Winter's Heat: A Nemesis Unlimited Holiday Novella

by Zoë Archer

  Confidence and dark determination radiated from him, in all the long lines of his body, in his strength and capability.

  The need to pull him to her and take his mouth, feel that lean body against hers, throbbed through her. God, she seemed to meet one of the criteria for joining Nemesis—the fact that they were in this haunted chamber, deciding the fate of their villainous prey, and she wanted nothing more than to push him down onto the bed and finish what they’d started the other night—clearly she was out of her mind.

  Her feelings at that moment must have been transparent. A look of fierce hunger crossed his face, and she could’ve sworn he growled deep in his chest.

  “I was wrong,” he rumbled. “The danger’s not from the Larkfields, or the other servants. It’s us. We’re like goddamn nitroglycerin.”

  “Any way to neutralize nitroglycerin?” She sounded as if she’d run up ten flights of stairs.

  “Might be. I’m not a scientist.” His eyes darkened. “But I don’t want to get rid of the chemistry between us. We’d create a hell of an explosion.”

  Heat swept along her body. With the brief tastes she’d had of what they could be together, the pleasure they could give each other, they’d probably level everything around them within miles. And curse her if she didn’t want that.

  You’re only setting yourself up for heartbreak, some tiny, rational part of her mind cautioned.

  I don’t give a damn, the rest of her answered.

  Yet they’d found the key to their mission. Soon, it would be over, and he’d disappear again. That fragment of sanity shook the bars of its cage, and she fought to collect herself. “The money.”

  He seemed puzzled by her quick change of topic, but said, “We give it to Nemesis. There’s plenty of good they could do with that kind of cash.”

  “So we just run off with the valise?”

  “Can’t risk revealing ourselves,” he answered. “Even if the Larkfields don’t report the loss of the case, the butler and housekeeper will know we’ve bolted. We’d never get placed in another house again.”

  “And the false names we used wouldn’t be enough to keep our identities hidden,” she noted. The servants’ grapevine could teach British intelligence a few tricks about tracking people. All that was needed was a physical description of an untrustworthy servant, and all important doors would slam shut. The greater threat was to Michael—he needed to maintain his disguise as an agent for Nemesis.

  “I could go,” she offered. “I’m a shopgirl now. It doesn’t matter if I get placed in another house.”

  “My education’s been a patchwork,” he said. “A few years at school, then what I learned in service. And then came Nemesis, who taught me things no school ever could. But I’ve learned a few things on my own, too. Including the fact that you might not be part of Nemesis, but you make a damned fine agent. It’d be a bloody shame to lose your skills for future assignments.”

  For a moment, she wondered if he was having her on. She wasn’t anyone special. A housemaid turned mercer’s assistant. But that wasn’t entirely true. She had done a good job on her first mission as a Nemesis agent. This new assignment had proven that she was far more than a woman who could clean a parlor or sell a bolt of cambric. So which of these women was she? The one who worked quietly in service or behind a counter, or the one who shouted against the lack of equality in the world?

  Whichever she was, she’d done something here at Covington Hall. Something worthwhile.

  A new warmth spread through her. Not desire, but pride. In herself. In what she could accomplish. And the notion that Michael not only recognized that, but appreciated it and valued her.

  “We could wait until after the holidays,” she suggested. “Take the valise when our time at Covington Hall is over.”

  “The Larkfields might move the cash at the same time,” he noted, “maybe even sooner. No, we’ve got to get that money out as fast as we can.” He paced away from the bed, hands on his hips, head bent in thought. Then he turned to face her. “It’s too late for me to walk to Marco and the inn now. I wouldn’t make it back before sunrise. So I’ll send him a signal to come to the house. Then we give him the valise and he disappears like the shadow he is.”

  “This is the Marco who taught you about confidence schemes,” she said.

  Michael’s mouth quirked. “One and the same. Sneaking onto a well-guarded property is like a stroll in Kew Gardens for him.”

