Shifting on the creaking squabs, he glanced away from the amber knives of her eyes. “I may’ve,” he allowed. There had been dreams, plans. Hopes for a life beyond the crowded, dirty alleys he’d known. His own boxing academy, for one. Like the kind Maclaren had, but instead of just training men, it’d be a place where boys could get off the streets, away from the gin palaces and dicing games. Someplace where they could feel safe and have dreams of their own.

He shook his head, clearing away the cobwebs of old hopes. “Doesn’t matter, anyway. It’s all led me here.”

“But I—” Her words stopped abruptly. She sat up straight, her gaze fixed on something out the window.

Everything within Jack tensed. He knew what she saw. Slowly, he turned his head to look out the window.

A footman held open the front door, and a big, strapping bloke stepped outside. It wasn’t Fowler, Curtis, or even Voss. Probably they’d moved on to other jobs, or died. Men like them—men like Jack—never lived long, despite their size. A hazardous life, one might call it.

This new chap wore a checked suit and a bowler hat. Jack didn’t know him by name, but names signified nothing. Five years ago, Jack had been that man. Like him, he’d looked up and down the street, scanning for any signs of trouble, body primed to fight if danger arose. No mistaking the telltale shape of a gun in the hired man’s coat. Jack had favored an Enfield Mk II, if his fists couldn’t finish the job.

Jack ducked back as the hired man’s gaze swept past the hackney cab.

“That’s Fred Ballard,” Eva said. “His main bodyguard.” She glanced at the carriage. “Rockley’s moving on.”

Turning back to the window, Jack saw Ballard give a quick nod to someone standing in the doorway.

Rockley emerged.

Fire roared through Jack’s veins, and his vision hazed. A fist seemed to close around his throat. He wanted to launch himself from the cab. He could already feel the crunch of bone against his fist as he smashed it into Rockley’s handsome face. He could smell the blood as it coated the spotless front steps, hear the wet gurgle as Rockley struggled to breathe through the ruin of his aristocratic nose and mouth.

“Dalton.”

A woman’s gloved hand closed around his wrist as he grasped the handle to the cab door. He stared down at the female’s hand.

“Dalton,” the woman repeated, her voice an urgent whisper.

He looked up. A woman stared at him intently. She had sherry eyes and wheat-gold hair and he didn’t recognize her. Not at first.

“You can’t go out there,” she said, her words tight. “The moment you do, Rockley’s thug will shoot you down.”

Eva. That’s right. The woman was Eva.

“Might get to him before that.” He spoke through clenched teeth.

“It’s nearly a hundred feet between the cab and Rockley. More than enough time for his thug to fire off several rounds.” Her hand tightened around his wrist. “Don’t take that gamble, Dalton. Don’t throw this entire mission away.”

“Edith—”

“Would want her brother to stay alive,” she finished. “Remember what I said earlier? You have to think if you want Rockley to pay. Rushing him in the street has only one result: your death.”

“Goddamn it,” he snarled. Because what she said made sense. Rockley always made sure his bodyguards were good shots. Jack would be a corpse before he made it half the distance.

His hand made of rusted iron, he unwound it from the door handle. Slowly, Eva released him.

“Good,” she said after a pause. “Good.”

“Don’t feel good,” he growled. “Feel like tearing up lampposts.”

Glancing out the window again, Eva said, “He’s getting into his carriage.”

Jack followed her gaze. Rockley was, in fact, stepping into his waiting vehicle, with the footman waiting to close the door behind him. The bodyguard sat beside the coachman, his arms folded across his chest, his eyes constantly moving. Once Rockley had seated himself, the footman closed the door. The coachman snapped the ribbons, and the two matched bays responded, setting off at a trot.

Eva leaned forward and opened the small sliding door mounted at the front of the cab. “Driver, do not lose that carriage. And make sure they don’t see us. There’s a guinea in it for you.”

With that kind of carrot, the driver hurried to follow. The hackney sped after Rockley’s carriage.

Jack gripped the leather straps mounted on both sides of the hackney’s walls, stretched out like a man on the rack. His muscles felt as though they’d burst right out of his clothing, and his heart slammed inside his ribs. Goddamn it, Rockley looked the same, exactly the same as he had five years ago. Everything had changed for Jack. Nothing had changed for Rockley.

Tall and elegant in his perfectly made, stylish clothes, his hair shiny and combed beneath his top hat, sporting an elegant mustache, Rockley was the model of a flawless aristocratic gentleman. Handsome, too, the blighter. Dark hair, blue eyes. The kind of face that women push each other aside to get close to. Hundreds of years of breeding pretty people gave him a face that truly got away with murder.

“You did the right thing,” Eva said.

“Still want to rip his fucking guts out through his mouth,” he gritted.

“I’m sure you do. But we have to keep our sights on our objective. This is my eighth mission for Nemesis, and I’ve learned that success relies upon logical, precise thinking.”

“Logic and precision ain’t my usual way of doing things.”

“And you wound up in prison as a result.”

He cursed under his breath. “Got a point there. But it don’t make me skip with joy.”

“I’m…” She appeared to labor to speak. Her gaze slid away from his. “I’m sorry.”

He stared at her. Grudging as her words had been, they seemed genuine. Maybe this ice palace of a woman wasn’t as cool as she let on.

They rode on in silence, following Rockley through the city. Jack already knew where they were heading. Toward Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where Rockley’s man of business kept offices. The hackney journeyed from Mayfair’s wide, dignified streets into the bustling heart of London’s legal world. Men wearing sober coats and dour expressions paced up and down the avenues, sheaves of papers bound with red cloth tape tucked under their arms.

