“Oy!” Alfie interjected.

  Adelaide continued, “He’s a criminal. A thief. Just as—” Her voice cracked, and Henry reached for her, aching for her. Wanting to hold her. To make it right. She pulled away from him, denying him. Taking a step back and finishing. “Just as I am.” She shook her head. “You once told me you’d never marry for love, because you were afraid of what your secrets would do to your wife.”

  “You freed me from that,” he said. “I want to marry. I intend to marry. I intend to marry you, dammit.”

  She shook her head. “Your secret . . . It is the best of us. It is honor and hope and love. It is what we all aspire to. But mine . . .” Adelaide spread her arms wide. “You think you won’t one day look up and see that marrying me is the worst of us? Greed and lies and crime. I shall ruin you, Henry. And I—”

  She stopped herself.

  “Say it.” Her beautiful eyes found his, velvet and full of tears, and he knew what she was going to say. Knew, too, that it was all he wanted. “Say it, Adelaide.”

  “How will I survive the man I love . . . turning from me? How will I survive being the person who ruins you?” The words were a blow, threatening to knock him back.

  “Ruin me? Christ, Adelaide, you made me. Again and again, in every way that matters. Without you, I’m nothing. A man who learned too late what his father tried so hard to teach him—that love is all there is. All that matters. What do I have to do to show you that marrying you would be a gift! That I have spent the last two weeks—even the time I was unconscious, I might add—imagining what it would be like to follow you into battle with these madwomen who love you just as much as I do?”

  “They’re not madwomen.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about us, we don’t take offense to that at all,” Sesily said from a distance.

  “To be fair, we are a bit mad,” Imogen said.

  “Speak for yourself.” The Duchess.

  “It’s a good thing they love you, too,” Henry doggedly continued, “because if they didn’t, I’d be terrified of them, as they know everything and seem to be in all places at once, inescapably.”

  Adelaide gave a little laugh. “They’re definitely not going to take offense to that.”

  Henry tilted her chin up, marveling in her impossibly soft skin, the high bones of her cheeks, the velvet of her eyes behind her spectacles. The little furrow in her brow, which he intended to spend the rest of his life smoothing. “Adelaide. You want me.”

  “Yes. Obviously.”

  He smiled at the terse reply. “You love me.”

  She shook her head. “I shouldn’t have said it. It doesn’t matter.”

  “Of course it matters, love. It’s all that matters. You love me.”

  “Yes,” she confessed. “But it’s not enough.”

  “Love . . . It’s enough.” He pulled her close. “Of course it’s enough. You, this wild world you live in, these wild women who come with you, all of it . . . it’s so much more than I imagined. It’s everything.” He paused, pressing kisses to her knuckles until she let out a little sigh. “Now. You love me and I love you and we’re in a perfectly nice church.”

  “There are so many explosives hidden beneath the pews of this place, we’re one dropped match away from razing the South Bank,” she retorted.

  His brows rose. “Are there? Then let’s get married quickly and leave it.” He was bent toward her, his thumb stroking over the soft skin of her cheek, the scent of fresh rain surrounding them even here, in this ancient church. “Marry me. Not because your father wants it. Not because you made a bargain. Marry me because I love you. Because you love me. Because here, like this, we win.”

  She clasped his hand, pressing her cheek to his palm, and he would have given all he had in that moment to know what she was thinking. But she turned her unreadable gaze on her father and said, “I marry him, and you release Lord and Lady Carrington. Immediately.”

  Henry exhaled, harsh and hopeful. This was it. She was going to be his.

  Alfie’s smile went wide. “Of course!”

  She narrowed her gaze on her father. “Immediately, Alfie.”

  “Absolutely.” He turned to the guards near Jack and Helene. “Linus—go fetch the vicar.” His will done, he turned back to them. “There’s just one more thing.”

  Of course there was. “Go on.”

  “A small thing, really. Just enough to ensure that this”—he waved a hand between them—“new partnership don’t go sideways the moment you leave the South Bank.” Henry waited, wondering what Alfie’s final request would be. “I want what was in the box.”

