The Black Hawk sl-4

by Joanna Bourne

  “I was never put in a position where it was my duty to kill you. Fortune has been kind.”

  “You should thank the Service.” He grinned at her. “After you put a bullet in vital parts of my anatomy, they kept me away from you for years. Sent me to Russia while you were in Paris. Then to France when you were in Italy. To Italy, when you were in Austria. I figured it out later.”

  Her face flickered like a candle with all those shifting thoughts inside. “Soulier—I became one of Soulier’s people, as you know—Soulier said nothing. But you are right. He kept us apart. I have done as much for the women who worked for me when they were enamored of someone unsuitable.”

  “Nobody more unsuitable than me.”

  “No one.” She negotiated terms with the robe, plucking it up over her thigh where it had slid down, her and the robe having different ideas of what should show and what shouldn’t. “I wrote letters to you, do you know? A hundred letters. I explained and explained that the gunshot was an accident. I told you that I had not meant to hit you. Leblanc struck my arm and the shot went astray.”

  “Well, that’s nice to know.”

  “I did not mail the letters. I would write them and burn them. If I had once sent the smallest note to you—once—I knew I would wake up the next week and hear you outside my window, asking to come in. And I would open the window. I did not stop being a fool for you, ’Awker. Not for one moment in many long years. They were right to keep us apart.”

  “Wait a minute. I’m still back thinking about you opening the window and letting me in. What were you wearing?’

  “Or I might have opened the window and pulled you inside and strangled you. That is not an impossibility.” She didn’t finish her coffee. She set it on the table, emphatic-like. “But I am telling you of the time after I left Paris. I went to Socchieve, in Italy, before I went to England. I was still planning to kill you, you understand.”

  “Italy’s a great place for vengeance.” He remembered Socchieve. Mountains on all sides like the earth was folded in on you. Snow high up, warm if you walked an hour downhill. Cows. Austria and France had got together to do their fighting in Italy. “That was a long time ago. We never did pay the shot at that inn. Did the Austrians burn the place?”

  “It had escaped their notice. It is now run by the son of the old man we met. They kept the luggage, yours and mine, because they had no liking for the Austrians and hoped we would be lucky enough to escape them. Then they continued to keep the bags. It may be they were very honest, but I think they put them in an attic and forgot.”

  “One of the bags had my knives in it.”

  “Which you were so proud of and insisted on throwing into the wood of the mantel. The holes are still there. They tell stories about us in that village, none of which are true. Somehow they learned you were the Black Hawk. You would not recognize yourself in those stories.”

  “I was there less than a week.”

  “You are credited with a slaughter of Austrians so large I am amazed any still walk the earth. I took out your knives and my tortoiseshell comb and gave the inn everything else to use as they would.

  “Three of my knives.”

  “Those three.” She went meditative, considering the knives on the table. “They have been troublesome.” Then she said, “It was strange to go through those bags and remember the people we had been. It was like looking at strangers.”

  They’d made love in a high meadow. Not a flat foot of ground anywhere, just straggly grass and wildflowers. He put his coat down and they crushed flowers underneath them. The smell wrapped his senses till he couldn’t think.

  Sometime, in between kisses, he said he loved her. She said, “Don’t.”

  Afterward, the sun set and the snow on the mountain peaks turned red and they went off to spy on the Austrian camp. He’d been eighteen. He didn’t know what year he was born, so maybe nineteen.

  That was a long time ago, as Owl pointed out, and they were different people now. He was talking to a woman who had run major parts of the Police Secrète, not a young girl with her hair down over her breast and yellow wildflower pollen brushed on her skin.

  “On the way to England, I had time to think. I found myself leaving old parts of my life behind me, discarded in the mountains, or floating on the sea. It was as if I were unpacking heavy trunks and tossing out things I no longer needed. I had ceased to be a spy for France. The France I had known was gone forever.” She pulled her braid forward, over her shoulder, and took to rummaging in the little curves and valleys of it.