“Tell the driver to park on Portugal Street,” Jack said. “We can ditch the cab there and keep an eye on Rockley from a little shop on Portsmouth Street.”

“That way Rockley’s driver and guard won’t see our hackney again and get suspicious. Wise thinking.” She repeated Jack’s instructions to the driver, who did as he was told.

They got down from the hackney. Jack was about to hurry down the street when Eva hissed at him, “Offer me your arm, damn it.”

Right. Even without him wearing a hat, they’d attract less attention if it looked like they were a couple out on errands together.

Feeling strangely clumsy, he held out his arm. She looped her arm with his, her hand resting lightly on his sleeve. He could barely feel the pressure of her fingers upon him, but he sensed them anyway. Heat crept up his neck and spread across his face.

They walked briskly down the street. She matched his stride easily. Just as he’d known, Rockley’s carriage had parked outside the red-brick building that housed the offices of Mr. Mitchell, his lordship’s man of business. The coachman waited with the vehicle.

“Where’s Ballard?” Eva asked.

“Waiting outside Mitchell’s offices.” He held open the door to the crooked little shop perched on Portsmouth Street, and she stepped inside. Neither of them paid attention to the clutter of goods piled up on every available surface. Both he and Eva stared out the shop’s window. It offered them a good view of the front of Mitchell’s building.

“Doesn’t that attract attention?” She peered past the copper pots and china mugs lined up in the shop window. “Not many gentlemen walk around with hired guards.”

“I got a few queer looks, but no one said anything. Rockley’s the heir to some huge title and estate. If he wanted to walk around with a peacock on his shoulder, wasn’t nobody going to tell him he couldn’t.”

“He’s the Duke of Sunderleigh’s son,” she said. “That title goes back to the time of the War of the Roses.”

He frowned, pictured the flower sellers in Covent Garden firing mortars at each other. “An old title, then,” he guessed.

“One of the oldest. I suppose if he had a few odd habits,” she murmured, “they’d just be dismissed as the eccentricities of the elite.”

“Like killing girls.” He fought the bile that climbed his throat.

“Or ruining them, with no one to stop him.” She glanced up at Jack. “But we’ll stop him.”

“There’s no extra security out front,” he said, trying to get a hold of his rage. “If there’s something, some piece of evidence, that Rockley’s trying to protect, it’s not here.”

She nodded. “He’d station more guards wherever he keeps his documentation of his misdeeds.”

“He should just destroy any evidence, if it’s going to link him to a crime.” He picked up a tiny china box, the outside painted with flowers so fat and mean-looking he expected them to have teeth.

The shopkeeper came bustling forward. “Can I assist you, sir?”

“No,” Jack snapped. The man jumped.

“That is,” Eva said, her tone soothing, “my cousin and I are simply perusing right now. We will be certain to ask for your assistance should we need it.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The shopkeeper hurried away, looking almost grateful to make his escape.

Eva glanced at Jack as he put the little box down.

“What?” he demanded.

“I’m not going to play Pygmalion with you,” she answered. “But you’re going to have to smooth down your manner.”

He didn’t know who that Pygmalion lady was, and wasn’t about to ask. “It never hurt me before.”

“You lived a different life before, where being unseen didn’t matter. But now”—she gave him a look that started at the top of his head and went all the way down to the toes of his boots—“a great big unmannerly brute of a man is the kind that shopkeepers tend to notice and remember. We don’t want anyone recalling you, should they ever be questioned. And if we want information from anyone, they’re more inclined to give it if we deal with them courteously.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Ought to think about being a teacher.”

To his surprise, she tensed, and seemed wary. “Why do you say that?”

“Lecturing comes natural to you.”

She gave a quick glance to make sure no one in the shop was looking their way, then, certain they weren’t being watched, she made a rude hand gesture at Jack.

Which startled a laugh out of him. And also attracted the attention of his groin. Something about seeing a prim and proper lady giving him the two-fingered salute made for an intriguing contrast. It made a bloke think about what other kinds of naughty things the lady knew.

“But no,” she continued, “Rockley wouldn’t destroy any evidence about the government contract. He couldn’t have gone into the deal alone, and he’d want to keep documentation as leverage in case anyone tries to cross him.”

“You’ve got your hands around my neck, but I’m gripping yours, too.”

“Exactly.”

They continued to watch the front of the building that housed Mitchell’s office. Foot traffic sped by, carriages and wagons in the street, and an occasional customer came into the shop.

“Never heard what Rockley and Mitchell talked about,” he said. “Like I said, if he’s in for fifteen minutes, it’s a normal day. Ten if Mitchell has good news.”

“He might be in there longer today. Rockley knows you’re out, so he may be making special provisions.”

“A will, if’s he’s smart.”

Several minutes later, Rockley came out of the building, with his hired man in the lead. As before, Rockley got into the carriage and Ballard climbed up beside the coachman.

“How long has it been?” Jack demanded. He didn’t have his pocket watch any longer to keep track of the time.

She consulted her own watch. “Fifteen minutes.”

“He’ll be going to the Carlton Club next, then.”

“We need to get back to the cab now,” Eva said.

They left the shop, and Jack was fairly certain the shopkeeper muttered a little prayer of thanks to have them gone. Fortunately, the hackney driver had decided they were a ripe pigeon to be plucked, and still waited for them on Portugal Street. Eva jumped into the cab with the same speed and strength she’d demonstrated since Jack first had met her. As he climbed in after her, he realized with a start that he’d only met her yesterday. Seemed like much longer than that. A half-dozen lifetimes, at least.