Wait. What?
“See to him? Why?” She turned a worried gaze on Caleb. “What’s happened?”
“He’s bleeding.”
Her eyes went wide and she reached for his waistcoat, ripping it open to discover a bloom of red over the white shirt beneath.
“You’re bleeding!”
“It’s not serious,” Caleb said, pulling her close. “Come here.”
“Now is not the time, Caleb,” she snapped.
“Yes it is,” he said. “It is.”
“Really? Because it appears you are bleeding!”
“And I’m free.”
She stilled, looking up at him, meeting his gorgeous green gaze. “You are,” she said, going up on her toes to press a kiss to his full, beautiful mouth. “You are also, however, bleeding. And we must go.”
After they disappeared through the exit to the Whitehall Mews, Peck turned back to the day’s mess. Instructing the nearest officer to take the still whingeing viscount into custody and find him an unexploded location from which he could await his solicitor, Peck picked his way through the still smoky hallway to the cell where Calhoun had been all day.
Stepping through the now destroyed door, the detective inspector made his way to the center of the small space, the rubble crunching beneath his once shined boots. They, like everything else in this area of Scotland Yard, were now covered in a thick film of dust.
Almost everything.
He stilled, his gaze falling to a light blue file, set carefully on the low bench that had somehow survived the blast. On it, an indigo bell. And not a speck of dust.
Lady Imogen Loveless’s gift, from earlier. The one she’d taken back.
Apparently, he deserved it after all.
Opening it, he began to read—pages and pages on the viscount he already had in custody. Proof of a dozen crimes. Possibly more.
When he spoke to the empty room, it was with shock, and disbelief, and no small amount of admiration.
“Hell’s bells.”
Night had fallen, and outside, a carriage waited, the Duchess of Trevescan and Adelaide deep in conversation next to it. When Sesily and Caleb came through the door, the pair looked up and hurried forward, worry on their faces.
“Is everything alright? We heard a gunshot.” The duchess looked to Caleb, her attention immediately on his hand at his bloody side. “Let’s have a look.” Before he could think to refuse, she was moving his hand, considering the wound.
“Your Grace—” he said, feeling like he ought to at least acknowledge her position.
She shook her head and chuckled. “Not in that American accent, Mr. Calhoun. Call me Duchess.” Her brow furrowed as she completed her inspection. “No bullet. A graze.”
Sesily released a breath. “Good.”
The duchess’s concern turned to anger. “Was it police?”
“No.”
“Imogen?” Adelaide guessed.
“I beg your pardon!” Imogen said, appearing alongside the carriage, having returned from wherever it was she’d been. “I’ve been very well behaved. Followed the plan to the letter.”
“It was Coleford.”
Imogen scowled. “Did you do him in?”
“No. He’s currently under arrest,” Sesily said. “Turns out, they don’t like it when you nearly kill two people in Scotland Yard.”
“Explosions are fine, though,” Caleb said, dryly.
“Explosions have style,” Imogen replied.
With a smile, Duchess turned to Caleb. “And you? Are you in hiding?”
“I am not, as a matter of fact. You’ll never believe the coincidence—” Caleb said, cutting Sesily a look. “The killer’s body turned up. Hard to imagine how that happened.”
Her brows rose. “You didn’t think I would start listening to you just as you were breaking my heart, did you?”
He stilled at that, hating it. Reaching for her, his fingers stroking over her impossibly soft skin. “I didn’t mean to break your heart.”
“Then you are lucky it is easily mended,” she said, leaning into him. “I forgive you.”
“I’m not sure I do, for the record,” Imogen said.
“Nor I,” the duchess chimed in.
Caleb’s brows rose and his green eyes lit with equal parts trepidation and humor. Sesily smiled. “Sod off, you two. I love him.”
They did sod off, thankfully, at least, to the rear of the carriage, where they pretended not to notice him snaking an arm around her waist and pulling her close for a long, lingering kiss.
