by Zoë Archer
“There are men with more information about Rockley’s business transactions,” she said. “Every last one of them is either in his pocket or dead. You are the only man who’s been that close to him.”
“The only one who’s left his employ,” added Lazarus, “and still draws breath.”
“He tried, though,” Dalton noted. “Wanted me hanged instead of imprisoned.”
“Because he knew you could be a threat to him.”
Yet Dalton shook his head. “Bloodthirsty and proud, that’s all. It’d be an insult to him if the bloke who tried to murder him wasn’t killed somehow.”
“It was more than pride and a hunger for blood that motivated Rockley. He wanted to bury you and the information you possessed.” She stared up at him. “Just think. Think about what you know of Rockley. The answer’s in there somewhere.”
Dalton growled in frustration. “Even if I knew something, which I don’t, I’m no good at this thinking business. Never done it before.”
“That’s patently untrue.” She put her hands on her hips. “Nemesis planted the story that Rockley was near Dunmoor, but you thought your way out of that prison. None of us told you how to escape. That was all your doing. And you came up with a plan in less than a day. Sounds suspiciously like thinking to me.” More quietly, she said, “It’s in you, Dalton. Have more faith in yourself.”
For several moments, he was silent as he studied her face. Looking for the truth of her words. Uncertainty lurked just beneath his gaze—this close, she saw that there was a faint corona of gold around his pupils, a gleam of brightness within the shadows. It stunned her, that this primal force of a man could have any reason to doubt himself. That he viewed himself merely as a mindless thug. Yet that must have been what he’d been told his whole life. What could that be like? To be told you have only one value, and that value was definitely not your ability to think?
It had been that way for women in Britain. Only lately had these ideas begun to change.
But not for Dalton. Low, so low that his voice was more of a bass rumble than words, he said, “No one’s ever thought of me as anything more than hired muscle. No one, except you.” He narrowed his eyes. “Only because you want something from me.”
“My purpose is entirely mercenary.” She wouldn’t insult him with anything less than candor. “But that doesn’t negate what I said. It only strengthens it.”
Again, silence from him. Then he said in a low, gruff voice, “Thanks.”
She didn’t want to be moved. She didn’t want to feel anything at all for him. Intentions, however, have a way of dissolving just when they are needed the most, leaving us exposed. Her carefully cultivated resolve flaked away, the very smallest piece of it, uncovering a tiny, undefended bit of heart. A simultaneously cold and warm sensation.
Because of him. This convict.
She turned away. For want of something to do, to erase the feel of him beneath her hand and collect the loosened pleats of her composure, she picked up her tea. It had gone cold, but she drank down the remains of it anyway, swallowing past the whiskey burn.
A mirror hung over the mantel, and she stared at the reflected room, everything and everyone within it reversed. Simon and Harriet gazed at Eva with looks of concern, and Dalton kept his attention on some distant point outside the window. She realized that she hadn’t seen him in full daylight before. Without the night’s shadows, he looked only slightly less sinister, but just as forbidding.
“We need,” she began, then cleared her throat, “we need to detail Rockley’s habits, how he spends his days. It should help us find areas that can be investigated and exploited further.”
He frowned. “You haven’t already tailed him?”
“Tried to.”
A not particularly nice smile curled Dalton’s mouth. “Got away from you, did he? Thought you lot were supposed to be good at this kind of skullduggery.”
“We are,” Marco answered hotly. “But Rockley’s a slippery one. We can’t keep a bead on him when he goes out.”
“His coachmen get training,” Dalton said. “Never take the same route twice, never go straight to a destination. In case anyone—like you folk—tries to follow him.”
“This is precisely why you’ll come into play, Dalton.” Harriet stood and pulled out several pieces of paper, as well as ink and a pen, from a side table. She held them out to him. “Write down everything you know about Rockley’s daily schedule.”
He stared at the paper and writing implements.
“Ah,” said Harriet, lowering her hands. “You can’t.”
Dalton’s look was thunderous. “’Course I can read and write. We had ragged schools in Bethnal Green.”
