Chapter 1

Chapter One

Let him go. Secrets develop a life of their own once they’re told. And these secrets, we don’t want told.

~Chief Intelligence Officer Browning on the abrupt retirement of Agent Noble

A cozy distillery where business partners discuss the day

Limehouse, London 1831

H is finger ached like the very devil, meaning foul weather was on the horizon.

Since he’d become friendly with this eccentric group of knaves, overturned carriages, stolen telescopes, and convoluted love affairs had become the norm. With a scowl, Jasper Noble tossed a sullen glance at the man responsible for his painfully crooked digit.

Dash Campbell stood before a barrel jammed in the corner of the distillery’s main salon, scribbling on a folio laid atop it. His waistcoat was a blinding plaid explosion that rather suited him. He had a pending deadline for his next book, or so he claimed, and was furiously insistent that everyone let him work. The first two volumes he’d written on techniques to cheat at gambling had made him quite the fashionable character. A bloke every hostess in England wanted gracing her parlor when Jasper had never been able to decide if Dash’s scandalous manuscripts or his once-in-a-lifetime face had made him so popular.

London loved nothing more than a stunning cad.

Jasper flexed his hand with a grimace, feeling rather uncharitable at the moment. He was a cad with a fairly fine face—but the invites didn’t come his way as furiously.

Sensing attention like a fox routed from the bush, Dash’s quill stalled on the page. “I begged you not to set it yourself, Noble. The sawbones woulda done a proper job and not left you with such a deformity. Nonetheless, you helped me secure the love of me life, my darling Theo, and for that, I’m forever grateful. Hideous finger or no.”

Reluctant to fall for Dash’s charm or his baiting, Jasper massaged his finger, the boiler clanging in the back of the building providing a comforting vibration beneath his bum. Picking locks didn’t come as easily as it once had due to the injury, he’d love to tell the swaggering Scot. Although he didn’t share much about his former profession, even if his friends suspected plenty. “I barely remember your sage advice,” he said instead, searching his waistcoat pocket for his flask. “The knock to my head when we landed in the ditch thankfully muffled your words. Seeing stars does that to a man, your efforts to woo your wife a race I sorrowfully got involved in.”

While Dash laughed, Jasper imbibed, the whisky rolling down his throat in a smooth burst. A prideful burst because he was an investor in not only this distillery but two others the Leighton Cluster—his friends’ official name in the ton thanks to the Duke of Leighton—owned. Three hundred thousand gallons of exceptional liquor produced last year with projections to go a solid five hundred thousand this year.

Jasper had been working since dawn, checking casks for leakage, overseeing the examination of corn for rotten kernels, and supervising the loading of wagons bound for public houses throughout England. It was backbreaking work at times, physical and grueling, a step below the duties he performed for his own shipping concerns. But he loved it. And it was leagues removed from his past. At the end of the day, there were no governmental summary reports to file. No intelligence officers to pacify. No bullets to dodge. No fabrications to construct—or not many.

He never worried about waking to a blade at his throat.

Trade was child’s play compared to espionage. And, by God , did it pay better.

Ridiculously, he was making more blunt on an investment in prams than he was on liquor. Every expectant mother in London wanted one of the damned carriages Dash had inadvertently designed for his wee babe, the bolt of tartan lining the interior proclaiming them to be an authentic Scottish creation.

Hence, the Leighton Cluster’s new and unexpected business venture.

Why Jasper had wanted to be a spy when he could make boundless money on baby carts, he couldn’t recall.

Jasper frowned and sucked down the last of his drink. Actually, he could recall. A na?ve young man with few options fleeing a failed love affair rang a bell. He palmed his chest, forcing back the asthmatic flutter. That only bloody happened when he thought of her .

“Ah, Campbell, me lad, you’ve said something to anger the beast,” Xander Macauley murmured as he strolled into the room. He wiped his grease-streaked hands on a rag, then stuffed the length of linen in the waistband of his trousers, where it fluttered like a flag with his every step. He was forever making adjustments to their whisky stills, never completely happy with the product when the product was the finest in England. “Your frown could crack ice, Noble. Miserable bit of melancholy to be giving on this fine day on the docks, innit?”

