“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.
