Winter's Heat: A Nemesis Unlimited Holiday Novella (7 page)

It was so fascinating, she was actually surprised when Michael’s feet touched the ground.

“The ferry’s arrived.” At least he sounded a bit breathless, so she knew that he wasn’t superhuman. Only a man who could do some rather amazing things.

She released him, and her feet touched the earth. When she stepped back, she immediately missed his heat and solidity. Her own legs wobbled.

Though he was the one who’d climbed down Covington Hall, he quickly supported her, his hand gripping her arm. “Easy and slow,” he murmured.

She glanced up at the wall looming above them. “I can’t believe that just happened.”

He slanted her an unreadable look. “We’re Nemesis. Almost anything’s possible. If you want it badly enough.”

*   *   *

Winter had stripped the garden and grounds to their bones. Dead grass crunched beneath Michael’s boots as he and Ada walked toward the ruin.

Easy to see why Christmas would be necessary at this time of year. Warmth and green seemed like far memories. But the holiday could provide a welcome break from the relentless gray and chill.

He didn’t speak until they’d put a goodly distance between themselves and the house. And even then, he kept his voice low. As Ada had pointed out, there could be a patrolling groundskeeper, or someone else who decided on a midnight ramble through the grounds.

“It’s lumping cold out here,” he muttered, his breath misting in front of him. Snow wouldn’t be long in coming. “Meanwhile Marco’s nice and cozy at the village inn.”

“Marco from Nemesis?”

“The same. He’s available should we need a third pair of hands.”

“Comforting,” she answered, but she didn’t sound quite comforted. Michael remembered that she’d never met Marco before, and might not trust him. Marco
was
a slippery bastard.

“How’s Priscilla?” he asked.

For the first time that night, Ada’s expression softened. “Thriving. And the mother of a healthy little girl. They’re living in Coventry now. Prissy’s mother watches the baby during the day while she works at a ribbon factory. Of course,” she added bitterly, “everyone thinks she’s a widow, otherwise no one would hire her.”

Michael was silent in grim acknowledgment. The burden of unwanted pregnancy always fell on women. Never the men. They seldom, if ever, bore the costs—or shame.

“You did well by her,” he murmured.

“Me?” Ada’s eyes rounded in surprise. “Nemesis found the evidence to blackmail the aristo bastard that raped her. You and Simon.”

“You assisted us. And we wouldn’t have known to help if you hadn’t reached out to Nemesis.”

Shadows darkened her eyes as they finally left the formal garden and entered the rolling parkland. “I’d seen it happen too many times to let it pass again without doing something about it. A house full of young, vulnerable girls, dependent on the family’s good will for a roof and food, and a little money for our work. Some masters are good men, but some think the housemaids are their own personal brothel. Even when the girls say no, there’s nothing to be done.
She’s
the one who’s at fault.
She’s
the whore. As Prissy learned.” She exhaled, her breath a soft puff of white in the brittle air. “At least that son of a bitch paid, enough for her and her mother to start over again.”

“Not a lot get that chance,” he said quietly. “But you gave it to her.”

She ducked her head and said nothing, but he knew she was thinking of that time when they’d first met. Through the underground channels, Ada had written to Nemesis, pleading for justice for her fellow housemaid. The case had been immediately taken, and Simon, posing as himself, finagled his way into the country house where Ada and Priscilla worked. Given Simon’s pedigree, it wasn’t difficult to get an invitation as a houseguest.

When not on a mission, Michael served as Simon’s clerk—also part of the ongoing disguise.

“You were Simon’s valet when you came to Drayworth Court,” she said. “Not a footman.”

“Valet’s have more freedom to roam about a place,” he noted.

“Freedom to get evidence against Lord Denby’s second son.”

“It was a group effort. Simon, me, and you, of course.” Between the three of them, they’d managed to find enough damning documentation—including letters from other women he’d impregnated and demands from creditors to cover massive debts—so that that pampered, sheltered second son had no choice but to pay restitution to the housemaid he’d raped or else be tried in the court of public opinion.

