Sweet Revenge nu-1

by Zoë Archer

  Jack had to admit that the old soldier spoke wisely. Still, “That don’t help us one bit,” he growled. “We can’t track down all the places Rockley doesn’t go. It’d take a bleeding eternity.”

  “Perhaps,” Eva said, thoughtful, “the answer isn’t with Rockley, but his collaborators. They might not be as cautious as Rockley in covering their tracks.”

  “We’ve already been through the public records of those involved with the government contract.” Simon spoke from where he stood next to the mantel, arms crossed over his chest. “Only Rockley’s name was mentioned. If anyone else had been listed, we would’ve investigated them already.”

  The highborn gent’s peevish tone rankled Jack, especially since it seemed directed at Eva.

  “The other chaps in the deal could’ve been involved on the sly,” he fired back, “outside of public record. Rockley dealt with lots of blokes. They’d come to his place all the time. Any one of them could’ve been part of the contract.”

  Though Simon scowled, the other members of Nemesis nodded thoughtfully, including Eva. A flicker of satisfaction glowed in the center of Jack’s chest.

  “The contract with the army was consigned six years ago,” Eva said to him. “Exactly when you were still working for Rockley. Whoever was also involved with the contract must have been to see him during that time. So you would have seen the collaborator, as well. Maybe heard him, too, talking to Rockley about the contract.”

  “Lots of gents met with that bastard. He’d be at home once a week in the afternoon for private business. Didn’t want to go to anyone’s office or have meetings at the club.” Despite his tiredness, he felt edgy and restless, and got up to pace. “But there were too many blokes who came and went. Ain’t possible for me to remember them all. And I sure as hell don’t know what they talked about. They’d go into Rockley’s study. I just stood outside and kept guard.”

  “You never listened in?” Simon looked disdainful.

  Jack wheeled around with a snarl. “They didn’t pay me to eavesdrop. I earned my coin by beating men until they soiled themselves.” He gave Simon a mean smile. “And I was good at my job.”

  Before Simon could do something stupid, like take a swing at Jack, Eva spoke. “The key to Rockley skimming from the army contract is in those meetings.”

  “Told you,” Jack said. “I don’t know what they talked about.”

  “We don’t need to know what they said,” Eva answered, “only who met with him. Once we know who they are, we can start building from there.”

  “It was six years ago, love. I didn’t write it down in my journal.” He hated admitting to anyone that he couldn’t do something, especially her, but there was no use in pretending he could dredge up the names of men he barely met and from so long ago.

  “Another go at the punching bag?” Harriet suggested. “That might help you recall them.”

  “I could punch this building down to splinters,” Jack said, “but it still wouldn’t help me remember.”

  Eva frowned in consideration for a moment, then set her coffee down on the floor. She walked over to him and took hold of his wrist.

  Memories from last night seared his brain. Easy to think of her gripping something else on his body with that same remarkable strength. Reasonable thought drained out of his head and went south.

  When she said, “Come with me,” and pulled him toward the stairs leading to his bedroom, his brain stopped working altogether.

  She wants to do this now?

  So what if she bloody well does? You’re not going to stop her.

  An ugly thought crept into his head—she had to know the effect she had on him. Was she using that to manipulate him? Make him more biddable? He needed to be cautious, particularly because his wits seemed to cloud whenever she was near him.

  When they reached his room, she let go of his wrist and went quickly to the small table. Not the bed. Opening a drawer in the table, she pulled out some paper and a pencil.

  He held up his hands and shook his head. “Not touching that stuff. I thought we already proved that I’m no good at writing and thinking.”

  “Because we were going about it the wrong way.” She indicated the chair in front of the desk. “Just take a seat, Mr. Dalton—”

  “Jack,” he said. “Since you had your arse up against my meat and veg, it’s only polite to call me by my name.”

  She glared at him. Heat climbed up his neck, and he realized what he felt was shame.

  “That was…” He searched for the word. “Crude of me. I had a rubbish night, and I took it out on you.”

