Page 11 of Heartbreaker

Of course, by the time London realized she was missing, the girl would be happily ensconced just under its nose in The Duchess’s Mayfair town house, no one in the aristocracy the wiser as she delivered a witness statement to Scotland Yard and had several lovely long luncheons with the man she was to marry, while Duchess, Sesily, Adelaide, and Imogen completed months’ worth of work to bring her father to justice.

The whole thing would be sorted in ten days if it all went to plan, which it would. No plan would ever defy Duchess.

“Now. Where are we? Adelaide, I assume your visit to The Bully Boys was a success?”

Adelaide reached for the little book on the table andtossed it to Duchess, who caught it with ease. “Well done,” Duchess said, thumbing through the scribbled notes as Imogen leaned forward to lift the cube from the table while Sesily helped Adelaide with her clothes. “I imagine Alfie Trumbull won’t enjoy having lost the location of every weapons cache in twenty miles.” She looked up. “No trouble?”

“A few surprises, but nothing I couldn’t handle.”

Duchess’s blue eyes narrowed. “What kind of surprises?”

The Duke of Clayborn was there.

She should say it. It was important. He was not a fool. She had taken his mysterious wooden cube and it would not be long before he was asking questions about her, trying to understand the full scope of her affairs on the South Bank—questions that would put them all, and their work, in danger.

The box would only buy his silence for so long.

But somehow, when Adelaide opened her mouth, all she said was, “Alfie has a new desk—locks and false-bottomed drawers.”

“Does he?” Duchess quipped. “If he’s not careful, someone might think he’s a businessman. Anything else?”

“The Bully Boys gave chase.”

The whole room stilled, the only sound Adelaide’s waistcoat sliding off, each woman staring at her as though no one inside had ever considered the possibility that Adelaide might be seen. Chased. Caught.

Noticed.

Even Imogen halted her inspection of the wooden box. “What do you mean,gave chase?”

Adelaide pretended not to notice her friends’ surprise, instead shrugging one lean shoulder. “They saw me. They chased me. I escaped.”

More silence. Then Sesily said, “Theysawyou?”

Adelaide yanked her shirt over her head, exchanging itquickly for the chemise in Sesily’s hands. “Yes. It was, as you pointed out, the broad light of day.”

“I thought it was dusk?” The Duchess asked, dry as sand.

“But you’re...you,” Sesily said, moving to quickly lace a corset over the undergarment. “No onesees you, Adelaide.”

“Well, today they did,” Adelaide replied, disliking the heat that flooded her cheeks at the words. “Today I was...” She paused, considering the earlier events. She’d been distracted. By a man. Spoken to him. Accepted his assistance. Enjoyed it, if she was honest. And then she’d done the most un-Adelaide-like thing she could imagine; she’d kissed him. Not thinking of the repercussions. Not thinking at all. She pushed her spectacles high on her nose. “I was... not myself.”

“I should say not,” Imogen said, returning her attention to the wooden cube.

“I told you the appointments were too close together,” Duchess said, turning, a mass of silk in her arms. “We could have sent Imogen.”

Approaching, The Duchess shook out the black silk, revealing a lush gown. Adelaide removed her spectacles and tossed them to a nearby chair before raising her arms and allowing Sesily and Duchess to pull the frothy garment over her head, speaking through the crinoline and petticoats within. “Imogen would have been noticed.”

“Oh, unlike you, moving like the fog?” Imogen retorted.

She had been moving like the fog. It wasn’t her fault Clayborn had justappearedthere. Uninvited. She poked her head out of the neck of the dress. “You would have been noticed when you exploded the place, Imogen.”

Imogen Loveless was the kind of woman people noticed because it was impossible not to notice her. She was a whirling dervish—a book that could absolutely be judged by its cover. Short and plump, with a head of riotous black curls and a taste for chemistry experiments that were as likely to save the day as they were to destroy it, Imogen was a friend who was, by turns, exciting and absolutely terrifying.

Suffice to say, she was a delight at parties.

“Explosives can be a useful diversion!” Imogen said, brandishing the box in Adelaide’s direction. “What’s this?”

Adelaide held out a hand as Sesily began tightening the laces at the back of the gown. “Give it to me.”

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