Beauty Like the Night

by Joanna Bourne

  She tried to picture Deverney as a greedy man driven by the desire for money. An amoral man who stole without conscience. It didn’t fit.

  He kept pace with her, walking at her shoulder, glancing casually sideways. Amused, she thought.

  “You’re a thief,” she said, tasting that on her tongue.

  “An accomplished and significant thief. A legend in my chosen profession. It’s not as if I steal apples from a cart.”

  “A jewel thief.”

  “Jewels are considerably better guarded than apples. More of a challenge. Not everyone can collect major jewels. You could, if you wanted to. I’m sure you picked locks before you mastered Latin declensions.”

  “What would I do with Latin? What does that have to do with anything?” Hawker had taught her to defeat her first easy locks when she was five. He’d called it “something to do on a rainy afternoon.”

  A gang of boys, not overly clean, charged past then, deliberately knocking into her as they went by, trying to get at the lumps they felt in the pockets inside her cloak. Deverney pulled away the handiest pair, knocked them into each other, and left them stumbling behind him. London. It was a city you had to love.

  Without breaking stride, he said, “Do you plan to turn me over to the nearest magistrate?”

  It was tempting to let him see the inside of the lockup at Bow Street. Probably it wouldn’t be the first jail he’d been in. She said, “I don’t like thieves.”

  “I’m not fond of spies.”

  Damn him, anyway. “I was raised by spies.”

  She’d played spillikin with the agents who guarded England as much as any troop of soldiers in uniform. They didn’t make a fuss about it. Not Papa, when he put on his slouchy hat and his scar and left for another trip to France. Not Fletcher, crafting his unpredictable, ingenious, explosive devices. Not, God forbid, Hawker, who would have laughed himself silly if she’d talked about ideals.

  “You spent a childhood learning to lie, cheat, steal, shoot harmless strangers, and read other people’s mail. A rich and satisfying education, in short.”

  “I don’t think much of men who turn the same skills to their own profit.” She looked sideways, to meet cool eyes in return.

  “But then,” he went on evenly, “I didn’t sack towns or burn houses in that bloody endless war in Spain. I didn’t chop down olive trees and ride horses across the standing grain. How many soldiers can say that, Séverine?”

  “I told you not to call me that.”

  “So you did.” He paced off step after step at her side, tall, proud, and enigmatic. Arrogant. “The jewels I collect—”

  “Steal.”

  “Steal . . . have been looted back and forth in every war for centuries. I’m the latest in a series of thieves. I pick jewels the current owners have the least moral claim to. I repay theft for theft.”

  “A virtuous thief.”

  He smiled. “Something like that.”

  Hyatt Street broke into manic activity around them. A plump woman with a basket turned to lock the door behind her before she set off to do some shopping. A dog barked inside one of the houses. Sparrows hopped along the center of the road, taking their luncheon.

  She strode through swathes of anger, pushing them aside as she might make a path through stinging nettles. She should hold her tongue. But she didn’t have sense enough to do that, did she? She was determined to poke at all the particularly sore points. “You went to the Carlingtons’ to steal.”

  “I’ve been planning that burglary for a long time.”

  “You danced with me to make it look as if you’d come there to see me. I wondered about it at the time.” She kept her voice emotionless. “That was very clever.”

  “I was stupid as an owl. I haven’t begun to explore the edges of my poor judgment.”

  She’d waltzed with him, deploring her own weaknesses and indulging herself in them. She’d let herself be flattered by his interest. He’d fooled her finely.

  Humiliation wasn’t fatal, or she’d have been dead long since. But it was painful. She said, “Even kissing me had its uses, I suppose. You—”

  “Never doubt this.” He stopped her. His hand closed around her elbow, gentle as wind and unyielding as carved oak. “I was thinking about your breasts the whole time, Séverine. Your beautiful little breasts that were just showing over the bodice of your dress.” His voice stayed steely calm but his eyes kindled to fire. “That’s why I kissed you. Your male colleagues can explain it to you if it’s not obvious.”