  “I’m not a delicate lily,” she said, “but I won’t tolerate anyone being disrespectful.”

  “You shouldn’t,” he answered.

  Slowly, the hot anger in her eyes cooled, and she nodded.

  He found himself strangely anxious, oddly yearning for her to speak his Christian name. No one had said it in years, and he wanted to hear it from her lips, in her voice.

  “Take a seat,” she said after a moment, then added, “Jack.”

  It was a peculiar thing, this mix of gratitude and desire. For to listen to her say his name gave him back a part of himself, a personal, hidden part kept safe from the rest of the world. He wasn’t Diamond Dalton, the hired muscle. He wasn’t D.3.7., the convict. He was … himself.

  And it was intimate, too. Watching her lips shape his name, hearing it with that refined accent of hers, in her low, husky voice. As though they were lovers.

  Hard to remember his caution when thoughts like that filled his head.

  With some difficulty, he sat at the table. She set the paper and pencil down in front of him.

  “We’re going to try a different method to help you remember these men,” she said, standing behind him. He stared at the blank sheet of paper, her nearness making his own mind as empty as the page.

  “Start with a face,” she continued, “or something else you remember about each of the men that used to meet with Rockley. Could be anything. The mole on his cheek. The kind of waistcoat he wore. If he had a deep voice or a high one. It doesn’t matter if it seems important or not. Whatever pops into your mind. Write it down.”

  “And if I can’t remember anything?”

  “You can.” She placed her hands on his shoulders, and there went his brain again, fizzling away. “You were able to think through and recall Rockley’s schedule yesterday. I know you can do this.”

  “I—”

  A clock somewhere in the house chimed ten.

  “Damn,” she muttered. “I have to go. We’ll continue this when I return at five.”

  He stood as she hurried toward the door. “The hell are you going?”

  “My other life.” With that, she was out in the corridor and down the stairs. Jack stood on the landing, listening as she spoke briefly with Simon.

  “Want me to flag a cab?” the man asked.

  “God, no. I’ve already spent more than I should on hired carriages. There’s an omnibus that’ll take me right to Sydney Street.”

  “What about Dalton?” Simon asked in a low voice. “Does he have the mental capability to do what we need?”

  Though Jack wanted to leap down the stairs and plant his fist in Simon’s face, instead he strained to hear Eva’s equally quiet response.

  “He’s far more intelligent than anyone gives him credit for. Including himself.”

  The door opened, then shut.

  “Did you get all that, Dalton?” Simon called up the stairs.

  “Especially the bit where you’re a needle-pricked nob,” Jack called back.

  There was a pause. Then, “Get to work, Dalton.”

  “Go bugger yourself, Lord Cuntshire.” Jack stalked back to his room. Just because he could, he slammed his door. He hadn’t had a door to slam in years and it felt damned good, if petty.

  With Eva gone, restlessness seethed through him. He paced the small bedroom, sometimes stealing glances at the sheets of paper on the table
. They seemed to mock him, those pieces of paper, taunting him with the fact that he couldn’t remember any of the men who’d gone into Rockley’s study. It hadn’t been his job to pay attention to those toffs. But somewhere in their ranks was the one man who’d lead them to the incriminating evidence. Who?

  There’d been that one bloke, the one with the bushy eyebrows. He’d met with Rockley on an unseasonably warm day in March, dabbing at his low, sweaty forehead with a handkerchief embroidered with the initials JSY. “A glass of lemonade, Young?” Rockley had asked, laughing.

  Young!

  Jack strode to the table and wrote the name down on the paper. As usual, his writing looked more like an animal’s claw marks than actual letters, but he could read it. He stared at the name in shock.

  She’d been right. A piece of recollection at a time, and it led him to the name.

  For the next hour, he ran himself through the process of picking through his memories, like a dustman sifting through heaps of debris, searching for anything valuable. He’d catch a glint here and there, the reflection off the sheen of a particular memory, and clean it off until at last he came up with a name.

