“An improvement,” she said. “No one will give you a second look at the train station.” That was a lie. Gazes would be drawn to him, for he possessed a shadowed magnetism. It would be deuced difficult to hide him anywhere—another point against him. She would bring that up once they reached headquarters.
He tucked the handkerchief into his discarded shirt, then bent to untie his boots. The movement brought him very close to her, so close that if she leaned forward a few inches, she could put her hands on his shoulders, her lips on the back of his head.
Heat radiated from him, pressing close around her. She caught a trace of her own soap’s fragrance on him, as if they had been in a tight embrace and the scent of her skin had transferred to him.
He looked up through his spiky lashes, and their gazes tangled. For a long, breathless moment, they simply stared at one another, suspended, ensnared.
“Hurry up, Dalton.” Simon’s voice was clipped. “We’ll be at the station soon.”
His words severed the threads binding her and Dalton. A wry smile curled at the corner of Dalton’s mouth, and he finished unlacing his boots. His striped wool stockings followed, revealing calves dusted with more dark hair. The sight of his large bare feet was primal, her own not unsubstantial feet appearing tiny beside his.
After a quick gaze in her direction, he moved to the fastening of his knee-length breeches.
She didn’t want to watch his fingers undoing the buttons, but the sight riveted her. The deftness with which his large hands moved came as a surprise. He tilted his hips to gain enough room to remove his breeches. She forced her gaze back up the length of his chest, fighting to maintain a disinterested expression. Only a few minutes earlier, she’d claimed to be hard to shock. Now she had to prove it.
Though the carriage creaked and jounced noisily across the moors, she was acutely aware of the sound of fabric sliding down Dalton’s hips, then lower. She kept her focus trained on the hollow of his throat, but her mind filled in the details, coaxing her to envision his thighs, roped and hewn. And—there was no helping it—she imagined his cock, nestled in thick dark hair.
Don’t look. For the love of your pride, do not look.
His voice rumbled out of the darkness. “Doesn’t cost anything to have yourself a peek, love.”
“Dalton!” Marco snapped. “Treat Miss Warrick with respect, or I’ll polish your teeth with a bullet.”
She waved a hand. “It’s a small matter if Mr. Dalton encourages me to contemplate his shortcomings.” Then, deliberately, she let her gaze fall to his groin. “My jacket must be extremely warm, for I had no idea the night was so cold. That is the explanation, isn’t it, Mr. Dalton?”
He made a sound midway between indignation and amusement.
Satisfied with his response, she moved her gaze to his face. He might be able to see the heat staining her cheeks, yet there was nothing she could do about her body’s unwanted response. Truly, she had seen men in all states of dress and undress, knew exactly how their bodies looked, and even how they felt. There was no mystery to the male physique. So why was she so affected by the sight of a naked Jack Dalton?
It was purely logical. After all, they had met only hours earlier. He was a stranger, and a dangerous one, at that. No wonder her pulse accelerated when she looked at his penis, the most intimate part of a man’s body.
Despite her belittling claim, she finally had the answer to the question about men with large feet and large hands. They were … proportional.
Consider the spirit of scientific inquiry fulfilled, she thought with an inward smile.
“If you’re quite finished attempting to incite Miss Warrick to a lust-crazed frenzy,” drawled Simon, “get dressed.”
Fortunately, Dalton didn’t complain about Simon’s command. He clearly saw the value of arriving at the train station clothed rather than nude. After undoing the bundle, he removed a shirt, trousers, waistcoat, jacket, and boots.
“None of this is going to fit,” he said. “Not even the boots.”
“We went off your vital statistics from your file,” Marco answered.
“That was before I did five years of hard labor. Gotten bigger since then. My feet spread, too.”
“Stopping at the high street shops is impossible,” she said. “So you’ll have to squeeze into what we’ve got.”
He shrugged, and went about the awkward task of dressing in a moving carriage shared with three other people. She would never admit to anyone her small, internal sigh of relief when he dragged on the trousers. The waist fit him well enough, with actual room to spare, but his thighs strained against the material. He could barely pull his arms through the shirtsleeves. The shirt actually tore a little on the shoulder seams, and he grimaced.
“The waistcoat and jacket will hide that,” she said, brisk.
Except he couldn’t button the waistcoat, and the jacket was taut across his shoulders, its cuffs inches above his wrists.
Marco tried to fasten the collar to Dalton’s shirt. “It’s like dressing a lion as Little Lord Fauntleroy.”
“You’re sodding choking me,” Dalton rasped.
Frustrated, Marco flung the collar to the ground. “Unless we have a spare wheel rim, nothing’s going to work.”
“Just tie the neck cloth around him.” She waved the long piece of silk foulard at Marco, but Dalton snatched it from her hand.
“Can tie my own damned neck cloth.” And he did, though Simon rolled his eyes at the inelegant knot. “There,” Dalton said with a growl. “Now I look like the bloody Prince of Wales.”
“If His Royal Highness were ten inches taller, three stone heavier, and had spent his formative years in a bull-baiting ring,” she said, “you would be his perfect likeness.”
Dalton opened his mouth, but before he could speak, the carriage slowed. “Train station,” Walters called down.
Everyone within the carriage stilled. Their gazes met in silent acknowledgment. Even Dalton understood. They had completed only the first stage of their plan, and the danger was far from over.