Jasper’s closest partner and friend was a rookery urchin, a man who’d built an empire from less than humble beginnings. Although Jasper’s fabricated backstory was that he, too, had been born in the stews, his narrative had actually been created during his nineteenth year by a government contact. Shoreditch had been selected as his home since he’d spent two years in his youth close to the borough, his speech altered for the worse to fit the environs until he almost forgot the true place of his heart, the coastal vistas of Northumberland.

Although he couldn’t lie to himself about his vaguely aristocratic heritage, Jasper was happy, more than, to lie to everyone else. He was honored to be considered a gutter rat. People accepted what they were told, what they were presented . If he tied his cravat a little straighter and roamed Mayfair parlors using that name from long ago, they’d accept him without a care.

A baron was the lowest step, but it was on the bloody staircase.

As it was, a man of wits and intimidation, society stayed out of his way—and he theirs.

Remarkably, Xander Macauley had called his bluff from day one. The innate grace Jasper had hidden beneath a half-arsed rookery accent not enough to fool the man. Despite arguments over the shipping contracts they’d tried to steal from each other and the women they’d once competed for, Xander had reluctantly allowed Jasper into their circle, trusting him with his family and his businesses. Given him friendship, the genuine article. If Xander had Tobias Streeter’s wife, Hildy, owner of the Duchess Society, investigate him, Jasper couldn’t blame him.

Better, he didn’t care.

There was no way to find what His Majesty’s secret service had hidden.

If the Leighton Cluster continued to welcome the asthmatic, stuttering son of a dissolute baron who was known to be someone else entirely, Jasper would remain with them for life .

Feeling a rare zing of sentimentality, he glanced around the whisky-scented space. This was age, he suspected, catching up with him.

Tobias Streeter’s corpulent cat, Nick Bottom, was dozing on a blanket in the corner, while Buttons, a mangy hound who’d wandered into the alley two months ago, lounged on a heap of empty barley sacks. Children of various ages were scattered about on the scarred plank floor and the sagging sofa. Their fathers rarely went anywhere without them, girl or boy. Enough that Jasper knew each by name. Kit, Nigel, Arabella, Tate, Kieran. The infants were at home with their mothers, of course .

The many, many babies.

His friends were productive in more ways than one.

Thoughtful, Jasper grazed the flask’s rim across his lips. It was time—but for what ? Last month, his mistress had departed after tossing a lamp at his head, and he had no inclination to replace her or the bit of flooring she’d cooked. Gray was streaking the hair at his temples, and his left knee ached when it rained. He couldn’t remember what he ate for breakfast if asked on command. He needed spectacles to read in dim light.

He was almost thirty-six, for blood’s sake. Positively ancient.

He was too old for love. Marriage. Children. Certain things in life had passed him by. Besides, he had too many secrets to start over. Too many instances he wished to forget. There were parts of his past he couldn’t share, and he wasn’t entering a union built on lies. Frankly, he’d rather be alone than live a charade.

Which was what he was doing inhabiting two grossly different worlds. He felt most at home in Shoreditch, among the rabble… but his bedside table in Bloomsbury was strewn with books written in Latin. He spoke imperfect but passable French. Played billiards like a criminal but rode his mount like a duke. Tied the smartest cravat this side of Christendom when he chose to. He had a valet, a baron’s signet ring he’d not worn in nearly twenty years, and a minor notation on page 733 of Debrett’s .

Jasper Noble was a fabrication—but he contained many pieces of the man left behind.

Nevertheless, and this was the change, both of them wished wholeheartedly to stop pretending.

Dispirited, Jasper propped his jaw on his fist and tracked a bead of rain as it slid down the windowpane, the rumble of conversation in the room swimming past without comprehension. He’d find another mistress. Maybe one with ginger tresses this time. Something novel. Something to keep him interested. He didn’t need his own children. There were enough tots in the Cluster for him to feel like a beloved uncle. Xander had even let him host his eldest boy, Kit, one weekend last summer, where they’d talked shipping and commerce late into the night. He hadn’t realized until that moment how much company a growing lad could be. The house had been positively deadly after Kit left.

Xander kicked the leg of his chair as he passed, startling Jasper from his musing. “I hate to draw you from your misery, but you wouldn’t happen to have any experience with forgeries, would you, mate?”

Jasper blinked, his whisky haze leaving him in a rush. Sitting up, he started to speak, then recognized a stutter sat on the tip of his tongue. Coughing lightly, he tried again. “Why would I?”

