Knockout: A Hell’s Belles Novel
Knockout: Chapter 1

The East End of London

January 1840

Lady Imogen Loveless enjoyed explosions.

To be clear, she was not a sadist. That an explosion might do bodily harm of some kind was not pleasing to her. No, if she was pressed, she would say that it was not exploded things that gave her joy, but rather the means by which one exploded things.

Imogen liked bright flashes of light and waves of heat and the particular smell and the sound—to the untrained ear a boom or a crackle or a hiss or a whoosh, but more often than not, some magical combination that made another word altogether. A ratatoon, a frizzle, a tweel-pop.

A body would be hard-pressed to replace another in all of Britain who spent as much time thinking about the sounds of an explosion as Imogen did. (Her first word had been Bang!, though no one had been paying close enough attention to hear it.)

As she was a lady, however, and an aristocratic one at that, few paid attention to Imogen’s peculiar fascination—nor any of the many other peculiar fascinations she’d accumulated over her twenty-four years of life. In truth, most people ignored the fascinations altogether when discussing the only sister of Earl Dorring, as peculiar was more than enough description to make a lady unappealing.

Not that Imogen thought peculiar much of an insult. She’d been labeled as such since birth, since her father brought her in pinafores to the Royal Society of Chemistry, where she’d wandered off, combined quicklime and water, and nearly burned the place down before the Earl was informed in no uncertain terms that children—especially young ladies—were not allowed inside the building.

Peculiar, they’d whispered as she toddled past, following her father into the street as he roundly praised her experimentation.

Odd girl.

Too clever by half.

If Dorring’s not careful, she’ll turn out worse than too clever.

She’ll turn out to be too much.

And she had done just that. Lady Imogen Loveless was too much for society and too much for her brother, who became her guardian after her beloved father died when she was only sixteen, and far too much for any suitor who might have darkened the doorstep of her home in Mayfair—though none had as of that morning in January, one short month into her twenty-fourth year.

Which suited Imogen down to the ground, as she’d much rather be too much than the alternative. And if the wide world felt too much was not enough for their balls and dinners and teas and company, then Imogen was happy to be left to her workshop in the cellars of Dorring House with her tinctures and tonics, and to her friends, who understood just how entertaining and enterprising she could be with her tinctures and tonics.

No one ever discussed the sounds of explosions at tea.

So it was that on that January morning, just after dawn, the air brisk and cold with the night that had not yet burned away, Imogen was at the site of an explosion. It was important to note that Imogen had nothing to do with the explosion in question. She did not know the sound it had made in the key moment—could only guess that it had been something of a thunder, considering that she was certain that the building had made a great noise when it collapsed to the ground.

There was no particular explosive smell—anything unique that might have lingered had been smothered by the acrid smoke of the fire the blasting oil had caused when it had been ignited, and the cloud of dust that had come from the building, now reduced to rubble.

Twelve hours earlier, the building had housed O’Dwyer and Leafe’s, a seamstress shop tucked between a pub and a pie shop in Spitalfields, on a bustling little strip of East London that should not have thrived but for the popularity of this particular shop, and its skillful proprietresses, which attracted a constant stream of women. The loss of the establishment would be a loss to the businesses that had grown up around it. The building could not be salvaged; relocation was the only option.

A sad state of affairs, indeed, though not one that should rate the attention of anyone but those in the nearest vicinity.

It most certainly should not rate the attention of an aristocratic lady.

Even less the attention of four of them.

But this was not just any building, and these were not just any ladies.

And so, in the heavy grey of the London morning, made heavier by the threat of icy rain and the particular silence of a building that had been razed to the ground, Imogen and three others stood amidst piles of rubble in the now hollowed-out space, open to the street and sky, between The Hollow Drum and Mrs. Twizzleton’s Savory Pie Shop.

The quartet was at once wildly out of place and entirely in control.

They were the Hell’s Belles, whispered about in ballrooms and barrooms throughout London—a team of women (Were there four? Forty? At times it seemed there were four thousand) who had made a name for themselves by bringing down the worst of the corrupt world when too often those in power refused to do the same.

Few knew the identity of even a single member of the gang, let alone the identities of the four who founded the crew—after all, when it came to women, people rarely paid attention. And the Hell’s Belles, who’d been delighted to be christened as such by London’s gossip rags (quoting unnamed sources at Scotland Yard), were very happy to take advantage of that lack of attention—and hide in plain sight.

If one were looking, one might replace the foursome together in Mayfair ballrooms and Kensington dining rooms and shops on Bond Street, where money and power and high fashion made for a certain kind of invisibility. They were just as commonplace in Covent Garden, where a good cloak and a better coachman could easily keep the identity of a woman hidden. But clad in brightly colored silks and satins and freshly pressed cloaks, mucking about in the grey morning soot of the East End?