“Then…” Harriet waved the paper and pen at Dalton.
Still, he didn’t take the writing materials. He might be literate, yet Eva suspected he wasn’t entirely comfortable with the process of writing. Likely his education stopped at an early age. Time spent in the schoolroom meant less time earning money. Even very small children could weave baskets or put matches in boxes.
As the awkward moment stretched on, she stepped forward and took the pen and paper. Making herself brusque and businesslike, she sat at the table. “It’s always faster if someone else serves as amanuensis. Besides, most men have appalling handwriting.”
Without looking at him, she arranged the paper, opened the bottle of ink and dipped the pen nib in. Finally, she glanced up, and caught his brief look of gratitude. It couldn’t be easy, admitting to a room of strangers that you didn’t possess a skill everyone else had.
“Right, then,” she continued, “we’ll need Rockley’s full schedule. Starting with the time he wakes up. Every hour needs to be accounted for.”
Using his heel, Lazarus pushed out a chair for Dalton. Dalton eyed the seat warily. Gingerly, he lowered himself into it, filling the small chair, and it creaked beneath his weight. He looked as comfortable as if it had been upholstered with broken glass.
“Um … yeah … let’s see.” He shifted and the chair gave another squeak of protest. “Rockley … uh … wakes up … wakes up at … uh…” He dragged his hands through his hair, tugged at his unbuttoned collar, and readjusted his position in the chair.
He looked more uneasy than her students when she surprised them with a quiz.
“Come on, Dalton,” Marco said impatiently. “You’ve been thinking about killing Rockley for five years, and you worked for him for seven. Don’t tell us you don’t remember the blighter’s schedule.”
“I remember it fine,” Dalton snarled. He looked both furious and embarrassed. “It’s just that … this sitting around and thinking business don’t come naturally to me.”
“You’re more physical than intellectual,” said Harriet.
He seized on this word. “Physical. That’s me. Don’t spend much time pondering mysteries.”
“Simon,” Eva said, “can we find something, ah, physical for Mr. Dalton to do?”
Half expecting Simon to object or say something snide, she was surprised when he left the parlor and climbed the stairs to the next story. Sounds of him moving around upstairs thumped through the parlor.
“It can help to give the body something to do while the mind works,” Eva explained to a curious Dalton.
“A distraction,” he said.
“But it can assist in channeling thoughts rather than divert them.” She’d actually used the technique a time or two on some of her more energetic students, giving them a jumping rope as they recited their French conjugations. Her downstairs neighbors never appreciated the method, however.
She hadn’t brought her jumping rope with her today, and it would look like a tiny piece of string in Dalton’s hands. Hopefully, Simon would come up with a good solution.
A minute later, he appeared in the parlor, holding what appeared to be a pillowcase stuffed with rags. In his other hand, he carried a hammer and nails. Simon gathered the open edge of the pillowcase together, then held it to the to
p of the door frame leading to the kitchen. He then hammered the pillowcase to the door frame.
Standing back to admire his handiwork, he said, “A makeshift punching bag. Not precisely what you’d find at the West London Boxing Club, but it should suffice.” He turned to Dalton. “Using those hamfists of yours ought to provide enough distraction.”
“That it might.” Dalton rose up quickly from his chair and examined the improvised punching bag. “All I have to do is picture your pretty face and my punches won’t go wide.”
Lazarus and Marco snorted, and Harriet concealed her laugh behind a discreetly cupped hand.
“Let’s begin.” Eva wanted to make certain that a spontaneous round of pugilism didn’t break out between Simon and Dalton. She waved toward the punching bag. “Go ahead, Mr. Dalton.”
An eager fire in his gaze, Dalton positioned himself in front of the punching bag. Raised his big fists. Struck the bag. Again. And again.
A grin spread across his face.
She didn’t know what stunned her more. The brutal, deft skill he had with throwing punches, his body perfectly tuned, his movements precise as a surgeon’s. Or the real smile he wore, warming the hard angles of his face with genuine pleasure. A strange duality that he inhabited simultaneously. And one that caused flutters of interest low in her belly.
