Page 115 of A Lady's Handbook of Espionage
He tore free. “I’ve bollocksed this up completely, haven’t I? You don’t have to let me down easy, Trouble. Just say the word, and we’ll—”
Isabel shot to her feet. Before Callahan could react, she was in his lap, pressing her mouth to his forehead, his cheeks, his jaw – frantic little kisses that left him dizzy.
“Yes,” she breathed. “Yes, you silly man. I’ll marry you.”
The word bounced around inside his skull.Yes. Yes. Yes. One word. Three letters. The scaffolding that his entire world suddenly hinged on.
He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think past the heat of her body against his. The scent of her filling his lungs. His fingers wound into her hair, gripping harder than he meant to, but she didn’t seem to mind. Not with the way she pressed closer, kissing him deep and messy.
Then he laughed, half-incredulous, half-delirious with joy. “Yeah?” he asked, needing to hear it again.
Isabel’s smile was radiant. “Yes.”
A sharp, deliberate cough shattered the moment. Callahan dragged his lips from hers to see Wentworth watching them with the long-suffering expression of a man who’d seen far too much in his years of service.
“As heartwarming as this display is,” the spymaster said, “I feel obligated to remind you both that this is, in fact, still my office. Do please get out before you fuck on my desk.”
Callahan cleared his throat, still unable to suppress the stupid little grin on his face. He gently lifted Isabel and set her back in her chair.
“Apologies, sir. You’ll have to forgive a man’s enthusiasm.”
“I’m not in the habit of begrudging my agents their moments of satisfaction. I’ll have the paperwork drawn up tonight.” At Callahan’s blank look, Wentworth made a noise of exasperation. “For thewedding, man. Surely you didn’t think I’d dispatch you to Vienna unwed? Far better to have the deed done soonest. Less chance of one of you changing your mind.”
Epilogue
Vienna, 1873
Six months later
Callahan tugged at his cuffs, resettling the lines of his evening kit. This was exactly the kind of gathering where the remnants of the Syndicate would slither out of the woodwork.
And it was exactly the kind of gathering where Isabel shone brightest.
Callahan’s wife stood amid a cluster of admirers, her laugh carrying over the orchestra. For six months, they’d been Maria Mikhailovna and Alexei Pavlovich Volkov, Russian nobility with money no one questioned too closely. Tonight, she wore blue silk that plunged low in the back, leaving her shoulders bare. Her hair was swept up with a curl resting on her neck to hide the mark he’d left earlier. The loop of a scar was barely visible below her necklace. To the casual observer, it might have looked like the remnant of some childhood misadventure.
But Callahan knew the shape of those scars intimately. After all, he’d been the one to carve them.
R.L.C.
Imagining all the marks under her dress made something hot and possessive twist in him. Sometimes, he thought about leaving them where everyone could see. Somewhere that couldn’t be concealed with jewels or high collars. But he also liked knowing that beneath the prim façade, his wife was covered in proof that she was well-fucked.
And only he got to see it.
She felt his gaze – she always did – and her eyes met his across the room. Six months married, and that look still hit him harder than any punch he’d taken in the East End. The wanting was a physical thing clawing in his skin.
He crossed the ballroom towards her. As he approached, the strains of conversation drifted to his ears over the swell of music.
“. . . cannot imagine how you manage it, Mrs Volkova,” a brunette with too much jewellery was saying, leaning into Isabel’s space. “My husband barely notices I exist. Yet yours watches you as if he’s starving. What’s your secret?”
An impish dimple flashed in her cheek. “A wife ought to have some mystique, don’t you agree? If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”
The women tittered, delighted by what they assumed was playful banter.
They had no idea.
That was a warning – his wife showing her teeth. It shouldn’t arouse him, the knowledge of her casual deadliness. But he was a sick, twisted bastard, and it only made him want her more.
“I’m afraid I must steal my wife for a moment,” he said as he wrapped an arm around Isabel’s waist. “You ladies won’t begrudge me a dance with the most beautiful woman in the room, would you?”
