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The woman was bedlam; he was not interested in her bottom.
When she straightened and turned to face him, brandishing a small wrapped parcel, it was not disappointment that coursed through him. At all.
“Never fear, despite your ungratefulness, I shall still give you your gift.”
He didn’t mean to take it, but he seemed unablenotto accept it, small and round and warm through the paper wrapped around it. “What is this?”
“A bacon sandwich,” she said simply. As though it were a perfectly ordinary thing to deliver to a policeman in the middle of a church.
Flummoxed, he said, “You came all the way to Lambeth to bring me a bacon sandwich.”
She smiled, and there it was again, that feeling that he’d taken a facer. “I understand you were summoned here before you were able to eat breakfast. One should never catch villains on an empty stomach.”
“How did you—” he started, then stopped. “Lady Imogen, you should not be here. It is not a place for decent people.”
“Really, Detective Inspector. It is a house of worship.” She returned to rummaging about in her bag.
“I’m fairly certain that it is a house of worship that was recently stocked to the gills with munitions.” He cast a glance at the unopened hatch in the floor. Possibly still stocked with them. She had to leave.
She turned a bright smile on him. “Aren’t you clever. But someone has taken good care to solve that problem for you, haven’t they?”
“I would rather know where they have been moved.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry,” she said. “I’m sure they shall be put to good use.”
He narrowed his gaze on her as a wild, impossible thought occurred. “Lady Imogen?”
“Yes?”
“It was not you who removed the weapons, was it?”
“Oh, goodness no,” she said, with a look of wide-eyed innocence. “Can you imaginemecarrying crates of explosives about the city? I would most certainly ruin my dress.”
He shouldn’t have looked to the dress in question, fine velvet the color of an evergreen forest. Her cloak wasopen, revealing the line of her bodice, tight enough to reveal her ample breasts, which he mostdefinitelyshould not have looked at. “Of course.”
“I have people for things like that.”
What?
“Very large, strapping men,” she added, and Tommy found he didn’t like the image those words evoked. Before he could reply, she brandished a blue folder marked with an indigo bell high above her head. “Aha! Would you like your proper gift?”
He knew that folder. He’d seen one before, left in the rubble when someone had exploded one of the cells in the jail beneath Scotland Yard. Unsurprisingly, this woman had been in the building immediately before it happened.
She held it to her chest and he forced himself to keep his focus on her eyes.
And that’s when he heard it. A sound, muffled and urgent. And human.
Lady Imogen Loveless heard it too, turning wide eyes on the closed hatch at his feet. “Detective Inspector, do you think you ought to open that thing?”
He pointed to the far end of the church. “Go stand back there.”
She followed his indication. “Whatever for?”
This woman would be the absolute end of him. “In case.”
“In case of what?” she asked, but still backed away, up the aisle of the church. “This is very thoughtful of you, but I’m perfectly capable of defending myself, should it be required.”
No doubt the woman had a garrote at hand. Turning his back on her, he crouched, extracting a knife from his boot. “Oh, excellent idea, that,” she said encouragingly.
