Wicked Temptation (Nemesis Unlimited) (18 page)

“Parisians seem to have perfected artful agony,” Marco agreed. He slipped the book back onto its shelf and pulled out another, this one about architecture. “What of the gaming?”

“The high-level games seem to concentrate around Place Vendôme,” Simon answered. “But there are about three regular floating games of the lower level you can find in Clignancourt.”

“That’s where we’ll find Devere,” Bronwyn guessed.

“If I were the sort of belly-crawling vermin that he seems to be,” Simon answered, “then yes, you’ll find him there.” To Marco, he said, “I’ll give you the addresses where the games are usually held.”

As the two men talked, Alyce’s stomach gave a sudden loud growl. The woman covered her belly with her hand and chuckled with embarrassment. She whispered to Bronwyn, “We haven’t had breakfast, and I’m so hungry. I barely ate anything last night on account of not knowing what the blazes they were serving me. Things they called
escargots
and
cervelles.
”

“Better avoid that,” Bronwyn whispered back. “It’s snails and brains.”

Alyce’s complexion took on a distinctly green hue. “We didn’t have much to eat in Trewyn, but Lord preserve me from eating garden pests and cow brains.”

“If a server offers you
boeuf
or
poulet,
” Bronwyn said, “you’re safe.”

The other woman nodded. “Cheers. Everyone talks about how la-di-da the food is over here, but I thought I was going to starve.”

“Worst comes to worst,” Bronwyn advised, “keep a cooked sausage in your reticule and slip it onto your plate when no one’s watching.”

Alyce laughed—a husky, full laugh—causing Simon to gaze at her with undisguised adoration. Something flashed in Marco’s eyes, too, but he wasn’t looking at Alyce. He looked at Bronwyn.

Her heart thudded. Ever since last night, hot tension had been growing between them, barely checked by the kiss.

“The first game’s tonight at eleven,” Simon noted. “Runs until dawn, so I’d suggest you rest up beforehand.”

She could use it, too. Absinthe and Marco had played havoc with her dreams.

“And those are the only games worth investigating in Paris?” he pressed Simon.

The gentleman looked offended. “Six years of friendship, but where’s the faith in my abilities?”

“Right up your—”

“All right, lads.” Alyce held up her hands. “We’re all tired and
hungry,
so we’ll keep the schoolyard taunts in our pockets. And yes,” she added, “these three games were the best options. There aren’t heaps of underground gaming hells, not with fear of the law.”

“I didn’t think the citizens of Paris were so law-abiding,” Bronwyn said.

Simon looked wry. “They’re mostly afraid of raids and having to pay off the police. Otherwise, there’s a long and storied tradition of Parisian disobedience.”

“Then I think England calls you home again,” Marco said, “or wherever else your next assignment is.”

Drawing his wife close, Simon said, “We haven’t had our honeymoon yet and I promised Alyce to show her my favorite café in the Cap d’Antibes. It’s too early for the high season, so we should have the town to ourselves.”

His tone was perfectly polite, but given the way Alyce turned pink, Bronwyn had a very good idea how they’d make use of their solitude.

Bronwyn stuck out her hand. “Thank you both for all the work you’ve done on my behalf. I’m afraid words are rather tiny things when it comes to expressing gratitude.”

In turn, Simon and Alyce shook her hand. Bronwyn had to resist the need to shake her hand out after Alyce’s impressively strong grip.

“All in a day’s work, et cetera,” Simon said.

“A night’s work, rather,” Alyce amended.

After Marco shook hands with the other Nemesis agents, they parted company. The last Bronwyn saw of the couple, they were strolling hand in hand along the banks of the Seine, Alyce marveling at the scenery while Simon watched the look of wonderment on her face with a fond smile.

Another ache of longing spread through Bronwyn. She’d come to Paris to find her missing fortune, yet what she discovered was how much else was missing in her life.

*   *   *

She found it on her bed, later that day. A small, brown-paper-wrapped parcel, with no writing on the paper and nothing else to indicate what it was or where it had come from.

