Wicked Temptation (Nemesis Unlimited)

by Zoë Archer

  In her former bedchamber, she collected her baggage: one valise, and her violin case. The instrument, at least, she’d been able to save, and she thanked the Lord for that. If she’d been deprived of her music, her despair would’ve known no limits.

  She returned to the foyer. To her surprise, Marco actually took her valise and case. Testing the weight of the violin case, he asked, “Chanot? A Georges Chanot, I’d wager.”

  She stared at him. “Lucy must’ve told you that.”

  “All violins have their own particular weight and balance, depending on the maker. Easy enough to determine this was a Chanot, once I got a hold of it.” He stuck out his arm, offering it to her. “Time to go.”

  “One moment.” After pulling on her cloak, she tugged on a pair of gloves, set her widow’s bonnet on her head, and pulled down the veil. The world suddenly misted over, as if loss and grief didn’t do that already without a layer of silk covering her face.

  She placed her hand lightly in the crook of his arm. Despite her gloves, despite the layers of his clothing, she felt the solidity of him, and the unyielding presence of his muscles.

  Heat washed through her.

  She cursed herself. What in heaven did she think she was doing? How could she have any feelings of that sort, with Hugh only eight months gone, and this Marco a complete stranger? Disgust clotted in her veins. Disgust with herself.

  Glancing up at him, she noticed the slightest compressing of his lips. As if he, too, felt something at her touch.

  Saints strike her down for these delusions. Her life was falling down around her like a sinking ship, and she wanted, no, needed, to reach a shore. Any shore, no matter how rocky,

  “I’m ready,” she said.

  * * *

  Marco Black kept his gaze on the street, alert for any sign of suspect movement. The men watching the house shifted from their slouch against a street lamp, but didn’t follow them. A bloody relief. He didn’t want to have to get into any discreet brawls this early in the game.

  His attention wasn’t entirely fixed on his surroundings. A small sliver remained for the woman walking beside him.

  It was his job—both for Nemesis and for his other work as what was euphemistically termed an intelligence advisor to the British government—to clearly and objectively assess people within moments of meeting them. He’d been able to determine within minutes that a Russian ambassador’s wife had been using her considerable beauty to gain information about the latest developments in Chitral.

  Thus far, Bronwyn Parrish seemed to be exactly what the dossier they’d compiled had delineated. Her impeccable posture came from years of schooling on the Continent, which also contributed to the sheltered expression on her face. It was a pretty face, to be sure. Smooth skinned, though with a few rose-hued freckles across the bridge of her nose, her lips nearly the same color as her freckles. And eyes the silver green of sage leaves. Eyes that gleamed with a surprising intelligence.

  Those eyes were hidden now behind her veil. She kept glancing around the street, gauging it. Mrs. Parrish had potential, but she was a woman born and bred to a class that had little use for females who could think for themselves. He didn’t know to what end she’d use that intelligence of hers.

  He hadn’t wanted to take this job on at all. Nemesis was for the powerless, the poor, not society widows with dead spendthrift husbands. Nemesis wasn’t for the upper echelons at all—not if he had any say in it.

  Entitlement was a poison, infecting a whole class. Her class. He should know.

  But he’d been voted down by the other agents. Worse still, he’d been given the lead on the mission since he was the one operative with enough free time to take on the case.

  Yet he was a professional in all capacities. He might not want this job, but once assigned to it, he’d do his damnedest to make sure it succeeded.

  They emerged onto Bayswater Road, with the broad green expanse of Hyde Park just on the other side of the street. Beneath a watery early spring sun, nannies pushed their infant charges in expensive prams, and a few impeccably dressed women strolled along the paths. One or two gave him a second glance, but he ignored them.

  He liked to break everything down into specific components, goals that needed to be met one at a time. In that way, even the most difficult mission became possible. And right now, he had to escort the Widow Parrish to the Cottage Rose Tea Shop.

  He hailed a carriage, but Mrs. Parrish hesitated before stepping into it.

