by Zoë Archer
“The night they hanged him, I found myself in a seedy little dockside pub, drinking and getting angrier by the minute. Since I’d left the army, I’d been…” He glanced out the window, but there was only blackness outside, the glass reflecting pale ghosts of her and Simon.
“Lost,” she filled in.
He nodded without looking at her. “There wasn’t anything to come back to but parties, gentlemen’s clubs, and drink. Perhaps marriage to some suitable, well-connected but meek girl and sire a line of children. Maybe go into law or medicine—but I felt too old to start over that way.”
She swallowed hard, thinking of the elegant girls that had probably been paraded before him. She’d heard the gentry conducted their courtships like horse fairs, trotting out the latest fillies in hopes of landing a rich bidder. It sounded awful—for everyone.
“And,” she added, “you’d been halfway around the world, fighting for your life every day. I’d think the life at home would be dull as blazes.”
“Dull,” he agreed. “Purposeless, too. Whenever I looked beyond the tidy gardens and marble-faced houses of my class, I saw that there were people living lives of degradation, poverty, hopelessness. Not just the poor, but all the people who’d fallen through the cracks. Shopkeepers and clerks working fourteen hours a day. Women going blind doing piecework. Girls standing alone on street corners, selling … selling whatever they could sell. Here I’d been to what were thought to be the most uncivilized places on earth, and yet I never saw as much suffering as I did in the great capital of London. Sickened me.”
He caught himself, and smiled ruefully. “Get me alone on a train in the middle of the night and I turn into a nattering magpie. You don’t need to know all that dull stuff.”
In truth, it was all she could do to keep from hanging on his every word, her mouth agape. This was the most he’d ever spoken of himself, and she found herself fascinated, learning things about him—not just where he’d been and what he’d done, but the hidden riches within him, like undiscovered ore, gleaming in the darkness. She couldn’t imagine many men of privilege thinking about those without such advantages, or caring about them.
Yet she had a feeling if she begged him to reveal more of himself to her, he’d close up like a strongbox—and she didn’t have the skills to pick the lock.
“How far to Exeter?” she asked instead.
“Forty miles.”
“Not much else to do besides talk. And if I’m going to be working with the lunatics of Nemesis, I need to know more about them. You said you and some other lads met in a tavern…” she prompted.
“‘Lunatics’—an apt term. We didn’t know each other at the time, Marco, Lazarus, and I, but drink and anger loosened our tongues. It seemed a gross miscarriage of justice that the man who’d been wronged was the one punished. The law and society had failed, so we decided we’d take matters into our own hands.”
“Did any of you know the executed man?”
“Only from what the papers had told us.”
She frowned. “Then why risk yourselves on his behalf?”
“Because no one else gave a damn.” His hand curled into a fist that pressed tightly against the armrest. “If it wasn’t us, then nobody would care.”
The heat of his words startled her, as much as the feelings behind them. It was impossible to miss how much he truly cared. He was a gentleman. Born into the ranks of the elite. The world belonged to him and men like him. Everything was weighted in his favor. Yet that wasn’t enough for Simon.
“You didn’t … murder the landlord, did you?”
He scowled. “We never kill in cold blood.”
“Not an entirely comforting answer,” she said, shivering.
“Some things can’t be avoided.”
Logically, she knew he’d been a soldier. And one who’d fought at Rorke’s Drift, where the Zulu casualties had been enormous. Simon had killed before—that was part of his job as a soldier—but to kill in peacetime, here, in England … He seemed ringed by a new shadow of danger. Not to her, but to the world at large. He had the appearance and manners—when he chose to use those manners—of a highborn gentleman. That was only one facet of a much more complex truth.
“Then tell me what you did do to get revenge on the landlord,” she said.
He drew a breath, as if calming himself. “Marco’s a government intelligence man,” he went on. “Knows everything and everyone. He got us in touch with Harriet. Nobody can work a financial ledger or the numbers of a banking account like Harriet. She helped us set up a ruse. Got the landlord to invest in a sham scheme.”