  “I can see the obvious from time to time. I also recognize lies.” She sounded, in her own ears, like a sour old spinster.

  There, stopped in the middle of the pavement, Deverney spoke softly. “You swim in a sea of liars among the criminals of London, the spies of Europe, and the nest of glittering vipers you call the ton. That egregious plum pudding of self-satisfaction, Robin Carlington.”

  “I won’t talk about him.”

  “Wise of you. By comparison, my kisses are wholesome as new milk. I am—let me be immodest for a moment—a sophisticated lover, a much-sought-after partner for dalliance. I failed myself and you. In the middle of what should have been a pleasant waltz, all I could think about was carrying you off to an empty bedchamber.”

  “And theft.”

  “I planned that for later in the evening. Larceny didn’t distract me from you for an instant. For that hour I was entirely a rutting oaf. I was greedy, when I should have been all consideration. I offered fumbling kisses behind the arras instead of flowers to match your beauty. Clumsy of me. An insult to you. Last night you saw me at my least calculating.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Someday I’ll show you my cynical, manipulative side and you can compare the two.”

  Hers was not the face that launched a thousand ships. She had not lured this cool, ironic man to indiscretion. Even for a jewel thief, Deverney was turning out to be a man of many dishonesties.

  How did the Comodin fit into assassination plots and the death of that woman? A kidnapped girl? Jewels? The Carlingtons? Everything had to be part of one weaving with one purpose, but when she pulled loop by loop, thread by thread, the knots only tightened. Fifty paces from the Sleeping Hound wasn’t nearly long enough to delve into these complications. Fifty miles wouldn’t be.

  She continued down Hyatt Street. Deverney ambled along at her side, looking harmless. He was undeniably a slinker in the night. A hider in shadows. A thief. A dangerous, devious, deplorable man. She could picture him going hand-over-hand up the side of a building. See him pry open a window, delicately, silently. A lesser man would be staggering under the load of lies and evasions he carried.

  She wished she disapproved of him more.

  “I know very little about the Comodin,” she said. “I haven’t paid attention.”

  “I’m crushed.”

  “No one’s ever asked me to recover loot from you. I glanced through your file once at Meeks Street and I couldn’t find a pattern. Mansion and rented room, countryside spa, small town, great capital, nobility, merchant, military man, young fop, wizened old woman, old money and new. Nothing in common. No predictability.”

  “That’s because you don’t know what I’m looking for. Once I robbed the Bishop of Mainz. I was particularly proud of the madness of that. He was, unfortunately, a man of many good deeds and few jewels. Do you know how hard it is to fence portable religious objects in Mainz?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Very difficult. And they’re heavy. In the end I left them in St. Stephen’s Cathedral, under a bench.” He glanced over his shoulder, then far ahead, calmly assessing. “This is a useful street, long, straight, and boring. A fine street to separate oneself from followers.”

  “You’re not the first dubious character I’ve met at the Sleeping Hound.”

  “I wish yo
u wouldn’t call me a dubious character.” But his eyes laughed at her. “Remind yourself I’m an honest merchant most of the time, a man of account books and demurrage, enemy of export duties. Also a noble of France. I manage vineyards and the wine pressing and sit on the city council. I spend very little time stealing jewels. Must we discuss this in the open air?”

  “Better here than in a tavern room.”

  Well behind them, with considerable fuss and clatter, a private town coach arrived at the door of the Sleeping Hound. The steps rattled down. An impatient voice complained the coach was too far from the curb. It was not drawn level with the door of the tavern. It was not standing stock-still. Apply the brake more firmly. It was a familiar impatient voice. Robin Carlington achieved the pavement with athletic ease. He reached behind him to pluck up his cane from the seat of the coach. Not looking left or right he strode across to push open the door to the Sleeping Hound. Obviously a man with a mission, planning to annoy somebody before the day got any older.

