Even if it wasn’t worth money, it had brought a duke to Lambeth, so whatever was inside was a secret worth having.
As Adelaide had made a life of trading in powerful men’s secrets, and was currently very interested in secrets adjacent to this particular powerful man, she wasn’t about to give this one up easily. She tossed Clayborn a crooked smile. “Those are the same thing on the South Bank, Duke. But here we play by simple rules. She who finds, keeps.”
With that, she ran again, heading from the alleyway at a clip—aiming for the docks.
Of course, he followed. “It’s private,” he ground out as he kept pace with her, the words tortured from him, as though he resented having to speak them. Which of course he would—this was not a man who would deign to share with someone as common as Adelaide.
“That much is clear, or you wouldn’t be skulking about a well-guarded warehouse playing fancy dress.” She slid him a look. “You can’t possibly have thought you wouldn’t be noticed.”
He ran a hand over his beard. “Forgive me if I am not as deft at disguise as you.” He sent a cool look over her from head to toe, though Adelaide did not feel so cool under his scrutiny. “You thought you could simply walk in there, thieve from the head of one of London’s most powerful gangs, and walk out?”
“In fact, I was doing just that until you sent the entire afternoon sideways.”
“I was protecting you!” he growled, matching her annoyance with his own.
Something thrummed through her at the words, stern and direct, and she found herself wondering when she’d last encountered a man’s protective instincts. In her experience, men left her to her own devices. She wasn’t sure how the alternative felt, honestly. Strange. Warm.
Not that she would ever admit it. “Really? And how’s that gone? Protecting me?”
“Did you fail to notice that I brought down several men big as houses? Or do you require new spectacles?”
Adelaide adjusted the eyewear in question higher upon her nose and made a right turn, then a quick left, sliding into another alleyway. “My eyesight is impeccable.” She was tiring. Skirts were heavy and unwieldy—yet another way the world kept women back. One hand fell to her waist, where wide silk ribbons tucked in at her waist.
He followed, keeping pace with ease. “And what—you were going to take on a warehouse full of bruisers after stealing from them?” He nodded to the cube in the crook of her elbow. “Poor choice of weapon.”
She had to get away from him. He saw too much. Asked too much. She should give him the box and cut him loose—it was what he wanted, and it wasn’t as though she needed it. She’d only taken it because it intrigued her.
The problem was, now that she knew it belonged to him, it intrigued her even more.
Which was as irritating as he was, frankly. She tucked the box under her arm and increased her speed. “A girl must make do in this modern age. So sorry, Duke, but I have somewhere to be, and I do not have time for . . . you.”
With a tug, she pulled the final fastening at the waist of her drab, grey skirts, the fabric flying out behind her, revealing a pair of slim navy trousers adorned with a thigh holster for her blade and tall leather boots, releasing her to unencumbered speed.
He made a sound of utter surprise behind her, and she dearly wished she could turn to see the shock on his stern face. Resisting the urge, Adelaide slipped into the narrow gap ahead, grateful for the element of surprise and the additional speed the loss of her skirts had provided . . . she had gained enough ground to topple a pile of barrels and leave her gentleman scoundrel behind.
Not her gentleman scoundrel. She wanted nothing to do with him.
His curse followed her—but he did not.
Triumphant, Adelaide burst from the dim light into the late afternoon sun of the Thames hard at work, tide high and packed with boats and people hurrying to and fro to complete their work before dark. She looked upriver, relieved. She’d make her appointment after all.
She slowed her pace, removing her coat and cap and tossing them behind a pile of wood crates, sliding her snuffbox and Alfie’s book into her trouser pockets before detaching a peaked cap from where it had been pinned at her waist. Pulling the brim low over her eyes, she lowered her hips and broadened her stride. The woman in the drab dress was gone, replaced by an ordinary dockworker, tall and slim and headed straight for the riverbank, invisible again.
She leapt down from the riverbank onto the nearest barge—heavy and piled high with coal. A shout sounded—surprise from one of the men on the far end of the boat, but Adelaide was already gone, leaping down to the next barge, piled high with sacks of mortar.
There wasn’t time for any of this. No time for being chased by Bully Boys. Certainly no time for thinking about sharp, angled jaws and dukes who leapt into the fray.
No time for distracting men who caused the fray.
Another leap. Another boat, this one already half empty of its cargo. There was no traffic like the traffic on the Thames at high tide. No better place to disappear, either. Adelaide had learned that young.
She tucked herself behind a high tower of crates and consulted her watch before looking upriver.
The flat-bottomed barge bobbed and swayed as someone landed on the deck.
Adelaide stilled, slipping her blade from the strap at her thigh and setting her cargo to the ground. Dammit. For a lifetime, she’d been able to disappear in a crowd, and suddenly, the skill was gone.
The Duke of Clayborn had somehow ruined it—as though, in seeing her, he’d made it so the rest of the world could, too.
She adjusted her grip on her knife and listened, trying to hear her pursuer’s heavy steps over the sounds of the working river.
Peeked around the edge of the crates.
“Dammit,” she muttered to herself before narrowing her gaze on him, tall and strong and not remotely worse for wear considering he’d been dockside brawling for the last three quarters of an hour. “You’ve missed the turn for Westminster, Duke.”
“Mmm,” he said, the noise low in his throat and rather delicious, if Adelaide were telling the truth. She shouldn’t like it. He was the Duke of Clayborn. She’d spent a year not liking him.
He stepped into her hiding place and collected the cube at her feet. “Stealing is a crime.”
“Are you going to call the magistrate?”
“No,” he said, softly. “But what did you intend to steal?”
He was close enough to touch, and Adelaide knew she should step away from him. Even if he wasn’t a duke, it was still daylight and half the Thames could see.
No one on the Thames was watching.
“Who says I was stealing anything?”
There was something about him. About this. Something wild and unfettered and exciting . . . and dangerous. He stepped closer, his words low and dark as he continued, “You don’t have to admit it. I know a thief when I see one.” He reached for her, and she held her breath, wondering where he’d touch her. What the leather of his glove would feel like on her skin.
Except he didn’t touch her skin. Instead, he said, softly, “Red.”
For a moment she didn’t understand, and then she felt a tug at her temple, where a lock of her hair had escaped. She reached up, knocking his hand away and pushing it behind her ear.