Tempted by His Touch: A Limited Edition Boxed Set of Dukes, Rogues, & Alpha Heroes Historical Romance Novels

by Darcy Burke

  St. Giles teemed with activity even in the early morning. Men spilled out of the dram shops, bottles of Old Tom’s in their hands to take home. Pilferers lingered, watching for culls. Kate forced herself to look away from their cold, empty eyes.

  Sympathy to others was a rich man’s prerogative, along with clever notions like charity and honest work. Most thieves had lived out their lives on the streets, learning to steal as children from the family that should have kept them innocent. She couldn’t judge them. When faced with starvation, she did the same. If she wasn’t the one fencing, someone else would. That was the evolution of the rookeries.

  Outside of her Forsyth pistol and her father’s greatcoat, she didn’t own anything she wouldn’t pawn for a quicker profit. She wore the O’Reilly ring on a string around her neck, underneath her dress. It would bring a nice bit of funds, better now that she knew what she was fencing. There was a shop in St. Giles that would do nicely. The gold was good quality and the sale wouldn’t trace back to Owen.

  That damn ring shouldn’t mean a thing to her. It was a product of a life long gone.

  What about Owen, who had given it to her not knowing its significance? He had expectations for them, hopes that she hadn’t jarred. “I don’t like him,” Jane had said once he left. But even Jane couldn’t place what struck her as odd about Owen. e was charming, if a bit arrogant, and he seemed to care for Kate. It would be easy to lie with him and pretend that she was a different woman, one without jagged pieces that needed to be pasted back together.

  She shook her head and focused on the street in front of her. Daniel had wanted to share a ride, but she refused. Better the cost to her pocket than to spend another moment cloistered with him. He would take the omnibus, though the fare was higher than the hackney, while she would count the few pence in her purse and ponder how far the money he’d given her would get her from London.

  Seven Dials, on the borders of the Irish slum St. Giles, was familiar to her as a fence, but knowledge didn’t breed ease. Shoving her hand deep in her pocket, fingers curled around the handle of her pistol, she moved at a brisk pace.

  She turned down Newton Street, known for its various thieving dens. The snow lining the alleyway was tinged brown. From further down the street, voices pitched in rage drifted, carrying insults about whoresons and their disease-ridden daughters.

  “Kate!”

  She stiffened at the sound of her name. Whirling around, her outstretched hands landed flat on the muscular expanse of Daniel’s chest, clad snuggly in a double-breasted navy wool coat. He reached up, his grip tightening around her elbows to tug her closer to him.

  She pushed him off of her. “How was the omnibus?”

  “A bit too fast for my taste. And loud. And large.” He grimaced. “Frankly, it rather reminded me of herding my uncle’s sheep, except I was the sheep.”

  They turned down another street, then another, and still a third after that. He navigated without thought, each turn automatic to him, and she wondered how long he had been friends with Atlas Greer.

  She wondered how much of their past relationship had been based in fact.

  Daniel finally came to a stop in front of a split-level building patched in random places with mud. Kate reached for the doorknob, turning it to no avail.

  “How utterly uncivil of him to lock the door.” She hunted in her pocket for her set of lock picks. Each tool had been fashioned by hand from metal scrap she had found in the streets of Ratcliffe, crafted in her first few months as a fence. She flipped open the case and surveyed the lock. “Thankfully, I come prepared for occasions just like this one.”

  “Do you practice the black art now too? This is my friend’s house. We needn’t pick the lock.” Daniel made a grab for the case, but Kate was too quick for him, skirting back.

  “This is quicker.” She slid the slender tension wrench into the bottom of the lock and applied torque. “Besides, with a lock that simple your friend is begging to be dub laid. I’m surprised that the Gentleman Thief wouldn’t have more security against lock pickers.” Turning the knob, Kate opened the door and walked inside.

  “You haven’t seen the inside of the house,” Daniel said.

  Only the barest of furniture resided in the room, yet it felt cluttered. A table sat by the fireplace, accompanied by one grandiose chair twice the height of the table. Kate’s glance flicked from one end of the foyer to the other. She could have sworn the house was bigger from the outside.

  “Where is he?”