Tearing off the paper, she discovered it was a book.
Le Comte de Monte-Cristo
. She flipped open the cover and saw someone had written something on the flyleaf.

Enjoy the adventure.—M.

It surprised her to realize she already was.

*   *   *

It would be hours before the gaming club opened, leaving Bronwyn and Marco ample time to dine. They sat at one of the numerous restaurants lining the street, a bottle of red wine standing sentry at their small table, and a succession of
plats
placed in front of them. No
escargots
or
cervelles,
but roasted chicken and potatoes suffused with herbs and garlic, almost austere but rendered down to its purest form of gastronomic pleasure.

The pleasure of the food felt distant, though, with the strain still hanging between her and Marco.

She searched for an innocuous topic. “This bistro’s food reminds me of someplace.”

“Amélie-les-Bains?” he asked.

She made a face. “God, no. The spa served boiled beef to its healthiest patients, and the others ate barley gruel. I swore off boiled anything after that.”

“They should be tried for crimes against cooking. My mother would never stand for food treated as an afterthought.”

Did he know that he spoke of himself and his family? She didn’t want to point it out. Instead, she held this small piece of information, the way a diver would cradle a pearl pried from the depths of the ocean. There was warmth and affection in his voice when he talked of his mother. Strange to think that he even had parents, rather than emerging fully formed from the world’s secrets.

She wanted to ask him dozens, hundreds of questions about his past and his family, yet he had to be approached carefully, like a wild animal, in gradual sideways steps, hoping that he wouldn’t bolt. Or at least not retreat into silence.

After taking another bite of her chicken, she mulled the taste. “The Lake District,” she said at last. “When I was a little girl, we took a holiday in the Lake District. The first time I’d ever been out of London. I couldn’t understand where all the buildings had gone. It scared me. I thought a monster had come and eaten them up.”

He smiled a little.

“My mother said that out in the country,” she said, “the buildings were like dandelion puffs, and blew away, leaving the green hills behind. I wasn’t scared after that. And that first night at our inn by Ullswater, they served us plain roast chicken. It tasted so … real. Like how a chicken was supposed to taste. Until now, it was the most delicious thing I’d ever eaten.”

“Italian cooking is always best. This comes a close second.” He gestured at his plate with his knife and fork. “Peasant food. Meant to nourish more than just the stomach.” Before she could respond to this, he asked softly, “What happened to your parents?”

“Lucy didn’t say?”

“She mentioned you were orphaned, but no details.”

Bronwyn pushed the food around on her plate. “An accident after I’d been married—train derailment. You probably read about it in the papers. The Bulhouse Bridge tragedy.” She took a long sip of wine. “It’s one of the reasons why you find me dependent on the munificence of Nemesis. Had my mother and father still been alive, they would’ve welcomed me home. And you already know I haven’t got any siblings besides my sister and her oaf of a husband.” Then, because it seemed opportune, she pressed her luck. “You?”

He surprised her by actually answering. “Mother and father both alive. Two sisters. Both unconventional.”

“And they come from
your
family?” she couldn’t help but tease.

He actually laughed, warming her more than the wine.

Perhaps now would be a good time to ask him other questions. Learn about where he’d gone to school, what he studied there, how he’d become a spy. She hungered for any crumb of information about him. Something that helped her solve the unfolding enigma that was Marco.

The tension between them loosened, yet as they continued to eat, and while the wine and food and man opposite her cast warmth over her, she was at all times aware that later that night, they’d be hunting the miserable fellow who’d stolen her fortune. It seemed that since her widow’s veil had been lifted, the world was always edged with darkness.

*   *   *

Marco glanced over at Bronwyn. She sat beside him on a hard wooden bench in one of Clignancourt’s seedy cafés, positioned across from the shabby private home that hosted tonight’s gaming hell. Her lips pressed thin and her hands knotted together in her lap. Should he tell her to make herself more at ease? Her tense posture stood out in this place of slovenly, listing drunkards and bleary addicts, but no one seemed to pay her much attention, mired as they were in their own demons.

