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.
He picked her up and put her on her feet. Flipped the step up and slapped the door closed. The hackney rolled away. “Let’s go. Off the street. Into the shop.” This open space grated on his nerves. He wished he could be on all sides of her.
“We are in equal danger, you and I. But it is a sensible suggesti—”
He heard the shot. Heard the thud of lead hitting wood.
He ducked. Owl was down, face to the pavement, scrambling toward the shop. He crowded so he was half on top of her and pushed her ahead of him to the door.
No one in sight. That was rifle fire. No cover anywhere. Some idiot came out of the bookshop to peer around.
“Get the hell back inside.”
Owl pushed the door to her shop open and threw herself in. He followed.
The three men in the shop were all on the floor. He lifted himself up off Owl enough to roll her over and have a look at her. “You’re not hit anywhere.”
“Of course I am not hit. If I were hit I would be bleeding.”
Oh, that’s useful to know, that is. Across the street all the windows were open. The sniper was in one of them. No movement. No sign. Look for it . . . Look for it . . . There. Ten yards to the left, two floors up. A puff of smoke was just now drifting out the window into the street.
Owl was looking over his shoulder. Saw the same thing. “Go. Go out the back way and around. Do not waste this.”
“Oh, hell. You did this on purpose.” Bait. She’d set herself up as bait. Damn the woman. Damn him for a fool, not seeing it.
“Go. Now is the time to catch him. Go and be careful with yourself.”
“Right.” He kissed her hard on the lips and unglued himself from the most beautiful woman in London and went to find out who was trying to kill her.
THE house where the sniper had been had one of those doors you could just kick down if you hit it right. The hall was filled with squawking tenants who wanted to get in his way. The room on the top floor was left with the door swinging. It was empty except for a pair of chairs, a table under the window, a Baker rifle left lying on it, and the smell of black powder.
Outside, the street was full of gawkers and talkers. Some of them were inspecting a bullet hole in the wood framing of the bookshop’s window. Pax was doubled over, propped on the wall next to Voyages. Not hurt. Just out of breath. No prisoner with him. Pax said, “Was anyone hit?”
He shook his head.
“Good.” A couple deep breaths. “I lost the sniper.” Pax wiped his mouth. “I saw her face.”
“A woman?”
“Thin. Very pretty. Light hair.” Pax’s eyes cut in and out through the crowd around them. Always the chance there was another killer on the job. “I chased her to Gorton Street and lost her. She faded into the crowd. Lots of practice. Lots of skill. Professional.”
“Which way?”
“Headed toward Piccadilly. Hawk, I know who she is.” This might be the end of it. This might be the answer. He didn’t take his eyes off the hands and arms and faces around them. “Who?”
“You know her too. Think back. Paris. End of the Terror. The Coach House. We took Cachés out of there.”
“Ten of them. Four girls. Last I heard they were married and raising kids. They didn’t take the mail coach down to London to shoot at us.”
Pax shook his head. “Not the ones we rescued. We left one girl behind. Remember? Scrawny girl with straw-colored hair.”
Some moments from that night were starkly clear. Not that girl’s face, though. She’d been a shadow, off in a corner, away from the lantern. “It was dark. You were the one arguing with her.”
“I had a good look. Justine probably saw her through field glasses back when she was reconnoitering the Coach House. When we get back to Meeks Street, I’ll draw you a picture.”
Forty-three
IT TOOK ONLY A MOMENT TO BE SHOT AT. IT TOOK hours to deal with Bow Street.
The watchman from the end of Exeter Street must come to bustle about like a chicken. Then those most closely concerned—she and Hawker and an officious old man who had been passing on the pavement—must go to Bow Street. A report must be taken. Lengthily and in detail. She must ceremoniously meet Sir Nathaniel Conant, the magistrate, who was apparently a great friend of Hawker. Then a Runner and a subsidiary youth, whose job it was to nod at intervals, must return with her to her to her shop to inspect the bullet lodged in the wall and dig it out and discover that nothing whatsoever could be determined except that it had not hit her.
Hawker was of no assistance whatsoever. He said very little, only hovered over her and kept himself between her and every window and made her sit down in chairs.
The watchman, the Bow Street Runner, his assistant, and the local constable must then blunder their way around her shop, sniffing at bottles and looking in drawers and remarking upon the maps which were, she agreed, of very rum places indeed.
They pointed out several times that she had also been stabbed in Braddy Square, with which she agreed. It was strange so many people wanted to kill her. Yes, it was. When that had been discussed sufficiently, the officials and Hawker departed en masse to the tavern to gossip.
That was when Paxton came to stand over her and be alert. Then Séverine arrived and took her upstairs to pack a bag. Séverine did not advise against staying at the shop. She said, “You will need this at Meeks Street,” and “You will not need that at Meeks Street,” and kept packing. Séverine was a veritable bully about this.
The hackney stopped at the door of her shop. Séverine carried the bag out. Paxton stood, his arms crossed, looking so patient one wanted to kick him.
Hawker, it turned out, had gone to take dinner with the Bow Street magistrate, Conant, and could not be argued with because he was not there.
So she returned to Meeks Street. There was no reason against it, since she had accomplished her purpose in going to Voyages and flushing her attacker.
She let herself be fussed into bed by Séverine while it was still daylight. She slept, profoundly, for hours, past all need for sleeping. That was why she lay awake in bed in the still dark of the night when the clocks struck two, and heard Hawker return to the house.
This was a solid old house that enclosed sounds and secrets within it. She heard the front door open and close, but she did not precisely hear Hawker’s footsteps. She heard the dog Muffin, guarding her door, stir and whine and knew that someone had passed. Of Hawker, there was only a sense of him approaching and passing down the long hall, past her room, to his own.