Knockout: A Hell’s Belles Novel

She hadn’t been expecting to see him, but she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t hoping to see him, and Imogen tried very hard not to lie to herself.

The truth, as anyone with a reasonable amount of sense would agree, was that she rather liked seeing the detective inspector. Big and broad and rough-hewn, with a blue gaze stern enough to inspire the kind of thoughts that had landed many women into serious trouble over the years.

Lustful thoughts.

Enjoying a glimpse of the detective inspector was like witnessing an explosion, all color and sound. There was no denying the breathless excitement that came as he bore down on her in a darkened corridor of Scotland Yard as she slipped out of the uniform room, where she’d been snipping small pieces of coats and trousers to inspect in her makeshift lab at Trevescan House (as the one in her own house was off limits since she’d left home). Excitement that had her pressing her back to the doorjamb and watching him come for her, wondering what he might do when he reached her.

The fact that he was more likely to arrest her than anything else was irrelevant.

Pasting a bright smile on her face, she greeted him. “Hello, Detective Inspector! What brings you here?”

“Don’t hello me, you madwoman,” Tommy said, sounding simultaneously fierce and exasperated, his long gait making up so much ground that it was impossible to run . . . even if there was an escape. Even if she wished to escape.

“That’s not a very nice thing to call me,” Imogen said. “Or anyone else, for that matter.”

“What in hell are you doing here?”

“Scotland Yard is a public building,” she said, brazening it through. “I am allowed inside.”

“Inside, yes. Inside the uniform room, no.”

She made a show of turning to look at the room through which she’d just finished rifling. “Oh, is this where you keep uniforms? I didn’t realize.”

“The door is open, Lady Imogen.”

She should not enjoy exasperating him, but there was little she enjoyed more. “Is it? Oh, so it is. Well. You can see how I might have been confused.”

His brows furrowed. “Why are you here?”

“I am looking for you,” she replied, the lie coming more naturally than expected. Perhaps because it was not such a lie.

When she and Duchess had decided that the best course of action to prove Imogen’s hunch that the navy wool used as tinder at each of the explosions was, in fact, the same weave as the wool specially designed for uniforms at Scotland Yard, Duchess had offered to send someone else to collect samples from Whitehall. Instead, Imogen had volunteered for the task, telling herself it was because she needed something to do now that she was no longer living at Dorring House.

That a trip to Whitehall would allow her to wander past Tommy’s windowed office once or twice was simply an added feature. She didn’t intend to bother him, only to confirm whether the bulk of his arms when he was holding her in Spitalfields was as she remembered. Maybe to confirm the line of his beard, the color of dark mahogany. Just to check on the firm set of his jaw. The serious weight of his scowl.

For science.

And here he was, assisting her research as he glowered down at her, looming nearly a foot above her, brow furrowed, jaw tight, lips in a straight line. “You were looking for me.”

She nodded. “Yes.” It came out slightly more breathless than she intended.

Something happened in his blue eyes, their black centers going wide. “Why?”

“I . . .” She trailed off, a half-dozen things she could not say on her lips. Serious things like I believe members of the police are terrorizing the East End and I am here doing some light uniform vandalism. Extraordinarily unserious things like I wanted to ogle your broad shoulders.

Tongue-tied—irritating man; Imogen Loveless did not get tongue-tied—she settled on, “I cannot remember.”

His brows rose. “Just as you did not remember that you were inside the uniform room?”

She nodded once. “Precisely.”

One side of his mouth kicked up—a movement so quick that she would not have noticed it if she was not paying very close attention. But she was paying attention, and the expression set off something in her chest. Something like a thrumboom. He stepped closer, and she caught her breath, craning to look up at him as he neared, as he crowded her back through the open door, into the dimly lit space behind—barely a room. “Do you remember now?”

Remember what?

Honestly, Imogen. Focus. She made a show of looking around the tightly packed shelves, carefully avoiding the pile of trousers from which she’d snipped a strip of fabric. “I must have taken a wrong turn.”

“Mmm,” he said, continuing to stalk her back, the sound a low rumble. “A wrong turn down a dark hallway as far as one can get from the entrance to the building.”

Her bottom bumped against a shelf at the back of the small room. She looked up, his face in shadows and somehow, impossibly, his eyes on her. How was he so handsome? She cast about for something to say. What would a woman of the world say in this scenario?

The answer came immediately.

“Maybe not such a wrong turn after all.”

Oh, my.

Something dark flashed across his face. Dark and wicked. And he was so close. She lifted a hand, setting it to his chest, warm and firm, where his heart beat in a strong, even rhythm. Bumpbump. Bumpbump.

“Lady Imogen,” he said softly at her ear, still not touching her, every inch of him statue still. “What were you looking for?”

You. You you you.

Knowing she played with fire, she pressed her cheek to his, loving the feel of his smooth beard on her skin, and sighed. “Your office.”

A rough sound came from his chest and he did touch her, finally, his fingers coming to her bent elbow, lingering there, on a place she’d never imagined had so many nerve endings. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” she said, not knowing what he meant. Not caring. Whatever it was, she was sure.

