Chapter Twenty-One
Calliope stood at the bar, foot tapping while Reaper sat on a high stool a few feet away, coat hanging open, a coin flicking from finger to finger.
Knight stood in the far corner, silent, arms folded, his gaze fixed on the street through the window.
Dagger was there as well, turning a dagger lazily in his hand.
This morning, the tavern was cold, the kind of cold that crept under her jacket and settled there.
Beneath, she wore a fresh set of shirt and trousers, this pair a soft brown.
The place where fire ought to crackle was barren, which didn’t help, but she suspected it best not to ask.
Strangely, smoke still grasped at the interior. Not much, but enough to be noticeable.
Did Maxen smoke?
She’d never glimpsed him with a cigar, but the scent still clung to him at times. Speaking of which, where was the man? Every minute she waited for him to make an appearance, her nerves prickled more and more.
Waiting gave her mind too much time to think.
And, unfortunately, to remember.
The memory was a dangerous heat in her breast, one she kept trying to tamp down like an unruly fire.
The moment kept replaying in flashes—the way his mouth had gone still, almost startled, before answering with something so controlled she almost wished it would snap.
Well, for that man, control probably had snapped.
There was even more than one kiss. And he kept touching her as well.
But even his control snapping possessed control!
Ah, sun and stars, the way his hands had held her face like they weren’t allowed anywhere else.
And the way she had almost wanted them to be.
Foolish.
She had been utterly foolish. Kissing Maxen Fury, the dark Prince of Brighton, her landlord, her shadow in the Lanes . . . and she the lamb that had stepped with him into the night.
She had not meant to.
At least, not until she had.
But she didn’t regret her decision either.
More curiously, she didn’t mind the dark all that much anymore.
Not when she was with him. Nevertheless, whatever had possessed her—defiance, gratitude, curiosity—she wanted a repeat.
He was a man for kissing. He was also a man for traps, and apparently, that did not involve telling her the whole truth until it suited him.
She glanced at Reaper. He caught her look and grinned, the sort of grin that said he’d be just as happy to watch the world outside go up in smoke as lend a hand to save it.
“Stop fidgeting, petite souris. He’ll be here soon.”
“I am not fidgeting,” she said primly. “And stop calling me that.” And she hadn’t asked. Was she that transparent, though?
“You’re rattling in your skin,” Reaper countered, the coin flicking rapidly between his fingers. “Nerves?”
“Impatience,” she said, lifting her chin. “There’s a difference.”
Knight’s voice came flatly. “Patience is virtue.”
Said the outlaw.
Reaper chuckled. “There will be action soon enough.”
“And what exactly will this ‘action’ be? No one has yet bothered to tell me what I’m meant to do besides sit in a carriage and look like bait.”
Reaper exchanged a look with Knight—amusement meeting something sterner. That was her first warning.
“About that, petite souris . . .” Reaper said, drawing the words out.
Her stomach dipped. “About that?”
“You won’t be in the carriage,” Dagger tossed out.
There was a beat of silence. Calliope blinked at him. “I beg your pardon?”
“You’ll be with Maxen,” Knight said, as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world. “Holding back a few streets. Saint will take his place in the main carriage, with a runner dressed as you.”
For a moment she thought she’d misheard. Then her spine stiffened. “A boy is going to dress as me?”
Reaper’s grin widened. “Don’t pout, petite souris. You’ve been dressing as a boy, and he’s a quick runner if things turn sour.”
“I’m dressed as a man.” But that was not the point.
His brow arched. “Whatever you say, petite souris.”
She could feel her pulse in her temples. “He won’t need to run because no one will follow him! They’ll take one look and know he’s not me. And then your entire plan will amount to nothing!”
“It’s safer this way,” Knight pointed out.
“Safer?” And utterly pointless. “If you want to flush out whoever is following me, then you need to give them something worth following. They should know my face, my posture, the way I look out of a window. You think a street boy in a borrowed bonnet will fool them? They’ll be watching for me, not an imitation. ”
Knight’s face remained carved from stone. “It’s our job to draw them out, not hand you over like a gift-wrapped parcel.”
