Knockout: A Hell’s Belles Novel

“They’re gone.”

He held her tight to him, his mouth at her ear. “Not yet.” She lifted her head, and he feared she’d move entirely away, and whether it was cold or fear or some kind of unbearable combination of both, she said, “They may do another sweep. If they don’t find us.”

“Then we—”

He didn’t have the strength to stand, let alone fight, and the knowledge that his body might betray him at a time when she was threatened was enough to make him wild. His hand moved of its own accord, and he reveled in the simple stroke of it over her back, in the feel of her against his fingers—fingers that had not been able to feel twenty minutes earlier. He pressed a kiss to her lips, desperate for the feel of her, trying to keep the animal inside him at bay.

“Talk to me,” he said softly, when he released her.

She pressed her cheek to his chest, the powdered hair of her wig rough against his shoulder. Another sensation to enjoy, even as he counted the minutes until he could toss the thing across the room and revel in the softness of her sable curls.

“Are you . . .” She searched for the words. “Do you . . . believe me?” He took a deep breath, hating the sound of the question, small and urgent and full of worry. As though she still did not trust him.

He could not blame her for it, of course. But still, he ached for her faith.

Before he could speak, she was talking, the words coming at a clip, as though she was desperate to get them out. “I know you think I am mad. I know this . . . the names, the addresses, the uniforms, the medallion, the explosives. I know it seems like chaos. Like I’m bringing you a stack of files again, but this time, with very little proof. But Tommy—”

“Stop. I believe you. Of course I believe you.” He pressed a kiss to her temple. “Imogen—I don’t think you’re mad.”

She lifted her head. “You don’t?”

“No.” His hand found her cheek, his thumb stroking across the soft skin there. “I think the world is mad. But you . . . I think you are the best of it—you are hope, and passion, and purpose, and justice. And sometimes you are vengeance, too, and it makes me want to fight by your side. For as long as you need me.” He shook his head. “For too long, I believed all of it was fleeting. Justice? Hope? Passion? It was all available in small doses only if I walked a narrow path. But now . . . I see there is another path. Another way. And it comes with all those things. And with joy, too.”

And with love.

He couldn’t say that bit. Even now, in this place, with her pressed against him, keeping him warm, hiding alongside him from what was in the world beyond. Especially now that he’d nearly gotten her killed and they had Scotland Yard searching for them. And so he would keep that . . . his final confession . . . his most important one . . . secret.

So he gave her a different one. “I believed you,” he said into the darkness, “the moment you showed me the medallion. Before they came for me.”

“You did?” She lifted her head and met his eyes, and he caught his breath at the hope he saw there.

“In my experience, the Hell’s Belles rarely get things wrong.” He pressed a kiss to her temple. “Thank you. For trusting me.”

The moment was punctuated by the ringing of a bell in the hallway beyond. A familiar sound, made more familiar by the way Imogen inhaled sharply and released a long, relieved breath. “Finally.”

“Bells,” he said. “They follow you.”

“They’re going to follow you, too, if you play your cards right.” He didn’t understand, but he didn’t have a chance to before she added, “She’s here.”

Whoever it was, Tommy knew they would end this quiet, perfect moment, Imogen naked in his arms. And he didn’t want it to end. “Tell them to go away.”

Imogen looked to him, a smile on her lips. “I’m afraid this particular visitor is not easily commanded.”

A knock at the door, and it swung open.

Dammit, didn’t bawdy houses have locks?

“Are you decent?” The Duchess of Trevescan entered, followed by two footmen carrying a bathtub and what seemed like a battalion of housemaids hauling buckets of water.

Tommy ripped off his mask. The woman, uncommonly tall and blond, was dressed head to toe in white—an ermine hat and a wool coat with fur trim over a white gown, finished with pristine white gloves and, he was certain, white boots. It was the kind of attire one did not see in London, because it was impossible to imagine it remaining white after thirty seconds in the city air.

Not so for the Duchess of Trevescan, who apparently terrified dirt.

Her gaze fell to the bed. “Ah. I see you are not decent.” A pause. “That’s a nice wig.”

Imogen cut her friend a look and pulled off the wig in question, tossing it to the end of the bed as she moved off him, sitting up and holding the blankets to her chest. Tommy resisted the urge to pull her back to the spot where she’d been. “The river is like ice, Duchess,” she said to her friend. “He would have died of the cold if we had not done something.”

Duchess raised a cool blond brow. “Well, now that that’s sorted, I fear he will die of the things in that river that are not cold if you do not get him into a bath. With soap.”

“Are they gone?” Imogen asked.

“For now,” Duchess said. “And truly stupid if that wig worked. Honestly, is it any wonder that Scotland Yard has taken up the yoke of The Bully Boys? Do they just have a team of imbeciles employed at Whitehall?” She paused. “Present company excepted, of course.”

