Knockout: A Hell’s Belles Novel

Detective Inspector Thomas Peck was having a bad day.

It had begun at a quarter past five, decidedly the worst hour of the morning. Nothing good came of waking at a quarter past five. First, it was the coldest point of the night, too far from the fire in the hearth and not close enough to the sun breaking over the horizon. Second, it was early. Not so early that it seemed to be the dead of night, and not late enough to be considered a proper time for an early rise. It was early in the most irritating way, as if only the wide world could have held still another quarter of an hour, everything would have been perfectly in order.

The inspector, you see, thrived when things were in order.

The young constable from Scotland Yard’s Detective Branch who had knocked on the door of Mrs. Edwards’s rooming house in Holborn had been unable to wait, however, and so a quarter past five—that ungodly hour—it was. It was not the fresh-faced boy’s fault, Thomas would acknowledge later, once he’d found strong coffee and brisk air. It was Thomas’s. Because he’d been more than clear with the entirety of the Detective Branch; if there was an explosion anywhere in London, at any hour, on any day, he was to be summoned. Immediately.

But it did not mean he had to enjoy being roused before dawn.

Nor did it mean his landlady had to enjoy it. Indeed, Mrs. Edwards—who took great pains in berating the young constable loudly before shrieking “Detective Inspector!” up the central staircase of the rooming house—claimed not to enjoy it. Though she seemed to enjoy the shrieking well enough.

Never mind that. By twenty to six, Thomas was returned to his stern, perfect control: shaved, washed, dressed, and exiting the house, Mrs. Edwards at his back, shouting him out the door with her well-practiced sermon, Why Decent Tenants Do Not Receive Callers Before Daybreak.

It took a great deal more than a landlady’s diatribe to deviate Thomas Peck from his course, however, and he closed the shining black door behind him, silencing the noise with a firm hand. He looked to the young constable. “Where to?”

Where to, was the East End, where a massive explosion had taken out a seamstress shop between a pie shop and a pub. Keenly aware of the police wagon in which he traveled, the Detective Inspector instructed the driver to drop him in the alley behind the building, so he could enter unseen.

The young constable did his best to hide his belief that the detective inspector was expecting more than was reasonable in Spitalfields—by all reports, the building had been razed in the dead of night; surely any culprit would be gone.

But Thomas Peck wasn’t expecting a culprit. He was expecting something much worse.

Chaos. The kind that came in a pretty, plump, petite package, with bright eyes and glossy black curls. The kind that too often came with trouble. And mountains of paperwork.

And there she was, as expected. Lady Imogen Loveless, dressed in the bright blue of a summer sky (had the woman ever worn a color that wasn’t in the damn rainbow?), holding the enormous carpetbag she was never without, between piles of rubble in an exploded building that was by no means stable, alongside two other ladies—the Duchess of Trevescan and Mrs. Sesily Calhoun—promising to make his bad day much worse, as she always did.

Thomas stopped them as they headed to their carriage, the newly married Duchess of Clayborn visible in the window of the conveyance. He would be lying if he were to say he did not enjoy the shock on the Duchess’s face—and the way three sets of skirts swished around the ankles of the trio he’d frozen in their tracks.

Lady Imogen turned first. Of course.

She began in the same manner she always did, by offering him a bold, bright smile—one clearly intended to addle the mind of a lesser man. But Thomas Peck was not a lesser man, and he was immune to the woman’s charms. At least, he was when he was prepared for them. “Why, Detective Inspector! What a surprise to find you here!”

“I wish I could say the same, Lady Imogen,” he said, stopping next to a pile of fallen bricks that had once been a wall between the front and back rooms of the shop, resisting the urge to approach her. “But I have come to expect you wherever there is mayhem.”

Her dark eyes went somehow brighter than they’d been, fairly twinkling. “What a lovely thing to say.”

Her companions shared an amused look over her black curls.

“Careful,” he said. “I’m not convinced you don’t cause it.”

She flashed him a smile that he might have thought was pretty if he weren’t already braced for the full blast of it. “Careful yourself. I’m not convinced you don’t come searching for it.”

Mrs. Sesily Calhoun snickered at the retort, and Thomas scowled. He didn’t come searching for it. He was an inspector of the Detective Branch of Scotland Yard. He had work to do and was too damn busy to follow this woman around, no matter how often they crossed paths. “I don’t.”

Lady Imogen shook her head, and Thomas had the distinct sense he was being patronized. “Of course, you don’t.”

“I come to places where crimes have been committed. Places where I am required to do my job.”

“A job you do well,” she said, her gaze sliding over him in a way that he should not have liked so much.

Hang on. Was she mocking him? He narrowed his gaze. “I do it very well, as a matter of fact.”

That smile again, full of delight and secrets. “That’s why I said it.”

More snickers from the ladies who flanked her, and he’d had enough. “Ladies—why are you here?”

