Dangerous Seduction: A Nemesis Unlimited Novel (16 page)

He gave another frustrated groan, then started toward the bachelors’ lodging. He’d only taken a few steps before he stopped. “Kissed you
witless,
did I?”

Her lips curled into a smile. “Like an asylum inmate. Now, go. Flattery’s for weak men and it’s nearly dawn.”

He tipped his head and continued walking. She had to fight the urge to watch him go, reminding herself of all the reasons why now, of all times, she needed distance from him. Instead, she hurried down the lane to her house, and slipped inside.

Not a moment too soon. She had just enough time to change back into her work clothes before Sarah came trundling down the stairs, one hand on the rail, the other pressed to the small of her back.

“Up already?” Sarah asked, moving toward the stove to ready breakfast. “Where’s the peevish girl I usually have to shake out of bed?”

“Restless night,” Alyce replied.

“Aye,” Sarah said with a shake of her head. “Mr. Sharpe’s revelations threw us all. But I suppose I shouldn’t call him Mr. Sharpe. What was his real name again?”

“He didn’t say.” He was still a stranger, even though moments earlier she’d had her lips pressed against his. “Just call him Simon, for now. To keep him safe.”

Sarah narrowed her eyes. “What happened to the Alyce who called him a liar and shot fire from her eyes?”

“He might’ve won my trust. A little,” she added hastily. Then she yawned hugely into the back of her hand. Weariness suddenly made her arms and legs feel like lead. “Extra strong tea for me this morning, dear. Oh, and get to the company store early this morning. As soon as the doors open. Make sure you buy butter.”

Upstairs, Henry’s heavy footfalls and coughing announced that he was awake. At some point, she’d have to tell her brother what she’d learned about Simon. He was a stranger, but an ally.

Now Sarah’s eyes went wide. “Alyce Carr, what did you do?”

Despite her tiredness, Alyce smiled. “Something real and useful. For a change.”

CHAPTER 7.

The news about the butter already hummed like riled bees by the time the workers made the long morning trudge to the mine. Simon wasn’t surprised. With a small village like Trewyn, nothing moved faster than gossip. Especially if it involved two of the most hated institutions—the company store and the managers themselves.

“I heard that Hartley Evans hired thieves from Truro,” Edgar said to the nearby men and women. “Paid them to break into the managers’ place and get the fresh butter so he could finally clear his wares.”

“Maybe he stole into the managers’ house, himself,” Nathaniel suggested.

“Nah,” said another man. “Hartley’s a damned muttonhead. He can rig the prices at the store like some mathematical genius, but when it comes to breaking and entering, he’d be a sodding buffoon.”

“He opened the store early, too,” a woman named Evelyn added. “Women were pounding on his door, wanting in. The butter was sold out in a quarter of an hour.”

Several people rubbed their hands and licked their lips. “Been too long since we’ve had good butter,” someone said gleefully. “My kids miss it something terrible. But we’ll have butter with our bread tonight!”

Simon and the rest of the workers walked beneath a leaden sky, and though the dark clouds did little to dispel his exhaustion, he couldn’t help the bright gleam of satisfaction within. He didn’t risk a glance at Alyce, walking beside him. It’d be too easy to share a conspiratorial smile with her. It would be too easy just to smile at her for no reason at all. Or look at her because he simply wanted to.

It’d been a mistake to kiss her last night … or was it this morning? A mistake to get involved with someone so crucial during a mission. But the twist of it was—he didn’t feel sorry at all. He wanted to kiss her again. Soon. Feel the heat of her, taste that spicy-sweet flavor of her mouth, know the strength of her will and her body.

Last night, she’d been with him through every step, every twist. Worked almost as well as any seasoned Nemesis operative—but she wasn’t. She had no training, the way he and the others had. Alyce was a bal-maiden in a Cornish mining town, but her adaptability, her willingness to take risks, her clever and sharp mind—not to mention her sharp tongue—revealed someone extraordinary. But the mission always had to come first, and nothing—and no one—should affect that. He shouldn’t want more of her. Yet he did, especially after last night.

Keep focused, damn it. It’s for
her
that you’re doing this.