“I find I am quite happy being excepted from that particular group of villains, Your Grace.” It seemed odd to use the honorific here, in a bordello, while he was naked, but he didn’t imagine there was a place on earth where the Duchess of Trevescan did not look like a duchess.

“Mmm,” Duchess said. “I understand you’ve had a run-in with your colleagues, Mr. Peck. And do you see now what we have known for a while? That whoever is part of this corruption, wherever the line begins, with boys just out of leading strings searching a brothel on the riverbank, it ends with someone much more dangerous?”

Tommy nodded. “I do.”

“But you do not have that name.”

He shook his head. “Whatever this is, I have been kept from it.”

There was a long silence before Duchess nodded. “So it seems. Which begs the question: Why?” Before anyone could answer, she looked to Imogen. “For what it’s worth, Imogen believed you were to be trusted from the start.” The woman, tall, blond, and cool as ice, did not hesitate when she looked back at him. “Considering Scotland Yard sent a collection of thugs to kill you today . . . I’m leaning toward believing her.”

“Thank you.”

“Do not thank me,” she said. “It gets more difficult now that you’re out from under their cover.”

He swallowed at the words, a thrum of understanding exploding through him. Scotland Yard was no longer his dominion. He no longer knew whom to trust.

The duchess seemed to understand the cacophony of thoughts that came with the realization, and her cool smile turned just a touch warmer. “I’ve guards on the roof and at both ends of the street, however, so they won’t come back without being seen. At least, not tonight.” She looked to Tommy. “I assume you don’t know the names of the men who tried to kill you?”

Tommy shook his head. “No. They’re constables outside of the Detective Branch. But I intend to find them.”

Duchess’s blond brows rose. “Planning to walk into Whitehall and ask the villains to step forward, are you?” A little smile played over her lips. “I don’t presume to tell you how to mete out justice, Mr. Peck, but I would suggest you rethink returning to a place where your death would make things much easier. I suggest you have a look at the gift I’ve brought you before you do anything rash.” Lifting Imogen’s bag in her hand, she said, “In here. Oh, and all the rest of your tinctures and tonics as well, Im.”

A long exhale signaled Imogen’s gratitude, no doubt at having her arsenal returned.

Duchess was not done with Tommy. “Should you require assistance with anything, I suggest coming to see me. I’ve an excellent relationship with the News.” Her gaze flickered to Imogen. “As you both have seen. Honest to God, it took the two of you long enough to . . .” She waved a hand toward the bed. “You may thank me when we are finished with this bit of work.”

They looked at each other. Was the Duchess of Trevescan admitting to feeding the gossip columns and cartoonists? She brushed a speck of lint from the sleeve of her pristine white coat and stepped out of the way as the housemaids left, having filled the bathtub.

“Imogen, I’ve sent word to your brother that you are a guest at my home tonight.” Her icy blue gaze flickered to Tommy in the bed behind them. “Though you do understand you are going to have to face that particular problem sooner rather than later. In the meantime, I’m sure Lorelei will find you a French letter should you require one.”

“Duchess!” Imogen exclaimed.

The duchess spread her hands wide in a sign of utter innocence. “I’m merely attempting to be a good friend!”

“Start by leaving!”

The other woman turned for the door. “You will all miss me when I am gone, you know.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Imogen retorted.

“Not yet,” Duchess said, pausing to look over her shoulder and giving Tommy a wink. “We’ve far too much work to do. Do try to make good choices!”

The door closed behind her, leaving Tommy feeling as though he’d just been through a hurricane. “Why do I feel like I’ve just been commandeered?”

“Because you have been,” Imogen said, urging him out of bed, stopping only to pull on the red dressing gown Lorelei Wilde had left for her. “Be warned. Duchess does not care for taking no for an answer.”

“Is that how she convinced you to join the Belles?” he said, following her lead, crossing the room and stepping into the bathtub, full of tepid water sure to finish the job of warming him.

She reached for a length of linen and some soap, and moved behind him to wash his back. As though everything that had happened that day was perfectly normal. Including this—the two of them alone, sharing secrets in a bawdy house.

Christ. He wanted it to be normal.

He wanted it to be daily.

Well, maybe not the bit where they were nearly killed . . . but everything else. And certainly the bit where she told him her stories.

“Duchess collects people,” she said fondly. “She is the most loyal, honest, noble person I know, and when she decides she wishes someone in her orbit—and it does seem like orbit, like she is the sun and the rest of us simply gravitate toward her—she makes it impossible for you to say no.”

“You, Sesily Calhoun, the Duchess of Clayborn . . .”

She washed his skin in long, lingering strokes before saying, “It’s a far broader collection than that. Throughout London, across Britain.” A pause, and then, “A collection of misfits who, together, make sense. Thanks to Duchess.”