“You love me,” he whispered, when they finally broke for air.
“I do,” she said, happily.
“You saved me.”
She smiled. “Someone had to.”
“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, Sesily Talbot.”
“You can tell me that any time you like.”
“What if I tell you I love you?”
“You can tell me that, too.” She leaned up to kiss him again, her fingers stroking down over his chest to his waist. He sucked in a breath at the sting when she found the damp spot on his shirt. His wound.
Sesily pulled back quickly. “You need a surgeon.”
“I don’t need a surgeon,” he protested. He needed her. “I need soap and water and a needle and thread.”
“I can help with that.” The words, on a soft, unfamiliar English lilt, somehow, impossibly familiar.
Sesily caught her breath at the words, releasing him as he turned to face the woman who’d spoken them.
Jane.
His sister. Something burst in his chest, years of worry and sorrow replaced with relief and joy. She was older, and she looked so much like their mother. He’d missed her so much.
They approached each other with slow movements, as though they feared the meeting might not be real. And when they finally reached each other, the embrace they shared was long and emotional, their eyes closed, their faces full of awe and sorrow and regret and hope.
And then they began to laugh, because there was nothing else to be done, and the sound was infectious, and soon everyone was laughing, reveling in the knowledge that Caleb and Jane, after all the years apart, finally had each other once again.
When they released each other, it was Jane who remembered the task at hand. “I would very much like to stitch you up, brother.”
“Into the carriage!” Adelaide replied. “Do try not to bleed on it, American. This is the nice one, not the one we use for corpses.”
Jane’s eyes went wide and Caleb couldn’t help his laugh before he turned back to Jane. “Wait. Before we go anywhere . . . what are you doing here?” Worry came, on a rush of heat. “Why are you here?”
His sister set her hand on his wrist. “For you.”
He didn’t understand, looking to the rest of the assembly, each face more delighted than the next, and then to Sesily—beautiful, perfect Sesily, happy tears on her face.
As it had been Sesily’s plan, it was Sesily who explained. “There was no use delivering proof of Coleford’s crimes without delivering the man himself. Too much of a risk of him fleeing, and we couldn’t risk it. Obviously.” She smiled at him. “The goal was your freedom, and there was no way of having it without Coleford under arrest.”
Caleb shook his head, confused. “I still don’t—what does it have to do with Jane? Peck was to summon Coleford this morning when I confessed.”
“Yes, well, that timing didn’t work well for us,” Sesily said. “Adelaide needed to make the confession look legitimate, and Imogen needed time for . . .”
“Concoctions,” Imogen provided happily, brandishing her bagful of weaponry with what Caleb thought was an unsettling disregard for safety.
“So, we had to keep Peck busy and make certain Coleford came to Scotland Yard before we broke you out, or else we couldn’t be certain he wouldn’t harm us all in the balance. While Duchess sorted out occupying Peck, I went to see Jane,” Sesily explained, looking to his sister
. “Who agreed to lead the watchdogs here.”
“Adelaide fetched me and The Bully Boys followed just as we expected they would,” Jane said simply, as though she’d been a part of the group from the start.
“And once we arrived, Jane was a star,” Imogen added.
“A whisper in a Bully Boy’s ear that you and Sesily were also at Scotland Yard . . .” the duchess pointed out, “and Coleford couldn’t stay away.”
“Lamb to slaughter, really,” Sesily said simply. “Though we had intended for him to land in Peck’s office. The shooting you bit was . . . unplanned.”
“But it is lovely to see a plan come together, nonetheless,” the duchess announced. “Into carriages, everyone. Mr. Calhoun continues to bleed.”
And then the whole team was in motion, and Caleb, left to wonder at Sesily’s plan. He pulled her close, tight to his good side. “I should have believed you from the start.”
She nodded, serious once more. “Will you believe me in the future? This is how we love. Out loud. With truth. This is how we fight. Together, or not at all.”
