“See for yourself.” He reached past her, pulling a bale of hay down from the wagon, revealing a block of ice behind. He frowned.
Felicity’s brows rose. “Are you surprised?”
Ignoring her, he reached for another bale, and another, pulling them down to reveal a wall of ice the length of the wagon and rising nearly to the top of it. He looked to Nik, the wicked scar on his face gone white in the dim light. “This is how we get melt.”
The woman sighed and called into the darkness, “We need another row here.”
“Aye,” came a chorus of men from the darkness.
They came almost instantly, carrying great metal tongs, each bearing a block of solid ice. One by one, they passed the blocks to Devil, who’d climbed up onto the wagon and was fitting them carefully into the void left at the top of the shipment, ensuring as little space as possible was left.
Felicity would have been fascinated by the process if she weren’t so fascinated by him, somehow hanging off the edge of the wagon, heaving great blocks of ice up nearly to above his head as though he were superhuman. As though he were Atlas himself, surefooted and holding up the firmament. He wasn’t wearing a topcoat or a waistcoat, and the linen of his white shirt stretched and flexed over his muscles as they did the same, making Felicity wonder if it might tear beneath his strength.
Everyone was always on about women’s décolletages and how corsetry was growing more salacious by the minute and skirts clung too close to women’s legs, but had any one of those people seen a man without a coat? Good God.
She swallowed as he put the last block into place and leapt down, raising a strange, steel lip from the base of the wagon—approximately twelve inches high and so tightly fitted to the sides of the vehicle that the scrape of it screamed through the warehouse.
“What’s that for?” she asked.
“Keeps the ice from sliding when the melting begins,” he said, not looking at her.
She nodded. “Well, anyone peeking into this wagon would think that you were a very skilled ice deliverer, that is certain.”
He did look at her then. “I am a very skilled ice deliverer.”
She shook her head. “I would believe it, if it were ice.”
“Do your eyes deceive you?”
“They do, in fact. But my touch does not.”
His brow furrowed. “What’s that to mean?”
“Only that if this entire steel wagon were filled with ice, the entirety of the outside would be as cold as the rear two feet.”
Nik coughed.
Devil ignored the words, reaching to swing the large rear door to the wagon closed, latching it in three separate places. Felicity watched carefully as he closed the locks and delivered their keys to Nik. “Tell the men they’re ready.”
“Aye, sir.” Nik turned to the men assembled. “That’s a go, gentlemen. Good chase.”
At the words, the men scrambled, the drivers leaping up to their blocks, seconds joining them. Felicity watched as the one closest to her slid a pistol into a holster attached to his leg. Two other men hefted themselves up onto the rear step of the wagon, pulling wide leather straps around their bottoms.
Felicity turned to Devil. “I’ve never seen anything like those—seats for outriders? To keep them from having to stand the whole trip?”
He watched as one of the men lashed himself to the wagon with the strap. “Partially for comfort,” he replied, turning to accept something from the man to his left. “Partially because they might need their hands for something other than to hang on.” Moving forward, he handed a rifle up to the outrider, and another to the man’s partner.
“Ah, yes. I see now that it is all ice,” she said dryly. “Why else would it require so many armed men?”
He ignored her. “Aim true, boys.”
“Aye, sir.” The reply came in unison.
“Yourselves above all,” Devil said, and her gaze snapped to his face, registering the seriousness of his words and something else—something like concern. Not for the cargo, but for the men. Felicity’s chest tightened.
“Aye, sir.” They nodded, strapping the weapons across their chests and checking the fastenings on their seats before banging on the side of the wagon.
Down the line, other young men were similarly preparing, lashing them to the wagons and strapping rifles to their chests. Metallic thuds echoed through the great room, until every wagon was ready to leave. A great scrape sounded as several men slid an enormous steel door open—large enough to pull a wagon through.
“The border,” Nik called, and the wagon closest to Felicity leapt to movement, pulling through the open door and into the night. She backed into Devil, his arm coming around her waist to steady her as Nik said, “York.” Another wagon moved, and it occurred to Felicity that she should step away from his touch. That another woman certainly would do so. Except . . . she didn’t want to.
Next to him, with the horses stomping their feet and the men shouting their orders, she felt like the lady of a medieval keep, skirts billowing in the Scottish wind as she stood next to her laird and watched her clan prepare for war.
“London First,” Nik shouted above the racket of wagon wheels.
It seemed a little like war. Like these men had trained together, becoming brothers in arms. And now they sojourned together in service to a greater purpose.
To Devil.
Devil, whose arm held her closer than it should. Stronger than it should. And precisely as she found she wished. As though she were his partner, and he hers.
“Bristol,” Nik called, spurring another wagon to motion. “London Second.”
Before the last of the vehicles left the warehouse, the door was sliding closed, several men moving forward to place a great wooden beam against it to prevent it being opened from the outside. At the thunder of the heavy lock, Devil released her, stepping away, as though his hold had been nothing more than a fantasy.
She tried for levity. “And so, your ice is beyond your control.”
“My ice is well within my control until it reaches its destination,” Devil said, watching as another man approached, this one dark-haired, with golden-brown skin. “I would remind you, my lady, that I am able to wield considerable power with or without physical presence.”
The words, a low rumble, sent a shiver through her—reminding her of the way he had seemed to exude power from the moment she met him. He’d somehow prevented the duke from denying her claim of their engagement. He’d discovered her family’s secrets without even trying. He’d made her safe in Covent Garden even when he wasn’t with her. Perhaps he was the Devil, after all, all-powerful and omniscient, manipulating the world without struggle, collecting debts along the way.
But he hadn’t yet collected her debt.
The duke might have offered her marriage, but a marriage of convenience was not her plan. And so she was here in this magnificent place like nothing she’d ever seen, ready to face the Devil once again. And remind him that his end of the bargain had not been met.
“Not enough power,” she replied.
He snapped his attention back to her, his narrow gaze setting her heart racing. “What did you say?”
Before she could reply, the other man joined them, also in shirtsleeves, rolled up along his forearms, revealing a pattern of black ink that Felicity would have considered more seriously if the man hadn’t stepped into a pool of golden light that revealed his face—beautiful beyond measure. The kind of face that painters assigned to angels.