  “Fortunate that he’s on our side,” she said wryly.

  Michael’s expression hardened. “When the Larkfields discover that their blood money is gone, they won’t think it’s so fortunate.”

  * * *

  The next day was spent in an agony of waiting, in between Ada running herself to the bone with her duties tending to the house’s festivities. The celebration of the holiday itself came nearer, and guests from surrounding estates and even the most esteemed personages from the village itself crowded into Covington Hall to drink and dine and amuse themselves in keeping with the season.

  All this meant more work for the servants. No one had a moment, and the midday meal was just enough time to bolt down some tea and half a meat pie. Then back into the whirl.

  In those brief moments in the servants’ hall, she caught Michael’s glance from the other end of the table. Much as she wanted to sit beside him, even if only to feel his steady presence beside her, they needed to preserve as much distance between them as possible in the eyes of the other servants. But while everyone was busy eating as quickly as they could, she and Michael exchanged speaking looks.

  Is it time?

  Not yet.

  They had one chance to send a signal to Marco, using the code Michael and the Nemesis agent had arranged ahead of time. A delivery wagon full of supplies was to make an appearance this afternoon—the driver not knowing that his wagon would be used to send a secret message. But the supply dray wouldn’t return until Boxing Day, which was the day after tomorrow. Though the Larkfields hadn’t made their plans known, there was every possibility that they’d leave right after Christmas. It was a narrow window, one Ada felt squeezed her on every side.

  After the meal, she stopped the cook bustling to the pantry. “When does the delivery wagon arrive?”

  Harried, the red-faced cook had little time for her questions. “Not soon enough,” she snapped. “I’m two haunches of beef and seven pounds of flour from running out. What’s to be eaten for Christmas Eve dinner if there’s no roast beef and Yorkshire pudding?” She moved to hurry past Ada.

  “That’s a poor delivery man,” Ada noted, “if you can’t count on him being on time.”

  The cook clicked her tongue. “Ollie Samwell usually comes about four, but I’d sell my own mother at the fair if he’d get here sooner.” With that show of daughterly devotion, the cook trundled off.

  Ada caught up with Michael as he was carrying up yet another tray of iced cakes. It seemed the guests couldn’t shove them into their mouths fast enough, while the servants barely had time to swallow a crust of bread. She said nothing, but held up her hand with four fingers showing. He gave her a wink and moved on.

  She contrived to be below stairs at quarter to four, pretending to look for cleaning supplies. Soon after, Michael appeared. He had a unique way of hovering in the corridor as though intent on something, or in the middle of an important errand. But there was so much bedlam below stairs, neither of them were given much notice.

  She checked the clock on the wall. Nearly four. But when the hour came, and no wagon appeared, her heart sank.

  “Rural delivery wagons aren’t like London omnibuses,” Michael whispered in her ear.

  Curse him for looking as calm as Sunday afternoon, while her own insides were a tangle and her palms were damp.

  “Go on, then,” he murmured. “Keep watch.”

  Without a backward glance, she left him to hover around the servants’ entrance. The day was bitter cold, and the clouds threatened snow even heavier than b
efore. Would the roads be good? Was the wagon caught in a muddy, icy ditch?

  She had no pocket watch, but after what seemed ten lifetimes, a creaking, shifting rumble sounded on the gravel. The shape of Ollie Samwell bent over the reins of his wagon emerged from the mist. But as the dray drew closer, she realized that Michael would have to get a moment alone with the cart in order to leave his signal on it. Given how frantic the cook was, she’d likely run out right away to check the delivery against her list, and then immediately get kitchen maids and odd men to help unload the cart.

  Ada would just have to make certain that the cook didn’t get that chance.

  As the cart began to pull up to the servants’ entrance, Ada rushed back inside and right to Michael. “It’s here,” she muttered. “I’ll distract the cook. You do the same with the driver, then leave the signal.”