  Her hair was darker than it had been in that mountain village. He remembered holding a handful of her hair to his face, feeling it with the skin of his nose and his lips, smelling it, when they made love.

  “When I came to England, I no longer hated you. I brought no dark purposes with me from the past.”

  He believed her. He’d interrogated his share of men and women. They didn’t lie with their eyes looking inward. They didn’t lay out their souls and dissect them on the table in front of him, the way Owl was doing.

  She rubbed her arm where the bandage was. The lines at the corners of her mouth said it hurt and she was ignoring that. “I remade myself yet again. I opened my shop, Voyages, and became a dealer in maps and optical instruments and dried fruit. I am the best at what I do. Perhaps the best in the world.”

  “I’ve seen your shop. Impressive.”

  She leaned forward, into a long ray of sun. The fine hair that sprang up at her temples, small and unruly, caught the light just right, and everything glinted in fifty or a hundred sparks. “Men come to me—even famous men—when they are determined to risk their lives in dangerous places. I sell them what they must have to survive. I send them out prepared, as I once sent my agents out to do their work.”

  “Military Intelligence comes to you.” More irony. Military Intelligence, outfitted by a former French spy.

  “But the British Service do not. Not ever. They know about the little weakness you had for me once, ’Awker, and they keep their distance.” For an instant that amused her and she smiled. But she clouded over the next minute. “This is important. This is what I have to tell you. You know that I mount weapons upon the left wall of my shop. You will have seen them. Some are for sale. Some only for display because they are interesting. Men like to look at weapons. Three years ago, that first day I opened the door or my shop, while Thompson and Chetri were polishing the windows one last time, I put your knives on the wall.”

  “Ah.” Now this he hadn’t known.

  “I told myself they were a sort of trophy. Or a challenge. Or a memory of the past. I do not know. I think I expected you to walk in one morning and claim them back and we would talk . . . But you did not come. After a few weeks, I took them down and put them away.”

  “I was in France. Owl, I was in France for months.”

  “I learned that later.” The banyan had a thick, red brocaded belt. She untied the knot and pulled the belt closer about her and tied it again. “I knew when you came to England. You walked by the shop sometimes. But you never came in.” She added another knot. “It was because of the words I said outside of Paris. I have told more lies than any woman you will meet in your life. Not one of my lies has been as bitter to me as the truth that I told that day.”

  “Owl—”

  “I should have returned your knives to you at that time. I did not know quite how. There is nothing more embarrassing than importunity from a lover of long ago.”

  “I should have opened the damn door and walked in. I almost did, a few times.” He’d been stupid. And a coward.

  “There was no reason for you to do so. What we felt for one another was gone. You had become Head of the British Intelligence Service. You were Sir Adrian, no longer the ’Awker I had once known. You had made yourself rich. I was the discredited spy of a fallen empire.”

  She was going paler as she talked, probably getting ready to pitch forward in a faint. He wasn’t going to let this
go on much longer.

  “You think any of that mattered?”

  “You did not come to me.”

  “I made a mistake,” he said.

  “We have both made more mistakes in our life than it is possible to count.” She smiled wryly, and she was Justine DuMotier, French spymaster, the woman who’d routed some of his best operations. “That is past. We will concentrate upon the present. I read of a stabbing, a Frenchman. It was some time ago, now. I did not take particular notice, since I am no longer in the business of watching and analyzing such matters. Then the next stabbing came. Another Frenchman, and there was mention of a black knife.” Her eyes were very clear, very fierce, when they met his. “I have not forgotten my old skills. I did not need to see those knives at Bow Street. I knew at once.”

  “So you came to me.”

  “Not immediately. I went first to look upon Patelin’s corpse, laid out in the back room of a tavern, and to see the place where he was killed. Then I visited Bow Street and bribed my way into the evidence room to see the knives. Perhaps that was where your enemies picked up my trail and began following. Or perhaps they were watching Voyages. Mr. Thompson has said for months he feels eyes upon us. Somewhere, between Voyages and Meeks Street, they acted.”