Xander’s gaze glimmered, a cool, steely gray. He shrugged and adjusted a coat lapel that needed no adjustment. “Just thought I’d ask.”

They stared for a lingering moment, silently acknowledging a weighty respect between two men who’d started as enemies. “I might, mate , now that you mention it,” Jasper finally said.

Xander grinned and rocked back on his heels. “Your expertise in so many areas of criminal activity never ceases to amaze me, Noble. It surpasses even my shady knowledge.”

Jasper sighed and jammed his flask in his pocket. He should have lied and said he didn’t know a bloody damned thing about forgery. However, this topic, this very one , he’d never be able to leave behind. “Out with it, then.”

The details were scant but troubling. A document submitted to the Customs House for a recent shipment had been signed by Tobias Streeter when he’d never once seen the paperwork. Everyone in their line of business created a signature that wasn’t easily reproduced, making forgeries a rare occurrence.

Unless one was dealing with a skilled professional.

Jasper shoved to his feet, the hair on the back of his neck prickling. “Copies of The Times lying about anywhere?”

Xander gestured to a crate wedged behind a row of whisky casks. “That and the Gazette . A few others. We keep them to line the cat box. Streeter doesn’t like Nick Bottom roaming the alleyways at night, so we created inside facilities.”

Jasper laughed into his fist. Fucking hell. Tobias Streeter, a man once regarded as a formidable rookery thug, the so-called Rogue King of Limehouse, treated his felines like princes. Along with his beloved wife and children.

And his friends, Jasper noted with heartwarming clarity.

Going to his knee beside the crate, Jasper flipped through the broadsheets. Each had a society column or five, drivel he never read. He didn’t want news of Cece, updates on her life, her children, her bloody husband. Or, frankly, updates on himself . The gossip printed about him was usually much too close to the truth.

Yet, there it was, in the fifth edition he scanned. The hawks were indeed circling.

The Countess of Edgerly was widowed and residing in the family’s London terrace after years spent in the backwoods of Northumberland. This was regarded as a surprise since she’d not often joined her elderly husband in the city.

Jasper should have had his contacts alert him the moment her name hit the broadsheets. By damn, he had emissaries at every printer in England, Wales, and Scotland. Even a few scattered about France and Italy. This was an amateurish mistake on his part. What kind of spy was he if he let his long ago love slip into the city without his knowing it?

A sad excuse for one, that’s what.

Only, he hadn’t wanted to know. Hadn’t been able to endure the knowing.

Jasper shot an aggrieved breath through his teeth, the flutter in his chest a complaint soon demanding a coughing fit he’d rather his friends not hear. He had yet to tell a soul about his asthma because he’d be damned if Jasper Noble got saddled with that charming childhood bit.

The biggest issue, however, was that he was trying to stay out of trouble. Walk the straight path. Remake the scoundrel. Like the rest in this room, though they’d done it for love when he was doing it for friendship. A man honorable enough to please the Duchess Society ladies was required for Leighton Cluster membership—because that’s just the way it was.

With a curse, Jasper tossed the newspapers in the crate, despite his resistance feeling himself being dragged back into the mire. The reliable ping in his gut said life was about to get interesting. Damn her .

Cece had promised to leave mischief behind. In all fairness, the vow was only valid during her titled tenure.

The earl was dead. The countess no more.

All bets were off.

Swearing softly, Jasper shook out the match before it singed his kidskin glove. The stone fa?ade of the Mayfair terrace tossed off wonderful shadows for him to disappear into, a veritable crevasse of invincibility.

He sniffled, choking back a cough. The smell of sulfur carried good memories and bad. Of his work, his many schemes, of a gorgeous young woman, candlelight spilling free to skim her flushed cheeks and the curve of her bare hip. A sweet settle over those incredible auburn-ginger tresses.

He’d dragged the match’s tip over her collarbone, leaving an ashen streak he’d later licked away. Hence, the taste of charred ash, not merely the aroma of sulfur, stung his senses like no other. Aroused his senses like no other.

At one time, he’d imagined sexual congress with Cece to be the most provoking of his life, certainly a memory stamped with youthful fondness and sentimentality. It simply wasn’t possible to stumble upon the key to your soul at fifteen, the lone person meant for you. He didn’t believe in such mawkishness. Although he was presented with fine examples on a daily basis as a member of a group of men who loved their wives. Adored , in fact. Each and every one of them.