That was a different thing altogether. Ladies did not go to the East End.

Then again, it was not every day a business bankrolled by a wealthy duchess—two wealthy duchesses—and the daughters of two equally wealthy earls was blown to bits.

And so . . . well. Needs must.

Needs, in this case, meant that Lady Imogen, lover of all things explosive—skilled explosive expert in her own right—was there to investigate. The smell. The sounds. The unique pattern of the blast.

She crouched in the rubble, considering the fierce fingers of black soot across what had once been the space behind the ribbon counter, which had been disintegrated beneath the strength of the blast.

Looking up, Imogen considered the partially collapsed brick wall behind her, where the mirror that had once separated the front of the shop from its rear rooms had been blown out and destroyed by the heat. Above, the wooden floors had been incinerated, leaving only the shell of the staircase between the ground floor shop and the sky—now visible through the disintegrated second and third floors.

She inhaled deeply, the air full of smoke and sulfur and cold rain. “They certainly got the job done, didn’t they?”

The words hung in silence for a moment, before she turned to look at two women who watched her with vague censure.

She blinked. “What?”

“May I suggest you try sounding a touch less impressed about the destruction of an entire building?” the Duchess of Trevescan offered.

Imogen gave a little shrug. “Whoever did it knew precisely where to place the device—”

“And when to place it, as well.” Sesily Calhoun stood in the now disappeared doorway, looking out at the street beyond, where a handful of early risers were already on their way to their day. “Late enough that anyone who saw anything—”

“—saw nothing.” Adelaide Carrington, newly minted Duchess of Clayborn, appeared from the rear of the building. “The oldest rule of the South Bank. If you see something, say nothing.” She brandished a stack of papers. “Found them. Lock box beneath the floor in the back room, just as Erin said.”

“Excellent,” Duchess said, unable to mask her relief as Adelaide joined her by the staircase. In the wrong hands, the documents—carefully preserved by Frances O’Dwyer and Erin Leafe and recovered by Adelaide—would destroy lives. “We don’t need anyone to speak. Imogen will hear them anyway.”

Sesily chuckled. “And the News will sing her praises.”

It was not always praise, but no matter the newsprint—Respectable (The Hell’s Belles), Salacious (Lady Vigilantes!), or Revolutionary (Defenders of the Common [Wo]Man)—the ink sold papers, thanks to an extensive following of people across Britain who enjoyed seeing truth finally shown to power. And a not insignificant following of those who held power . . . and had no interest in hearing truth.

It was the latter who set off bombs in places where women outside the seat of power congregated and shared ideas. Places like O’Dwyer and Leafe’s.

There was no question that in the two years since the Belles had begun not only standing on behalf of those who were outside the power and privilege of Parliament—women, children, workers, poor—but also vanquishing those who wielded that power and privilege to punish, things had grown more incendiary.

A queen on the throne had inflamed the aristocracy; the idea that women might chip away at generations of power in other places, as well? Enough to turn that flame into something far more dangerous. Something explosive.

The result was more anger. An increase in rousing editorials about the weaker sex. More frequent cautionary tales about women gaining knowledge and strength, workers gaining rights, immigrants seeking equity, the poor demanding dignity, the dangers of sending children to school rather than work.

One queen, came the whispers, and they all expect to be treated like royalty.

And now, this. In three months, three explosions, at three such shops—each with a front and back room. A forward-facing business and a rear-facing one. One far more important than the other. And because of that, more dangerous.

A bakery in Bethnal Green that acted as a waypoint for women escaping men who wielded cruelty and power like weapons, a print shop in Whitechapel that made space for workers plotting for better treatment and wages, and now this, O’Dwyer and Leafe’s seamstress shop, which hid one of London’s secret women’s health clinics.

All reduced to rubble in the hands of monsters with impressive science, rudimentary skill, and an absence of humanity.

“Watch those stairs,” Imogen said without looking up from her inspection. “They’re not sound.”

Duchess snatched her hand back from the handrail that remained intact. “I hesitate to ask . . . but is any of it sound?”

Imogen did not reply, too focused on her inspection.

Adelaide adjusted her spectacles. “Imogen . . . is any of it sound?”

“Hmm?” Imogen looked up. “Oh, assuredly not.” The three other women exchanged a look that was not uncommon when in proximity to their firebrand of a friend. “Sesily, would you bring me my bag, please?”

Sesily looked askance at the carpetbag Imogen had left at the once door to the space. “I’d prefer not to be flattened, honestly, Im.”

