HAWKER HUNG IN THE NIGHT, BALANCING AGAINST the side of the building, just touching the windowsill. He heard Owl inside her room, being busy, making the little rustles a woman makes, getting ready for bed. When he was sure there was nobody with her, he scratched at the shutters.
She came to let him in, wearing a peignoir the color of peaches over her night shift.
For five years they’d been lovers, and he never got tired of the sight of her. Her hair was loose down her shoulders in honey-dark rivers. Her feet were pink and bare on the floorboards. She looked cross.
He crouched on the window ledge. “I keep expecting to find you in some pretty apartment on the Rue St. Denis.” He knew every fingerhold on the shutter and the open casement. A good thing. He was clumsy tonight. “But it’s the same pokey old attic.”
“It is a very safe attic,
“Yet here I am, getting in without let or hindrance.”
“You, of course, are the exception to many rules. It is a pity you will break your neck one of these days, showing off. It will be mourned by all the women of Europe. A more sensible man would simply—”
“Walk in the front door. I know. That takes all the fun out of it.” Even if he wanted to tell the world he was in Paris, he wasn’t dressed to stroll into a place like the Pomme d’Or. They’d looked at him twice even in the livery stable where he’d left his horse.
He stumbled when his feet found the floor. His legs were giving way now that they knew he was at the end of the road. “Am I welcome?”
“If you were not welcome, I would not have opened the window. Or perhaps I would have opened the window and then pushed you to a sudden death on the stones of the courtyard. In either case, you would receive the hint.” He could smell the clean bright smell of her. Lavender. “You may give that extremely dusty coat to me, if you please. You have been rolling in the dust. Fighting?”
“Falling off a damned horse.”
“I will be tactful and not point out how maladroit you are.” She took the cuff of his left sleeve and began to ease it downward. He didn’t wear a tight fashionable coat. It came right off. She made one of those disapproving French shrugs. “You are hurt. Why did you fall off a damned horse? And where?”
“Careful. That’s sore. I fell off . . . somewhere.” He honestly didn’t remember. He’d been moving for ten days straight, eating in the saddle, sleeping rolled in a blanket in the bushes. “I think it was yesterday. I was going downhill.”
“You have no affinity for horses. That is strange in an Englishman.”
Two floors downstairs, somebody tinkled away at a piano. Skillful about it, for all he knew. They had one of the best pianists in France working in La Pomme d’Or. It went along with the best food and the best paintings on the wall. The best women.
Justine wasn’t one of the women. The French Police Secrète hadn’t made her a whore, though they might have tried it. She was Owl, who confounded them all and went her own way. So far as he knew, the only man she slept with was him.
He never told her he didn’t go to other women. For five years it had been only her. Nobody else. Nobody, not even when it was months that went by without seeing her. He wouldn’t have admitted that under torture.
She slipped his coat down over his shoulders and down his arms. Unbuttoned his waistcoat. His senses filled up with swirls of the apricot color she wore and the sweep of her hair. Everything about her flowed like water.
He’d have let her hurt his ribs, just for the pleasure of feeling her hands on him. But she didn’t hurt when she undressed him. She was neat and quick, getting his shirt untucked, pulling it off over his head.
His shirt joined his coat and waistcoat on the floor. She ran her fingers lightly over his chest, up and down his ribs. “You look as if you have been laid upon the road to be trampled by an advancing army. You have many bruises, for one thing. They are very ugly.”
“You, on the other hand, are luminous as daybreak. Exquisite as . . .”
“Sit,” she said. “On the bed. And be silent. I do not wish you to collapse facedown on the floor and become even more inconvenient to me. You have burned yourself away to nothing at all.”
Pain jabbed in his side when he sank down. Linen sheets on the bed and one light blanket. Everything was orderly, simple, well arranged. Everything said “Owl.”
He sighed out a deep breath. “It was a long ride.”
“So you fall from the horse because you are exhausted. I am all out of patience with you.” Her hands were light on his shoulders. “If you are determined to kill yourself, ask me to do it. I would earn great praise in certain quarters if I brought you down. Have you broken any bones? There is a surgeon downstairs in the parlor tonight, only half drunk. I can bring him to you.”
“There are two hundred and six bones in the human body and not one of them is broken. Remarkable, isn’t it?” Who’d told him how many bones a man had? Doyle maybe. Or Pax. They carried that kind of useless information in their heads.
Her breasts, small, perfect, and kissable, rose and fell, about six inches from his mouth. He wanted to start, right there, and taste his way across her body. He wanted to put his head down onto her breasts and fall asleep. “Feels like I’ve been beaten with rods. Very Turkish.”
“One may expect you to explore such novelties. You are very stupid to fall off horses, but I do not suppose you will change.”
“For you, my sweet—”
“Oh, be silent. Your boots demonstrate all the reasons women should not entertain men in their rooms. I will remove them so you do not suffer doing it. I am a marvel of sensitivity every time I am with you. I astound myself sometimes.”
He must have closed his eyes. When he opened them, she was at his feet, taking his boot in her hands. The sight of her, kneeling between his legs with her hair spread out over the edible, edible silk on her shoulders . . . He couldn’t have found words anywhere on earth, in any language.
Inevitable, wasn’t it? He could barely move, but he managed to get roused up like a rabbit. He was almost too tired to talk, but he wasn’t too tired to spring up hard, pointing to Owl like a compass seeking north. What they had between them was natural as breathing. Always. Every time.
He didn’t try to touch her, just looked. That was the joy of being a man. Looking was its own reward. Hunger welled up, and it felt warm and fine.
“You are not entirely exhausted.” Dry words from Owl. She took on the second boot, being gentle. “Do you plan to use this particular yard of gallantry, perhaps?”
He laughed. She could make him laugh. “I’m filthy. I don’t belong in any woman’s bed, least of all yours. But, damn, I want you.”
“So I see. I am vastly flattered.” When she stood, silk like apricots, like peaches, flowed across his thighs. Cool yellow fire, infinitely tempting. “You are in several sorts of pain tonight, are you not? I will get you a brandy.”
She kept brandy on the shelf with her books. Wasted on him, of course. He’d never told her he liked gin better. He could admit he’d killed an Austrian captain, who needed it, but he wouldn’t tell her he drank gin by choice. She’d think worse of him.
“This particular brandy, they make near my old home from the lees of the grape harvest. It is very potent.” She gave one of her fugitive grins and went looking for a glass.
Women move different from men. Their joints don’t fit as tight. They glide from place to place without any obvious assistance in the way of bones and muscle involved.
Narrow and clever feet slipped in and out of the slit in the peignoir, not making a sound on the floorboards. Her toes were naked and pink as raspberries. One day soon, when he didn’t ache so much, he was going to kiss her toes. Take them into his mouth and suck on them, one by one. She’d twitch when he did that. He liked it when she twitched. “I kiss your hands and feet,
“That is very pretty. Your German accent has improved. Here. You will see this is the cut crystal you gave me in Vienna. I took a fancy to it and brought it back home with me.” She held the glass till he had it firmly in both hands. “Tell me why you have tormented yourself and several horses, racing to Paris. It is not merely to see me.”
