Page 107 of A Lady's Handbook of Espionage
“That’s for calling me muslin,” she murmured, nudging the first guard with her toe. “And for thinking I was someone you could touch.”
She searched their pockets and took the sharpest knife she could, then hid another at her waist.
Killing was the easy part. Cleaning up was always messier.
Isabel grasped the first guard by his ankles and pulled. Her muscles screamed in protest as she dragged him towards a small storage room off the hallway. The second body was worse. Halfway to the room, she had to stop and lean against the wall to catch her breath.
“Should have killed you closer to the door,” she told the corpse.
Once the bodies were stowed, Isabel dabbed at the blood spatters on the wall with her sleeve, smearing them into rust-coloured streaks. Not perfect, but it would have to do. Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking now that the killing was done. They always did this – steady during, trembling after.
She retreated to the bedroom and perched on the edge of the bed, arranging herself carefully. Legs crossed at the ankle. Hands folded in her lap, hiding the knife beneath her fingers.
The picture of submission.
The shaking in her hands subsided and the throbbing in her wrists faded to a dull ache. She imagined Favreau’s expression when he realised what she’d done. Imagined his blood spilling across the floorboards. He’d made her prey once. Never again.
The doorknob turned. Isabel tightened her grip on the knife.
And the monster with the angelic face stepped inside.
“Hello, my love. Did you miss me?”
31
Callahan and Thorne met Wentworth outside a derelict gin house. His fingers itched for a cigarette. For his knife. For something to do besides think about Isabel with that monster.
“Tell me you found something,” he said to Wentworth, not bothering with a greeting.
“Maybe.” The spymaster adjusted his collar against the evening chill. “Had a sighting of a bloke matching Favreau’s description about an hour ago. One of my lads is following up. I was just about to meet him.”
Callahan’s teeth ground together so hard his jaw ached. Every second that passed was another second Isabel was—
No. He couldn’t think it.
Thorne’s gaze met his, a question in the slight tilt of his head.You steady?
No, he wasn’t holding shite together. But Isabel needed him functioning, not broken. So he pushed it down, locked it away – that raw terror of what might be happening to the woman he loved while he stood there, useless.
“Let’s go,” he muttered.
The three men started off, weaving through Whitechapel’s warrens. Eyes followed their progress. Hard men who’d kill for a few coins slipped into the shadows as Thorne passed. They knew better. In this part of London, Thorne wasn’t just a man – he was the law, the executioner, the king of this kingdom. Even the most hardened cutthroats understood to lower their eyes when he passed.
But Callahan barely registered, was too lost in the memories rising like floodwater. Isabel’s face swam up from the depths. The night they’d met in New York when she’d pinned him with the dagger.
What fun would it be if you caught me so easily? I’d be so disappointed if we never danced again.
He’d felt it then – that pull. That certainty that he wanted her.
Callahan wanted to marry that woman.
“You’re doing it again,” Thorne said, interrupting his thoughts. He squeezed Callahan’s shoulder. “That brooding shite won’t help. We’ll find her.”
Callahan exhaled shakily. “You didn’t see what he did to her, Nicky.”
As much as he tried to shove the images away, they clawed to the surface like they always did when he closed his eyes. Isabel’s bare skin, mapped with thin white scars from that bastard’s blade. The way she’d trembled the other night in the bathtub, water tinged pink around her, Favreau’s initials carved into her chest. Still fresh. Still bleeding.
“Wherever she is,” Wentworth said, “I’m sure Miss Dumont isn’t waiting to be rescued. If your instincts about her are correct, I won’t be taking Favreau alive tonight.”