He didn’t think Imogen was a misfit, but he held his tongue. “How did she find you?”

“My mother died when I was six—too young to remember her—and so I was raised . . . differently.” He didn’t like the assessment, but he did not correct her, not wanting her to stop. “It’s possible I might have been raised differently anyway, but Charles turned out the way he turned out, so I doubt it.”

Tommy thought her brother had turned out rather differently as well, but he held his tongue.

“Everyone says my father loved my mother beyond comprehension. That he would have done anything for her, and when she took ill with fever and died, a bit of him died with her. He had always been a scientist, but after that, he threw himself into his studies. Spent most of his time with other scientists—chemists and physicists and astronomers and doctors.”

“I understand that,” Tommy said. “Losing someone so important—all you can think to do is throw yourself into something that will distract from what you’ve lost.” It was how he had climbed the ranks at Scotland Yard so quickly—anything to keep from thinking of the life his father might have had.

She nodded. “Charles was already away at school, and I think my father feared losing another, so he brought me with him wherever he went. And I adored it. I followed him about and learned what he would teach. I set off my first explosion at the age of eight.” Her pride was palpable, and he couldn’t help but feel it as well. “By the time I was ten, I was blowing things up in the cellars.”

His brows shot up and he looked over his shoulder at her.

“Nothing living,” she qualified.

“That’s a relief.” He sank beneath the water, coming up for air and raising his hands to lather his hair and wash the last bits of the river from it. Silence fell, and he raised his eyes to Imogen’s where she stood now, at the end of the bathtub, staring.

“My lady?”

She swallowed. “It’s just . . . you’ve a great number of muscles.”

“No more than the usual amount.” He’d never admit it, but he slowed his motions, flexing his biceps as he washed the rest of his body, enjoying her distraction. It served her right. He was in a constant state of distraction with her.

Her gaze tracked the movements as he dipped back into the water and rinsed his hair, ignoring all the parts of him that had been restored by the bath. And by Imogen. She was in the middle of a story, and he intended to hear the whole thing.

When he resurfaced, he came to his feet, stepping out of the bath and taking the towel she offered. “Go on.”

“Hmm?”

Pleasure and pride hummed through him. He knew he wasn’t a bad-looking man, but there was something remarkable in the idea that he could scramble her brilliant thoughts with a bath. “Explosions in the cellars.”

“Oh!” she said, moving to her bag and rummaging inside before returning with a roll of bandage for his arm and making quick, efficient work of dressing his already healing wound—the stitches miraculously unbothered by his exertion that afternoon. “When we discussed experiments, it was the only time he paid attention to me.”

His chest tightened at the words, and he reached for her, taking her hand and leading her back to the bed. She let him guide her beneath the sheets, turning toward him as he followed behind her. “Are you warm enough?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure? You were—”

“I’m sure.”

“But the river—”

“Imogen,” he said, stroking a hand over her cheek, setting one finger to the furrow in her brow. “I am well. No worse for wear.”

Her gaze tracked over him. “You nearly died.”

“You saved me.” He leaned forward and kissed her, gently. “Tell me the rest.”

She nodded. “You know much of it. I didn’t care for dancing or pianoforte or needlepoint or learning to keep a house or any of the rest of the things young unmarried ladies were supposed to care for.” She paused. “Truly, I don’t think they do care for them. I think they go along with it because that’s what they’re supposed to do.”

He nodded. “Men have a good lot.”

She cut him a look. “Rich, moneyed, powerful men, especially.” A pause as she returned to her story. “My father didn’t mind my lack of interest. He was more than happy to hire me tutors for Norse myth and anatomy and fencing—did you know I could fence?”

“I did not, but I am unsurprised to learn it.”

She smiled. “I’m not good at it like I am with pyrotechnics.”

A memory returned. “You exploded a man this afternoon!”

“I didn’t explode him,” she insisted. “I stunned him. His ears will ring for a bit, but I’d have needed something a bit stronger to actually harm him.”

“And you without your carpetbag.”

She laughed, tiny and sweet, and he couldn’t stop himself from pressing another kiss to her forehead. “And so? What happened to turn you to a life of crime?”

“I beg your pardon, is it crime if you’re meting out justice?”

“It absolutely is crime, but I’m warming to the idea.”

Another smile, and then she said, “My father died.” She took a deep breath, her eyes going distant. “In his sleep. They said it was peaceful. His heart just . . . stopped.” Her fingers played absently at the collar of the silk dressing gown as she spoke. “And then I didn’t have anyone. Charles returned from wherever men in their twenties go, but he didn’t know what to do with me—a girl who made gunpowder in the cellar? I think he hoped that if he ignored me, one day I’d disappear, and he’d never have to worry about me having to step into a ballroom. Or a chapel.