For God’s sake, you’re not a tigress searching out the biggest, fiercest male. It was too primitive. Too primal.
Yet she couldn’t look away as Dalton rained blows down upon the punching bag. He fell into a natural cadence, moving himself this way and that in small, exact increments. He had a good sense of rhythm. Made a woman think of other kinds of activities that required rhythm.
She rolled her eyes at herself. One would think she was a girl just discovering men for the first time. She was a woman grown, a woman who’d had her share of lovers and was no neophyte where men were concerned. She needed her focus.
Yet she caught Harriet’s eye, and both women exchanged knowing glances. Eva had the absurd urge to giggle. She never giggled.
“Decent technique, Dalton.” Simon’s words sounded begrudging.
“Trained at Potato Maclaren’s,” Dalton answered without breaking pace. “And on the streets. Won thirty-three bare-knuckle fights before I signed on to guard Rockley.”
His file said as much. Yet it was entirely different to see a man in action than simply reading about it.
“Whenever you’re ready,” she said to Dalton. Her pen was poised above the paper.
He spoke without hesitation. “Rockley’s up every morning by eleven-thirty. Takes coffee at home. He’s particular about his dress, so it takes him a while to pick his clothes for the day. Out the door by one. Goes to his man of business’s offices in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.”
“We know that much,” Marco said. “But after that, we lose him.”
“Ain’t always the same with him from day to day,” Dalton answered. “If he’s with Mitchell, his man of business, for fifteen minutes, then it’s a regular day and he goes to the Carlton Club.”
“Not the Reform Club.” Lazarus scoffed. “Figures.”
Eva’s pen didn’t stop, the nib scratching across the paper as she transcribed everything Dalton listed.
Ignoring Lazarus, Dalton continued. “But if he’s only with Mitchell for ten minutes, then the news is very good, and he’ll wind up at Rotten Row to watch the pretty ladies in their carriages or taking a turn on horseback. If he chats with a fine-looking piece, he’ll go to luncheon afterward. If he doesn’t meet any pretty girls, he goes to the gymnasium. A private one near Pall Mall.”
“And this is his standard routine?”
Dalton sneered at the punching bag. “He don’t even know he does it. Probably thinks he’s being—what’s the word?—spontaneous. But working seven years for Rockley taught me things about him he don’t even know about himself.”
As Dalton continued to throw punches, Eva studied him. Did he even know how perceptive he was? He seemed so quick to dismiss himself as nothing more than muscle.
“Then he usually goes home to bathe,” Dalton continued, unaware of her speculation. “His nights aren’t always the same. Dinners, the theater. One of them fancy balls during the Season.” He cast Eva a quick glance. “Brothels.”
As if the mention of that word could send Eva into a fit of hysterics. She wrote it in neat letters. “One brothel in particular, or did he frequent several?”
He paused only slightly, realizing he wasn’t going to shock her, then said, “He had about four he liked especially. Mrs. Arram’s House of Leisure. The Golden Lily. The Songbird. And Madame Bernadine’s Parlor.”
“Excellent.” She wrote the names next to the word brothels. “And that constituted the whole of his day?”
“Far as I can remember.”
Eva sat back and studied what she had written. The other Nemesis operatives gathered around her, reading over her shoulders. It looked like a tree, with points branching off certain locations, leading to more possibilities as to where Rockley would spend his time. Between Rockley’s drivers deliberately using obfuscation in their routes and the seemingly random decisions the nobleman made throughout his day, it was no wonder Nemesis hadn’t been able to track him.
Dalton, meanwhile, continued to shower the punching bag with hits.
“Maybe the man of business is the link,” Marco offered. “The evidence could be with him.”
“Too readily accessible,” said Harriet. “If I was looking for proof of Rockley’s dubious business dealings, that would be the first place I’d try. He’d know that, too.”
“The Carlton Club?” suggested Lazarus.
