Zoë Archer - Sweet Revenge

“Logic and precision ain’t my usual way of doing things.”

“And you wound up in prison as a result.”

He cursed under his breath. “Got a point there. But it don’t make me skip with joy.”

“I’m…” She appeared to labor to speak. Her gaze slid away from his. “I’m sorry.”

He stared at her. Grudging as her words had been, they seemed genuine. Maybe this ice palace of a woman wasn’t as cool as she let on.

They rode on in silence, following Rockley through the city. Jack already knew where they were heading. Toward Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where Rockley’s man of business kept offices. The hackney journeyed from Mayfair’s wide, dignified streets into the bustling heart of London’s legal world. Men wearing sober coats and dour expressions paced up and down the avenues, sheaves of papers bound with red cloth tape tucked under their arms.

“Tell the driver to park on Portugal Street,” Jack said. “We can ditch the cab there and keep an eye on Rockley from a little shop on Portsmouth Street.”

“That way Rockley’s driver and guard won’t see our hackney again and get suspicious. Wise thinking.” She repeated Jack’s instructions to the driver, who did as he was told.

They got down from the hackney. Jack was about to hurry down the street when Eva hissed at him, “Offer me your arm, damn it.”

Right. Even without him wearing a hat, they’d attract less attention if it looked like they were a couple out on errands together.

Feeling strangely clumsy, he held out his arm. She looped her arm with his, her hand resting lightly on his sleeve. He could barely feel the pressure of her fingers upon him, but he sensed them anyway. Heat crept up his neck and spread across his face.

They walked briskly down the street. She matched his stride easily. Just as he’d known, Rockley’s carriage had parked outside the red-brick building that housed the offices of Mr. Mitchell, his lordship’s man of business. The coachman waited with the vehicle.

“Where’s Ballard?” Eva asked.

“Waiting outside Mitchell’s offices.” He held open the door to the crooked little shop perched on Portsmouth Street, and she stepped inside. Neither of them paid attention to the clutter of goods piled up on every available surface. Both he and Eva stared out the shop’s window. It offered them a good view of the front of Mitchell’s building.

“Doesn’t that attract attention?” She peered past the copper pots and china mugs lined up in the shop window. “Not many gentlemen walk around with hired guards.”

“I got a few queer looks, but no one said anything. Rockley’s the heir to some huge title and estate. If he wanted to walk around with a peacock on his shoulder, wasn’t nobody going to tell him he couldn’t.”

“He’s the Duke of Sunderleigh’s son,” she said. “That title goes back to the time of the War of the Roses.”

He frowned, pictured the flower sellers in Covent Garden firing mortars at each other. “An old title, then,” he guessed.

“One of the oldest. I suppose if he had a few odd habits,” she murmured, “they’d just be dismissed as the eccentricities of the elite.”

“Like killing girls.” He fought the bile that climbed his throat.

“Or ruining them, with no one to stop him.” She glanced up at Jack. “But we’ll stop him.”

“There’s no extra security out front,” he said, trying to get a hold of his rage. “If there’s something, some piece of evidence, that Rockley’s trying to protect, it’s not here.”

She nodded. “He’d station more guards wherever he keeps his documentation of his misdeeds.”

“He should just destroy any evidence, if it’s going to link him to a crime.” He picked up a tiny china box, the outside painted with flowers so fat and mean-looking he expected them to have teeth.

The shopkeeper came bustling forward. “Can I assist you, sir?”

“No,” Jack snapped. The man jumped.

“That is,” Eva said, her tone soothing, “my cousin and I are simply perusing right now. We will be certain to ask for your assistance should we need it.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The shopkeeper hurried away, looking almost grateful to make his escape.

Eva glanced at Jack as he put the little box down.

“What?” he demanded.

“I’m not going to play Pygmalion with you,” she answered. “But you’re going to have to smooth down your manner.”

He didn’t know who that Pygmalion lady was, and wasn’t about to ask. “It never hurt me before.”

“You lived a different life before, where being unseen didn’t matter. But now”—she gave him a look that started at the top of his head and went all the way down to the toes of his boots—“a great big unmannerly brute of a man is the kind that shopkeepers tend to notice and remember. We don’t want anyone recalling you, should they ever be questioned. And if we want information from anyone, they’re more inclined to give it if we deal with them courteously.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Ought to think about being a teacher.”

To his surprise, she tensed, and seemed wary. “Why do you say that?”

“Lecturing comes natural to you.”

She gave a quick glance to make sure no one in the shop was looking their way, then, certain they weren’t being watched, she made a rude hand gesture at Jack.

Which startled a laugh out of him. And also attracted the attention of his groin. Something about seeing a prim and proper lady giving him the two-fingered salute made for an intriguing contrast. It made a bloke think about what other kinds of naughty things the lady knew.

“But no,” she continued, “Rockley wouldn’t destroy any evidence about the government contract. He couldn’t have gone into the deal alone, and he’d want to keep documentation as leverage in case anyone tries to cross him.”

“You’ve got your hands around my neck, but I’m gripping yours, too.”

“Exactly.”

They continued to watch the front of the building that housed Mitchell’s office. Foot traffic sped by, carriages and wagons in the street, and an occasional customer came into the shop.

“Never heard what Rockley and Mitchell talked about,” he said. “Like I said, if he’s in for fifteen minutes, it’s a normal day. Ten if Mitchell has good news.”

“He might be in there longer today. Rockley knows you’re out, so he may be making special provisions.”

“A will, if’s he’s smart.”

Several minutes later, Rockley came out of the building, with his hired man in the lead. As before, Rockley got into the carriage and Ballard climbed up beside the coachman.

“How long has it been?” Jack demanded. He didn’t have his pocket watch any longer to keep track of the time.

She consulted her own watch. “Fifteen minutes.”

“He’ll be going to the Carlton Club next, then.”

“We need to get back to the cab now,” Eva said.

They left the shop, and Jack was fairly certain the shopkeeper muttered a little prayer of thanks to have them gone. Fortunately, the hackney driver had decided they were a ripe pigeon to be plucked, and still waited for them on Portugal Street. Eva jumped into the cab with the same speed and strength she’d demonstrated since Jack first had met her. As he climbed in after her, he realized with a start that he’d only met her yesterday. Seemed like much longer than that. A half-dozen lifetimes, at least.

“Stay with that carriage,” she called up to the driver.

In an instant, they were off again. It didn’t seem as though Rockley, his hired muscle, or his coachman noticed the hackney in pursuit.

“I get the feeling our cabman’s done a spot of tailing before this,” he muttered to Eva.