Winter's Heat: A Nemesis Unlimited Holiday Novella (2 page)

Wary, but to him, an unforgettable face. Her starched white cap partly covered her dark brown hair, smoothed down into a tight bun. Her hazel eyes looked at him with caution, and her small candy of a mouth was drawn tight.

“I half thought you wouldn’t show.” He was careful to keep his voice low to avoid detection from outside.

“I half thought not to come,” she answered softly, though her tone was still sharply edged. “They didn’t tell me you’d be my partner.”

“Had you known, you’d have refused the assignment?”

“Don’t be daft.” She looked appalled he’d even suggest the idea. “But I might’ve been better … prepared.” Her gaze flicked to him, then away.

He, though, looked his fill. The past six months had treated her well, shown by the trim fit of her dark uniform. She’d lost some of her housemaid’s boniness that had hollowed her cheeks and pinched her waist. How might she feel in his arms, with these sleeker, lusher curves?

He crushed that thought like a cigarette beneath his boot heel. The mission always came first—and she looked as though she’d try to snap his wrist clean off if he so much as touched the ties of her apron. He couldn’t blame her.

“Simon planned on sending someone else,” he admitted. “I changed his mind. This is your first real assignment for Nemesis—”

She scowled. “You forget my help in the past?”

“Like hell. A damned fine job you did.” He didn’t miss the quick flare of pleasure in her gaze, or how she smothered it.

Damn.
This wasn’t going to be the reunion he’d imagined.

“But you haven’t been one of the chief agents on a case. I couldn’t…” He struggled to find the words. “The only one I trusted to look after you on your first job was me.”

Yet she was set on being angry. She folded her arms across her chest. “You don’t trust me, after everything Nemesis has done for me. After everything I’ve done for them.”

God, he wanted to run his hands through his hair, but it was slick with the massive amounts of pomade he was required to wear while in service at Covington Hall, and he’d get it all over his gloves.

“Bloody right they trust you,” he growled, “but any operative’s first real assignment needs a senior agent’s help.”

“Are you a senior agent?”

“Getting there,” he admitted.

“Then why send you?”

“I’d just gotten back from a mission. They told me what was happening at Covington Hall, and that you’d be there. Straight out, I said I’d be the one to partner you. Nemesis didn’t tell you because they didn’t know—not until thirty minutes before I left for Wiltshire.”

He didn’t say that he’d been bone-tired from his last job: six months in a shady duke’s retinue as they traveled across the Continent. Michael had finally gathered the evidence he’d needed of the duke’s trafficking of kidnapped girls, then took the first steam packet across the Channel. He’d literally stepped off the hackney at Nemesis headquarters, suitcase in hand, and learned of the mission at Covington Hall and that Ada would be one of the agents. With her experience as a housemaid in a great house, Simon had vouched for her as the perfect operative for the job. Michael would’ve endorsed her, too, but he’d been out of the country. Minutes after arriving at headquarters, he was on the train, heading to Wiltshire. Weary as a dog, he still hadn’t been able to catch any sleep on the ride. His mind was a boxing match between thoughts of the mission and seeing Ada again.

“Simon wired the house with my character,” he continued. It showed how respected Simon Addison-Shawe was in the world of the elite that his recommendation for a last-minute staff addition had been accepted without question. “Just like you. His word got me the job. To do the mission. And see you again.”

She continued to gaze at him warily.

You thought it’d be so bloody easy? A few words from you and she’d melt into your arms?

She’d always had a strong will. And it dawned on him that the very thing that drew him to her could force them apart.
Did
keep them apart.

He’d been a green fool to believe she’d be happy or eager to see him again. A knife of disappointment sliced into him.

“How are you?” he asked gently. “Moving to London’s a ruddy big change.”

“What’s our assignment?” she demanded instead of answering him. “Nemesis said we’d be watching some of the guests, likely because they’ll be gathered here for the Cowans’ holiday festivities.”

She had a swift, sharp mind. That’s why she’d been a perfect ally on the job when Michael had first met her. And why Nemesis had called in a favor from her when a woman with a housemaid’s training was needed.

“The guests,” he said. “Two in particular.” He lowered his voice even more, so Ada had to lean closer. “The Larkfields.”

