She couldn’t hold back her gasp.

Both men looked at her.

“Is there a problem?”

She shook her head. “No. It’s just—he’s very—” She looked to the man, realizing it was rude to speak of him as though he weren’t standing directly in front of her. “That is, sir, you’re very—” She stopped. Was it appropriate to tell a man he was beautiful? Her mother would no doubt dissolve into conniptions. Though, to be fair, her mother would likely dissolve into conniptions if she knew her daughter was anywhere near Covent Garden—let alone deep in one of its rookeries. So she was long past any semblance of understanding of what was appropriate.

“Felicity?”

She did not look at Devil. “Yes?”

“Do you intend to finish that thought?”

She remained transfixed by the newcomer. “Oh. Yes. I’m sorry. No.” She cleared her throat. “No.” Shook her head. “Definitely not.”

One black eyebrow rose, curious and assessing.

And familiar.

“Brothers!” she blurted out, looking from him to Devil and back again, then took a step toward him, sending him back a half step, his gaze flying to Devil’s, giving her a chance to inspect his eyes—the same mysterious color of Devil’s—somehow gold and somehow brown, and with that dark ring around them, and altogether, thoroughly unsettling. “Brothers,” she repeated. “You’re brothers.”

The beautiful man inclined his head.

“This is Beast,” Devil said.

She gave a little laugh at the silly name. “I suppose that’s meant to be ironic?”

“Why?”

She looked over her shoulder at Devil. “He’s the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.”

Devil’s lips flattened at that, and she thought she heard a little growl of amusement from the man called Beast, but when she returned her attention to him, he hadn’t moved. She pressed on. “Your eyes are the same. The bones of your cheeks, your jaws. The curve of your lips.”

The growl seemed to come from Devil then. “I’ll thank you to stop considering the shape of his lips.”

Her cheeks grew warm. “I’m sorry.” She looked to Beast. “That was quite rude of me. I shouldn’t have noticed.”

Neither brother seemed to care about the apology, Devil already moving away, no doubt expecting her to follow. She supposed no one was going to stand on ceremony in a Covent Garden warehouse and make introductions, so she decided to do it herself. She smiled at Devil’s brother. “I am Felicity.”

That brow rose and he stared at her outstretched hand, but he did not take it.

Really. Were the brothers raised by a mother wolf? “This is the bit where you tell me your real name; I know it isn’t Beast.”

“Don’t talk to him,” Devil said, his long legs already eating up the ground as he headed across the warehouse.

“But you believe his name is Devil?” The question came low and graveled, as though the Beast was out of practice using his voice.

She shook her head. “Oh. No. I don’t believe that at all. But you seem more reasonable.”

“I’m not,” he replied.

Felicity probably should have been unsettled by the answer, but instead, she found she rather liked this second, quiet brother. “I wasn’t noticing your lips you know,” she offered. “It’s just that I’ve noticed his and yours are the same . . .” She trailed off when both his brows rose. She supposed she shouldn’t have admitted to that, either.

He grunted, and Felicity imagined that it was supposed to set her at ease.

Oddly, it did. Together, they followed Devil, who had already disappeared into the shadows of the warehouse—hopefully far enough away that he hadn’t heard her. As they walked, she searched for a topic that might make the unsocial man more willing to converse. “You’ve been running ice for a long while, then?”

He did not reply.

“Where does it come from?”

Silence.

She searched for something else. “Did you design the transport wagons yourselves? They’re very impressive.”

Again, silence.

“I must say, Beast, you do know how to put a woman at ease.”

If she weren’t paying such close attention to him, she might not have heard the little catch in his throat. A laugh of some sort. But she did, and it made her feel triumphant. “Aha! You are able to respond!”

He said nothing, but they’d reached Devil by then. “I told you not to talk to him.”

“You left me with him!”

“That doesn’t mean you should talk to him.”

She looked from one brother to the other and sighed, then waved a hand at the men dispersed around the enormous room. “These are all your employees?”

