“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.