Dangerous Seduction: A Nemesis Unlimited Novel (40 page)

Her fingers laced behind his back, her arms tight and strong. A single tear coursed down her cheek. But she didn’t move to wipe it away—letting him see her in her vulnerability. She, who showed her softness to no one, shared it with him. Trusting him.

I love you.

But the words wouldn’t leave his mouth. He couldn’t allow himself to say them. Not when they both knew he couldn’t stay. The words would be more of a curse than a pleasure, offering them both something they couldn’t possess. Yet they throbbed in his chest, each one a brand.

“Talk to me,” she whispered.

He brushed strands of dark hair from her face, touched the damp streak on her cheek and rubbed it between his fingers. “What should we talk of?”

“Anything. Everything. What you liked to eat when you were a child. Your first memory. The sound you hate the most. The most beautiful place you’ve ever been.”

These were intimacies greater than sex for the brief time they shared now, and he was glad to give them to her.

They resumed their walk. “Carrots,” he said. “The other boys were always stealing boiled sweets from the shop in town, but I nicked carrots from the stables. The grooms pretended not to see me—maybe they were afraid they’d be sacked. But I’d eat carrots by the bushel.”

“Bilberries,” she answered. “I’d go out into the fields in August and stuff the berries into my mouth as soon as I found them, instead of saving them and bringing them home to make a pie. My mother always knew because I’d come back with blue lips.”

They smiled softly together and continued to stroll. Leisurely. As if they were just two sweethearts courting, enjoying the day, enjoying the discovery of each other.

He continued, “I remember being very small—couldn’t have been more than a year old—and my nanny slapping my hand when I tried to pull down the fire screen. Seems that was a habit of mine. Always trying to stick my hand in the fire.”

“Not much has changed since then.”

“Hot, dangerous things fascinate me. It’s worth being burned.”

She cast him a glance from beneath her lashes. “Then you get scarred.”

“Something to help me remember the fire.”

She shook her head, murmuring something about foolhardy men. “I remember Henry trying to teach me how to play rugby. This was before he’d formed those foolish ideas that girls shouldn’t play. I’d just learned to stand and he would try to toss me the ball. It’d knock me over.”

“And you’d pull yourself back up and try to catch it again.”

Her lips curved. “Not much of a mystery, am I?”

But he was serious when he answered. “It’d take lifetimes for me to truly know you. Time I’d gladly surrender.”

She turned to him suddenly. “Simon—”

“Don’t,” he said roughly. “Let’s … let’s keep walking. Asking questions. Answering.”

She silently acquiesced. And for hours, they roamed across the hills, talking until their voices rasped. A poem ran through his head, memorized long ago at Harrow.

But at my back I always hear

Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;

And yonder all before us lie

Deserts of vast eternity.

Back then, he’d scoffed at Marvell, thinking the poem simply a fancy way of getting under a girl’s skirts. But the aching melancholy of it now seeped into his bones. An ache he suspected would never dissipate.

They’d made a loop around the village, and were heading back toward it, when he spotted a figure running in their direction. Christopher Tremaine, one of the mine’s new owners.

Both Alyce and Simon sped toward him. Christopher caught up with them, and bent over, gasping.

Simon saved him the trouble of speaking. “They’ve come.”

Christopher, panting, nodded. He pointed down toward the village. The streets were mostly empty now, but two carriages and a trap were parked outside the managers’ office.

Simon and Alyce shared a look. Time’s chariot had arrived. The reckoning moment had finally come.

CHAPTER 17.

Alyce’s heart thundered in her chest as she, Simon, and Christopher raced into the village. Speeding down the high street, she saw workers’ faces peering out of the windows, while some braver souls lingered in the street. They all looked toward the managers’ office, where two hired carriages and the managers’ horse-drawn trap took up most of the space outside. She could already hear raised voices as she approached.

Simon led the way into the office. Once, Alyce had read a penny dreadful about men called cowboys in the wild American West. The end of the story had been two of those cowboys facing each other in the middle of town, waiting tensely to draw their guns. A “showdown,” it’d been called.

So it looked in the managers’ office as Simon entered, confronting not just the old managers, but the owners, too. At one end of the room stood the managers and owners, and at the other were some of the other miners—Nathaniel, Travis Dyer, and a few others. They looked to Simon gratefully as he stepped farther into the office.