  Columns of names now filled two sheets of paper. He held them up as though he’d conjured them from magic, and, in a way, he had.

  Striding to his door, he flung it open and hurried downstairs. Simon and Harriet sat at the parlor table, several newspapers spread out before them. They both looked up, equally guarded, when he appeared.

  Jack shook the papers in his hand. “Got enough brains to write up a list of thirty-four names.”

  “Excellent, Mr. Dalton,” Harriet said, plainly surprised.

  Simon, however, looked skeptical. He held out his hand. “Give it here.”

  “Eva sees it first,” Jack said.

  “She won’t be back until five.” Simon glanced at the clock. “Hours from now. We don’t have time—”

  “Eva and then the rest of you lot.” Jack didn’t know why he wanted Eva to be the first to see his handiwork, but it felt vitally important.

  He didn’t let Simon answer. Turning, Jack thundered back up the stairs and into his room, giving the door another satisfying slam. Even with banging the door shut, Jack couldn’t get calm or settled. He paced around his small bedchamber, trying to distract himself until Eva returned from … wherever it was she went.

  Brompton. He remembered that. And she had mentioned Sydney Street to Simon. The map in Jack’s head unfolded, and he envisioned that exact street. It had rows of genteel houses—where artists and writers often lived and rented rooms. That’s where she was now. At her job? He didn’t know what it might be. An artist’s model? Not quite respectable, that, and the daughter of missionaries would be sure to find respectable work. What, then?

  God—could time move more slowly? It felt like an eternity had passed. It had only been fifteen minutes.

  He couldn’t wait. He had to show the list to Eva now.

  After tucking the folded papers into his pocket, he went to the window as quietly as he could. Pulled it open, slowly, to keep from making noise. The window looked out onto the small yard below. He leaned out and saw that a very narrow path led from the yard toward the front of the building, and onto the street.

  Turning sideways so he could fit his shoulders through the window, Jack eased himself through. He gripped the window from the outside, using the strength of his upper body to hold himself upright as he pulled his legs through. It was an awkward business, him twisting and hanging on to the wooden frame, then the bricks, and a trickle of sweat worked its way down his neck. He found footing, wedging his boots into the gaps in the masonry, then climbed down.

  Two stories stood between him and the ground. He had to edge across and then down to ensure he didn’t pass in front of any other windows and give himself away to the Nemesis people within. He hadn’t done this much climbing around since his old housebreaking days.

  As he passed next to one of the windows, he heard Lazarus. “… least he’s quieted down…”

  Jack smirked to himself. And when he had only half a dozen feet between him and the ground, he let go of the wall and jumped down, landing in a crouch.

  He stood, and saw a pair of wide eyes staring at him from over the top of the fence bordering the yard. A little boy watched him, his look more curious than frightened.

  Jack placed his finger to his lips. The boy nodded in agreement. Jack winked, and then ran.

  * * *

  “What’s the capital of Portugal?”

  Two blank little faces stared back at Eva. The girls shifted on their chairs and plucked at the stitching on their pinafores. They weren’t particularly engaged in their lessons today, but then, Eva wasn’t particularly interested in tutoring, either. She couldn’t stop her thoughts from circling back to Dalton … Jack. Normally, she compartmentalized very well, going back and forth between her current mission with Nemesis and her daily work here, in her rooms.

  Yet she found herself rushing the Hallow daughters through their lessons, growing impatient when their attentions wandered. The longer it took to get them through their tutorial, the longer it would be before she could return to headquarters, and Jack.

  “Come now, Elspeth, Mary,” Eva said. “We’ve been over this before. It has a lovely castle with crenellations, and a basilica, and a pantheon called Santa Engrácia.” She held up a few pictures of the landmarks, hoping to jog their memory.

  “Barcelona,” said Elspeth.

  “No, stupid.” Mary rolled her eyes. She was nine and knew everything. “It’s Madrid.”

  “Don’t call your sister stupid, Mary. And Madrid is the capital of Spain, not Portugal.”

