Page 29 of A Lady's Handbook of Espionage
“Go home, Agent,” she said quietly, resisting the urge to lean into his touch. “Collect your fee. Give Emma my love. And pray that this is the last time we cross paths.” Her eyes drifted to his shoulder. “You’d best tend to that before you bleed out. I promise you, I’m not worth dying over.”
She shoved him away. In the breathless moment before he recovered, she turned and fled.
9
Isabel pulled her cloak tighter against the damp as she walked.
After so many years, London was almost as familiar as Paris. She knew who had warm beds and who didn’t ask questions. The taprooms that opened their doors to her and the shopkeepers who’d accept a few coins to hold their tongues. The madam in Mayfair who granted Isabel a bed when she needed rest. But none of that mattered now because Favreau would have men watching all those places.
She needed to board a steamer.
Get to Emma. Then the docks. Then anywhere but here.
Her boots clicked against the wet cobblestones as she strode towards Pall Mall. The houses loomed ahead, their windows glowing warm with lamplight. For days, she’d lurked in these shadows, observing her sister from a distance and protecting the only family she had left.
A scream sliced through the night – the kind she recognised.Terror.
Isabel froze. Then a desperate, choked shout came that sent ice through her veins.
She knew that voice.
Emma.
Bolting forward, she reached for the knife strapped to her thigh. She rounded the corner in time to see a man’s fist connect with Emma’s jaw. Her sister crumpled against the wall, blood staining her pale hair.
Isabel recognised the attacker’s stance immediately – shoulders squared, weight forward on the balls of his feet. Syndicate training.
Isabel didn’t think. There wasn’t time for thinking.
She launched herself at the man. Her blade slashed once, twice, biting deep into his side. He was stronger, but Isabel was faster. Favreau had taught her how to use an opponent’s size against them. How to find the vulnerable spots. How to end a fight before it truly began.
She feinted left, then slipped behind the man as he lunged. Her arm snaked around his throat.
“You picked the wrong woman’s sister,” she hissed in his ear.
Her knife opened his throat in a ruthless slash. Isabel released him, letting the body fall with a dull thud. It was a faster death than he deserved, but Isabel couldn’t draw it out, not with Emma on the ground and barely conscious.
She rushed to her sister, kneeling.
“Isabel,” Emma’s voice was a thin rasp.
She hesitated, torn between staying and fleeing. But she knew what would happen if she remained – questions she couldn’t answer, dangers she’d bring to Emma’s door.
Footsteps pounded against the cobblestones. A man’s voice shouted Emma’s name – the Earl of Kent. Isabel had to trust that he would take her home.
Go. Go now.
With one last look at her sister, Isabel turned and sprinted out of the alley.
*
Isabel struck a lucifer and lit the cigarette pinched between her lips. Smoke curled upwards as she leaned against a tree, focusing on the townhouse across the street.
Three days since Emma nearly died in that alley. Three nights of rain and cold and hunger. The earl had whisked her sister away to his brother’s fancy townhouse in Belgravia, and Isabel hadn’t moved from this spot since.
Her muscles ached. Her stomach growled. She ignored both.
She’d missed the damn steamer to France and her chance to put London at her back. Leaving Emma was out of the question.
