Wicked Temptation (Nemesis Unlimited) (21 page)

“What he thinks are our bags?” she whispered.

“While you effectively distracted the porter, I did a bit of sleight of hand. Switched the contents with another set of luggage. These.” From behind a pillar he pulled out two suitcases—gray with brown straps.

Before she could respond to his sleght of hand—and thievery—the first porter returned, looking cross. “Didn’t see any gray trunk with brown straps, monsieur.”

Marco gave a rueful chuckle. “That’s right. We left it at home for this voyage.”

It appeared that the porter barely kept himself from troweling a thick layer of curses over Marco. Instead, he said through clenched teeth, “Where are you heading, monsieur? I’ll load your baggage.”

“It’s all right.” Marco handed him a coin. “We’ve inconvenienced you quite enough for one day.”

After snatching the coin, the porter trundled off, grumbling to himself.

“I cannot believe you
stole
those bags,” Bronwyn muttered.

“I didn’t leave the previous owners with nothing,” he answered. “They’ve got perfectly decent replacement luggage. And the switch helped us lose one of our Grillons companions.”

“Leaving us with one more. Unless you have plans for these bags, too.” She nodded to their new cases.

“Only that they’re accompanying us.” He picked up the two bags and, motioning for her to follow, began to stride toward one of the platforms. Sadly, she’d had to leave behind some of her new clothing, but she’d wear nothing but rags if it meant getting away from danger.

The sign proclaimed the train steaming at the platform as heading for Amsterdam. Marco climbed aboard a second-class carriage, and she followed without question. In this realm of subterfuge, he was the reigning king, while she barely ranked as a courtier.

They continued on down the aisle between the second-class seats. Behind her, she heard the door to the carriage open and close. Pretending to examine the brass racks overhead, she threw a quick glance over her shoulder and saw the second Grillons man trailing after them.

More fear clambered along her neck, digging in with chilled claws. She wanted to turn to the seated passengers and beg for their help—but it was a futile hope. What could any of these people do against a force as powerful and terrifying as Les Grillons?

Marco gestured to two seats near the back of the carriage. “Here we are, my dear,” he said loudly enough for anyone in the car to hear.

She took a seat, forcing herself into silence when she wanted to demand of Marco just what in heaven’s name he was planning. He sat beside her, though he kept their bags with them instead of sliding them into the overhead racks.

“Tickets to Marseille aren’t very effective for getting us to Amsterdam,” she whispered.

“We’re not going to Amsterdam. But our
ami
in the next train car is. When I say so, follow me as fast and quietly as you can.” He adjusted the cuff of his trousers. Then, suddenly growled low,
“Now.”

At once he was on his feet and out the door at the back of the carriage, carrying their bags. She wasted no time in following, all the while her heart pounding painfully.

They found themselves in a freight car, stacked high with cages full of dogs, cats, and even a goat. The animals kept up a steady stream of barks, meows, and bleats as Marco strode to the other end of the carriage, where another door stood. He tried the door, only to rattle the handle. It was locked.

Instantly, he knelt in front of the lock and had produced his picks. As he worked the picks, Bronwyn kept one eye on the other door—waiting to see if the man from Les Grillons would follow—and the other on an orange tabby cat, reclining in what had to be the most plush cage she’d ever seen. It had Sèvres porcelain bowls full of food and water, and a velvet cushion, on which the cat lolled, utterly indifferent to the chaos around it.

“Lucky beast,” she murmured.

The door at the back of the freight car swung open, and Marco was on his feet, their bags in hand. She trailed after him onto a small open structure between train cars, shutting the door behind them. Still no sign of Les Grillons.

Marco lightly tossed the baggage onto the tracks below, then leaped down nimbly. He helped her descend, and then up onto the platform. They walked briskly away from the Amsterdam-headed train.

Glancing over her shoulder, she saw no evidence that the Grillons man pursued.

“We’re safe,” she said.

“No such thing as safe,” he reminded her. “Only saf
er
.”

“Thanks to your diabolical mind, we’re definitely saf
er
.”