  “I know!” Elspeth, the younger of the two, kicked her heels against her chair’s legs. “Lisbon!”

  “Very good.” When the younger girl beamed, Eva continued, “And what happened in 1755 that nearly destroyed the entire city?”

  There was a pounding on the stairs outside, as though someone were leaping up them two at a time, but she ignored it. Likely a workman was running late to make repairs on Miss Siles’s rooms. The writer had left her window open the other night, allowing rain to get inside and damage the floorboards. Eva suppressed a sigh. Writers were the most forgetful lot. And now Eva would have to contend with the sounds of a workman’s hammer throughout the day—as if she weren’t already distracted.

  “An earthquake,” Mary answered.

  At that same moment, a loud knock sounded on Eva’s door. She never locked it during the day, in case any of her pupils came early, and she didn’t want them waiting out in the hall. Before she could ask who it was knocking now, however, the door swung open.

  Jack Dalton stood in her doorway.

  For a moment, all she could do was gape. His chest rose and fell quickly, and his hair was disheveled. It looked, in fact, as though he’d been running.

  Running. Through the city. Looking for her.

  And now here he stood. In her rooms.

  A quick, stunning burst of pleasure at seeing him, followed immediately by tension and wariness. She stiffened in her chair. Oh Lord, he’d come all the way from the Nemesis headquarters. Did Simon or the others know he was here? What did he want? How had he found her? Were the police chasing him, given that he was an escaped convict? Worst of all—would he give her identity away to Mary and Elspeth Hallow?

  Frowning in puzzlement, he crossed the threshold and shut the door behind him. His gaze traveled from her to the wide-eyed girls to the lesson papers arrayed over the table.

  Eva slowly rose from her seat.

  “We’re learning about Lisbon,” Elspeth said brightly. “It’s the capital of Portugal.”

  “Is it, now?” asked Jack. He took a few cautious steps closer, staring at the girls as if they’d dropped out of the sky.

  Could she hurry him out the door, before the girls asked questions, before he said anything to reveal her other life?

  “Who are you?” asked Mary.
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br />   Eva started to answer, a cover story already constructed, but Jack spoke first. “I’m here for schooling, like you.”

  The girls giggled. “You’re too old for lessons!” Mary insisted.

  Jack’s gaze moved from the girls to Eva, and held. “You can learn new things at any age.” He broke the contact, turning back to the girls. “Never been to Portugal. Have you?”

  “We’ve been on holiday in Ramsgate,” said Elspeth. “I had some barley candy and Mary put sand in my hair.”

  “Sisters can be the very devil sometimes,” Jack said. “Mine used to follow me everywhere. Couldn’t turn a corner without running right into her. Like a puppy, she was.” Though Jack spoke cheerfully, his eyes were melancholy.

  A hard knot lodged itself in Eva’s throat.

  “What about you, miss?” Jack directed the question to her. “Do you have any devilish sisters?”

  She narrowed her eyes. With the Hallow daughters gazing at her eagerly, he had her in a perfect place for interrogation.

  “No sisters. Nor brothers.” None that had lived past infancy, anyway. “I’m all alone.”

  “Ah,” Jack countered, “but you’ve got me and Miss Mary and Miss…”

  “Elspeth,” the girl filled in.

  “That’s three friends. So you’re not alone.”

  Jack was most assuredly not her friend. Yet, with him talking so genially with the children—hardly the picture of a tough street-bred ruffian—and being so circumspect in preserving her secret, she had to wonder. Seeing him like this, she felt he became even more real. More … human. Careful demarcations blurred, like a hand-drawn map left out in the rain.

  “All right, girls.” She gathered up the lesson papers. “I think that’s enough for today. This nice gentleman’s come for his lessons, and I don’t want to be rude and keep him waiting.”

  Mary and Elspeth jumped up from their chairs. “Hooray!”

  The utter joy on their faces made her heart sink. It would always be an uphill battle to teach them. But then, most children didn’t care for school or learning. She couldn’t take their reluctance to be there personally. Dentists had it worse. Barely.