by Zoë Archer
The bedroom door opened and Simon whirled around. Disappointment was a ball of lead in his chest when he saw it was only Harriet.
“How many gowns is she going to need?” Harriet asked.
“Three. Two suitable for traveling and visiting, and one for dinner.”
From somewhere in the bedroom, Alyce cursed softly. “You didn’t say anything about dinner.”
Simon smiled to himself. “It’s the last meal of the day. Roast meat is usually served.”
Harriet grunted as Alyce shouldered past her and stalked into the parlor. Alyce didn’t seem to notice that she was wearing only a corset, a corset cover, and petticoats, leaving her arms, neck, and upper chest all bare and shockingly creamy. But Simon noticed.
He shot a quick glance over at Marco. Sophisticated as Marco was, even he stared at a partially dressed Alyce, his pen hovering over the paperwork.
“I know what dinner is,” she snapped. “I didn’t know it was part of the scheme.”
“We’ll have to dine with the owners at one of their homes to make sure that everything goes according to plan,” Simon explained. He had an urge to tear the crocheted throw off the back of the sofa and cover her with it, or perhaps punch Marco for daring to look at her. He also wanted to stare at her for hours. Not once would he have suspected that she had a tiny, caramel-colored beauty spot just above her collarbone, as if her Maker had very helpfully indicated an excellent place to kiss her. “This isn’t going to be a problem, is it?”
“Unless rich folk eat with their toes, I can manage a fancy meal,” she answered. “No need to worry I’ll embarrass you.”
“That’s never a worry.”
“What about her accent?” Marco asked. “It’s pure Cornish village.”
“Not only dresses can be altered,” she replied.
Everyone started, for the rough edges of her natural accent had softened, the rs becoming gentler, the ts more firmly pronounced.
She smirked at the shocked expressions on their faces. Continuing in the same, more refined tone, she said, “I’ve heard the managers speak hundreds of times. Quite easy to copy, really. And I’ve done it a few times. Give the other miners and bal-maidens a good laugh when I ape the managers. ‘We shan’t take any more of your impertinence, Miss Carr. You are a discredit to your sex.’” She placed her hands on her hips, clearly—justifiably—proud of herself. The movement highlighted the bareness of her arms.
Simon had felt the strength of those arms before, but never seen them uncovered. Though her skin was smooth and milky, little curves of muscles adorned her biceps and triceps, and more muscle shifted beneath the skin of her shoulders. This was not a weak woman.
He respected the mental and physical strength of the women in Nemesis, but their potency never stirred him the way Alyce’s did. She would—and had—matched him. Word for word. Step for step. Pushing him back when he pushed. A clash like that, between two people who never backed down …
Heat settled in his groin.
Stop it, he snarled at himself. Doesn’t matter how much I want to run my mouth over her shoulders. Or hear that note of challenge in her voice. As far as he was concerned, he was an astronomer and she a distant star.
Harriet surveyed Alyce’s arms critically. Alyce jerked back when Harriet gave her bicep a squeeze.
“Good thing I brought long gloves,” Harriet said, and clicked her tongue. “We’re going to have to cover these.”
Alyce’s eyes widened when she finally realized she was wearing only her underclothes and standing in a room with two men who were assuredly not related to her. She spun on her heels and hurried back into the bedroom. Harriet followed, closing the door behind them.
“Intriguing woman,” Marco murmured, “your Miss Carr.”
“Shut up and keep forging,” Simon answered.
* * *
He watched the icy sun crest the Exeter skyline, glazing the façades and rooftops with pale light, but hardly breaking through the wash of clouds and haze that hung over the city. Streetlights were turned down. Shopkeepers appeared at their front doors, stamping their feet in the chill as they unlocked the entrances to their businesses. Young maids of all work in coarse woolen cloaks hurried down the street so they could light the fires and have tea ready for their masters and mistresses. Men and women pushed carts stacked with rags, or bottles, or fish, or cheese. A thin boy with a broom stood at the street corner, ready to sweep or hold horses, in the hope of a coin or two.