“Do we require a reason?”

“To be lingering in a hollowed-out building? Generally, yes.”

“And what if my reason were simply that I enjoy explosions?”

“That’s a ridiculous reason,” he replied.

“Well. That’s rather unkind. I do enjoy explosions.”

“Enough to have caused this one?”

A pause, and she smiled again, admiration in her gaze—not that he was interested in the woman admiring him. Still, he did not dislike it when she said, “Oh, that was very well done.”

His brows rose. “What was well done?”

“That quick response—an interrogation, wasn’t it? So quick and casual that I might have answered it if I were a lesser woman. I imagine it works a great deal of the time.”

It did, as a matter of fact. “And yet you didn’t answer.”

She grinned. “I did not.”

He shouldn’t like it, the way she sparred with him. The way everything went brighter with the battle of wits she offered. He shouldn’t like the way her curls bounced about her face. He shouldn’t notice how her cheeks flushed with her own pleasure.

And he most certainly should not wonder what other things made her cheeks flush with pleasure.

He cleared his throat and regained control of the conversation. “You are a woman with a confessed fondness for explosions, in the early morning hours in the rubble of a building that has been razed to the ground.”

“Am I on your list of suspects, Detective Inspector?”

“No,” he allowed. “But you cannot fault me for finding you suspect.”

“Take heart, Tommy. Most of London finds me suspect.”

He absolutely should not like it when she called him Tommy. He pressed his lips together, trying for his most intimidating look—one that regularly had hardened criminals rolling over. “This is the third exploded location at which I’ve found you in as many months.”

The lady was unmoved. “And what a tale it will make for our future children.”

It was only due to years of training that Thomas’s face did not reveal his shock. He exhaled sharply and quelled the extraneous thoughts her teasing might have inspired in the mind of a lesser man. “Lady Imogen, I believe you know more than you are willing to share about this particular crime.”

“It’s plausible.” Lady Imogen tilted her head in his direction. “Do you have a very serious plan for my interrogation?”

She was infuriating. So why was he considering all the ways he might interrogate her? Ways that began with tossing her over his shoulder and depositing her in the back of a dark carriage . . .

His thoughts were interrupted by a bark of feminine laughter as the Duchess of Trevescan moved to leave the building. “Truly the two of you make an excellent play. If your current careers go south, you could always take to the theater.”

With the delighted pronouncement, she made for the street, Mrs. Calhoun at her heels.

Leaving Thomas alone with Lady Imogen.

He stepped closer to her, even though he shouldn’t. “I could arrest you, you know.”

“On what grounds?” she asked, matching his step with one of her own.

“Tampering with the site of a crime.”

“Has there been a crime?” She took another step. Closer. Close enough for him to stare down at the top of her head, the roundness of her pink cheeks, the point of her pert chin, and beyond, to where the bodice of her bright blue dress peeked from beneath a matching cloak. A gleaming brooch made of black obsidian, set in a silver frame, was pinned to the velvet at her breast, soft and lush. As lush as she was.

He cleared his throat and dragged his eyes to hers, deep and brown. “I expect so.”

She nodded, her curls bouncing to and fro. “As do I.”

He tightened at the words, at the way she said them with such simple clarity, as though she was his equal. “And?”

“And . . .” She lingered on the word, and he hung on her hesitation, on the curve of her lips, the white edge of her teeth, the little hint of her pink tongue at the end of the word. “I have done nothing requiring a trip to Whitehall.” A pause before she added, “Not today, at least.”

Exasperation flared. “What do you know?”

“Nothing the police will help.”

“You mean nothing that will help the police.”

“Do I?” With a smile, she turned away, and for one mad moment, he reached for her, stopping himself as his fingers barely grazed the cerulean wool of her cloak. She was a lady. Sister to an earl. He couldn’t touch her. What had he been thinking?

The woman should not be let out of the house, truly. She was chaos.

And temptation.

Not for him. He was perfectly in control. Perfectly able to resist her. He’d resisted worse.

Liar.

He snatched his hand back and found his voice, ignoring the feel of her name on his tongue. “Lady Imogen.”

She did not reply, instead coming to a stop, her heavy winter skirts swirling around her ankles with the change in momentum. He stopped, too, his gaze tracking over her shoulder, past her curls, to the young white woman standing in Imogen’s path, eyes wide in her pale face.

“Good morning!” Lady Imogen said happily, as though they were anywhere but here, in the shell of a burned-out building.

The young woman blinked, surprise and confusion and something heavier on her face—something made worse when she looked to Thomas. Instinctively, he took a step backward, giving her space. “Oh,” she said softly, backing into the street, her gaze tracking over the building, the rubble, and finally the lady, out of place. “Oh,” the young woman repeated, seeming to realize herself, and bobbed a quick curtsy.