“And it fell apart.”
For the first time in a while, he smiled, but it was a cold smile. “The bastard lost everything. His money. Possessions. Ownership of the tenement. Found himself out on the street just like William Vane. Last any of us had heard, he was begging outside Charing Cross Station and sleeping in a rented pile of straw in Whitechapel. But he could be dead by now.”
He shrugged, unconcerned about the fate of the greedy man. Alyce discovered she didn’t care about the landlord’s fate, either, but she felt a dark satisfaction knowing he’d been punished, and that Simon and his colleagues had been the ones to make the punishment happen.
“We found a new landlord for the tenement, too,” Simon added. “One who charged a fair rent. And that was Nemesis’s very first mission. We didn’t know it at the time, or have a name for ourselves, but we’d started something and didn’t want to stop. Dealing out vengeance. Righting wrongs at any cost.”
He straightened at the sound of the train carriage door opening. A weary ticket collector appeared and held out his hand.
Simon presented their tickets. The collector eyed Alyce for a moment, and, though she wanted to glare back in defiance, she made herself look at her lap like a shy wife.
“Bit late for a woman to be out,” the collector noted.
She wanted to snap that it was none of his business, but Simon spoke first.
“We’ve eloped.” Simon took her hands in his, running his thumb over her fingers, especially the band on her left hand. She glanced up to see him looking at her with warm fondness, mixed with barely suppressed desire. Heat blossomed across her face. The look seemed so genuine, exactly how an eloping groom might look at his new bride.
It’s all pretend. He might want me, but that’s all it is. Lust and opportunity.
The ticket collector gave a soft snort as he punched their tickets. “Enjoy these weeks, lad, for they won’t last.”
“It’ll be different with us,” Alyce heard herself retort.
“Whatever the missus says.” Then the collector ambled off toward the other end of the carriage. He grunted as he pulled open the door connecting cars, and suddenly there was a loud whooshing sound and the clack of the wheels. Then the door slid shut, and the carriage fell silent again.
Simon smiled at her. “I’m glad you have so much faith in our marriage.”
She sniffed. “Who’s that old buzzard to tell us about our happiness. Maybe we’ll be the happiest damned couple in England.”
“For the next few days, in any case.”
Right. It was all make-believe, as real as the prince and princess with tinsel crowns and a paperboard castle. She wouldn’t let herself feel deflated. She could play this game, too. Like any Nemesis operative.
Even so, she kept her hands clasped in Simon’s, telling herself it was because she had no gloves and his hands were so warm.
“And that’s how Nemesis came to be,” she said.
“Harriet’s the one who came up with our name,” he explained. “Nemesis—the goddess of retribution against evil deeds. It was she, too, who urged Lazarus, Marco, and me to spread the word on the street about us. Whispers here and there. Before we knew it, we had people searching us out, begging for help because no one else would. We don’t take every case—it’s just not possible. Haven’t got the manpower or financial resources. But since then, we’ve added a few
more members. Eva. Desmond. Riza. Jack.”
“So you’re not all highborn.”
He laughed, and she admired the strong column of his neck. “God, no. Jack’s a convict from Bethnel Green. Harriet’s a clerk. Eva’s parents were missionaries. Lazarus was an enlisted man for three decades. Desmond and Riza’s parents taught piano and singing. Marco’s father is some industrialist. Went to Cambridge, though. And he’s the craftiest bastard you’ll ever meet.”
“What do your families think of all this? Of Nemesis.”
He looked appalled. “They know nothing about it. We all keep it a secret. My father thinks I amuse myself at an office a few days a week, moving papers around and acting important but bored.”
“You think he’d be embarrassed.”
“‘Embarrassed’ wouldn’t cover it. More likely ‘mortified’ or ‘humiliated.’ He was ashamed when I decided to enlist instead of buying a commission. I can only imagine his enraged paroxysms if he ever learned about Nemesis.”
