Kate Cross - Touch of Steel

“Nell, what are you doing in Berlin?” She looked over the woman’s shoulder, expecting to see another familiar face—one wearing a smirk—but there was no one there. That shouldn’t be as disappointing as it was, damn it.

“Picking up,” her old friend replied, releasing her. “You?”

“The usual.” She wasn’t at liberty to discuss her assignment with non-Wardens. Not even former ones.

“Understood.” Nell adjusted the handkerchief that covered the top of her head and was anchored by her braids. “You all done or still working?”

That was something of an odd question, but Evelyn supposed her old friend asked because she had catching up on her mind. It was late—very late—but she wasn’t tired, and it was good to see Nell.

And Nell could tell her all about Mac and rip those old wounds open again. Maybe throw a little salt in for good measure.

“I’m pretty much done. Just a lecture planned for tomorrow and then back to England. You?”

“We’re to set sail before dawn.” Nell began to walk, so Evelyn fell into step beside her. “I’ll walk you back to your lodgings. Where are you staying?”

Evelyn told her. Her German was atrocious, but she attempted it regardless, “Der Lowe und Der Lamm.” The Lion and the Lamb. It wasn’t a W.O.R. hotel, or even one sanctioned by the Schatten Ritters. It was the hotel she and Mac once stayed in. The same room as well. She told herself she had requested it because of the view.

It truly was an astonishing view.

“Is that place still t p1em">

Evie didn’t respond. The hotel was a beautiful old stone thing and she loved it, but she wasn’t about to say so in case her companion decided to share that information with her captain. Just the fact that she was staying there revealed more than she’d ever want him to know.

Instead she asked, “How is everyone? Did Barker get those new teeth he wanted?” The memory brought a smile to her lips.

Nell snorted and nodded. “He did. Can’t get him to stop smiling now. McNamara’s become a grandfather, and Esther and Dirty Joe finally jumped the anvil.”

This was news indeed! “I thought he said he’d never marry her.”

“He did. Then she decided that maybe she wouldn’t marry him. That changed up his mind right quick.”

“Yes, I imagine it would,” Evie replied with a grin of her own.

“I suppose you wouldn’t have heard that we lost Good Jock.”

The grin slid from her face. Jock’s real name had been Jacques le Bon, hence the foolish but suitable nickname. During their brief acquaintance he had taught her many of his grandmother’s natural cures and remedies, some of which she often used. One had led to the discovery of the accelerated healing liquid she kept in the medical facility at Warden headquarters.

“No,” she murmured. “I hadn’t heard. How did it happen?”

“Garroted by one of those Bear Bastards.” “Bears” was what most agents in Europe called their Russian counterparts.

“I’m so sorry. I know how much Ma . . . you all loved him.”

Nell nodded, obviously ignoring her near slip. Mac would hear about that too, no doubt.

God, she couldn’t seem to stop thinking about him—even before Nell found her. Maybe it was this city, where they’d made such bittersweet memories, or maybe it was the fact that every time she slept with a different man she was all the more aware that he was not the man she wanted. Nell’s appearance was definitely a stick poking an infected wound.

Shouldn’t it have healed by now? It had been years. She should be over him rather than pining for him like her grandmother had supposedly pined for her English lover.

Nell continued to talk about other crew members, but not the one Evelyn really wanted to hear about. She listened raptly, laughing and tearing up in tandem as she heard about their triumphs and sorrows.

She looked up and saw her hotel in the near distance. Soon this meeting would be at an end. It would have to be. If Nell came into the building with her, there was a good chance the older woman would be recognized and more than likely taken into Warden custody. The Wardens didn’t much care for pirates, and after Evie left Mac, that was exactly what he and his crew had become, turning their backs on Crown and country.

“You’ll tell Mac how sorry I am about Jock, won’t you?” Evelyn asked, finally allowing herself to say his name.

Nell stopped walking, so she stopped as well. “You can tell him yourself.”

Surely she hadn’t heard that correctly. Her heart was beating so loud, it was hard to tell. “What did you say?”

The other woman’s expression turned sympathetic. “I’m sorry, Evie. I need you to know I was against this from the start.”

Cold settled in Evelyn’s chest. Claire would have had a weapon in hand by now; so would’ve Arden. She just stood there, stupid. “Against what, Nell?”

Out of the dark alley just behind Nell emerged two more familiar faces—Barker and Wells. Barker with his leathery face and kind brown eyes. Wells with her hair so red, it looked to be on fire and eyes bluer than the waters around Jamaica. They didn’t look happy.

Two more came up from behind her. She couldn’t tell if she knew them or not. So someone had been watching her. It just hadn’t been Franz.

Sloppy, Evie, she told herself.

“If it’s ransom you want, you know the Wardens won’t pay it.”

“We don’t want money, my girl.”

Then what? Evelyn pulled her blade free once more. She couldn’t take them all, but she could wound a couple of them badly enough that they’d feel it for the rest of their sorry lives. She’d start with Nell, her betrayer.

Evelyn lunged with her dagger but barely made it two steps before she felt a sharp sting in her side, followed by a jolt that dropped her to her knees on the cobblestones. They’d shocked her. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t really think. Couldn’t do anything but twitch. At least she hadn’t soiled herself.

Nell’s face loomed over hers. “I’m really sorry, darlin’. I mean it.” She pressed a white cloth over Evelyn’s face.

Chloroform. Bloody brilliant. She’d have someone’s head for this. Maybe his heart, too. Or his spleen. She’d remove them while he was still conscious. She’d—

She woke up with a mouth that felt as though it was lined with cotton wool and muscles that pinged as though they’d been denied blood. At least she was on a bed and her limbs weren’t bound.

Evelyn moved her head on the soft pillow. It smelled delicious—vanilla and nutmeg. Some of her favorite memories involved a man with that exact scent. Often he’d join her in bed, his skin tanned yet smooth, hair damp from the bath, and she’d bury her face in the hollow between his neck and shoulder and take a deep, intoxicating breath.

She was in the middle of just such a breath when the reality of the situation struck her. She was on a bed that smelled of Mac. Beneath the pounding of her heart she could hear engines—a gentle whump , whump that never failed to lull her into slumber.

Bloody hell, she was on the Queen V !

Her attempt to launch herself off the bed ended with her strengthless carcass being dumped on the rug. d o

She grasped the edge of a window and peered out. The muscles in her thighs trembled, but held.

Clouds. Not fog but clouds. They were in the bloody sky. She knew it. She just knew it!

Closing her eyes, she swore silently until she ran out of foul words. It took three languages for her to pull herself together. She should have known that meeting Nell wasn’t just a coincidence. It never was.

Why did they put her in this room, though? Of all the rooms about this vessel, why did she have to wake up on the bed she’d slept in for months during one of the happiest times of her life? Everywhere she turned there was something of his—a discarded shirt, a pair of shiny brown leather boots, a straight razor with a pearl handle she’d held in her own hand more times than she could remember.