Zoë Archer - Sweet Revenge

Her eyes widened. “Don’t tell me. Tell our driver.”

Jack repeated his directions to the cabman, and they were off again.

They reached Church Street a few minutes later. Jack couldn’t stop the small bit of pride that swelled in his chest when he and Eva spotted Rockley’s carriage outside a two-story stone building. A brass plaque read CHELSEA GENTLEMEN’S GYMNASIUM.

“The ace up our sleeve,” Eva murmured. No mistake about it—respect shone in her eyes when she looked at Jack.

And he liked it.

“After this,” he said, “he always goes home to bathe. The driver might change the route up, but Rockley don’t care for being mussed.”

Which proved true. Though the hackney lost Rockley’s carriage on the return trip, when they reached his home on Grosvenor Street, they were just in time to see Rockley head inside.

Eva pulled out a folded sheet of paper. “This is Simon’s list of parties Rockley’s been invited to tonight. A dinner given by the industrialist Edward Cole. Another dinner, this one hosted by Lord and Lady Scargill. A ball at the home of Lord and Lady Beckwith.”

“He’ll bathe and change for his night out, then.”

They continued to wait. The sun had lowered itself behind the skyline, throwing long shadows, and the street lamps came on to push those shadows back.

“Can you stop shaking your leg?” Eva didn’t try to hide her annoyance.

He hadn’t been aware he’d been doing so, his leg restlessly jiggling. “I’m going round the twist, sitting here like this.”

“Distract yourself.”

“I can think of a way or two you could distract me.” He gave her a wicked grin.

“Goodness,” she said, yawning, “with that kind of poetry, what woman could resist you?”

“Not many did.” It wasn’t a boast, but the truth. He never lacked for female company.

She leaned forward, and lamplight filtered in through the glass, touching along the clean line of her cheek and the fullness of her bottom lip. He’d spoken automatically a moment ago. Making bawdy suggestions came naturally when you were from the shabby, low parts of town. Cheap and ready coquetry was thrown out like so much tinsel. It was a way everyone related to one another when life was tough and fast—the common currency of flirtation.

But he realized something just then. He wanted her. Not simply because he hadn’t had a woman in five years, and she happened to be handy. No, with her gold eyes, fancy words, and mind like a cutthroat’s blade, she set a fire to him, a fire that could only be quenched by discovering the feel and taste of her.

“Not many women resist you?” Her lips curled into a smile, causing heat to shoot to his cock. “Congratulations, Mr. Dalton. You’ve just found a woman who can.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Eva didn’t know whether her words were for Dalton or herself. A measure of both, she supposed.

She needed to remind herself that he served one purpose, and one purpose only: finding evidence of Rockley’s embezzlement, and with that, gaining restitution for Miss Jones along with the downfall of the nobleman. These alone were Nemesis’s objectives. She must think of Dalton as simply a means to achieve those objectives. He was no more than a lever or pulley in the construction of Rockley’s ruin, as other men had served Nemesis’s purposes before.

Yet, as he stared back at her within the dark confines of the hackney, the shadows and lamplight shaped him into a man both menacing and alluring. She didn’t know a man could be both. The flinty contours of his face could soften with a smile, the hard gleam of his eyes could glint with unexpected humor or feeling.

Impossible to deny the animal allure of his physicality, as well. He inhabited his body with full awareness. She already knew what he looked like without his clothing, and as she returned his gaze, she had an aching awareness of his big, strapping frame, of how flimsy everything seemed in comparison to him.

Perhaps she ought to have taken Simon’s advice and had him or Marco accompany Dalton today. No—just as she’d told Dalton, she was a trained operative who had been actively recruited by Nemesis. If she had an inconvenient attraction to him, she could master it. She could not let anything cloud her judgment.

“You go throwing out a challenge like that,” he rumbled, “I have to take it. Don’t forget, love, I broke out of prison. Getting into your bed won’t be as difficult.”

“Correct,” she said. “It will be more difficult. And it isn’t a challenge, but a statement of fact.”

“All facts can change.”

She nearly admired his audacity. Overcoming obstacles, finding the possible in the impossible—these were things that had drawn her to Nemesis in the first place. She never took the path of least resistance, and had to respect anyone who chose the same. But there were exceptions, especially when the resistance he faced was her own will.

“Something hasn’t changed, though,” he said, his gaze suddenly fixed out the window. “Rockley’s taking up one of the invitations he received.”

The man himself emerged from his house in evening finery, his shirtfront pristinely white, his black wool evening dress absorbing light.

She suppressed a groan. Her limbs were stiff and aching from a day spent in a poorly sprung four-wheeler, but it looked as though the night was far from over.

“Can’t aristocrats spend a quiet evening at home?” she muttered.

“This lot don’t have work or jobs,” Dalton said. “Not so far as I’ve seen. They got no reason to get up with the sun.”

“Which is it to be, then?” She peered at Rockley as he gave instructions to his coachman, but he was too far up the block for her to hear what he said. “Dinner with the industrialist? Will he dine with Lord Scargill, instead? Or is it the ball hosted by Lord Beckwith?”

Dalton grumbled. “This part I never knew. Always a different posh place each night.”

Her thoughts racing, Eva went over the list of names. She tried to place herself in Rockley’s mind, vile though that location was. He might take up the iron magnate’s offer, but she doubted Rockley wanted to associate with new money or men who made no secret of working for their wealth. Lord Scargill was a lesser nobleman of slim influence. As distinguished as the Carlton Club was, it permitted plutocrats who supported Tory causes as well as noblemen with ancient but trifling bloodlines. Rockley could have had enough interaction with those varieties of men whilst at the club. Yet Lord Beckwith was an earl, and while such titles were losing their importance, his hadn’t diminished.

“He’ll go to Lord Beckwith’s,” she said.

Dalton looked skeptical. “You sure?”

“No. But all we have at this point is instinct, and mine says Beckwith’s soiree. His mansion’s on Curzon Street.”

That seemed to mollify Dalton. He reached behind and slid open the door that allowed passengers to communicate with the cabman. “Oi, Palmer. We’re on the hunt for the toff again. Curzon Street.”

“Right you are, guv,” the driver answered with surprising cheer. As Rockley’s carriage pulled away, the cab followed.

Dalton sat back in his seat and crossed his arms over his wide chest. It shouldn’t astonish her that he’d learned the name of their cabman, especially considering they’d been with the driver all day. The two seemed to share the camaraderie of the working man, and though Eva’s own circumstances were far from luxurious, she could never have that common ground. She couldn’t deny its utility, though. The inducement of a guinea for a day’s labor might buy the use of a man’s time, but it couldn’t buy his goodwill. She had secured one, Dalton the other.