“There was more than getting justice for a wronged woman,” Michael added. “I also met you. One of the most extraordinary experiences in my life.” Nothing had been the same for him since.

“Not much remarkable about that,” she demurred.

“You sought out Nemesis not for yourself, but for your friend. It was bloody amazing what you did during that job. When Nemesis needed your help again, you answered the call. Just tonight, you’d been afraid but willing to make the climb down the side of Covington Hall. Damned extraordinary.”

Thank God he’d been too distracted by climbing to think about the fact that she’d had her arms and legs wrapped around him, her body tight against his.

A corner of her mouth turned up. “Oh, when you put it like that, maybe I
am
rather special.”

“Sodding right.” A silence fell. But he wasn’t willing to let it linger. “How’s working in a mercer’s shop treating you?” he asked.

A small smile curved her mouth. “It’s different work from being a housemaid.”

“
Different
can mean a goodly amount of things. Like
terrible
or
loathsome
. ‘This turbot and tooth-cleaning-powder soup certainly is
different
.’”

“I prefer lamb and lamp oil pie, myself.”

He chuckled. She always went along with his odd sense of humor. “I’m still waiting on your answer.”

“I’d always thought I’d spend my life in service,” she admitted. “Rise to become a head housemaid, then perhaps the housekeeper. But after what happened at Drayworth Court, and when Nemesis found me a position at the shop, and in London no less … well, I had to try it. I’d never know what I was missing unless I tried.”

“Most folk stick to what they know.” He led them across the rolling parkland, heading east. As they talked, he continued to keep alert to their surroundings. If he and Ada were caught out here, they’d be sacked immediately, and Nemesis would be left with nothing in their case against the Larkfields. And then there was the surprising physical threat posed by the Larkfields themselves, or their thugs ready to come up from London at the snap of the toffs’ fingers.

Despite everything, talking with her like this filled him with a slow, radiating pleasure. They’d always had an ease with each other, an ease he hadn’t known with any other woman. He didn’t have to always be a perfect gentleman and could speak his mind without varnish. And she seemed to let herself speak just as openly. He’d missed it with a fierce ache these past days, as she’d been so close, but circumstance and misunderstanding had formed thick walls between them.

“They do,” she agreed. “But I’d seen with Nemesis what change could accomplish, and wanted that for myself. Now I’ve got more liberty than I’ve ever had. I almost don’t know what to do with myself.”

“A little freedom is a heady thing.” He’d learned that himself when he’d left service. “Dangerous, too.”

She shot him a wry look. “A troublemaker I’m not.”

“You
were
the one to send Nemesis a letter about Prissy.”

“Since then, I’ve been a saint. There’s a girl I share rooms with who works as a clerk in a newspaper office. On our off hours, we go to the theater together. Museums, too, or just walk in the parks. Check Scotland Yard’s records. You won’t find a single mention of me.”

He looked skeptical. “The best deceivers hide their schemes behind a neat, law-abiding disguise.”

“Well … I’ve been thinking of saving up. Starting my own mercer’s shop,” she finally admitted.

He allowed himself a small, victorious smile. “A thinker. A planner. That’s the Ada I know.”

“You claim you know me,” she said. “But here’s the honest truth, Michael: I don’t even know myself anymore.”

Chapter Seven

As Ada and Michael crested the rise, the jagged outline of the ruin rose up against the charcoal sky. They approached, and she could make out the actual structure. A square tower with an empty window joined with a tumbled-down chamber, it seemed the medieval design was supposed to invoke the era of knights and ladies. An absence of roof kept the whole building open to the sky and the elements. Weeds poked through the stones of the walls.

Michael picked at some of the stone, and it disintegrated into dust. “It was a pretend ruin once, but now it’s a real one. And somewhere here, Larkfield’s hidden the valise. We need to search for anything that looks like it’s been disturbed recently. You stand as lookout while I search.”

“I think you’ve been around Simon too long,” she answered. “You’re starting to sound like a former commanding officer.”

He smiled quickly, but didn’t look apologetic. “In our little army, I’ve got seniority.”