He nodded, as if this were his due. But he had no need for false modesty. Not where subterfuge and skill were concerned.

“That blade you used on Devere last night,” she continued. “I … where in God’s name do you carry it?”

He tapped the lapel of his coat. “Special pocket sewn here. In case I can’t get to the knife strapped to my calf.”

“What about getting … blood … on your clothes?”

“There’s a reason why I wear dark suits.”

God.
Good thing he was on her side.

Within moments, she and Marco were settled in a first-class carriage on a train marked as bound for Marseille. There continued to be no sign of the men from Les Grillons.

The storm of the past few minutes was over, but she still shook from its whirlwinds. Had all that really happened? It had transpired so quickly. But her hands continued to tremble.

Seeking comfort, she cradled her violin case close as the train steamed and idled, waiting for more passengers. Even here, no one cared that a man was murdered last night, and that she’d seen it happen. Or that she and Marco had just eluded two men who wouldn’t hesitate to kill them. “What is this world? I don’t … recognize it. It’s so much more … brutal … than I thought.”

A brief image flashed through her mind: Marco, not Devere, lay sprawled upon the ground in the school’s courtyard, and it was his blood turning the stone black, and those were his eyes staring emptily at the stars. Fear and sorrow stabbed through her.

“As I said, I thought about sending you back to England,” he murmured. “Finishing up the case on my own, now that Devere’s dead.”

A shiver danced between her shoulder blades. “Yet here I am. Bound for Marseille.”

“Because they spotted you,” he answered, “and I don’t trust your security to anyone but me.”

The coldness that had gathered in her bones slowly dissolved. Strange how he could touch her with these offhand comments.

The train’s whistle shrilled. A well-dressed couple with a small child entered the carriage and took their seats, with a nanny busy supplying the child with entertaining distraction by producing a steady parade of toys. Meanwhile, a barefoot little girl sold posies outside on the train platform as passengers buffeted her like a dandelion seed on the wind.

“That’s why there’s Nemesis,” Marco said in English as he followed her gaze.

“I don’t think your work will ever be finished,” she replied.

The train gave another whistle, then chugged away, leaving behind not just the men from Les Grillons, but the tiny flower seller, as well, who disappeared into the vast crowds.

“It won’t,” Marco answered.

*   *   *

When traveling from Paris to Amélie-les-Bains, Bronwyn had been more concerned with saving Hugh’s life than her own. English doctors had proven all but useless, except for a few recommendations to get Hugh to one of the spas on the Continent. So they’d gone, with the bright hope that he could cleanse his body of the disease. But gradually, between vile treatments of arsenic, iodine, and creosote, and enforced bed rest, that hope had dimmed.

Bronwyn now sat with a book in her lap—
Le Comte de Monte-Cristo
—journeying to Marseille, but she didn’t see the words arranged in orderly lines, and she paid little attention to the forests and valleys of France. Instead, she saw the fading look in Hugh’s eyes as he’d realized that he would never again return to England—he’d weakened far too much to make the return trip—and that his hold on life loosened with each cough, each fleck of blood Bronwyn caught in a linen handkerchief.

And through it all, she had to keep smiling gently, assuring him that he was healing, and soon they’d be home again, even though they both knew she fed him kind lies. The last weeks had been the worst, as the disease ravaged him, and the blood could no longer be contained in just a little handkerchief. He’d died with his eyes wide open, staring with fear at death.

After he’d died, she’d taken the train back to Paris, the packet back to Dover, and another train to London. Seeing nothing but her own blank interiority, and the realization that she’d never again hear Hugh’s voice, feel the brush of his mustache as he kissed her good night, or anticipate his return home from an afternoon at his club. There was … nothing.

Nothing but the anticipation of two years of emptiness. As though she would go into her own form of death—alive, but not truly. Invisible to the world. Forcibly shut away to show her sorrow over the loss of a man who’d never actually loved her.