The owners looked painfully out of place here. The managers might dress more finely than the workers, but they couldn’t compare with the city elegance of the owners. Two other men stood with the owners, both of them carrying portfolios and self-importance. Solicitors.

They didn’t frighten Alyce nearly as much as Tippet did, looming in one corner with the other lawmen, Oliver, Freeman, and Bice. The chief constable’s face was dark with barely controlled rage, and his men clutched their truncheons, ready for a scrap.

Harrold looked almost comically shocked as Simon approached. He stared at Simon’s rough worker’s clothes, then up at his face.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” Simon said, cool as November.

“I want a full accounting, Shale!” Harrold demanded. “We received a telegram a few hours ago alleging the most preposterous claims.”

“Every one of those claims are true,” he answered. “But I’m not Shale. The name’s pure fabrication.”

“I’m not his wife, either,” Alyce said. “And I don’t have a brother in the government. But I’m one of the owners of the collective, and that makes me the owner of Wheal Prosperity. Not you.”

If Harrold and the other owners looked surprised at Simon’s appearance and words, when Alyce spoke, they could’ve been knocked on their arses by a bit of eiderdown. From her accent to her clothes to the way she spoke to them, there wasn’t anything of the simpering society lady in her now. And damn her if she didn’t love seeing their shock.

“Rubbish,” Stokeham declared, “the lot of it!”

Simon went to the strongbox, opened it, and took out a stack of papers. “Have your solicitors review the documentation. It’s all legal, all aboveboard. Oh, but the stocks to those overseas ventures—the ones that were supposed to shield you from taxation—those are as fraudulent as your pretentions to gentility.”

Tufton snatched the papers from Simon’s hand and thrust them at the solicitors. The men quickly donned spectacles and spread the documents out on a table, studying them thoroughly. As they did, silence fell, tight and thick. Tippet glared at Alyce and Simon, his knuckles white as he clutched his truncheon. The chief constable seemed to understand that once the old managers and owners left, he and his brutes wouldn’t be welcome in the village anymore. They’d get no more extra pay for bullying the workers, and with the managers’ protection of the constabulary gone, anyone could file complaints with the county government over excessive force, and likely cause them to lose their jobs.

“Who the hell
are
you?” Harrold demanded in the quiet.

“I don’t deal in names,” Simon answered. “Except one. Nemesis, Unlimited.”

While some of the owners and constables looked blank, others seemed to know exactly what the name meant. They turned chalky.

“But I’m really Alyce Carr,” she said. “This is
my
village, these are
my
friends and family. And once your lackeys go over those documents, I’m going to enjoy telling you to go bugger yourselves.”

The men gasped, but she only stared back, ice and fire in her veins.

Tippet and his constables weren’t the only ones eager for a fight. Murton and Gorley, two of the managers, grew more restless by the second, flexing their fingers, testing their fists, and muttering angrily.

Finally, one of the solicitors straightened up from the desk. An expression of fear etched his face as he turned to the owners and managers. “I’m afraid—” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. “Everything stands up, sirs. You voluntarily signed over ownership of Wheal Prosperity to these … individuals.”

“But they said they’d return ownership to us within three days,” Harrold retorted.

“Did you sign any kind of contract binding you to that agreement?” the solicitor asked.

More silence. The owners’ faces darkened as they understood that they’d been thoroughly duped.

“You traitorous son of a bitch,” Murton exploded.

His hands loose at his sides, standing lightly on the balls of his feet, Simon never lost his cool expression. “Nemesis has one loyalty—to justice. At any cost.”

“The fault’s your own,” Alyce said. She struggled to keep her voice as calm as Simon’s, but long-pent-up fury boiled in her. “If you’d paid us a decent wage instead of using chit, if you’d kept the mine in good condition and stocked fresh butter in the store … this wouldn’t have happened. We just want to work and be treated fairly. But you just want profit, and the hell with the people who make you rich.” She pointed toward the door. “Now, I’m telling you as one of the new owners, the lot of you clear out.
Now.
”

It felt
so bloody good
to say those words.

“What if we don’t go anywhere?” Tippet challenged.