Jamming the match’s metal tin in his coat pocket, he ground the smoking bamboo stub beneath his boot. Regrettably, there wasn’t enough moonlight to see the lock on the servants’ door, therefore the need for a sulfur stick. Antimony sulfide and potassium chlorate only burned for thirty seconds or so, but the chemicals left a perceptible scent, making them a risk in any secret endeavor. No matter. A robust breeze was funneling down the Grosvenor Square alley he stood in with enough vigor to clear the aroma in seconds, leaving behind a rancid city stink neither he nor God could do a blasted thing about.

He would get inside the manse he’d prowled about for the last hour, of course. There wasn’t a lock—outside a royal’s—he couldn’t pick. Jasper’s tools were smooth from use, and the finest in the business. Made by Christian Bainbridge, the supreme watchmaker in England. (Also, a manufacturer of top-quality burgling gear, a profitable and extremely clandestine side business.)

His Majesty only employed the best.

Jasper flexed his hand, his finger jamming as it tended to on humid evenings. That’s what he got for participating in Dash Campbell’s race for true love. Partaking in bloody matchmaking efforts. Although Dash and Theo were the happiest couple inhabiting his universe. Or maybe it was Tobias Streeter and Hildy. Or Xander and Pippa. Xander’s brother, Ollie, appeared equally content with his wife, Necessity, an infamous landscape artist who was one of Jasper’s old rookery friends. Last spring, she’d done a truly gorgeous job on the gardens at his Bloomsbury flat that he’d been neglectful about maintaining. Then there were the joyful dukes, Leighton and Markham, and their similarly joyful duchesses.

How had a former spy-cum-rookery-thug come to find himself carousing with dukes? Not one, but two ?

“Come on, luv, work with me,” he whispered, negotiating the lock’s tumblers, this little project taking longer than it should. Standing there thinking about all the blissful couples in his life was making him soft, his brain sluggish. “You’re getting too old for this shite, Noble.”

And he was. He knew it. His weak knee made it hard to run as fast as he’d need to if he still took cases, the zigzagging effort meant to evade bullets discharged at short range, a trick that was surprisingly hard on the joints. Not to mention his vision, which wasn’t as crystal clear as in his earlier years. His confidence, too, had taken a beating on his last case. He’d gotten out of the embassy with the documents intact, but the recovery period in hospital had been the longest of his career. Three days without a clue who he was from the hard knock to his head. He could have ended up telling the world about Crispin Sinclair that day and been forced into a baron’s role he didn’t for one second desire.

Thank you, but no.

His retirement appeal had been delivered to his superior two hours after his discharge. Where he’d begun to become Jasper Noble, rookery rat and astute, slightly crooked entrepreneur, in earnest.

Nonetheless, achy and ancient of mind and body, he was inside the manse in less than three minutes. Possibly two and a half, a calculation he’d have measured if he had his Bainbridge in hand. He’d waited until every light dimmed and the house quieted, then delayed an hour more. Servants rose early and were rarely up late. He’d built his investigative enterprise on calculating routines and schedules, the basic rhythms of households. Although he usually observed for a day or two, a week if there were intricacies, before breaking into a place.

This was a dangerous gambit because he was going with his gut.

Now, didn’t that make sense considering the person he was tracking?

Jasper paused when a hallway floorboard squealed beneath his boot, another mistake on his part. He should have tested each before placing his full weight on it. To stay safe, nothing about these endeavors should come as a surprise—when everything concerning Cece Willoughby was a surprise—because it involved his bloody feelings.

His brain behind his cock behind his heart.

What the hell kind of spy led with his heart ?

Chuckling, when the remembrances weren’t particularly amusing, he crept down the corridor. The wall sconces flickered as he passed them, tossing random slices of helpful light across his path. Parlor, breakfast room, music room. No, no, no. There was one room in every home that held its master’s secrets. The study, the office, whatever a gentleman called it. Or in this case, the lady. He’d find the damning goods, then he’d find her .

Naturally, the sensual secrets were located in the bedchamber.

Jasper could write a scandalous tome to rival Dash’s about the things he’d found in bedside tables.

The room he sought was located at the end of the passage. Dark-paneled, officious, redolent of leather spines, ink, and linseed oil. Beneath these sedate layers was the citrus splendor he’d bathed in years ago. Oranges were still his favorite. Shoving aside the hard pinch of yearning, he closed the door behind him with a soft snick and went into factfinding mode .

