One
1850, Christmas
Everyone knew him simply as “Hawker,” and that was the way he liked it.
He had shed the legacy of his bloodline the way a snake sloughs off dead skin: wholly, allowing no trace of his past to cling to the man he’d become. If some might question why a man would leave behind all the privileges that came with the Reid name, Hawker knew those people were fools.
Money and power did not buy happiness. More often than not, they bought the opposite and gave no refunds. You were stuck with misery, greed, and an endless craving for power. Hawker wanted none of that. What he desired—what he’d earned with honest sweat over the past sixteen years—was peace. At one-and-thirty, he knew himself to be a simple man with simple tastes.
He enjoyed his job as a butler for Lady Charlotte Fayne. To the select few in the know, he also played another role in her household: he provided training to her secret organization of lady investigators. Over two years ago, Lady Fayne had founded the Society of Angels which, on the surface, was a genteel charity. While she and the four spirited young protegees she’d recruited—known as the “Angels”—were, indeed, helping women in need, they were doing so by unconventional means. They carried on detective work for their female clients, taking on cases that involved everything from blackmail to murder.
That was where Hawker came in. Working in the seediest parts of London, he’d acquired a certain set of skills which he, in turn, imparted to the Angels. When he’d first met the well-bred chits Olivia Wodehouse, Glory Cavendish, Fiona Morgan, and Pippa Cullen, he’d had doubts about their ability to learn the finer points of tracking, lockpicking, and making clean flits.
To his happy surprise, the ladies had proven him wrong. They had taken to his instruction like ducks to water. These days, when he accompanied them on missions, his protection was often superfluous: the Angels could take care of themselves. Nonetheless, he felt responsible for his pupils and would defend them with his last breath.
Luckily, it wouldn’t come to that since the Angels were trained in combat and could take down a man twice their size. Hawker couldn’t take credit for their fighting prowess, however; they had learned their maneuvers from their other instructor, Mrs. Peabody, who also served as Lady Fayne’s housekeeper. Mrs. Peabody was an exacting woman who kept everyone on their toes, Hawker included.
He knew little about Pearl Peabody, despite living under the same roof as her for over three years. There were rumors that her fighting ability came from years spent as a female prizefighter at some secret underground club. Which was extraordinary for various reasons, including the fact that she couldn’t be more than five feet tall in her stockinged feet and weighed perhaps seven stone dripping wet. Of course, no one dared to ask Peabody about her past. If she were an omnibus, she would be plastered with signs that read, “Keep your distance.”
Normally, Hawker steered clear of prickly females. Being a simple man, he liked his companionship easy, yet there was something about the housekeeper that pulled at him. Perhaps because she seemed as alone in the world as he was. While Hawker enjoyed the freedom he’d fought and bled for, of late he’d felt a certain restlessness.
The malaise struck even when he was engaged in his favorite pastimes. In the middle of re-readingHamletlast week, melancholy had seized him. A sudden realization that while he’d managed to outrun his past, he wasn’t runningtowardanything. He had no lover, no family, no children. No goal beyond the mundane tasks of life. No place to call…home.
Tonight was Christmas Eve, and Lady Fayne had held a small holiday supper for staff who, like Hawker, had no other place to be. He had enjoyed the feast, which included mincemeat pies, roasted goose and joint of beef, and flaming Christmas pudding. Champagne had flowed, and the company had been merry…except for Pearl Peabody.
Unlike the others, she hadn’t dressed to match the occasion. She’d worn her usual practical black bombazine which covered her diminutive figure from neck to ankles. She hadn’t bothered with a lace collar, jewelry, or any frippery to liven up her appearance. Her brown hair had been scraped back into its usual severe knot, which looked so tight that it had givenhima megrim. Her style was more funereal than festive.
It wasn’t just her clothes that had projected gloom. She’d pushed the food around on her plate, speaking only when spoken to. Any smiles she’d summoned had clearly been forced. And her eyes, which were golden brown and her best feature—not that he noticed her features—had revealed flashes of melancholy that caused a corresponding clench in his gut.
To Hawker’s mind, Peabody was aloof, competent, and sometimes annoying. A stubborn female, she locked horns with him over the Angels’ training and the running of the household. She thought he was too casual and lenient in his approach to both; he thought that she was wound tighter than a clock and a tad obsessed with order and cleanliness. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t amuse himself at her expense from time to time. Yet he had never thought of her as…sad.
Sadness made her seem more human. It made him wonder if he’d misjudged her; perhaps her standoffishness was merely a shield. He could understand that. After all, he used his burly, rough-and-tumble appearance to ward off company when he wasn’t in the mood for it. Perhaps he and old Peabody had more in common than he realized. Moved by that thought and the holiday spirit, he decided to leave the after-supper festivities in the servant’s hall and check on his erstwhile colleague, who’d slipped away as soon as supper had ended.
Finding the housekeeper’s room next to the kitchens locked, Hawker knew where to go next. He proceeded to the cobblestone courtyard behind the mansion. It was chilly outside, the night sky unusually clear and sprinkled with stars. Up ahead, he saw faint light seeping from the curtained windows of the former carriage house that now functioned as training quarters for the Angels. He followed the faint thuds, passing empty rooms until he arrived at the sparring chamber.
He knocked on the door. When no reply came, he turned the knob and strode into the dimly lit space.
“Are you in here—Christ.”
Hawker found his arm caught in a grappling hold. When he instinctively jerked back, he stumbled…over his opponent’s well-placed foot. He lost his balance, crashing backward onto the mats with an oath. The next instant, he was pinned down, tawny eyes glinting down at him.
“Bloody ’ell.” The words emerged as a wheeze due to the arm pressed against his windpipe. “If this is the way you greet a man, no wonder you ain’t hitched, Peabody.”
Annoyance etched twin lines between her straight sable brows.
“You startled me, Hawker,” she muttered.
She moved her arm off his throat with notable reluctance. Hawker blinked. He didn’t know if it was the rush of air into his lungs or his colleague’s appearance that made him feel oddly lightheaded. Old Peabody looked…unlike her usual self.
Freed from its habitual knot, her hair cascaded around her face in loose, chestnut-brown waves that made her look younger than her twenty-nine years. One long tendril brushed his cheek, as silky-soft as a kiss. Roses bloomed in her pale cheeks, and her mouth, when not pinched with disapproval, had an alluring shape. Her whisky-colored eyes swirled with intoxicating secrets.
She wore a training outfit of loose cream linen, the tunic and trousers draping her diminutive curves as she straddled him. Because he was a big man, her knees were splayed wide to brace his torso; her sleek thighs hugged his sides, and her feminine cove pressed into his abdomen. At the contact with her feminine heat, his stacked muscles turned rigid.
Two facts arrowed into him. First, Pearl Peabody was an attractive woman.
Second, he was getting hard.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “What are you doing here?”