That ache in his chest was back.
He loved this woman with all he had.
She was up on her toes again, pressing a kiss to his cheek before whispering in his ear. “Let’s go home.”
Home. A word he’d never allowed himself to think. To claim.
Now his once more. With Sesily. With Jane and Peter. With this crew of wild women.
“Do ride with me, Mrs. Berry,” the duchess said from far off. “I am told you are an excellent seamstress.”
“She specializes in designs with leather-lined pockets,” Sesily called after them.
“Clever,” Adelaide said from her seat on the block, all admiration.
Jane’s brows rose in surprise before she found her voice. “I find pockets of all sizes and fabrics can be useful in a pinch.”
The duchess smiled at Jane, and Caleb imagined he could see the plans already forming behind the woman’s eyes. “How do you feel about specialty knickers?”
His sister did not hesitate. “I believe I can meet the challenge, Your Grace.”
It was Caleb’s turn to be surprised, and Sesily couldn’t help a little laugh. Approaching him, she asked, “Have we embarrassed you, American?”
He laughed, pulling her tight. “Imagine, in all I’ve witnessed among you lot, it’s the undergarments that did me in.”
She came up on her toes to whisper in his ear, “And here I am, not wearing them at all.”
It didn’t matter that he was bleeding then, because all he could think of was what he intended to do the moment he had this woman alone. With a low rumble of pleasure, he kissed her again, slow and lush, ignoring the collective groans around them, punctuated by Jane’s happy laugh.
Sesily broke the kiss. “We can do that anytime now,” she whispered. “No more longing.”
“I think I shall long for you forever,” he said.
She smiled. “I will allow it.”
He tried to kiss her again and she dodged out of the way. “No. You need to be stitched up. And then you can kiss me all you like.”
“Kissing you is all I like.”
She laughed, and turned for the carriage, looking back only when she realized that he hadn’t followed her; instead, he stood in the lantern light from the exterior of the vehicle, watching her.
Wanting her.
Wanting to claim her as his, forever.
Her brow furrowed. “What is it?”
He lifted his chin in her direction. “You still owe me a boon, Sesily Talbot. And this time, I won’t take no for an answer.”
She couldn’t help her smile. “Fair enough. Name it.”
He approached, unbothered by the wound in his side, by the day he’d spent in jail, by the past he’d just overcome. Thinking only of the future, for the first time in a lifetime. “Marry me.”
She tilted her head. “Maybe.”
“Fucking hell, Sesily,” he growled.
She grinned and reached for him, fisting the fine lawn of his shirt and pulling him close. “Are you sure? Marriage to me won’t look like my sisters’ marriages.”
“I don’t imagine it will, considering it comes with broken noses and break-ins and explosions and corpses.” He paused. “Are the corpses negotiable?”
“We can discuss it,” she laughed.
He leaned close. “If our marriage were like the others, I wouldn’t be married to you. You, who I’ve wanted from the first moment I saw you. You, who I’ve ached to make mine from the start. Marry me, love.”
She answered him with a kiss.
Epilogue
One Year Later
The house was quiet when Caleb entered after a long evening at The Athena—his new tavern in Marylebone, one of three he and Fetu had opened in the year since everything had changed.
Since he’d been set free to move through the world without fear of discovery or punishment, to start new businesses, to claim an enormous family full of sisters and sisters-in-arms, nephews and nieces and brothers-in-law.
To love his wife. Out loud.
Sesily and Caleb had married only weeks after the explosion at Scotland Yard, in the quiet parish church near Highley, the ceremony attended by their families and closest friends. Sera and Haven hadn’t blinked when the newlyweds had requested the groundskeeper’s cottage on the estate for their wedding night. Caleb had filled it with hothouse roses and lavish cushions before the roaring fire, and one lingering night had stretched into three, until they’d remembered that they had a home of their own in London perfect for every lingering night thereafter.