Little bits of the countess were scattered haphazardly about. A woman settling into a space she hadn’t long inhabited.

An emerald hair clip he pocketed without remorse. A bone china teacup with a splash of tea lingering in the bottom. A half-eaten scone on a chipped saucer. A folio littered with crumbs. Ink splattered on a sheet of wrinkled foolscap. Same girl, years later. As he recalled, Cece hadn’t been a well-ordered person, rather a spontaneous one.

Which appealed to the passionate boy but would not to the circumspect man.

Jasper picked every lock on the escritoire in seconds. Riffled through items of scant interest to his current pursuit. Mounds of unpaid invoices and the accompanying notices demanding payment. Paltry bank statements, pleas for assistance from tenants of the Derbyshire estate and the majordomo at the cottage in Bath. London’s finest clothier was no longer willing to attire the earl—nor was George Hoby, who crafted the finest boots in England.

Jasper still remembered his first pair, buttery black Wellingtons purchased after completion of a preliminary assignment for the Crown. Though he’d had to store the beauties in his wardrobe rather than wear them, pride in ownership and that sort of thing.

Rookery spies didn’t wear Hoby.

Now, of course, he wore whatever he liked .

It took less than sixty seconds to ascertain the Earl of Edgerly’s dire financial straits, leaving his countess to deal with the mess upon his death.

Other than that, he didn’t find what he was looking for because Cece was cleverer than this.

She would never hide her dirty goods in a desk .

Jasper paced the room until he found the slight, almost unnoticeable ripple in a ragged Aubusson. The floorboard beneath the rug shifted when he stepped on it, enticement enough for him to drop to the troublesome knee he’d taken a bullet in years ago. Better this location, however, than the gut or chest. Ripping aside the carpet, he located the lip of what he suspected was a hidden chamber. He and Cece had secreted all manner of treasures in one such as this in his Northumberland bedchamber. Every space had a loose board hanging about that, with a little craftmanship, could be fashioned into a handy floor safe.

He selected a tool from his leather-bound set and went to work, edging the polished metal edge into the narrow gap in the planks. With a gentle twist, very gentle because he wanted to cover his work when he left, the board popped free. A puff of grimy dust rose with it, filling his nose and lungs. He held back a cough with a choked gasp, once again reminded of that pathetic sack of a gagging boy.

A satchel rested in the darkened cavity. Jasper wouldn’t have been surprised to find Cece’s initials neatly burned into the leather. The papers inside were varied—letters, contracts, statements—and more troubling than Xander Macauley’s meager piece of information. Shoving to his feet, he crossed to the window, and held the correspondences in the watery sliver of moonlight. Patting his waistcoat pocket, Jasper wriggled his spectacles free, and slipped them on his face. Another nod to age, by hell. Nonetheless, the lenses cleared up the situation Cece had gotten herself in quite nicely. Forgeries of multiple documents proving Tobias Streeter to be far from her only target.

His heart kicking, Jasper scrubbed his hand over the nape of his neck.

Her promises were about as good as his, weren’t they? Grifters, both of them.

This was when he caught sight of a woman wiggling through the hedges at the back edge of the property, a chit unaccountably outfitted in black from head to toe. He’d know her shape, her height, the way she moved, anywhere—even with the innumerable changes time had wrought.

At least she was wearing a gown and not the lad’s trousers she’d loved so much. Trousers he’d admittedly been fond of as well.

Unable to tear his gaze away, he recorded her meandering journey in a direction that didn’t lead to the front of the house, her spencer fluttering behind her like a phantom. She snuck in side entrances, too, as most scoundrels were wont to do. Exactly as he’d done.

When she got closer, her features materialized, a positively haunting portrait in the mist-laden night. Her hair was curling madly about her face, dense locks he’d wound about his fingers while he thrust inside her. Back in the day, he’d been unable to contain the strands, the woman, or his fucking obsession. Thank God times had changed. Dangerously, the glint of moonlight kissing her cheek, her bottom lip, the generous curves of a mature body, sent his stomach to his knees. She was smiling , proud of whatever mischief she’d gotten into. Same girl, all right.

Memories of their glorious, youthful summer rose from the fog to choke him, no grit from hidden storage chambers to blame.

He’d suppressed what he could of the past using the standard methods.

Time, liquor, women.

So many women in a desperate struggle to forget the one .

