Zoë Archer - Sweet Revenge

“It was six years ago, love. I didn’t write it down in my journal.” He hated admitting to anyone that he couldn’t do something, especially her, but there was no use in pretending he could dredge up the names of men he barely met and from so long ago.

“Another go at the punching bag?” Harriet suggested. “That might help you recall them.”

“I could punch this building down to splinters,” Jack said, “but it still wouldn’t help me remember.”

Eva frowned in consideration for a moment, then set her coffee down on the floor. She walked over to him and took hold of his wrist.

Memories from last night seared his brain. Easy to think of her gripping something else on his body with that same remarkable strength. Reasonable thought drained out of his head and went south.

When she said, “Come with me,” and pulled him toward the stairs leading to his bedroom, his brain stopped working altogether.

She wants to do this now ?

So what if she bloody well does? You’re not going to stop her.

An ugly thought crept into his head—she had to know the effect she had on him. Was she using that to manipulate him? Make him more biddable? He needed to be cautious, particularly because his wits seemed to cloud whenever she was near him.

When they reached his room, she let go of his wrist and went quickly to the small table. Not the bed. Opening a drawer in the table, she pulled out some paper and a pencil.

He held up his hands and shook his head. “Not touching that stuff. I thought we already proved that I’m no good at writing and thinking.”

“Because we were going about it the wrong way.” She indicated the chair in front of the desk. “Just take a seat, Mr. Dalton—”

“Jack,” he said. “Since you had your arse up against my meat and veg, it’s only polite to call me by my name.”

She glared at him. Heat climbed up his neck, and he realized what he felt was shame.

“That was…” He searched for the word. “Crude of me. I had a rubbish night, and I took it out on you.”

“I’m not a delicate lily,” she said, “but I won’t tolerate anyone being disrespectful.”

“You shouldn’t,” he answered.

Slowly, the hot anger in her eyes cooled, and she nodded.

He found himself strangely anxious, oddly yearning for her to speak his Christian name. No one had said it in years, and he wanted to hear it from her lips, in her voice.

“Take a seat,” she said after a moment, then added, “Jack.”

It was a peculiar thing, this mix of gratitude and desire. For to listen to her say his name gave him back a part of himself, a personal, hidden part kept safe from the rest of the world. He wasn’t Diamond Dalton, the hired muscle. He wasn’t D.3.7., the convict. He was … himself.

And it was intimate, too. Watching her lips shape his name, hearing it with that refined accent of hers, in her low, husky voice. As though they were lovers.

Hard to remember his caution when thoughts like that filled his head.

With some difficulty, he sat at the table. She set the paper and pencil down in front of him.

“We’re going to try a different method to help you remember these men,” she said, standing behind him. He stared at the blank sheet of paper, her nearness making his own mind as empty as the page.

“Start with a face,” she continued, “or something else you remember about each of the men that used to meet with Rockley. Could be anything. The mole on his cheek. The kind of waistcoat he wore. If he had a deep voice or a high one. It doesn’t matter if it seems important or not. Whatever pops into your mind. Write it down.”

“And if I can’t remember anything?”

“You can.” She placed her hands on his shoulders, and there went his brain again, fizzling away. “You were able to think through and recall Rockley’s schedule yesterday. I know you can do this.”

“I—”

A clock somewhere in the house chimed ten.

“Damn,” she muttered. “I have to go. We’ll continue this when I return at five.”

He stood as she hurried toward the door. “The hell are you going?”

“My other life.” With that, she was out in the corridor and down the stairs. Jack stood on the landing, listening as she spoke briefly with Simon.

“Want me to flag a cab?” the man asked.

“God, no. I’ve already spent more than I should on hired carriages. There’s an omnibus that’ll take me right to Sydney Street.”

“What about Dalton?” Simon asked in a low voice. “Does he have the mental capability to do what we need?”

Though Jack wanted to leap down the stairs and plant his fist in Simon’s face, instead he strained to hear Eva’s equally quiet response.

“He’s far more intelligent than anyone gives him credit for. Including himself.”

The door opened, then shut.

“Did you get all that, Dalton?” Simon called up the stairs.

“Especially the bit where you’re a needle-pricked nob,” Jack called back.

There was a pause. Then, “Get to work, Dalton.”

“Go bugger yourself, Lord Cuntshire.” Jack stalked back to his room. Just because he could, he slammed his door. He hadn’t had a door to slam in years and it felt damned good, if petty.

With Eva gone, restlessness seethed through him. He paced the small bedroom, sometimes stealing glances at the sheets of paper on the table. They seemed to mock him, those pieces of paper, taunting him with the fact that he couldn’t remember any of the men who’d gone into Rockley’s study. It hadn’t been his job to pay attention to those toffs. But somewhere in their ranks was the one man who’d lead them to the incriminating evidence. Who?

There’d been that one bloke, the one with the bushy eyebrows. He’d met with Rockley on an unseasonably warm day in March, dabbing at his low, sweaty forehead with a handkerchief embroidered with the initials JSY. “A glass of lemonade, Young?” Rockley had asked, laughing.

Young!

Jack strode to the table and wrote the name down on the paper. As usual, his writing looked more like an animal’s claw marks than actual letters, but he could read it. He stared at the name in shock.

She’d been right. A piece of recollection at a time, and it led him to the name.

For the next hour, he ran himself through the process of picking through his memories, like a dustman sifting through heaps of debris, searching for anything valuable. He’d catch a glint here and there, the reflection off the sheen of a particular memory, and clean it off until at last he came up with a name.

Columns of names now filled two sheets of paper. He held them up as though he’d conjured them from magic, and, in a way, he had.

Striding to his door, he flung it open and hurried downstairs. Simon and Harriet sat at the parlor table, several newspapers spread out before them. They both looked up, equally guarded, when he appeared.

Jack shook the papers in his hand. “Got enough brains to write up a list of thirty-four names.”

“Excellent, Mr. Dalton,” Harriet said, plainly surprised.

Simon, however, looked skeptical. He held out his hand. “Give it here.”

“Eva sees it first,” Jack said.

“She won’t be back until five.” Simon glanced at the clock. “Hours from now. We don’t have time—”

“Eva and then the rest of you lot.” Jack didn’t know why he wanted Eva to be the first to see his handiwork, but it felt vitally important.

He didn’t let Simon answer. Turning, Jack thundered back up the stairs and into his room, giving the door another satisfying slam. Even with banging the door shut, Jack couldn’t get calm or settled. He paced around his small bedchamber, trying to distract himself until Eva returned from … wherever it was she went.