  “Upstairs.” He crossed to the end of the room and put his hand out onto one of the bricks in the wall, pressing it hard. Creaking echoed through the room as the wall moved to the right, disappearing into a crevice. In its place appeared a stairwell, painted moss green and carpeted.

  At the top of the landing, Daniel opened the door to a room far beyond anything Kate could have imagined. In the farthest corner from the door stood a coat of armor, next to a marble table with iron-claw feet that boasted a huge tray of jewelry. There were books everywhere, on the various tables, piled in chairs, and atop the fireplace mantel. Somehow, Atlas had managed to maneuver the stuffed carcass of a bear poised to attack into the loft.

  She had entered the world’s strangest treasure trove.

  “St. Nicholas be praised.” She traced the lines of latitude across a map of France, following a route Emporia’s ships used to take.

  “Do you like it?”

  Kate started at the sound of the thief’s voice. Atlas came toward them, ink-smeared fingers placing a well-worn copy of Titus Andronicus spine-up on a chair in the corner of the room. She was face to face with the man who had most likely saved Daniel from the noose.

  All she could think was that he had taken Daniel away. It didn’t make rational sense and she knew that, as she knew that shan was counterfeit money and a darkman’s budge slipped into houses in the dead of night to let in other thieves. She harbored no illusions about the legal system. They would’ve hanged Daniel. She could not imagine it without feeling tightness in her chest and sickness in her stomach. So why did she loathe the sight of this man?

  Because he had known a side of Daniel that she didn’t. Because Daniel had turned to him in his hour of need, instead of her. Because he had succeeded in this strange world of the rookeries, and made something of himself.

  Blackguard.

  She focused on his physical features. What struck her most was the transmutability of his features: nothing stood out. If one took away his black tailored clothes, he could slip through a crowd without any notice. He had a cherubic smile, round cheeks, and kind green eyes. His blond hair was kept short, to minimize the natural wave. He was a head shorter than her, lean and spry.

  “Danny-boy.” He clapped Daniel on the back. “Help yourself to some tea, bitter cold out there.” He spoke with no trace of East London, his sentence structure as polished as any of the bon ton. Little was known about his upbringing. Some claimed he’d been born to a wealthy family, while others purported he’d been raised on a pirate ship.

  His gaze settled on her, green eyes gleaming roguishly. “So this is the illustrious Kate Morgan, ship magnate’s daughter turned fence.”

  Kate stood up straighter, forcing him to look up at her. “So this is the illustrious Gentleman Thief. I thought you would be taller.”

  Atlas smirked. “Good things come in small packages.”

  She highly doubted that. The notice of bankruptcy had been folded to not more than the size of her fist.

  “I have never found that to be true,” she sniffed.

  “Perhaps you’ve not met the right ones.” His grin was unstoppable.

  She should be nice to him. At his say, factions of St. Giles committed grave larcenies. She patted her pocket. With the blunt from Daniel and what she might earn from fencing the ring again, she could set herself up for a few months. The approval of the Gentleman Thief meant she’d earn a round sum, much more than she had now.

  If she didn’t ram the butt
of her pistol into Atlas Greer’s overly cheery face.

  Daniel offered her a mug of steaming tea. She accepted it, taking a seat in the armchair Atlas had vacated, for it was the only clear spot in the whole bloody flat.

  “Mind the pages, luv,” Atlas chirped, gesturing to the book on the arm of the chair, spread flat. “Don’t want to lose my place.”

  She flipped the book closed, grimacing at the damage done to the spine by hours of misuse.

  Atlas bristled. “You didn’t mention your pet was so detestably rude, Danny.”

  Plaintively, Daniel looked from Kate to his friend before his gaze landed back on her. Without words, she knew he begged her to get along with Atlas. Fine. She would comply, for him.

  And she refused to think of why Daniel’s preferences mattered.

  “We met with Cyrus,” Daniel said, taking a seat on a clear edge of the table littered with jewels. “He mentioned Dalton was indeed involved with a gang of resurrectionists.”

  “Did you doubt me?” Atlas sounded insulted.

  “One of these days, you will turn up wrong, old chap.” Daniel grinned. “I’m glad it’s not today. Actually, I’m more concerned about the bounder who followed Kate and me when we were at the docks.”

