The Black Hawk

Forty-nine

JUSTINE PULLED THE SHADES OF THE WINDOWS OF the coach. She did not think anyone was observing Jane Cardiff’s house, but there was no reason to advertise their presence here, where a murder had so recently happened.

She was not stunned by the death she had confronted. She had seen many men die, and women too. But it had seemed Jane Cardiff’s blank eyes stared at her accusingly before Doyle had reached his big hand to close them.

She sat beside Hawker in the coach. The dead woman and Doyle, who must deal with the grim formalities of death, receded behind them. She said what she had been thinking for a time. “She was what I might have become.”

“You’re not Jane Cardiff,” Hawker said. “You’re not anything like her.”

“If things had gone differently—”

“Never.”

“We cannot know.”

“I know,” Hawker said. “You’d have woke up one fine morning and stabbed the bastard. Nothing more certain.”

“I hope so.”

“We’ll deal with him now, you and me.” He shifted on the seat so he held her against the motion of the coach as they turned the corner, not letting it jostle her arm. Always, at every instant, he was careful of her. “I know how I’m going to do it. Just a matter of settling some of the details.”

“Always, it is the small details that trip one up.”

“I’ve never wanted to kill anyone as much as I want to kill the man who sent a knife after you.”

Adrian Hawkhurst sprawled beside her on the seat of the coach and constructed the scheme that would end in a man’s death. She imagined she could see the plan stretching through his mind, weaving itself in strong simplicity, like the threads of a snare.

They were still dressed for the evening party at the Pickerings. He, in black coat and starched neckcloth. She, in lilac silk.

Last night, she had watched Sir Adrian Hawkhurst weave his way among the charming, flirtatious women of the ton. They had followed him with their eyes, admiring and speculative. Not one had seen beneath the deceptive surface of him.

“You’re thinking,” he said. “Tell me.”

“I am thinking of what we have become over the years, you and I. Where we ended up.”

“The head of an obscure government department. A shopkeeper. Ordinary folk.” He spread his fingers over the silk of her sleeve, appreciating it. She saw the smile in his eyes before it showed up on his lips. “Let me hold you, shopkeeper.”

“I would like that.”

His arm came around her waist. He did not merely hold her. He lifted her to sit sideways upon him, leaning against his chest. It would have been entirely innocent, except that he began immediately to stroke her breast, taking pleasure in it, making a deep sound in his throat. “This silk thing doesn’t just look like a flower. It feels like one. Like stroking a petal, with you inside it.”

It was a comfort beyond description to be held with such care and knowledge. To be caressed by a man who delighted in the textures of her body. To relax into the strength and the old familiarity. Shoulder, ribs, along her thigh, he drew her in to him again and again, closer.

The coach ground and rumbled forward at a walking pace, swaying, and the street was filled with the sound of carts and wagons. She lay her cheek on his jacket and closed her eyes and enjoyed this moment. In all of her life, there had been so few times she could rest from wariness.

“You are not a restful person, Adrian Hawkhurst. I have never understood why I feel at peace with you, sometimes, at moments like these.”

“One of life’s mysteries.” He ran his fingers over her nipple and lanced a shock through her body, downward, deep inside, like a star falling from the sky. Her nipples crinkled up, feeling his hand through silk, through the linen shift she wore beneath the silk.

“That’s nice,” he said, speaking of the shudder she made. He was a man entirely too perceptive.

He kissed her forehead. Little shivers began at the edges of her, everywhere. Her skin, wanting. Her nerves, anticipating.

She said, “This is good. I like you touching me.”

“I could do it for the next decade or two. Have you given any thought to marrying me? It’s probably slipped your mind, what with so much going on, but I did ask.”

“It has not, as you put it, slipped my mind. I have decided to leave things as they are.”

“Good reasons for that, I suppose.” He did not seem dismayed. He kissed across her forehead and down her face to her ear. She heard his breath there. Warmth. Whispers. Chouette. Mignonne. His breath and murmured love words filled her. Mon adorée. Ti amo.

The coach that moved through the streets of London was their universe, a little world where they were alone. There was no reason to refrain from this indulgence. No need to hold back. No cautions to lay upon the surface of her mind. She could give herself wholly to the moment and to him. He held her in his lap, and she felt every impact of the horse’s hooves, every irregularity that jolted the wheels, through him. Through his body.

She put her hand upon his shoulder and turned to him to take his mouth. She kissed him deeply and inventively.

She said, “We are idiots to tease ourselves this way. We should stop.”

“You’re right about that, luv.” He slid his hand between her legs to begin sparks and persuasion there. The road vibrated beneath them steadily, and her desire for him was almost unbearable.

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.”