“Don’t worry about that.” Imogen waved a hand toward the staircase. “You’ll be fine if you avoid the stairs.”

Duchess and Adelaide moved quickly to the opposite side of the shop as Sesily delivered the bag. Imogen opened the sack and rooted around within as Duchess looked to the street beyond, more awake than it had been thirty minutes earlier. “Quickly,” she said softly. “The longer we linger, the more likely someone asks questions.”

Extracting a small vial, Imogen collected a bit of soot from the blast, along with a shard of glass that she hoped held traces of the blasting oil that had been used. “Nearly there.”

“It’s not my father’s work, is it?” Adelaide asked from her safe distance.

Imogen shook her head. “Your father’s boys lack the finesse. No offense.”

Adelaide laughed. “None taken. Finesse is not a quality that is required for running hired guns and heavy fists in Lambeth.” That, and Alfie Trumbull, leader of The Bully Boys—the largest gang of criminals on the South Bank—had pledged to turn over a new leaf now that he had a duke for a son-in-law. It turned out that the hope of a grandson with a title made even the most hardened crime lord think about going straight. Or, whatever straight meant for crime lords.

“Who, then?” Adelaide continued, adjusting her spectacles.

“Someone competent . . .” Imogen said, using a boar-bristle brush to sweep away the dust, intensely focused, carefully searching. “But unimaginative. This is the same explosive device they used at the last one, and the one before that. Same blasting-powder. Same blast pattern.”

“Unimaginative? Or unconcerned with being caught?” Duchess asked.

“Likely both,” Imogen replied.

Sesily popped a lemon sweet into her mouth and wrapped her scarlet cloak tight around her. “Alright, so Imogen is close to the who . . . but why?”

“It’s always the same. Those in power don’t like it when the rest of us are beyond their control,” Duchess said with distaste, toeing a pile of brick by her feet. “But the same villain? At three different places? With three different purposes?”

“I didn’t say it was the same villain,” Imogen said, standing up. “I said it was the same person who set the bomb.”

“You mean a hired gun,” Adelaide replied.

Duchess met her gaze. “You’re going to have to see your father, Adelaide. If it’s not The Bully Boys blowing up the place . . .”

Adelaide nodded. “Surely he’ll have some idea of who is doing it. We need that name. And soon.” She turned and looked to the street beyond, the sun up and the locals dressed and breakfasted . . . and coming to look.

Duchess indicated the papers in Adelaide’s arms and tilted her chin in the direction of the waiting carriage. “You’d best get those inside, before someone notices we found something that did not burn.”

The Duchess of Clayborn nodded and, slipping the hood of her cloak up over her flame red hair, made her way out to the street and into the carriage.

Sesily shivered. “Come on then, Imogen.”

“These things take time!” Imogen said, not looking up from her work, moving quickly and carefully, knowing time was short. And then, “Aha! Got it!”

There. A bit of fabric. She lifted it from the dust carefully, extracting a second vial from her sack.

The other women straightened, Duchess taking a step forward, peering over Imogen’s shoulder as she carefully packed away her treasure. “What makes that different than the yards of other fabrics charred to bits in this place?”

“Maybe nothing,” Imogen said, placing the vials inside her carpetbag before extracting the small notebook and pencil she carried inside the ballooned sleeve of her bright blue coat. “But I’ve seen this particular fabric before. At the bakery. And the print shop. Where fabric doesn’t come by the yard.”

Opening the notebook, she ticked off several boxes: tinder, fuse, soot.

Sesily let out a little sound of admiration. “Well done, Im.”

“Quite,” Duchess said. “But as you have removed somewhat critical evidence from the scene of the crime, I think we’d best be on our way, and quickly. Scotland Yard will be round soon enough.”

Imogen gave a little snort of derision. “When are they able to make time for a seamstress shop in Spitalfields?” She hefted her bag and made her way toward her friends, already turning to join Adelaide in the carriage. “Not one man in the Metropolitan Police wants this assignment.”

“I’m afraid you are mistaken, my lady.” The deep, rich voice came from the rear of the building, behind them. The trio stilled in the space between what had once been indoors and what had always been outdoors. Adelaide’s face appeared in the window of the carriage, her eyes wide, fixed on a spot behind them.

On a man behind them.

Something happened in Imogen’s chest. A thrum. A mark, unique and familiar, not unlike that of the explosion that had summoned them there.

That had summoned him there.

She turned, shoulder to shoulder with her friends, and found his gaze, dark and exasperated beneath his narrow-brimmed hat. As exasperated as the words he grumbled. “Why are you here?”