  “Easy to see why you’re mistrustful,” he said, holding the door. “Your husband had the bad manners to die in debt, leaving you to fend for yourself when you haven’t done it before. Your finances gutted. Your home taken. And then there’s me, a bloke you’ve never met, claiming to be here to help. Why should you trust me? What’s to say that this carriage won’t speed you to the docks, or into the clutches of some procurer?”

  Though he couldn’t be sure, he suspected she raised an eyebrow. “My goodness, you certainly know how to inspire faith.”

  “Ask yourself this,” he continued. “Why would I go out of my way to abduct you, when it’s all too easy for women in this city to be preyed upon? Would I really show up at your home and tell you in detail things that no one else knows just to fill a bed in some whorehouse?”

  She reared back a little at his candid language. Maledizione, he was going to have to learn to curb his vocabulary around her. He wasn’t used to being around women of her class. Women who found an innocuous word like whorehouse offensive, even though London had hundreds, no, thousands of them.

  But she didn’t run. Instead, she tilted her head as if contemplating what he’d said.

  Then she took his offered hand and stepped into the hired carriage.

  Damn, that wasn’t the first time she’d caught him off guard with her courage. There might be more to the Widow Parrish than he’d initially deduced—an unpleasant thought. Something about her, something he couldn’t name or yet understand, took the careful wiring of his brain and rearranged those wires.

  There was … a need in her. A desire for something other than the emptiness within.

  No. People of her station weren’t like that. He had too much experience with their vapidity, their casual cruelty, to think that, aside from some superficial differences, she wasn’t just like the others. No matter her prettiness or the glint of intelligence in her eyes.

  He was a man, yes, but he preferred to think of himself as a mechanism: expertly calibrated, created specifically for its task. In need of occasional lubrication. Always reliable.

  He got into the cab and signaled the driver to move on. The ride to Edgware Road was made wordlessly, thank God. She didn’t press him with questions, or chatter nervously. Mrs. Parrish seemed to understand the value of silence. Though she did have a pleasant voice, musical but strong. She probably used it only to be heard above the crowd at a party, or to complain to her dressmaker.

  As the streets rolled by, he glanced at her violin case. If Lucy Nelson hadn’t told him her mistress played, and played well, by all accounts, he wouldn’t have anticipated that, either. Most patrician women favored the piano. Violin required a bit more … boldness. More passion than gentlemen’s daughters cared to show.

  When she’d taken his arm, he’d felt it in her—a kind of hollowness, a demand for something. As if looking at the world through eyes that truly saw and assessed, rather than existing in a cloud of privilege. And that awareness had drawn on him, pulling him in despite himself.

  It had to be an illusion. He’d encountered enough of them in his life. Perpetrated them, too.

  The carriage came to a stop, and the driver called down that they’d arrived. After grabbing her valise, Marco stepped out then handed Mrs. Parrish down to the curb. She carried her violin case herself. He watched her take in the storefront, with its inexpensive lace curtains hanging in the windows. “I cannot pay for the cab.”

  “Taken care of,” he answered, handing the driver a coin. Then
he opened the door to the Cottage Rose and waved her in. “I know you have questions, and they’ll all be answered.”

  “In fifteen minutes,” she said.

  “Good memory.” One of his most valuable assets was his memory. Pursuing a career in espionage was damned difficult if you didn’t possess an unusual ability for recollection. How else would he know the difference between a Chanot and a Cousineau violin, if he hadn’t practiced hefting different instruments in their cases? You never knew when such a skill might be needed, either.

  If she smiled, he couldn’t see it beneath her veil. Instead, she swept past him and into the shop. It smelled of bergamot and sugar inside. Women clustered around slightly battered oak tables, cups of tea held between their fingers, and picked at platters of iced cakes.

  The hostess bustled forward. “They’re in the back,” she said.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Akeem.”

  “Of course, Marco.”

  As he threaded his way down a narrow corridor rife with china, the widow finally spoke. “I’d figure you for the sort of man who favors public houses rather than tea shops.”

