Bombshell Read online

  “If this is the company he keeps,” the duchess said, ever world-weary, “it seems we shall require Mr. Calhoun’s secrets after all.”

  And so it was decided. Sesily stood, knowing what she had to do. “I’ll get them.”

  What was she doing there?

  Not that he should have noticed her. There were dozens of women in the tavern—it felt like a hundred of them, with the wall of heat and perfume that struck when he stepped through the door from the cool night beyond.

  Maggie O’Tiernen’s place always teemed with women, understandable as it promised safety, security, and a lack of censure to women of all walks, allowing them a level of privacy and privilege they were rarely afforded in other taverns.

  Caleb had spent his life in taverns. He owned twelve of them, and he’d worked hard to build them into places that welcomed women. But where his pubs worked for that welcome, The Place came with it built in.

  So, on any given evening, Maggie’s place was full. Full of women who danced and drank and laughed—enough to make it difficult to single one from the whole crowd. Many with wide smiles and unbridled laughter. Many with smooth skin and wild curves. Many of them brunettes. Many of them beautiful.

  He shouldn’t have noticed one among the rest.

  Of course, he did. He’d barely had a chance to look over the crowd, to register the group that danced in the lamplight on the far edge of the room, to hear the heavy clink of glasses to his right and the deep boisterous laugh from Maggie at the bar to his left, to smell the perfume and ale and something delicious coming from the kitchens … and there she was.

  She was too far away for noticing. He shouldn’t have been able to see her dark hair, gleaming in the orange light of the pub as she turned to face him. He shouldn’t have been able to detect the stain of red on her lips or the low dip of the line of the dress she wore that had clearly been purchased from the devil himself. Not that Caleb should have been able to see the sinful garment, nor the way it framed the rise of her breasts, the swell of her hips. Nor should he have been able to hear her laugh over the scores of others, or smell her, warm and rich like almond tarts.

  But he did. Instantly.

  Because he’d always been able to see those things. Hear them. Scent them. From the moment he’d met her, two years earlier.

  “Fucking hell.” What was she doing there?

  At his shoulder, Thomas Peck, one of London’s best detectives, stiffened. “Do you see something?”

  Always. If she was there, he saw her.

  “No.” Caleb pushed into the room, keenly aware of the attention they drew from a tableful of women nearby. He wasn’t a fool; he knew he was the kind of man people noticed, and it was doubly true when he was one of only a handful of men in a room. He didn’t like being in The Place when it was full—didn’t like feeling like he was trespassing. “Let’s get to Maggie and get out.”

  Doing everything he could to ignore Sesily, Caleb redirected his attention to the proprietress of The Place, who towered above everyone else, black hair twisted high on her head, reigning over her subjects as she poured ale, flirted indiscriminately, and watched the crowd. She was bent over the bar, in close conversation with an Indian woman, when she met Caleb’s eye. Surprise flashed in her dark eyes—men weren’t regulars at The Place, and especially not at that hour—and Maggie’s attention slid to his companion, recognition flaring, along with distaste. Raising a single brow in his direction, she indicated the far end of the bar, where it was quieter.

  Though, with Sesily Talbot close, it wouldn’t be quiet for long.

  Setting his jaw, Caleb followed Maggie’s instructions as she returned to her conversation. He led Peck through the room, trying not to notice the keen blue gaze that followed his movements from the table tucked in the corner.

  As they made their way, Peck asked, “You’re sure that O’Tiernen will talk to us?”

  “She’ll talk to me,” Caleb said, “but I’m guessing you knew that, or you wouldn’t have had to strong-arm me into joining you.”

  “I didn’t strong-arm you, Calhoun. I asked you for a favor.”

  “Right,” Caleb retorted. “And I said yes because I’m a giving kind of man, and not because you’re one of Peel’s boys.”

  Peck didn’t like the casual descriptor, but Caleb didn’t trust uniforms in general, and so he wasn’t about to play charming. Still, Peck knew he wouldn’t have made it through the door without Caleb to vouch for him. “You can’t deny that my owing you a boon isn’t the worst thing in the world.”