Morning in any city in England.
Even here, in this university town, he didn’t doubt Nemesis was needed. Girls were trapped in brothels. Laborers weren’t paid for their work. Wives felt the brutality of their husbands’ anger and fists. But Nemesis couldn’t protect everyone, couldn’t bring to justice all who’d done wrong.
He braced his hands on the window and stared out at the street. “There are too few of us. And it never stops.”
Marco’s pen continued to scratch across paper. “There’s an Italian saying: Chi non fa, non falla.” His mother’s language ran smoothly from his tongue. “‘Those who do nothing, make no mistakes.’”
Turning around and leaning against the sill, Simon asked, “You go to sleep every night, content that you’ve done all you can?”
“I’m never content.” Marco didn’t look up from his work. “None of us are. If we were, we’d be morons. Or government employees.”
“You are a government employee.”
“My name doesn’t appear on any payroll. I’ll never receive commendation, official or unofficial. And spies have terrible pension plans.”
“So you’re a moron,” Simon said, grinning.
“Oh, quite.” Setting his pen down with finality, Marco stretched his neck and cracked his knuckles. “A talented one, however.”
Simon approached the desk. He let out a low whistle when he saw Marco’s creation. “That should be framed and displayed at the Royal Academy.”
Holding up the document, Marco sighed. “It quite breaks my heart to part with it.”
“But for a good cause.”
The door to the bedroom opened, and Harriet came out. “Did I hear that our masterpiece is ready?”
“You did indeed,” Simon confirmed. “And what of your own handiwork?”
“That’s finished, as well. Alyce?”
The woman who emerged from the bedroom was entirely Alyce. Same sharp features, same clear, direct gaze, same straight-backed posture. But her hair had been dressed in a sophisticated chignon rather than a plain bun. Small pearls adorned her earlobes—the first time Simon had ever seen her wear jewelry aside from the faux wedding ring. Her old wool dress had been replaced by a slim, stylish traveling gown of dark green moiré trimmed with gray velvet, and a flare-waisted bodice snug around her curves. She rustled as she stepped into the parlor, the result of her petticoat and bustle.
He’d never seen her in a bustle before. Fashionable as she looked, he missed being able to see the sway of her hips and her natural shape.
“Well, I think it’s lovely,” she said, smoothing her hand along her skirts.
He realized he must have looked a little disappointed because she wore a bustle. “It is. You are.”
“You’ve made your own—what’s the word for it?—metamorphosis.” Her gaze traveled up and down him, her expression midway between appreciation and caution.
While Marco had been busy with his forgery and Harriet had altered a wardrobe for Alyce, Simon had donned one of his own suits. The gray wool with a burgundy silk waistcoat wasn’t an especially lavish ensemble—he was supposed to be a solicitor, after all—but compared to his coarse machinist’s clothing, he knew he looked a damned sight more modish. These clothes had been custom-made, and the gentleman in him secretly reveled in the excellent fit. He didn’t miss his heavy work boots, either, liking how the lamplight gleamed on the fine leather of his short ankle boots.
He’d also put a bit of macassar oil into his hair and combed it bac
k, as well as given himself a fresh shave using a basin and ewer.
“Is this your natural state?” she asked.
“I have no natural state.”
“Nobody’s more unnatural than Simon,” said Marco.
“And nobody’s more fond of his own voice than Marco,” Simon replied. “Which is a shame, because he brays so, like an Italian donkey.”
“Asino,” Marco corrected.
Harriet gave a very unladylike snort, which she didn’t appear to regret at all.
But Alyce wouldn’t be distracted by their badinage. “The truth, now,” she said, unsmiling. “Is this how you usually dress?”
“Depends on the hour of the day, where I am, the occasion. I wouldn’t wear this after six o’clock in the evening, and never to the races. Or the country.” He took a step closer. “But I also wear a navvy’s tattered jumper or the filthy apron of a man who works in the stockyards. Whatever the mission dictates.” He shook his head. “They’re only clothes. None of it matters, compared to the person wearing them.”
