Zoë Archer - Sweet Revenge

“It won’t be easy,” Olney answered, frowning at Jack’s trousers. “But I’ll get it done. Nemesis helped me out when those men were demanding protection money, and I owe you all a debt of thanks. Mind,” he added, giving Jack an up-and-down look, “this chap’s terrifically big. Getting evening clothes to fit him properly will be a challenge.”

Jack was about to tell Olney that the British prison system had made him this terrifically big, but decided that the fewer people who knew about his time at Dunmoor, the better. At least the tailor didn’t ask too many questions.

“There’s no better tailor in North London,” Simon replied. At least the smile he gave Olney looked genuine.

The tailor reddened from the praise. “Too kind, Mr. Addison-Shawe.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll just … get back to it, shall I?”

Simon waved his hand, the kind of gesture rich folk seemed born knowing how to do. Olney immediately returned to his work.

Or tried to. “Sir,” he said to Jack with a strained smile, “I can’t measure your legs properly if you hold that stance.”

Jack bristled. “This is how I always stand.” His legs were braced wide, and he balanced on the balls of his feet.

“You’re standing like a boxer.” Simon pushed away from the counter and paced around the shop. “Bring your legs closer together. Closer,” he snapped when Jack shifted slightly.

“I feel like a sodding fool,” Jack growled. Once again, he was out of his element, an ignorant outsider—and the one person he felt slightly comfortable with was all the way on the other side of town. “This whole scheme’s ridiculous.”

The haughty look on Simon’s face slowly changed, becoming almost kind. “I remember the first time I was fitted. Couldn’t have been more than seven or eight. Everyone was very cross, shouting at me not to move, telling me how to stand. My father was … displeased.” Simon’s mouth twisted. “He expected better from an Addison-Shawe.”

Jack stared at Simon for a moment. He hadn’t been expecting that. Especially not from Simon.

Frustration dimmed. “So, I stand like this?” Jack asked, changing his stance.

Simon considered his posture, then nodded. “That will suffice.” He returned to the counter and carelessly flipped through a magazine.

For a while, the only sounds in the shop came from the scattered traffic outside and the hum of the sewing machine inside. Olney continued to pin and mark what would eventually become Jack’s evening clothes.

He’d never owned a special suit for going out at night before.

“If this party we’re going to tonight is so flash,” Jack said, “does that mean Eva’s got to wear some fancy gown?”

“I suppose,” Simon answered from behind his magazine.

Jack recalled the women at the ball from the other night, in their frothy gowns, delicate as frosted cakes, and tried to picture Eva in something similar. But she seemed too hard-boiled for things like lace fans and silk flowers. He smiled to himself, imagining her striding into a ballroom, bold as brass, with a pistol tucked into her velvet sash. Maybe she’d make it a pearl-gripped pistol, for formal occasions.

“She got a man?” he asked.

Frowning, Simon lowered the magazine. “Eva’s private life is her own.”

“So,” Jack said, raising one eyebrow, “you don’t know.”

“Of course I know. As much as she tells me,” Simon added on a mutter.

“Keeps herself close.” Jack watched as the tailor continued to make adjustments on his clothing, little nips and tucks whose purpose only Olney seemed to understand.

“Trying to get her to open?” Now it was Simon’s chance to lift a brow. “I’ve news for you, Dalton: it won’t work. Eva’s the toughest woman I know. Hell, she’s the toughest person I know, male or female.”

“Someone hurt her,” Jack guessed. “Someone in her past.” The thought made his fists clench with the need to beat the bastard, whoever he was.

“Nothing so melodramatic. She simply…” He shrugged. “She doesn’t trust many people. That’s how she’s always been. The most unsentimental woman I’ve ever met. Won’t form intimate attachments.”

It sounded very much to Jack as though it meant Eva didn’t have a man. Which made him glad, indeed.

“You tried, though,” he said. God knew that if Jack worked side-by-side with her, day after day, he’d try to form an intimate attachment. Hell, he’d only known her for less than a week, and he couldn’t stop wondering about the taste of her lips, the texture of her skin. His nights had become damned restless because of her.

Just because she kept everyone at arm’s length didn’t mean she lacked desire or passion. He’d seen it, felt it. But she couldn’t keep it buried forever.

Simon straightened, tugging on his coat. “I might have. But she rightly pointed out that people who work together oughtn’t mix the personal and professional.”

Jack snorted. “Maybe it’s on account of her type not being polished toffs. Maybe she needs someone a bit more rough around the edges.” He studied himself in the mirror, in his strange piecemeal evening clothes.

“Dalton, if you were any more rough, you’d be serrated.” Simon’s reflection appeared in the mirror behind Jack. They couldn’t be more different, him and the fair-haired nob. Even the easy way Simon wore his perfectly tailored, fashionable clothes showed how unalike they were.

Jack never let himself feel ashamed or small because of his low background. He couldn’t change the particulars of his birth. Nobody picked who their mother was going to be, whether she was a genteel lady or a whore. Far as he could tell, there wasn’t much difference between either. Both were just women. Neither good nor bad.

Fathers were even more unpredictable. He didn’t know who his was, and neither had his ma. Could’ve been a navvy who dug trenches to build roads, could’ve been a lord looking for cheap pleasure far away from Mayfair’s knowing eyes. Whoever he was, he never knew that his one night with Mary Dalton eventually brought Jack into the world.

It didn’t matter. All that mattered was who Jack was now.

He’d spent the past five years wanting only one thing—to destroy Rockley. That hadn’t gone away. But a new fire burned within him, just as bright.

He desired Eva. Wanted her to want him.

Uncharted territory, this. She might not fancy him. Could give him the cold shoulder. That’d be a bad business.

He’d just have to make sure she wanted him in her bed.

Looking into his own eyes, he vowed that he would succeed in all his goals.

* * *

Jack had faced off in the ring against Iron Arm McInnis, a bruiser with a 35–0 record. He’d taken on three blokes armed with knives and broken bottles in an alley brawl. Hell, he’d confronted the possibility of death or imprisonment as he’d walked, manacled, into the courtroom.

His heart beat harder now than it ever had. He thought it would burst through his chest, right through the starched shirtfront he wore.

Pacing around the parlor in the Nemesis headquarters, he kept checking the clock on the mantel. She’d be here any moment.

He started to rake his hands through his hair.

“Don’t!” Marco yelped. “You’ll get pomade all over your gloves.”

Jack’s hands paused in midair, then he slowly lowered them. “Never going to get used to this,” he muttered. Pomade slicking his hair back, white gloves, starched collars and shirtfronts. Slick-soled shoes that gleamed like ebony mirrors. The kind of clothes worn by the upper crusters he’d see through doorways, windows. Not his own sort.

“You don’t have to get used to it,” Lazarus said, sitting beside the fire. “It’s only for tonight.”