The Black Hawk

Fifty-one

HAWKER FOUND HER IN THE APARTMENT ABOVE her shop. Thompson pointed him up the stairs and said Mademoiselle had been expecting him and the door at the top was open.

Owl had thirty blue-glass bottles sitting out on a table that she was filling with something. She sat in a red brocade chair, leaning over, tapping powder from a paper down the mouth of a bottle. He stood awhile and watched. About every fifth one she’d straighten up, lean to the fire for the kettle, and fill the bottles with hot water.

He said, “Shouldn’t somebody else do this? An apothecary?”

“That would be nice, but I prefer to make my own mixtures.” After a minute, Owl said, “He is dead, then?”

“Last night, about two. I waited outside the house till I was sure.”

“And his accusations toward you?”

“I bribed the footman to give me the letter. Anything he said, they took as the ravings of a dying man.”

A mortar with a handful of green powder in it sat on the table. She pulled it to her and put it in her lap and began to grind. “I am not sorry. Perhaps there is a woman somewhere who is more forgiving than I am. I feel only relief that this is over.”

He sat down in the chair across from hers and sniffed the powder she was working with. “There was a time I could have killed three bastards like Cummings before tea and enjoyed doing it. I didn’t enjoy this. I’m getting soft.”

“Not noticeably. I would not put that vial too close to your nose.”

He set it down. “Poison?”

“We have dealt too much in poison lately. That will only make you sneeze. It is a fine antiseptic, though. That is what I am making here.” She kept grinding. “I hope his wife was not there.”

“She took off years ago.” He wondered whether to tell her, and then decided he would. “He was at it awhile, dying. Couple of hours. His sons didn’t come.”

“It is the death he intended for me.” She didn’t quite shrug. “He was an evil man. You intended this from the first hour, when I was struck by that poison. That is why you did not clear the knife.”

“Yes.”

She was doing some deep thinking, apparently, so he left her to it and began to sift powder into bottles. There were five papers already measured, so he tapped them into the next bottles in the row. He didn’t scatter much around. Either he was doing it right or she was being mannerly.

“He would have escaped justice?”

“We couldn’t show anyone that book. I’d have talked to Liverpool and Cummings would be out of Military Intelligence. Doyle would see that he had to resign from his clubs.”

“He was right, then, in saying that nothing much would happen to him. That we could not touch him.”

“Well, he’s dead, you see. So he wasn’t entirely correct.”

He helped himself to the kettle and topped the bottles up with hot water while neither of them talked for a while.

“I think the world needs people like us to destroy evil men,” she said. “It requires people who are not entirely good to do this.”

“Sounds like me.”

“That is what I was thinking.”

The grinding was going to take a while. He ran out of green powder to put in bottles, so he stood up to wander around her parlor. She had some of her knife collection up here. The kris was pretty to look at but wouldn’t throw worth a damn.

It was peaceful, being here, watching her work. A couple strands of brown hair started off at her forehead, let loose, and fell down almost straight till they made little hooks at the end. She kept brushing them off her nose and they kept coming back. Even her hair was stubborn.

It was just impossible to say how much he loved this woman. It felt like he’d been waiting his whole life to walk in a door and there would be Owl, doing something interesting.

She had a fine fire burning in the hearth, so he went over and sat down on the hearthrug and leaned against her, setting his head against her thigh, looking into the flames.

After a minute, her hand came down on his head, into his hair. She said, “I will come to live with you in your great mansion and be a lady again. I will be a DeCabrillac, and face down the world if they make accusations. I will shake out your haughty mansion like an old rag and make it comfortable to live in.”

“Funny. I was thinking I’d come to live with you here, over the shop. It’s an easy walk to Meeks Street.”

“The Head of the British Service must live somewhere grander than this little appartement. But we could come here sometimes.” She took a deep breath. “I would like to marry you, ’Awker. I have loved you for many, many years.”

“Well. That’s fine then.” He turned his face to the cloth on her lap. Beneath the dress she wore, she was energy and strength. She seduced the hell out of him.

They met halfway. Him, coming up to kiss her. Her, leaning down to take his lips.

He drew her down from her seat. She flowed over him like water, refreshing him and filling every empty part of him. Her face was enchanting, infinite in its secrets.

Clothing wasn’t a problem. They had coupled hastily in the most ridiculous situations. Here there was silence and safety, privacy and a warm fire, the hearthrug under one back and then under the other as they touched and resettled. It was right. It was simple. He’d come home.