Wicked Temptation (Nemesis Unlimited) (6 page)

Marco heaved a sigh. “Ah, well.” He cast a longing glance toward what presumably was Devere’s office. “If only I could have had a poke through Mr. Devere’s files. Didn’t need to talk to the man himself, just check a few numbers.” He glanced at the clerk. “If I manage this assignment, I could get an advancement. There’d be a vacancy—and some enterprising young clerk might get that position, especially if I put in a good word with the brass.”

The clerk looked thoughtful for a moment, then stepped closer. He cast a shifty glance around the room. “Five minutes. That’s all I can give you in Devere’s office. Then you’ll have to disappear like he did.”

“Five minutes is more than enough,” Marco answered quickly. “My thanks. And how long did you say he’d been gone?”

“Three months,” the clerk replied, without realizing that he hadn’t said anything of the sort earlier. “Working chaps like you and me have to stick together.” He walked hastily to a desk, pulled a key out of a drawer, then returned and pressed the key into Marco’s hand, along with a scrap of paper that had his name and address. “If that vacancy opens up,” he explained.

Marco gave the clerk a small salute. Bronwyn followed him as he crossed the room and unlocked the door to Devere’s office. They both stepped inside, and he shut the door. He didn’t bother turning on the gas lamp. Shadows clung thickly to the paper-strewn room. A heavy, musty smell hung in the air.

“An actor,” Bronwyn whispered as Marco sifted through the mounds of papers. “That must be your other profession when you aren’t working for Nemesis.”

He’d dropped his invisible disguise the moment they’d entered Devere’s office, and now moved confidently through the room, his gaze sharp and precise behind his spectacles. Rifling through a folder of more documents, he said, “There are more important mysteries than how I earn my bread. For example, where is Devere and what the hell does this mean?”

She peered through the gloom at the papers he held up. Symbols and numbers covered the documents, as arcane as a dead language.

Contemplating the papers again, he muttered, “Codes are a child’s game, but it’ll take more than five minutes for me to crack this one. Devere’s better than I thought.”

“The man vanished with the answers about Hugh’s debt,” she said brusquely. “There’s nothing
better
about that.”

“We’ve got different value scales, you and I,” Marco answered.

Not wanting to just stand around uselessly, she began combing through the folders and folios scattered across every surface. “Either he left in a hurry, or someone’s been through here,” she speculated.

“Or a little of both.”

Her limbs tingled with the oddness of this experience. “What am I looking for?”

“Anything with your name on it, or that might have something to do with Devere’s own financial accounting.”

With one eye on the clock—clearly wound daily by a clerk hopeful of Devere’s return—Bronwyn did as Marco directed, examining what seemed like an endless array of documents with columns of numbers upon them. “Either Devere or the clerk he employed to transcribe the numbers must have been in some kind of trouble.”

Marco looked up sharply. “Explain.”

She bristled slightly at his commanding tone, but said, “The handwriting starts off neat, but over the course of months begins to get messier and messier. As if the person writing were growing agitated. Something was bothering them. And see here.” She held out a sheaf of newspaper clippings.

INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY—MILLIONS OF POUNDS GUARANTEED
! proclaimed one.

UNTOLD WEALTH TO BE FOUND IN THE MINES OF SOUTH AMERICA
! another blared.

“Devere seemed quite interested in this sort of chancy financial possibility,” she noted.

A small smile tilted Marco’s lips. “Well done, Mrs. Parrish.”

Why did those few words from him give her a spark of gratification?

He held up another folder.
“Eccolo.”

“Something about Hugh?”

“Devere’s personal banking records.” Moving around the desk, he stood shoulder to shoulder with Bronwyn. She fought the urge to edge away, as if putting distance between herself and a loaded weapon. Instead, she followed his blunt-tipped finger as it slid down a column of numbers. “Curioser and curioser. There’s no swell in Devere’s accounts. Even after he claimed your fortune.”

It seemed an odd leap of logic. “If Hugh was in debt,” she posited, “the money wouldn’t have gone into Devere’s own account. It would have gone to his creditors.”

Marco’s gaze met hers. “Did your husband spend lavishly? Was he the kind of man who made impulsive purchases?”