She glanced down at her dress, her hands hanging at her sides as if ready to pluck the gown from her body. “This feels strange. I feel like I’m being crushed.”
“That’s the corset,” Harriet said.
But Alyce shook her head. “No, it’s as if I’m not myself.”
“It’s a costume,” Marco said. “We wear them all the time, just as Simon said.”
“You’ll be playing a role,” Simon added. “But it’s still you underneath all this. Some moiré and velvet doesn’t change that.”
This made her smile. “Of course you know the special names for these fancy fabrics.”
He shrugged. “I speak English and aristocrat. Only one of those languages makes actual sense.”
“Ladies and gentleman,” Marco broke in impatiently, “if we’re done playing Myra’s Journal of Dress and Fashion, I have to catch a train back to London in the next thirty minutes.” He stood and pointed to the document on the table. “I’ve used the signed paper Simon gave me to create the corporation for the miners.”
“Is that legal?” Alyce asked.
“It’ll hold up in a court of law,” was Marco’s elliptical answer. “You see that you’ve signed to become a member and representative of the corporation.”
She bent closer, studying the paper. “So I did. Didn’t know it at the time.”
“Simon can be … opaque … at times,” Harriet said wryly.
“Transparency is for people with nothing to hide,” he said. “And we all have something to hide.”
Marco cleared his throat, clearly annoyed. “The tour’s almost over and the boat’s returning to shore, so everyone, basta.” He produced a leather portfolio and pulled out more documents. “These are the papers that the mine’s current owners will sign.”
“Transferring ownership from them to the miners’ corporation,” Simon added.
Alyce frowned. “There’s no reason why they’d do that.”
He smiled, feeling the electric anticipation of a good hunt. “We’ll give them a reason.”
* * *
Marco dashed off soon after, and Harriet helped pack up the trunk containing their clothing for the next few days.
“Mind,” she said, pointing at Simon, “in Plymouth, you’ll have to get one of the hotel’s maids to help Alyce dress. She can’t get in and out of these things on her own.”
Alyce pressed a hand into her waist, glowering. “No woman would cheerfully lace herself so tightly. I swear this corset’s crushing my innards into mash.”
Simon could only offer a sympathetic grimace. “Never worn one myself.” But he’d removed his fair share, and they seemed like elegantly designed torture implements. Women always gasped in relief whenever he’d peeled their corsets off. He’d never understood why anyone would willingly subject themselves to that kind of pain. But then, most women didn’t have a choice.
“If men had to wear corsets,” Alyce said darkly, “they wouldn’t exist.”
“Truer words were ne’er spoken,” agreed Harriet. They both glared at Simon as if he personally had decreed that women must be subject to steel cages wrapped around their torsos.
“Our train leaves shortly,” he said.
While they packed, they discussed the plan for when they arrived in Plymouth. The scheme was complex and as winding as the tunnels of Wheal Prosperity—and fraught with just as much darkness and peril. Fortunately, he and the rest of Nemesis knew their way around in the dark. Only Alyce remained the untested element.
Once the final details were outlined, they were able to finish packing and clear out of the hotel room with a minimum of trouble. Simon donned his hat and overcoat, and Alyce wore a smart little ribbon-trimmed hat as well as a dolman coat. In the mirror, they looked the very picture of upper-middle-class respectability. Reflections of people neither of them were—which pleased him.
A porter brought their trunk down, and the concierge hailed Simon, Alyce, and Harriet a hackney for the ride back to the train station. All the while, Simon kept a careful gaze on Alyce. She held herself with straight shoulders and, despite her complaints about the corset, showed no visible discomfort. She even easily navigated the tricky business of sitting in the cab while wearing a bustle—though she confessed Harriet had shown her the proper way to sit when a strange metal cage was strapped to one’s backside.
“Fashion’s a bizarre creature,” Simon murmured, half to himself. “Especially when it comes to women’s bodies. One day, they wake up, and boom, they’ve sprouted enormous buttocks.”
“Or we suddenly decide to move our waists a few inches higher or lower,” Harriet added. “or make them wider or smaller. Simply on a whim.”