“Possibly,” Eva said. “Yet it’s such a fortress of conservative politics, I wonder if he’d dare keep evidence of his treason there.”
“Damn it.” Simon growled in frustration, and the other Nemesis operatives looked equally frustrated. “We’re not making any progress.”
Eva glanced back and forth between the diagram of Rockley’s activities and Dalton, her mind furiously working. She understood then what had to be done. It would be dangerous, for many reasons. But she never shied away from danger, not when it came to seeing justice done.
“Rockley needs to be followed again,” she said, pushing back from the table. “But this time, by Mr. Dalton.” She planted her hands on her hips. “With me accompanying him, of course.”
CHAPTER SIX
Jack stopped punching the bag and watched Nemesis split apart.
“Absolutely not,” the blond toff said.
“Don’t be irrational.” Eva looked calm as she faced Simon. “We’ve hit a wall here. The best way to learn more about Rockley is through more fieldwork.”
“She’s got a point,” Jack said. Riling the nob was part of his motivation, but he did see the logic of what Eva said. “I know that bastard’s patterns. If any of it changes, if he goes anyplace different, then something’s up.”
“Makes sense,” said Marco. “Dalton’s our asset. He can help us keep a tail this time.”
“Then I’ll go,” Simon insisted. “Or Lazarus.”
Eva raised her brows, looking like a queen staring down at a dirt-smeared upstart. “You seem to doubt my ability to do my job, Simon.”
“Not a bit,” he blustered. “But, it’s just that … you’re a woman—”
“That comes as a tremendous surprise.” She tugged on her gloves, still cool as the moon.
Jack couldn’t stop his grin. Oh, he enjoyed this. Watching her set the toff down with just a few words and icy looks.
“Dalton’s stronger than you,” Simon complained. “While you two are following Rockley, Dalton could decide he’s had enough. Overpower you and flee.”
“He could overpower any of us, even you. If Mr. Dalton truly wanted to run, he could do so at any moment, regardless of who’s accompanying him. Besides,” she continued, looking into the mirror as she pinned on her hat, “two men following someone appear more
suspicious than a man and a woman out for a stroll through this fine city of ours. Who’d ever suspect an ingénue such as I could be capable of any mischief?” She turned and batted her amber eyes at Simon.
Jack knew she was doing it as a lark, but the sight of her fluttering her lashes and giving herself an innocent look sent a twist of hot need right through him. Maybe it was because he knew she wasn’t any such thing as innocent, but whatever the reason, he spun around and busied himself with finding his new jacket so he wouldn’t face the temptation she offered.
She tugged on her coat, then pulled a watch from the pocket. “It’s nearly quarter past twelve, which doesn’t give us much time to get to Rockley’s home before he sets out for the day.”
“Wait.” Simon grabbed a sheet of paper, then scrawled something on it. He shoved the paper toward Eva, looking as happy as if he’d eaten boiled rat. “My society contacts confirmed that these are the gatherings Rockley’s been invited to tonight. He could go to all of them or none.”
She looked over the list, then folded it neatly and tucked it into her handbag. “Are you ready, Mr. Dalton?”
“I’m ready.”
He’d put on his coat and done up the buttons of his collar. He knotted a simple tie around his neck, conscious of her gaze on his hands. With her watching him, his fingers felt thick and clumsy.
These clothes were a bit better than the doll’s rags they’d stuffed him in yesterday, but he still wasn’t comfortable. It wasn’t the clothing that made him feel squeezed. Punching on that jury-rigged bag had helped burn off a small bit of his restless energy, but not enough. Not nearly enough. He wouldn’t feel at all easy until Rockley was dead.
And he couldn’t feel calm in Eva’s presence. As soon as he’d clapped eyes on her today, he’d been on edge, nerves strung tight. It didn’t make sense. He knew plenty of women. They didn’t ruffle him. Usually, all he had to do was give a female a look or crook his finger, and they’d come running. And if they didn’t want him, it didn’t matter. There were always more women.