Devil nodded.

Beast grunted.

Felicity heard it and turned on his brother. “That. What does that mean?”

“Don’t talk to him,” Devil said.

She didn’t turn back. “I think I shall, thank you very much. What did that noise mean?”

“They are his employees.” Beast’s gaze slid away from her.

She shook her head. “That’s not all it meant, though, is it?”

Beast met her eyes, and she knew whatever he was about to say was important. And true. “The kind of employees who would walk through fire for him.”

The words fell in the darkness, filling the warehouse, reaching the corners and warming them. Warming her. She turned back to Devil, who stood several feet away, his hands thrust into his trouser pockets, a look of irritation on his face. But he wasn’t looking at her. He couldn’t.

He was embarrassed.

She nodded, then said, softly, “I believe that.”

And she did. She believed this man who called himself Devil was the kind of man who could engender deep, abiding loyalty from those around him. She believed he was a man with whom one did not trifle, and also a man of his word. And she believed that he was the kind of man who held up his end of the bargain.

“I believe that,” she repeated, wanting him to look at her. When he did, she realized his eyes were not the same as his brother’s. Beast’s gaze did not make her heart pound. She swallowed. “So, they help you smuggle cargo?”

Devil’s brow furrowed. “They help us move ice.”

She shook her head. She didn’t believe for a second that these two men, with the way they fairly oozed danger, were mere ice traders. “And where do you keep this alleged ice?”

He straightened his arms and fisted his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels and looking at the ceiling. When he replied, his words were filled with frustration. “We’ve a hold full of it downstairs, Felicity.”

She blinked. “Downstairs.”

“Underground.” The word rang forbidden in the dimly lit room, spoken low like sin, as though he were the Devil, inviting her not only underground—but so far underground that she might never return.

It made her want to experience everything it promised. It made her ask for that experience, without hesitation. “Show me.”

For a moment, no one moved, and Felicity thought she had asked too much. Pushed too hard. After all, she hadn’t been welcome here; she’d picked the lock to make her way in.

But she had been welcome here. He’d let her pick the lock. He’d given her free rein of the warehouse, let her stand among his men and see the operation and, for a moment, he’d let her feel something other than alone. He’d given her access to his world in a way no man ever had before. And now, drunk on the power that came with that access, she wanted all of it. Every inch.

More.

“Please?” she added in the silence that followed her demand—as though politeness would impact his answer.

And it did. Because Devil looked to his brother, who revealed none of his own thoughts as he passed a large brass key ring to Devil. Once the keys were in hand, Devil turned away, making for a great steel plate set into the ground nearby, reaching down and opening it up, revealing a great black hole in the ground. Felicity approached as he reached for a nearby hook, bringing down a coat. “You’ll need this,” he said. “It will be cold.”

Her eyes went wide as she reached for it. It was happening. He was going to show her. She swung the great heavy cloak around her shoulders, the scent of tobacco flower and juniper encircling her, and she resisted the urge to bury her nose in the lapel. The coat was his. She looked to him. “Won’t you be cold?”

“No,” he said, reaching for a lantern nearby and dropping into the hold.

She came to the edge and looked down at him, his face shadowed by the flickering light. “Another thing you control? Cold does not bother you?”

He raised a brow. “My power is legion.”

She turned and climbed down the ladder inlaid into the side of the hatch, trying to remain calm, trying not to notice that her world was changing with every step. That the old, plain, wallflower Felicity was being left behind, and in her place was a new, strange woman who did things like pick locks that opened doors instead of closing them, and visit smuggler’s caches, and wear coats that smelled of handsome, scarred men who called themselves Devil.

But truth such as that was impossible not to notice.

There was something to be said for being in league with the Devil.

When Felicity reached the dirt ground, she spoke to the rungs of the ladder. “I am not certain you wield the power you think, sirrah.”

“And why is that?” he asked, his voice quiet in the dark.

She turned to face him. “You made me a promise, and you have yet to deliver.”