“I did try, for what it’s worth. To be the kind of sister he could love.” A flash of humor in her dark brown eyes. “I would have liked for him to have been proud of me. To have thought highly of me. To think highly of me, instead of thinking of me only as a weight about his neck.” She sighed. “I ate a great deal of lamb for the man.”

He couldn’t find a laugh. He was too busy imagining putting his fist into the Earl of Dorring’s face. Because if there was one thing in the world that was easy, it was loving Imogen.

“Your brother is an imbecile.”

Surprise lit her face. “Not a very kind thing to say about your employer.”

It occurred to Tommy that the Earl of Dorring was no longer his employer. Even if he were staying at Scotland Yard, he couldn’t imagine Imogen’s brother would take kindly to the number of hours Tommy had spent naked in the company of his sister. And aside from all that, “I wouldn’t take a penny from him. Not now.”

Her fingers skated over his beard, tracing the line of his jaw. “Because we are even now that I’ve pulled you from the Thames?”

“Because you’re perfect,” Tommy said, knowing it was a mistake. Knowing he should dress and leave this place now, before he fell further under her spell. “Explosions and gunpowder and whatever you keep in that bottle that I hear knocks men out cold be damned.”

A blush chased across her cheeks. “You always say such nice things.”

“You deserve to hear nice things. Now finish your story.”

“Duchess found me. Duchess is how the Belles find anyone. And, it seems, she is how the News finds you.” She gave a little shrug. “I’m not sure I should tell you this part.”

She absolutely should tell him this part. And everything else she had in her magnificent head. “Why not?”

“Well, it is not the least criminal of my activities.”

He tugged her closer, full of her. “You forget, my lady. I, too, have a criminal past. I am a known thief of unmentionables.”

Her laugh rang through the room. “That is true. Imagine what the world would say! Noble Tommy Peck, corset stealer. Alright,” she said. “She stopped me from blowing up Charles’s carriage.”

His eyes went wide.

“It was an experiment!”

Tommy had been a detective long enough to know a lie when he heard one, so he stayed quiet.

“It wasn’t an experiment,” she confessed almost immediately. “I was young and angry and rebellious. And I wanted someone to pay attention to me. Thankfully, Duchess was doing just that, or we might have met at Whitehall long ago, under very different circumstances.”

“For six years with you instead of fourteen months,” he said quietly, “I would have taken my chances with young and angry and rebellious Lady Imogen.”

She smiled, soft and tempting. “I would have liked that.” And then he was consumed by all the other things about her that were soft and tempting. The taste of her. The feel of her. The way she wrapped herself around him and gave herself up to him.

The way she looked at him, like he was a god among men, not seeming to realize that it was he who was the mortal. That it was she who was divine.

“Tommy,” she said softly. “I wonder if you would mind very much if . . .”

“Anything,” he said. “All you wish.”

She closed the distance between them, her kiss heady and sweet, her tongue stroking along his lower lip gently, carefully, as though he might break.

He growled and deepened it, pushing her back to the bed and coming over her, working at the tie of her dressing gown, parting the silk so he could slide one hand over her warm skin. God, the things he wanted to do with her.

Except . . .

He lifted his head, breaking the kiss. “Wait.”

“No,” she retorted, lifting into his embrace once more.

He resisted. “Imogen . . . sweetheart. Last night—are you . . . uncomfortable?”

Imogen blushed, and Tommy knew he shouldn’t like it. He knew he should be concerned by her pink cheeks, an answer in themselves. He’d done his best to take care of her the night before. Made certain she’d come apart in his arms . . . more than once. But he knew his size, and no matter how careful he’d been—

She finally looked to him, her dark eyes, the color of rich sable, meeting his. “A . . . touch?”

He cursed in the quiet room, pulling her close, intending to whisper his apologies into her hair. He was too big for her. Too much a brute. Too coarse.

And he’d hurt her.

“Love,” he whispered. “I am—”

“Don’t you dare apologize,” she said, the words sharp. “That’s just the sort of thing you would do, Tommy.”

Confusion flared. Wasn’t that the gentlemanly thing to do?

If he were honest with himself, the gentlemanly thing was not to have fucked Imogen Loveless in the first place, but now that he had, he could certainly tell her—

“When I say I am uncomfortable it is not unpleasant. It is . . . I am . . .”

He thought he might die in the way her words trailed off.

“. . . aware of . . . myself.”

Aware. Christ . . . had that word ever been more devastating? Imogen, aware of herself. Aware of her heat. Her slick softness. Of that place that had tempted and tormented and ruined him.

“Aware of yourself,” he whispered.

“Yes,” she said, and it was the prettiest confession he’d ever heard. And then she closed her eyes tightly and asked, “I wonder if you might be interested in also being aware of me.”

As though there was a possibility he might ever say no.