“Fashion doesn’t come to Trewyn,” Alyce said. “No suddenly giant arses or waists beneath our armpits. Just as long as we show up and leave work clean, and wear our best on Sundays, who can be bothered?”
“I’d say that you’re lucky,” Harriet noted dryly. “But it’s never a sign of luck when Nemesis shows up.” She shrugged. “Women are clay, shaped and molded as others want us to be.”
“What if,” Simon said, “one day, women rose up and declared, ‘No more. We won’t wear these ridiculous garments anymore.’”
Harriet looked thoughtful. “No more corsets.”
“Trousers instead of skirts.” Alyce sounded excited by the idea.
Simon grinned. “Now that’s an intriguing notion.” He tried to picture Alyce in a pair of trousers. He’d be able to better see the shape and strength of her legs as she moved. No limitations as to where she could go. And … he had to admit … it would offer a fine view of her arse.
He decided he was in favor of it. He was becoming as revolutionary as a member of the Rational Dress Society.
Harriet snorted. She must’ve seen the lascivious turn in Simon’s gaze. “Trust a man to take something that’s supposed to liberate women and turn it into something lewd.”
“How else would we know he’s a man?” Alyce asked.
“Give me a chance,” he said in a low voice. “You won’t be in any doubt about my masculinity.”
Though Alyce reddened, she didn’t look away. One of the many reasons he was growing more and more obsessed with her. She never yielded. They continued to gaze at each other across the narrow space of the cab’s interior.
Harriet loudly cleared her throat, breaking the thick atmosphere. “I’d rather not have this hackney burst into flames before we reach the train station.”
For his own self-preservation, Simon looked away from Alyce first.
Harriet continued. “Marco was bloody disappointed he couldn’t handle this part of the mission. You know how he loves a good confidence scheme, the scoundrel. But he’s just taken on a new case—something involving a widow being cheated out of her inheritance—so it’s up to you two, now.”
“Eva and Jack?” he asked.
“Already waiting for you in Plymouth.”
Alyce’s brows rose. “You Nemesis folk do keep yourselves busy.”
“Wish we didn’t have to,” he answered, and he fought again that sense of a mountain slowly, inexorably bearing down on them, he and Nemesis armed only with tiny shovels.
“But you’re trying,” Alyce said, “which is a damned sight more than most people do.”
He only shrugged. There had been people helped by Nemesis who’d thrown around terms like “hero” and “savior.” All of those words he pushed away like a plate of bad oysters.
“One other thing,” Harriet added, and the caution in her voice made him sit up straighter. “The last couple of weeks, there’s been a young investigator from Scotland Yard sniffing around Nemesis. Asking questions in some of the disreputable parts of the city about a secret group of, I think the words he used were, ‘Those that think themselves above the law.’”
Simon rolled his eyes. God, the very last thing Nemesis needed was a Yard man determined to make his name through some investigation concerning them. “I wager he wears a cheap checked suit and has an amply waxed mustache.”
“His suit’s black, and he’s trying so very hard to grow a mustache, but alas,” Harriet said with a pitying look at Simon’s own bare upper lip, “not all men are capable of such a masculine feat.”
Alyce glanced back and forth between Simon and Harriet. “You should be more worried about this investigator. What if he digs up the truth? It’d be a quick trip but lengthy stay in prison for the lot of you.”
“He’ll be managed,” Harriet said with easy conviction.
Though Alyce looked skeptical, she let the subject pass. In truth, Harriet’s news tied a small knot of apprehension in Simon’s belly. No one in Nemesis could afford exposure. And if they became public, the lives of those they’d helped would likely be torn open, too. Then there were those people Nemesis would be unable to help in the future because they group had been unmasked.
It was something to gnaw over. Something that would have to be handled.
But not just yet. The hackney pulled up in front of the train station, now a hive of activity, and it was time to move on to the next stage in this mission.
On the platform, Harriet gave him a nod and shook Alyce’s hand. “No need for me to wish you luck,” Harriet said.