“There’s no need for that,” Lady Imogen said, waving her up and tilting her head. “May I help you in some way?”

“I had an . . .” The woman—girl, really. She couldn’t have been older than sixteen or seventeen—hesitated, looking to the building once more, eyes somehow going wider, like saucers, filling with palpable disappointment. “. . . appointment.” She swallowed. Heavy. Desolate. “This morning. Wiv the seamstress. This morning.” The last came with panic.

Lady Imogen nodded. “I understand. As you can see, she is not here.”

“Is she . . .” Another hesitation.

“Oh, she is quite well, don’t you worry about that. Already setting up shop not far from here.” Imogen set down her carpetbag and pushed her cloak aside to reach deep into the wide balloon of her coat sleeve, extracting a small book and a pencil.

Thomas wondered what else she might keep in that sleeve. He would not be surprised to discover a vial of poison or a sharp blade or a heavy candlestick ready for swinging within.

While he wondered, Imogen scribbled on a page of the book before ripping it out and passing it to the girl, who stared down at it for a moment before looking up once more, frustration keen in her eyes.

She couldn’t read.

Of course, Thomas wasn’t the only one to notice. Lady Imogen put a warm hand on the girl’s arm and leaned in, whispering too softly for him to hear. Though he tried, dammit.

The girl’s pale fingers—no gloves—grasped Imogen’s—also no gloves—tightly. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“Of course. The seamstress will have you sorted in no time. There’s no need to worry.”

The girl dropped a quick bob and spun away, hurrying back into the grey morning where the rain hovered on the brink of sleet.

“You know where Mrs. O’Dwyer and Mrs. Leafe are,” Thomas said.

“Of course I do,” Imogen replied, leaning down to collect her ever-present carpetbag. “You do not?”

He clenched his jaw.

“You know, Detective,” she said happily, “you really shouldn’t begin your day without breakfast. An empty stomach puts you on the back foot.”

“I am in no way on my back foot, my lady.”

A little smile appeared on her pretty pink lips. No. Not pretty. Not pink. Just lips. Ordinary lips. Not at all for noticing. “Forgive me. I would have thought you would have started with the location of Mrs. O’Dwyer and Leafe.”

He scowled. She wasn’t wrong, but he’d be damned if he admitted it. “Where are they?”

“That would take the fun out of it, don’t you think?” And then, the absolute madwoman headed for her carriage, no doubt thinking she’d won the battle.

He turned away, determined to restore quiet reason to the morning, looking immediately to a clear spot amid the rubble, a spray of dark soot marking the location where the blast originated. And circling the perimeter? A set of fresh, small footprints.

His gaze traced the area, registered a disturbance in the blast pattern—new marks in the dust.

He turned as the carriage door opened from within, welcoming Lady Imogen to safety, her black ringlets bobbing, her lovely bottom swaying as she reached to pass her bag up into the carriage.

Not that the loveliness of her bottom had anything to do with him stopping her. “Lady Imogen,” he called out.

She turned back.

“Your bag.”

She tilted her head. “My bag?”

“I don’t suppose you’ll show me what’s inside?” He would have wagered a year’s salary that she had found something useful in the rubble, and it was now tucked inside that enormous carpetbag she went nowhere without.

Since he’d met her fourteen months earlier (he wasn’t counting—precision was his job), Lady Imogen Loveless had produced any number of remarkable things from that bag. Explosives. Weapons. And a series of files that had helped Thomas put the newly formed Detective Branch of Scotland Yard on the map. Information on an earl who’d killed his wives. More on one who’d kidnapped children to let them die in his workhouses. Files thick as Thomas’s thumb, each one stamped with an indigo bell and filled with enough evidence to send both of the men away for a lifetime.

What is in there today, Imogen?

And more importantly, why wasn’t she willing to share it?

She looked down at the bag in her hand, as though she’d just discovered that it was there. When she returned her gaze to him, there was a playful twinkle in her eye. “Really, Mr. Peck. You ought to know better than to ask a lady about the contents of her reticule.”

He slid a look at the bag—capacious and nothing close to a reticule—and replied dryly, “An odd thing to call a reticule—a bit more inside than a handkerchief and an extra hairpin, I’m guessing.”

“I carry it with me on outings, and it is full of items that are of a personal nature,” she said. “If that is not a reticule, I don’t know what to call it.”

“Well, I don’t think you’d be out of line calling it luggage, considering,” he said.

“Nevertheless,” she retorted, “a lady never tells.”

She turned and passed the bag up through the open door, following it into the dark interior of the carriage.

He watched, but not because of her lovely bottom. Instead, he watched to ensure that she left. Her presence was a continuous distraction. He had work to do, and he knew where to find her.

Mayfair. Where ladies lived. With aristocrats and money. Ladies who had no place in the East End.

