When she moved in his lap, he closed his eyes and groaned.
“We will be at Meeks Street soon,” she said.
His hand upon her, stroking, went still. When he took his touch away, the pulses of pleasure inside her did not stop. They breathed into each other’s faces, deep, almost in unison. Ten breaths. Twenty.
He said, “You feel this, don’t you?”
“Desire? It is fire and madness in me. I want you very much.”
He shook his head impatiently. “I don’t mean that.”
Abruptly, he brought his hands up into her hair. His long, clever, lock-picking fingers held her face as if she were infinitely precious. He kissed, once, just upon the threshold of her mouth. “We got a rare amount of wanting between us. That’s fine. That’s good. I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in this world.”
She would have looked away if she had not been held so closely. When a man so hard and secret opens his heart, there is no way to reply except with honesty. “I have never wanted anyone else.”
“But it’s never been just wanting, has it? Not even the first time.” He shook his head impatiently. “It’s the rest of it. You and me, we belong together. We always have.” The carriage jolted over the road, turning a corner. His hold didn’t waver. “Marry me.”
Years lie between us. Years when I made dark and difficult choices. “I am not the woman I was at twenty.”
“I’m not that man. But there’s never been anybody else for either of us. It’s not going to change if we wait a dozen more years.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I know you like skin knows an itch. All that time in Italy and Austria, everywhere, working against each other, we could always figure out what the other one was going to do. We might as well have been sitting like this the whole time, we were so close.” The nape of her neck, the bare skin of her shoulders, her back beneath the silk . . . he ran his hand over her. “There is not an inch of you, inside or outside, that I don’t know.”
“There is no reason—”
Fingers crossed her lips, stealing the words. His breath was warm on her face. He whispered, “Dammit. I love you.”
“I am not an easy woman,” she said.
“I’m a bloody difficult man.”
She had no words for what she needed to say. She had thought they were not in her. Then, somehow, they were.
She said, “It has always been you.”
His fingers sank into her shoulders. “Marry me.”
She said, “Yes.”
It was not enough for him. Dark and intent, he demanded, “Why? Why are we getting married, Owl?”
She said what he needed to hear. She said, “I love you.”
Fifty
HAWKER DIDN’T LOOK UP WHEN FELICITY CAME IN.
He stood in the middle of the study at Meeks Street, holding the knife, waiting for the play to start. This was the knife that had been sent after Owl. The poison was still on it, filmed across the working edge of the blade. Owl’s blood was dried on it too.
Felicity said, “He didn’t come alone. He brought that lick-spittle dog with him. Reams.” She scowled at the teacups sitting on every bare surface in the study. “I suppose you expect me to clean up in here.”
“That would be nice.”
“It’s not like people couldn’t walk over here and put away their own dishes.” She clattered cups together and thumped through to the dining room to tumble them into the dumbwaiter. “Not as if they have something more important to do, like standing around in the middle of the room staring at the wallpaper.”
He said, “Did you know, there are waiters across London who could remove every cup in the room so silent and swift you’d never see them.”
“How very adroit of them.”
“I didn’t think that would work. You are the most annoying chit. Where did you leave Cummings and his dog? In my office?”
“Front parlor.”
“A wise and moderate choice.” The big desk was clear except for a two-inch pile of papers and a black leather book. He set the knife beside the book, blade facing him, the engraved initials upward. “I need Justine. Find her.”
“I suppose I can.”
“She is not in the Outer Hebrides. Try the library. Get Doyle and Pax too. And Fletcher. He’s downstairs in the workroom. And find Sévie. Tell them it’s time.”
Felicity shrugged, deposited a few more cups into the dumbwaiter, and left, slamming the door behind her.
The desk in the study carried expensive and formidable locks. He’d picked them a dozen times, back in the old days. Now he was the man with the key. Times change.
He took an envelope out of the top drawer and tapped the broken knife tip out onto his palm. A tiny triangle of shiny silver metal, A lesson not to use fine knives for prying into wood boxes. He put the tip on the envelope, centered on the desk. Almost ready.
These papers should go somewhere artistic and obvious. Stage-setting. A show of power. So. Half on the table beside the sofa—yes—stacked up as if somebody’d just finished reading them. A few left on the desk chair. Another pile on the windowsill. He was satisfied when he’d finished. This was a picture of men called away in the middle of a consultation. Felicity had missed a few coffee cups, adding to the fine, heedless air of haste.
And the black book. He was deciding whether to leave it on the desk or put it up on the mantelpiece when Owl walked in.
“You are looking pensive,” she said. “I dislike it when you are introspective. Matters always become enigmatic. Is it time?”
“Cummings is here. I’m wondering where to put this.” He let the pages fall open. If it had been Jane Cardiff’s journal, it would have been symbols across the page. Since it was one of Sévie’s old copybooks, it was line after line of ordinary script. “I want him to see it but not lay hands on it.”
“The far side of the desk.” Owl took the book from him and arranged it herself. “Good. It lies there, slanted just so, obviously important. I have never seen a book hold such an aspect of importance.”
“I could add bookmarks hanging out everywhere.”
“We will not ice the cake. We will be simple. You will try to keep the very direct Colonel Reams from tossing it into the fire. Séverine will be annoyed if it is damaged.” She frowned at the knife that had almost killed her. “Will you reconsider this plan? I am not easy in my mind with the chance you will take. That knife is dangerous.”
“I’m more dangerous.” There was a comfortable patch of wall over to the side. He backed her up there so she’d have something to lean on. “We have a minute. Use it to kiss me.”
“Doyle may walk in at any instant. Paxton may—”
“Let’s not make a list of everybody who’s going to walk in on us.”
A brief kiss. Lips touching once, friendly-like. A petit dejeuner of a kiss. A roll and coffee in the morning of a kiss. Not the main course, but he gave it his entire expertise.
Owl said, “That was nice.”
“That’s why husbands and wives kiss a lot. Because it’s nice. It’ll take some practice, but we’ll eventually get it right.”
“I am not yet used to the idea of becoming a wife. I have no idea what kind of kisses to expect in that state.”
“We’ll find out. We’re going to fall into the ravening maw of respectability, you and I.” He kissed her. It tasted significant, as if everything they did, every word they said, meant more now. It wasn’t just pleasure between them, though God knew there was a mort of that. It wasn’t friendship.
This was his lady. This would be his wife.
He pulled her to him, using the amount of persuasion he thought he could get away with, feeling her answer back with the next kiss, warm and willing.
They did that for a while.
“We have no time for this.” She shoved him away. “I am in no mood to fool with you. I am hungry for vengeance. You, I will indulge myself with later.”