Crushing her papers in his fist, Jasper stalked down the corridor, determined to beat her to the pass. Leaning, he wrenched his pistol from his boot and emptied the chamber, hurling the lone bullet aside.

If Cece wanted to dance with criminals, she must learn how criminals danced .

He had her chest pressed to the wall seconds after she traversed the entranceway, the butt of the cocked pistol digging into her spine. A whispery breeze snaked inside the open door, wrapping her skirt about his legs and rushing the scent of orange blossoms into his nostrils for the first time in years, a tangle that sent his senses soaring. In response to his hold, she took a halting breath but didn’t move an inch. Tossing her head, she purposely tumbled her glorious hair into his field of vision, blinding him. Though she was tall for a woman, he’d grown since their last meeting and gained two stone of muscle, giving him a distinct advantage. Not to mention the skills of defense he’d learned the hard way.

They held steady, pressed together like two pages in a book. Fighting a battle that was much more than physical. Realizing she was crawling inside his head like always, his blood pulsed, his chest tightening.

The jolt to his cock was unwelcome, but the jolt to his heart was unacceptable .

Worse, he had no free hand to capture the sneeze that echoed down the corridor .

Cece tilted her chin high, her lips compressing. If she smiled, he couldn’t say what he’d do to her. “Oh, Crispin, is this any way to greet an old friend? And you’re still sneezing at every hint of dust about a place. One would hope to outgrow asthma after all this time.”

He shook her off like a fever, backing up a step, then another, until his back met the wall. He calmly released the pistol’s hammer, letting her hear how close she’d been to disaster.

“You brought a pistol to this engagement? My, those rumors about you must be true.”

Tucking his weapon away, he studied her back in increasing uneasiness. Honestly, he wasn’t sure he was prepared to face her. “It’s empty. This time. With the games you’re playing, the next it won’t be. No ‘old friend’ to save you from yourself.”

Stepping to the side, she tidied her spencer like nothing unusual had occurred, then turned to face him with the grace of her station and the courage of the hellion he’d once known.

That’s my girl , he thought before he could stop it. Grief had been grueling work, far more difficult than spying. Worse than death or so close to it a man couldn’t see the difference. Regrettably or not, he’d never get over the burn of walking away from her that day in Northumberland and giving her to another man. Never.

“The earl’s locks are pathetic,” he murmured and arranged his coat over his pistol. He winced and flexed his throbbing finger. He would need to bind it when he got home. Ripping his glove off with his teeth, he stilled, finding her gaze fixed upon him.

Her eyes were the simmering green of dead seas and forgotten lakes, dark as peat, as he liked them. Perhaps he was crawling into her head as well. The scar splitting her eyebrow was there, attached to the memory of her tumbling from her mount when she was fifteen and slicing her brow on a stone. Christ , he’d been scared that day. Until she rolled over and issued a delighted gasp, calming him as nothing had before or since. He’d kissed her for the first time two days later, starting an affair that had nearly destroyed him.

As they stared, the world around them dissolved. The sounds of an aging house in repose, an exquisite woman’s faint exhalations slipping past her lips, the tick of a clock all seeping into the nether as a familiar chemical wonder vibrated, thriving even if he’d wished it away with his every breath.

He was mad to think attraction disappeared because a desperate soul willed it to.

Her attention lowered to the bulge from the weapon he’d hastily concealed. “You’re intent on fulfilling this thug persona, aren’t you? You can drop the rookery accent while you’re at it. I remember the real one, you see.”

With a guttural curse, Jasper shoved his glove under his armpit and wrenched his gaze from her. Her bloody forgeries were still clutched in his fist, and he tightened his fingers around them to keep himself from doing treacherous things his body desired but his heart did not. “I know about the trickery, Countess. Now, sadly, you’re playing with people who won’t find your nefarious skill as charming as I did. A lead barrel jammed in your back will be the least of it.”

She ripped the documents free as she brushed past him. “I’m not a countess anymore. I never really was.”

Jasper snorted, right on her heels. He wished he didn’t want to stay close. Because staying close meant hanging on to the scent of oranges, an aroma that had the power to slay him. “You’ll be a countess until you drop, minx.”

She stumbled but corrected her measured stride almost before he noticed. Minx . A nickname he’d never meant to utter again in this lifetime. Damn, damn, damn her. “Like you’ll be Crispin Sinclair, Baron Never-do-well until you drop.”

