Wicked Temptation (Nemesis Unlimited)

by Zoë Archer

  “Anything with your name on it, or that might have something to do with Devere’s own financial accounting.”

  With one eye on the clock—clearly wound daily by a clerk hopeful of Devere’s return—Bronwyn did as Marco directed, examining what seemed like an endless array of documents with columns of numbers upon them. “Either Devere or the clerk he employed to transcribe the numbers must have been in some kind of trouble.”

  Marco looked up sharply. “Explain.”

  She bristled slightly at his commanding tone, but said, “The handwriting starts off neat, but over the course of months begins to get messier and messier. As if the person writing were growing agitated. Something was bothering them. And see here.” She held out a sheaf of newspaper clippings.

  INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY—MILLIONS OF POUNDS GUARANTEED! proclaimed one.

  UNTOLD WEALTH TO BE FOUND IN THE MINES OF SOUTH AMERICA! another blared.

  “Devere seemed quite interested in this sort of chancy financial possibility,” she noted.

  A small smile tilted Marco’s lips. “Well done, Mrs. Parrish.”

  Why did those few words from him give her a spark of gratification?

  He held up another folder. “Eccolo.”

  “Something about Hugh?”

  “Devere’s personal banking records.” Moving around the desk, he stood shoulder to shoulder with Bronwyn. She fought the urge to edge away, as if putting distance between herself and a loaded weapon. Instead, she followed his blunt-tipped finger as it slid down a column of numbers. “Curioser and curioser. There’s no swell in Devere’s accounts. Even after he claimed your fortune.”

  It seemed an odd leap of logic. “If Hugh was in debt,” she posited, “the money wouldn’t have gone into Devere’s own account. It would have gone to his creditors.”

  Marco’s gaze met hers. “Did your husband spend lavishly? Was he the kind of man who made impulsive purchases?”

  She shook her head. “If anything, he was slow to buy. I had to remind him over and over again to have his valet purchase new cuffs and collars for his shirts. His frugality always baffled his parents, who’d spoiled him terribly as a child.”

  None of this seemed to shock Marco. “Devere wasn’t paying off your husband’s creditors because Hugh Parrish didn’t have creditors.”

  “Devere took the money for himself?”

  “Apparently not, because there’s not a ha’penny extra in his bank account.” He narrowed his eyes. “So then where’s the sodding money?”

  A very good question. She started to speak, then stopped.

  “Go on,” he urged.

  “It seems to me that if somebody takes money, but there’s no sign of the money, that it probably wound up somewhere other than their own pockets.”

  “Creditors’ pockets.” Marco scratched absently at his goatee. “Or maybe he was a speculator, and owed business partners.”

  Bronwyn jumped when there was a sharp rap on the glass outside. “Time’s up,” the clerk hissed through the door.

  Marco tucked the banking folder as well as the one containing the coded documents inside his coat. “Are you a betting woman?”

  “I’ve earned my share at euchre,” she answered.

  “Good.” He crossed to the door and placed his hand on the knob, but didn’t turn it. His grin flashed white in the gloom of the office. “Because tonight, you and I are going gambling.”

  THREE

  Taking Mrs. Parrish to Bethnal Green was itself a gamble for Marco. Society ladies didn’t frequent this grim part of town. He didn’t know if she’d scream or faint or be stunned into horrified silence. But she could identify Devere. While Marco might find the man based on her description alone, it was always better to have someone actually familiar with the target close at hand, lest he make a dangerous mistake. If he nabbed the wrong bloke, Devere would find out about it, and then there’d be no chance of getting Nemesis’s hands on him.

  “I’m not entirely certain what we’re doing here,” Mrs. Parrish said, glancing out the cab’s window. Streetlights weren’t plentiful in this run-down part of the city, and between the hood of her cloak—he’d had her remove her veil, though she’d objected—and the shadows, he could barely make out her features. But he didn’t need to see them now to remember everything, such as the tiny dip in her lower lip, or the straight line of her reddish-gold eyebrows, or how she’d set her chin whenever she was trying to be brave. Her chin often formed that firm shape, pushed slightly forward. It was a struggle, he saw, for her to keep her determination.

