by Zoë Archer
She exhaled, frustrated. “Walters is taking us to the nearest train station. We’ll catch the express to London, where we’re headquartered.”
“And then?” he demanded.
“And then we’ll talk.”
He snorted at that. But whatever his reservations, the prospect of waiting around for the warders seemed less appealing. Muttering, he stepped into the carriage, and it tilted until he found his seat. Good God, was the man made entirely of muscle?
She turned to Simon. “My doubts still stand,” she whispered.
“He’s a brute and a criminal,” Simon answered low, “but he’s our best weapon against Rockley. The plan moves forward.”
There was nothing she could do. Not standing out on the moors in the middle of the night, with a gang of armed warders hunting them. She checked the contents of her reticule—money, Webley, keys, handkerchief, chloroform. She hoped they wouldn’t need to use the chloroform on Dalton. Carrying him would be like lifting a mountain.
Satisfied that everything was in place, she climbed into the carriage, seating herself opposite Dalton. He stared at her, eyes gleaming like jet, as Simon took his seat next to her.
Marco rapped on the roof, and the carriage was in motion. Before long, they sped through the moors, rocking over the rolling heath.
“He’s got no lights out there,” Dalton rumbled. “Going to crash us for certain.”
She turned her attention away from the windows. “Walters knows this countryside better than a man knows—”
“His wife’s arse,” he supplied.
“The back of his hand.” Her mouth curled. “Really, Mr. Dalton, my threshold for being shocked is extremely high. You’ll have to do better than that.”
“I’d like to try.”
If her cheeks felt warm, it was only because she had been running across the moors. Certainly not from the husky rasp of his voice in the small confines of the carriage, or the erotic challenge of his words.
Simon cleared his throat. He grabbed a cloth-wrapped bundle next to him and tossed it to Dalton. The convict nimbly caught the package.
“A change of clothes.” Simon eyed Dalton’s filthy prison uniform. “Charming as those garments are, they’re not suitable for traveling on a public train.”
“They’re not suitable for a dog to wear, neither.”
“That’s a considerable amount of hatred for an inanimate object,” she noted.
Staring down at his knee-length breeches, Dalton made a sound of disgust. “Never want to see this bloody crow’s foot again. One of the first things they do when you get to prison is take away your clothing and give you a uniform. You don’t think you’ll care, until you see hundreds of men dressed just like you. No one’s got a name, just a number. And this sodding mark, all over your clothes. It’s like you’re nobody.”
Stunned into silence, she could only nod. Up to this point, Dalton hadn’t spoken at such length. More than the extent of his speech, however, she was shocked by how powerfully he’d been affected by the dehumanizing conditions within the prison. Easier for her to believe that he was an unfeeling beast, driven only by an animal need for revenge. The bleakness in his voice belied this.
“Then you’ll find the garments we’ve provided more to your liking.” Her words were flippant, her thoughts anything but.
“Pull over,” he said.
“Carriage sick?” asked Marco.
“I’m supposed to change, ain’t I? So pull over and I’ll change.”
But Simon shook his head. “We’ll lose time if we stop. You’ll have to do it in the carriage.”
Dalton shot her a glance.
“The bodies of men are no mystery to me, Mr. Dalton,” she said. “I won’t fall unconscious at the sight of yours.”
“I’d wager not much would make you faint.”
“She can pull a bullet out of a man without the bat of an eyelash,” Marco said cheerfully. “Took one out of my thigh, calm as a lake. And I’ve got a pretty little scar for a souvenir.”
Dalton chuckled, and the unexpected sound tumbled over her skin like rough velvet. “The bullyboys of the East End would find you damn useful.”
“Sadly for them,” she replied, “I already have employment. Perhaps it’s your delicate sensibilities that are disturbed, Mr. Dalton, by the thought of undressing in my presence.”
A corner of his mouth turned up. “Never dare me, love.”
She most assuredly didn’t like him calling her love, but she merely folded her arms over her chest and waited.
