the opened pub doors. Hawke pulled her even closer to him.
“I-like you, you know,” he said.
“I know. It’s very nice.”
“Not far now. A few more blocks.”
“Tell me about your mum, Alex. Is she still alive?”
“No. She died when I was seven. My father as well.”
“How horrible. Accident?”
“Murder.”
“Oh, Alex. I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”
“Nobody does. It’s not something you can explain. Things happen. She left me a gift. She made me strong.”
Nell’s eyes glistened as she said, “ ‘The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of those you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.’ ”
“Ernest Hemingway.”
“Yes. A Farewell to Arms.”
A small table for two in the back. A flickering candle cast a glow on Nell’s face, while at his elbow an unintelligible waiter poured from a bottle of sparkling wine. Hawke had so many words bottled up inside he was afraid to open his mouth. He stared at her until she lowered her eyes, and then he stared at her lashes. The smells from the tiny kitchen intruded, strong and pungent.
“I hope you’re hungry,” he said, immediately regretting the pitiable triteness of the remark. The waiter arrived back at the table with the menus and saved him. Nell smiled and raised her glass. She said, “What shall we drink to?”
Hawke considered a second.
“Liking.”
“Liking?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, you mean liking, ” she said with a smile of recognition, and Hawke felt somewhat redeemed. “Yes, here’s to liking, Alex Hawke. Two people so desperately in like, they can barely speak to each other.”
Hawke laughed out loud, feeling the dam burst at last, and he reached across the white linen for her warm hand. What was it about her? Incredibly confident, with a way of moving and speaking that quietly declared she had no need of being told she was beautiful or worthwhile. She knew those things for herself, and that kind of self- possession drew him inexorably toward her.
Dinner was a blur.
He went first, telling her everything, with all the honesty he could muster. His life in short, his emergence from childhood tragedy, his vow of revenge against those who had taken his parents, revenge a violent emotion that transformed itself into his boyhood desire to make some kind of hero out of himself: a small boy beating back the tide on the playing fields in the crisp autumnal twilight, bruised and weary, but hearing from afar the thunder of cheers… the war in the desert… women… his brutally short marriage… finding his son. All of it.
He sat back, his supply of words exhausted, content to listen to her now, falling into her wet green eyes, but hearing it all, every word, the brutishness of poverty and alcoholism, her determination to escape her violent father, her heart for life, her overwhelming desire to help others… to protect others from the harm she herself had no doubt experienced, her failed marriage, the fulfillment she’d found in her career at MI5, the sheer joy of finding her place in the world at last.
“Our circumstances are so very different, Alex,” she said finally, sipping the last of her wine. “It’s an old story, isn’t it? A cliche?”
“What do you mean, Nell?”
“The poor girl and the rich boy.”
“Funny. I was thinking just the opposite.”
“Really? What exactly were you thinking, my lord Hawke?”
He smiled. She’d had only three glasses of wine, but it was obvious it was an entirely new and exhilarating experience.
“I was thinking how very much alike we are.”
“Alike? Do you realize this is the first night in my life I’ve had a glass of champagne? The first time I’ve ever ridden in a Bentley, a chauffeur-driven Bentley, mind you. Why, I’ve never owned a dress with a hem that came anywhere near the floor, never waltzed across a ballroom with-”
“Nell, I was thinking how we both have this deep-seated need to protect others from harm.”
She sat back in her chair and regarded him for a long time, obviously making her mind up about something. Then, her eyes gleaming, she leaned forward again and reached for his hand.
“Yes. We do share that, don’t we, Alex?”
“We do. It’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about.”
“Tell me, Alex.”
“You know what I do, not for a living, but to satisfy whatever personal demons I may have. I go out into this dangerous world and every time I go, climb on an airplane or set foot on a rolling deck, I have no idea whether or not I’ll come back. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“I never gave it much thought, Nell, never. You can’t do this kind of thing, as you well know, and spend a lot of time worrying about your health. You worry about the guy next to you in the foxhole, or off your wingtip… but not about yourself. Some just go through the motions of war. But you have to get near enough to die. You have to be already dead in order to live and conquer. It’s in the blood, you know, a dark magnet pulling your body in that direction.”
“All that you need is all that you have.”
“Something like that, yes.”
“But now you have Alexei.”
“Now I have Alexei.”
“You’re worried what will happen to him if someday you don’t come back.”
“I am.”
“They’ve tried twice. And you sent them a strongly worded message. Perhaps they actually received it.”
“Yeah. Perhaps. Nell, these same Tsarists tried to kill Putin last night. They almost got him. They used nuclear weapons, Nell. Dirty bombs. These people will stop at nothing.”
“I’d gladly take a bullet for that little boy. You know that.”
“I know you would. But you’ll move on eventually, Nell. I expect you to. You can’t be a babysitter for the rest of your career.”
“What about his mother?”
Hawke’s eyes darted away.
“Not an option.”
“How do you stop them, then?”
“Cut off the head. That usually works.”
“You know the name?”
“Yes.”
“You’re on their list, too, aren’t you?”
“Near the top.”
“You need to go get him first.”
“I’m not worried about me, Nell. I can take care of myself. If and when I go for him, I’ll be bringing all hell with me. Look, I’ll stop beating about the bush. I’m having some legal documents drawn up. I’ve asked Ambrose Congreve to be the godfather to Alexei. In the event that something does happen to me, Ambrose and his soon-to- be wife, Lady Mars, will have guardianship of the child. He will live with them at Brixden House and in Bermuda.”
“Can they protect him? Eventually, Scotland Yard will have to pull its extended protection.”
