An Agent for Alexandra

by Rebecca Connolly

  “Tucker!” she scolded, cheeks coloring in her irritation. “I have one person in my life that I trust more than you, and that is my father. He knew full well what I was signing on for, and the dangers I would be in. We established a code before I left so that I could be in communication with him without endangering myself. As my uncle, he could be tied to me in several ways, and he does not know the specifics of the case, only enough to help me. What is so wrong with that?”

  Aside from the jolt to his heart that her statement about trust gave him, her statement gave him no satisfaction and changed nothing. “What is wrong with that?” he repeated, laughing once. “I am your partner! And the senior agent! We decide things together, Alex, especially when it comes to communication and assets, and…”

  The end of his argument was cut off by the sudden force of her lips against his, her hands pulling at the back of his neck, her body suddenly arching against his.

  His shock lasted a breath longer than it should have, then instinct took over, giving up any and all hint of resistance. His arms wrapped around her, one hand skirting up the back of her slender neck and into her hair, his fingers digging against her scalp. Her mouth was unrelenting against his, drawing more and more out of him until he was positive he had nothing else to give. His head swam, and his arms shook even as he held her.

  There was no breath in his lungs, and for all his passion for her, he was one step behind in this delicious foray of hers. Again and again, he kissed her, or she kissed him, or they shared the endeavor; nothing was clear and yet everything was. He was stripped raw and bared for her, exposed to whatever injury or attention she chose, and, at this moment, begging and pleading for more of this heaven.

  He pulled her further against him, into him, the wall at his back bolstering him, though he wasn’t sure when that had appeared. She followed his pressure, one of her hands moving gently yet insistently at his jaw, stoking the fire and soothing the frenzy all at once. He tilted her head just a touch, their kiss becoming deeper and more exhilarating, his fingers curling further still into the dark locks he couldn’t resist.

  Alex whimpered into the recesses of his mouth, the sound filling his ears and heart, calling into his deepest desires with terrifying accuracy.

  How did one live without such a claim when it has been found?

  “Oh… I beg your pardon… Ahem…”

  Tucker stiffened, startled and bewildered by the interruption of perfection.

  Alexandra, however, seemed perfectly clear. She turned in his arms, giggling wildly. “Mrs. Dobson! I don’t know what to say, how very mortifying.”

  Mrs. Dobson smiled, amusement blatant in her expression. “I wondered where you two had gotten to.”

  So had Tucker, but he doubted it was the same thing.

  “I am terribly sorry, Mrs. Dobson,” Alexandra apologized, one hand going to her flushed cheek as she leaned back against Tucker. “Really. Newlyweds, you understand, and sometimes a new bride must make off with her husband for a bit of privacy, am I right?”

  “Oh, certainly, dear,” their hostess assured her, waving a hand. “James and I were no different in our time. But you’ve been missed, there’s a man here looking for you, so I must end your privacy for the time being. I do apologize.”

  Alexandra giggled again, stepping away from Tucker with firm step and, apparently, a clear head. “No matter, we can revisit the discussion later tonight, can’t we, Tucker?”

  He looked at her with blatant interest, though her attention on his was fleeting at best. Could they, indeed? Now that would be interesting.

  “Come along, now,” she told him airily, her dark eyes dancing as the flush faded from her cheeks. “Mustn’t keep the guests waiting.” She turned back and followed Mrs. Dobson out, leaving Tucker in the room for a moment.

  Trying to remember now to breathe.

  His wife was going to be the end of him, of that he had no doubt. The only question was what sort of end it would be.

  He exhaled once, shook his head, and moved out into the party again, his eyes instinctively searching for the woman who drove him absolutely insane in the best way he had ever known.

  A frown took over when he saw her speaking with a simply dressed man of some height and stature, the pair of them conversing with the sort of intensity that conveyed a certain familiarity, if not outright ties.

  Yet they knew no one in Portland.

  Or, at least, he did not.

  Chapter 8

  How could it be harder to return to what he used to be than it was to keep up appearances? It should have been the other way around, it should have been easier for him to barely speak and work in silence, to think on his own and only share what was necessary. It should have been easy to reinstate the distance that had served him so well for so many years.

  But nothing was easy with Alexandra, whether it was liking her or avoiding her, and, having tried both, he could safely say it was a draw between the two.

  And yet nothing hurt quite so much as seeing her confusion at the change, and nothing ached like his arms when his heart wanted to hold her.

  Instinct told him to tread carefully and use caution, logic told him he was being irrational, but self-preservation told him to shut down.

  He chose self-preservation.

  He couldn’t afford anything else.

  Still, they had a case to work, so he put all of his efforts and energies into that. His trust in Alexandra was wavering at best, but she hadn’t given him a full reason to abandon it completely. He was waiting for her to confide in him, waiting for her to show him the truth of things, waiting…

  Well, waiting for his wife, truth be told.