“That nipper’s been dead for years, Cece. The title’s in abeyance, though I’ve kept up maintenance on the Northumberland estate through my solicitors. An anonymous arrangement.”

Stunned, she glanced back. Her grip loosened and one of the sheets fluttered away like a feather. “You’ve been to Northumberland?”

He worked his other glove off with a grimace, his tone harsher than he’d like. Anger meant caring, in his book. And caring meant not getting the job done without wounds inflicted upon oneself. He’d had enough wounds imposed on his body and heart for a lifetime. “Not since that day. There wasn’t any reason to return, was there? I could have dropped in for tea and inquired after your marriage, I suppose. ”

She hummed in reply, which was no reply, and entered the earl’s study.

Fighting that annoying tickle in his throat, Jasper halted in the doorway, mortified to see the state he’d left the room in. The Aubusson in an awkward fold, the plank to the floor safe tossed negligently to the side. Cece went to her haunches, secreted the papers inside the satchel, worked the board into place, and smoothed the carpet over it. “Some emissary you are. The scent of sulfur lingering in the doorway, a fresh scratch on the lock. I knew you were inside before I fit the key to the tumblers.”

He pushed off the jamb, forcing back a stutter. His glove tumbled to the floor. “How do you know about that?”

Cece tilted her head, her gaze sweeping him before drifting away. “I kept up with the London newspapers. A week or two delayed in the hinterlands but delivered eventually. Something about this person mentioned repeatedly in the scandal rags struck a chord. Jasper was your middle name and Noble was your mother’s maiden name, wasn’t it? I put two and two together. The rest are speculations, though I thank you for substantiating them.”

“Noble was my grandmother’s surname,” he whispered, desperately uncomfortable with how well she knew him. How much she knew.

“I read a letter from your cousin, the devious one you said was a ragtag investigator of some sort. Snuck it right out of your desk drawer that weekend you were off on a hunting adventure with the vicar and his son. Your cousin said you had skills a government agency might want, and that he knew people. In the event your father’s ‘black moods’ finally drove you away.” She shrugged a slim shoulder and rose. A stray flutter of moonlight whispered over her, dust motes glinting as the beam settled around her. Jasper decided he couldn’t have looked away if the barrel of a pistol had been jammed in his back.

She fluttered her hand, as if the discussion wasn’t that important when every word pierced him like a needle. “It wasn’t hard to figure out where you’d disappeared to, Crispin. Another life. Engaged to the famous gardener, Necessity Byrne. Lost her to the Earl of Stanford, didn’t you? A baron might be able to steal a girl from an earl, but not this Shoreditch hooligan you’ve become. That is an impressive feat. I wonder which of your talents you used to convince her.”

Jasper tunneled his hands in his trouser pockets and rocked back on his heels, ignoring the prickle of heat to his cheeks. This interrogation was almost worse than the one in the medieval dungeon in Derbyshire, when he’d been interrupted while searching for falsified letters from a senior association of the King. It had been six weeks before he was healthy enough to accept another assignment. Broken bones never healed as fast as you wanted them to. “I was never engaged to anyone. I stole a telescope to help Necessity secure her earl, in fact. I still get questions about the bloody thing. Who knew it was the rarest specimen in Christendom?”

Cece unfurled her spencer and pitched it over the nearest chair like an actress walking onstage. She could be melodramatic when the situation called for it. “I have no idea what that means.”

“Probably for the best,” Jasper murmured, trying industriously to ignore the changes time had welcomed. The countess was fuller of hip and plumper of bosom. Her hair a bit longer and escaping its tight confines, the moonlight only serving to turn the ginger tresses aflame. He needed to remind himself these emotions were a lad’s obsession, youthful passion, and idiocy tied in a knot around a tangle of loose memories. He’d done the infatuation dance with this woman before, and he wasn’t doing it again.

A heart, after all, could only be broken once.

“Does this Leighton crew—two dukes, a viscount, and an earl among them—know you were brought up as a gentleman? So-called.” Turning, Cece leaned her hip on the desk, her skirts settling around her. She was dressed for intrigue in varying shades of midnight, and she’d yet to whisper a word of her activities this eve to him. Maybe she considered slinking through hedges and slipping in side doors a normal occurrence. “Funny. You ran from that world only to land right back in it.”

