The Diamond Conspiracy: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel (9 page)

“My recommendation.”

If someone would have brushed Bruce with a feather, he would have fallen off his bar stool.

“This would be more of a permanent placement.” Her hand dropped over the top of his and held it tight, along with his attention. “We need you, Bruce.”

This was starting to get interesting. “And why exactly is that?”

Beatrice’s fingers clenched around his ever so slightly. “Your knowledge of the Ministry.”

Bruce leaned back. Those instincts were now screaming at him to punch her as hard as he could and run. “My knowledge of—”

“Dead drop locations. Safe houses. Protocols,” she continued. “We need your help mopping up our current mess.”

He tilted his head again. “Mopping up? I hope that is a simple way of saying bringing in agents out of hostile territories?”

Beatrice pursed her lips, appearing to size him up. He
suddenly felt like a wallaby being measured for the pot. “The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences has been deemed an inconvenience by the Queen. We have a few loose ends to secure. I told my superiors if there was any man capable of leading this undertaking, it was the Thunder from Down Under himself, Bruce Campbell.”

He didn’t blink or move a muscle as they stared at each other.

“I would have thought,” she said in a soft undertone, “after what they did to you, that wouldn’t be a problem.”

Despite everything that had happened between him—the betrayal against Doctor Sound, the heartbreak he brought to his best mate, Brandon Hill, and his breaking of trust with the Ministry—this news hit Bruce like a kangaroo kick to the stomach. Perhaps he’d hoped someday to be forgiven, return to the comforts and friendships he’d made there. No, the Ministry had its faults as did any agency that served at the behest of the Queen, but they had been good people, the lot of them. Good people who would have opened their arms to him again, once they had seen him a reformed man.

And yet, here was Beatrice casually telling him that was all impossible.

He was certainly not the smartest agent. He was the Ministry’s muscle, without question. Bruce was quick enough to know when Beatrice referred to loose ends, she was talking about his fellow agents. Brandon, Eliza, and Maulik, if he was in from India. Regardless of their desire to sock him on the chin, those agents were still his mates. They were his mates . . . now deemed an inconvenience in Queen Vic’s eyes.

Suddenly the train bushwhacker faded to insignificance. Why the hell would the Queen get rid of her Ministry?

It had to be the fault of that plonker, Lord Sussex.

While Bruce took a long draft of his beer, he thought about where the agents would go, how they would react to this. If he knew any of them—which he did—he knew they wouldn’t go easy. Then he thought about the Department of Imperial Inconveniences and how thorough they were when given an assignment. They might have been nitwits, but they were well-trained nitwits, and they did excel in a few skills. Tracking, for one.

Then he thought on the unfortunate fact that he had never trusted Beatrice. He’d bedded her several times, certainly, but did a roll in the hay equal trust? Hardly. There was something shifty about the tall woman. He’d never be able to turn his back on her, and he’d always been too lazy to keep much of an eye out behind him.

This afternoon, however, he did. And on catching the inside lining of the bloke sitting behind her, noting the signature tweed that Beatrice herself was wearing proudly in her hat and riding coat, he knew a great deal rested on his next few carefully chosen words.

There was one more uncomfortable fact he recalled about Miss Beatrice Muldoon: she didn’t take rejection at all well. Bruce slipped himself out of her grasp and patted her gloved hand, trying to think of a way to avoid any nastiness. “Now, Beatrice . . .”

Her eyes narrowed as she sat back, slipping out of reach. “Last time you used that tone on me Bruce, you rather hurt my feelings . . . and then I rather hurt something of yours . . .”

It was definitely time to switch from beer to whiskey. Then again, the glass mug in his hand could make for a better weapon than a shot glass. He took in a deep breath, and shook his head. “I don’t want to get back into the game, Bea. Sorry, but somewhere I lost my way . . . and it cost lives. Like I told ya, I need perspective, and hunting down my mates just ain’t the perspective I need at present.”

Beatrice let out a long sigh and adjusted her hat, pressing back one of the jet hatpins that held it in place. “They told me this was going to be a waste of time, but I insisted. I thought I knew you better.” Her smile was crooked. Bruce recognised that particular smile as being the very same one just before she’d knocked him down with that vicious hook of hers.