  And with his shutting down, his wife was respecting the distance.

  Which was what terrified him most.

  Alexandra hadn’t respected the distance when he’d wanted it in the past; she’d just pushed through and knocked down the walls he’d so carefully constructed over the years. She’d chirped until he cracked, chattered almost constantly just to hear herself do so, and driven him to the edge of his sanity and then right over that cliff until he plummeted into a free-fall he didn’t comprehend.

  Well, he had landed now, and the impact had been exquisitely painful.

  Rather like this moment before him with Alexandra sitting on the floor of their room, dressed in the trousers he’d bought for her, her hair loosely braided, frowning amidst the scattered papers and maps she was scouring.. The deep crease between her brows was adorable, and she kept biting her lip in thought.

  Maddening, but adorable.

  He was supposed to be reviewing his follow up interview notes while they waited for night to fall so they could inspect further interests in their now well-traipsed Portland underside neighborhoods.

  From what Mrs. Dobson had told Alexandra, and what Dobson himself later told Tucker, there were still some smuggling operations occurring, but as far as they could tell, everything seemed unrelated to the missing persons at hand. They’d debated investigating the smuggling as a favor to Dobson and the rest, but they could hardly manage two major cases when neither had sustainable information to really take them anywhere. It was clear that Creet was a weasel of a businessman, but there was not much they could do about that unless they launched a full investigation into his particular shipping interests and the business of the docks themselves.

  Tucker wasn’t really interested in extending their time here in Portland. He’d rather finish what they had come here to do, get back to Denver, get the annulment, and take on a dangerous solo mission that would take him away for an extended period of time.

  Somewhere in the far north where he could be cold all the time and never meet someone from the South.

  He’d be willing to bet Archie could find him something.

  Overseas could be good, too.

  Anything far away, the more remote the better.

  “North… east… southeast…” Alexandra muttered to herself, shaking her head. “W
hy aren’t you making sense?” She sighed and looked over at Tucker, and he didn’t bother hiding the fact that he had been looking at her. “I can’t tie anything to anything else. But we’re so close, I can feel it.”

  “I know,” he said simply.

  Her brow wrinkled further. “You know? You know what, Tucker?”

  He lifted a shoulder briefly. “We’re close.”

  Alexandra tilted her head to one side, her eyes narrowing. “You know something I don’t?”

  Tucker took great pride in shaking his head, eyes locked on hers. “Nope. I’ve told you everything.”

  And he left it at that.

  Open and waiting.

  She gave him a strange look, then went back to her scouring, leaving him surprisingly pained with disappointment.

  It couldn’t be so complicated, could it? If she knew someone in Portland, who happened to be at the Dobsons’ party, even if briefly, she should tell him. He was tasked with her protection as her partner, and he would need to know what to protect her from. He needed to know everything about her that was relevant to their mission and their location.

  And he needed to know who the man was, how she knew him, why she knew him, and what it meant.

  She was his wife, like it or not, no matter what circumstances brought about the arrangement, and until she was no longer his wife, he would maintain possession of her. And he would not be played for a fool.

  It was as simple as that.

  And nothing more.

  He glanced out of the window, then rose. “It’s time.”

  Alexandra took her own glance at the window, nodding as if to confirm his statement. “Right.” She gathered all the papers, stacked them neatly, then tucked them into the lining of her trunk, situated beside the bureau. It was a rudimentary hiding place, but he’d never seen the need to overcomplicate things.

  That done, she stood and brushed her trousers off, turning to him with a bright smile. “Ready.”

  He nodded, neglecting to return the smile, and moved to the door, opening it for her.

  Her smile wavered slightly, but she walked out of the room with her head held high, not looking at him, and yet not appearing to be avoiding him.

  It was a miserable game they were playing, but they played it well, it seemed.

  They said nothing as they took the now familiar path down the back stairs and into the streets, ambling away from the comforting lights of the cleaner, safer parts of Portland and into the darker, dimmer, more unpredictable parts of it. There was no ear in Alexandra’s step, and no hesitation in his. Neither of them would balk at the stench or the filth, and should their venture take them into the sewers, he had no doubt Alexandra would go first.

  She’d always been intrepid, but now she was utterly fearless.

  He’d have told her that if he were speaking to her beyond the basics. As it was, he would only reluctantly acknowledge it, and pointedly avoid dwelling on how admirable it was.

  The sounds of the bordellos and taverns grew louder the further into the depths they went, though none of it seemed to reach Alexandra. This was as familiar to them now as the rats near their feet and the smell of alcohol, tobacco, and rotting something or other all about them. Tonight would be no different than any other night they’d spent down here, looking for something they couldn’t identify in the hopes it would give them something.