“The
esteemed
Larkfields,” she quoted.

“Maybe in society’s eyes. But rotten as a side of ten-day-old beef.”

She made a face. “A smelly comparison.”

“Fitting, though. Most aristos of their status have their little charities or causes they support. Some of the patrons are more involved than others.”

“And the Larkfields have their own charity,” she surmised.

“An orphanage,” he said. “They were the patrons.”

“Were, meaning something made them give it up.”

“Last week, the authorities raided the place. Found it wasn’t an orphanage so much as a workhouse.” His jaw clenched. “The children were forced to work fourteen hours a day making cheap jet mourning jewelry.”

Ada brought her hand to her mouth. “My God.”

Footsteps sounded outside. He and Ada froze, breathless and waiting, until whoever it was outside passed.

When he was sure they were safe, he continued quietly. “The jewelry was sold to the mourning emporiums for a tidy profit, profit that went straight into the Larkfields’ pockets. But the coppers weren’t able to link the Larkfields directly to the workshop at the orphanage, even after the raid.” Frustrated, he fought the urge to smash the bottles of distilled liquors lining the stillroom walls. “Nemesis has been keeping a close watch on them, but they’re slippery eels, those Larkfields. With all the tools in our kit, even we can’t come up with anything to prove the nobs were the ones pulling the strings at the orphanage. Can’t even find anything in their banking accounts.”

Ada lowered her brow in thought. He’d come to savor that look, knowing that it meant her clever brain was hard at work. But tension still snapped between them, her mistrust of him plain as a house on fire. Watching her think was a rough and jagged pleasure.

“The Larkfields wouldn’t go abroad this year,” she murmured, “not with the law on them like hounds. So it’s off to see the country cousins instead. There’s got to be something in that.”

“So Nemesis thinks,” he said. “That’s why we’re here. To keep an eye on them. Find out whatever we can. What they’ve done can’t go unpunished.”

“It bloody well can’t,” she answered hotly, then blushed at her language.

He almost smiled. All her years in service had ingrained in her the decorum demanded by the senior staff. Though servants out of the eyes of the butler and housekeeper could talk as rough as sailors.

Service had been nearly half of Michael’s life, ever since he was a lad of fifteen waiting on the upper servants. He knew the rules and ways of grand households the way some men knew how to navigate the seas, or the workings of the Stock Exchange. His father and grandfather had both been in service, and he’d naturally followed in the family trade.

If he hadn’t crossed paths with Nemesis, he might still be in service, hoping one day to become a valet or butler, and enjoying the fine ladies and village girls who loved to bed a vigorous young man in livery.

Everything changed when he’d managed to find and contact Nemesis. He’d been working in a house where the butler had been bilking the servants out of their pay, but no one could prove it. Only through Nemesis stepping in had the evidence come out, and the weasel butler blackmailed into paying the servants what they were owed. Michael’s eyes had been opened to the world of Nemesis, and soon after joined their ranks, helping to dole out justice where he could. It didn’t even bother him that he had less time for the ladies. The work meant more than his cock.

Sometimes Nemesis received temporary help from those they’d assisted in the past. From people like Ada.

And everything had changed again.

He went on, “You and me have to figure out why the Larkfields beat a hasty retreat to the country. What their plans are. Jackals like them always have plans.”

“Mrs. Byrd said they show up tomorrow,” Ada said. “Me and the other maids have been preparing the guest bedrooms all day, and there’s to be more cleaning of the less-used chambers.”

“The footmen have been polishing silver ’til our thumbs are raw.”

“Polishing silver or cleaning twenty fireplaces, dusting dozens of rooms, beating scores of rugs, scrubbing bathing tubs and chamber pots.” A corner of her mouth turned up, the closest she’d come to a smile since he’d seen her that morning. “How do you keep standing?”

Her smile, small as it was, hit him with a burst of aching warmth in the center of his chest. Jobs always took priority, but he’d hoped that maybe, just maybe, he might be able to mend things with her. Maybe they could do more than mend the rift between them. But she was still as guarded as a mint. Was he too late? Could things be set right? Hell, he didn’t even know if she’d found a new sweetheart.