  “Used that third knife on you.”

  “One man, very young, but already with experience. I had a glimpse of the side of his face. The knives that were stolen from me were used to attack you.”

  He put his hand on her shoulder, being careful, because that was the arm that hurt her. “Used against you, actually.”

  “It is the same thing.”

  Forty-two

  THE HEAD OF THE BRITISH INTELLIGENCE SERVICE sounded like a powerful man. Anybody’d think he’d be able to tell Justine DuMotier to go upstairs and sleep for the afternoon. Not so.

  She sat beside him in the coach and lifted the edge of the curtain to peer out the window. “I hate carriages,” she said. A line of bright light painted itself across her face and down her body. A thin triangle of street showed, going by. “They are traps. One might as well pin a target on the chest and be done with it. A carriage is the worst place to be if someone wants to kill you.”

  He made a two-finger width, opening his own curtain. “Maybe they’re tired of trying to kill you. Maybe they’ll kill Pax for a change. Or me.”

  “That is unduly optimistic.” She went back to being suspicious of the pedestrians.

  Pax sat forward, across from them, one pistol on the seat beside him and another in his lap. He was still loading the second, polishing the frizzen and pan with a clean handkerchief, taking off the last film of damp before he poured in the powder.

  Owl was right. A coach was a moving target, easy to follow, easy to hit. Every street was an ambush about to happen. The wood and leather on the sides of a coach weren’t any use. They might as well have been riding around in a paper sack.

  Because he had never learned not to argue with this woman, he pointed out, “You were safe at Meeks Street.”

  “I am safe at home.”

  “If you would give me a damn week to find out who’s behind this, we might avoid getting anybody killed. And you could let your bloody arm heal.”

  “My apartment is secure. Mr. Thompson and Mr. Chetri will sleep in the shop. Séverine will spend the nights with me, and she is protective as a mother tiger. She is also a very good shot. The crown jewels are more carelessly protected. ’Awker, we do not know anyone is after me at all. I was not attacked until I came to see you.”

  “Oh, you’re part of it, all right.” He knew better than to keep arguing. He never won an argument with Owl. “Your knives from your shop. Your stab wound. Your blood all over the streets of London.”

  “You exaggerate, as always.”

  “I’ll station a man in the alley at the back. And I’m staying with you.”

  She didn’t answer. She did that trick where she raised one eyebrow and looked superior.

  He was wondering whether staying with her in the apartment meant he’d get to go to bed with her. It was too soon, probably. Almost certainly. He was playing the old friend card now. Sneaking up on her, like. He’d put his arm across the back of the coach seat and waited till the coach jolted hard to let it settle down on her shoulders.

  An old friend could put an arm around another old friend.

  Besides, if she had Sévie with her in the apartment, she wouldn’t be getting into bed with him. Looked like he’d be sleeping on a patch of floor in front of her door. Like Muffin.

  That was a humiliating comparison. On the other hand, Muffin had spent most of lunchtime with his head in her lap, which was not a bad place to be.

  Another long delay on the street while some ham-handed squire from the country got his wheels unlocked from another carriage. Then they turned the corner, onto Exeter. Pax, hands steady as rock, tapped a nicely graded quantity of powder into the pan.

  Nobody followed them on foot down Exeter Street. Didn’t seem to be any carriages or wagons making the same turn.

  When the coach slowed down, coming up outside the shop, nobody took any notice. As far as he could see, there was nothing moving in the buildings across the way. He had a clear, bright view. The rain had washed all the soot out of the air. It was sunny now, and not too hot. Couldn’t be a nicer day for doing this damned stupidity.

  Pax said, “I’ll be back.” Before the coach stopped, Pax opened the door, swung down, dodged an oncoming horse, and crossed the street. He lounged his way up the row of houses and shops, blending in, his hand in his pocket keeping company with the gun. He turned the corner and disappeared.