  For twelve hours she hadn’t thought of Robin. She wouldn’t start now. She had better things to be annoyed about.

  Deverney evidently agreed with her. The narrow lane to their left, a mews, led out of Hyatt Street into shadows and sliced light. Big stable doors were propped open to let the air in. Other huge doors, barred and locked, protected the coaches. The coachmen’s living quarters were above that, behind small, neat, blue-painted shutters.

  “In here.” Deftly, Deverney took her with him out of Hyatt Street, out of the hard sunlight, into the coolness and silence of the mews.

  Twenty-five

  A dozen yards ahead of them, down the mews, a stable door stood open. Nobody came to object when they stepped inside and pulled the shadows in after them. The stable boy might be taking his dinner in one of the snug rooms upstairs. In any case, he wasn’t here. There was no sign of life except a sturdy, inquisitive chestnut in his stall.

  Deverney said, “This is good. Private.”

  “Nothing about this is good. Not you. Not your wine making. Not being the Comodin. Not death or destruction or missing girls or jewel thieves. Not Robin Carlington showing up. Nothing.”

  “I’ll admit there are complications.”

  She let herself slump back against the whitewashed wall, which was cool and solid and offered no counsel. She faced Raoul Deverney. Aristocrat. The Comodin. He’d come close enough that she could count his every individual eyelash and see the fine lines that marked the corners of his eyes. His mouth was supple but not self-indulgent. This was a clever, lived-in face. Not a dandy, not a creature of card rooms and parlors, not a courtier. Men came back from war with faces that had become like this. When she searched a crowd for the dangerous men, this was what she looked for.

  He was a thief by custom and inclination and had been for years. He was a tremendously skilled and famous thief. That shouldn’t matter, of course.

  She said, “Go away. I need to be alone for a while and think. I’ll track you down when I want you.”

  “No reason you can’t think and talk to me at the same time.” Deverney’s words dropped upon her wrapped in their individual breaths. “Stay. I’ll tell you about the amulet.”

  He held it out as a bribe to placate her. As a temptation to her curiosity.

  It worked. “No more silence and half-truths and lies?” Not that she would necessarily believe him, whatever he said.

  “I haven’t told you lies.”

  “Evasions that might as well be lies. I want an end to cleverness from you, especially today when I have this stinging annoyance of a Carlington buzzing about.”

  “Someday you must tell me why you put up with him. Now pay attention. I will tell you a story that contains many revelations.”

  The flat of his hand took possession of a piece of wall beside her shoulder. It was a traditional, strategic, right-flanking position any general would admire. He was not blocking her path if she decided to leave. A courtesy that meant he intended to do things she might want to escape. That was unsettling.

  He said, “This story begins, ‘Once upon a time.’”

  “The best stories do.”

  “Shush. Long, long ago, in a faraway land . . . To be exact, in Spain, about a decade ago.”

  “I was in Spain then,” she said.

  “I know. You’re part of the story. Let me continue. In a city in this faraway land—we will call the city Córdoba—there was a great battle.”

  Córdoba had been sacked by the French. The French troops were allowed four days and nights of pillaging.

  “I was in Zaragoza then,” she said, “scrubbing floors in the house of a Spanish general, learning much about complicated Spanish political intentions. But I know what happened in Córdoba.”

  “Of course you do. An old woman lived in Córdoba, a great lady of the nobility of both France and Spain. She was robbed in the looting after the battle.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Others fared worse. She was armed, determined, and mean as a sack of snakes. She kept herself and her servants in safety, but the jewels she protected were stolen.”

  “I begin to see.”

  “Of course. It is a straightforward matter, after all. The hero of this story left school and came to take his aunt to what sanctuary there was in that land at that time. Then he set out on a quest to recover the treasures of his ancient house. It was all very quixotic.”

  “You became the Comodin.”

  “I was young. I’d handle matters differently now. Let us pause for a discursion.” He touched the side of her mouth with two fingers, deliberate as if he were adding one of the smaller punctuation marks to a sentence. “We stopped too soon last night.”