Now she watched the elegantly dressed family that shared the sitting compartment. While the nanny amused the child, the husband and wife read—he a newspaper, she a novel. They didn’t speak much to each other, but their hands would brush against each other from time to time, as if assuring themselves that the other was still there, that they needed the assurance of touch. And every now and again, they would look at each other and smile. Small smiles, private and intimate. The looks born from true and comfortable desire.

What would it be like to feel that? What would it be like to feel any heat at all, other than mild pleasure?

Her gaze strayed to Marco, studying a sheaf of documents. A frown formed a small crease between his dark brows. He was honed and severe, handsome and intense as the depths of night. A man who carried tiny knives in his clothing, who had overcome childhood illness to become the frighteningly competent man he was today.

But for all that, he’d never treated her with contempt. He’d trusted her to distract the porter. Relied on her to keep her head as they’d fled Les Grillons at the train station. He’d given her that book. Listened to her dreams without sneering in contempt. Even encouraged her. Over and over he’d seen to her safety.

And then there had been that kiss …

If she’d ever thought him cold, the kiss had proved otherwise. There was a heat within him. As pressurized as a volcano, and when it finally erupted, it devastated everything in its path. Including her.

Her face heated at the memory, as did other parts of her body. There was the passion she’d never experienced in her marriage. In the most unlikely place and person.

Insane to have these thoughts
now,
when an actual crime syndicate hunted them, and this journey to Italy was not taken for pleasure—at great risk to her and Marco’s lives. Yet she couldn’t stop the steam engine of her mind, a machine with no brakes, only the force to keep barreling forward.

Hugh wasn’t alive, but she was. And each step forward on this mad journey with Marco and Nemesis only proved this. Proved that she wanted more for herself than the nullity of widowhood, or life as a paid companion. She needed more than that.

Evening fell in a violet cloak, spreading over the French countryside. The lamps inside the train were turned on, and the family left the sitting compartment to seek out their supper in the dining car.

“I’ve seen you eat,” she said in the sudden quiet, “so I know you have to do it. Unless you just need coal, like an engine.”

He set aside his papers. “I’m not a sodding train.”

“You hardly blinked when Devere was murdered.”

“We’ve both seen death,” he pointed out.

“Never like that, for me. Not violent and brutal.”

A shadow passed briefly across his gaze. “I hope that’s the last you’ll see of it. I might not be pulling at my hair, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel it every time I watch a man die.”

She swallowed hard. “Have you witnessed many deaths?”
Or caused them?

“I don’t keep a tally,” he replied, which wasn’t an answer, and yet it told her everything she needed to know. No wonder his default expression was removed and coolly cynical. It kept him secure, like an ironclad battleship.

“And I also happen to be hungry,” he added. Standing, he held out his arm. “Shall we?”

They ventured to the dining car, where waiters bearing silver-domed dishes moved as effortlessly as weathered sailors between the cloth-covered tables. She and Marco were escorted to an empty table. Almost as soon as they were seated, a server set down a plate of oysters nestled in ice.

Marco pried the glistening oyster from its shell and smoothly swallowed it down. His eyes briefly closed, and the tiniest smile formed at the edge of his mouth. She’d heard the legends, the ribald jokes about oysters, and what it meant when a man liked eating them. Clearly, Marco enjoyed the sea creatures.

His eyes opened, and his gaze fixed on hers. Daring her.

She picked up an oyster and used her tiny fork to pull the meat from the shell. Then, holding his gaze, she tilted her head back and let the briny oyster slide down her throat.

Her smile matched his as she set down the shell.

They consumed the rest of the platter in silence, but with each swallow, her whole body felt alight with readiness. Perhaps the legends about oysters were true.

Or maybe you want him.
He had a way of eating that showed a profound sensuality. Watching him swallow fleshy, quivering oysters only proved what she already knew. He might shield himself with toughened cynicism, but possessed a unique sensitivity. He’d be an excellent lover. Hands in all the right places. Lips, too. And his body, hard with muscle, profoundly capable …

She wanted that. Wanted to experience it for herself.

But she could hardly drag him off to a sleeping compartment and tear his clothing off—appealing as that idea was. She needed more from him than just his body. She craved knowledge of the man beneath the armor.