Zoë Archer - Sweet Revenge

Dalton snarled, his gaze darting back and forth between Simon and Marco. Then back to her. “Where’s Rockley?”

“Not here,” she replied.

“Tell me where he is.” Menace poured from Dalton in waves, and Eva wondered if she truly was going to use her revolver. She didn’t want to. Shooting a man could be loud and messy, and complicate things unnecessarily.

“In London, I presume.”

“I was told—”

“That Lord Rockley was staying here,” Marco supplied. “It’s what is known as baiting the trap .”

Dalton moved far more quickly than his size would suggest, and too quickly for even an experienced shot like Eva to fire. One moment, he stood near the window, hands upraised. The next, he had Marco on the floor, one hand around Marco’s throat. Marco fought against him, but Dalton’s sheer size and brawn rendered Marco’s training almost useless.

Simon got himself behind Dalton and looped his arm around Dalton’s neck. He grasped his wrist to capture Dalton in a headlock.

Stepping close, Eva placed the muzzle of her Webley against Dalton’s temple, making sure that, if she had to fire, she wouldn’t hit her colleagues.

“If you want your chance at vengeance,” she said, low and quick, “release Marco immediately.”

Slowly, Dalton’s hand uncurled from around Marco’s throat. The only sound in the room came from Marco, dragging air back into his lungs and coughing. Simon kept his arm tight around Dalton’s neck, slightly loosening the pressure so the convict would not asphyxiate.

“Go sit on the bed, Mr. Dalton,” Eva commanded. “And I ought to warn you, this gun of mine has been complaining for weeks that it hasn’t had a drop of blood. Do not give me a reason to satisfy its thirst.”

Dalton stared at her from the corner of his eye. This close, she could see that his eyes were the color of darkest coffee, verging on black. A feral intelligence shone in his gaze, like a wolf learning the ways of man in order to stalk and kill human prey.

He had enough astuteness to recognize that he had to comply. He nodded tightly.

Simon released his hold on Dalton and stepped away. With that peculiar savage grace of his, Dalton rose up. Marco scrambled to his feet, rubbing at his throat and scowling.

Eva edged back, not wanting to be within striking distance of Dalton. And his size made her distinctly uncomfortable. She was not a small woman, nor especially delicate, but she knew with absolute clarity that Dalton could snap her into matchsticks.

He sent her a glare, then walked toward the bed. As lightly as he moved, his boots still shook the floorboards. She had heard that the boots of prisoners were especially heavy, weighing as much as fourteen pounds, as if trying to pin them to the ground. Yet the sheer muscle mass of Dalton seemed to rattle the whole inn. Did the governors of prisons realize that hard labor turned rough men into weapons? Dalton’s arms appeared to be as thick and tough as coiled rope.

Approaching the canopied bed, he eyed it warily.

“Sit,” she ordered.

Teeth gritted, he did so. Strange—he looked almost uncomfortable. Eva had sat upon the bed earlier and felt its plush softness. One could have a very good sleep there. Or a very pleasant night with the right company.

Realization struck her. For the past five years, Dalton knew only his crude bed in Dunmoor Prison. At best, that meant a straw mattress on an iron-slatted frame, with coarse woolen blankets for warmth. Such luxury as this feather mattress and the fine-combed cotton bedclothes must feel alien to him, or worse, a taste of comfort he had not experienced in a long time—if ever.

She shook her head. Dalton was a means to an end. Likely he would crush the life out of her without a moment’s hesitation. She could not afford to feel sympathy for him, or endow him with a sentiment he probably didn’t feel.

In his filthy and torn prison uniform, radiating animal energy, he presented a strange picture as he sat upon the rosewood bed, lacy fabric hanging from the canopy. Everything looked impossibly fragile in comparison.

“Talk,” Dalton growled. “Tell me who you lot are, and how you know my name.”

She almost smiled at this. The gun was in her hands, and yet he had the boldness to issue a command.

“We know all about you,” she replied.

“There’s a file at headquarters,” added Simon. He held his fingers an inch apart. “This thick.”

Eva had studied the file thoroughly, including the photograph from Dalton’s admission into prison. Sometimes, prisoners fought against having their pictures taken, since it meant having their face on record. More than a few photographs showed prisoners contorting their faces to disguise their features, or being held down by force. Not Dalton.

He had stared at the camera boldly, defiantly. Take a good look, his expression seemed to challenge. The countenance of a man who had nothing left to lose.

But he did have something to lose. Eva and her colleagues counted on it.

“Headquarters.” Suspicion sharpened Dalton’s gaze. “You’re coppers?”

“Strictly a private organization,” she said. “We operate entirely outside of official channels. No one in the CID or government knows we exist.”

“Which is precisely how we want it,” Marco added.

“Mercenaries,” Dalton surmised.

Eva smiled a little at that. “Of a sort.”

“So, Rockley hired you to lure me out of Dunmoor.” He snorted. “Couldn’t kill me behind bars, so he finds a way to kill me on the other side of the wall.”

“We do not work for Rockley,” she insisted, voice tight. The very idea that they would work with someone like the baron filled her with a toxic sickness.

“Then who do you work for?”

“A girl. You wouldn’t know her.” She kept her gun pointed at him. He would be waiting for her to drop her guard, but that was not going to happen. “About a month ago, this young woman, whom I’ll call Miss Jones, was mostly wickedly seduced and abandoned. Her reputation was destroyed. Now she and her parents seek restitution, which we will help obtain.”

“Some gentry mort falls for a line, winds up on her back, and I’m supposed to care?”

“The ruin of any woman isn’t to be taken lightly.” Simon spoke through gritted teeth. “And she isn’t gentry. Just a merchant’s daughter.”

“Little difference.” Dalton shrugged. “Girl gets charmed into opening her legs, winds up with a bastard child or nothing at all. And the gent goes about his merry business. Not saying it’s right, but it’s an old story.”

“This time,” said Eva, “the story will have a different ending.”

“Cheers if you can make the cove pay.” Cynicism dripped from Dalton’s voice. “But what happened to the girl ain’t my business.”

“It will be,” she answered.

He crossed his arms over his chest, and the coarse fabric of his shirt pulled against his muscles. Both Marco and Simon were exceptionally fit men—their work demanded it. But Dalton possessed an animal strength, brutal and uncivilized. Simon, Marco, and her other male colleagues were trained warriors. Dalton was a beast.

“Love,” he rumbled, “I’ve got the screws hot on my tail. They’ll be here in an hour—”

“Less,” Marco said.

Dalton shot Marco a glare before returning his gaze to Eva. His words had been terse and impatient, but the way he stared at her made her think he hadn’t seen a woman in a very long time.

“So either speak plain or shoot me,” he continued, “’coz I don’t plan on lingering.”

She drew a breath. “The man who seduced Miss Jones is Lord Rockley.”

Dalton’s arms uncrossed as if readying for battle. His smirk fell away, replaced by cold, brutal hatred. Even knowing the details of Dalton’s history, she had not fully anticipated seeing such naked enmity, devoid of all pity. A shiver struggled to work its way through her body, but she ruthlessly suppressed it. Dalton was the sort of man to exploit any weakness. She could show none.