Her response was to give him a mocking salute. “I’m only following your instructions because I made the suggestion first, not because you’re the senior officer.”

They broke apart, and Ada acted as sentry while Michael combed over the ruin. She picked up a branch that had broken from a tree, and held it like a club, in case Larkfield should appear.

It was easier to focus on the mission than think about the unresolved tension between her and Michael. And the confusion within herself. She’d always had such defined ideas as to what she wanted and how to get it, but ever since she’d met Michael, her neatly ordered world had broken apart. He wasn’t necessarily the cause, more like what a scientific fellow she’d met at the mercer shop had called the catalyst. Was she a housemaid with aspirations to become a housekeeper? Was she a shopgirl who hoped to open a place of her own, perhaps with a husband as her partner? Or was there something more, a restless need for a thing she couldn’t define? Maybe letting her voice be heard?

And there was Michael himself. She couldn’t figure how to respond to him, or what she wanted from him. Simply opening her heart to him again would lead to more pain when he inevitably disappeared on another mission. Women didn’t have the luxury men did—men could take lovers as much as they liked. But women always bore the consequences, either in the form of a baby or a ruined reputation, or both. Even if none of that mattered, Ada knew herself well enough to understand that she couldn’t take a man to her bed just for physical pleasure. Her heart would get involved, leaving her with emptiness and sorrow when he left.

It would be so much worse with Michael.

She threw a surreptitious glance over her shoulder. He moved with purposeful, sleek motions, tall and lean. Impossible for her to forget the athletic power of his body pressed against hers as he’d climbed down the side of Covington Hall. The thought made her own body respond, heat flooding her, sensation tight along her skin.

As if sensing her looking at him, he stopped and glanced at her with a silent question.
Is everything all right?

She waved him on.
Still clear.

He turned back and continued in his search, slowly making his way along the interior wall of the ruin.

Her thoughts couldn’t be contained as she looked out at the moonlit grounds.

She’d known many handsome and charming male servants. They were features of every great house. But none of them had sparked her interest as Michael had. Maybe it was because he wasn’t just a servant, but a Nemesis agent. She’d responded immediately to the sharp intelligence in his gaze, his dry wit, his dedication and resolve. And he’d treated her not only with respect, but as an equal. As though her thoughts were just as valuable as his. She was more than a woman to him. She was a
person
.

Yet they’d never really lost their awareness of each other as a man and a woman. It had grown in slow, aching increments as they’d planned their surveillance, until just the sound of his voice had made her blush. And his bright blue eyes had lingered on her with a hot hunger. Their touches had dallied. A strayed caress here. A brush of fingers there. Until, late one night, they’d found themselves in the shadows beneath the staircase, and the desire that had been building between them burst like a flood-swollen river.

Ada struggled to keep her attention on her task, watching the landscape for movement. But potent memories washed through her in sultry waves. His hands. His mouth. The words he whispered between kisses.
Ada
, her name like a vow.
I’ve burned for you. Need this. Need you.

She’d responded with the same need. Oh, she’d kissed other men before. Impossible to live in a great house with good-looking young men without testing the waters. But all of that had turned to ash the moment her lips touched Michael’s. He’d been commanding and reverent. Knew the secrets of her body—secrets only she’d known. Luckily, a sliver of common sense had hit them both at the same time, just as she was within a hairbreadth of losing her virginity beneath a servants’ staircase.

How many times had she relived that night? How many times had she cursed herself for not giving in to desire and taken what Michael had offered? How often had she thanked God that she’d resisted the siren call of passion?

And now here he was again. Here she was. Still wanting him. But wiser now. More protective of herself. Telling herself that it was safer to keep their relationship strictly professional.

But curse it if that cautioning voice was growing softer the more she was with him.

“Ada.”

Dropping the branch, she hurried over to him. One of the stones lay upon the ground, leaving a hole in the wall. It didn’t look big enough to hold a valise. But as Ada approached, Michael held out his hand to her. Something metallic gleamed on his palm.

“No suitcase,” he murmured. “But I did find this.”