Zoë Archer - Sweet Revenge

Jack knew she was doing it as a lark, but the sight of her fluttering her lashes and giving herself an innocent look sent a twist of hot need right through him. Maybe it was because he knew she wasn’t any such thing as innocent, but whatever the reason, he spun around and busied himself with finding his new jacket so he wouldn’t face the temptation she offered.

She tugged on her coat, then pulled a watch from the pocket. “It’s nearly quarter past twelve, which doesn’t give us much time to get to Rockley’s home before he sets out for the day.”

“Wait.” Simon grabbed a sheet of paper, then scrawled something on it. He shoved the paper toward Eva, looking as happy as if he’d eaten boiled rat. “My society contacts confirmed that these are the gatherings Rockley’s been invited to tonight. He could go to all of them or none.”

She looked over the list, then folded it neatly and tucked it into her handbag. “Are you ready, Mr. Dalton?”

“I’m ready.”

He’d put on his coat and done up the buttons of his collar. He knotted a simple tie around his neck, conscious of her gaze on his hands. With her watching him, his fingers felt thick and clumsy.

These clothes were a bit better than the doll’s rags they’d stuffed him in yesterday, but he still wasn’t comfortable. It wasn’t the clothing that made him feel squeezed. Punching on that jury-rigged bag had helped burn off a small bit of his restless energy, but not enough. Not nearly enough. He wouldn’t feel at all easy until Rockley was dead.

And he couldn’t feel calm in Eva’s presence. As soon as he’d clapped eyes on her today, he’d been on edge, nerves strung tight. It didn’t make sense. He knew plenty of women. They didn’t ruffle him. Usually, all he had to do was give a female a look or crook his finger, and they’d come running. And if they didn’t want him, it didn’t matter. There were always more women.

The only reason he could figure was that he hadn’t really been around a woman since before he got sent up to Dunmoor.

That wasn’t true. Before Eva had shown up earlier, he’d been around this woman Harriet. She might be a few years older than Jack, but she was handsome and had a good figure. He didn’t even blink when Harriet was around.

But Eva had him tied up. He was all knots.

And now he was going to be alone with her.

“Don’t you have a hat?” She looked critically at the top of his head.

Most decent gentlemen didn’t go out of doors without a hat. He’d favored a smart bowler before he’d gone to prison. A swell topper for a gent without too many airs.

“Everything I’m wearing now was given to me by you lot.”

“We’ll have to find you something suitable. No use making you look even more like a ruffian.” She sent another disapproving look at his uncovered head.

He resisted the urge to smooth his hands over his hair. He’d wet it down earlier, but he’d been due for a haircut from the prison barber, and his dark curls resisted efforts to be tamed.

She stepped to the front door. Simon looked as though he wanted to raise more objections, but a cutting glance from Eva made the nob shut his trap. That wasn’t the kind of look someone just knew how to give, not without experience in giving it. What was that other life Eva had mentioned, the one she needed to protect? It was a mystery he wanted to solve.

“Coming, Mr. Dalton?”

Jack’s heart beat hard within his chest. He was about to go outside, truly outside, into the London streets. Him and Eva, on their own. Two days ago, the most excitement Jack had in his day was whether or not he’d find a maggot in his ration of meat. Now he was back in London. Stalking the man he wanted dead. With a beautiful, thorny woman at his side.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” he said.

* * *

The pounding of his heart didn’t ease once he and Eva stepped outside of the chemist’s shop. Nor when they got into a hackney cab and headed off toward Mayfair. It only got worse, his heart like a drum hit by a mallet. He saw all the familiar sights of London, all its parks and churches, squares and omnibuses and carts and people. In the daylight, the city was just as filthy and splendid as ever. He couldn’t decide if he wanted to drink it all in or tear everything down.

Daylight hours meant that Eva couldn’t be seen riding in a hansom, so they’d hailed a four-wheeler. The growler was bigger than a hansom, and had a musty smell and threadbare squabs, but it still felt too small and didn’t offer much room, especially for a man Jack’s size. It seemed even smaller than the carriage they’d ridden in during his escape from Dunmoor. Now he’d shift and bump against Eva, reminding him of her presence. As though he ever forgot her. She spent much of the ride to Mayfair watching him with that too canny gaze of hers. It fair set his already tight nerves closer to snapping.

“Waiting for me to either make a run for it or tear your clothes off?” he rumbled.

“I know a number of ways to disable a man,” she answered, “so I’m prepared for either eventuality.”

“Don’t that set my heart at ease.”

“It wasn’t supposed to.”

He lapsed into a moody silence, staring out the dirt-streaked windows as they traveled west. The streets got wider, the people walking down them more posh. Coachmen drove pretty broughams and elegant landaus, the passengers radiating self-importance like overdressed suns. He’d never seen a landau until he started working for Rockley. He hadn’t known such luxury existed.

Mayfair was exactly the same place of spotless marble and shining glass, broad streets that made a body feel insignificant, and servants walking their mistresses’ tiny dogs. Nothing had changed. Which he supposed was the point. Street trash like Jack and Edith Dalton were blown about, consigned to rubbish heaps and forgotten. These here were gentry folk with ancestors going back to the time of … he didn’t know about any long-ago kings, but doubtless Rockley’s family had been employed hundreds of years past as the Royal Arse Wipers, and they were damned proud of it, too.

What was it Rockley said to him once? He’d been dressing in his evening clothes, or rather, his valet had been dressing him. Rockley had stared at himself in the mirror the way a hawk might admire its own feathers, and drawled, “There’s nothing more permanent than blood, Dalton.”

“Whatever you say, m’lord,” Jack had answered.

The bastard had been referring to ancestry and heredity, but he could have been talking about the other kind of blood. The kind that flowed in his veins, the kind that spilled out of Edith, stained the floorboards, stained his memories. That was permanent, too.

Jack’s gaze kept flicking toward Eva. She said they were going to follow Rockley, but what if she had something else planned? She’d already said that taking him to the coppers was out, but maybe she had some other scheme in mind. He needed to stay vigilant around her.

The cab came to a stop on Grosvenor Street. A few footmen minding the front doors sent baleful glances toward the hackney, but no one chased them off.

“That’s it.” Jack nodded out the window to a house in the middle of the block. “Rockley’s place.”

Eva leaned forward to gaze out the window, as well. Her fresh, light scent took away some of the mustiness of the cab, and he breathed it in. Still, it wasn’t enough to quiet the clamor within him. Because he was sitting in a hackney halfway down the block from the home of his sister’s murderer.

There were fancy terms for the columns and little projected roof that stood outside Rockley’s front door, but Jack didn’t know them. The door itself had been polished so much it was a black mirror, reflecting the swept front steps and street. Two potted trees stood on either side of the door. Tall windows set in the stately brick faced the street, the curtains inside pulled back to let in Mayfair sunlight. The first time Jack had seen the place, he’d been struck dumb. People truly lived like this? And yet they also were crammed ten to a room in Bethnal Green? How could it be possible? But it was.