  Marco had them swing by Nemesis headquarters and pick up Desmond for the trip to Bethnal Green—this wasn’t an assignment Marco wanted for himself, and it would be better tonight to have another agent accompanying them. Introductions had been made quickly between Desmond, his sister Riza, and the Widow Parrish. Night had fallen, which meant that they had a limited amount of time. If Mrs. Parrish had been surprised by Desmond and Riza’s half-Indian parentage—clearly evident in the color of their skin and hair—she made no mention of it. She’d paused briefly, but then shaken their hands and been swept up in the mission.

  A scalpel, Eva had called Marco once. A suave scalpel, the Nemesis agent had said, more specifically.

  He almost grinned to himself. Nothing by half measures. He might not want to be on this case, but when he was the lead on a mission, he moved with speed and precision. An old habit ingrained by training. When the lives of thousands of soldiers or civilians were at risk, he couldn’t proceed slowly. Even when it came to gathering intelligence, he had a surgical precision. No lingering, not when the anesthetized patient could wake at any moment and begin screaming.

  He’d snatched a folio of papers off a diplomat’s desk in the beat of a fly’s wings. He’d broken into a French arms manufacturer’s safe box in less than two minutes. Though the Widow Parrish was genteel, he’d rather spend his time seeing to the needs of the poor—over the course of his work with British Intelligence, he’d seen far too much poverty and privation, both at home and abroad.

  He’d never been a member of the elite—and didn’t want to be. He’d endured enough at their hands to ever want anything to do with them. It was one of the main reasons why he’d become an intelligence agent, and why he helped form Nemesis six years ago. Their targets were often from the highest ranks of society, which gave him a cold, brutal satisfaction when the bastards were brought down.

  She was of them, the Widow Parrish.

  Still, he’d been strong-armed into this job, and now that he’d committed to it, he wouldn’t doze his way through.

  “Back at Devere’s offices,” he said as the carriage rocked over the rough pavement, “you said something that made me think.”

  “A rare occurrence,” Desmond offered.

  Marco in turn offered the agent one of his favorite Italian hand gestures.

  “I can’t imagine I have anything to add to your elaborate thought process,” Mrs. Parrish said.

  “You said that if Devere didn’t take the money for himself,” Marco explained, “that it wound up in someone else’s pockets.”

  “Yes, and then you asked if I was a betting woman.”

  “Which you apparently are,” he said.

  “There’s a small thrill in taking a chance,” she admitted, though uncertainty edged her voice. Then she tipped up her chin, and though the charcoal light within the carriage mostly hid her face, his imagination filled in the details. With the fairness of her redhead’s complexion, doubtless she wore a warm pink hue.

  He forced his thoughts to something other than the color and temperature of the pretty widow’s skin. “Devere thinks there’s more than a small thrill in gambling. We saw those newspaper clippings in his offices. If he’s the sort who’s interested in reckless investments, likely he’s a gambler, too. And not at euchre.”

  “London’s thick with gaming hells,” Desmond said, “all over the city.” He glanced at the increasingly tumbledown buildings as th
e cab threaded its way along the slum’s streets. “A man of some means, even small as Devere’s might be, wouldn’t come to this shithole. Beg your pardon, Mrs. Parrish,” he added when Marco kicked him.

  “None … ah … taken.”

  “We’re a coarse lot,” Marco noted. “Except Simon, who’s smooth as buttered satin.”

  “Toff bastard,” Desmond said good-naturedly.

  Mrs. Parrish continued to stare out the window. Barefoot children in rags chased after the cab, and people huddled on curbs and in doorways, some cradling bottles of gin. “I’ve never … I didn’t know it was like this.”

  “Never went slumming?” Desmond asked snidely. “Ow! You sodding kicked me again.”

  “I repent nothing,” Marco answered, “especially when you’re being a rude ass.” He might not have any love for the higher ranks, but he still knew the value of courtesy.

  The widow looked appalled at the suggestion that she would ever go on one of the guided tours of London’s slums.

  “Come and visit this like a tourist?” she demanded. “Why?”

