Nemesis Unlimited [1] Sweet Revenge (30 page)

“You’re all wet,” he said, staring at the front of her dress. His gaze avidly took in how the fabric molded to her body, her breasts and hips.

“Because of you.”

A hot light burned in his eyes. She was certain that same light burned in hers. But there was more to do this night, and she needed her wits. She turned away.

Good Lord, there was a corpse at the top of the waterman’s steps, not fifteen feet away, and she’d been writhing around with Jack, not even caring. He was an opiate.

“Dawn’s nearly here,” she said.

He shook himself like a dog, scattering water, then pushed his wet hair out of his face. “Let’s finish this job.”

They climbed up the slick stairs, his boots squishing with each step. It struck her then how dangerous his part had been tonight. He could just as easily have drowned in the perilous river as been hit by a bullet.

At the top of the stairs, the body waited for them, sprawled upon the ground. The night was cool, but not as cold as it had been in the morgue. Decay would set in soon, and rigor mortis.

“Give me your gun.” Jack held out his hand.

“I’ve shot it before,” she objected. “I’ve even hit people.”

“Shooting a dead man’s a nasty business, and I don’t want you doing it.”

She considered holding on to her revolver, then, sighing, passed the weapon to him. “The bodyguard shot three times.”

“Lost count on my way into the water.” He stood beside the body, cocked the gun’s hammer, and pressed the muzzle to the corpse’s chest.

“Wait!”

Frowning, he lowered the gun. “What?”

She gathered up her cloak, forming it into a bundle. “Put this over the muzzle. It ought to dampen the sound.”

“It’ll ruin your cloak.”

What an odd streak of consideration he possessed. “Need a new one, anyway.”

He did as she suggested, placing the bunched-up cloak between the gun and the body. “Sorry, mate,” he said to the corpse. Then he fired. He put one more bullet into the cadaver’s torso.

“Three shots,” she reminded him.

“I’m going to get him in the face so he’s harder to identify.” He sent her an apologetic look. “It’ll be messy.”

“Do whatever you have to.” Despite her bravado, she shut her eyes when he fired the last shot.

“Keep ’em closed,” he advised.

Though she didn’t quite take his advice, she kept her gaze on the toes of her boots while he picked up the body. From the corner of her eye, she saw him go back down the waterman’s steps, then heave the body into the river.

“All right, love,” he said, after coming back up the steps. “It’s done.” At least he didn’t chide her for not looking.

They both watched as the body drifted out farther into the water, then sank from view.

“Whoever he was,” she murmured, “I hope he absolves us.”

Jack turned away from the river. “That’s the problem with the dead. When we need their forgiveness, only thing they got for us is silence.”

The sun broke over the eastern horizon, spreading light like an illness. Eva and Jack began the long walk back to headquarters as London woke.

*   *   *

Jack studied his face in the cracked mirror as he ran the razor along his jaw. It wasn’t a pretty face, never had been, and he hadn’t been living a life of ease and luxury. Even when he scraped away the last of his stubble, he still looked rough and mean. The sort of man who’d once dominated underground boxing matches, dealing out vicious beatings on a weekly basis, and taking his share of punches, too. Who could shoot a corpse point-blank without a blotch on his conscience.

He’d fallen into bed with the first rays of dawn and slept deeply. His dreams had been only of Eva, and the depraved, filthy things he’d like to do with her.

Bending over his washbasin, he splashed water on his face, rinsing off the shaving soap. Didn’t some faiths believe you could just have a priest or preacher dunk you in water and you were reborn, clean down to your very soul? Religion never called to him, not when he was too busy trying to survive this life to think about the next one, but right now the idea of starting over, utterly spotless, was a tempting thought.

The door to his room opened. Eva stepped inside, her face shuttered. His back was to her, but he could see her in the mirror above the basin.

Her gaze moved over him, hot and quick. All he wore was his unbuttoned shirt and trousers, his braces hanging down. In the mirror, he watched her watching him, how her look caught on the span of his bared chest, then moved lower, lingering over his arse and down his legs. All the way to his bare feet, which made him feel oddly exposed. Big feet, he had, and hairy. More proof he was a brute, not a nice man.

