“Your wish is my command.”
She extended her long white hand, fingers draping from their bones, rings glinting in the light of the chandelier above. She applied the steely will of her Thorvaldson heritage (from her grandmother on her father’s side) and absolutely did not allow the hand to tremble, no matter what her heart was doing within its secret cage.
He crossed the room, took her hand—but then unexpectedly lowered it, and, leaning closer, he kissed her mouth instead.
It was as if he had tossed another of his bombs; heat wishes and desiccated flowers exploded in her brain. Shifting back, he gave her a thoroughly piratical grin, then departed the room without further word.
“Well,” Lady Armitage said, fanning herself. “Outrageous!”
Falling onto the divan, she laid a hand against her brow. She felt decidedly hot and bothered. But being a Thorvaldson made her kin to Vikings, who had brutalized half the known world, and she had practiced her own piracy ruthlessly, successfully (indeed, Vikingly), for decades before that boy had even been born. No one kissed Lady Isabella Armitage and got away with it for long.
While she awaited the luncheon bell, she pondered whom she might employ to assassinate the assassin.
For the rest of that afternoon Ned sat in White’s club for gentlemen, drinking whiskey to cleanse the taste of Lady Armitage from his mouth. He had stopped off at Henry Poole & Co. along the way and outfitted himself in the best suit counterfeit money could buy, for he always honored the club’s dress code, even if he was not, legally speaking, a member. He had finally succeeded in ridding himself of the old lady’s tang and was contemplating where he might sleep that night when a dark-haired man dropped abruptly into the chair opposite him.
Damn.It was Alex O’Riley—pirate, smuggler, general rogue about town, and just who Ned least wanted to see right now. Without a word, the man slouched back in the chair, his long black coat falling open to reveal a shirt bereft of either tie or waistcoat. He rested his boots upon the mahogany table as if he was in a local pub and pushed a hand against one dark blue eye, squinting at Ned with the other as if he’d just come fromanotherlocal pub and still had the hangover to prove it.
Ned frowned. Alex was the sort who gave pirates a bad—that is to say, an even worse—name; one almost expected him to shout,Ahoy!while pushing people off a plank from his sitting room into shark-infested waters far below. He was also Ned’s favorite person in the world. They had swindled lords together, got drunk together more times than either could remember, and once they forced Alex’s ramshackle house to its limits making the London-Cashel run in less than twelve hours, although they did lose a few windowpanes along the way. Ned counted him as something greater than a brother: a true friend.
“Go away,” he muttered, drinking the last of his whiskey in one swallow.
“Charming,” Alex replied lightly. He crossed one ankle over the other, his boot buckles imperiling the table’s polish and causing a nearby gentleman to gasp in outrage. “You look miserable. What have you been doing, handing out free food or something?”
Ned poured more whiskey from a crystal decanter. “Worse. Why am I looking at your ugly face, O’Riley? Aren’t you supposed to be in Ireland?” He made an offering gesture with the decanter.
“Cheers,” Alex said, taking it and drinking without any intervention of glass or good manners. The neighboring gentleman gasped more pointedly; even Ned raised an eyebrow. “Don’t mind me,” Alex said with a crooked smile. “I was indeed in Ireland, so I need all the alcohol I can get.”
“Your father?”
The decanter came down on the table with a thud. “Let’s not talk about it. What brings you to White’s on this fine day?”
“I’m meeting someone you don’t want to. Hence, go away.”
“Who?”
Ned answered with no more than a long, cold stare, and Alex stopped smiling. He swung his feet down from the table. “Not—”
“Yes. Have I mentioned, go away?”
Alex leaned forward, somber. “Damn, Ned, are you sure you should be doing that? I know he—”
“I’m sure.”
“Can’t I help you to—”
“No. I don’t need any help.”
“Everyone needs help sometimes.”
Ned scowled. Cilla had said those same words to him once, and her ghost had whispered them through the years ever since, reminding him of dark promises he had yet to keep. His scowl shifted into a grim smile. “I’m better off on my own, O’Riley. You can help by leaving before he gets here.”
“Look,” Alex said, uncharacteristically serious. “I know we’ve done some wild things in our day, but this is more dangerous than even I’d want to contemplate, and that’s saying something. I think you’ve gone mad.”
Ned laughed. “No doubt. Now, stop talking. He just walked in. If you value our friendship, go steal something—seduce someone—just go.”
“All right.” Alex stood, but he lingered a moment longer, frowning down at Ned. “I’ll leave, but know that I’m in London if you need me.”
“I won’t need you.”