  “No, we didn’t. Let’s talk about the amulet.”

  “We’ll get to that.” With those two fingers, shock leading to shock, he outlined her lips. “I did this poorly before. Let me be more skillful. Kisses can be an enjoyable game. Harmless, lighthearted, friendly.”

  “Not for me, monsieur.”

  “But then, you live a useful, busy life, filled with grim purpose, while I’m a thief and frivolous. Did you never find the right man to play these games with?”

  In Spain, once, long ago. “For some women, there is no right man.”

  “Certainly it’s not that bastard Robin Carlington, the weasel with the handsome face. He’s enough to put a woman off the whole race of men, if you ask me. Given your cohort of murderous friends and relations, why does he still walk the earth?”

  “I told them to leave him alone.”

  “Benevolent of you.” Lightly he set lips to her temple. Then to her eyelids.

  Raoul Deverney’s kisses were not reassuring and ordinary. The drawling stroke of his hand at the curve of her ear disturbed her profoundly. Robin Carlington, in all his attempts at seduction, had never created one tenth the magic Deverney achieved with one finger arrested in its tracing down her cheek.

  The green-hay smell of the stable filled her senses. Thick walls kept the city’s noise at bay. The plaster was cool at her back even in the heat of the day. The floor, rough and gritty beneath her feet. So ordinary a stable to enfold her so completely.

  They engaged in a few more kisses. The chestnut—surely the worst duenna in history—scraped hooves in the straw. Nobody came into the stable to make certain they were not stealing sacks of grain, or horse tackle. Or horses, for that matter.

  At last she said, “I don’t like this.”

  “You don’t like stables? Horses? The second Tuesday of the month? Me?” He looked down at her seriously as he spoke. “You don’t like kissing?”

  “Exactly.”

  “I do. That’s one of those British understatements, by the way.”

  All day she’d turned her mind away from his face and his body. Now she could think of nothing else. The wide forehead with stra
ight black hair fallen across it, the sensual lips, the heavy-lidded eyes fascinated her till she couldn’t look away.

  She knew what he intended. Every fiber of him was aimed at her like a drawn bow. Tight. Throbbing. A beautiful tension inside her answered him and agreed. She would never be able to pretend to herself she’d been taken by surprise by what he would do.

  He whispered, “You are desirable beyond belief,” and they kissed.

  Twenty-six

  SHE closed her eyes and fell into the sensation of Raoul Deverney. It filled her like leaves shaking in the wind. Like music. Like sand pulled upward and falling in ocean surf. She did not resist in the least.

  He drew away, looked down at her, and brought one knuckle to rest against the side of her face, appreciative about it. “It’s a poor life that doesn’t have room for a few kisses.”

  “My life has no such spaces.”

  “A pity.” They engaged in another kiss, not a brief one. Then another. She didn’t try to find excuses anywhere inside her. She just kissed him back.

  He stopped. “This is . . . I’m looking for an English word that means very, very unwise.”

  “At this moment the word is Séverine de Cabrillac.”

  “Or my own name,” he said.

  “This . . . this little indulgence is not important. You said so yourself. I take your word as an expert.” She was no blushing debutante, but a woman who had loved and been loved in return. A man’s touch was familiar. She’d felt the warmth and hardness of a man’s body pressed against her before. Had she been so overwhelmed when she was a foolish girl in love, mad for her Gaëtan? Had she been plunged so deeply into unreason? She did not think so.

  He shook his head. “I have been one of life’s trivialities. Trifling, in all the word’s meanings. You, on the other hand . . .” He took a strand of her hair and slid it between thumb and index finger, savoring. “You’re not trivial. You are solemn as an olive tree, Séverine de Cabrillac. Not afraid—I don’t know what would make you afraid—but wary. You watch every second between us as if it might turn and bite you. Were you betrayed so badly?”