by Zoë Archer
“His father must’ve been furious,” she murmured.
“That’s what Simon told me. Wouldn’t take his letters for nearly a year. Of course,” Eva added, “the next year, buying commissions was abolished. All that wrath for nothing.”
Another chill pierced Alyce as she imagined a younger Simon writing letter after letter to his father and having them all refused. A complete rejection. “Did he know that they’d get rid of the buying of commissions?”
“There’d been rumblings, but naturally Simon wouldn’t wait. The cheeky bastard had to make his statement.”
Which seemed so much like him that Alyce nearly laughed. It did seem to be something he’d do, just to prove a point, just to show the world that he did whatever he liked, and centuries of privilege wouldn’t stop him. And of course he wanted to be with the enlisted men. This was the same Simon who now worked for Nemesis, shoving his shoulder against the giant stone wheel of injustice. Not because it benefited him, but because it was right. And if he got to break a few rules—perhaps even a law or a nose—along the way, so much the better.
Digging her spoon into what was now turning to lemony slush, she said, “Does he … in London, is there…” She winced inside at her faltering words. “Does he have a woman?”
“It won’t be much of a comfort to you if I said that he didn’t.”
“Does he have a woman or not?”
“He doesn’t.”
Knots released themselves from Alyce’s shoulders and stomach. Then they returned when Eva stopped walking and faced her. The wind tugged at the ribbons of the other woman’s hat, but her expression was grave. And when she spoke, there was a curious note of compassion in her voice.
“Having a dual existence plays hell with romantic relationships. They can’t last under the strain.”
“They might,” Alyce countered. “With the right people.”
Eva gave her another cool smile. Had she always been this aloof, or had her work with Nemesis made her this way? Either way, it felt bloody strange to talk about romance with a woman as chill as New Year’s morning.
“You seem decent,” Eva said. “Simon trusts you—a minor miracle in itself. He looks at you like a thirsty man desperate for wine. Never seen him gaze at a woman the same way. I see the way you look back, just as thirsty.”
At this point, there was no sense in denying it. Alyce didn’t like to lie, either. But she didn’t speak.
“To win his heart, it’d take someone very extraordinary,” the other woman continued. “I’d wager he thinks he hasn’t a heart to win. But he does. With its own needs, its own cravings.”
“And those are?”
“Passion, strength of character. But being in Nemesis comes with a curse.”
Alyce gave Eva a skeptical glance. “You don’t strike me as the sort to believe in things like curses. That’s for us peasant folk.”
“It’s not a curse of fairy gold or crossing a ring of toadstools. But we Nemesis sort—we’re fated to be alone. I’d been, until Jack.” The way she said her husband’s name nearly made Alyce blush.
Yet something niggled at Alyce. “But you and Simon … you’ve never…”
Eva tossed her lemon ice in the rubbish. “Nobody ever suggests that Scotland Yard detectives become lovers.”
“Maybe they do become lovers, but they don’t trumpet it in the papers.”
The other woman raised her eyebrows as if conceding the point. “He tried, once.”
Alyce had the sudden urge to throw Eva into the rubbish bin.
“I said no,” Eva said. “And it didn’t wound my sensibilities overmuch when he seemed relieved that I’d rejected him. In truth, I think he made the suggestion out of a sense of obligation. Not any real attraction.”
“What a consolation.”
“I do like you, Alyce. You seem like an intelligent woman who doesn’t yield to anyone. Rather reminds me of myself,” she added with a small smile. The smile faded quickly, however. “But I’m telling you again: nothing can come of this thing you have with Simon.”
Alyce crossed her arms over her chest. “Bloody cheek! You’ve got Jack. Whatever happens with me and Simon, it doesn’t have a lick to do with you.”
“No,” Eva allowed, “but he’s my friend. If you’re both not careful, there’s going to be a lot of pain for the two of you.”
Alyce wanted to throw her hands in the air, but stopped herself in time. Fine ladies didn’t make such gestures in public. Instead, she said hotly, “It doesn’t matter. Nothing but the mine matters. Everything else is just deads.”