Of course, there was less lingering in London.
Between the taverns, Sesily’s work, their families, and their friends, the evenings were full of joy and pleasure, of happiness and purpose. Sesily no longer avoided his pubs and Caleb realized quickly that he didn’t mind a society ball if there was a possibility that his beautiful wife was going to scandalize the attendees.
Which was an important realization, as it was clear Sesily had no intention of stopping. And Caleb had every intention of following her into the fray.
Together, or not at all.
Sesily had spent that particular evening at The Place, and Caleb was eager to get home, to see her. To hold her. To love her.
After their wedding, Sesily had turned Caleb’s Marylebone house into a home—full of lush furnishings and beautiful art and a thousand other comforts that he’d never allowed himself to imagine before he met her, when he’d lived holding his breath.
Before she taught him to breathe.
A single lantern happily flickered on the table just inside the door. She was home. Caleb picked it up without stopping, taking the stairs two at a time to reach her. As he rounded the corner to their bedchamber, he wondered if he would ever make this journey without speed. Without aching desire. Without a near desperate need to be near her.
Never.
She was not in the bed cast into darkness on one side of the room. Nor was she in the chair by the fire that cast dancing orange shadows around the dimly lit space.
She was bathing, behind the bathing screen, where it seemed she’d lit every candle they owned, ensuring that her silhouette was clear and sinful on the sailcloth.
Caleb’s mouth was instantly dry, his cock hard.
The bedchamber door closed with force.
She raised one long arm and he was riveted to the movement, to the slow slide of her other hand as she ran a strip of linen over her skin.
“You’re home,” she said, the words quiet, the little breathless hitch in them barely noticeable.
He noticed.
Pleasure thrummed through him, and he slipped out of his coat. “So are you.”
“Quiet night at The Place,” she replied, switching arms. Stealing his breath.
He cleared his throat. “It’s never quiet at The Place.”
She paused in her slow strokes. Tilted her head. “Quieter. Al
l trouble was delightful trouble.” Resumed her bathing. “And you? How was the crowd?”
“Rowdy,” he said. “Raucous.” The ideal crowd for a new tavern. “Fetu was happy.”
“And you?” She smiled. “Were you happy?”
I am now. It seemed impossible that he was so happy. “I wanted to come home,” he said. “I wanted to see you.”
Another pause. “I wanted to see you, too.”
His heartbeat went heavier with the promise in the words. “Have you been waiting long?”
“I’ve kept myself busy.”
The words sizzled through him as she lowered her arm, slow and languid, and leaned back against the high wall of the copper bathtub—too high, if you asked Caleb, considering how little of her he could see. Her hair, piled high and haphazard on her head. Her beautiful profile.
“Tell me how,” he said, the words coming like gravel. He worked the buttons of his waistcoat with rough urgency, unable to take his eyes off her. Show me.
She raised her leg out of the bath.
Yes.
“We’ve had several invitations to Christmas,” she said, leaning forward to stroke a length of linen over the lush curves of her calf to her pretty ankle.
Caleb cast off the waistcoat, imagining all the ways he might make that clean limb dirty again.
“Caleb?” she asked, bringing him back from his thoughts.
“Hmm?”
The leg disappeared. “Do you have an opinion?”
“About?”
“Where you would like to spend the holiday.” He didn’t miss the dry amusement in the words. She knew what she was doing to him. She was enjoying it.
“With you,” he said, simply.
She sat up and turned her head, her arms coming up on the edge of the bathtub, the silhouette of her shoulders soft and curved and perfect. “Besides me.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he replied, pulling his shirt over his head, letting it sail across the room.
“I think Jane’s then,” she said.
He’d missed eighteen years of Christmases with his sister. A decade of them with Peter. The promise of a family Christmas with them was wonderful. And of course, Sesily knew that.
But he did not want to talk about his sister. “Sesily . . .”
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