“My position required I be someone else, Countess. And truthfully, I liked him better.”

She raised her arms, removing one hair clip, then another. They pinged on the desktop as she dropped them like coins down a well. Released, her hair collapsed in a molten cascade down her back, the final unfurling streaking temptingly along his spine as her fingertips might. “Gone is the sticky grip of family. And the past.”

“They’re quite my family now,” he said, knowing when he was being seduced. Successfully. Beneath the thankfully concealing swing of his greatcoat, his cock was as hard as a brick. Come to think of it, which he tried to avoid on good days, he’d not had the opportunity to take her in the many ways he’d dreamed. Pleasuring her over that ancient desk of hers, for example, would check one item off an insanely long list.

She tapped her slipper, also dark as night, without comment.

“I wasn’t the one who got married,” he murmured flatly, changing tactics, disgusted he was unable to let the matter drop when he’d had years to get over it. “I had to find a family somewhere as the one in Northumberland was no longer an option.”

She curled her fingers around a hair clip she’d yet to release. “I had no choice. Do you recall how we were found, tangled like two cats around each other?”

He did recall. A thousand times since, at least. Glancing to the mantel clock, Jasper told himself he’d allow this disaster of a conversation two more minutes.

Two minutes to warn her.

Two minutes to forgive her.

He wished to tell her he’d done better than forgive, he’d forgotten . However, lies were off his docket as he was trying like hell to become a changed man.

She didn’t back away when he crossed to her. The hard swallow she took was the only indication of her unease. Jasper tipped her chin high, bringing her eyes to his. They sparked with fury and a bottomless emotion he didn’t have the wherewithal to manage. He simply couldn’t after what she’d once meant to him.

Despite this avowal, he wasn’t departing Mayfair without touching her.

Proving to himself that he could walk away.

“I have contacts in every ballroom, parlor, and bawdy house in this city, Cece. The newspapers, the House of Lords, and the Commons aren’t out of range. I’ll be alerted if you think to do more of whatever it is you’ve been doing with these forgeries. I’ve already put out the word. If it’s money you need to keep the earl’s ship afloat, there are other ways to locate it. Find a wealthy husband, for one.” He smoothed his thumb over her jaw, his hidden heart racing, realizing he was nearing the end of his stamina. Her skin was as soft as gossamer beneath his calloused fingertips, five points of astounding contact. “If you wanted my attention, you’ve got it. But awareness comes at a price.”

She drew her tongue along her bottom lip, her breath a rasp that streaked across his cheek. “You could help me, Crispin, like you used to. We made exceptional partners.”

He shook his head, fighting his attraction to not only her but that life. They’d been children, their antics hurting no one. Forged letters, correspondences, and the like. Pranks for the most part with no true intent. He was the first to admit it had been astounding what she could do, replicating any inscription placed before her. Now, it was dangerous business she was involved in. He could ask questions and try to ease the burning ember in the pit of his belly, a part of him reignited, but he didn’t want the particulars of how she’d found herself embroiled in goings-on beyond her reach.

Not from her. She’d twist the truth into a pretzel and choke him with it.

Nonetheless, his men were already on the case. He was going to crush this mischief into dust whether she liked it or not. She had no idea the favors owed him from gutter to Crown.

Temper pinkened her cheeks as he delayed, warming his palm and sending desperate little flutters through him. “You were always ready for a bit of mischief. Don’t tell me you’ve changed that much. I know you want to.”

“You knew the boy, not the man.” He released his hold on her and stepped back. He did want , frantically enough to have him considering taking her up on her offer to spend another second with her. “And the man is considering tying you to a chair to stop you. If you recall, we talked about that once. I never got the chance,” he whispered, leaning in until her teasing scent stung his senses, “but I might like to. ”

Her gasp was low, raw, there . A solid burst of awakening settled between them.

His breath leaked away as realization dawned. She wasn’t immune to him, which made him deadly happy.

If he could ever be happy about her marrying another man and only now, too many years later, thinking to track him down.

The sound of feet pounding on the staircase and along the corridor had them swinging toward the door. Cece grabbed his wrist, her first display of true agitation. Tremors slipped past her fingers and raced up his arm. “Hide, Cris, please . I’ll take him back to bed. His governess must be sleeping.”

Jasper blinked in confusion as he stepped behind the open door and out of sight, following her command without hesitation. “ Who ?”

“My son.”