  Caleb couldn’t think of many things worse than being in close quarters with an officer of the law, but he supposed that, as they came, Thomas Peck wasn’t the bottom of the barrel. He was a decent sort who’d made a name for himself before the formation of the Metropolitan Police Force as being one of the few Bow Street Runners who cared about honest justice rather than lining his pockets.

  When Peck came knocking at The Singing Sparrow earlier in the day, it had been with justice in mind. In recent months, a half dozen locations across the East End, every one owned or operated by women, every one tossed over in a riot or a raid or a robbery—not one of them reported. Peck wasn’t a fool, and he knew there was something going on. And he wanted to get to the bottom of it.

  But that required finding someone willing to talk. Which he wasn’t going to get at most of the joints—exclusive clubs with private membership rolls featuring some of the wealthiest women in London. Rough and tumble Thomas Peck, who barely knew how to tie a cravat, wasn’t going to get in those doors.

  The Place, however, had a door that opened, even if men were rarely welcome there. The policeman had known better than to come to The Place on his own, however—his weren’t the kinds of questions answered easily, because Scotland Yard wasn’t the kind of place anyone here, deep in the winding streets of Covent Garden, trusted. And rightly so.

  If Peck was going to gain more information about whoever was so full of anger and vengeance that he was coming for every place made safe for women, the policeman was going to need someone Maggie knew. And, though Caleb would rather gnaw off a limb than linger with a member of the Metropolitan Police, he wanted whoever was shaking down places in the Garden caught, and not only because The Singing Sparrow welcomed women and was owned by one.

  That, and refusing Peck’s request would draw the wrong kind of attention from Scotland Yard, and Caleb couldn’t risk that.

  Which meant he was there for business, and not for the woman draped artfully against the bar not ten paces from where Maggie waited for him. He met her blue eyes for a heartbeat, and looked away.

  He had his own trouble to sort out that evening. Sesily Talbot would have to wait.

  Haven’t you noticed, American? I am trouble.

  As though anyone with a pulse could notice anything different.

  Maggie met them at the far end of the bar. “Have you forgotten to change your watch, American? You should know better than to darken my doorway at this hour. And with such unsavory companionship.” Gone was the easy smile she had for the rest of the room. She tilted her head in the direction of the police detective. “He’s bad for business.”

  Caleb nodded, turning his back squarely on Sesily, who had settled in, unabashedly watching the show. “Mine, too.”

  “Aye,” she replied, Galway in her voice. “But that’s less of my concern. Ale?”

  “What are you pouring?”

  Her gaze narrowed and she turned away, filling a pint from a small cask nearby. Setting it on the bar, she said, “Beggars can’t be choosers, American.”

  Caleb lifted the glass and toasted her. “Fair enough.” He drank deep, anticipating the normal swill found in any tavern in London, but finding, instead, something potent and unexpected. Pulling back, he inspected the glass, then looked to the proprietress. “What is that?”

  She smiled. No one liked a secret like Maggie. “It’ll knock you back, no?”

  “It certainly will. Where’d
you get it?”

  “There’s a new brewer in town.”

  “I’d like to meet him.”

  “We’ll see. I’m not feeling a very giving mood with you now, American, bringing the Yard into my place.” She looked to Peck.

  “I’m not here for ale,” he said.

  “Imagine my surprise.” The retort was dry as sand.

  The detective inspector leaned far enough over the bar to ensure that they could not be heard above the din of the tavern. “I’m on the hunt for the boys who tossed over The Place a few weeks ago.”

  It was the wrong thing to say, but Caleb wasn’t about to help Peck fix it. Not when Maggie cut him a look and pulled a length of linen from where it hung at her waist to make a show of cleaning the shining mahogany. “Tossed over which place?”

  It was a deliberate misunderstanding. Caleb had heard of the damage done to The Place. Chairs and tables destroyed, lamps and curtains pulled from the walls, a roomful of casks hacked to bits, the two windows onto the street smashed before Maggie and a few regulars had chased away the offenders with, if reports were to be believed, a shard of broken mirror and a meat cleaver.