“I heard the managers sent Hartley packing,” a woman chimed in, bringing Simon’s thoughts back from dangerous places. “Had Tippet stand in his doorway and give him thirty minutes to get his gear together, then ran him out of the village.”

Edgar spat on the ground. “Good riddance. That bastard never lost a chance to cheat us.”

“They’ll just find another toady to mind the store,” Nathaniel said darkly.

“Change might be coming.” This, from Henry, who’d been silent up until that point. “Couldn’t that be so, Simon?”

Simon gave a noncommittal shrug. “Lots of things could happen. Things we can’t know or control.” It was a little too early to play his hand.

“Maybe we’ve got more power than we know,” Alyce said, also breaking her silence.

He did glance at her then, slightly cautioning. She might’ve done a bang-up job last night, but she wasn’t a Nemesis agent, who knew how to keep secrets and led two lives as easily as most people led only one. A lone misplaced word, and everything could fall apart like a house made of wet paperboard.

Her mouth tightened, but she gave a little nod of understanding. A tough-willed woman like her wouldn’t take easily to being told what to do. In this case, though, she seemed to understand that his experience was their key to toppling the managers and owners.

But stealing the butter had served its purpose: getting decent food into the mouths of the workers, and gaining Alyce’s trust. A success on both fronts.

All the miners and workers continued on their long walk to the mine, talking of nothing except the butter and Harley’s scheming. Simon kept silent, and, thankfully, so did Alyce. She’d shown herself to be trustworthy, yet she was still green.

Finally, everyone reached the mining compound and its industrial sprawl—machinery and buildings spreading like thick scabs over wounds in the earth. The smell of damp minerals hung in the air. As the men and women broke apart into groups—the bal-maidens picking up their hammers and tying on their heavy aprons, and the miners off to the change house before heading down into the pit—Alyce drew close to Simon.

He ignored the quickening of his heartbeat as she neared him. He couldn’t ignore the shadowed circles beneath her eyes, though, or the squeeze of concern in his chest that she’d be working all day without any sleep.

“Don’t push yourself too hard today,” he said, low and gruff. “Swinging that bucking iron—you could hurt yourself.”

She gave him an indulgent smile. “Today’s not the first day I’ve worked on the dressing floor wanting sleep. I know how to keep from smashing my foot.”

His nod was terse. Alyce was a grown woman, capable of taking care of herself. He’d worked with colleagues—even female operatives like Eva and Harriet—in dangerous situations, always trusting them to see to their own safety. He didn’t abandon them when they were in need, but Nemesis functioned because of that mutual sense of skill and capability. Yet a strange feeling had been uncurling within him over the course of the night and morning: protectiveness.

It didn’t serve Alyce and it didn’t serve him or the mission to shadow her, second-guess her.

“A mine can’t be won through butter,” she pointed out. “There’s got to be more that we can do.”

“Already considered,” he answered.

She raised a brow. “Are we going to play I’m Thinking of Something, or will you tell me straight-out?”

“This isn’t a parlor game. Everything I do has its reasons. That goes for not revealing my plans, as well.”

Crossing her arms over her chest, she said, “Convenient for you, leaving us poor peasants to just do as you command without question.”

“Easy,” he said in a low voice. He didn’t look around, but he could feel the curious looks he and Alyce were attracting. He hoped the people nearby thought he and Alyce were only having a sweethearts’ tiff. “Not now. Not here.”

“When, then?”

“When I think it’s safe,” he answered. “I’ve done this more than you. You have to trust me when it comes to doling out information.”

Her frustration was a palpable thing, but she finally nodded. “Be careful,” she muttered.

A quick, painful contraction gripped his heart. “You, too.”

Without another word, she turned and headed toward the dressing floor, joining her fellow bal-maidens.

He wanted to chase after her to say his silence really was for her protection. But he had to get to the engine house. The workday had begun.

That night, he had even more work to do. There’d be no rest for him. Not for a long while. And Alyce herself both energized him and left him with a foggy head.