  “Someone followed you?” Atlas’s brows shot up. “Bloody bad luck if you’ve been spotted, Danny. Told you to be careful—these men aren’t ones you want after you.”

  “We can handle it.” Kate tapped her pocket, secure with the flintlock.

  We. She’d best be careful, before she began to think of them as a unit once more. That way led only to madness.

  “So you can shoot and pick a lock passably,” Atlas scoffed. “How are your skills at hand-to-hand combat? Have you dealt with murderers? I’m not willing to risk Danny’s neck because you think you can ‘handle’ it.”

  “He asked me to help him. Not the other way around. If you want to lecture someone about safety—”

  Daniel broke in. “Atlas, it was my decision to come back to London, and I stand by it. Have you been able to locate the fen that Dalton associated with?”

  Atlas flicked a glance of disapproval over to Kate before he plucked a sheet of paper out from his pocket. “First, let’s note that there are at least forty well-known brothels, flash houses, or ill-reputed places on Jacob’s Island alone. That doesn’t include the ones that aren’t recorded and exist in the back of some bloke’s house.” Atlas paused for them to emit the proper sound of shock. “It took me all night, but I sorted through every altamel I’ve got on file and I sent out carriers to do the rest. ’Course, reading through bawdy house ledgers isn’t so bad, all things considered.”

  “Normally, I expect you to see the pattern in something inconsequential, but this goes beyond.” Daniel took the scrap of paper Atlas handed him with the address of the bordello.

  Atlas stood, dropping a mock bow. “I am at your service, Lord O’Reilly. May you use me as any good serf should be used.”

  “All right, all right.” Daniel rolled his eyes.

  “The blowen’s go-between is Benjamin Wilkes. He used to keep half the constables on his payroll, and a good chunk of the Night Watchmen used his girls. Beyond me what the Peelers think of him now. No one can tell what those bloody blue uniforms think.” Atlas said.

  Kate’s stomach churned. She knew of Benjamin Wilkes, and had gone out of her way to avoid the brute. Gossip claimed he had taken a knife to a girl when she refused to let three men lay with her at once. The girl was found in the alley outside of the Three Boars, but by then she had lost too much blood to be saved. Sally Fletcher had likely sold her soul long ago to survive in a brothel where Wilkes was the bullyback, hired to keep the customers—and the girls—in line.

  “We have to get her out of there,” Kate murmured.

  “Absolutely not. She’s a case vrow. Any attempt to break her from the bawdy house that owns her is only going to bring attention to Danny,” Atlas said. He spoke as though he was discussing the weather, not the life of a girl. He didn’t know the fear of being raped, or what it felt like to have beefy hands paw at him.

  “Better to keep to the schedule I got of Wilkes’s whereabouts,” Atlas continued. “I know a doxy by the name of Mary who helps me with some jobs. She says Wilkes will be out for part of Monday.”

  Kate balled up her fists at her side, nails digging into her palms. “We will be lucky if Sally Fletcher will say a word to us. Men like Wilkes rule by terror, stealing a basic part of your soul. No one deserves that.”

  “We will see what we can do.” Daniel came up behind her, his hand on her shoulder.

  She leaned her head back against his chest, gazed into his concern-clouded eyes. She would have expected him to take Atlas’s side, for the girl was another prostitute among thousands.

  “Find out what ties the girl has to Jasper Finn and then worry about her fate. I’ve got trackers out there looking, but I haven’t managed to turn up any clues as to Finn’s appearance.” Atlas frowned. “The exhumators are being particularly cagey since the trial.”

  “Understandable. The London Burkers’s executions must have been a wake-up call for them all.” Daniel nodded.

  “No one is particularly eager to be a-swinging by the hangman’s noose.” Atlas’s expression became thoughtful. “When I think about how that could have been you, Danny…”

  Kate cut him off. “Yes. We all recognize what might have happened.”

  Visions of Daniel’s body—high up, hands bound, neck broken—danced before her eyes. Her stomach lurched. She fingered the string around her neck, the scratchy yarn stiff on her skin. The ring fell between her breasts, but when she moved it swung right near her heart.

