Wicked Temptation (Nemesis Unlimited) Read Free

these Nemesis people, truly did want to help her. Why? At this point, it didn’t much matter. She’d already reached her nadir at the age of twenty-eight. Anything would be an improvement.
    “My bags are in my room,” she said.
    “I’ll wait while you fetch them.”
    Her life truly had altered utterly when a man expected her to retrieve her own luggage. Perhaps that was for the best. She’d played by all the rules of society and good breeding, yet here she was, in an empty house, without a groat, reliant on the word of a handsome but questionable man. Clearly, those rules served no purpose, offered no safety.
    Without another word, she turned and walked up the stairs. She felt Marco’s gaze on her with every step, and it filled her with a strange, unpleasant awareness.
    In her former bedchamber, she collected her baggage: one valise, and her violin case. The instrument, at least, she’d been able to save, and she thanked the Lord for that. If she’d been deprived of her music, her despair would’ve known no limits.
    She returned to the foyer. To her surprise, Marco actually took her valise and case. Testing the weight of the violin case, he asked, “Chanot? A Georges Chanot, I’d wager.”
    She stared at him. “Lucy must’ve told you that.”
    “All violins have their own particular weight and balance, depending on the maker. Easy enough to determine this was a Chanot, once I got a hold of it.” He stuck out his arm, offering it to her. “Time to go.”
    “One moment.” After pulling on her cloak, she tugged on a pair of gloves, set her widow’s bonnet on her head, and pulled down the veil. The world suddenly misted over, as if loss and grief didn’t do that already without a layer of silk covering her face.
    She placed her hand lightly in the crook of his arm. Despite her gloves, despite the layers of his clothing, she felt the solidity of him, and the unyielding presence of his muscles.
    Heat washed through her.
    She cursed herself. What in heaven did she think she was doing? How could she have any feelings of that sort, with Hugh only eight months gone, and this Marco a complete stranger? Disgust clotted in her veins. Disgust with herself.
    Glancing up at him, she noticed the slightest compressing of his lips. As if he, too, felt something at her touch.
    Saints strike her down for these delusions. Her life was falling down around her like a sinking ship, and she wanted, no, needed, to reach a shore. Any shore, no matter how rocky,
    “I’m ready,” she said.
    *   *   *
    Marco Black kept his gaze on the street, alert for any sign of suspect movement. The men watching the house shifted from their slouch against a street lamp, but didn’t follow them. A bloody relief. He didn’t want to have to get into any discreet brawls this early in the game.
    His attention wasn’t entirely fixed on his surroundings. A small sliver remained for the woman walking beside him.
    It was his job—both for Nemesis and for his other work as what was euphemistically termed an intelligence advisor to the British government—to clearly and objectively assess people within moments of meeting them. He’d been able to determine within minutes that a Russian ambassador’s wife had been using her considerable beauty to gain information about the latest developments in Chitral.
    Thus far, Bronwyn Parrish seemed to be exactly what the dossier they’d compiled had delineated. Her impeccable posture came from years of schooling on the Continent, which also contributed to the sheltered expression on her face. It was a pretty face, to be sure. Smooth skinned, though with a few rose-hued freckles across the bridge of her nose, her lips nearly the same color as her freckles. And eyes the silver green of sage leaves. Eyes that gleamed with a surprising intelligence.
    Those eyes were hidden now behind her veil. She kept glancing around the street, gauging it. Mrs. Parrish had potential, but she was a woman born and bred to a