  “Public houses serve the worst wine,” he answered. “When it’s libation I want, I’ve got my own favored establishments. Ones that know the consequence of a good Barolo. And Mrs. Akeem is always welcoming to Nemesis. Ever since we helped her chase off the bigoted idiots who didn’t want a woman of her nationality opening a business in this area.”

  She was silent for a moment. Then, “I prefer Chianti to Barolo.”

  Another surprise from Mrs. Parrish. He wondered what others were to come.

  * * *

  “Oh, madam!” The moment Mrs. Parrish stepped into the private room at the tea shop, a small, curvaceous woman rushed forward, tears gleaming in her eyes. Lucy Nelson managed to stop herself from embracing her former mistress. Instead, she wrung her hands and cast Mrs. Parrish sorrowful glances.

  Marco watched as the widow pulled back her veil, revealing her face like the last act of a play. “What in heaven’s name is going on, Lucy? Who are these people?” Her gaze fell on the other occupant of the private room.

  “I’m Harriet.” Harriet Bradley came forward with her hand outstretched, and Mrs. Parrish was too polite to refuse to shake.

  “No last name for you, either, I suppose,” Mrs. Parrish said.

  “It’s an issue of protection,” Harriet explained. “Everyone’s protection.”

  “I keep being told that withholding information is a matter of safety,” Mrs. Parrish answered. “Yet I always believed that knowing more is the path of greatest security.”

  Marco moved past her, and offered her a chair—he might not have wanted this assignment, but he still possessed manners. Three other chairs were arranged around a table that held cups and a pot of tea. Fashion prints lined the floral walls, and lamps with painted china bases and frosted glass were also mounted around the room. Given that Marco was the only man in the chamber, he was grateful feminine spaces didn’t make him uncomfortable.

  “You didn’t learn that at your boarding school,” he said, offering her a seat.

  “French, dancing, music, drawing—though my efforts were appalling.” She eyed him and the chair as if certain they were baited traps. Not so easily led, this widow.

  “Oh, madam, please do sit,” Lucy said imploringly. “I swear on my mother’s thimble that these people mean you no harm.”

  A thimble seemed an insignificant thing to swear upon, but for some reason, it satisfied Mrs. Parrish. She removed her cloak and took the seat Marco offered, though not without sending him one last wary glance over her shoulder.

  Eager to do her former mistress more service, Lucy took Mrs. Parrish’s cloak and bonnet and set them aside. Once Harriet and Lucy had sat, Marco at last allowed himself to settle into a chair.

  Mrs. Parrish immediately poured the tea, her movements practiced and graceful. This was what she’d been born and reared to do: serve as hostess, no matter the time or place. She still looked cagey, but that didn’t stop her from inquiring politely as to whether Marco took milk or sugar in his tea.

  His half-Italian blood demanded coffee—espresso would have been ambrosia from Jove’s cup—but that drink wasn’t easy to come by here in England, and when he did get a cup, it tasted more of the river Thames than anything someone would want to drink. But he took the tea Mrs. Parrish offered, noting her tiny flinch when their fingers brushed against each other.

  With all the social niceties out of the way, she turned to her maid. “I’ve spent the last hour in a state of confusion. And I never would have agreed to come to this place if Mr.… Marco hadn’t told me you were here. Now it’s time for you to explain what, exactly, is happening.”

  “It’s about doing a good turn, madam,” Lucy answered. “You did one for me, more than once. When you gave my sister Martine a job, even though she’d had a babe, and no father to claim the child.”

  Mrs. Parrish frowned. “Was I to let her and her baby starve?”

  “Most would,” Marco said. “A scandal like that, under your own roof.”

  “There was no scandal,” the widow replied heatedly. “Only a woman who’d been used and abandoned, and in need of help.”

  Harriet glanced at Marco. “I think I rather like her.”

  He might, as well—a surprise—but he always reserved judgment.

  “And Christopher Peele, the footman?” Lucy pressed. “You loaned him some of your allowance so he could open a shop.”

  “It was a pittance,” Mrs. Parrish protested.

  “Not to him,” her maid countered.

