“I had planned to stuff a few in my bodice and disappear into the alleyways. How much did you lighten those Englishmen, mon vieux?”
“Couple of watches, two little sacks of coins, and that ring you’re wearing.”
It was half light inside this shop, like dusk, but she could see him clearly. Everything smelled sleepily pleasant. Cardamom, tobacco, and some thick musk she could not identify. Possibly that was the smell of sheep. “It is a valuable ring. You should dispose of it and the watches. Also any banknotes you have acquired. They are incriminating.”
He turned his head, lazily, toward her. “You’re teaching me the thieving trade now, are you?”
“I would not presume.”
“You’d presume to teach the devil to make fire. What’s the name of this man we’re hiding from?”
“He is someone I do not like.” She allowed herself to smile. Allowed herself to relax, entirely, against this barrier of wood behind her. Truly, when she was with Hawker she lost all sense of prudence. “You set drunken Englishmen upon him. With any luck, they will call the gendarmes. I am altogether delighted with you.”
“Are you in trouble, Owl? With your people?” He could have been staring through her like glass, staring into her bones, the way he studied her. “I’m not prying for secrets. I just want to know.”
“All is well with me.”
“They set somebody to following you—that man who came into the arcade. You’re scared of him.”
“I am wary of him.”
He touched her shoulder lightly, as if he could read what was inside her with the skin of his fingertips. Perhaps he could. “This is fear. I never saw a service eat its own people like the Police Secrète does.” He pushed her hair back behind her ear, so he could look at her. “I make your life difficult, don’t I? I put you in danger.”
“I have a hundred explanations ready if anyone connects us. I will tell them I seduce secrets out of you. They will believe me.”
“It’s still not safe. I’m like a boy with honey cakes. I’m hungry—starving really—for you. I don’t think.” He took his hand away and sat back.
“You are not alone. ’Awker, I starve myself for you as well.”
“Right. That makes me feel much better, that does. Both of us starving. Just marvelous.”
His jacket fell open around him, pulled by the weight of the knives he carried in the secret pockets inside. He slouched beside her. The gray waistcoat fitted his body as close as skin, showing a man of lean muscle. A tomcat of a man. A sleek, imperturbable hunter. The strength of him, the danger, the coiled spring of unlikely possibilities that was Adrian Hawker—all contained within that elegance.
Honey cakes. He was the very ideal and pattern of forbidden honey cakes, this one.
“You wonder why I did not say good-bye, ’Awker.” She pulled her skirts loose and rolled to kneel beside him. Now they were face-to-face, as he had demanded. “This is why. I would have wanted to do this. I would have let myself have one last . . .” Her hands went to one side of his face and to the other. She cradled him and drew herself down to him and kissed his mouth. “Taste.”
The effort to touch him lightly—to feel his lips open and not consume him—left her shaking.
He went still, not kissing back. When she opened her eyes, he was looking up at her. “You don’t want this.”
“Not again. Not anymore. This is saying good-bye.”
He eased away. Left her lips. His hands on her shoulders were warm iron covered by velvet, and he held her till there was space between them. “If that’s good-bye, it’s just as well we didn’t start saying it.”
“That is what I thought.” From her belly, trembling rose in waves. Her skin prickled.
“Don’t do that to me again,” he said.
“I will not. It is not fair.”
“It’s likely to get you tupped on a pile of rugs.” He ran his hand over the silk beneath them. Over the rug. “It’s soft enough. And I could make you like it. Don’t think I couldn’t.”
“I am sorry. I—”
“You’re trusting a lot to a man of my background and proclivities. You don’t want to find out how we do things in Whitechapel, Chouette.” But in the middle of speaking, his voice changed. “It’s a chessboard.”
“Upon the rug? No. It is only squares. They make such rugs in . . . What?”
He shook her shoulders, where he held her. “I figured it out. I know.”
“You have figured what out?”
“La dame, le fou, la tour.” He pushed up to his feet. “Chess. They’re all chess pieces.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. “Listen to me. It’s chess. La tour—it’s not Tours, the town. It’s ‘the tower.’ It’s the chess piece. The castle. It’s chess pieces.”
“Le fou. What you English call the bishop on the chessboard. La dame. What you call the queen. They are chess pieces. And the most famous chess club in the world is the Café de la Régence.”
“In the Palais Royal. We could throw a stone from this shop and hit it.” He blazed satisfaction. “It makes sense. Chess. Damn, but I’m good.”
“You are more than adequate.” He was her Hawker, and he was brilliant. “We will meet there tonight. You may walk in the door and play chess, but I must coerce the owner into giving me some plausible role. That is a café for men only.”
He was already pacing back and forth across the rugs. Thinking. Plotting. Muttering to himself. Had she not seen this a hundred times? She had never wanted him more.
She said, “I must leave. This will require preparation.” And because there was no one else to tell him this, “You have been clever. You are very, very clever.”
Thirty
THE CAFÉ DE LA RÉGENCE WAS FULL OF CHESS PLAYERS and spies. Hawker had put himself with his back to the wall, near the door, where he could keep an eye on both.
It was well past midnight. Outside, under the huge lamps in the arches of the arcade, the nightly promenade of the Palais Royale had slowed to a trickle. Patrons of the opera strolled past, headed home. Even this late, a few English tourists wandered about, absorbing Paris sophistication, helping pickpockets earn a living. A trio of Napoleon’s garde rattled by in dress uniform, come from the gambling dens upstairs. The women who sauntered by in twos and threes were harlots.
In the café, a dozen men were still playing. Another thirty-odd watched or sat at tables, the way he did, reading the paper and drinking.
Pax was two tables away, twenty moves into a game. He’d dressed like a university student—untidy, with a loose, open collar. His hair was its natural color, loose down his neck, spilling along cheekbones when he leaned to the board. You’d swear he wasn’t thinking about anything but chess.
Owl walked the room, carrying a tray and wiping down tables, representing the French side of the spying fraternity.
For Hawker, it was the end of a long evening of wandering from table to table, brushing shoulders, listening. Nobody mentioned killing Bonaparte. They talked about chess. Spying was more of a challenge than stealing, overall, but there were times it’d bore a corpse.
Owl came up behind him. “I have brought more brandy, even though you have not finished what you have.” She leaned over him to set a tiny glass on the table. She was entirely plausible as a Parisian serving maid—deft, impudent, graceful.
“Did you have trouble,” he looked her over, “slipping in here?”
“None. When an agent of the Police Secrète indicates she wishes to become a serving maid, the owner of a café does not ask questions. They think I am here to listen for sedition. They are all afraid of the Police Secrète, here in Paris, which is wise of them.”
“My own service can’t throw men in prison, just on our say-so. One of those disadvantages I labor under.” He took a sip of brandy. He drank aquavit in the German states, grappa in Italy, brandy in Paris. In London, mostly gin. None of it had much effect on him.