Dangerous Seduction: A Nemesis Unlimited Novel (7 page)

Everyone began to eat. Alyce tried to pace herself, though she could’ve simply tipped her plate to her mouth and devoured everything at once. But she’d take a bite and carefully set her fork down, making sure to chew slowly, as though she could fool her stomach into thinking it was getting more than it really was.

“Tell me of the outside world.” Sarah dipped her spoon into her nettle soup and looked back and forth between Henry and Alyce. “I never thought I’d miss being a bal-maiden, but staying at home and doing piecework leaves a lass cut off from society.”

“Things are just as they always were,” Henry said.

Sarah rolled her eyes. “And you say that every night. Do I have to torture news out of you?” She dug her finger into his ribs, and he snorted a laugh. Always ticklish, poor Henry. And too cautious of his wife’s condition to fight back.

Alyce decided to spare him. “They’ve hired a new machinist.”

Immediately, Sarah stopped tickling Henry. “Promoted someone, you mean?”

“No, a new hire from elsewhere.”

Sarah’s eyes widened, her face alight with excitement. “An outsider!” She gave Henry a playful swat. “You weren’t going to say a word about it. Haven’t you any pity for your poor, housebound, pregnant wife?”

Despite her teasing, Henry shrugged. “Not much to say about him. His name’s Simon Sharpe, and he’ll be maintaining the pump engines.”

Alyce stared at her plate and carefully cut herself another piece of meat, chewing it with more deliberateness than usual.

“Where’s he from? Is he young or old? Handsome or homely?”

“Bless me, Sarah, how in goodness’ sake should I know?” Henry answered gruffly. “He’s a man with two legs, two arms, and a face. What else is there to say?”

With an exasperated sigh, Sarah turned to Alyce. “I know bal-maidens don’t usually rub elbows with machinists, but did
you
get a look at him?”

Alyce kept her gaze on her soup, watching the nettles swirl on the surface of the broth as though it were the most fascinating thing in the world. “I did. Walked with him back from the mine to the village.”

Sarah threw her hands up into the air. “Lord preserve me from these lead-tongued Carrs!”

Best to just get it over with, like tearing off a sticking plaster. Alyce spoke quickly. “He’s from Sheffield. Looks to be in his early to middle thirties. He spent time in the army.”

“Oh! A military man! How dashing!”

Henry grumbled.

“Which isn’t to say that a copper miner isn’t dashing, of course,” Sarah added hastily. “Soldiers can be downright unmannerly and coarse.” She turned to Alyce. “Was he?”

“No.” She poked her spoon into her soup. “His manner was … nice.”

“He wasn’t so nice when he nearly came to blows with Constable Tippet,” Henry fired back.

Sarah clapped her hands over her mouth. “Never say! He sounds like an unpleasant character to me, going up against the law like a hooligan.”

“He wasn’t being a hooligan. It was … an accident. And would it have been so bad if he’d stood up for Joe and George, which was a sight more than you would’ve? Always with you it’s keep the peace, head down, don’t make noise.”

“You’d rather rattle the bars and get a beating for your trouble,” he retorted. “Da and Granda knew the best way, but you’re a mule-stubborn girl who thinks she knows best. I’m upholding the family name, the tradition that’s been ours. Peace at Wheal Prosperity.”

“Look at the cost, damn it.” She waved at the bowls of soup and plates of sausage. “Hardly enough to feed the three of us, and Sarah’s eating for the babe, too. And we’re the lucky ones. Vera and Charles Denby have five little ones, with another on the way. The youngest looks as frail as thistledown. Another bad winter and that little boy won’t survive.”

“Hush,” Sarah said. “We don’t talk of those things.”

Alyce dipped her head. “Sorry,” she muttered, humbled.

Henry spread his hands. “What would you have me do, Alyce? None of us have leverage against the masters. There’s no choice but to make peace with it and hold out hope.”

“Hope for what? Butter that doesn’t make us sick?”

“Hope that through common sense and talk, we can get the bosses to see what needs to be done. That won’t happen if you keep shrieking at them like a hawk protecting her nest.”

“I don’t
shriek.
And I won’t wait and smile and plead for the masters’ attention. Those pompous dolts don’t listen. Not unless we pry their ears open.”

Brother and sister glared at each other across the table in a stalemate. Minutes ticked by.