  If he were to be perfectly honest, Tucker would have admitted that he didn’t know what to look for at this point, nor did he know how all of the pieces of this puzzle fit together. It would have helped matters immensely if he had been married to a plain girl with no personality, and if he had never kissed the woman he had married, as the memory of it and the thought of her continued to distract him from his assignment, which had been his primary argument against the pairings in the first place.

  But Alexandra couldn’t blame him for not speaking when they were in this part of the city and nor could she claim he was avoiding her. He was right there beside her, wading into danger, partnering in every sense of the word.

  Technically.

  If only he could properly clear his head and think, he might have a way to put this all together. If he could catch a break, he could end this and move on. If he…

  A short, brisk hissing sound stopped Tucker, and he grabbed Alexandra’s arm without thinking, pulling her to a stop as well. He looked to his left, not seeing anything in the shadows but the entrance to another alley, no doubt leading into sewers and down towards the dockyards.

  “You the ones asking questions?” a gravelly voice asked from the alley.

  Alexandra stepped closer, her fingers brushing against Tucker’s leg in odd twitching spasms.

  “Maybe,” Tucker grunted, sliding his hand from Alexandra’s arm to her fingers, gripping tightly.

  A man moved into the only slightly brighter light from the tavern down the block, his features obscured by shadow. “I have answers.”

  “Congratulations,” Tucker replied without concern.

  “Mutt,” Alexandra hissed, flexing her fingers in his hold.

  He slid his free hand into his pocket and eyed the man as best as he was able. “Answers I want?”

  “Answers I think you need,” came the unconcerned response.

  “Why come forward now?” Tucker pressed. “The investigation has gone on for some time.”

  “Not always in port. And I don’t like it, so I come forward.” He looked over his shoulder, then leaned against the nearest wall, hiding him more fully. “Name’s Simm. I’m onboard the Chester, you can check the manifest.”

  That seemed fair enough. Tucker glanced towards Alexandra, catching a very faint nod from her.

  “Go on,” Tucker told him, pulling he and Alexandra back against the opposite wall.

  Simm lit a cigar, blew a cloud of smoke into the air, then cleared his throat. “Smuggling isn’t really the issue on the docks. Smugglers, but not smuggling. The tunnels of the taverns and such are not used for inspections or trafficking so much as smuggling.”

  “But you just said smuggling wasn’t happening,” Alexandra pointed out, her voice flat.

  Tucker could imagine the man eying her with some suspicion, if not admiration. “Smuggling of a different kind, miss. Not goods. People.”

  The air rushed out of Tucker’s lungs and he stared at the shadows before him. “Slavery?”

  “Shanghaiing,” the man corrected. “But much the same. The tunnels spread all over the city, not just the dirty side. Trap doors, even in the more respectable businesses, if you can call them that. Nobody watches them at night, a body could disappear with ease. And they do.”

  “What happens?” Tucker asked.

  A rustling spoke of a shrug as another puff of smoke reached towards the sky. “Sold to ship owners, usually. Taken on board as workers if men or boys, taken into a different trade entirely of the female sort. Once away from here, they can change hands dozens of times. No names, nothing to track, no chance of finding.”

  “Merciful heavens,” Alexandra breathed, her version of an expletive far milder than the ones Tucker was using in his mind.

  But suddenly everything clicked together, and made far more sense. “Who runs it?” he demanded.

  Simm pushed off the wall. “That I don’t know, sir. I’m part of the ship, not part of the port.” He started back towards the alley.

  “Simm,” Alexandra said quickly.

  The man stopped, looking over his shoulder.

  “How do you know all this?” she whispered, though there was some urgency to her voice.

  Silence hovered in the alley for a moment, then there was a rough exhale. “Because I’ve seen it half a dozen times on my own ship. Couldn’t get off to discuss before. Would have. Shameful business.” His throat cleared again and he started away. “Can’t be missed, I’ll be thrashed. Good luck.”

  And then he was gone into the night, the sewer dripping just as steadily as it had been before.

  “Did yo
u have any idea?” Alexandra breathed, a fog appearing before her lips with the words.

  Tucker swallowed hard, a wretched burning starting in the back of his throat. “No,” he growled, releasing the hand he’d forgotten he was holding. “No, I did not.”

  For all the information they had just received, there was no excitement between Alexandra and her partner.

  There wasn’t anything between them, it seemed.

  Her mind was spinning, desperate to connect the dots and figure out the puzzle they were caught in, but Tucker simply leaned against the wall, looking up at the sky, apparently not in any haste to be gone anywhere. She wanted to go into all of the taverns and bordellos again and check for trap doors or secret passages, she wanted him to pull out his Pinkerton badge and order people around, she wanted…