  “With the exposés in sundry newspapers,” Marco said, “and the zeal for reform, genteel men and women like you venture into Whitechapel and Bethnal Green to shake their heads at the occupants’ misery. They pretend that somehow, the poverty-trapped men and women are to blame for their wretchedness. An easier thought than to acknowledge the truth.”

  A square of weak light fell across her face, revealing the look of illness on her face. “People used to tour Bedlam, too, and throw garbage at the patients. But that was nearly a hundred years ago. I’d never revel in the misfortune of others, or congratulate myself on my privilege.”

  “Others do,” Desmond said.

  “It’s only…” Her gaze lit upon a young girl leading a naked toddler down the muddy lane. “Missionaries would come to my house, asking for donations for places like this. I gave them money. Of course I did. Whatever you think of genteel women like me,” she fired at Marco, “we’re always taught to be charitable. It’s our duty. But I never saw this place before. I never knew … how bad it truly was.”

  Genuine shock and horror edged her voice.

  Had he been too quick to judge her based on her class?

  “It wasn’t enough,” she murmured. “The money I gave the missionaries, or the funds we raised at our little charity bazaars. How could it be? A few dozen pounds can’t fix this.” She waved at the plight just outside the cab.

  “No, it can’t,” he answered. From London to Toulouse to Moscow, he’d seen poverty. It was a constant, no matter where he traveled. Which made him all the more determined to make a change.

  Turning her gaze to him, she said, “And here I am, pursuing my fortune when so many others have nothing.”

  “You don’t have much, either,” he felt obliged to point out.

  “Yet I’m not so far gone that I sleep beneath rags and get my dinner out of a bottle,” she countered.

  He stretched out his legs. “Guilt’s a powerful motivator. Just ask my mother.”

  “Don’t make fun of me,” Mrs. Parrish snapped.

  “I’m not. Once you have your fortune back, you can use it to help people. Truly help.”

  “Perhaps I’ll surprise you and actually do that.”

  He was beginning to wonder if she really might, and was alarmed that he believed she would.

  “Nothing’s going to happen until we get your money back, and to do that, we need to find Devere,” Marco continued. “There’s one person in the whole of London who knows everything about the city’s gamblers: Charlie.”

  “And this Charlie resides here?”

  Marco shrugged. “Don’t know if Charlie lives here, but she does work here.”

  “Charlie is a she?” Mrs. Parrish sucked in a breath. “You’re taking me to a brothel?”

  “God, no. I’m taking you to an underground bare-knuckle brawling match.”

  * * *

  “I thought you were jesting,” Mrs. Parrish shouted above the din, “when you mentioned the brawl.”

  “I never joke about boxing,” he yelled back. “It’s a beautiful, ancient art.”

  The boxer in the makeshift ring took a punch straight to his nose, sending blood spraying in an arc that spattered on the shirts and jackets of the nearest bystanders. The match itself was held in a former slaughterhouse, huge holes in the walls and ceiling, and the massive space teemed with sweaty, shouting men—and a few women—all of them there to bet on the fates of burly, cold-eyed brawlers. The scent of coppery blood and rank sweat hung thickly in the air.

  “I can see the aesthetic majesty,” Mrs. Parrish muttered.

  He scanned her face beneath the hood of her cloak. She was pale, and looked a little ill. Despite this, her wide eyes seemed to try to take everything in at once.

  Desmond pushed through the crowd to join Marco and Mrs. Parrish. His black hair was plastered to his spice-hued skin, and he looked cross. “Where the hell is this Charlie?”

  “Working,” Marco answered. “But she’ll join us just as soon as she collects after the match.”

  The crowd roared as one of the bruisers went down hard, and four blokes were required to drag the unconscious fighter out of the ring. Men clustered in a group as money changed hands, all of them gathered around one central figure that wasn’t quite visible amid the chaos. Finally, the bettors dispersed, revealing Charlie at the center of the madness, pocketing a huge wad of cash.

  As they stood waiting, a red-faced man staggered toward Marco. Ah, hell.

  “You,” the man slurred, pointing a finger at Marco.

  “Me,” he answered.

  “You were the bloke that done took my kids away,” the bloke snarled.