“Deads?”
“The rubbish left over after dressing the ore. Worthless, useless rock. At the end of every day, we cart it away. That’s what’s going to happen with me and Simon. We’ll cart away everything that’s got no value. The next day, it’ll be like it never happened.”
Eva eyed Alyce skeptically, but Alyce only glared back in defiance. What did these Nemesis people know of her? It took a lot of ruddy nerve to make those kinds of assumptions. And if anything Eva said felt like needles shoved slowly into Alyce’s chest, she ignored the pain. This mission would come to an end, one way or the other, with the one certainty being Simon leaving. It was the only thing that could be relied upon.
After a few moments, Eva shrugged. “I know the futility of other people trying to argue with me, so consider the subject dropped.” She glanced at the little timepiece pinned to her bodice. “Simon ought to be finished by now. Shall we reconnoiter?”
They took a cab up the hill, with the day bright and lively all around them. Yet Alyce’s thoughts kept gnawing on Eva’s well-intentioned warning.
Her advice had come far too late.
* * *
Weariness and excitement danced through Simon’s nerves as he rode the elevator up to his hotel room. He fumbled with the brass key, his vision swimming. When was the last time he’d slept? Difficult to remember. On other missions, he’d gone days snatching sleep here and there, falling back on his soldiering habits. But at the moment, he couldn’t honestly remember when he’d last shut his eyes. Too busy setting everything in motion. Too busy looking after Alyce. She was still new to this world of plots and schemes, for all her bravado.
Unlocking the door, he pushed it open. A cold stab of panic hit him when he saw that while their trunk was in the room, Alyce wasn’t.
He exhaled deliberately. She was with Eva, one of Nemesis’s most capable agents. Nothing would happen to her.
Throwing his hat and coat onto the table, he also loosened his necktie. It didn’t help him breathe easier.
What the hell was happening to him? Dozens of jobs, all of them utilizing different people to obtain an objective, and not once in all of those missions had he been so gripped with concern about any of those people. He wouldn’t callously use a woman and throw her aside in service to Nemesis’s goals—but this acid that burned in him when he thought of Alyce being hurt, this fear, that was new.
From the trunk, he pulled out a revolver. The Webley felt good in his hand, solid and trustworthy. He preferred his Martini-Henry rifle, but that proved more conspicuous when traveling. And not convenient when fighting in close quarters.
He doubted that anything that might happen in Plymouth would require a gun—but it was better to be prepared for any eventuality than be caught shorthanded. After checking to make sure that it was clean, loaded, and in working order, he placed the weapon in the little side table beside the chaise. That’s where he’d be sleeping—or attempting to sleep—tonight.
He removed his jacket and draped it over the back of the chair. The room here at the Cormorant resembled the one back in Exeter, in the way all hotel rooms of good character but not wild expense resembled one another. It had its own bathroom with a hipbath, commode, and sink. The room lacked a parlor, however. Instead, the chaise longue was arrayed near the fire. The room itself was dominated by a large brass bed heaped with lacy pillows.
They’d be sharing t
his room tonight, he and Alyce. His mouth went dry. A whole night of lying on that chaise, listening to her as she shifted beneath the bedclothes, knowing she wore only a nightgown. Granted, he’d seen the nightgown that Harriet had packed, and a more modest garment of high-necked flannel couldn’t be found. Yet even that would be enough to keep him awake all night.
He glanced at the clock. It was after two in the afternoon. They’d parted before noon. Where was she?
To distract himself, he threw himself down onto the chaise and studied the incorporation and transfer papers Marco had drawn up in Exeter. Harriet had mentioned he had a new client—a cheated widow. They didn’t collaborate on all the same missions at the same time, otherwise it’d take far too long to get through their caseload. Still, Simon wondered what the details of the widow’s case might be. And then there was that Scotland Yard detective making a nuisance of himself.
Simon rubbed his forehead. Always so much to consider. He liked it that way. Better to run from one objective to the next than turn into one of those staid, sedentary men who never seemed to leave the huge leather chairs at the club, ossifying behind their newspapers.