  Adelaide stiffened next to Henry even as he said, “What box?”

  “Nah, don’t play the fool with me. I know too well that you’ve a head on your shoulders. Addie stole something from me that belongs to you. Something Havistock was willing to pay a pretty penny for. And I want it. You know, for insurance. In case you start thinkin’ ’bout annulments.”

  Irritation flared at the suggestion that Henry wouldn’t honor his marriage vows—vows he intended to honor every moment of every day for the rest of his life.

  “No,” Adelaide said to her father, the word clipped and cold. “That’s not for you.”

  “In fact it is, as you stole it from me.”

  “You stole it from him first.”

  “And he who finds, keeps,” Alfie said.

  “I think you mean she who finds, keeps.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Henry said, reaching into his pocket and extracting his father’s long-ago letter, which he’d tucked into his pocket before coming to fight for this woman he loved. Just as his father had done. “Not anymore.”

  She reached out a hand to stop him. “Henry. No. That’s not for him. It’s not for anyone but you.” Her brow furrowed in concern. “The memory of it. The reminder of it. It is yours.”

  It proved that love existed, he’d said to her about the letter and why he’d never destroyed it. That it was good and worthy and true.

  Except he did not need it now. Now, his proof was Adelaide, and the way she had freed him from the fear he’d had of what was in that letter.

  He lifted her hand in his and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “You may have all that is mine, if only you wish it.”

  Tears welled in her beautiful eyes as she recognized his father’s words to his mother. As she answered, softly, “All I wish is a future that we might together call ours.”

  “Yes,” he said, leaning down and kissing her thoroughly, until Alfie grumbled and Jack and Helene clapped happily, and Sesily Calhoun gave out an enthusiastic hoot.

  When he finished the kiss, Henry handed the letter to her father despite her sound of protest. Trumbull opened it, his gaze tracking slowly over the words, his expression unchanged when he refolded the parchment and tucked it into his coat pocket. “You toffs spend more time than any of the rest of us concerned with where you come from. Better to pay attention to where you’re goin’, eh?”

  Before he could answer, the guard Alfie had sent to get the vicar returned with the man in tow. “Right!” Alfie clapped his hands, approaching Jack and Helene and the altar. “I’d like to note that this halfwit agreed to two dozen fights, and he still owes me. I expect to be paid. I’ll consider it my dowry.”

  Adelaide cut him a look. “Dowries typically work in the opposite direction, Alfie.”

  Alfie’s eyes went wide. “Wot? I’m to pay him to take you off me hands?”

  “Well, it’s not as though I’ve been on your hands for several years, but yes.”

  “Cor!” he said. “I ain’t doin’ that.”

  “Imagine my surprise,” she said dryly, as those assembled joined them at the front of the church, creating a small half circle around the vicar.

  “I do love a wedding,” Sesily said.

  Duchess sighed. “Another man added to the mix, I suppose. Such a great deal of work. So emotional.”

  “Best to have a husband on an island in the sea, is it?” Adelaide tossed over her shoulder at the Duchess.

  “Best to have no husband at all,” Duchess said. “But needs must, and if you must have one, this duke appears to be not the worst of the options.”

  Henry inclined his head in the Duchess’s direction. “High praise, Your Grace.”

  “Congratulations on your nuptials, Your Grace,” came her reply.

  Henry grabbed his bride’s hand, turning her to him, putting his hands to her face and tilting her up to look at him. “I love you. My South London nipper. My North London darling.”

  Something fresh flashed in her eyes, something new and perfect. What he’d been aching for from the start. Something honest and clear and full of hope of a future. And she reached up to wrap a hand around his neck and pull him down for a kiss.

  When it was through, she opened her eyes and smiled, spreading warmth through him until all he wanted was to get her married and get her home. To their bed.

  Behind him, the door to the church opened, loud and ominous, and her gaze flickered past his shoulder, and everything changed.