  She had to get rid of it and soon, for if she didn’t, it would always hold her down. Remind her of the life she’d once had, a dream now departed and broken. “If we are done here, I have an errand I have to run.”

  “I’ll go with you then.” Daniel looked up from the table of jewels he’d been examining, starting to come toward her.

  Kate shook her head quickly. “That won’t be necessary.”

  Atlas folded his arms over his chest. “This is Little Ireland, lass. Not the place for you to be wandering about by your lonesome.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I have my pistol and I don’t hesitate to shoot.”

  Daniel was insistent. “I would feel better if you allowed me to accompany you.”

  “And I would feel better if you didn’t treat me as a child.” Her voice dripped with ire. “I have survived quite well without you thus far and I will do so again.”

  It’s just you and me against the world, Katiebelle.

  So Papa had said on her eighth birthday when her mother left. So she had reminded herself when Justine would no longer to speak to her, and the rest of Emporia turned against her family name.

  She was better off alone.

  ***

  Daniel watched Kate go with a deadened heart. He wouldn’t give up. After he finally convinced her to share a cab with him back to Ratcliffe when she was done with her errand, she had fled from the room with no more detail about her mysterious task. Something having to do with receiving, he guessed, for she had given him no opportunity to ask further questions.

  He watched Kate stop at the edge of the alley and look over her shoulder. No one followed her. She took the corner and then she was gone, onto the cross street and out of his view. Daniel wasn’t entirely sure she’d show up at the hack stand in an hour like she had promised.

  “Are you certain this is worth it?” Atlas stood at the window with him.

  He plowed a hand through his hair. “I’m not certain of anything anymore.”

  “It’s not a bad life being a criminal, Danny.” Atlas gestured at the scene before them. From their vantage point high atop the road, Seven Dials stretched out in all its unholy glory, narrow streets with filth-overflowing gutters, pavement spattered with rotting cabbage and meat, houses with moldy foundations and peeling white
-washed walls.

  “Might not be much to look at, but it is home.” Atlas pointed across the landscape to a place east of Bloomsbury, in the stretch of St. Giles to the north of Ivy Street where the old leper hospital had once been located. “Do you see that over there? That’s the Rat’s Castle, and a bigger den of iniquity you’ll never find. No Bobbies for miles and even the bloody Runners won’t touch it. They treat me like a king there, and you’d be family.”

  Daniel turned away from the window. “I’ve told you before, it’s honest work I want.”

  “And it’s honest work that almost got you collared.” Atlas shook his head. “You’d make a great cunning man with your straight face.”

  “I made a promise to Poppy I’d live life right. That’s what I intend to do,” Daniel said. “This thieving, it might be fine for you, but I need something different.”

  “Maybe you take the Lady Fence and you set up deep in the heart of Little Ireland where I can protect you.” Atlas held his gaze, his countenance serious—out of place on the normally jovial thief.

  Suspicion crept up Daniel’s spine, cold and icy as the hand of death. “There’s something else beyond your usual antipathy toward legal vocations, isn’t there? Something you’re not telling me. Have out with it, old chap. I don’t need more secrets in my life.”

  “I looked into Kate’s friend Owen Neal.” Atlas shifted his weight from one foot to the other, arms locked across his chest.

  “And?”

  “And he doesn’t exist.”

  “That’s impossible. I saw him outside her lodging.” In the past, he had nights when he couldn’t vouch for his memory, but he’d been sober for seven months and he damn well knew he’d seen the bastard with Kate.

  “You might have seen a man who goes by Owen Neal, but as to whom he is the other twenty-three hours of the day, not a soul knows.” From the table beside the window, Atlas selected a small bit of parchment and handed it to Daniel.

  Daniel stared at the paper, flipped it over, and then peered at the original side. “It’s blank.”

  “Because that is all I know about Owen Neal,” Atlas retorted. “The man is a phantom. Three years ago, he appears as a housebreaker. He does a few jobs here and there, nothing too difficult and nothing that will put the Runners on his tail. He may pop up in a flash house one night and then not turn up for six months at a time. I can’t find a single source who knows where he actually resides.”