Whit didn’t hesitate. “I imagine we would have had to devise for ourselves that we could smuggle one thing inside another thing. However would we have done that?” he asked with a little grunt as he pulled up a cask of brandy. “Thank goodness for your primitive knowledge of the Greeks.”

Devil took advantage of his empty hook and offered a rude gesture to his brother, who turned to the men assembled with a wide, white grin and said, “You see? Proof I am right.” Whit looked back to Devil and added, “Though not at all a sign of intelligence, one might point out.”

“What happened to you being the brother who does not talk?”

“I’m feeling out of sorts today.” Whit heaved up a heavy crate. “What brings you out, bruv?”

“I thought I’d check on the shipment.”

“I’d’ve thought you had other things to check on tonight.”

Devil gritted his teeth and reached down for a crate of playing cards. “What’s that to mean?”

Whit didn’t reply.

Devil straightened. “Well?”

Whit shrugged a shoulder beneath his sweat-dampened shirt. “Only that you’ve your master plan to see to, no?”

“What master plan?” the ever-curious Nik asked from below. “If you lot are planning something without me . . .”

“We’re not planning anything.” Whit reached back into the hole. “It’s just Dev.”

Nik’s keen blue gaze moved from one brother to the next. “Is it a good plan?”

“It’s a shit plan, actually,” Whit said.

Unease threaded through Devil, and his retort stuck in his throat. It was a good plan. It was the kind of plan that punished Ewan.

And Felicity.

There was only one way to respond. Another rude gesture.

Whit and Nik laughed, before she interjected from her place below, “Well, as much as I am loath to end this fascinating conversation, that’s the last of it.”

Devil turned to watch the men on the line tuck the last of the product into the large steel wagons as Whit nodded down and said, “All right then. Tell the lads to send up the ice.”

Passing his hook down to Nik, Devil received another, cold as the product it held—the first of the six-stone blocks of ice. Turning, he passed the hook and its capture to the next man in line, who handed him an empty hook, which Devil passed down to catch its frozen prey. The second block was passed up, and Devil passed down another empty hook, and so it went, rhythmic and backbreaking, until the backs of the steel caravans were filled to the roof with blocks of ice.

There was a pleasure in the grueling work, in the line of men working in unison, toward a common, achievable goal. Most goals were not so easily reached and, too often, those who aspired to them found themselves disappointed in the reaching. Not this. There was nothing so satisfying as turning to discover the work finished well, and the time ripe for an ale.

But there was no satisfaction to be had that day.

He was reaching down into the hole when John shouted out for him; turning, he found the big man crossing from the back entrance to the warehouse, a boy trailing behind him. Devil’s gaze narrowed in recognition. Brixton was one of Felicity’s watch.

He dropped the hook to the dusty floor, unable to keep himself from moving toward them. “What’s happened to her?”

The boy lifted his chin, strong and proud. “Nuffin’!”

“What do you mean, nothing?”

“Nuffin’, Devil,” Brixton replied. “Lady’s right as rain.”

“Then why are you off your watch?”

“I weren’t, until this stroker pulled me off it.”

John cut the boy a warning glance at the insult, and Devil turned to the head of the warehouse’s security. “What were you doing in Mayfair?”

John shook his head. “I wasn’t in Mayfair. I’ve been on guard outside.” They were moving a shipment tonight, so the roads leaving the rookery were monitored by a team of men in their employ. No one came in or out without the Bastards’ approval.

Devil shook his head. He couldn’t have understood. It wasn’t possible. He narrowed his gaze on the boy. “Where is she?”

“At the door!”

His heart began to pound. “Whose door?”

“Yours,” John said, finally allowing the smile that had been threatening to break through. “Your lady’s tryin’ to pick the lock.”

Devil scowled. “She’s not my lady. And she sure as hell shouldn’t be in the rookery.”

“And yet, here we are.” This, from Whit, who had appeared behind Devil. “Are you going to get the girl, Dev? Or are you going to leave her out there like a lamb to the slaughter?”

Goddammit.