His eyes flicked back over to the man behind her. He suddenly had to get up from his place at the bar. He glanced at the mirror again, and simultaneously four more patrons—one of them wearing the tweed in his pants, two showing it in their coats, and the last one in the kerchief tied around his neck—also got up from their tables. All at the same time.

Yeah,
Bruce thought to himself,
this kind of blunder is
exactly
why the Department is a right joke.

“So,” he said with a laugh, “what did they tell you to do if’n I said no?”

Beatrice’s eyes narrowed on him as her smile turned decidedly bitter. “I think we’re past the point where I tell you what’s going on. I think we’re at the really pointy end of the conversation.”

He caught the flash of metal at her wrist which revealed some kind of armguard, as he slid away from a strike she’d aimed at his hand. Bruce knew his dismount off the stool was not exactly smooth, but he found his feet quickly enough and brought his mug around. The glass was of a good, solid stock as it dislocated the jaw of the bloke trying to flank him. Didn’t that idiot realise there was this giant
mirror
behind the bar where they sat?

He took a few steps back, easing into a pugilistic stance. Beatrice’s blue eyes flashed, and she gestured behind her to those other four agents at the other end of the saloon. He could see their dingy reflections not closing in on him, but barring any exits. They all had clean sight lines, but Miss Bea—obviously the senior officer—right at this moment was buggering proper Department procedure. This wasn’t going to be a simple, elegant cleanup. She wanted to get into it with him.

Fair enough.

Beatrice slid off her stool and took up a similar stance. Bruce had forgotten that she was a good foot taller than him, and the delicate sleeves of her dress, stretched tight over impressive musculature, also reminded him of how physical she got in bed—and in mêlées such as this. The inhabitants of the pub, who had undoubtedly seen their fair share of fights, picked up their drinks and relocated to the edges of the room. When the piano player was on a break, this was the only entertainment to be had.

“Bea,” he warned, “I’m gonna give ya—”

The right hook, Bruce realised, he had been worrying about too much, as it was a
left
hook to the cheek that connected soundly, knocking him back into a table where a pair of miners were too settled into their drinks to notice what was coming. They looked at Bruce, then turned their eyes to Beatrice. Lady or not, she had spilt their beers and would pay. Or so these poor sods thought.

This was hardly an even match as she was a trained agent, and her return strike was much quicker. Still, everyone has the ability to land a lucky punch, and that was exactly what the shorter of the two men did. Bea toppled into three miners standing off to the side. One of them cushioned her fall, while the other two entered the fray.

Bruce, now back on his feet, braced himself against the bar as Beatrice started bearing down on him. Once she drew close enough, he brought the empty mug by his hand around. The glass shattered against the armguard just before her other fist came around, clocking him hard enough to make his head ring. He had taken more than his fair share of blows to the face, so the blood was totally expected, but the surge of numbness and the watering of his eyes caught him by surprise. Was he really that soft after only a month out of the game?

A hard
click
sobered him up in a moment, and his vision snapped into focus. Beatrice was pointing the girded arm at him. He had to move and move now.

Something dug into the wood planks where he had once lain, but he continued to roll until he was up on his feet. Bruce reached behind him and slipped out the forearm-length rod sheathed in his belt. With a quick flick of his wrist and the flip of a switch, the rod snapped with a sharp hiss to its full length. It sliced through the air and struck hard against that concealed armguard of Beatrice’s. He managed to get two more strikes before she wised up to what his plan had been. The backhand against his immense, square jaw knocked him back, but it did not knock away his smile. Knowing what damage his baton could do, Bruce knew whatever device she had under that blouse was rightly buggered.

“Goddammit!” she swore.

And there was his confirmation.

Bruce had just taken one step towards an exit when a fist—not Beatrice’s—knocked him back. He shook his head to try and find the Department agents within the fray. Apparently blokes and sheilas were all joining in now, not for the honour of a lady nor to defend a man when he was clearly bushwhacked. No, people were now joining the brawl for the hell of it.

