Joanna Bourne - The Black Hawk

“I asked how you got this letter,” he said. “Who gave it to you?”

She must be respectful. He was a senior officer. “I have exceptional sources.” Which I will not reveal to you. “The letter is authentic.”

“I will have his name.”

“My sources are also Madame’s sources. I do not think she wishes me to share them with you. I am not your agent, Monsieur.”

“True. But one never knows what the future will hold, Mademoiselle Justine. You would do well to remember that.”

Leblanc always attempted to steal resources, and Madame had been in Italy for months. Perhaps he thought Justine would be careless in Madame’s absence, or vulnerable, or easily cowed. She was not.

She did not shrug in an openly disrespectful manner, which would be self-indulgence. She let her eyes drift past him, to the window, and paid no attention while he pointed out that anyone could copy a paper and say it came from some secret source.

She merely nodded and said, “Very true.”

In the early morning, a dozen people crossed the pavements of the courtyard below, going from Tuileries to Louvre, or out through the great door that opened onto the Rue de Rivoli. These were not the fashionable, come to see the paintings and statues of the Louvre. These were workers and artists who concerned themselves with the exhibits, or they were men reporting to their work in the Tuileries Palace, to one of the offices of government. A few might be Police Secrète.

Some were servants—Napoleon’s servants—sent out to buy peaches or bonbons or take his boots to the bootmaker. He lived in the apartments of the Tuileries, on the floor below this, where royalty had once been housed.

“You waste my time. This is some British stratagem.” Leblanc flicked the Millian letter that she had so carefully copied. “If the Secret Police have not heard one whisper of this, it is simply a lie. This is nothing. This is invention.”

She was accustomed to working with the master spies of this age. Madame, in an instant, would have brought six clever minds to deciphering this letter. Vauban would have tromped past ranks of Imperial Guard and warned Napoleon, face-to-face, one soldier to another. Soulier would have set informers loose in the Palais Royale, ears open. But Madame was in Italy. Vauban—oh, so greatly mourned—had only last week confounded the odds to die peacefully in bed. Soulier was far away, at his post in England.

Her mentors, who were the great master spies of the Police Secrète, were not in Paris. She was left to make reports to politic, expedient Leblanc, the man of jealousy and mean intrigues. It was inconvenient beyond words.

She said, “The Englishman is dead. Strangely, I find myself convinced.”

“Men die.” He tossed the letter onto a pile at the side of his desk. “It is the nature of things. The English bedevil us with their little Royalist plots and their secret, overheard conversations. They want to send us running in circles. You are young, Justine. Easily fooled. I am not a Madame Lucille in your Pomme d’Or to coddle you in such matters.”

“And if the First Consul is in danger of death?”

“The streets of Paris breed thirty such rumors a week. The Household Guard is alert. They cannot be made more so with constant alarms that come to nothing. I will not bother to mention this to the commander. Or, perhaps . . .” He smiled. It was the smile an eel would make, in some dark pit of the water. “It matters so much to you, Justine?”

“I would not come to you if it did not matter.”

He stood. Slowly, he walked toward her. She had the opportunity of backing away, but she did not. If she once retreated from such men, she would never stop. She straightened and faced him. She had faced worse than Leblanc.

“I am susceptible to the arguments of a lovely woman.” He came too close. “Persuade me.”

She did not mistake his meaning. “Be persuaded by the dead Englishman.”

“We have spent many years working at cross purposes, you and I. It was never necessary. I bear you no enmity. You were caught in the old squabble I had with Lucille.” He had small, mean eyes, like raisins. They were oddly dark to be set in a long, pale face. “You are an ambitious woman, Justine. Under my guidance, you can rise to any height in the Police Secrète. You have a section of your own and a dozen agents working for you. I can give you more. I can give you the Pomme d’Or and the many agents who report there.”

“It is not yours to give. It belongs to Madame.”

“All things change, chérie.” He came within the length of an easy, casual touch. “I might reconsider this letter of Monsieur Millian. Perhaps it is worth investigating for—”

She caught his wrist, where he came to brush the skin of her neck, and held it, digging her nails in. “I am not one of the women of La Pomme d’Or, Monsieur.”

