“No.” The last time he’d received a gift from this woman, he’d been standing in the rubble of his jail.

  “Really, Detective Inspector,” she chided him. “If I didn’t know better, I would think you were being deliberately rude. I should think you would like my gifts by now. Last time, I made you one of London’s most eligible bachelors! Is that not what they called you in the News?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” he lied.

  “I’m certain it is,” she said. “I read that the unmarried women of Mayfair dearly love summoning Scotland Yard to their homes in the hopes a certain detective inspector might wander in. It’s a game of some sort. It has a name.”

  He looked to the ceiling. Don’t say it.

  “A Peek of Peck!”

  He clenched his teeth. “I don’t pay attention to the papers.”

  “Really,” she asked, a dangerous gleam in her eye. “That is a surprise, considering how you’ve been quoted in more than a few interviews about . . .” She paused, no doubt for mad effect. “What is it you’re calling those ladies? The Hell’s Belles?”

  Tommy would wager a year’s salary that this wild woman was one of those ladies. “I have given no such interview, Lady Imogen. In fact, I think the name is ridiculous.”

  “Oh, I don’t,” she said. “It’s rather perfect. Makes me wish I had a fiery sword.”

  “Lucky for you, it’s difficult to set steel aflame.”

  “Well, with that attitude, it most certainly is.” Before he could beg the woman not to set fire to the South Bank, she dug into the nonsense carpetbag that she carried everywhere she went, as though she might have to make camp for the night at any moment.

  He watched her bend over and rummage through the thing because she might at any point destroy something. Not because he enjoyed watching her ample bottom beneath her skirts. Certainly not because he wondered what that ample bottom would look like without skirts.

  The woman was bedlam; he was not interested in her bottom.

  When she straightened and turned to face him, brandishing a small wrapped parcel, it was not disappointment that coursed through him. At all.

  “Never fear, despite your ungratefulness, I shall still give you your gift.”

  He didn’t mean to take it, but he seemed unable not to accept it, small and round and warm through the paper wrapped around it. “What is this?”

  “A bacon sandwich,” she said simply. As though it were a perfectly ordinary thing to deliver to a policeman in the middle of a church.

  Flummoxed, he said, “You came all the way to Lambeth to bring me a bacon sandwich.”

  She smiled, and there it was again, that feeling that he’d taken a facer. “I understand you were summoned here before you were able to eat breakfast. One should never catch villains on an empty stomach.”

  “How did you—” he started, then stopped. “Lady Imogen, you should not be here. It is not a place for decent people.”

  “Really, Detective Inspector. It is a house of worship.” She returned to rummaging about in her bag.

  “I’m fairly certain that it is a house of worship that was recently stocked to the gills with munitions.” He cast a glance at the unopened hatch in the floor. Possibly still stocked with them. She had to leave.

  She turned a bright smile on him. “Aren’t you clever. But someone has taken good care to solve that problem for you, haven’t they?”

  “I would rather know where they have been moved.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t worry,” she said. “I’m sure they shall be put to good use.”

  He narrowed his gaze on her as a wild, impossible thought occurred. “Lady Imogen?”

  “Yes?”

  “It was not you who removed the weapons, was it?”

  “Oh, goodness no,” she said, with a look of wide-eyed innocence. “Can you imagine me carrying crates of explosives about the city? I would most certainly ruin my dress.”

  He shouldn’t have looked to the dress in question, fine velvet the color of an evergreen forest. Her cloak was open, revealing the line of her bodice, tight enough to reveal her ample breasts, which he most definitely should not have looked at. “Of course.”

  “I have people for things like that.”

  What?

  “Very large, strapping men,” she added, and Tommy found he didn’t like the image those words evoked. Before he could reply, she brandished a blue folder marked with an indigo bell high above her head. “Aha! Would you like your proper gift?”

  He knew that folder. He’d seen one before, left in the rubble when someone had exploded one of the cells in the jail beneath Scotland Yard. Unsurprisingly, this woman had been in the building immediately before it happened.