  He strode off, his gait somehow both purposeful and casual. Ada dashed into the kitchen. The cook stood at the stove, stirring a massive pot of something that smelled of onions. On the large table lay many silver trays covered in sweetmeats and pastries. Ada edged to the table, and surreptitiously pulled one of the trays close to the edge, so that its handle hung over the table’s lip. Then she backed up and ran herself right into the handle.

  A tremendous crash shook the kitchen as the tray tumbled noisily to the floor. Pastries and confections rolled everywhere as the cook and kitchen maids all looked up with varying expressions of horror.

  “I’m so sorry!” Ada cried. “I wasn’t looking where I was going and then—” She spread her hands to indicate the mess she’d just made. Kneeling, she attempted to gather up all the fallen food in her apron.

  The cook stormed over, her face even more red. “Stupid girl! They said you were a woolgatherer, and look at where that’s landed me now! I’ll run out of pastries for the family’s guests. Oh, leave off that,” she barked as Ada continued to collect the food scattered on the ground. “What are you even doing in here, anyway? They’ll be wanting you upstairs.”

  “I…” A flash of blue and silver in the corner of her eye caught her attention. Michael. He was there in the doorway for less than a second, but his intent was clear. The signal had been placed on the wagon, and the distraction wasn’t needed any longer.

  “I came to say that Mr. Samwell is here,” she finally answered the cook.

  “Oh, for the love of the Almighty!” With one final, withering glance at Ada, the cook left the kitchen, heading toward the servants’ entrance.

  “I suppose I ought to go,” Ada murmured to the cross kitchen maids.

  Their only answer was more sour looks. Remorse formed a brief knot in her stomach—she didn’t like the idea of making more work for anyone, but in this case, the greater good won out over a handful of kitchen maids.

  By an earlier plan, Michael and Ada met up again in the stillroom.

  “It’s done?” she asked without prologue.

  “The signal’s on the cart,” he answered. “Marco knows to look for it.”

  “What is the signal, anyway?”

  “I tied a bit of ribbon onto the horse’s tack.”

  “Without attracting the driver’s notice?”

  Michael shrugged. “Told him that it looked like the horse’s rear left leg was starting to come up lame. While he checked, I put the ribbon on the harness—fast as a pickpocket lifting a watch.” Now his eyes twinkled, impossibly blue. “Saw the mess you made in the kitchen. You’re a naughty maid.”

  The burden of waiting had been lifted, the signal given. Her heart lightened, even more so from his wicked teasing. “Only when the occasion demands it.”

  “What if I demand it?” The merry glimmer in his eyes was replaced with something much more edged, more hungry.

  “I don’t take orders from lower servants.”

  “We’ll have to put that to the test,” he rumbled. But he glanced toward the shut door, and the voices and footsteps just on the other side. The heat in his gaze cooled—slightly. “At midnight tonight we meet Marco at the eastern gate to give him the valise.”

  “If it’s still there by tonight,” she pointed out.

  “The Larkfields haven’t left the property all day. They can’t move it yet.”

  “When we give him the case,” she pressed. “What then?”

  “Then,” he said with a feral grin, “justice is served.”

  She smiled, but heaviness weighted her. With the mission complete, he’d leave again. And she’d return to being quiet again. Justice, it seemed, came at the cost of her heart.

  Chapter Ten

  Ada was waiting for Michael outside the Gray Bedchamber by the time he arrived. No surprise to find her already there—she’d grown skilled in the ways of cunning and stealth, and slipping away unnoticed from the servants’ sleeping quarters now seemed as easy to her as cleaning a fireplace grate. Easier, perhaps.

  His heart set up an unsteady rhythm the moment he saw her. She didn’t smile when he approached, and lines of strain made small brackets around her mouth, but her eyes brightened when she looked at him. The tension in her expression loosened slightly, as if him being around relieved her somehow, or gave her strength. The idea filled him with his own sense of power—not over her, but that he could give her even the smallest fragment of steadiness in an unstable world.