CHAPTER THREE
Jack waited inside the carriage as the others got out and made a quick survey of the train station. The screws might be here, lurking just inside so he could tumble right into their trap. He doubted they’d be able to reach the station so quickly, especially on foot, but he couldn’t shake his fear that they were here. He couldn’t let himself get this far only to be dragged back to Dunmoor. With this brief taste of freedom, only one path remained for him: kill Rockley.
His fists clenched in anticipation. He’d run, he’d hide, he’d do whatever he must for as long as necessary. If Rockley met death at his hands, it would all be worth it.
First, he needed to put as much distance as possible between himself and Dunmoor. Then … he’d figure the rest out. He would have to lose these Nemesis people. Or take advantage of them and their wickedly clever schemes until they were no longer useful.
Eva appeared in the door of the carriage. With the lights from the station behind her, he could only see her outline and the shadowy suggestion of her face. She might have been any slim woman. Except he knew her shape now, her scent. The way her breath sped when something stirred her up.
His cock gave an interested throb.
Don’t be a sodding idiot. Got the screws on my tail and a gang of lunatics holding the reins. And she’s one of the lunatics.
“We’re clear,” she said.
He moved forward to get out, and she edged quickly back. Keeping more distance between them.
Stepping down onto the gravel outside the station, he squinted toward the lights. Simon stood at the ticket booth, and Marco struck a casual pose nearby, looking for all the world as if he didn’t have an escaped convict’s uniform and boots in his pack. A few other people milled about the platform—some working blokes, a gent in a banker’s suit and with an air of respectability, a woman with two small children—but no sign of the warders or even the local constabulary.
“Stay close to me,” Eva said under her breath. “And try to look inconspicuous, though”—she eyed him—“that’s a rather tall order.”
“I look like an organ grinder’s monkey,” he muttered, fighting the urge to tug on his tight clothes. His boots pinched, too, but the Nemesis gang had been clever in bringing him a change of shoes. The soles of prison-issued boots bore the crow’s foot mark, too. Anyone with half a brain in their head would see his footprints in the dust.
“Trust me, Mr. Dalton, no one would ever confuse you with a playful little monkey. Perhaps one of those terrifying gorillas at the zoo. The ones that beat their chests and roar.”
He held up the back of his hands. “Got less hair.”
“Not in certain places, you don’t.”
Heat settled low in his groin. “Going to put that in my file, too?”
“I’ll save that for my own personal records.”
God, she was a saucy one! And damn him if it didn’t make his mouth water.
She moved toward the driver of the carriage. “What do we owe you, Mr. Walters?”
“The bill’s been settled, miss. You got me my farm back. A little jaunt through the heath ain’t nothing.” The older man glanced at Jack. “Mind you, stay sharp around this ’un. Got a bad look about ’im.”
Jack had heard far worse about himself on a daily basis. He just stared right back at Walters until the driver looked away.
“I promise to be as sharp as a razor,” she answered.
“As if you could be anything less.” Walters chuckled, then, with a tip of his hat and snap of the ribbons, the carriage drove away.
Jack eyed the brightly lit station, the urge to break and run screaming through his body. A film of sweat clung to his back.
“It’s safe.” Eva’s soft murmur startled him. Even more startling was her hand on his sleeve, almost gentlelike.
“Looks so damn normal. I haven’t been around normal in five years.” It was an ordinary country train station, with a waiting room and ticket booth and a single, open-air platform. A farmer nodded in sleep as he sat on a crate, his arms folded over his chest, and a big orange tabby groomed himself near the porters’ stove.
“The inn didn’t seem to bother you.”
He shrugged, the movement cut short by the snug coat. “Had other things on my mind.”
“Like killing Rockley.” She tipped her head toward the station, where Simon and Marco waited. “You’ll get your chance at him soon enough. But we have to get to London first.”
“Right. Yeah.” He exhaled, the sound jagged, then nodded.
When she took her hand from his sleeve, he felt oddly sorry, and they both headed for the station. Marco and Simon watched him, wary as cats, as he approached. Though his boots squeezed his feet, they were a damn sight lighter than those millstones he’d had to wear. He might even float away. Except one of these Nemesis lunatics might shoot him out of the sky. He wouldn’t ask what their plans for him were. Not here, where anyone might be listening.
“Next train to London is coming in twenty minutes.” Simon consulted his pocket watch. A nice bit of gold, that. Could fetch a pretty sum at one of the shops.
Simon caught Jack’s assessing look and glowered. As if he didn’t know what it was to be hungry and see every ring and bauble as a meal. Jack had been hungry. He was born hungry. Exactly what Rockley preyed upon, exploited. A man who wanted to eat was a man easily controlled.
But even a starving man reaches a breaking point.
Jack stared at Simon, then turned away to watch the train tracks. No one in their group spoke, except a low exchange every few minutes among the other three. They didn’t try to make him talk. He didn’t know whether it was to protect him or just because they hadn’t a desire to hear his voice. Either way, he didn’t care. Nobody ever said he was witty like the music hall patter boys. Nobody wanted him for conversation.
To keep from looking around and acting suspicious, he made himself count the slats between the train tracks. There weren’t many visible beyond the gas lamps of the station, so he did it over and over. All the while he thought he felt dozens of eyes on him, thought he heard the warders charging near, thought a hundred things—none of them peaceful.
Eva drifted closer to him. Like the two men, she was calm, giving not a hint of anxiety. In fact, she looked slightly bored, just as a woman might when waiting for a train to take her out of the quiet of the countryside. She didn’t speak, but gave him a small nod. The damnedest thing—that tiny crumb of assurance actually made him feel a little bit better. This, from the woman who’d stuck a gun in his face.
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