  “Is it too early for me to speak now, else forever hold my peace?”

  The entire assembly turned to the back of the church, where Danny stood, looking as though he’d just won at the races. And by his side, pistol in hand, was the Marquess of Havistock.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The last time she’d been in this church, Adelaide had been wearing a too-small stolen frock, and she’d been without a weapon. This time, she was prepared, joined by the women who had stood by her side from the moment she’d left the South Bank.

  And the man who had vowed to love her forever. To share a future with her.

  Except now, just as she had Henry in her grasp, Danny and the Marquess of Havistock had arrived to ruin another one of her weddings.

  Adelaide had had quite enough of that, and she was not alone. In the wake of Havistock’s words, those assembled turned and shifted, each one reaching for the closest weapon. Hands slid into hidden skirt pockets, inside coats, and—in Adelaide’s case—to the blade strapped to her thigh. She gripped the ivory handle of her blade and waited as her father palmed his club and stared Danny down.

  Henry spoke first. “I should’ve taken your head when I had the chance, Danny.”

  “Double crossed by a damn traitor,” Alfie added. “And after I treated you like a son.”

  Danny spread his arms wide and smiled at the assembly. “It ain’t personal, Alfie. I got with the man most worth my time. Just like you did.” He paused. “Except you made a mistake, because this story don’t end with your precious girl gettin’ married to a duke.”

  “That’s quite enough, Daniel,” the Marquess of Havistock said, obviously annoyed that Danny was receiving more attention than he was. “I shall handle it from here.”

  He raised his voice to be heard throughout the church. “It is true what they say, is it not? That if you want something done, you’ve got to do it yourself.”

  “Father!” The horror and disdain in Lady Helene’s voice were undeniable.

  “Oh, shut up, Helene. We wouldn’t be here if not for you, you little bitch.”

  Her eyes went wide and Jack stepped in front of her, suddenly looking much older than his twenty-six years. “You don’t speak to her that way!”

  “I’ll speak to her however I like, boy. And you’ll do well to know your betters.”

  With Helene in Havistock’s sights, Jack made a full change, voice lowering, fists clenching, and charming affect turning to full menace. “We are to think you better? You, who happily murders his business partner in full view of London?”

  Havistock’s gaze narrowed on his daughter behind Jack’s outstretched arm.

  She lifted her chin. “I heard everything. Heard Lord Draven was concerned about the state of the factories. The way you treated the children who worked there.”

  “Draven made hundreds of thousands of pounds off of those factories,” Havistock scoffed. “And then he found that a fresh conscience doesn’t keep you from an early grave. And to think, if you’d kept your mouth shut, you might have avoided one, too.” He lifted the pistol and pointed it toward the newlyweds.

  At the far side of the church, Imogen searched the hidden pockets of her evergreen skirts.

  “Remarkable. It is not every day a man confesses to murder in front of a dozen people,” Henry said in his coolest, most aristocratic voice. “Though I never found your logic sound during debate, so I should not be surprised.”

  Havistock’s weapon swung to aim directly at Henry’s chest, and Adelaide began searching the space for ways to end the man. How dare he threaten her nearly husband!

  “Clayborn.” The marquess’s words dripped with disdain. “Always so high and mighty. Just like your father. Good and noble and aristocratic perfection.” He spat. “But not really, are you? There isn’t a drop of aristocratic blood in you. And you, pontificating on what is just and right in the House of Lords. What a hypocrite, now you’ve thrown your lot in with women,” he spat. “You’re an embarrassment, and you should thank God I’m going to end you all.” He swung the pistol around wildly, pointing it in turn at Duchess and Sesily.

  No. Not one person Adelaide loved was dying that day.

  “It’s a bold thing to threaten a roomful of people with only Danny for muscle, I’ll say that,” Adelaide said, injecting all the bravado she could muster into the tone.

  Henry stiffened next to her as Havistock’s pistol found her. “Perhaps I’ll start with you. The one nobody cares about. No money, no name, no connections—no value. Return you to the muck you came from.”