At last, Simon smiled, but it was a brutal smile that promised a great deal of pain. “You’ll go. Quick and quiet.”

“Or else?” threw in Oliver, the constable. “You got no weapons, no nothing. And we got these.” Grinning, he held up his truncheon.

“See here…” Tufton sputtered, eyes wide with fear. He backed up until he hit the far wall. “No violence, now.”

Tippet sneered. “Too late for that, gov.” Swinging his club, he launched himself at Simon.

Simon stepped forward, at the same time ducking Tippet’s blow. The truncheon came down hard on one of the desks, crashing into the wood with a horrible, bone-splitting sound. Before Tippet could regain his balance, Simon kicked him in the side of the knee. The chief constable staggered and swore foully.

Alyce glanced around the office, but couldn’t find anything heavy to use as a weapon. She threw a brass inkwell in Oliver’s face as he moved to help Tippet. The constable winced and spluttered as ink and blood spattered across his face.

Edgar grabbed all the paperwork and threw it into the strongbox, then slammed the door shut, protecting the documents.

Caught up in the chaos, everyone within the office spilled out into the street, scuffling.

“If we can’t have the mine,” Harrold barked, “then nobody gets it. You two”—he pointed at Gorley and Murton—“take me to the mine.”

The managers didn’t argue. All three men leaped into the trap waiting nearby. With a flick of the reins, they sped off.

“Have to stop them,” Simon ordered. “They’ll try to sabotage the mine.”

It made sense that they’d do something so dirty. At least the mine was empty, since everyone had taken the day as an unofficial holiday. Except …

“Oh, God,” Alyce cried. “Henry!” He was in the pit with Edgar and several other men.

Tippet, stumbling out of the office, sneered. “I ain’t going to let you catch ’em.” He swung again at Simon. Simon countered with a fist into the chief constable’s stomach. The man doubled over, gagging.

With Simon busy with Tippet, he didn’t see Constable Freeman moving to slam his truncheon across Simon’s back. Alyce rushed forward, hoping to block him somehow. But then Freeman stumbled and fell to the ground with a groan.

Constable Bice stood behind him, lowering his truncheon.

Simon spun around and gave Bice a respectful nod. “Glad you’ve finally showed your colors.”

“
Constable Bice
wrote the letter to Nemesis?” Alyce asked, shocked. “But … he’s one of them.”

“Got hired on here,” the young man said sheepishly. “Thought I’d be keeping things peaceful and orderly. Not roughing up workers and keeping them afraid. But I couldn’t speak out. I needed the job. So…” He looked at Simon. “Sorry if I didn’t come forward sooner.”

“You sent the letter,” Simon answered. “That’s what matters. Right now, I’ve got to get to the mine and stop Harrold, Murton, and Gorley.” He didn’t spare a glance for any of the reeling constables, and he didn’t look at any of the terrified owners, huddled together. Instead, he strode toward the door.

Alyce was immediately beside him. “
We’re
stopping Murton and Gorley.”

He nodded once, briskly, his face a mask of purpose and determination. “Get down,” he ordered to one of the drivers of a hired carriage. The man immediately scrambled off the seat and ran for safety. Simon climbed up onto the driver’s seat.

Instead of getting inside the carriage, Alyce clambered up to sit beside him. He snapped the reins and the carriage lurched forward.

She raised a brow. “Would’ve wagered you’d try to stop me.”

At this, his stony façade broke slightly, a hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth. “You’d come along, anyway. This way I can keep an eye on you.”

She gripped the edge of the seat for balance as the carriage quickly sped out of the village, then took the rutted track leading toward the mine. “
Keep an eye on?
Like a child?”

“Like a wild tiger that’s escaped its cage.” He peered ahead. “Damn it, I can’t see them.”

“Do you think they’re at the mine already?”

He looked grim. “It’s two miles from the village to Wheal Prosperity. Given their head start, they’re either there already or will be soon.” He urged the horses on, and the beasts raced. The carriage wasn’t well sprung, and the road furrowed, so Alyce held to the seat tightly, sure she’d be thrown from the vehicle. It’d been a show of bravado, choosing to sit beside Simon, but maybe she ought to have ridden inside the carriage. She’d still be heaved around, but at least she wouldn’t have to worry about being tossed to the ground.