Dalton sent glances toward Simon and Marco. “If she becomes lust crazed by the sight of me in the altogether…”
Simon snorted. “We’ll protect your honor should she assault you.”
Dalton grinned, a flash of white teeth in the darkness. “Don’t.”
“Oh, get on with it!” She cursed the short temper that allowed her to be so easily baited.
He shrugged his wide shoulders. Then grabbed the hem of his smocklike shirt and pulled it over his head.
Forcibly, she kept her lips pressed together, refusing to make even a single sound of shock or amazement. But, good Lord. The man was … astonishing. Every muscle in his arms and on his torso was sharply defined, as though the primal essence of masculinity had been pared to its elemental state. Oh, she’d seen many bare-chested men, including Simon and Marco, but they were lean where Dalton was broad, men shaped by training, whereas hard labor had formed Dalton into unfettered strength.
Not a dram of extra flesh. He seemed forged from iron, like a brutal but effective weapon.
Against the shrill warnings of her better judgment, her gaze moved across the breadth of his chest, noting the dark hair dusting his pectorals and trailing down in a line along his ridged abdomen. And lower.
“Careful, love.” His deep voice dragged her attention back up to his face. “You’ll set the carriage to blazing.”
She forced herself to turn to Marco. “Hand me your pack.”
He did so, and she rifled through it until she found what she sought. Pulling out a canteen, she gave it an experimental shake. It sloshed, revealing that it was full. Little surprise, as all Nemesis operatives kept themselves in a continual state of preparedness. “Water?” she asked.
“Grappa’s in the flask,” he answered.
She would definitely want that. Later. Right now, water suited her needs.
Tossing the canteen and a handkerchief from her reticule to Dalton, she said, “Doesn’t matter how you’re dressed if your face is filthy.” Since neither she nor Marco and Simon were disguised as laborers, Dalton’s grimy appearance would certainly attract attention on the train.
The little scrap of fabric looked like an elf’s frippery in Dalton’s large hand, its snowy white cotton contrasting with his brown hands. He eyed it warily.
“It’s just a handkerchief,” she said impatiently.
“Don’t have a lot of experience handling women’s dainties.” He held it out, pinching it between thumb and forefinger. “If I use this, it’ll be ruined.”
She shrugged. “I have dozens more.” Then she started as Dalton sniffed the handkerchief.
“Smells like lemons and … some kind of flower.”
“Verbena.” She felt strangely uncomfortable, as if he had discovered a closely guarded secret. But there was nothing secret about the type of perfumed soap she preferred, purchased from a shop just down the street from her lodgings.
“Pretty,” he rumbled, and that strange sensation intensified. “But I don’t want to smell like a lady.”
“For God’s sake.” Simon clenched his hands. “Better you reek of perfume than peat and bog.”
Muttering something about blokes who smell like flowers, Dalton unscrewed the cap on the canteen and wet the handkerchief. He scrubbed at his face, stripping off layers of grime. Forehead, nose, cheeks, chin. Even behind his ears and along his neck. The motion brought the muscles of his arms into high relief as they flexed and released.
&nb
sp; Finally, he was done. He gazed at the handkerchief. It was, indeed, ruined, streaked with so much dirt that a laundress would weep in despair. “Guess I’ll keep this.”
“Burning it would be a better option.” Yet her offhand words belied her keen interest. For the first time tonight, she looked upon the face of Jack Dalton.
She had seen his photograph in the file. It had been taken before he’d been incarcerated, before prison regulations had demanded he shave his generous mustache. She had thought that he might be passably attractive, if one was attracted to hard-eyed ruffians. Now he was clean-shaven. Though shadows filled the carriage, enough light remained that she had a good sense of his face.
He wasn’t handsome, not in Simon’s aristocratic fashion, nor did he possess the Continental charm of Marco’s half-Italian lineage. In fact, of the three men, both Marco and Simon would be considered better looking. Yet Dalton had a rough, raw masculinity, his jaw square, his mouth wide. He had a pugilist’s nose, slightly crooked with a distinct bump on the bridge. A scar bisected his right eyebrow, and there was another just over his top lip, on the left. The face of a man who had lived hard, who expected little and was often not surprised when little was given.