She shook her head. “If anything, he was slow to buy. I had to remind him over and over again to have his valet purchase new cuffs and collars for his shirts. His frugality always baffled his parents, who’d spoiled him terribly as a child.”

None of this seemed to shock Marco. “Devere wasn’t paying off your husband’s creditors because Hugh Parrish didn’t
have
creditors.”

“Devere took the money for himself?”

“Apparently not, because there’s not a ha’penny extra in his bank account.” He narrowed his eyes. “So then where’s the sodding money?”

A very good question. She started to speak, then stopped.

“Go on,” he urged.

“It seems to me that if somebody takes money, but there’s no sign of the money, that it probably wound up somewhere other than their own pockets.”

“Creditors’ pockets.” Marco scratched absently at his goatee. “Or maybe he was a speculator, and owed business partners.”

Bronwyn jumped when there was a sharp rap on the glass outside. “Time’s up,” the clerk hissed through the door.

Marco tucked the banking folder as well as the one containing the coded documents inside his coat. “Are you a betting woman?”

“I’ve earned my share at euchre,” she answered.

“Good.” He crossed to the door and placed his hand on the knob, but didn’t turn it. His grin flashed white in the gloom of the office. “Because tonight, you and I are going gambling.”

THREE

Taking Mrs. Parrish to Bethnal Green was itself a gamble for Marco. Society ladies didn’t frequent this grim part of town. He didn’t know if she’d scream or faint or be stunned into horrified silence. But she could identify Devere. While Marco might find the man based on her description alone, it was always better to have someone actually familiar with the target close at hand, lest he make a dangerous mistake. If he nabbed the wrong bloke, Devere would find out about it, and then there’d be no chance of getting Nemesis’s hands on him.

“I’m not entirely certain what we’re doing here,” Mrs. Parrish said, glancing out the cab’s window. Streetlights weren’t plentiful in this run-down part of the city, and between the hood of her cloak—he’d had her remove her veil, though she’d objected—and the shadows, he could barely make out her features. But he didn’t need to see them now to remember everything, such as the tiny dip in her lower lip, or the straight line of her reddish-gold eyebrows, or how she’d set her chin whenever she was trying to be brave. Her chin often formed that firm shape, pushed slightly forward. It was a struggle, he saw, for her to keep her determination.

Marco had them swing by Nemesis headquarters and pick up Desmond for the trip to Bethnal Green—this wasn’t an assignment Marco wanted for himself, and it would be better tonight to have another agent accompanying them. Introductions had been made quickly between Desmond, his sister Riza, and the Widow Parrish. Night had fallen, which meant that they had a limited amount of time. If Mrs. Parrish had been surprised by Desmond and Riza’s half-Indian parentage—clearly evident in the color of their skin and hair—she made no mention of it. She’d paused briefly, but then shaken their hands and been swept up in the mission.

A scalpel, Eva had called Marco once.
A suave scalpel,
the Nemesis agent had said, more specifically.

He almost grinned to himself. Nothing by half measures. He might not want to be on this case, but when he was the lead on a mission, he moved with speed and precision. An old habit ingrained by training. When the lives of thousands of soldiers or civilians were at risk, he couldn’t proceed slowly. Even when it came to gathering intelligence, he had a surgical precision. No lingering, not when the anesthetized patient could wake at any moment and begin screaming.

He’d snatched a folio of papers off a diplomat’s desk in the beat of a fly’s wings. He’d broken into a French arms manufacturer’s safe box in less than two minutes. Though the Widow Parrish was genteel, he’d rather spend his time seeing to the needs of the poor—over the course of his work with British Intelligence, he’d seen far too much poverty and privation, both at home and abroad.

He’d never been a member of the elite—and didn’t want to be. He’d endured enough at their hands to ever want anything to do with them. It was one of the main reasons why he’d become an intelligence agent, and why he helped form Nemesis six years ago. Their targets were often from the highest ranks of society, which gave him a cold, brutal satisfaction when the bastards were brought down.

She was of them, the Widow Parrish.

Still, he’d been strong-armed into this job, and now that he’d committed to it, he wouldn’t doze his way through.

“Back at Devere’s offices,” he said as the carriage rocked over the rough pavement, “you said something that made me think.”