But what she saw pleased her. She looked at him as if he were a sweet she wanted to suck on. He went iron-hard in an instant.

She shut the door behind her and leaned against it. Turning, he pressed a towel to his face to dry himself. Her gaze flicked back down to his chest, then farther south. When she saw how her study of his body affected him, her cheeks turned pink—and not from embarrassment.

He didn’t care that he could hear the other Nemesis folk downstairs, talking and going about their daily lives. He didn’t care that it was broad daylight. Only thing he did care about was getting Eva in his bed. His bed that was only steps away.

He started toward her. As he did, her expression went distant again and she held something out. A newspaper. It had been opened and folded to show one of the inner pages.

Taking it, he scanned the paper. It was easier for him to read when he said the words aloud, so he did, though he struggled over some of the longer words. “‘The body of infamous criminal and escaped prisoner Jack Dalton was pulled from the Thames today. Though the corpse was somewhat disfigured by his injuries as well as his immersion in the river, he has been positively identified by authorities. The discovery of Dalton’s body comes as a considerable relief following his murder of John Gilling, barrister.’”

There was more, but he’d read all he needed.

It had worked. The world believed him dead. Rockley must think he was dead, too. The police would’ve told him straightaway.

Jack was free.

For some reason, it became important for him to carefully refold the newspaper, then set it on his washstand. His body felt strange, awkward, as though it belonged to someone else, and he tugged on strings to make the limbs move.

“Where will you go now?” Eva asked. Her voice seemed to come from far away.

“Go?” he repeated. He faced her.

She paced to the window and stared out at the yard. “We’ve got no leverage over you anymore. Nothing can keep you here, short of force.” She drew her finger down the dusty windowpane, leaving behind a bar of clean glass.

“Maybe Nemesis doesn’t need me anymore.”

“I—
we
do. You still know more than any of us about Rockley’s habits, his movements.”

“So I’m still useful,” he said.

“We need you more than you need us,” she continued in that strange, toneless voice. “I’m sure Rockley’s lightened his security. That was the point of last night’s endeavor. It would be fairly straightforward for you to extract your revenge upon him. The kind of revenge you’ve wanted since the beginning.”

He stared at her back, the line of her neck, and the shapes of her shoulder blades beneath her dress. A slim woman, but a fortress. “He’d be dead, but that wouldn’t help Miss Jones get her life back.”

Eva turned her head, showing him the line of her profile. “Miss Jones never meant anything to you.”

“Maybe not at the beginning.” He took a step toward her. “But I’ve been thinking it’s
her
I’m doing this for. I didn’t help Edith, but I can help Miss Jones. She’s what’s keeping me here.”

“Miss Jones,” Eva said, finally turning to face him. “You care about her?”

“What if I do?” he fired back. “Think a thug like me can’t care about someone?”

“I know you can,” she said quietly.

His heart beat hard within his chest as he stared at her. Sunlight poured into his room, uncovering everything. Brightness everywhere. It caught in the honey tumble of her hair and amber of her eyes, those damn shrewd eyes that saw too much but maybe not enough. He knew the sharp beauty of her face like he knew the shape of his own dreams.

“I ain’t going nowhere,” he said, low.

“For Miss Jones.”

“Does it matter why?”

She stepped nearer, until only a few inches were between them. Reaching out, she pressed her palm against his chest. Her touch was fire and frost, tearing through him.

“No,” she said after a moment. Then raised herself up on her toes and kissed him.

He’d grown addicted to her kisses, how they revealed her true self—not controlled and calculating, but wild and hungry. Unrestrained. Her kisses spoke to the animal in him. He growled now, pulling her close.

He slicked his tongue into her mouth, and she opened even more to him. She tasted sweet, but he wasn’t fooled. She was spice, too. The kind that robbed him of his wits. He’d do anything to have her taste, to feel her. If she kissed him like this, taking and giving, whatever she asked of him, he’d do it.

Wait …

He broke the kiss. His hands went to her shoulders, holding her away from him.

Her eyes blinked open, convincingly glazed.