  She wore her outdoor clothes, though she carried her boots. Neither of them spoke, but he sensed her concern. Had Larkfield come into the Gray Bedchamber and taken the valise? The family and guests had been celebrating Christmas Eve throughout the day, but the Larkfields were slippery. And dangerous.

  Noiselessly, they proceeded into the Gray Bedchamber.

  He and Ada stared at the massive bed. At one time, it must have made a luxurious place to rest. Or use for other entertainments.

  What he wouldn’t give, the crimes he’d commit, if only to get Ada on that bed and give her pleasure upon pleasure.

  Mentally, he shook himself. They were scheduled to meet Marco in half an hour, and there was still the matter of ensuring the valise full of cash was where they’d left it.

  She pressed a hand to her stomach. “This worry’s eating me from the inside out.”

  At once, he dropped the satchel he carried, lay himself down, and slid beneath the bed. His fingers went immediately to the place where the case had been stashed.

  “Still here,” he said.

  “But is the money?”

  He scuttled out from under the bed, holding the case. Springing to his feet, he set the valise down again on the mattress, then unlocked it.

  Both he and Ada exhaled. Stacks of pound notes continued to sleep innocently in the valise, if money could ever be called innocent.

  “I want to…” Her hand reached out, tentative. “Can I touch it?”

  A thousand utterly filthy and wonderfully inappropriate responses sprang to his lips. He showed, in his opinion, remarkable forbearance by saying none of them. “No harm in it,” he answered instead.

  Lightly, gingerly, she ran one fingertip over the pound notes, then snatched her hand back, as if burned. “Feels dirty,” she muttered.

  “Soon it won’t.” He snapped the case shut and hefted it. “Marco’s waiting to make all this cash clean again.”

  The window to the Gray Bedchamber stuck fast when he tried it. But after several hard tugs, he finally pried it open. Frigid December air swept into the room. Sticking his head out the window, he breathed a sigh of relief. They were only one story above the ground, without any shrubbery below.

  He stuffed the valise into the satchel slung over his shoulder—an old army castoff that once belonged to Simon, and was capable of holding almost anything. With this secured, he turned to clamber out the window. Ada was already preparing herself for the climb down. No hesitation. They were far from out of danger, but he couldn’t resist giving her a wink—and she returned it—before lowering himself down.

  It was a fast descent. He glanced up once to check on Ada’s progress. Asi
de from getting a fine view of her slim calves, he needn’t have bothered. She scaled the brick facade like a born thief.

  When he reached the ground, he stepped back to give her room. She followed shortly after, then swatted him on his shoulder.

  “My skirts aren’t a theater curtain for you to peep through,” she hissed.

  “Impatient for the show to begin,” he answered, unrepentant.

  “It’ll turn into a Punch and Judy show in a moment,” she said with a threatening gesture. A gesture she ruined when her lips twitched.

  But their high spirits quickly muted. They still had to make their way to the east gate of the estate and hand the valise off to Marco. Acres, and groundskeepers on patrol, lay between them.

  As silently as they could, they headed toward the east gate. The path kept them closer to the house than their trek to the ruin, so they tried to step quietly over winter-brittle grass. But it sounded awfully loud beneath their boots, like snapping bones. A few lights still blazed in the house as late-night carousers enjoyed yet more glasses of mulled wine. Michael kept away from the light thrown across the lawn, he and Ada clinging to the deeper shadows.

  The heavy tread of a groundskeeper sounded, along with the whistled carol, “The Holly and the Ivy.” Michael stepped to the other side of a barren oak and pushed Ada behind him. Though the tree trunk was wide as two men, Michael didn’t move, and neither did Ada. Not until the tread, and tune, died away as the man continued on his patrol.

  Michael and Ada carefully made their way onward. At last, the iron gate of Covington Hall’s eastern entrance appeared. Dead ivy clung like spider webs to the high stone wall, and the massive gate itself looked rusted shut. For half a moment, Michael wondered how Marco could possibly get himself onto their side of the gate, but then a piece of darkness detached itself from the wall, approaching silently.