  She held it to her chest and he forced himself to keep his focus on her eyes.

  And that’s when he heard it. A sound, muffled and urgent. And human.

  Lady Imogen Loveless heard it too, turning wide eyes on the closed hatch at his feet. “Detective Inspector, do you think you ought to open that thing?”

  He pointed to the far end of the church. “Go stand back there.”

  She followed his indication. “Whatever for?”

  This woman would be the absolute end of him. “In case.”

  “In case of what?” she asked, but still backed away, up the aisle of the church. “This is very thoughtful of you, but I’m perfectly capable of defending myself, should it be required.”

  No doubt the woman had a garrote at hand. Turning his back on her, he crouched, extracting a knife from his boot. “Oh, excellent idea, that,” she said encouragingly.

  “Thank you,” he replied like a proper idiot before opening the hatch in one smooth movement.

  There, in the hole, tied and gagged with colorful silk ribbons, was—

  “My goodness. Is that the Marquess of Havistock?” She was back, standing at his shoulder—or more like his elbow—peering down into the stores. “What a surprise.”

  “It’s strange, Lady Imogen, as you don’t sound at all surprised.” In fact, the ribbon binding the marquess’s hands was the exact color of Lady Imogen’s gown.

  “Yes, well, I’ll be honest, I’ve always thought the man belonged in a hole. But didn’t you say this store was for munitions? He doesn’t look like a munition.” She paused. “Is it possible to have one munition? In the singular?”

  Tommy looked to her. “What?”

  “Anyway. I recommend reading the file before you free him.” She patted him on the arm. “And as for the missing munitions, never fear. They will most likely turn up sooner or later, one way or another.”

  “Mmm,” Tommy said, opening the file to discover a signed witness statement of one Lady Helene Carrington, née Granwell, only daughter of the Marquess of Havistock. Apparently the marquess was not only wrapped up in whatever went on here the night prior, but he’d also murdered Earl Draven, and his daughter had witnessed the crime. The lady had left her direction for further questions. Beneath the witness statement, a collection of additional data—questionable treatment of employees at the man’s factories, strange ledgers, missing children and more.

  He closed the file and ran his fingers over the blue bell. Another file full of evidence, another aristocratic felon left for his discovery.

  The Belles again.

  And only then, in the midst of his surprise, did Lady Imogen’s words echo through him.

  The munitions will be put to good use.

  He looked up. “What did you say?”

  She was gone, the file in his hand the only evidence that she’d been there at all.

  He looked back to the aristocrat bound at his feet and cursed, the foul language punctuated by the door to the church, a heavy echo that drew his attention to the young constable who entered, wide-eyed and breathless, pulling up short as soon as he saw Tommy. “Detective Inspector, sir.”

  Tommy waved at him. “Come.”

  He did, already fishing a missive out of his pocket.

  Opening it, the detective inspector scanned the text there.

  Early morning explosions reported at all five Havistock factories. No casualties or witnesses. Return to Whitehall for debrief.

  And like that, Thomas Peck’s day went from bad to worse.

  Epilogue

  The Duke of Clayborn woke to the morning sun, next to the woman he loved, just as he had every morning since they’d stood together in Lambeth and fought shoulder to shoulder for their future. As the light streamed through their bedchamber window, casting the room in a golden glow, the world beyond still heavy with the quiet of dawn, he lingered over her, just as he had countless times in the past year. Just as he would countless times for the rest of his life.

  Taking a deep breath, he rubbed a hand over the familiar ache in his chest—part relief that he had found her, part joy that she was his, part disbelief that he had been so blessed as to call this magnificent woman his own.

  Unable to resist her a moment longer, he leaned down and pressed a kiss to her cheek, warm and soft and pink with sleep. When she sighed, he could not help the little rumble of pleasure in his chest as he kissed her again, at the line of her jaw, beneath her ear, at the place where her neck met her shoulder, soft and sweet and smelling of thyme and fresh rain. His hand stroked down her side, finding the round swell of her belly, full with the child she would soon bear.

