.

  It was not a scent for Adelaide.

  Adelaide Frampton was a woman for working days, and she had a keen understanding of what that meant. Of what she might hope to claim. This man was not for her, which made him a wicked temptation, like sweets and silks and purses and pocket watches. Like all of them put together. Too much for a thief to resist.

  So she tilted her face up to his and stole him. For a moment. A heartbeat.

  Intending to give him back.

  Except it wasn’t a heartbeat. Oh, it might have been when he froze, stiffening the moment her lips touched his. He sucked in a breath—her breath—and she wondered if she’d made a mistake. Wondered if he might clasp her by the arms and push her away.

  She wouldn’t have been surprised. Kissing in full view of London was not for Adelaide Frampton, unnoticeable plain Jane. Nor was it for Addie Trumbull, unimaginable legend.

  Except . . .

  When he set one hand to her—holding tight to the wooden cube with the other—he didn’t push her away. Oh, for a moment she felt the hesitation in his grasp, as though he considered it. But then . . . he took over.

  His strong arm came around her back, securing her against him as he lifted a hand to her face, gloved thumb brushing along the line of her jaw, then stroking up over her cheek as he took her in hand, tilting her to gain better access to her mouth.

  Suddenly, it seemed very much that he was the thief and she the prize.

  And there, on the banks of the River Thames, for all of working London to see, Adelaide let him thieve, giving herself up to this kiss she had started and he had joined—like none she’d ever experienced.

  This stern, unyielding man kissed like a practiced and superior scoundrel.

  Not that Adelaide complained.

  Instead, she pressed closer, one hand coming to his chest, warm and broader than it seemed in the waistcoat and shirtsleeves he wore. She sighed at the feel of his breath. At the heavy scruff of beard that roughened his sharp jawline. At his lips, delivering on the temptation they’d promised.

  He took advantage of that sigh, thankfully, stroking his tongue over her open lips, sucking her bottom lip between his own, worrying it with his teeth before soothing it with his tongue and licking into her—just once, like he knew he shouldn’t. Like he couldn’t resist.

  Just as Adelaide knew she shouldn’t.

  Just as Adelaide couldn’t resist.

  Daylight be damned; docks be damned; duke be damned.

  A bell rang in the distance.

  Damn.

  She pulled away at the sound, and a growl of displeasure sounded deep in his chest as he chased her lips for a heartbeat, as though her retreat had been a mistake.

  It certainly felt like one.

  Because suddenly he did not seem so much a duke.

  Perhaps it was the sunset—the way the light had gilded the entire river, stealing away reality and leaving nothing but this man, who was somehow far beyond the starched, unpleasant duke. Tall and impossibly handsome and kissed like he never intended to stop.

  Which would have been more than fine with her.

  Adelaide adjusted her spectacles, knocked askew by their embrace, and wondered if she was going mad, because it was on the tip of her tongue to suggest he not stop, when he said, “I shouldn’t have done that.”

  The light shifted, and reality returned along with the unpleasant confirmation of what Adelaide had always known. That she was Adelaide Frampton, and he was the Duke of Clayborn, and whatever this was . . . it was an enormous mistake. For both of them. One that, if discovered by Mayfair, would ruin more than Adelaide’s prospects for dinner invitations.

  Luckily, she had a clear path to keeping the man quiet.

  She ran her fingertips over his lips, liking the way his eyes closed at the touch, his dark lashes impossibly long. “No,” she said softly, almost sad. “You shouldn’t have.” And then she stepped from his embrace, her hand running along the corded muscles of his forearm to the wooden curiosity in his hands—the one she’d already stolen and was therefore by rights hers.

  Taking advantage of his surprise, she reclaimed it and turned for the edge of the barge, the dark, churning waters of the Thames threatening several yards below—even without skirts, the river would take her away.

  “What—” His question faded into a harsh shout as she leapt. “No! Adelaide!”

  She landed on the deck of the small riverboat as he shouted the last. The broad-shouldered man at the helm of her new conveyance pushed off from the barge with a long pole, putting too much river between the two vessels for anyone to follow her.

  Even a man with legs as long as Clayborn’s.

  She nodded her thanks to the captain of the boat and he tipped his hat in her direction. Neither spoke the other’s name. Too many watchful gazes on the river.

  And one, in particular, above.

  He’d called her Adelaide.

  Adelaide dipped under the canopy that shielded the rest of the boat from the world at large. It took all she had to resist looking back. To keep from confirming that he watched.

  To feel his keen focus once more.

  It was nice to be noticed.

  Chapter Two

  Adelaide ducked into the dimly lit cabin of the small riverboat that appeared to all the world as though it were going about small riverboat business that afternoon: delivering coal, or grain, or some other bit of ordinary cargo. From the outside, there was no possibility that the tiny vessel would house a single interesting thing, let alone four of them.

  As the day had already revealed, however, appearances were deceiving.

  Inside, there was no pile of cargo on its way to Richmond. No coal to be delivered to the palatial manor houses east of the city. No packages to be offloaded on the London docks.

  Instead, the boat boasted a lavishly appointed room lined with privacy screens to ensure that no one would see the silks and satins that hung on the walls, or impressive furniture and lush pillows that filled the space, making it an ideal conveyance to move silently and unnoticed through the city, without anyone realizing that four of London’s most powerful women were within.

  Of course, most of London wouldn’t acknowledge that the four women in question were powerful to begin with, and the women in question had no intention of correcting them.

  Low expectations were far better cover for secrecy.

  “Impeccable timing, as always,” Adelaide said, extracting the notebook she’d swiped from The Bully Boys from her pockets. She set it on the low table before dropping onto a settee just inside the door to the cabin before accepting a cup of tea from Lady Sesily Calhoun, her friend and confidante—and wife to the captain of the vessel.

  “Are you sure about the timing?” Sesily asked with a casual air.

  Adelaide drank. “That it was impeccable? I am.”

  “If one wishes to escape, I suppose it might be,” Sesily offered. “But I shall tell you—”

  “It did not appear as though you wished to escape, Adelaide.” This from Lady Imogen Loveless, her wild black curls fairly trembling with excitement as she leaned forward from her own seat on the other side of the cabin.

  They’d seen the kiss. Adelaide drank more tea, considering her reply and finally settling on a tepid, “I don’t know what you mean.” She returned cup to saucer and leaned forward, making a show of looking at the blue folder on the table, inked with an ornate indigo bell. Opening it, she considered the document within—a full dossier on one Lord John Carrington, coincidentally, the younger brother of one Henry Carrington, Duke of Clayborn, whom Adelaide had just kissed on the dock.

  Coincidentally, being the important bit. There was no reason to discuss that kiss with her friends. Ever. It was unrelated to the dossier in her hands.

  That, and they would never let her hear the end of her moment of weakness. Which was what it had been. Clearly. Indeed, she was only scanning the dossier to reacquaint herself with Clayborn’s brother. She was certainly not looking for information on the Duke.

  Why would she want that?

  Her heart began to pound, and she willed her tone calm. “What time is it?”

  “Time enough to get there,” Sesily said, waving away whatever hiding Adelaide had intended to do. “Who was he?”

  It didn’t seem possible that they didn’t recognize him. His day-old scruff did nothing to hide his true identity, and she’d recognized him instantly. Just as he’d recognized her. Still, she brazened it through. “Who was whom?”