“Go sit on the bed, Mr. Dalton,” Eva commanded. “And I ought to warn you, this gun of mine has been complaining for weeks that it hasn’t had a drop of blood. Do not give me a reason to satisfy its thirst.”

Dalton stared at her from the corner of his eye. This close, she could see that his eyes were the color of darkest coffee, verging on black. A feral intelligence shone in his gaze, like a wolf learning the ways of man in order to stalk and kill human prey.

He had enough astuteness to recognize that he had to comply. He nodded tightly.

Simon released his hold on Dalton and stepped away. With that peculiar savage grace of his, Dalton rose up. Marco scrambled to his feet, rubbing at his throat and scowling.

Eva edged back, not wanting to be within striking distance of Dalton. And his size made her distinctly uncomfortable. She was not a small woman, nor especially delicate, but she knew with absolute clarity that Dalton could snap her into matchsticks.

He sent her a glare, then walked toward the bed. As lightly as he moved, his boots still shook the floorboards. She had heard that the boots of prisoners were especially heavy, weighing as much as fourteen pounds, as if trying to pin them to the ground. Yet the sheer muscle mass of Dalton seemed to rattle the whole inn. Did the governors of prisons realize that hard labor turned rough men into weapons? Dalton’s arms appeared to be as thick and tough as coiled rope.

Approaching the canopied bed, he eyed it warily.

“Sit,” she ordered.

Teeth gritted, he did so. Strange—he looked almost uncomfortable. Eva had sat upon the bed earlier and felt its plush softness. One could have a very good sleep there. Or a very pleasant night with the right company.

Realization struck her. For the past five years, Dalton knew only his crude bed in Dunmoor Prison. At best, that meant a straw mattress on an iron-slatted frame, with coarse woolen blankets for warmth. Such luxury as this feather mattress and the fine-combed cotton bedclothes must feel alien to him, or worse, a taste of comfort he had not experienced in a long time—if ever.

She shook her head. Dalton was a means to an end. Likely he would crush the life out of her without a moment’s hesitation. She could not afford to feel sympathy for him, or endow him with a sentiment he probably didn’t feel.

In his filthy and torn prison uniform, radiating animal energy, he presented a strange picture as he sat upon the rosewood bed, lacy fabric hanging from the canopy. Everything looked impossibly fragile in comparison.

“Talk,” Dalton growled. “Tell me who you lot are, and how you know my name.”

She almost smiled at this. The gun was in her hands, and yet he had the boldness to issue a command.

“We know all about you,” she replied.

“There’s a file at headquarters,” added Simon. He held his fingers an inch apart. “This thick.”

Eva had studied the file thoroughly, including the photograph from Dalton’s admission into prison. Sometimes, prisoners fought against having their pictures taken, since it meant having their face on record. More than a few photographs showed prisoners contorting their faces to disguise their features, or being held down by force. Not Dalton.

He had stared at the camera boldly, defiantly. Take a good look, his expression seemed to challenge. The countenance of a man who had nothing left to lose.

But he did have something to lose. Eva and her colleagues counted on it.

“Headquarters.” Suspicion sharpened Dalton’s gaze. “You’re coppers?”

“Strictly a private organization,” she said. “We operate entirely outside of official channels. No one in the CID or government knows we exist.”

“Which is precisely how we want it,” Marco added.

“Mercenaries,” Dalton surmised.

Eva smiled a little at that. “Of a sort.”

“So, Rockley hired you to lure me out of Dunmoor.” He snorted. “Couldn’t kill me behind bars, so he finds a way to kill me on the other side of the wall.”

“We do not work for Rockley,” she insisted, voice tight. The very idea that they would work with someone like the baron filled her with a toxic sickness.

“Then who do you work for?”

“A girl. You wouldn’t know her.” She kept her gun pointed at him. He would be waiting for her to drop her guard, but that was not going to happen. “About a month ago, this young woman, whom I’ll call Miss Jones, was mostly wickedly seduced and abandoned. Her reputation was destroyed. Now she and her parents seek restitution, which we will help obtain.”

“Some gentry mort falls for a line, winds up on her back, and I’m supposed to care?”

“The ruin of any woman isn’t to be taken lightly.” Simon spoke through gritted teeth. “And she isn’t gentry. Just a merchant’s daughter.”

“Little difference.” Dalton shrugged. “Girl gets charmed into opening her legs, winds up with a bastard child or nothing at all. And the gent goes about his merry business. Not saying it’s right, but it’s an old story.”

“This time,” said Eva, “the story will have a different ending.”

“Cheers if you can make the cove pay.” Cynicism dripped from Dalton’s voice. “But what happened to the girl ain’t my business.”

“It will be,” she answered.

He crossed his arms over his chest, and the coarse fabric of his shirt pulled against his muscles. Both Marco and Simon were exceptionally fit men—their work demanded it. But Dalton possessed an animal strength, brutal and uncivilized. Simon, Marco, and her other male colleagues were trained warriors. Dalton was a beast.

“Love,” he rumbled, “I’ve got the screws hot on my tail. They’ll be here in an hour—”

“Less,” Marco said.

Dalton shot Marco a glare before returning his gaze to Eva. His words had been terse and impatient, but the way he stared at her made her think he hadn’t seen a woman in a very long time.

“So either speak plain or shoot me,” he continued, “’coz I don’t plan on lingering.”

She drew a breath. “The man who seduced Miss Jones is Lord Rockley.”