In London, he belonged to a gentlemen’s club and visited there often to hear the latest news and scandal. Several times, he’d found missions just by catching snatches of whispered conversations—brothels that catered to men who had a taste for children, political machinations that devastated whole communities. The club itself was over a century old, with dark wood paneling, deep leather chairs, the air scented with expensive tobacco and brandy. All conversation was kept to a polite, discreet murmur, and the servants moved as silently as liveried ghosts.

As he entered the engine house, with its clanging machines and smell of grease, he longed for a cup of his club’s strong coffee. It was going to be a long, long day and another long night.

*   *   *

There were few horses in Trewyn. Too expensive, and nowhere to keep the animals. Most of the horses were kept by the constabulary, making the beasts even more risky to steal. It was ten miles to St. Ursula, the nearest town with a telegraph office, and Simon had to trek each one on foot.

He’d managed to catch a few hours of sleep before slipping out of the bachelor lodgings unobserved. Nothing to complain about. He’d gone three days marching through the Transvaal with only a few scraps of sleep stitched together here and there, with the fear of attacking Zulus always gnawing at the back of his mind. Soldiers had been known to snap like twigs under the terror and deprivation. Not him. He’d pushed himself until they’d reached the safety of the outpost. And then he’d slept for seven hours, and reported for sunrise muster.

The Cornish countryside in the depths of night offered fewer risks—he didn’t worry that a rustling bush held warriors lying in wait. The only animals he encountered were sheep and goats, not black mambas, crocodiles, or huge, vicious hippos.

He kept his pace brisk as he passed darkened villages, other mines, farmhouses. Away from London, the sky dazzled with its lavish display of stars. Everything around him was still, shuttered. The decent people of central Cornwall were all abed.

Including Alyce. They hadn’t spoken much since that morning. That had been his doing. He didn’t need her for this next step. Better, in truth, that this journey was made on his own.

But, hell, he found that he
missed
her.

It didn’t make any sense—he’d traveled farther on his own without problem. His mind always buzzed with ideas, from recent Nemesis objectives to pretty widows he’d met at dinner parties to the latest news from the far-flung reaches of the British Empire. A long walk in the night wasn’t dull, either. He knew all the constellations, and could amuse himself for hours reciting or making up their legends. He was a man fully comfortable with being alone.

Not tonight.

Absently, he dug the heel of his palm into the center of his chest, as if soothing an ache.

He kept clear of open roads on the off chance he might meet some other late-night traveler, so he crossed open fields and dug his way through hedgerows. Lightly, he leaped over low stone walls, and climbed stiles. Finally, he saw the dark outline of St. Ursula ahead. No lights shone in any windows—but that wasn’t a surprise. Even though this town was bigger than Trewyn, boasting not only a telegraph office but an actual minuscule train station, it was still a modest little Cornish settlement. No one would be awake at two in the morning.

Still, he kept to the shadows along the high street. St. Ursula wasn’t a mining town, and it wore its prosperity in the form of well-paved avenues, a few shops with large, merchandise-stocked windows, three different pubs, and an inn. Nothing luxurious. Only serviceable. If he hadn’t just come from Trewyn, he might’ve thought St. Ursula to be a slightly shabby place—but he knew better.

He finally reached his destination, and quickly picked the lock to get inside. There was a counter, and behind the counter, a large piece of equipment sat upon a table. He headed straight for it and fired the device to life. The telegraph machine looked about ten years old, far from the recent advancements made by Edison, but it would suit his purposes.

Working by the watery moonlight coming through the window, he tapped out a message. Coded, of course. But the recipients would know exactly how to read it. Just as in three days he’d receive an encoded response at the St. Ursula telegraph office.

Once he completed his task, he set everything in the telegraph office back to rights. No sense in arousing suspicion in another town.

The whole business had taken less than half an hour, but he had hours ahead of him to return to Trewyn. Hopefully, he’d be back with enough time to catch a little more sleep before the workday began. But without Alyce’s presence beside him, the journey was cold, dull, and lonesome.

*   *   *

A knock sounded on the door just after Alyce had finished clearing the supper dishes. A quick, single rap upon the wood. She exchanged curious glances with Henry and Sarah. None of their neighbors called at this hour, and on the rare times that they did, their knocks didn’t sound so … cautious.