The smell of cheap wine and liquor hung over the garishly lit café. Unlike the cafés of Montmartre, the ones of Clignancourt held no intellectual debate or artistic ambition. He recalled how she talked of music, the passion she felt for it, her secret wish to become a professional violinist. Her passion had inflamed his own. But there was none of that among the people of Clignancourt. Only the desire to escape the grim world.

“We should have gone into the gambling hell,” Bronwyn murmured.

“Safer out here.”

She gazed at the café with disbelief. Two men scuffled in the corner while a whore shrieked at them. “Hard to believe.”

“Even legal gaming hells don’t have much access to doors or windows,” he said. “No fast exits. The crowds are thick, too, and noisy.”

She raised a brow. “A seasoned agent like you shouldn’t be fazed by such conditions.”

“I’m not. But usually I go into scenarios like that alone, or with a trained partner.”

“Does that make me a liability?” she asked flatly.

“Not at all. I need you to help me identify Devere if he shows, but I can do my job better if I know you’re safe. This place might be a rattrap, but it’s more secure than there.” He nodded toward the house across the street, where men and the occasional woman slouched in, ready to throw away their money on crooked games of chance.

“Harriet taught me how to fight,” Bronwyn countered.

“A fist can’t protect you from a knife in the back.”

“But you can.”

“When you’re with me,” he said, “nothing will happen to you.”

He always looked after the safety of his clients. That had to be the only explanation for the overwhelming sense of protectiveness he felt toward her. Just part of the job.

It was his coolness—and outstanding language skills—that had attracted the attention of a government recruiter at Cambridge. In addition to his boxing, he’d been captain of the rugby team, and known for doing whatever was necessary to obtain a victory, including inventing plays that had never been used before. The agent who’d approached him had said that his skills would go to waste if he followed in his father’s line of work. Marco had been younger then, almost naïve, and hadn’t been able to fathom how this stranger knew so much about him.

But the offer of government work that made a true difference—not some useless sinecure or dull work behind a desk—had intrigued him. That, the possibility of traveling to the distant corners of the empire to defeat Britain’s enemies, and striving to erode the power of the elite.

Before he’d been approached by the government recruiter, he hadn’t known exactly what to do with himself. Oh, he excelled at all his studies, but to what end, he hadn’t known. Going into the family business didn’t interest him. Neither had soldiering.

But the secret work of espionage had. Quietly, deliberately altering the course of … everything. Including the dismantling of power by those of the old guard. It was a new world, where intelligence, ambition, and drive shaped destiny—not the good fortune of birth. The old guard had made him, his father, and his father’s father feel insignificant … he would be the one to tunnel beneath the castle’s foundations, until the whole structure came plummeting down.

It had been the same with Nemesis. Creating change through assiduous planning and organized mischief. Even better, because he worked directly to undermine the elite and their entrenched power.

Yet he never spoke to anyone of his early years with British Intelligence. Though he’d picked up the work quickly, he’d still made his share of mistakes, and he’d no intention of reliving those.

Just as it would be a mistake to pursue his interest in Bronwyn while in the middle of a mission.

When the waiter came by with grease-smeared glasses for wine, Marco ordered coffee instead. Likely the coffee would taste as bad as they made it in England, but it was already midnight and Devere hadn’t shown. He and Bronwyn would have a long night of waiting ahead of them. And it was growing more and more difficult to remind himself why he needed to keep his distance from her right now.

For the moment, he couldn’t have her. And even after the job was done, he could only give her a few weeks, maybe a month. That was the most he’d ever been able to offer his lovers.

Maybe she wouldn’t want that arrangement. She was a good, decent woman and he was … himself. The kind of man who was poison to good, decent women.

Not that he’d tried—because he knew himself. He lived and worked in the shadowy, nasty corners of life. Hardly the sort of man who could ever be allowed honorable intentions toward a woman. Especially someone like Bronwyn.

But knowing that, during the job, they shouldn’t share a bed or anything else besides the mission only frustrated him. And when something frustrated him, he always found a way to get around the obstacle.

But this would be his first retreat. A strategic one, but a retreat just the same.

*   *   *

They hadn’t had any success. Devere hadn’t shown for the whole of the night.