Dalton’s arms uncrossed as if readying for battle. His smirk fell away, replaced by cold, brutal hatred. Even knowing the details of Dalton’s history, she had not fully anticipated seeing such naked enmity, devoid of all pity. A shiver struggled to work its way through her body, but she ruthlessly suppressed it. Dalton was the sort of man to exploit any weakness. She could show none.

“We’re going to make Rockley pay.” She made certain to keep her voice level, as though the slightest hint of emotion would tip Dalton into crazed fury. “And you, Mr. Dalton, are going to help us. If you do not agree to do so, we’ll keep you here until the warders arrive. Escaping from prison is a serious crime. One that will see you well punished.” She stared coolly at him. “Time is running out, Mr. Dalton. A decision has to be made.”

For a moment, he did not move, did not speak. Then, “Who the hell are you people?”

She spoke before Marco or Simon could answer. “Nemesis, Unlimited.”


CHAPTER TWO

Stay and dance at the whim of this passel of bedlamites, or knock them all out and take his chances on the moors, with the screws closing in. Jack didn’t like either choice. Still, it had been so long since he’d had any choice at all, even deciding between two bad options was a luxury.

“Don’t plod over your decision,” the woman said, cold as a knife between the ribs. “We’ll need enough time to get out before the warders arrive.”

Jack stared at her. Such a pretty piece, but full of poison. He’d known women like her, except they didn’t have a gentry mort’s fine words and manners to disguise their ruthlessness.

She stared back in challenge. Maybe it was on account of him not seeing a woman besides the prison laundresses for the past five years. Maybe he was a sick bastard who’d gotten even sicker during his incarceration. But something about the way this woman looked and spoke, with her unyielding spine and amber eyes, stirred him up.

For fuck’s sake, she’s got a gun on me.

“They’re here.” This from the blond toff, standing at the window. Voices from outside drifted up, the shouts of the warders as they roused the villagers.

“The critical moment is upon us, Mr. Dalton,” the woman said. “Make your choice.”

He stood, and noted with some satisfaction that the woman took a step back, putting more distance between them. “You’ve got a plan for getting out of this place?”

She tipped her chin up. “We always have plans.”

“Then we go.”

The two men and the woman shared a glance, a silent exchange that made Jack edgy. At least none of them looked nervous at the idea of getting away from the warders. When people were panicked, they made bad decisions.

Jack wasn’t panicked, just determined.

The woman tucked her gun into a reticule as calmly as if she were stashing away a tin of comfits. “Do everything they tell you to,” she said to him.

“If you wanted a dog,” he answered, “you should’ve gone to the wharf.”

“And if you want to stay out of prison, you’ll do what you’re told.” She opened the door and walked out, her stride direct and purposeful. The warders’ voices barked on the ground floor. Jack recognized the sound of Warder Lynch. Likely the bastard was eager to do Jack some violence.

The dark-haired gent shut and locked the door behind the woman, muting the sounds from below.

“Where’s she going?” Jack demanded.

“Eva is buying us time,” the darker man replied. “Which we’re losing by hazing about up here.”

Jack wondered if buying time meant that the woman—Eva—might use that revolver of hers on the warders. Trading bullets with the screws would be dangerous and messy, and she’d already proven that while she was dangerous, she wasn’t messy. No, she was a tidy morsel, from the top of her pinned curls to the hem of her dress, with a lot of mettle in between.

“How are we looking out there, Simon?” the dark-haired man asked the blond.

“Damn warders are a bunch of low-pay amateurs,” Simon muttered. “They’ve got no one patrolling the perimeter.”

“Let’s be grateful for a badly trained workforce.” The dark man reached for Jack, but pulled his hand away when Jack reared back.

He didn’t want anyone touching him. Nobody did before he went to prison, and he hated it when the screws shoved him around on his way to chapel or to the rock yards. They wouldn’t touch him ever again.

Turning from the darker gent, he saw the blond one, Simon, straddling the open window.

“Going to assume you can climb down as well as up,” he said, then disappeared as he eased out the window. Jack had to admit that the toff moved as slick as any second-story man leaving a burglary.

“That’s Simon, incidentally. I’m Marco.”

“I don’t give a buggering damn.”

“You ought, since we’re all that’s keeping your neck from being stretched.” After shouldering a pack, Marco waved him toward the window. “Now climb.”

Jack bit back a mouthful of curses. For now, he had to play the puppet. When the time came, however, he’d cut the damn strings, and maybe some throats, too.

After giving Marco a glare, Jack moved quickly to the window and climbed out. Cold air bit through his damp, thin uniform and the moors stretched out dark and empty beneath a sky just as barren. This time of year, he wouldn’t last the night on the heath. Without shelter, he’d be nothing but frozen meat by morning.

These damned Nemesis people better have something lined up, or we’ll all be freezing our arses off.

He balanced himself on the worn brick, then clambered down the wall. Glancing up, he saw Marco watching him from the window. Likely making sure he didn’t cut and run.

Once the ground was near enough, he jumped the rest of the way down, landing in a crouch. Simon waited nearby, his gaze never resting, body poised for movement. The bloke looked like a toff, but he didn’t carry himself like one. More like a soldier, or a thief.

Jack, too, kept his every sense alert, tense as piano wire. The screws were just inside—he could hear them questioning men in the taproom of the inn. Just hearing the scrape of Lynch’s voice sent hot fury through Jack’s muscles.

“I ain’t going back,” he muttered.

“You won’t.” Simon’s words were clipped. “So long as you keep to the terms of our arrangement.”

Before Jack could ask just what the hell that arrangement might be, Marco dropped down from the window, quiet as a serpent.