  Owl frowned at the shop front of Voyages. Maybe even the shimmering clean glass wasn’t clean enough for her. She was probably hurting. There was just no way a man could protect and coddle a woman like Owl. Pointless to try.

  He pushed past her, opened the coach door, and kicked the step down.

  One old idiot in a dove gray jacket and maroon vest toddled past the shop, rubbing his nose like he was exploring someplace interesting and foreign. That was not an assassin. Left of Voyages the shop that sold travel books and botanical prints was empty. Beyond that, the milliner’s and the watchmaker were open for business, but also quiet. On the right hand, the confectioner’s had two women inside. They didn’t look immediately dangerous.

  He stepped down to the pavement. Took in every twitch of movement along the street. Stillwater, a good man, was driving the hackney and also keeping an eye out.

  Inside Voyages, Thompson had seen them. He started down the length of the counter, headed out to meet them. Two customers were absorbed in something exotic and expeditionary laid out on a table. One woman left the confectioner’s, turning to walk in the opposite direction.

  Owl held the sides of the doorframe to take the first step down, because she needed the support and shouldn’t have been running around in coaches at this stage in the recovery period from getting stabbed, for God’s sake. Stubborn as a mule. Anybody else would . . . But if she was anybody else, he wouldn’t give a hang about her.

  He picked her up and put her on her feet. Flipped the step up and slapped the door closed. The hackney rolled away. “Let’s go. Off the street. Into the shop.” This open space grated on his nerves. He wished he could be on all sides of her.

  “We are in equal danger, you and I. But it is a sensible suggesti—”

  He heard the shot. Heard the thud of lead hitting wood.

  He ducked. Owl was down, face to the pavement, scrambling toward the shop. He crowded so he was half on top of her and pushed her ahead of him to the door.

  No one in sight. That was rifle fire. No cover anywhere. Some idiot came out of the bookshop to peer around.

  “Get the hell back inside.”

  Owl pushed the door to her shop open and threw herself in. He followed.

  The three men in the shop were all on the floor. He lifted himself up off Owl enough to roll her over and have a look at her. �
��You’re not hit anywhere.”

  “Of course I am not hit. If I were hit I would be bleeding.”

  Oh, that’s useful to know, that is. Across the street all the windows were open. The sniper was in one of them. No movement. No sign. Look for it . . . Look for it . . . There. Ten yards to the left, two floors up. A puff of smoke was just now drifting out the window into the street.

  Owl was looking over his shoulder. Saw the same thing. “Go. Go out the back way and around. Do not waste this.”

  “Oh, hell. You did this on purpose.” Bait. She’d set herself up as bait. Damn the woman. Damn him for a fool, not seeing it.

  “Go. Now is the time to catch him. Go and be careful with yourself.”

  “Right.” He kissed her hard on the lips and unglued himself from the most beautiful woman in London and went to find out who was trying to kill her.

  THE house where the sniper had been had one of those doors you could just kick down if you hit it right. The hall was filled with squawking tenants who wanted to get in his way. The room on the top floor was left with the door swinging. It was empty except for a pair of chairs, a table under the window, a Baker rifle left lying on it, and the smell of black powder.

  Outside, the street was full of gawkers and talkers. Some of them were inspecting a bullet hole in the wood framing of the bookshop’s window. Pax was doubled over, propped on the wall next to Voyages. Not hurt. Just out of breath. No prisoner with him. Pax said, “Was anyone hit?”

  He shook his head.

  “Good.” A couple deep breaths. “I lost the sniper.” Pax wiped his mouth. “I saw her face.”

  “A woman?”

  “Thin. Very pretty. Light hair.” Pax’s eyes cut in and out through the crowd around them. Always the chance there was another killer on the job. “I chased her to Gorton Street and lost her. She faded into the crowd. Lots of practice. Lots of skill. Professional.”

  “Which way?”

  “Headed toward Piccadilly. Hawk, I know who she is.” This might be the end of it. This might be the answer. He didn’t take his eyes off the hands and arms and faces around them. “Who?”