Page 4 of A Lady's Handbook of Espionage
“Don’t play games you can’t win, Ronan Callahan,” she whispered, lips brushing his.
“Who says I’m losing?” His voice came out rougher than he’d meant it to.
A heartbeat passed. Two. The orchestra hit a crescendo behind the glass.
The blade scraped over his skin in an idle caress. “I applaud your dedication, truly. As charming as this has been, I really must dash. Places to be, people to scandalise; you know how it is. It’s been a rare pleasure, Agent Callahan. But what fun would it be if you caught me so easily? I’d be disappointed if we never danced again.”
Then she eased the knife away and slipped into the ballroom, vanishing into the crowd.
2
Athens, 1870
Isabel Dumont walked through the agora.
Sweat-slicked bodies and livestock crowded the ancient market. She inhaled the scent of spices, ripe fruit, and the faint aroma of smoke as she passed customers haggling with vendors. Their voices rose in a mix of Greek and Turkish, English and French. She spotted a gull attempting to make off with one of the fresh Aegean sardines from a stall.
It was chaos.
But Isabel savoured it: the heat and the noise and the freedom of travelling without Favreau hovering over her shoulder. She anticipated the jostling elbows and swinging trays, the absentminded steps back and sudden swerves. The key to remaining unseen was understanding the current of movement.
Today, invisibility meant the difference between victory and failure.
Just get the coin, she reminded herself as she headed for the Numismatic Museum presently housed at the University of Athens.
The bruises on her wrists had barely faded from Favreau’s last demonstration of what happened to thieves who failed him. An American client of his wanted a rare antique coin. Favreau wanted to please the American.
And Isabel? She just wanted to survive.
All she had to do was steal it and disappear. A convincing performance of a bumbling American tourist, a quick sleight of hand, and she’d be bound for Paris. She’d deliver her prize to Favreau and lie low until his black mood passed.
A simple plan. Elegant.
All she wanted was to go home. Use a victory to distract Favreau for a few days so she could slip away and see her sister.
Emma still lived in the dingy flat they’d secured after the Duke of Southampton cast them all out. His mistress and two bastard daughters meant nothing once they became inconvenient. Disposable.
And thenMamanfell ill.
Isabel still remembered it all – that wet, hacking cough. The doctor’s face when he named his price. Their father’s dismissal when Emma pleaded with him for money to pay for medicine. And later, the cold calculation in Isabel’s heart when she realised what she’d have to do.
Poverty made people desperate. And desperation left you vulnerable to the wolves.
Emma never asked how Isabel earned the funds to pay for the doctor. She never asked why some of the coins came bloodstained, or why Isabel moved gingerly some days.
She never asked why Isabel didn’t stay more than a night to catch her breath.
Emma never asked questions because Isabel always lied. She refused to admit that she learned pretty girls had their own currency. It was part of the bargain she’d struck with Favreau – her body and service in exchange for training.
“Do this, and you’ll never go hungry again,” Favreau had promised, his hands in her hair. “Do this, and I’ll teach you to take whatever you want.”
He’d lied about the second part. Isabel had learned to take, but only what he wanted her to.
AndMamandied anyway.
Isabel kept stealing. It had become something else by then. A mission. A vendetta. She wanted to hurt the rich and take their precious things. Empty their safes. Make them feel a fraction of what she’d felt when her father – a duke with more money than he knew what to do with – had abandoned them all to die. Aristocrats believed they could take and discard without consequence. Left behind theirinconveniencesto be chewed up and spat out by men like Favreau.
The coin, she reminded herself.