“Hmm,” he rumbled, his free hand coming to the other side of her face, holding her steady as he pulled away, meeting her eyes, his fingers following the length of her arm to her wrist, against his chest.

And then he was there, a hairsbreadth from her mouth. Almost kissing her, torturing her with the promise of a caress . . . “And what were you going to do when you found me in my office?”

Kiss you.

No, wait. That wasn’t right. But now, that was all she could think of. She wanted to kiss him. She wanted him to kiss her. And she didn’t care for a moment that they were in the uniform room at Scotland Yard. All she cared was that he was there, and he smelled like leather and amber, and he radiated heat like the sun, and her heart was banging about in her chest, and his fingers were stroking over her wrist in little circles that were going to make her mad if he didn’t . . .

“Tommy,” she whispered, unable to hold it in.

“My lady,” he said, the words so close she could almost feel them on her lips.

And then he was gone. Stepping away from her, leaving her feeling off balance as he brandished a small pair of gold embroidery scissors and strip of navy wool in his hand.

“Hang on—” Her eyes went wide. The piece of uniform fabric, snipped from a pair of trousers, had been safely tucked away in the balloon of her sleeve. “That’s mine!”

He tilted his head. “Is it?”

“You thief!”

“Would we say I am the thief?”

Her gaze narrowed on him and she reached out to snatch the scissors from his hand. “We would absolutely say you’re a scoundrel.” She shoved them back into her sleeve.

“Be careful,” he said instantly. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

“Oh, now I am to believe you are concerned about me?”

“Someone ought to be,” he retorted. “At any rate, I was simply doing my job; stopping a crime in progress.”

She lifted her chin and gave him her coolest look. “The only crime committed here was the crime of my thinking you were worthy of my attentions.” Something flashed across his face—too fast for her to identify it, though she hoped it was regret. “To think . . . I nearly let you kiss me.”

“I had no intention of kissing you,” he said.

The words stung, harsher than she’d ever admit. The whole situation had unsettled her, and she didn’t care for it. “Stand aside.”

“What were you planning to do with this?” He inspected the fabric.

She did not answer him, instead pushing past.

He grabbed her arm. “Imogen—”

They both froze at the familiarity—her name without her title, combined with his touch. Ignoring the sizzle that threatened, Imogen raised her eyes to his and let her aristocratic upbringing fly. “I beg your pardon, Detective Inspector. Remove your hand.”

He did, as though he’d been burned.

Triumph warred with regret. Won. Imogen stepped into the hallway, moving at a clip away from him. Toward the exit. Would he follow? Would he make a meal of what he’d found? Would he insist on searching her person for more? He’d find it. In her pockets, in her other sleeve. She wasn’t a fool. When taking samples, she took as many as she reasonably could. He’d found only one, but it was enough to make things difficult.

He caught up with her where the dark hallway met with the bright main thoroughfare of Whitehall. “My lady, you owe me answers.”

“I owe you nothing of the sort,” she said.

“I could arrest you,” he replied.

She stilled. The absolute gall of the man. He’d addled her brain and nearly kissed her in a dark room, then manhandled her forearm and stolen her loot, and he thought she was the villain? She turned to meet his gaze. “On what grounds? Tailoring trousers without a permit?”

He scowled down at her. “Attempted theft.”

“It’s better than attempted kissing.”

“I didn’t attempt to kiss you,” he said, as though that were a perfectly reasonable and not at all hurtful thing to say.

As though it didn’t ring with the truth about her. That she was not for kissing. It was not a surprise; Imogen had been in proximity to plenty of men in the six years since her brother had insisted she come out, and she knew she was more than most people were able to accept—even people who were not looking to kiss her. But there had been a tiny part of her that thought perhaps Tommy Peck was different. He was strong and noble and larger than life, and if anyone was able to handle Imogen’s too much, it would be Tommy, for whom nothing seemed impossible.

But in that moment, holding the fabric he’d thieved from her under the guise of seduction, it became clear that even Thomas Peck had his limits. And Imogen was one of them.

The realization hurt, making her angrier than she expected. “You know, I actually considered having lustful thoughts about you earlier.”

He looked as though she’d delivered him a strong facer. “What?”

“Peck! Come on, then—we haven’t got all day!”

The blessed interruption came from behind Tommy’s massive shoulders—too broad for Imogen to see, even as he stiffened and turned toward the speaker, all detective inspector once more.

“I’ll be right in.”

She took the opportunity of an audience to step out from behind him, surprising the stern-faced white man who stood at a distance, his eyes immediately going wide at Imogen’s appearance.

“Oh!” he said.

She waved. “Don’t mind me! I am just leaving. I was simply here to—”

The older man interrupted her with a knowing chortle, as though she’d told a joke that only he had understood. “I can imagine.”

What did that mean?

No matter. She dipped a little curtsy and made for the stairs leading to the exit. She should have known better than to think any trip to Scotland Yard would be easy.

“This isn’t over,” Tommy whispered as she passed, but he let her go.

“Oh, I think you’ll find it absolutely is,” she replied.

She did not turn back to see if he watched her leave. It did not matter if he did.

Imogen did not care in the slightest.