“Oh? And here I thought you were going to prevent that from happening. Seems I was mistaken.”
Reaper shrugged. “Anything can go wrong.”
Calliope leaned forward, hands braced on the counter. “If I’m not in that carriage, the whole scheme is useless. You’re chasing shadows, and they’ll vanish the moment they realize I’m not there. This is not the time for half-measures.”
Reaper arched a brow. “Maxen dearest won’t agree to it.”
“Then I shall persuade him.” She leaned against the bar and mimicked Knight’s pose. “One way or another, if we are going to spring this trap, it will be real.”
A shadow fell across the counter of the bar. The air shifted.
Speak of the devil.
Calliope didn’t need to look to know it was him—her skin had already recognized him, the same way it always seemed to do. She was unsettled by how easily she noticed, unsettled by that knot of awareness.
Dark eyes met hers.
For a moment, something blazed in his expression, something that reminded her of the way his hands had held her face last night, careful, almost cherishing.
But it was gone as quickly as it came, replaced by that steady, inscrutable mask.
She hadn’t even brought up the subject, yet felt the refusal like a door slamming.
But if he thought that ended the matter, he didn’t know her half as well as he believed.
Just you wait, Maxen Fury.
*
Trouble always came in threes.
Maxen’s morning had started with a throbbing headache and the sinking suspicion that a cycle was once again about to start. And he was right.
She was still wearing trousers.
Maxen growled, low and dangerous. “Why the devil are you wearing that again?”
She blinked at him from where she now leaned on the bar, wide-eyed and innocent, as if she weren’t already a walking temptation designed solely to test his patience. “Are we going to rehash this again?”
Yes. Until she stopped wearing trousers.
He crossed his arms over his chest, trying not to let his gaze dip to where the “disguise” hugged her figure in ways that were nothing short of scandalous.
Her lips twitched, and he swore she was fighting a smile. “You’ll just have to continue to suffer through my look.”
Suffer indeed. He clenched his fists. All his hands wanted to do was touch. Her.
“Besides,” she said. “It’s more comfortable with this sort of business.”
“Spoken like a true outlaw,” Reaper muttered.
“It’s practical,” she replied, planting her hands on her hips. “Easier to move around, less restrictive than skirts.”
Maxen pinched the bridge of his nose, counting to ten in a futile attempt to rein whatever was threatening to break loose. “Calliope,” he began, his voice dangerously calm, “if you step one foot outside dressed like that with us, I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” she interrupted, arching a brow. “Forbid me? Lock me in your chambers?”
Maxen’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t tempt me.” What he’d wanted to say was that if she stepped out with them, no one would believe her to be a boy. Though no one would believe it anyway. He looked at his brothers. “Are we ready?”
“We were just discussing how your mouse here thinks she should be the one in the carriage.”
“No.” She always took his white-knuckled control and made a wreckage of it, as if it were the most brittle thing in the damn world. As if last night hadn’t already cost him more self-command than any brawl in the last decade. “You’re not in the main carriage.”
“I am.” Her tone was soft and infuriatingly certain.
“It’s too great a risk.”
“And what will you do when no one follows? Tip your hat to boy in my place and say ‘better luck next time?’ They’ll know it isn’t me before the wheels have gone twenty yards.”
His jaw flexed. “You don’t know that.”
“I do,” she said, holding his gaze. “And so do you, if you’re honest. If you want results, you need to make it real.”
“You think I’d use you as bait?”
“I think,” she said slowly, “you already are. The difference is whether it will work or not.”
Maxen glanced at his brothers.
Reaper’s grin sharpened.
Knight’s arms remained folded.
Dagger said nothing.
“Saint rides in my coat,” he said, clipped.
“Hat down, head high. Tom wears a dress and bonnet and keeps his face down. They take the main way past the last houses, cut through the market, then out to the open road. The rest follow closely. You, Miss Turner, remain with me, two horses behind until we see who bites.”
“And if no one does?” she asked.
“They will.”
