Dangerous Seduction: A Nemesis Unlimited Novel Read Free Page B

brother, too. And all my foremothers were bal-maidens or took care of the babes at home. This is my life.” It surprised her, the defiance in her voice—or was it self-defense?
    No, she was proud of the work she did, and the people around her. She had no pride, however, regarding the men who ran the mine. Outsiders, the lot of them.
    Like this man—Simon. A complete stranger. Granted, an extraordinarily handsome stranger, but a man unknown to her. Well, she could learn a few things, too.
    “Where are your people?” she asked. “Parents, siblings … wife?”
    Her cheeks heated that she should ask so bold a question.
    He didn’t seem to take offense. “Sister’s in Buxton, and my father’s in Sheffield. No wife.”
    No reason at all for her to feel a twist of pleasure at that—none at all.
    “You could’ve stayed in Sheffield,” she noted. “Plenty of work there.”
    “Everyone I knew worked in the knife factories.” He shook his head. “The world’s a narrow place behind a grinding wheel. Joined the army for a spell—engineering corps. That’s how I learned the way of different machines.”
    “And did you?”
    He quirked an eyebrow. “Did I what?”
    “Make the world less narrow?” She’d only been as far as Newquay, and then for only a half-holiday. The rest of the globe seemed a terribly fascinating, terribly big place. How lost she’d feel, out in the middle of everything with nothing but her own name to anchor herself.
    “Oh, aye. India, South Africa. Fascinating places. Remind you that there’s more to life than being English.” She must have looked surprised by his answer, because he said, “Seems I’ve caught keen-witted Miss Carr by surprise.”
    “Most of the men I’ve spoken to who were soldiers called those places savage or heathen. Not fascinating.”
    He slanted her a smile. “All sorts of men in this world. Some don’t fit perfectly into the uniforms they’ve been given.”
    She was beginning to learn that he didn’t. Looking off to the hedgerow on her right, she saw the old elm tree, its branches bent from the winds that swept down into the valley. She’d seen that tree twice a day, every day, for the whole of her life. Yet for the first time in a goodly while, the long walk from the mine to the village held something new and surprising. That something was him, with an aristo’s looks, a working man’s accent, and a philosopher’s outlook. She saw now the military bearing in the way he carried himself, posture upright, as if he hadn’t spent decades crouched in a mine but marching boldly across the globe.
    “Wheal Prosperity isn’t like other mines, either,” he noted. “Most pay with actual money, not scrip. I thought that was something they only did in America, in their coal mines and logging camps.”
    He may as well know the history of the place if he was determined to work there. “Ownership changed about ten years ago. The American and Australian mines drove the price of copper down. More than half the mines in Cornwall shut down. We all believed we were goners, then thought it a blessing when a new group of adventurers offered to buy the mine out.” She shook her head. “None of us knew the cost. Not until it was too late.”
    Those had been terrible days. Every morning waking up with fear cold in her belly, wondering whether any of them could go on, or if they’d lose everything. She’d been afraid, truly afraid. Poverty had hovered like a thin-faced ghost over the village and the mine, as everyone had anxiously gathered on stoops and in the two taverns, waiting, waiting. Would they have a way to keep the rain off their heads? Would their children go to bed complaining about the emptiness in their bellies?
    Alyce had been only fourteen at the time, and her parents had still been alive. She’d heard her father and Henry talking in low voices by the fire.
    We’ve got a little money set by, Henry had said.
    But not enough, my lad, her father had