She stared at him. He’d enlisted. Like a commoner. “But … if it’s so important to you, I don’t see how it’s possible to keep something like that hidden.”
“We’re not exactly models of filial and paternal attachment, my father and I. I wasn’t the heir, not even the spare. He left me to my own devices—and I took advantage of that. When we do occasionally meet, we’re acquaintances who share a last name, nothing more.”
Did he hear the chill in his voice, the disappointment? She’d never spent much time considering the lives of the highborn—why torment herself with something she couldn’t ever have?—but never did she think that they could be so cold toward one another, that there wasn’t … love. They had wealth and privilege in abundance, but it just hid a hollowness. A glittering shell covering nothing.
Then he laughed again and shook his head. “Clever lass. Got me to blather on about myself, when I said I wouldn’t.”
She offered him her own sly smile. “Maybe I’m better suited to this skulduggery than either of us figured.”
“That wouldn’t surprise me,” he said warmly, making it sound like a compliment. “Not in the slightest.”
* * *
Alyce didn’t realize she’d fallen asleep until she felt someone gently shaking her. Blinking, she looked up into Simon’s face—not a bad way to wake up, even if her mind felt swaddled in fog.
“Time to rise, my bride,” he murmured. “We’ve arrived.”
The train had, in fact, stopped, and she squinted out the window to see a large platform and train station beyond the glass. A sign hung from one of the girders, proclaiming EXETER.
She rubbed her eyes and struggled to her feet. Simon cupped her elbow, smoothly guiding her to stand. He took their bags down from the rack, then offered her his arm. There was hardly anyone around, and yet he continued to play the role of attentive husband. She told herself that it was just an act, and she oughtn’t like it too much. Even so, a little ember glowed in her chest as they got off the train and emerged onto the platform of the Exeter train station.
It wasn’t much more populated than the station at St. Ursula. A large clock suspended from the metal beams overhead showed the time to be just after three in the morning. The newsagent’s kiosk was closed, as were the other shops in the station. A few men milled around, including some porters and a constable—which made her nervous for some reason.
“We’ve got nothing to fear,” Simon said in a soothing, low voice, his breath brushing her cheek. “Just a happy eloping couple.”
The constable actually gave them a smile and nod as he passed. Alyce exhaled.
“Just the same,” Simon continued, leading her through the station, “let’s not dawdle.”
They progressed through the building until they wound up on the street. She would have wagered that no carriages for hire would be around at this hour, but the moment she and Simon stepped out onto the pavement, a little two-wheeled cab rolled up, drawn by a single horse with a driver perched at the back.
“Take you someplace, sir?” the cabman asked.
“Hotel Imperial,” Simon answered. He helped Alyce into the cab, his hand steady on her waist, then placed their minimal luggage on the floor of the carriage before settling himself in and shutting the door. As soon as he’d taken his seat, the driver snapped the reins, and they were off.
“Don’t know how you managed to find a hired carriage at this time of night,” she murmured.
“Eva thinks I’m blessed by the god Cabicus. I just have to step into the street, and suddenly, hansoms and hackneys appear.”
She didn’t doubt it. An air of possibility clung to him—that if he wanted something, he simply willed it into being.
But she didn’t say anything, conscious not only of his thigh pressed against hers, but of the strange city they drove through. It was late, the streets almost empty, but the gas lamps were still on, revealing the storefronts and fenced parks. Exeter may as well have been on the other side of the world. It was so much bigger than any other place she’d been to, with orderly paved streets, shops after shops, signs announcing important businesses. The buildings had imposing stone fronts, some with elegant arches, balconies with wrought-iron railings.
She couldn’t stop herself from gasping aloud when they passed the most magnificent building she’d ever seen. She nearly fell out of the cab as she strained to take it all in.
“Exeter Cathedral,” Simon explained. “Driver,” he called up, “slow down for a moment.”
