for the startling conversations he conducted with the dead—and his inability to relinquish his larcenous ways.
Sebastian ran his tongue over his teeth, holding back his grin. “You’re cold, lad? That it?”
Finn swore, and Julian reared to a sit, the room falling into a charged silence. Humphrey dropped his head to the table while Simon continued to rotate the cards in an impressive array without a blink, never one who minded issuing a dare.
Sebastian’s grin grew as he decided to accept the wager, a wicked reflection in the glass pane when he looked back at it. If this goes poorly, he decided, at least the fire brigade is just down the way.
After all, Piper had told him he needed to practice.
Closing his eyes, he pictured the hearth in the salon. The cast-iron frame, the tile insets running down either side, the marble mantelpiece spun in shades of ivory and caramel. The firewood piled high in a haphazard twist on the grate. Dear God, Sebastian, aim for that. His fingertips warmed, his heart bumped against his ribs, his breath bottomed out. At the last moment, disagreeably, a fragment of a dream from the evening prior slipped into his mind.
The room, tiny. The woman, beautiful. The books, many.
Eyes the color of a tarnished silver coin capturing his.
A muffled curse broke through his trance, a boot stomping the floor. Dammit, he’d missed his mark.
Try again, he urged silently, rubbing his fingers together.
The sound of parched pine igniting was as hushed as a fallen branch striking a snowbank. Sebastian braced his hand on the wall and exhaled gustily. Yanking his fingers through his hair, he turned to find his friends relaxing into their poses with corresponding expressions of relief as they watched flames gather in the hearth.
Humphrey dusted the toe of his boot across the smoking edge of the Aubusson rug. “Close, the first try. Three feet away. We’ve definitely seen worse.”
I’m getting better, he wanted to tell them. I am. Nothing stronger than gin to assist in months. This unspoken avowal directed at Julian, who’d dragged him from a doss house with a promise it would be the last time he’d ever do it.
Sebastian didn’t want to wage a war he couldn’t win. Certainly not with himself. He’d finally bestowed a value on life, currency he was unsure how to spend.
But he was trying.
“Spit it out, boyo,” Humphrey barked with a hot glance thrown Finn’s way. “The duke is getting antsy, and we all know what that’ll bring.”
Finn circled his hand in a theatrical gesture, then shook his head and began a circuitous trek around the salon. Twice, before Julian lost patience with a whispered oath. Halting in place, Finn shifted from one perfectly-polished boot to the other. He’d been through the same scuffle as the rest of them but looked like he’d just been released, with glowing approval, by his valet. “Last night, I finally saw her face.”
Coming out of his slump against the wall, Sebastian took a halting step forward, ignoring the tingling in his fingertips. He’d known this day would come, known Finn’s dreams, his dreams, meant something. Known they were being directed to a person connected to the League. Known they were being directed, incredibly, to someone connected to him. “Who is she?”
“It’s not good. At least I don’t think it is.” Finn reached to straighten a cravat that didn’t need straightening, his words picking up speed as he explained, “Delaney Temple. I know the face because she about ran me down once, tearing through Hyde Park in her cabriolet. High-perch, no groom. The wind slapped my face, she got so close. Drives to the inch, she does. Imprudent chit. Unfashionably reckless. And I say this when my wife isn’t the most gracious herself, as you know.”
“Temple?” Sebastian frowned, pressing the heel of his hand to his brow, his head beginning to pound. “The eccentric American who’s said to assist Scotland Yard? The one with the twin brother who gets in his own fair share of trouble? What do they call them…?”
“The Terrible Two.” Simon flipped a card in the air and caught it with a graceful snatch. “That ain’t all they say about her. Disguised herself as a page boy, snuck into White’s and beat the Earl of Essex at billiards. She wanted a horse he cut her out of at Tattersalls.’” Simon tucked the ace of spades up his sleeve, a smirk tilting his lips. “Rumored to be smarter than most men, which is unforgivable. But a man