“You Carrs are stubborn as cats,” Sarah exclaimed in frustration. “And it doesn’t say much about me that I’ve married into this madness. Can we please just calmly finish our supper and save the sulking for later?”

Grudgingly, Henry and Alyce returned to their meals, and Sarah sighed in relief.

Another few minutes passed before anyone spoke. Sarah murmured to Alyce, “So, this Simon Sharpe—is he handsome?”

Alyce’s face heated as images of Simon’s patrician features and dashing grin flitted through her mind. “It’s wise to be wary of him. He
is
new to the village, after all.”

“Maybe you’re wary of him
because
he’s handsome,” Sarah answered, smiling.

“I didn’t say that.”

“Your red cheeks did.”

Alyce resisted the impulse to press her palms to her face, as if she could hide what Sarah had already seen.

“Accidentally or no,” she said, “Simon Sharpe caused trouble today. When Tippet gets riled, things get rough for all of us.”

“That’s Tippet’s problem,” Sarah noted, “not Simon’s.”

“I don’t like Sharpe,” Henry answered. “He could be a bad influence on you.”

Alyce rubbed her hand across her eyes, where a headache brewed. “I’m four and twenty, Henry. Nobody
influences
me but me. And I just met Simon. I’m not so pudding-brained that a handsome stranger turns me into his puppet.”

“If we don’t change the subject,” Henry growled, “I will run over to Adam Peeler’s and herd his pigs right through our house—dirty, dirty pigs with filthy trotters.”

Sarah turned ashen. She stared at her scrupulously clean floors, then back at Henry. “The weather’s been pleasant lately,” she managed.

Satisfied that the subject of Simon Sharpe had been dropped, Henry continued eating. Alyce did her best to avoid Sarah’s knowing look, focusing instead on finishing her meal. But that didn’t keep thoughts of Simon from circling inside her like magpie moths on a warm summer afternoon. As a little girl, she’d never been able to resist their pull, dancing with the moths until the sun sank below the horizon and she was called home.

*   *   *

It wasn’t the first time Simon had walked in a long column of men. He’d done a considerable share of marching during his stint in the army—sometimes beneath blazing blue skies, sometimes through soaking monsoon rains. Muddy roads, dusty tracks, or straight through choking jungle. There’d been camp followers, too: an assortment of women and native people who tended to the sundry needs of the regiment.

Even so, as he headed toward Wheal Prosperity with miners and bal-maidens, his shoulders knotted, his body tensed. Maybe he wasn’t marching into battle, but the danger was still real. The mine wasn’t a place of safety.

And somewhere in this vast column of humanity was Alyce. She’d skipped in and out of his restless dreams last night.

It was barely past sunrise, the sky pale gray, and a low-lying mist was draped between the craggy hills. Sheep bleated from the tops of the hills. Hedge-dwelling birds sang the morning chorus. The workers murmured as they walked toward the mine, and his sense that danger lurked ahead sharpened. Yet he felt an odd kind of peace.

London’s unofficial motto seemed to be, “Noise at every hour.” Especially between the hours of six and ten o’clock in the morning, which had to be filled with the rattle of wagon and omnibus wheels, the shouts of vendors, people cursing one another in the street—under penalty of law. Anyone caught being quiet would be immediately subject to fine, and the punishment of tin pots tied to the offender’s legs.

But he wasn’t in Cornwall on holiday, and the quiet wouldn’t last. Mines, their machinery included, ranked as some of the noisiest places on earth. And he was here to do a dangerous job. Peace was not part of his agenda.

“I don’t see George or Joe,” Simon noted to Edgar beside him.

“Joe didn’t come back to the lodgings last night,” Edgar said. “And George’s wife said he never made it home. Reckon they got put into gaol.”

“How long will they stay there?”

Edgar shrugged. “Depends on the will of the masters. It could be we’ll see ’em tomorrow. Or maybe we won’t see ’em again until Michaelmas.”

That was three weeks away. The conditions in the local gaol probably weren’t the most salubrious. A few days there could wreak havoc with a man’s health. At least the law here didn’t flog, the way they did in the army—even though the practice had been theoretically abolished. Out on campaign, imprisoning a soldier for an infraction wasn’t possible; the lash or flog served for punishment. He’d seen many a man tied to a post or tree and flogged until the poor blighter had mercifully passed out.