  “Miss O’Tiernen, you were closed for a week afterward,” Peck said, the disbelief in his tone making it even less likely that she’d give up any worthwhile information.

  She turned her cool, midnight gaze on him. “Renovations.”

  There were a thousand reasons why she wouldn’t want Scotland Yard in the mix with whatever she knew, and Caleb recognized at least a dozen of them behind her eyes. Including one he didn’t care for: fear.

  Peck lowered his voice. “I believe the men who raided you are members of a known gang perpetrating crimes all over London, called The Bully Boys—and I’d like to help you.”

  She did look at Peck then, disbelief on her face. “You’d like to help me.” A pause. And then, “Detective Inspector … you walk in here and tell me about The Bully Boys like I haven’t known them since you were learning to fire that pretty pistol you’ve strapped to your side. The women in this room have forgotten more about The Bully Boys than your men have ever learned.”

  “I want to learn,” Peck said.

  “And what … you’ll play protector? Keep us safe?” Maggie scoffed.

  “Yes,” Peck replied without hesitation.

  Maggie’s lips twisted in a wry smile, wise with years playing her own protector. “Only till Mayfair calls, though, yeah?”

  Caleb couldn’t help the twist of his own lips. He didn’t imagine Tommy Peck got this kind of set down regularly.

  “Like I said,” Maggie finished. “We were closed for renovations.”

  Peck stiffened in frustration, and Caleb stepped in before the policeman got them both barred from The Place. They weren’t getting information from Maggie. Not tonight. And possibly not ever. He set a hand on Peck’s shoulder. “Renovations it is.”

  “And unless the two of you are here to entertain my customers with a brawl”—she made a show of sliding her gaze over both men’s broad chests, before meeting Caleb’s eyes—“you ain’t welcome during business hours. I suggest you go back to your pub, and you”—she looked to Peck with a false smile—“go back to doing Her Majesty’s work. We’ve no need for you here. Unless you’re going to give us a look at those muscles.”

  She raised her voice at the last, and Caleb gritted his teeth, knowing, without question, that at least one woman in the room would pick up that particular gauntlet.

  “Are you to fight, American?”

  Christ. Sesily appeared at his shoulder, close enough to touch. When had she moved? How hadn’t he noticed? He turned and leveled her with his coolest look, willing his pulse steady. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  She made a show of inspecting him and then Peck. Lingering a bit too long on the other man. Long enough that Caleb seriously considered accepting the offer of a brawl.

  What this woman could do to him.

  “Tell me, Detective Inspector, whom do you think would win in this particular fight?”

  Peck’s brows rose in surprise at the brazen question. “I beg your pardon, my lady?”

  “No need to stand on ceremony.” She smiled, wide and warm, the full force of it dazzling the detective and setting Caleb to wondering how best one disposed of the body of a Metropolitan Police officer. “Please. Call me Sesily.”

  Like hell he would. “Don’t even think of calling her that.”

  Her eyes went wide and innocent, as though such a quality were possible in a hellion. “Why Mr. Calhoun, I wasn’t aware you were in a position to decide what others call me.” With that set down, she turned her cheeky smile back on the detective. “Detective Inspector, you are more than welcome to call me Sesily, but only if you tell me who you expect would triumph in a match between the two of you.”

  Peck wasn’t a fool and he wasn’t a monk. Instead, he offered Sesily Talbot a winning smile of his own and said, “I expect it would be me, my lady.”

  The honorific was the only reason why Thomas Peck, pride of Scotland Yard, remained standing in that moment, especially when Sesily moved closer, sliding between Caleb and the policeman, like a vine. Or one of those snakes that squeezed its prey until it was dead and then ate it in one enormous gulp.

  She tilted her chin up to look into Peck’s face, which Caleb imagined some might find handsome if they liked beards and chiseled marble. “So confident!”

  “Oh, are we wagering?” Imogen Loveless had arrived, her words forthright and bloodthirsty. “Will there be a bout?”

  “A lady can dream,” Sesily replied, all flirt. “Right now, we’re discussing who will win.”