  A low growl sounded, and Havistock looked to Henry. “Oh, Clayborn doesn’t like that.”

  “Best aim true, my lord,” Adelaide said, lifting her chin. “Because if you miss, I can assure you, you will learn just what it feels like to be in the muck. I shall enjoy regaling all London with the story of how the odious Marquess of Havistock was ended by a coalition of powerful women and a crime lord from the South Bank.”

  “You’ve made your money on the backs of the poor and the weak.” Henry took a step forward, toward the gun. “The tide is turning, and look at you.” His voice dripped with disdain. “Quaking with fear.”

  He was baiting Havistock. And if the man’s wild-eyed look was any indication, the bait would work. The marquess was red with anger at her words, at the challenge in them. Adelaide knew she took a risk. He’d come unhinged, knowing, in that wild way that men against the ropes do, that there was no exit for him here. He could not kill them all. He could not survive this. But he would try very hard to take some of them with him.

  Havistock narrowed his gaze on Henry. “I heard that you climbed down into the gutter with the girl. Tell me, how do you think the aristocracy would respond to discover that the Duchess of Trevescan’s precious cousin is nothing more than a baseborn whelp from Lambeth?” He looked to The Duchess. “You think anyone would come to your parties once they discover your lies?”

  Duchess did not hesitate. “I think that half of London only exists because of lies. One only need look at you, Havistock. The idea that birth makes us noble is the biggest lie of all.”

  Hatred seethed in him. “I shall enjoy putting bullets in all of you.”

  “Is that your idiot plan?” Helene spoke up, clearly having had enough of the man. “To kill everyone here?”

  “I’ll do what I have to do.”

  “Not without my muscle, you won’t,” Alfie said, nodding to a man standing by the door to the church. “You’re on my turf now, Marquess, and I’ve thrown my lot in with another.”

  “Of course you have. It’s no more than I would expect—an utter lack of honor,” Havistock said. “But you see, I’m using my own muscle—you’ve a problem, Alfie. There’s a new generation, ready to take over.”

  Danny grinned and pulled a wicked-looking knife from his waist. “Time for new leadership in The Bully Boys. Some that don’t choose themselves over the job.”

  Alfie scoffed. “Nah, boy. If you’re aimin’ to be king, tell me you want my throne. But don’t tell me it ain’t because you like the look of my crown.” He nodded in the direction of a guard at the door, who immediately left, no doubt to summon more muscle. “The boys won’t stand with you if they don’t trust you, and they’ll never trust you if they think you’re sellin’ them lies. Then you’re no better than the toff you’ve thrown your lot in with.” He tilted his head. “Though sidin’ with rich titles ain’t the best way to earn the boys’ trust, either.”

  Danny scowled at the words—delivered with the calm certainty of a man who’d lived a thousand lives and knew the score. Just as it looked as though the two would clash and the brawl would begin, Imogen found what she was looking for.

  “Warm in here, isn’t it?” she called from her spot.

  The Belles, knowing what was to come, turned their backs to her. A bright flash of light accompanied a loud bang at the far side of the pews, leaving Havistock and Danny distracted for a barely there moment.

  Long enough.

  “Come!” Sesily grabbed Helene’s hand and pulled her into the cloud of smoke that lingered, toward the back door to the church—the one Adelaide knew well would make for quick escape, as she’d used it herself, years earlier.

  “After this, Lady Helene, we shall have to discuss your father,” Sesily said.

  “After this,” Lady Helene said, unexpected steel in her tone as she followed Sesily from the church, “I shall very happily discuss my father.”

  Meanwhile, Jack ran straight for the marquess, pushing the weapon out of the way and bringing him to the ground. His pistol discharged as they fell, reverberating throughout the dark, now smoky church.

  “Adelaide!” Henry turned to her instantly, the moment he heard the pistol’s retort, pressing her firmly to his chest, shielding her from the violence. When silence fell, he loosened his grip, and they reached for each other, their concern matching. “Are you—”