  With a lazy stretch and a self-satisfied smile, she turned into his embrace, winding her arms around his neck and pressing herself to him, long and warm and perfectly soft, before saying, eyes still closed, “Happy anniversary, husband.”

  He thieved the words from her lips. “And to you, wife.”

  While Alfie Trumbull’s plans had gone sideways and he had not overseen the wedding of his daughter to a duke on that night at St. Stephen’s, Henry and Adelaide had found their way back to Lambeth the following day, where the Duke of Clayborn had used every inch of his power to secure a meeting with the Archbishop himself . . . and they’d been married by special license in the chapel at Lambeth Palace. Jack and Helene had been in attendance, along with Adelaide’s crew—the Duchess of Trevescan, Lady Imogen Loveless, Lady Sesily and Mr. Calhoun, and Maggie O’Tiernen, who’d opened The Place immediately following for a raucous wedding celebration. The morning had turned into an afternoon and an evening filled to the brim with celebration and well-wishes and so much dancing.

  And no one in Mayfair would have believed that the Duke of Clayborn, known for his cool control, a man who showed passion only on the floor of the House of Lords, spent the evening with his wife in his arms, holding her scandalously close as they reveled in each other and the promise of their future.

  That night, exhausted and happy, they’d tumbled up the stairs to Adelaide’s apartments—to her single bed in her rooms, full of books and devoid of most everything else—and made slow, lingering love to mark the beginning of the rest of their lives.

  Since then, the two divided their time between Covent Garden, where the rooms they let above The Place were filled with lush fabrics and lusher memories and the laughter of friends and family, and their home in the country, where they spent their days exploring the estate, far from the prying eyes of the aristocracy, and their nights abed, exploring each other.

  And Henry could not believe his luck—this beautiful, brilliant, magnificent woman . . . his. Forever. With another kiss, he whispered, “I am sorry. I did not mean to wake you.”

  Adelaide arched up to him. “I am not sorry you woke me.” Tangling her fingers in his hair, she met his gaze and said, “What were you doing?”

  “I was . . .” He paused, running a fingertip down her cheek. Down her neck. Down her chest to where a fiery red curl circled the tip of one breast. “Noticing you.”

  She smiled. “You always notice me.”

  “I do,” he agreed, softly, sinking into her velvet gaze. “When you laugh with your friends, in your carriage like a charioteer, as we do battle together . . .” Because they did do battle together. When they wrote his speeches and stood her ground, though for the moment they were doing slightly more of the first and less of the latter, until the babe came. “And today . . . as you slept, wrapped in the beauty of the morning. My wife.”

  She pulled him close, hesitating just before she kissed him. “My husband.”

  Rolling her over, rising up from the caress, Henry stared down at her, so full of her . . . of his love for her, that he could barely make sense of it—this feeling that he had never expected. This partnership he’d never dreamed of.

  “How lucky I am,” he said softly. “To love you so well.”

  “How lucky I am,” she replied, her hand coming to his cheek. “To be loved so well.”

  Another kiss, long and lingering. She broke it this time, sliding from the bed to the sound of his protest as she pulled on her pristine, white silk dressing gown and crossed the room.

  “It’s early, my love. Come back,” he called, even as he leaned back against the pillows and watched her, the light casting golden stripes across her lovely, long body. Teasing him with what was hidden beneath the garment.

  Ignoring him, she opened a drawer and retrieved a box from within, turning to bring it to the bed. “Do you not want your gift?”

  His eyes lit with delight. “A gift?”

  She laughed. “You look like a boy, desperate for a new toy.”

  “You are the only toy I require,” he retorted, reaching for her as she neared, pulling her down over his lap and reveling in her little shout before adding, “but I would not like to be considered rude.”

  When she set the mahogany box on the bed next to him, he stilled. It was flat—perhaps ten inches long and only two deep, decorated in beautiful filigree. Two letters, gilded among a stunning amount of woodwork: A and H.