Though turning away required more effort than he would ever admit, Thomas did just that, returning to the wreckage of the building to investigate the source of the blast—which had already been investigated by Imogen Loveless, who kept more secrets than a criminal mastermind.

Walking the perimeter of the formerly front room of O’Dwyer and Leafe’s Dressmakers shop, he moved toward the staircase—all that remained of the building itself—looking for any evidence left by the architect of the blast. His discerning gaze tracked the floor, searching for clues that might be revealed among the ash and soot and rubble.

More footprints. Heeled boots. Blue, no doubt. Like her dress. Ladies like Imogen Loveless wore shoes that matched their dresses, because they were not beholden to practicalities. They could swan about in bright colors and never worry about soot on their hems or dirt on their heels, as they had all the money and access and privilege they required to buy new skirts or boots or carpetbags or whatever else they required whenever they required it.

Ladies like Imogen Loveless could turn up in Spitalfields to play at investigating an explosion on a whim, because they had no reason to ever be here for legitimate work. Or life.

“Spoiled,” he grumbled, deliberately sidestepping the footprints in the dirt, as though in doing so, he might sidestep the woman herself.

A creak sounded above, and Thomas looked up, icy rain coming down through the charred rafters above. He narrowed his gaze and considered the missing upper levels. Somewhere, surely, there was something that had survived the explosion. Some clue to what had happened here—so similar to what had happened to two other buildings in the past three months.

He moved closer to the staircase, wondering how sturdy it might be—

“No! Don’t!”

He turned at the shout—too loud to have come from a lady and yet . . . Lady Imogen was there, leaping from the carriage into the street below, without waiting for the coachman to deliver a step. Into the mud. Not caring that she was ruining her skirts. Proving his point.

Except she didn’t seem to be uncaring in that moment. There was something in her eyes—something like . . . concern? He shifted his movement, reversing his course, heading toward her.

Another creak sounded from above, this one louder—more like a rumble.

“Imogen!” The Duchess of Trevescan was leaping down from the carriage, reaching for her friend. “Wait!”

Another rumble. Louder. Closer. He looked up at the stairs.

“Tommy! Don’t get too close to the—”

Christ, they were coming down.

And Imogen Loveless was running toward him.

He moved without thinking, heading directly for her, lifting her clear off her feet, barely registering her little “Eep!” as he made for the street, where her trio of friends stood shoulder to shoulder, eyes wide, as the staircase collapsed with a thunder, sending up a cloud of soot and ash behind them.

He turned once he was outside the footprint of the building, looking back at the place where, not ten seconds earlier, he’d been standing. Where she’d been heading. The stairs had collapsed into a heap of wood and brick—enough to have killed a man. And a woman. An emotion he did not care for flared and he looked to the lady in his arms, unable to stop himself from asking, loud and irritated, “Do you see now? That you have no place inside exploded buildings? That you might be hurt?”

Imogen’s eyes were wide, and for a heartbeat, he saw something there. Something like fear. And he loathed it—the way it muted her.

Her fire returned, hotter than before. “I wouldn’t have been in there if you had taken more care!”

He barely contained a roar of frustration. He should put her down. Put her down and leave her there, on the street in Spitalfields. The madwoman.

And he would. In just a moment.

Just as soon as he was certain she was out of trouble.

“Oh, my,” Sesily Calhoun interjected from afar. “Would you look at the muscles on him?”

“I wonder if I could convince Henry to grow a beard again?” the Duchess of Clayborn said. “It is so exciting when they let you shave them off.”

Thomas looked to the women watching them. “Aren’t you married, ladies?”

“Ah, but not dead,” Mrs. Calhoun replied as the Duchess of Clayborn nodded happily. “We’re simply admiring the fine way you saved our friend.”

Their friend, still in his arms, the soft, lush weight of her a perfect reminder that she was safe. That they were alive. That his heart thrummed in his chest.

“Not that I needed saving,” Imogen said softly. “Or, rather, not that I would have needed saving if you hadn’t ventured so close to the stairs.”

He could not stop the growl that came from deep in his chest at the words.

Her brows rose. “Of course, since you did get so close to the stairs, and I did come back inside, thank goodness you were there to save me, Tommy.”

He ignored the way the diminutive—one only his mother and sister used—sounded in her soft, aristocratic voice, and corrected her. “Detective Inspector.”

Christ, she was so soft, and she smelled so sweet, like tarts in a shop window, like pears and cream. And as he held her and told himself to set her down, dammit, the feel and scent of her took control of the situation. Making it impossible to do anything but feel her. Smell her. Look at her—all pink cheeks and dark, sparkling eyes and a smile he should not commit to memory.

When she put a hand to his chest, he couldn’t help his flinch. For a single, wild moment, Thomas Peck was out of control. And he did not like it.

“That’s a lovely sound,” she said. “A harumble.” She was talking about him. About the sound he’d made.

He put her down. Immediately.