Assuredly, she had seen more handsome men, but none of them were as striking as Dalton. Not a one had his compelling, dark gaze. A gaze that was fixed directly on her.
She lifted her chin. It was ridiculous to pretend she wasn’t staring.
“An improvement,” she said. “No one will give you a second look at the train station.” That was a lie. Gazes would be drawn to him, for he possessed a shadowed magnetism. It would be deuced difficult to hide him anywhere—another point against him. She would bring that up once they reached headquarters.
He tucked the handkerchief into his discarded shirt, then bent to untie his boots. The movement brought him very close to her, so close that if she leaned forward a few inches, she could put her hands on his shoulders, her lips on the back of his head.
Heat radiated from him, pressing close around her. She caught a trace of her own soap’s fragrance on him, as if they had been in a tight embrace and the scent of her skin had transferred to him.
He looked up through his spiky lashes, and their gazes tangled. For a long, breathless moment, they simply stared at one another, suspended, ensnared.
“Hurry up, Dalton.” Simon’s voice was clipped. “We’ll be at the station soon.”
His words severed the threads binding her and Dalton. A wry smile curled at the corner of Dalton’s mouth, and he finished unlacing his boots. His striped wool stockings followed, revealing calves dusted with more dark hair. The sight of his large bare feet was primal, her own not unsubstantial feet appearing tiny beside his.
After a quick gaze in her direction, he moved to the fastening of his knee-length breeches.
She didn’t want to watch his fingers undoing the buttons, but the sight riveted her. The deftness with which his large hands moved came as a surprise. He tilted his hips to gain enough room to remove his breeches. She forced her gaze back up the length of his chest, fighting to maintain a disinterested expression. Only a few minutes earlier, she’d claimed to be hard to shock. Now she had to prove it.
Though the carriage creaked and jounced noisily across the moors, she was acutely aware of the sound of fabric sliding down Dalton’s hips, then lower. She kept her focus trained on the hollow of his throat, but her mind filled in the details, coaxing her to envision his thighs, roped and hewn. And—there was no helping it—she imagined his cock, nestled in thick dark hair.
Don’t look. For the love of your pride, do not look.
His voice rumbled out of the darkness. “Doesn’t cost anything to have yourself a peek, love.”
“Dalton!” Marco snapped. “Treat Miss Warrick with respect, or I’ll polish your teeth with a bullet.”
She waved a hand. “It’s a small matter if Mr. Dalton encourages me to contemplate his shortcomings.” Then, deliberately, she let her gaze fall to his groin. “My jacket must be extremely warm, for I had no idea the night was so cold. That is the explanation, isn’t it, Mr. Dalton?”
He made a sound midway between indignation and amusement.
Satisfied with his response, she moved her gaze to his face. He might be able to see the heat staining her cheeks, yet there was nothing she could do about her body’s unwanted response. Truly, she had seen men in all states of dress and undress, knew exactly how their bodies looked, and even how they felt. There was no mystery to the male physique. So why was she so affected by the sight of a naked Jack Dalton?
It was purely logical. After all, they had met only hours earlier. He was a stranger, and a dangerous one, at that. No wonder her pulse accelerated when she looked at his penis, the most intimate part of a man’s body.
Despite her belittling claim, she finally had the answer to the question about men with large feet and large hands. They were … proportional.
Consider the spirit of scientific inquiry fulfilled, she thought with an inward smile.
“If you’re quite finished attempting to incite Miss Warrick to a lust-crazed frenzy,” drawled Simon, “get dressed.”
Fortunately, Dalton didn’t complain about Simon’s command. He clearly saw the value of arriving at the train station clothed rather than nude. After undoing the bundle, he removed a shirt, trousers, waistcoat, jacket, and boots.
“None of this is going to fit,” he said. “Not even the boots.”
“We went off your vital statistics from your file,” Marco answered.