Devil was already heading for the back door. A low rumble of laughter behind him that could not have been his brother’s, as Whit surely did not want murdering.

He found her crouched low at the door to the warehouse, a sea of barely visible pale skirts billowing around her, and the flood of relief at discovering her unharmed quickly dissolved into irritation and then unwelcome interest. He pulled up short just around the corner of the building, not wanting to alert her to his presence.

Giving her a wide berth, he approached her from behind. Her head was bowed toward the lock, but not to see it—it was the dead of night and even if it hadn’t been cloudy, the moonlight wouldn’t have been enough for her to see her workspace.

Lady Felicity was talking to herself again.

Or, rather, she was talking to the lock, presumably without knowing that it was unpickable—designed not only to guard, but to punish those who thought themselves better than it.

“There you are, darling,” she whispered softly, and Devil froze to the spot. “I shan’t be rough with you. I’m a summer breeze. I’m butterflies’ wings.”

What a lie that was. She threatened to incinerate every butterfly in Britain.

“Good girl,” she whispered. “That’s three and—” She fiddled with the picks. “Hmmm.” More fiddling. “How many have you got?” She fiddled again. “More importantly, what is so important inside this building that something as beautiful as you is protecting it . . . and its master?”

A thrum of excitement went through Devil at the words. Here, in the darkness, she spoke of him, and while he might not admit it to others, or even to himself, Devil liked that very much.

Even though she shouldn’t be here, finery in filth.

Here she was, nonetheless, her soft whispers in the darkness, as though she could coax the lock open, and Devil almost thought she might. “Once more, darling,” she whispered. “Please. Again.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, imagining that whisper in his ear, cloaked in a different darkness, in his bed. Please. He imagined what she might plead for. Again. He grew hard at the possibilities. And then . . .

“Ah! Yes!” Another thing he’d like to hear her cry in different circumstances. His fingers ached to reach for her, the muscles of his arms and back no longer weary from the work inside, now more than willing to try their hand at lifting her up, against him, and laying her down somewhere soft and warm and private.

“Oh, bollocks.”

He certainly didn’t intend for anything like that disappointed utterance, however. The frustrated words pulled him from his imaginings and his brows rose.

“How did—” Felicity jiggled the lock. “What—”

It was his cue. “I’m afraid, Felicity Faircloth, that that particular lock is immune to your charms.”

He would be lying if he said he didn’t love the way her shoulders straightened and her neck elongated. She did not come up out of her crouch, however—did not release the picks in the lock.

“Though they were pretty whispers, I must confess,” he added.

She barely turned her head. “I suppose this looks rather damning.”

He was grateful for the darkness, as it hid the twitch at his lips. “That depends. It looks as though you are attempting to break and enter.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” she said, all calm. Felicity Faircloth, ever willing to brazen it out.

“No?”

“No. Well, I mean, I certainly am attempting to enter. But I never intended to break.”

“You should stop entering my buildings uninvited.”

She was distracted by the lock again. “I thought this was what we did with each other.” She rattled the picks. “It appears I have unintentionally damaged this lock.”

“You didn’t.”

She looked to him. “I assure you, I’m quite good with locks, and I’ve done something to this one. It’s stuck.”

“That’s because it’s supposed to be, my little criminal.”

Understanding dawned. “It’s a Chubb.”

Something close to pride burst at the words, alongside something like pleasure at the reverence in her words. He didn’t like either emotion in relation to Felicity Faircloth. He redoubled his efforts to remain aloof. “It is, indeed. How is it you are never in possession of a chaperone?”

“No one in my family expects me to do anything near this,” she said, vaguely, as she returned her attention to the lock, perfectly set into the heavy steel door. “I’ve never seen a Chubb.”

“I am happy to be of service. Your family ought to know better. What on earth possessed you to enter a London rookery in the dead of night? I should call the authorities.”

Her brows rose. “The authorities?”

He inclined his head. “Thievery is a serious offense.”

She gave a little laugh. “Not so serious as whatever you’ve got going on in here, Devil.”