She braced her hands on the edge of the cab window and stared. There were fancy words to describe the different parts of the cathedral, words she didn’t know, and didn’t care to know. But the elaborate flowerlike central window, the rows and rows of holy figures standing imposingly above the door, the soaring towers—all of it left her awestruck.
“How old is it?” she asked.
“I think the final building, this one here, was built around 1400. Not much of an Exeter historian, so I don’t know more than that.”
“They made all this without modern tools.” She shook her head. “The things faith can move us to do.”
“Madness or inspiration,” he said quietly. “There isn’t much difference between the two.” He rapped on the side of the carriage, calling up to the cabman. “Drive on.”
“Thank you,” she murmured as they drove away.
His brows rose. “For what?”
“Stopping the cab so I could get a better look when we’re short for time.”
He smiled softly. “I’d make a poor guide if we came to Exeter without viewing the cathedral.”
Her lips curled. “No doubt you think I’m a terrible rustic, gawking at everything.”
“Never put words in my mouth or thoughts in my head,” he said with surprising heat. “I don’t believe that at all. You’ve lived your whole life in a small village. Why would I expect you to be unimpressed by an old and beautiful cathedral? Intellectual curiosity—that’s the most important thing. You know who’s bored or jaded? Narrow-minded dullards. Don’t need that kind of person around. I’d be worried if you didn’t care.”
He fell silent, and she wondered if she’d struck a sore spot. Remembering how he’d described his upbringing, she thought he was probably encouraged to act just that way—uninterested, cynical, world-weary. Yet Simon was anything but those things. And he had probably been rebuked for it.
The cab rolled on for a few more minutes through the streets of Exeter, occasionally passing men and women pushing carts, a lone man out by himself, or dustmen already making their rounds. The buildings grew finer and finer, and Alyce more and more uneasy, until the cab pulled up in front of a three-story building with a grand red and gold awning, and brass banisters on either side of its carpeted front steps.
“Hotel Imperial,” the driver called out.
Simon hopped out of the cab, paid the driver, and handed Alyce down to the curb. After grabbing their bags, he offered her his arm. She took it and toget
her they went up the steps. Through the glass doors, she saw the lobby of the hotel, its floor thickly carpeted, plush armchairs near a white stone fireplace, even tall plants in big Chinese vases. No wonder they called this place the Hotel Imperial. It looked like an emperor’s shiny palace.
The gaslights had been turned down to burn low, and when Simon tried the door, they discovered it was locked. He pressed a little button by the door. Within seconds, a man in a sleek suit appeared.
The man’s ready smile faltered when he looked at Simon’s and Alyce’s clothing. He paused in the act of unlocking the door.
“Can I help you, sir?” the man asked through the glass.
Despite his workman’s clothing, Simon stood tall and spoke with his gentleman’s voice, polished and clipped. “The Blaines are expecting us.”
The manner of the man behind the door instantly changed. He quickly unlocked the door and waved them in. “Of course, of course! Can I get you and your wife anything? Some tea for the lady? Something a little stronger for you, sir?”
“Just the Blaines’ room number,” Simon answered.
“Number 302,” was the reply. “If you like, you can ascend in our elevator.” The man gestured proudly toward what looked like one of the cages used to send miners down into the pit, except this metal box was sparklingly clean and covered in brass scrollwork.
“We’ll take the stairs,” Alyce said.
“As you wish, madam. If you just give me your bags, I can show you up.”
“That’s not necessary.” Simon pressed a coin into the protesting man’s hand, and the protests quickly faded.
“Have a pleasant evening,” he said after pocketing the money. Then he backed out of the lobby and ducked behind a swinging door, smiling all the while.
Alyce glanced at Simon. “I’m starting to see the benefits of being a part of Nemesis.”
“It’s not all smart hotels and obsequious servants,” he said, climbing the stairs.
She followed, eyeing the pretty framed pictures on the wallpaper-covered walls, the vases of fresh flowers on tables at each landing.
