Nemesis Unlimited [1] Sweet Revenge by Zoe Archer Page B

Eva knew that Dalton had had nothing to do with Rockley’s going to the brothel where Edith had worked. Dalton hadn’t been anywhere near Rockley that night—his bodyguards received one day off a week, and that day had been Dalton’s. Somehow, Dalton had learned of Edith’s death that same night, and had unsuccessfully tried to avenge her in the early hours of the morning. Yet he still felt culpable. Eva had seen it in the glaze of rage and anguish in his dark eyes.
    Killing Rockley wouldn’t bring Edith Dalton back from the dead, but to her brother, it had to mean some measure of absolution. A man would do almost anything to achieve forgiveness.
    “He’s going to be trickier to handle than the others,” Simon insisted. “Remember Fetcham? He was a bruiser, too, but when it came right down to it, he fell in line. Dalton’s far more dangerous.”
    “I can handle him,” said Eva. “Thumbs to the eyes, a knee to the groin. He might be big and strong as a bull, but every man has vulnerable places.”
    Passing lamplight glanced off the pristine planes of Simon’s face as he frowned his displeasure. He verged on being too handsome, if such a thing were possible, almost uncomfortable to look upon. To her, however, he was merely Simon, her colleague, the architecture of his face admirable but not stirring.
    Not like Dalton. He wasn’t handsome, not in the known sense of it, anyway. Yet she couldn’t banish his face from her mind, its rough contours and hard lines. If Simon was a mathematically perfect temple, its columns placed precisely, the proportions expertly rendered, Dalton was a granite mountain, all crags and peril, alluring because it was hazardous. Both drew the eye, but for very different reasons.
    “It’s not Dalton’s size or strength that has me concerned,” said Simon.
    “A little credit, if you please.” Eva fixed him with a wry look. “I’m hardly the sort to be led astray by a suggestive remark or carnal glance.”
    “No, you aren’t.”
    At least there was no recrimination in Simon’s tone. Once, years ago, he’d intimated that he would like to take their relationship beyond the professional. She’d immediately quashed that idea. There had been some wounded feelings right after her refusal, but Simon’s speedy recovery had proven to her that, at most, he’d been mildly curious. Not enthralled. Not even enamored. She hadn’t been hurt by his quick rallying. If anything, it proved what she already knew—she was better off on her own, free of entanglements.
    “Just … be wary around Dalton,” Simon pressed. “He’s got a way of looking at you.”
    Her heart gave a strange, small leap. “The man’s been in prison for five years. He’d look at a toothless crone the same way.”
    This time it was Simon who was wry. “Believe it or not, but even in the depths of a man’s lust, he knows the difference between a beldam and a beauty.”
    “How encouraging.”
    Simon continued, “Dalton assuredly knows what he sees when he looks at you.”
    The woman who’s got his baubles in her hand . Or is it more than that?
    It didn’t matter. She was a dedicated operative. Dalton might be different from what she had anticipated, but she had a responsibility to Nemesis’s client and the greater good. He was simply another cog in the larger machine, a machine she was determined to run with the same capable skill she’d shown throughout her years with Nemesis.
    The cab rolled to a stop outside the door to her lodgings. It was a perfectly respectable building in a perfectly respectable neighborhood; so respectable, in fact, that no one was awake to note that she wasn’t married to the man riding with her in the hansom. After bidding Simon good night, Eva climbed the front steps, then let herself in.
    She walked up the two flights of stairs leading to her rooms. The ground floor was where her landlady, Mrs. Petworth, lived, along with Mrs. Petworth’s daughter. Miss Axford resided on the