“I did not think you were.”

Since she was a child, she had studied the faces of many men, fearing them and hating them. She had catalogued Leblanc’s expressions carefully, because he was the enemy of Madame, and thus, her enemy. This was Leblanc, coldly, stiffly furious.

He smiled. “You are more attractive than they are, in so many ways.” He turned away. “We will reach a better understanding someday soon. Go. Play with your intrigues of the Englishman and fools and the woman of Tours. Pursue this phantom. Go question this mysterious source of yours. Report to me what progress you make.”

Leblanc was a man of cold rages and of long vengeance. She had offended him. If she had been one of his cadre, without Madame’s protection, she would have been very afraid.

JUSTINE HELD HER CUP AND CLOSED HER EYES, CONSIDERING and reconsidering each phrase of Monsieur Millian’s letter. She whispered, “‘La Dame est prête.’ The woman is ready.”

The day was warm. She sat in the shade of the huge arches of the Palais Royale. The Café Foy made the most lovely coffee, but she did not drink it. She only held it and let her thoughts finger first one phrase and then another from that letter. “What woman and what is she ready to do?” There were no obvious answers. Certainly none inside her. “If she is ready, why must they wait until August?”

“Because the fool hasn’t showed up yet.”

Hawker.

She jerked in surprise and opened her eyes. A drop, only, of her coffee spilled and fell upon the table.

Hawker stood beside her, casually inspecting the café and all within it. He laid his cane down, slantwise. It was elegantly black with a silver head, in the shape of a skull, which grinned in her direction, pleased with Hawker’s little triumph.

She would not be flustered. She had known Hawker would track her down and confront her. He had simply been very quick about it. The letter of Monsieur Millian mentioned the Palais Royale, where he had overheard the plotters. It was entirely predictable she would come here.

She hated to be predictable. “Go away. We should not be seen together.”

He did not leave. “And we never do anything we’re not supposed to.” As if fastidious, he inspected the chair, then lifted it and placed it just so. He settled himself, arranging his coat, lifting the fabric of his trousers to let it lie easily. A raised index finger signaled the waiter.

Anyone passing saw friends, meeting by chance at the Café Foy.

She said, “I suppose you are angry with me,” and did not look at him

“Why the hell should I be angry? I wake up and you’ve left me a damn letter saying you’re tired of me. Fine. Just fine.” The civilized veneer of Monsieur Adrian Hawkhurst was sometimes very thin indeed.

She said, “I did not say I was tired of you.”

“The hell you didn’t.”

“I said we will no longer be lovers.”

“You didn’t say it. You wrote me a buggering letter.”

She had seen Hawker truly angry only three times. He became incalculable and menacing when he was angry.

He did not dismay her in the least. “It was a gracefully written letter and took me considerable time to compose. We have been foolish. Now we will cease to be foolish.”

“Oh, right. We’re going to embrace good sense, you and me. We’re going to be prudent. Fuck that.”

“There is no need to be crude.”

Silence fell because the waiter was hurrying in Hawker’s direction to be attentive. This was the same waiter who had been leisurely in attending to her. Now, he chose to bestir himself.

She waited. Hawker ordered coffee and a carafe of water, taking his time. Maddeningly, taking his time. He saw there were pastries. Fresh? They had been made today? The waiter was quite sure? Then he would have one of those. They discussed apple and plum, to settle at last on apple.

The waiter went away. She fumed at Hawker for a time, but silently, and watched him from under her lashes. She drank coffee. Hawker ignored her. At last she said, “I am not tired of you.”

“Well, then. That makes it all right.”

“We are no longer the young fools to indulge ourselves in this way.”

Deep voiced, slowly, he said, “I like indulging you.”

Old memories swept in. Nights of generosity shared. The dark of hidden beds. Days side by side in fields and woods, lying, watching the clouds whirl by overhead, talking and touching.

She curled her hands where they rested in her lap and a pang of emotion struck through her. She desired him unreasonably and completely, at this moment, in this inconvenient place. She remembered his body with an intimacy deep as the memory of her own.

She could not help herself. She lifted her eyes to him.