Thank God, Simon had never earned such discipline. He’d come damned close a time or two. Almost got caught sneaking back into the cantonment after a night gadding about the pleasure quarters of Secunderabad. He’d made it back just in time for morning inspection with one hell of a throbbing head.

“That can’t please George’s wife,” Simon murmured. No wonder Alyce had tried so hard to keep the two miners from being taken away. Men in prison earned no chit, and she knew it.

“Nor his kids, neither,” said Nathaniel. “But there’s nothing to be done.” He patted Simon on his shoulder. “Don’t you fret, Simon. Do your job, stay quiet—which means no more tripping into constables—and you won’t see the inside of the gaol.”

“Maybe in gaol I won’t have to hear Edgar snoring,” Simon answered, earning him guffaws from Edgar, Nathaniel, and the few other men he’d met last night.

Yet he didn’t miss the cautious glances thrown his way by many of the other miners nearby, or the wake of space around him. Keeping their distance.

“Haven’t been in Trewyn a full day,” he said in a low voice to Edgar. “I’m getting a lot of chary looks.”

Edgar made a scoffing sound. “Folks around here have a goodly number of reasons to keep to themselves.”

Gazing around the long column of workers, Simon noted most of the men walked in groups, chatting and swinging their lunch tins, sleepy and careless in the early morning. But not everyone. Others were sharp-eyed, too attentive. As if they were eavesdropping on conversations. Taking mental notes in case anyone spoke seditiously.

Spies.
Not much of a surprise there. The managers had some of the miners in their pockets, serving as their eyes and ears above and below the surface. He’d have to be wary around them, and committed their faces to memory.

One of the spies kept one hand in his coat pocket—tapping his fingers on what looked like a pencil for writing notes. Another man—a chap with a squashed-in face—had been sticking close to Simon for most of the walk toward the mine. But something else must have caught the spy’s attention, because he moved off, leaving Simon with a moment’s opportunity.

“People can keep to themselves around me or not.” Simon spoke loudly enough so that more people nearby could hear him. “But they ought to know that I don’t work for the company.”

A handful of men looked shocked by this statement, and even Nathaniel and Edgar sputtered their surprise.

“Who I work for,” Simon continued, “is the
miners.
I’m at Wheal Prosperity to keep the pumps running and the shafts safe. I may draw a salary, but it’s the miners who are my real bosses, not the managers.”

As he’d hoped, his words were circulated among the miners in quiet murmurs. The mistrustful glances faded. Some even looked at him with friendly consideration. Hopefully, word would spread that newcomer he may be, Simon was on the miners’ side. That would make the next steps of the mission easier to accomplish.

A flash up ahead of a woman’s dark, pinned hair and slim neck caught his attention. Was it Alyce? He forced himself to keep from hurrying to catch up with her. She walked with several other women, and they talked quietly among themselves. One of the women said something to make Alyce laugh—a low, throaty laugh like honey over smooth river rocks. He’d never heard her truly laugh before. The sound surprised him. Even more surprising was how the sound traveled through him in electrical pulses.

Her back suddenly stiffened, and she cast a glance over her shoulder. As if drawn by a lodestone, their gazes found each other immediately.

She looked as momentarily stunned as he felt. Her steps faltered. Then she whipped her head around, facing forward.

He kept his own steps even and measured, and feigned interest in whatever it was that Edgar spoke about—an indicator of Simon’s discipline if ever there was one.

What the hell is wrong with me? No denying she’s important for the mission. I can flirt with her, get the information I need. But I’ve got to keep my head.

They crossed over the next rise, and came to the main part of the mine. He’d seen it yesterday when applying for the job, but today he was struck by the rough, industrial scars upon the rolling green hills of Cornwall. Granite buildings and chimneys rose up, and the metal bars of the beam winding engine were unburied bones sticking out of the earth. Perched atop the structure were deathless, unblinking eyes: the large wheels of the winder that watched the miners and bal-maidens mercilessly.

All hint of green had been stamped out by wagons, carts, thousands upon thousands of boots treading on the dirt. Nothing grew in the soil. The only source of fecundity lay hundreds of feet beneath the earth. Heaps of rocky debris were piled like ancient graves around the mine site. Simon recalled that this rubbish, separated from the valuable ore, was known as “deads,” and so it seemed—lifeless and thrown aside.