  “It seems you’re a wellspring of kindness, Mrs. Parrish,” Marco drawled, though in truth, he did find her acts of generosity intriguing. On the rough streets of East London or in the slums of Rome, people looked out for one another, especially since the rest of the world had turned its collective backs on them. But as former missionary Eva Dutton, née Warrick, had explained, the wealthy might throw money at a problem, yet when it came to doing actual good, their delicate hands were never truly dirtied.

  “You’ve helped so many,” Lucy went on, her eyes full of sympathy, “and now it’s time for you to be helped.”

  A brief flicker of shame crossed Mrs. Parrish’s face. Clearly, she didn’t care to be pitied. Marco couldn’t blame her.

  The maid continued. “I knew about Nemesis, and what they did, and so I contacted them to see if anything could be done for you.” She looked expectantly at Mrs. Parrish, as if anticipating her to understand what this meant, but she was met only with a puzzled frown.

  “She wouldn’t know of us,” Marco said gently.

  “Her kind seldom do,” added Harriet.

  “My kind?” Mrs. Parrish exclaimed.

  Marco faced her. “England’s favored children. The wealthy. The powerful. Those whose pockets burst with privilege. Nemesis usually finds themselves in opposition to them,” he added.

  A bitter laugh burst from Mrs. Parrish. “I’m none of those things.”

  “Once you were.” And might be again. “Not Nemesis’s typical client.” He still didn’t like it, but he’d had to yield to the will of the group, and do his job with his usual efficiency.

  Marco took a sip of tea. It hadn’t magically transformed into coffee. All the while, an invisible, silent clock ticked down the moments before the trail of Mrs. Parrish’s fortune went cold.

  “You keep speaking of this Nemesis,” she said, “but I still don’t know a blasted thing about it.”

  Though he could hold himself perfectly still for hours, Marco found a strange restlessness beneath his skin when he was in the presence of Mrs. Parrish. As if her silver-green gaze held an electrical charge, jolting him into motion. That wanting in her. These odd sensations had to be simply a function of the fact that he didn’t want this job. There were other missions that could make better use of his abilities.

  He pushed back from the table and crossed to the small fireplace at the other si
de of the room.

  He braced his hands on the mantel. “You’ve had a taste of the cruelty of this world, Mrs. Parrish. It’s a bitter and noisome taste, but it’s far more predominant than sugar and the metallic flavor of money.” Turning, he held her gaze with his own. “Every day, all over this city, all over our majestic nation, men, women, and children are being hurt, abused, or exploited.”

  “And not one of them can get justice for themselves,” Harriet interjected.

  “But … the law…” Mrs. Parrish murmured.

  “Favors the wealthy and powerful,” Marco said. “Not a miner, or a child forced to make cheap jewelry. People who will not be heard, and have no one to speak for them. Exactly the way the elite want them. That’s why Nemesis exists.” He planted his hands on his hips. “To give a voice to the voiceless. To get justice for those who need it. By any means necessary.”

  The widow’s eyes went round. “You cannot be serious.”

  “Observe my hilarity,” he answered grimly.

  Mrs. Parrish glanced from Harriet to Lucy. “That’s … that’s extraordinary.”

  “But true,” Lucy said. “Nemesis even gets girls off the streets.” She swallowed hard. “Girls like me.”

  If Mrs. Parrish looked astonished before, now she appeared stunned, her mouth hanging open and all the color draining from her face. “Lucy? You were a…”

  Tears glittered in the maid’s eyes. “Not much choice for a girl from Whitechapel, is there?” As she spoke, her accent changed, roughened into the harder tones of the East End. “And me with a sister to support, and my mum dead. But Nemesis found me, got me a decent place to sleep, taught me how to speak proper and dress ladies.”

  “I had no idea.” Though it likely went against all her training, Mrs. Parrish slumped in her chair—as much as her rigid corset would allow. “You never said anything.”

  “And risk losing my position?” Lucy shook her head. “You’d been kind to me and Martine, but I couldn’t trust you to know that I used to be a whore.”

  Mrs. Parrish flinched at the word. “I wish…”