Page 45 of A Lady's Handbook of Espionage
“Ah. Upon further consideration, I may have expanded the parameters of Miss Dumont’s confinement.”
Chin up, shoulders back. The quintessential agent, unshakable, immovable—
“I see.” Emma’s gaze could have drilled holes through a lesser man’s skull. “And what necessitated theseexpanded parameters?”
Shite. Shit, shit, fecking shite.
“One can never be too thorough with security. Your sister has proven quite slippery in the past. It’s for her safety that I’ve taken extra precautions.”
Miss Dumont gave him the most unimpressed expression he’d ever had the misfortune to encounter. One he was beginning to suspect was a Dumont family trait.
“Mr Callahan. Perhaps you’d be so kind as to answer me plainly. Where is my sister?”
Callahan shot a helpless look at Kent, silently imploring the earl to rein in his diminutive fiancée before she eviscerated him and left his entrails for the herring gulls. But the earl merely stared back. The bastard was probably enjoying watching him squirm.
“She’s in his cabin,” Kent said. “Cuffed, I’d wager.”
Of course, he fucking knew. Callahan thought of the reverent way he touched Miss Dumont, the quiet devotion in every look. He’d probably seen that same savage need reflected in Callahan’s eyes when he looked at Isabel: the animal snarl, the white-knuckled restraint. The need to see her kneeling at his feet, wrists crossed at the small of her back, waiting for him to choke her on his—
“She’s resting,” Callahan said, shaking off his wayward thoughts. “Quite comfortably, I assure you.”
Emma’s lips pursed, but she said nothing. After what could only be called a silent threat to send him to the very depths of hell if anything happened to her sister, she turned on her heel and walked away. Kent cast one last glance over his shoulder as he followed, his own look promising unpleasantness.
Message received on both accounts.
Well. No sense dawdling above deck when he had a naked thief below. Of course, there was no telling what mood he’d find her in after leaving her to stew for hours.
Probably homicidal. The odds of him escaping their little encounter without bodily injury were slim.
Callahan paused outside the cabin door, reaching for the iron-clad control that had seen him through countless missions, innumerable brushes with death and damnation.
Right then. No more stalling.
He stepped into the room. The illumination from the lantern threw stark shadows over the figure splayed on the narrow bed.
Isabel. Asleep.
She twitched and shuddered against the sheets. Perspiration beaded her brow.
“Non, s’il vous plaît,” she mumbled. “Just don’t—”
Callahan crossed the room, his heart slamming against his ribs.
He was unequipped to handle this. Give him a pistol and an enemy to hunt, a code to crack or a mark to shadow – those he could navigate with ruthless efficiency. But Isabel thrashing in his bed, trapped in whatever hell her mind had dragged her to?
It was unfamiliar terrain.
He’d known Favreau was a cruel bastard. The kind who’d break what belonged to him just because he could. Callahan’s eyes traced the silvery lines marking her skin, each one telling him exactly what kind of monster had caged and hunted her.
“Non. Je serai sage.”
Something twisted in his chest – an emotion he didn’t have a name for.
With a muttered prayer to a god he scarcely believed in, Callahan reached out and let his fingertips graze her temple. The lightest brush, barely there. A tentative foray into gentleness from hands far more accustomed to violence.
Isabel flinched away from his touch.
“Trouble,” he said. Low. Coaxing. “Wake up.”
