Wicked Temptation (Nemesis Unlimited) (3 page)

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 side 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…”

Marco narrowed his eyes. What would she say? Would she be disgusted? Condemning? Everyone in the room seemed to wait for her reaction, not just Lucy, but Harriet and himself, as well.

“I wish,” Mrs. Parrish continued, “you’d told me sooner.”

“So you could fire her and let all your friends know not to hire her?” Marco asked.

“So I could have done more to help,” the widow said angrily. “If there were other girls she’d known back then, and they wanted characters, or at least a place to start. I’m glad, though, that you were able to make a better life for yourself.”

Lucy suddenly covered her face with her hands and burst into tears.

Mystified, Mrs. Parrish looked at him.

“As I said,” Marco explained, “this is a hard, rough world. It devours girls like Lucy every day. That’s why kindness is so hard to accept. It’s a word we all know, but almost never experience. And that’s how I came to be at your former home today, Mrs. Parrish.”

He crossed the room to stand beside her chair. She looked up at him, her lips pursed in a question.

“We’ve taken down the most powerful men in England,” he said. “Fought corporate corruption—and won.”

“You sound superhuman,” she said.

He’d helped dozens, scores of people before, but no one like her. Certainly not of her social class. And few individuals, regardless of their caste, had her edged awareness. It made him … restless. Couldn’t she be an empty-headed ninny? Annoying as that might be, it’d make it easier to figure her out.

“We’re only people,” he said. “But when we have a goal, nothing stops us. And now, Nemesis is going to get you your money back.”

TWO

She’d never attended a more bizarre tea party. Certainly not one that involved her former maid—who was once a prostitute—as well as a handsome, middle-aged woman of mixed white and Negro blood, and a man who reminded her of a beautiful knife, all gathered together in the back room of a clean but modest tea shop.

The claims that these three people made were at worst outrageous. At best, they inspired false hope.

“I’m one of the other
kind,
” she said. “A society widow. Not a girl on the street, or a laborer. Why would this Nemesis bother with someone like me?”

Marco thankfully stepped away from standing beside her chair and strode back to the fireplace. It was all she could do not to shrink into herself when he was so close. He sent a pointed look in Harriet’s direction.

“If
anyone
needs help and has no recourse,” the woman said, “Nemesis is there.” A corner of her mouth tilted. “And from what Lucy’s told us, you aren’t typical of your social rank. You’re one of the good ones, the ones who take action instead of sitting idle. There are too few like you. You help others, and in turn, those that have benefited from your assistance lend a hand when it’s needed. And if we help you, you’ll continue with your generosity.”

“Assuming that I carry on with my altruistic ways,” she noted.

“You might stop,” Harriet said. “However, as I said, you aren’t like other people of your status.”

“I ought to feel insulted on behalf of my class.”

“Don’t be.”

She glanced over at Marco. He rested his hands behind him on the mantel, and the fabric of his coat stretched tight against his shoulders and arms. She was unhappy to discover that the shoulders of his coat were not padded, but instead clung to hard, curved muscles. He wasn’t a young man, Marco, nor especially tall, but he moved with an athleticism that most sportsmen would envy.

Hugh had been an avid horseman and even visited a gentlemen’s gymnasium in Chelsea, yet he hadn’t looked as though his very body was a weapon. Marco’s physicality was palpable, intimidating.

“Well, I don’t feel flattered,” she replied.

“That’s not our intention,” Marco said.

“Your intention being to retrieve my lost fortune.” She shook her head. “If that’s so, then I’m sorry to disappoint all of you, but there’s nothing to be done. The money’s gone, and as of today, so is my house. The task is impossible.”

She had the impression that Marco smiled, even as his mouth remained a firm line. “Nemesis thrives on the impossible.”

Turning back to Harriet, Bronwyn said, “You seem like a reasonable, rational woman. These claims cannot possibly be true, can they?”

“True as Nelson’s Column,” the older woman answered.

“But if we’re to have any hope of succeeding,” Marco added, “we need to put our plans into motion, and soon. It’s been eight months since you lost your money.”

“To Hugh’s debts,” Bronwyn added bitterly.

“Or so Devere says,” Marco said.

“Could he be lying about that?”

Marco made a careless shrug, a quintessentially Italian gesture of noncommitment. “No way to know unless we talk to the man himself. What I do know is that each moment that passes, the tougher our job becomes to get your money back.”