Beauty Like the Night

by Joanna Bourne

She resisted an impulse to say, None of this was my fault, since she’d heard that rather too often lately. So she just said, “I’ve accomplished more or less what I set out to do, so my investigation is closed. To lessen the chance of further bloodshed, I will depart.”

  “Excellent. Take your jewel thief and his intrepid daughter with you. I will spend the rest of the day explaining events to Wellington and Liverpool, trying very hard not to incriminate anyone I don’t want to. I’ll see you when I can.”

  He walked off toward Whitehall. She was pretty sure he was whistling by the time he reached the corner.

  Pilar and Raoul were speaking carefully to one another beside the coach. She put Pilar up on the box with Fletcher, who would doubtless entertain her with gentle conversation about bomb making.

  She climbed inside the coach with Raoul.

  Forty-seven

  SHE settled into the coach, under the arm Raoul had waiting for her and tight against his side. He didn’t seem feverish, just very tired. He’d do well enough once she got him to bed and climbed in next to him. They’d be naked and she’d know immediately if he developed a fever or started bleeding again.

  She had taken her place on his right side so she wouldn’t hurt him. Did most people keep track of their lover’s wounds so they didn’t knock into them by accident? Was it only spies?

  The wives of acrobats would be wary. The wives of soldiers. Women who were married to criminals. Raoul had been a soldier of a sort and he was a criminal. Perhaps he had also been an acrobat. She had a feeling he had done a number of things he had not yet been open about.

  “Where are we going?” Raoul didn’t seem particularly concerned. He wasn’t even watching the houses outside the window to see where they were going. She could have been kidnapping him to Siberia for all he knew.

  “To my office. To my bed.”

  “That’s good.” Raoul pulled her in close and they kissed for a while. She lay in the crook of his elbow and he was in no hurry at all. He was scratchy with beard, but that was also something she liked. At last he said, “What about Pilar?”

  “She can sleep in her usual place for a while. It’s not elegant but it’s not horrible, either. If you want to find someone niffy-naffy about sleeping arrangements, don’t ask those who spied in Spain in wartime.”

  “I won’t.”

  He tasted of the truly excellent tea she served in her office. It came through Russia and was sent to her by a good friend. She sucked it off his lips and imagined a future where she would be able to do this regularly. She said, “I’ll take Pilar to buy clothes tomorrow. If you will be a father, you must accustom yourself to spending large sums on clothing.”

  “I am accustomed,” he said dryly.

  “Clothing that is actually delivered.”

  “Ah. That.” And in a while he added, “I have no idea what to do with a young daughter. With any kind of daughter.” It was not a complaint. It was more the voice of a man beginning an interesting project.

  “Is she yours?”

  “Yes.” That came back instantly. “I say she is. I decree it, and I’m the one who can.” He spoke softly and swiftly. Then, more slowly, “She might be. Sanchia could have lied about the date of Pilar’s birth for any of a dozen reasons, including simple malice.” He lined up words, one by one, and looked them over carefully before he said them. “And it doesn’t matter. You’ve been right all along, Sévie. I won’t let an accident of blood keep me from claiming that remarkable child.” He’d relaxed. The choice was made and spoken. It was binding so far as a man like Raoul was concerned. “She’s mine. Now I have to figure out what to do with her.”

  “Ask her,” she said. “I imagine she has opinions.”

  “I hope they don’t include killing people. Or at least, not many people.” He thought for a while. “Do you suppose she’d like to learn to make wine?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Or investigate crimes in London. That would combine shooting people with the delicacy and social poise a father wants to see in his daughter.”

  “I find it rewarding.”

  He’d closed his eyes in a peaceful fashion. He simply held her. He wasn’t going to sleep because he was greatly aroused.

  He was, she thought, circling around a topic. Approaching slowly.

  He said, “Will you marry me?”

  She’d thought about this, of course. “I don’t know. Perhaps I will just live with you forever.”

  Raoul leaned back, being sleepy and at ease. She did not believe him in the least. She looked out at London. She had no idea what to say to him.

  “Marriage is a great uncertainty,” he said. “I could fall down the steps one night, coming home drunk, though I’m really remarkably hard to kill. Determined people have tried, and I once slipped in a very large bathtub in a whorehouse in Munich. I would have drowned if the madame hadn’t noticed I was missing.”

  “I suspect you hadn’t paid the reckoning yet.”

  “I had not, now that you mention it. Or I might betray you with a tavern wench. You don’t know me very well. I might have an unseemly taste for tavern wenches.”

  “You would not exercise it twice,” she said.

  “I see. One problem solved, then. Are you afraid I’ll bore you with rambling, pointless stories? I suspect I could be discouraged from the practice.”

  “I like your stories.” She would never be bored with him.

  “Do you think I’ll try to bully you?” He’d roused himself sufficiently to turn on the seat and face her directly. “If you can keep your father and your brother-in-law and God knows how many other men from telling you what to do, you can keep me in line too.”

  The image was ridiculous. She had to smile.

  She said, “Yes.”

  “Yes what?”

  “Yes. I will marry you.”

  He breathed out, as if he’d been worried about that. Foolishness on his part. He was very much exactly what she wanted. She would devote time and thought to making him realize it.

  He was wounded and they were in a coach in the middle of London with a twelve-year-old a few feet away. They could not remove their clothing. They could kiss, though, and she started right on the tip of his nose. Then she went along the curve of each eyebrow. His were rather straight but that was not a problem. She was not surprised to be grabbed strongly and pulled toward him to kiss, mouth to mouth, deeply.

  They ended, breathing raggedly at one another. Her eyes were closed and she very much wanted him. She calculated how long it would be before they could get into bed.

  She was inelegantly sprawled upon him so she threw herself back onto the seat cushions and became respectable again, in case anyone happened to be looking into the carriage. They sat, side by side, holding hands. He said, “I never did finish my story about the hero who went on a quest for his family’s lost treasure.”

  “I believe you didn’t.”

  “Our hero had many adventures, dashing escapades, and daring escapes. But one day when he was somewhat older and wiser he met a heroine who set upon quests of a different sort. She saved maidens from ogres and rescued poor miserable fellows from being hanged. Our hero introduced himself and gave her his knife as a token of esteem.”

  “It was a kitchen knife you stole downstairs. Also, you broke in.”

  “I was maladroit. In any case, our hero decided this woman was more important than any number of family heirlooms. He settled down to become a somewhat dull merchant. Perhaps he developed a potbelly. And soon everyone wondered what she saw in such a bore.”

  “But he didn’t get hanged as a thief, which is a good thing.”

  “Jewel theft is all very well in its way, but it’s not a good example to set a growing girl.”

  “Still, it’s a valuable talent. I’ll find places for you to break into when you’re not imp
orting wine. I’m never short of useful work.”

  “Sounds intriguing,” he said, and kissed her some more.

  Joanna Bourne is the award-winning author of Rogue Spy, The Black Hawk, The Forbidden Rose, My Lord and Spymaster, and The Spymaster’s Lady. She has always loved reading and writing romance. She’s drawn to Revolutionary and Napoleonic France and Regency England because, as she puts it, “It was a time of love and sacrifice, daring deeds, clashing ideals, and really cool clothing.” She’s lived in seven different countries, including England and France, the settings of the Spymaster series.

  Joanna lives on a mountaintop in the Appalachians with her family, a peculiar cat, and an old brown country dog. Visit her online at joannabourne.com and twitter.com/jobourne.

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