“That was before I did five years of hard labor. Gotten bigger since then. My feet spread, too.”
“Stopping at the high street shops is impossible,” she said. “So you’ll have to squeeze into what we’ve got.”
He shrugged, and went about the awkward task of dressing in a moving carriage shared with three other people. She would never admit to anyone her small, internal sigh of relief when he dragged on the trousers. The waist fit him well enough, with actual room to spare, but his thighs strained against the material. He could barely pull his arms through the shirtsleeves. The shirt actually tore a little on the shoulder seams, and he grimaced.
“The waistcoat and jacket will hide that,” she said, brisk.
Except he couldn’t button the waistcoat, and the jacket was taut across his shoulders, its cuffs inches above his wrists.
Marco tried to fasten the collar to Dalton’s shirt. “It’s like dressing a lion as Little Lord Fauntleroy.”
“You’re sodding choking me,” Dalton rasped.
Frustrated, Marco flung the collar to the ground. “Unless we have a spare wheel rim, nothing’s going to work.”
“Just tie the neck cloth around him.” She waved the long piece of silk foulard at Marco, but Dalton snatched it from her hand.
“Can tie my own damned neck cloth.” And he did, though Simon rolled his eyes at the inelegant knot. “There,” Dalton said with a growl. “Now I look like the bloody Prince of Wales.”
“If His Royal Highness were ten inches taller, three stone heavier, and had spent his formative years in a bull-baiting ring,” she said, “you would be his perfect likeness.”
Dalton opened his mouth, but before he could speak, the carriage slowed. “Train station,” Walters called down.
Everyone within the carriage stilled. Their gazes met in silent acknowledgment. Even Dalton understood. They had completed only the first stage of their plan, and the danger was far from over.
CHAPTER THREE
Jack waited inside the carriage as the others got out and made a quick survey of the train station. The screws might be here, lurking just inside so he could tumble right into their trap. He doubted they’d be able to reach the station so quickly, especially on foot, but he couldn’t shake his fear that they were here. He couldn’t let himself get this far only to be dragged back to Dunmoor. With this brief taste of freedom, only one path remained for him: kill Rockley.
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s fists clenched in anticipation. He’d run, he’d hide, he’d do whatever he must for as long as necessary. If Rockley met death at his hands, it would all be worth it.
First, he needed to put as much distance as possible between himself and Dunmoor. Then … he’d figure the rest out. He would have to lose these Nemesis people. Or take advantage of them and their wickedly clever schemes until they were no longer useful.
Eva appeared in the door of the carriage. With the lights from the station behind her, he could only see her outline and the shadowy suggestion of her face. She might have been any slim woman. Except he knew her shape now, her scent. The way her breath sped when something stirred her up.
His cock gave an interested throb.
Don’t be a sodding idiot. Got the screws on my tail and a gang of lunatics holding the reins. And she’s one of the lunatics.
“We’re clear,” she said.
He moved forward to get out, and she edged quickly back. Keeping more distance between them.
Stepping down onto the gravel outside the station, he squinted toward the lights. Simon stood at the ticket booth, and Marco struck a casual pose nearby, looking for all the world as if he didn’t have an escaped convict’s uniform and boots in his pack. A few other people milled about the platform—some working blokes, a gent in a banker’s suit and with an air of respectability, a woman with two small children—but no sign of the warders or even the local constabulary.
“Stay close to me,” Eva said under her breath. “And try to look inconspicuous, though”—she eyed him—“that’s a rather tall order.”
“I look like an organ grinder’s monkey,” he muttered, fighting the urge to tug on his tight clothes. His boots pinched, too, but the Nemesis gang had been clever in bringing him a change of shoes. The soles of prison-issued boots bore the crow’s foot mark, too. Anyone with half a brain in their head would see his footprints in the dust.
“Trust me, Mr. Dalton, no one would ever confuse you with a playful little monkey. Perhaps one of those terrifying gorillas at the zoo. The ones that beat their chests and roar.”
He held up the back of his hands. “Got less hair.”
