“Well, London would like that.” The founder of the Angel stood, lifting the list of potential fights along with the stack of papers that had been on the table since before the fight. “Shall I return these to the books?”

Temple shook his head, extending one hand for them. “I shall do it.”

It was part of the ritual.

“Why pull the files in the first place?” Chase asked.

Temple looked to the papers, where Montlake’s debt to the Angel was accounted in clear, concise script: one hundred pounds here, one thousand there, a dozen acres. A hundred. A house, a horse, a carriage.

A life.

He lifted one shoulder, enjoying the sting of the muscle there. “He might have won.”

One of Chase’s blond brows rose. “He might have done.”

But he hadn’t.

Temple returned the record to the scarred oak table.

“They lay everything on the fight. It seems the least I can do to acknowledge the magnitude of their loss.”

“And yet you still win.”

It was true. But he understood what it was to lose everything. To have one’s entire life changed in an instant because of a choice that should not have been made. An action that should not have been taken.

There was a difference, of course.

The men who came to scratch in the ring beyond remembered making the choice. Taking the action.

Temple didn’t.

Not that it mattered.

A bell on the wall above the door rang, announcing that his bath was drawn, pulling him back to the present.

“I did not say they do not deserve to lose.”

Chase laughed, the sound loud in the quiet room. “So very sure of yourself. Someday, you may not win so handily.”

Temple reached for a towel, draping the fine Turkish cotton around his neck.

“Wicked promises,” he said as he headed for the adjourning bathing chamber, dismissing Chase, the fight, and the wounds he’d inflicted. “Wicked, wonderful promises.”


The streets east of Temple Bar came alive at night, filled with the worst of London—thieves and prostitutes and cutthroats set free from their daytime hiding places, released into the wild darkness. Thriving in it.

They reveled in the way corners rose from shadows, carving welcome blackness from the city, not half a mile from its most stately homes and wealthiest inhabitants, marking territory where proper nobs would not tread, too afraid to face the truth of the city—that it was more than they knew.

Or perhaps it was exactly what they knew.

It was everything that Temple knew.

Everything he was, everything he had become, everything he would ever be, this place, riddled with drunks and whores—the perfect place for a man to fade away. Unseen.

Of course, they did see him. They had for years, since the moment, twelve years earlier, when he’d arrived young and stinking of fear and fury, with nothing but his fists to recommend him to this brave new world.

The whispers had followed him through filth and sin, marking time. At first, he pretended not to hear the word, but as the years passed, he had embraced it—and the epithet turned honorific.

Killer.

It kept them far from him, even as they watched. The Killer Duke. He felt the curiosity in their gazes—why would an aristocratic nob, born on the right side of the blanket with a diamond-crusted spoon in his mouth, have any reason to kill?

What devastating, dark secret did the rich and privileged hide so well behind their silks and jewels and coin?

Temple gave the darkest souls in London hope.

The chance to believe that their lives, dank and layered in soot and grime, might not be so very different from those that seemed so far above. So unattainable.

If the Killer Duke could fall, he heard in their furtive gazes, so, too, might we rise.

And in that flickering hope was the danger. He turned a corner, leaving the lights and sound of Long Acre, cloaking himself in the darkened streets where he had spent most of his adult life.

His steps quieted with years of instinct, knowing that it was this walk—the last hundred yards to his town house—where those who lurked found their courage.

Because of this, it was no surprise he was being followed.

It had happened before—men desperate enough to take him on, to wield knives and clubs in the hope that a single, well-placed blow would level him long enough to relieve him of his purse.

And if it laid him flat forever, well then, so be it. It was the way of the streets, after all.

He’d faced them before. He’d fought them before, spilling blood and teeth here on the cobblestones of Newgate with a ferocity that was missing in the ring of The Fallen Angel.

He’d fought them, and won. Dozens. Scores.

And still, there was always some new, desperate sinner who followed, mistaking the fine wool of Temple’s coat for weakness.

He slowed, fixed on the steps behind him, different than usual. Missing the weight of drink and poor judgment. Fast and focused and nearly on top of him before he noticed what it was that set these footsteps apart.

He should have noticed earlier. Should have understood immediately why there was something so uncommon about this particular pursuer. So unsettling. He should have sensed it, if for no other reason than because of what this follower was not.

Because, in all the years that he had been shadowed down these darkened alleyways—in all the years he’d lifted his fists to a stranger—his attacker had never been female.

He waited for her to close the distance.

There was a hesitation in her step as she came closer, and he marked time with his stride, long and languorous, knowing that he could turn and eliminate this particular threat at any moment.

But it wasn’t every day that he was surprised.

And the chit behind him was nothing if not surprising.

She was close enough to hear her breath, fast and shallow—the telltale sign of energy and fear. As though she were new at this. As though she were the victim.

And perhaps she was.

She was a yard from him. A foot. Six inches before he turned, reaching for and catching her by the wrists, pulling her close—the realization that she was unarmed coming on a wave of warmth and lemon scent.

She wasn’t wearing gloves.

He barely had time to register the fact before she gasped, going utterly still for a split second before first tugging at her wrists and, once discovering them caught in his strong grip, struggling in earnest.

She was taller than most, and stronger than he expected. She didn’t cry or call out, instead using all her breath, all her strength, to fuel her attempt to extricate herself, which made her smarter than most of the men he’d met in the ring.

She was no match for him, however, and so he held her. Tight and firm, until she gave up.

He rather regretted that she gave up.

But she did, realizing the futility of her actions after a long moment . . . hesitating briefly before she turned her face up to his and said, “Release me.”

There was something in the words, a quiet, unexpected honesty that almost made him do it. Almost made him let her go, to run off into the night.

Almost.

But it had been a long time since he’d been so intrigued by an opponent.

Pulling her closer, he easily transferred both her wrists into one of his hands as he used the other to check her cloak for weapons.

His hand closed on the hilt of a knife, hidden deep in the lining of the cloak. He extracted it. “No, I don’t think I will.”

“That’s mine,” she said, reaching for the weapon, cursing as he held it out of her reach.

“I don’t care for late-night meetings with armed attackers.”

“I’m not armed.”

He raised a brow.

She exhaled harshly. “I mean, I am armed, of course. It’s the dead of night and anyone with the sense of a trout would be. But I have no intention of stabbing you.”

“And I’m simply to take your word for it?”

Her words came straight and true. “If I wanted to stab you, you’d have been stabbed.”

He cursed the darkness and its secrets, wanting to see her face. “What are you after?” He asked softly, sliding the knife into his boot, “My pockets? You should have picked a smaller mark.” Though he wasn’t exactly sorry that she’d chosen him. He liked it.

Even more when she answered.

“I’m after you.”

The response was quick enough to be true, and to shock the hell out of him.

Wariness flared. “You’re not a lightskirt.”

The words were not a question. It was clear the woman wasn’t a whore—in the way she stiffened in response to his statement, keeping space between them.

She wasn’t comfortable with a man’s touch.

With his touch.

She redoubled her efforts to free herself. “Is that all people want from you? Your purse or your—” She stopped, and Temple resisted the urge to laugh. She most certainly was not a prostitute.

“The two options are usually enough for women.” He stared into her dark face, wishing for a street lamp. For a shadow of light from a nearby window. “All right, darling, if not my purse or my . . .” He trailed off, enjoying the way her breath caught before he finished. She was curious. “ . . . prowess, what then?”

She took a deep breath, its weight falling between them, as though what she were about to say would change her world. Would change his. He waited, barely noticing that his breath held, as well.