  “Seeing as how you beat them every morning and night,” Marco answered, “I didn’t think you’d miss them very much.” The three children in question had been placed in an orphanage, and were later adopted by a childless couple in Greenwich. Last Marco had heard, the eldest son was apprenticed to a printer.

  “How’m I supposed to get any money if my kids ain’t working?”

  “I suggest getting a job.”

  When the bloke swung at Marco, he was prepared, taking a short sidestep and avoiding the blow. The bully stumbled forward, and Marco kicked the back of his knees, sending the bloke sprawling to the dirt. But the fool didn’t stay down. He lurched to his feet and threw another punch. Marco struck fast, a direct hit to the bully’s jaw.

  The man sank to the ground, bloody and unconscious.

  Marco shook out his fist. He caught Mrs. Parrish’s stunned look, and only stared coolly back. A moment later, Charlie caught sight of Marco and gave a small wave, then crossed through the throng. The crowd parted for Charlie, her natural authority like a ship’s prow, cutting through the waves of humanity.

  Recovering herself, Mrs. Parrish said under her breath, “Now I feel especially dowdy.”

  “Ah, don’t compare yourself to Charlie,” Marco answered. “There’s no one like her.”

  The woman in question stopped in front of them. She tipped back her bowler hat and plucked the stub of a cigar from her mouth, then planted her hands on her hips. In all of Marco’s travels, he’d never encountered a woman—a person—as singular as the bookmaker. She seemed somewhere in her early forties, though she wore her age with a triumphant glow of beauty, defiant in her lack of youth. Charlie favored shirtwaists and well-tailored waistcoats, as well as the finest in neckcloths. Though she wore masculine trappings on her top half, she preferred skirts, as if to remind everyone that she was indeed a woman.

  “Nemesis comes a-calling,” she said. “Here I haven’t asked for my favor yet.”

  “Charlie did us a kindness some time ago,” Marco explained to Mrs. Parrish. He wouldn’t go into the details of how Charlie had helped them obtain a corpse as part of a mission to ruin a corrupt nobleman, since that tale might make the widow finally pass out, or else storm off in horror.

 
And one of their best agents had once boxed in this very place. A right brute of a man, that Jack Dutton, as he called himself now, married to Eva and running a school in Manchester. But that didn’t keep Jack or Eva from taking on their own Nemesis cases in their new location.

  “And my kindnesses always come with a price,” Charlie added with a not particularly friendly grin. She glanced at Mrs. Parrish. “She ain’t one of yours. Not with those pretty little hands.”

  The widow tucked her hands into the folds of her cloak. “Charming establishment you have here.”

  Charlie threw back her head and laughed. “I wouldn’t keep pigs in here, love, but thanks for the sentiment.” Then her gaze fell on Desmond, and a feral gleam lit her eyes. “But this one is yours.”

  “How can you tell?” Desmond asked, placing his own hands on his hips.

  “It’s in the eyes, love,” Charlie purred. “I knew a bloke who was a sniper for the army. Could shoot an enemy right in the heart at two hundred yards in dense jungle. You Nemesis lot have the same look in your eyes.” She pointed a finger at Desmond. “Dangerous, you are.” She grinned. “Almost as dangerous as me.”

  “We’ll just have to test that theory,” Desmond answered.

  “Maybe you’ll be the favor I call in,” she murmured.

  Marco stepped between them. “We’re actually here for a reason.”

  The Widow Parrish looked ashen, swaying on her feet. She had to be roasting beneath her heavy mourning clothes and woolen cloak. The crude boxing arena couldn’t be an easy place for her to be, either, with blood staining the dirt that comprised the ring and the ongoing racket of men bellowing at one another.

  Yet she didn’t voice a word of complaint.

  And bugger him if that didn’t appeal.

  He wanted to pull her close and have her lean on him, give her support. No. Her case fell to him, but he wasn’t her protector. It’d been her choice to get involved with Nemesis. Either she’d flow with the current or be dragged under—depending on whether or not she was a strong swimmer. He wasn’t her raft.

  But, damn it, what were these compulsions? She was sheltered. Delicate. That had to be it.