He took a step toward her. “Ada—”

Two things happened at once. She edged away from him until her back pressed against the stillroom table, her tiny smile disappearing instantly. At the same time, voices sounded outside the stillroom door.

“Where’s Ada?” It was the senior housemaid. “We’ve still got the Green Salon to clean.”

“Haven’t seen her.” That was the senior footman. “But if you see Michael, tell him he’s still got to refill the lamps in the South Wing.”

The upper servants’ voices faded, but the danger remained. Michael and Ada couldn’t be gone for too long. Getting sacked at this stage would be terrible.

All his explanations to her had to wait. If he ever got the chance to speak to her about more than the mission.

“We’ll meet up once the Larkfields arrive,” he said quietly.

She gave him a tight nod. “Until then, don’t expect to hear much from me.”

Then she slipped from the room. He was alone as he silently, floridly cursed. He’d forced himself onto this mission in order to be near her, and while he wasn’t sorry about his decision, he had to wonder if it was some form of self-punishment. If that was the case, he was doing a bang-up job.

*   *   *

Readying a grand country house for guests was organized chaos. Covington Hall wasn’t the largest estate at which Michael had worked, but it was still damned sizable. And with heaps of visitors about to descend on the stately house—and a master and mistress determined to impress their guests—there wasn’t a shortage of work.

Servants bustled from room to room. Many of the Cowans had retreated to their private chambers, except for three plump, velvet-wearing children Michael spotted peering over a railing on the landing when the huge Christmas tree was hauled into the front drawing room.

Easy to forget that a seemingly joyous holiday was nearly here, when his own thoughts were torn in three directions: his duties as a footman, his responsibilities for the mission, and Ada.

He spotted her throughout the rest of the day, always with a brush, broom, or pail in her hand. His heart lifted then sank every time he saw her, but he carefully kept his gaze from lingering on her. As far as the staff of Covington Hall believed, he and Ada were strangers. Strangers who’d never fought side by side to make sure swine like the Larkfields got what they deserved. Strangers who’d never known the taste of each other’s mouths, or the close press of their bodies, tight with wanting.

If Ada ever looked at him during the course of her duties, he never knew it. She wore a cool expression, focused only on her tasks.

He cursed himself again for thinking just showing up in her life would set everything to rights. It would take much more to gain her trust again, let alone ignite the passion they’d once shared.

As he and a regular staff member trimmed the lamps in one of the innumerable parlors, Michael asked, “These toffs coming to stay—what sort are they?”

The other footman shrugged. “They’re all the same. Mind, some aren’t too bad, and give us vails when they go, but there’s not much difference between ’em. Rich and lazy.”

Michael used to think the same thing, until he’d met Simon, who came from the highest ranks in society, and played the part of a gentleman of leisure, but it just served as a disguise for his real work for Nemesis.

“Any of them I need to be on the lookout for?” Michael pressed. “Some drunk lordling going to puke on my shoes? Or maybe that Lady Larkfield will pinch my arse.”

“We keep basins in the sideboards in case a toff can’t hold his wine,” the footman answered. “And Lady Larkfield—who knows? Never met her, so I can’t say if your arse is safe. Her husband’s cousins with the master. From what I heard, they used to be close. Lord Larkfield used to summer here as a kid.”

“But he and the master aren’t tight anymore.”

“The master hates London. And his cousin married, then stopped coming out. Maybe his bride didn’t like the country. Heard they’re quite the glittering pair.”

Glittering like cheap tinsel
, Michael thought. “Can’t wait to clap eyes on them,” he said.

He hoped that he’d be able to get more information from the Larkfields’ valet and lady’s maid. No one was closer to the family than their personal servants, with access to their master’s and mistress’s deepest secrets. If anyone was going to have information about the Larkfields’ connection to the orphanage, it’d be them.

Good to learn that Lord Larkfield used to come to Covington Hall as a child. He’d know the estate well. How that fit into the picture, Michael couldn’t yet figure, but it was a small piece of a knotty puzzle. Then there was the riddle of how to fix the rift between him and Ada. At least with Larkfield, Michael could map out a strategy. Ada would prove a much more difficult mystery.