  “Not all of us are discussing it,” Caleb grumbled, taking a step back when Lady Imogen pushed into the space next to Sesily and lifted herself onto her toes to get a better look at Peck’s shoulders.

  Peck’s attention snapped to her, and something shifted in him, his spine going straighter, shoulders going broader. “Excuse me, miss.”

  “I’ve a bob on the American if there’s a fight!” Adelaide Frampton called happily from a distance.

  “There’s no fight,” Caleb grumbled, ignoring the sliver of gratitude he felt that someone was on his side in this non-existent competition.

  “You appear to be quite strapping,” Lady Imogen said to Peck.

  He cleared his throat. “Er … Thank you?”

  “Do you play croquet?”

  “No?”

  Caleb couldn’t linger on the odd conversation. He had his own problems, however, as in the small space, Sesily was suddenly pressed to him, her beautiful eyes on his, her soft curves against all the hard planes of him as she and her friend sized them up like horseflesh.

  He inhaled sharply and stepped back, putting space between them. Requiring space between them.

  She met his eyes. “Mr. Calhoun, really. There aren’t many reasons for men such as you to find themselves inside The Place—indeed the obvious reason is that you’re here for an exhibition match. You needn’t look as though you’ve scented something unpleasant.”

  It wasn’t unpleasant, though. It was magnificent. Lush and beautiful and a scent that should have been impossible to find in a dark pub in the labyrinth of Covent Garden. Nevertheless, he raised a brow in her direction and said, “Remarkably like sulfur, actually.”

  Her eyes lit with laughter. As Lady Imogen replied offhandedly, “Oh, that’s me, probably. I’ve been testing out new explosives.”

  Peck’s wide eyes met Caleb’s over the woman’s wild hair. “Explosives?”

  “Mmm,” she said before nodding once, her inspection complete. “My money is on this one. He’s a touch taller and he’s received proper training.”

  Proper training was precisely why Caleb could fell Peck like a tree. There was no place for rules in a decent bout.

  For his part, Peck didn’t seem to know what to say, so he settled on another somewhat strangled, “Thank you.”

  “I hope I have no
t offended, Mr. Calhoun,” Lady Imogen said, in a tone that suggested precisely the opposite.

  “Oh, Caleb’s not offended.” Sesily waved a hand in the air. “It’s merely a matter of facts, Imogen.”

  She was baiting him. And he knew better than to take it.

  “We’ll never know, as there won’t be a bout tonight, ladies,” Maggie interjected. “These two are too expensive a proposition. And they’re leaving. Now.”

  Sesily made a show of looking disappointed. “Another time, then,” she said before stepping past him to the bar. “Maggie, I don’t suppose you’ve any of those delicious pork pies of yours tonight?”

  And like that, the men were dismissed, as though they’d never been there to begin with. Which was what Caleb wished whenever he encountered Sesily.

  At least, it was what he told himself he wished.

  “Who is she?” Peck asked, under his breath.

  She’s not for you.

  Resisting the urge to put the thought into words, Caleb pushed past the detective with a terse, “Sesily Talbot. She’s not a part of your investigation.”

  Even as he said the words, he had a sense they were not true.

  “Not the Talbot girl. I’ve heard of her …” Caleb gritted his teeth. Of course Peck had heard of her. Sesily had made a life of being the kind of woman people had heard of. “I mean the other one. The one who thought I could knock you out.”

  “The one who was wrong, you mean? Imogen Loveless. Lady Imogen Loveless,” he said, making sure to add the important bit.

  “Lady?”

  “Daughter of an earl, with a taste for explosives, I gather.”

  Outside, the street was quiet and the air was brisk, and before the door to The Place had even closed, Caleb was rounding on Peck. “I told you nothing good would come of a visit to Maggie’s.”

  “Not true,” the detective replied. “I got in the door. I spoke to her. She knows I know someone’s after places like hers. And maybe, someday soon, she’ll believe I want them caught.”

  Caleb slid him a look. “You understand that no one in the East End is likely to trust a Peeler.”