“A rare occurrence,” Desmond offered.

Marco in turn offered the agent one of his favorite Italian hand gestures.

“I can’t imagine I have anything to add to your elaborate thought process,” Mrs. Parrish said.

“You said that if Devere didn’t take the money for himself,” Marco explained, “that it wound up in someone else’s pockets.”

“Yes, and then you asked if I was a betting woman.”

“Which you apparently are,” he said.

“There’s a small thrill in taking a chance,” she admitted, though uncertainty edged her voice. Then she tipped up her chin, and though the charcoal light within the carriage mostly hid her face, his imagination filled in the details. With the fairness of her redhead’s complexion, doubtless she wore a warm pink hue.

He forced his thoughts to something other than the color and temperature of the pretty widow’s skin. “Devere thinks there’s more than a small thrill in gambling. We saw those newspaper clippings in his offices. If he’s the sort who’s interested in reckless investments, likely he’s a gambler, too. And not at euchre.”

“London’s thick with gaming hells,” Desmond said, “all over the city.” He glanced at the increasingly tumbledown buildings as the cab threaded its way along the slum’s streets. “A man of some means, even small as Devere’s might be, wouldn’t come to this shithole. Beg your pardon, Mrs. Parrish,” he added when Marco kicked him.

“None … ah … taken.”

“We’re a coarse lot,” Marco noted. “Except Simon, who’s smooth as buttered satin.”

“Toff bastard,” Desmond said good-naturedly.

Mrs. Parrish continued to stare out the window. Barefoot children in rags chased after the cab, and people huddled on curbs and in doorways, some cradling bottles of gin. “I’ve never … I didn’t know it was like this.”

“Never went slumming?” Desmond asked snidely. “Ow! You sodding kicked me again.”

“I repent nothing,” Marco answered, “especially when you’re being a rude ass.” He might not have any love for the higher ranks, but he still knew the value of courtesy.

The widow looked appalled at the suggestion that she would ever go on one of the guided tours of London’s slums.

“Come and visit this like a tourist?” she demanded. “Why?”

“With the exposés in sundry newspapers,” Marco said, “and the zeal for reform, genteel men and women like you venture into Whitechapel and Bethnal Green to shake their heads at the occupants’ misery. They pretend that somehow, the poverty-trapped men and women are to blame for their wretchedness. An easier thought than to acknowledge the truth.”

A square of weak light fell across her face, revealing the look of illness on her face. “People used to tour Bedlam, too, and throw garbage at the patients. But that was nearly a hundred years ago. I’d never revel in the misfortune of others, or congratulate myself on my privilege.”

“Others do,” Desmond said.

“It’s only…” Her gaze lit upon a young girl leading a naked toddler down the muddy lane. “Missionaries would come to my house, asking for donations for places like this. I gave them money. Of course I did. Whatever you think of genteel women like me,” she fired at Marco, “we’re always taught to be charitable. It’s our duty. But I never saw this place before. I never knew … how bad it truly was.”

Genuine shock and horror edged her voice.

Had he been too quick to judge her based on her class?

“It wasn’t enough,” she murmured. “The money I gave the missionaries, or the funds we raised at our little charity bazaars. How could it be? A few dozen pounds can’t fix this.” She waved at the plight just outside the cab.

“No, it can’t,” he answered. From London to Toulouse to Moscow, he’d seen poverty. It was a constant, no matter where he traveled. Which made him all the more determined to make a change.

Turning her gaze to him, she said, “And here I am, pursuing my fortune when so many others have nothing.”

“You don’t have much, either,” he felt obliged to point out.

“Yet I’m not so far gone that I sleep beneath rags and get my dinner out of a bottle,” she countered.

He stretched out his legs. “Guilt’s a powerful motivator. Just ask my mother.”

“Don’t make fun of me,” Mrs. Parrish snapped.

“I’m not. Once you have your fortune back, you can use it to help people.
Truly
help.”

“Perhaps I’ll surprise you and actually do that.”

He was beginning to wonder if she really might, and was alarmed that he believed she would.

“Nothing’s going to happen until we get your money back, and to do that, we need to find Devere,” Marco continued. “There’s one person in the whole of London who knows everything about the city’s gamblers: Charlie.”