“Because you hope so?” she returned. “Or because you’ve done this before with a woman they already know?”
Damn it.
“Your boy will be a poor version of me. If your trap depends upon them believing I am in that carriage, then I must be in that carriage.”
“You’re not bargaining with me.”
“You’re right, I am not bargaining.” Her chin lifted. “I am stating a requirement.”
Reaper let out a low whistle. “The mouse comes with terms. This is why I avoid women.”
Maxen shot his brother a filthy look.
“What?” Reaper slouched deeper, palms raised in mock innocence. “She has a point, frère. If you want a fox, you don’t parade around a dressed-up dog as a hen and pray the fox is near-sighted.”
Knight scoffed. “That is why women avoid you. Referring to them as animals.”
“We don’t know how deep the danger festers,” Maxen said. “Which is why she stays where I say.”
“Maxen.” His name on her tongue did something fierce to him. His whole body clenched. “Would you have selected your brother to take your place if I weren’t here?”
She stared at him. Calm, steady, stubborn as winter.
The cap shadowed her cheekbones; a loose wisp of gold had escaped and brushed her jaw.
Last night, his hands had fit there. Held, not claimed.
A boundary he’d put on himself because touching her had already felt like standing at the edge of a cliff and choosing the drop.
He hesitated.
“Ha!” She narrowed in on him. “I’m right, aren’t I? So why are you doing this now? You are not scared, are you?”
He almost growled.
“Compromise,” Reaper offered, too damn cheerful. “Let her sit the first leg. We’ll do the switch later if we must. There are plenty of spots. Tom takes over for the last stretch. If our rats haven’t shown by then, they’re not biting at all.”
Knight’s voice was cool. “Too many pieces in play.”
“Pieces playing keep you alive,” Reaper said without care.
“Stop speaking nonsense.” Maxen’s fingers itched. Itched to clench. Itched to throttle.
The routes unstitched in his head: corners, choke points, rooftops where men could sit without being seen.
He loathed every version that ended with her in reach of a knife.
A pistol. Eyes. He detested even more the thought of her walking out of this room angry and stubborn and straight into risk without his hand on the reins.
Could he even stop this at this point? “You ride nowhere without my order. Not one turn.”
“Of course,” she said with satisfaction. “I didn’t expect anything less.”
Maxen’s mouth flattened. “I don’t like it.”
“I don’t either,” Knight said. “But I hate failing more.”
“Then it’s settled,” she said with a nod.
“I’m not done,” Maxen said firmly. “Your hair stays pinned. Your ‘disguise’ gets a coat over it. And you stay back from the window.”
One corner of her mouth lifted. “Happy to oblige.”
Reaper snorted.
Maxen stepped closer without thinking and almost wished he hadn’t.
This close, it was almost impossible not to reach out and touch her.
“If I knock twice on the roof, you drop to the floor. If I knock three times, you get out and follow Knight. You do not wait, you do not ask questions, and you do not look back.”
“And if you do not knock at all?” she asked.
“Then you stay where you are and let me bloody work.”
She nodded. “Agreed.”
Knight sighed. “Saint will complain.”
“Saint can complain on the move.” He looked to Reaper. “If anyone you don’t recognize so much as blinks at that carriage, I want to be signaled before he finishes that blink.”
Reaper flashed his teeth. “Of course.”
He vanished through the back. Knight followed with a last hard look at Maxen that said he would hold him responsible for every hazard in this plan, and he would be right.
He couldn’t stop his gut from twisting, the kind of twists that came when men made choices they could not unmake.
He had never intended to give in, yet something about the way Calliope defied him—chin high, green eyes ablaze—made him say the exact opposite of what he meant.
She seemed to have that way with him.
He shrugged out of his coat and covered her shoulders, his fingers brushing against the column of her neck before he retreated. A simple contact. It burned through every lesson he had ever learned about keeping a rein upon himself. “Remember the knocks.”
“I will.”
“Come. Let’s set your trap,” he said, guiding her where the carriage waited and, with it, whatever third trouble the day had saved for him.