However, this kind of chaos could make the Department’s
job far easier. Bruce decided to adhere to one method: swing at anything that moved.

This tactic proved to be a good one for him as on several occasions he caught a glimpse of tweed. Whether it was the Department’s tweed or just some poor sod with terrible fashion sense, it was hard to say. Bruce was still standing, and so far no one had—

The cupped hand did not slap, strike, or even bop his most sensitive and sacred of muscles. No, the cupped hand grabbed, crushed, and—yes—twisted his balls. Twisted just enough to keep his attention.

“Bring him in for reorientation, they said,” Beatrice shouted over the brawl. She was leading him back to the bar as she continued, her breath pushing back strands of hair that were now tousled and wild. “Resolve this matter quickly and efficiently, they said.” Bruce gave a little groan—a touch of pleasure in that, he hated to admit—when she squeezed just a fraction more. “No, sweetie. I’m going to
enjoy
this! For as long—as—
possible
!”

With that proclamation, Beatrice picked him off his feet and threw him onto the bar, the wind rushing out of him as he pounded, chest first, into its sturdy wood. Whoever had called her sex the gentler one, had never met a bruiser like Miss Beatrice Octavia Muldoon.

Bruce had hold of the bar. The publican had retreated to a place of safety, but unfortunately a collection of empty bottles, glass mugs in various states of quantity, shot glasses, and a few coffee mugs had not. He could feel Beatrice switch her hold from his balls to the waistband of his trousers, and then forward momentum. He continued down along the far-too-long length of this bar, his sharp connection against broken bottles and heavy glass tumblers reminding him why bar brawls were a losing deal, but wildly entertaining to bystanders. He would much rather have been the one doing the sweeping instead of Beatrice. Even the empty glasses hurt, but not as much as knowing his sweep along the bar was also resulting in wasted spirits. It was enough to make a man cry. A whack to the bollocks and then this!

Suddenly, he felt open air. End of the line. Once clear of the bar, Beatrice flung him off with a little cry of victory. He landed
against the wall in a heap, giving him a second to look on Bea. Even looking like a well-dressed but completely mad woman, she was still a thing of beauty. In a brawler sort of fashion.

“What are you smiling at, Campbell?” Beatrice roared.

He guffawed as he stood, brushed himself off, and shrugged. “Just remembering what a goer you always were.”

She charged at him, but this time Bruce brush-blocked the incoming hook, sweeping the arm under his and locking it against his side. He then grabbed the other arm and pinned it behind her as he twisted, bending her back into a dip. Her mouth tasted salty. Either her lip was cut or a tooth was loose, but she was still a lovely woman to taste. She kissed like she fought. To win. And that was what her tongue was now doing—tasting every part of his mouth and savouring him as he did her. For a Pom, she kissed better than some frontier girls he had known.

Their lips parted with a gasp, and Beatrice was trying very hard to keep focus. That kiss had obviously caught her off guard.

So did Bruce’s forehead which connected hard with hers, knocking her back into a small knot of men who were still enjoying report with one another’s fists.

With Beatrice occupied, Bruce kicked two bottles, one for each hand, up from the floor. One he used as he would have used his baton, had he not lost it in the fight. The other he lobbed to his left at a Department boy daring to raise a pistol. It had been a long time since Bruce had fielded for the Queensland cricket team, but he had apparently lost none of his skill, for the bottle hit the agent, even shattered on impact.

That one must have been green as the manor’s lawn. The Department’s rule was no mess, no fuss. Guns rarely played into their schemes.

Returning to the heart of this drunken storm, an empty bottle his only weapon against trained Department agents and pub patrons, Bruce ducked and weaved through scuffles until he found a clear path to the saloon’s window, which he propelled himself through, rolling then running through the clearing he had made for himself outside. Eureka, being the horse that he was and knowing his master all too well, had already turned himself around. Bruce had just leapt up into the saddle
when he heard a scream, a passionate if not primal scream that he knew belonged to Beatrice. He snapped the reins and thundered down the main street, his head down and low. It wasn’t Department policy to make for public executions but he would not leave anything to chance. Ride fast, ride hard.