Footsteps sounded in the corridor, then stopped outside his door. He was on his feet in an instant, but didn’t reach for the gun. He knew that tread. The lock clicked and the door opened, revealing a tired but tense Alyce.
He wanted to cross the room in two strides and wrap his arms around her. Instead, he asked, “Where’s Eva?”
“She dropped me off a few blocks from here, just in case anyone was watching the hotel and might possibly connect her to Jack, and Jack to us.” Alyce shut the door behind her and glanced everywhere in the room. Everywhere but at him.
Unease trailed its fingers down his spine. Women had a tendency to reveal things to one another, even women of short acquaintance. It might take two men years before they learned each other’s first names, but women seemed eager to share intimacies with total strangers. One of those mysteries of womanhood he’d never quite understood.
What had Eva and Alyce talked about? Eva had promised to gossip about him. God, he hoped she didn’t mention that awful peccadillo of his from a year ago—Simon had honestly believed the woman to be a widow, and so she’d represented herself, but her husband was, in fact, quite alive and watching from a secret chamber.
Pressure built behind his eyes. He had the oddest need to tell Alyce that none of it meant anything; it never could. All the women who’d breezed through his life had been diversions—just as he was a diversion to them. Yet he said nothing to Alyce, just watched her as she took a few exploratory steps in to the room.
“The meeting went well,” he said, filling the silence. “Jack played his part like a born thespian. Or confidence artist. Same thing. And the owners seemed intrigued by the offer of the temporary transfer.”
“What’s next?” As she removed her hat and coat, she glanced over at him in his shirtsleeves. Her gaze lingered for a moment, straying on his shoulders and arms, before she looked away.
“Dinner tonight at eight o’clock. I’m to bring my charming wife”—there was that shiver of brightness again whenever he referred to her that way—“and they’ll determine whether we’re trustworthy enough to handle this deal.”
At the word “trustworthy,” she gave a short laugh. Then, more soberly, she said, “I’ve never been to a dinner party before.”
“They’re dull as hell, but ours tonight will have a little extra zest to it.”
“The zest of lying through our teeth.”
“Deceit always makes for a more scintillating time.”
She stared fixedly at a framed picture of Plymouth Sound, as if she didn’t want to meet his gaze. “Will you…” Her words came out slowly, each one a struggle. “There’s got to be rules to how these dinner parties go, but I don’t know them.”
She still wouldn’t look at him. It cost her so much to admit her lack of knowledge. Something within his chest expanded, trying to fill him completely.
He tugged on the bellpull. In a few minutes, a man wearing the hotel’s uniform appeared at their door, smiling brightly. “How may I help you, Mr. Shale?”
“I’ll need a tray set for a semiformal dinner. All the glasses, plates, and cutlery.”
“Of course,” the porter said at once. Thank God the staff was well trained in the art of not asking questions.
“Half an hour after that, I want baths drawn for me and my wife. And a maid to help my wife undress.” It was a wonder he didn’t stumble over those last two words.
“Yes, Mr. Shale.”
Simon handed the young man a shilling, and the porter hastened off.
“I haven’t had any schooling for over ten years,” Alyce said wryly, when Simon turned back to her.
“You’re going to make an excellent student,” he answered.
* * *
His instincts proved correct. She quickly learned the etiquette required of a dinner, not merely the usage and timing of the plates and silverware, but the ritualized process surrounding something that ought to be basic—the eating of a meal. But if Society could complicate something, it gladly did so.
He and Alyce sat at the table in their room, the dishes arrayed before her as they reviewed the protocol.
“I’m only to say yes or no to a servant,” she noted. “Not even thank them? Seems … rude.”
“It’s more rude to say ‘thank you.’ They’re just doing their jobs. Saying thanks implies that they’ve gone beyond their established duties.”
She nodded, but her look was pure skepticism. “All I have to worry about at home is whether I can get the last piece of bread before Henry does. If Sarah doesn’t want it,” she added quickly.