  “Adelaide and Henry,” he said, running his fingers over the design before realizing what he held. He met her eyes with another smile. “It’s a puzzle.”

  She nodded. “Not nearly as complicated as the one that brought us together, but I thought you would—”

  He was already working at it, finding buttons and levers and false bottoms and magnets, and within ten minutes he’d slid a hidden drawer from within to discover a familiar blue file, marked in indigo ink with an intricately detailed bell. And there, across the bottom, a clear label that read: Clayborn, Duke of.

  His brows rose in recognition. It was a dossier from the Hell’s Belles, one that might have been collected and prepared by the Matchbreaker herself. He slid Adelaide a sly look. “How long have you had this?”

  She met his gaze briefly before returning her attention to the folder in his hands. Were her ears turning red?

  “Adelaide?”

  She spoke to the dossier in his hands. “I compiled it as I returned to . . . my father. I intended to give it to you that night. To have it delivered to your home, once I had dealt with him. With everything.”

  “Once we dealt with everything, you mean.” After that night, Havistock had been tried and convicted of murdering a peer, Danny had been delivered to a surgeon and then to the docks, where he was given the choice to stay in Lambeth and battle Alfie or head to Australia and try a new life. And Alfie—he remained the head of The Bully Boys—a thorn in the side of Adelaide and Henry, but easier to manage now that he was looking for respectability . . . and heirs.

  “Once we dealt with everything,” she allowed. “But it never seemed the right time to reveal . . . what is inside.”

  He watched her with a curious gaze. “And today is?”

  She smiled. “It is. It feels . . . appropriate.”

  “Fair enough.” With no hesitation, he opened the file, discovering two pieces of paper within. The first he recognized instantly, a small gasp catching in his throat as he lifted his father’s letter to his mother from within, running his fingers over the years-old writing. “How did you—” he started, then stopped. “Alfie Trumbull had this. I gave it to him that night.”

  She smiled, a cat with a bowl of cream. “And I picked his pocket.”

  His brow furrowed. “When?”

  “Not ten minutes after he put it there for safe keeping.”

  He laughed at that, big and delighted. “I imagine he didn’t like that.”

  “I imagine he didn’t,” she said. “But he did not raise a cutpurse queen for nothing.”

  He opened the letter, reading it . . . remembering it. Reminding himself that he’d lived up to his father’s expectations for him. That Jack had, too—happily married to Lady Helene, and already a father.

  Adelaide reached for him, setting her fingers on his arm as he stared down at the paper.

  “Happy anniversary, my love,” she whispered. “Here is to the future that we might together call ours.”

  “Yes,” he said, looking up at her. “Together.”

  “Together,” she whispered, before nodding at the folder. “You’ve another thing to find.” He followed her instructions, lifting the second slip of paper from within. “That one is yours to keep.”

  Henry looked down and read the text, his heart pounding wildly in his chest:

  The Duke of Clayborn makes a perfect match.

  Signed, The Matchbreaker

  Henry looked up, pleasure flooding him even as year-old frustration thrummed through him. He found her watching him, searching his gaze. In hers, he found a collection of emotions. “You intended to give me this . . . and leave?”

  She nodded. “I thought you might decide to seek out love if you knew how . . . perfect you were.”

  “Adelaide.” He pulled her close, pressing his forehead to hers. “Don’t you see, I never would have sought love beyond you. There was no one else. There never would be. Love . . . I am not perfect. I am only perfect with you.” He kissed her again. “Christ, I love you . . . beyond reason.” He shook his head. “No, that’s not true. There are a dozen reasons. A hundred of them.”

  She smiled, pure happiness. “Are there?”

  “Shall I enumerate them?” He returned his attention to her neck, pressing kisses down her throat as he pulled her into his lap and began his list . . . a list that could have gone on for another year . . . another fifty. “Your brilliant mind . . . your quick wit . . . the way you pick a lock, drive a carriage, wield a dossier . . . The way you terrify the men of Mayfair and make the girls of Lambeth proud . . . Your beautiful eyes . . . your stunning hair . . .”