Somewhere beyond the carts, a shovel clattered to the ground.
Alex didn’t turn. He didn’t need to. The sudden stillness told him all he needed to know. They’d been seen.
A breath of movement rustled along the ridge. Cloth brushed against stone. A boot shifted, too hastily placed. Whoever watched them was no longer just curious. They were caught off guard. Good.
He drew back from Georgina slowly, just enough to meet her eyes. Her gaze was steady, her pulse fluttering beneath his fingers where they still rested at her waist.
“They’re watching,” he murmured, low and pleased.
“And wondering,” she returned, the corners of her mouth lifting in quiet triumph.
Then, before he could answer, her hand slipped to the nape of his neck, drawing him back to her, not roughly, not hurriedly, but with quiet intent. Her lips met his, soft and certain.
The second kiss was hers. And it was no longer just part of the performance. That, too, had consequences, ones they were no longer pretending to ignore.
It had nothing to do with their plan. Nothing to do with whoever watched. It was hers, unhidden, undeniable, and it changed everything.
For a breathless instant, his mind rebelled against the idea of control, of strategy. Her scent, her nearness, the deliberate grace of her mouth against his shattered all thought, scattered all reason. He responded without calculation, without caring who might see, one arm sliding around her back to gather her closer.
She sighed against him, a sound as old as longing itself. No fire had ever burned so hot, so close, and so impossible to leave untouched.
When they parted, it was by degrees, and only because the moment demanded it. Alex drew a breath that did little to steady him.
“If they weren’t watching before,” he said quietly, his voice roughened, “they are now.”
Georgina’s smile was slow, wicked, and more dangerous than anything the Order had yet devised. “Let them watch. Speculation is safer than suspicion.”
She drew back, but not far. Just enough to turn her head and, with studied carelessness, glance toward the shadows at the mine’s edge.
The figures watching them had stilled, like players caught mid-scene, uncertain whether they had been outwitted or simply entertained.
“Let them wonder,” Georgina murmured, her gaze still fixed on their audience. “Let them think they’ve won.”
Alex’s reply was a promise: “They will, right up until the moment they understand they haven’t.”
As they turned toward the carriage, Alex’s gaze swept once more across the yard. Near the stacked carts, the earth was freshly turned, darker than the soil around it. A faint glint caught in the lamplight, coal dust, far too fine to have come from today’s work.
Georgina followed his glance. A few ledgers lay half-hidden on a barrel, the ink still damp as if tallies had been hastily changed. “They’ve been moving more than rubble,” she murmured.
“And covering it with numbers,” he said quietly. “Sloppy ones.”
She met his eyes, a grim satisfaction beneath her calm. “Then we’ve found our proof—or the beginning of it.”
Together, they stepped away from their tableau, leaving behind the drift of coal dust and beneath it, the echo of a kiss that refused to be dismissed. What had begun as a strategy had ended as something far more dangerous. And she knew it.
Chapter Nine
“We saw everythingthey didn’t want us to,” Georgina murmured as the carriage rocked into motion. “And nothing they thought we would.”
As they turned from the mine yard, Georgina let her fingers trail lightly along the edge of Alex’s sleeve, just enough to sustain the illusion, or perhaps the truth they had stumbled upon.
Her fingertips tingled with the memory, and her body caught in the echo of something too urgent to name aloud. It wasn’t fear. Not anymore.
The eyes upon them remained. She felt them as keenly as the chill rising from the open shaft. But there was no pursuit, no shouted accusation. No sudden rush of miners scrambling to explain themselves. The Order’s pawns had played their part and believed they’d witnessed the climax of this little play.
They had not. Alex guided her toward the carriage, the act of propriety now resumed. He helped her step inside, his touch lingering a heartbeat longer than necessity allowed.
As he started to close the door, she caught his wrist, not with alarm, but with something quieter. Calmer. Her gaze found him in the fading light.