Some women might resent their pregnant sister-in-law, but Alyce seemed happy—eager—to tend to Sarah. Kindness came naturally to Alyce, but not the saccharine, false munificence of Society ladies who only cared that other people thought they were charitable. Alyce’s generosity was real. And he savored it.
“A dinner party is the proverbial tip of the iceberg.” He leaned back in his chair, linking his fingers behind his head. “Whole libraries could be filled with books on etiquette and proper, moral behavior.”
“What a waste of paper.”
“But excellent fodder for writing lewd things in the margins.”
She stared at him, appalled. “You wrote in your books?”
There it was again, the proof that they led disparate lives. The cost of a book meant nothing to him when he was growing up. It didn’t mean much now. He had a bookseller in the Strand who often set aside for him items of particular interest—travel narratives, studies of geography, Monsieur Verne’s latest novel—and he’d buy them by the stack.
“Boys like me grow up believing the world is ours to scribble on,” he said.
“Then they grow up, but they still think they can scrawl all over everything.” She gazed at him, contemplative. “Not all of them, though.”
He resisted the impulse to shift in his seat. With each glance from her, he felt more and more the weaving of an invisible thread, joining them. He ought to cut that thread, but the idea created a physical pain that ached through him.
“The men tonight,” he said instead, “even their wives, they’re going to say things that will shock you. Anger you. But above all else, they can’t know this. The smallest hint from you that you disagree with their beliefs and we’ll be out on our arses.”
“I’ll sit on my hands so I don’t punch anyone.”
He leaned forward. “Listen to me, Alyce. Class division is the god these people worship. They hate and adore the people above them, and don’t acknowledge the humanity of the people below them. If you cast stones at their idol, we’ll be crucified.”
The earnestness in his voice appeared to shock her. After a moment, she nodded tightly. “It’ll hurt like hell, but I’ll keep quiet. Or even”—she shuddered—“agree with them.”
He exhaled. “There’s my l
ass.”
They stared at each other, caught. He’d spoken like a miner, as if she really were his lass, and neither of those things was true. They never could be.
A knock sounded on the door. Simon lurched to his feet and opened it, to find the porter standing in front of aproned maids with buckets of steaming water—it was far easier and faster to heat the water on the stove downstairs than try to draw bucket after bucket from the bathroom sink. A burly man in uniform carried a hipbath, as well.
“You ordered baths in half an hour, Mr. Shale,” the porter explained brightly. “And thirty minutes have elapsed.”
Simon waved the hotel staff into the room. Some of the maids filled the tub in the bathroom, while the others emptied their buckets into the hipbath now set before the fire. Simon tipped every servant as they filed out, but one maid lingered, glancing shyly at Alyce.
Understanding at once, Alyce stood and strode into the bathroom. The maid followed, shutting the door behind them. Simon waited, drumming his fingers on the mantel, fighting his thundering pulse as he imagined Alyce being undressed. Bodice unhooking from skirts, skirts sliding to the ground, petticoats, bustle, and corset cover being removed. Corset next. Then wearing only a chemise, pantalets, and stockings. Then those were gone, too, and he could actually hear Alyce sink into her bath. She gave a long, luxurious sigh.
The maid emerged, her arms full of Alyce’s clothing. She tucked everything back into the trunk, blushing all the while at the intimacy between supposed husband and wife. Simon made certain to keep his hands in his pockets. He didn’t want to terrify the poor maid with his aching erection.
“Just give a pull on the bell when you want the missus dressed for tonight, sir,” the maid whispered.
“Your gratuity is on the dresser,” he managed to growl.
The girl pocketed the coin, bobbed a curtsy, then quickly left. Simon locked the door behind her.
From within the bathroom, he heard the soft, intimate sounds of Alyce in her bath. He bit back a groan. With any luck, the water in his own bath had turned cold.
* * *
When she emerged from the bathroom later, her hair was damp and loose about her shoulders, and she was wrapped in a long flannel robe. She stared deliberately at her feet—her bare, pink feet that he, too, found fascinating—until Simon said, “I’m bathed and dressed. No need for modesty.”