“Don’t,” he rumbled. When she frowned, as if confused, he said, “You don’t need to gull me like this to keep me around.”

Her expression changed. From muddled with desire to confusion, and then to fury. She twisted away from his grasp.

“I was wrong,” she said angrily. “Here I’d been defending your intelligence to everyone, but it turns out you’re the world’s biggest imbecile.”

Before he could speak, she pulled open the door so hard it bounced against the wall, then stormed from the room. She ignored the other Nemesis members asking her if she was all right, then slammed the front door behind her.

Seconds later, Simon raced up the stairs and into Jack’s room. Grabbing a fistful of Jack’s shirt, he snarled, “What the hell did you do?”

Jack felt his mouth curl. “Remember how I said I can read? Turns out I can’t.” A bitter laugh scraped his throat. “Not a damn word.”

*   *   *

From the shadows across the street, Eva and Jack watched the front of Mrs. Arram’s brothel. It was a slow night, for they’d been keeping vigil for the past half hour and not a single customer had knocked on the front door.

“The hell is everybody?” Jack muttered.

“Perhaps the gentlemen of London have suddenly developed an attack of morality,” she answered.

His snort of disbelief indicated just how much he thought that was likely.

They fell back into strained silence. She burned with impatience to just stride up the walkway to the brothel’s door and barge her way in. Yet they couldn’t approach until they were certain that the security had been lightened.

Fortunately, keeping an eye on the brothel meant she didn’t have to speak much. She wasn’t certain she could say anything to Jack that wouldn’t sound angry or reveal how his suspicion had cut her deeply. She couldn’t give him that power. At all times, she must protect herself. His accusation had only reinforced this belief. A moment’s vulnerability left her with a raw, red wound. She’d not be so foolish again.

“Eva—” he began, then stopped as a carriage appeared on the street and stopped outside Mrs. Arram’s.

An unknown man stepped down from the carriage and, after glancing up and down the street, approached the brothel. Judging by his hat and the cut of his suit, he was some sort of prosperous banker. Using his walking stick, he knocked lightly on the door. It opened almost immediately.

Eva sighed with satisfaction. Only one bully guarded the door now, not two. Security had indeed been reduced since the last time. Jack’s “death” had served its purpose.

The bully spoke with the customer for a moment before stepping aside to allow him inside.

After the door had closed again, Eva fussed with her clothing, making certain that she looked tidy and presentable. She tugged on her gloves and adjusted the veil on her hat. Satisfied, she turned to Jack and smoothed down the lapel of his coat. He held himself motionless.

Her hand stopped in the middle of her attentions. What the hell was she doing? Fussing over him like the attentive wife she was about to impersonate?

She turned away. “Time to get our evidence.”

They crossed the street and, with his hand on her elbow, walked up the path to the front door. Her heart set up a fast rhythm. Anger, anticipation, Jack’s nearness and touch—they all combined within her. As they mounted the steps, she forced herself to take deep, regular breaths. She couldn’t let her inner turmoil affect the mission.

Once they stood before the door, Jack exhaled and stretched his neck from side to side, as though readying himself for a fight. Despite his respectable checked suit and slicked-back hair, he still resembled the brawler he had been. She didn’t want to take pleasure in the way he easily inhabited his size and strength, or the gleam of determination in his eyes, or a thousand other details that called out for her admiration. But what she wanted and what she actually did were very different things.

“Ready, missus?” he asked her.

It troubled her how much she liked hearing him call her that, especially after what he’d said earlier. “Get on with it.”

He sent her an inscrutable look, then knocked. As it had before, the door opened. The bully stood there, a large man with a face that appeared as though it had been on the receiving end of a concrete slab.

“Yeah?” the bully demanded.

“We’re here for the strawberries,” Jack said.

The bully narrowed his tiny eyes as he looked back and forth between Jack and Eva. He looked hard at Jack, then paused to study her. She offered him her best uncertain smile, just the sort a woman might bestow when stepping into unknown territory. As much reassuring herself as whoever looked at her.

Whatever he saw seemed to satisfy him, for the bully stepped back and held the door open. “Awright. Go on to the parlor an’ have a chat with the lady of the house.”