Joanna Bourne - The Black Hawk

He took her arm to lead her away. They had gone perhaps a hundred steps before the first of the Englishmen noticed his watch was missing.

“We just keep walking,” Hawker murmured.

“I am not an infant in these matters. I know what to do.” So she did not look over her shoulder to see what happened, only listened to the outraged boots inexorably headed in Leblanc’s direction.

THEY STROLLED, ARM IN ARM, NOT DAWDLING, NOT hurrying, away from the distant commotion that was Leblanc discussing with four Englishmen the theft of . . . “What did you take, ’Awker?”

“A little of this. A little of that. Not everything.” He sounded regretful. “I took a ring from the man who talked about your lips.”

“He should not have called you a ram, meaning an insult.”

“I took that as a compliment, but I took his ring too. Nice heavy piece of gold.” His head was up, like a hunting dog scenting the wind. “Let’s get out of the open for a while.” They passed a shop that sold music boxes. The next displayed violins and violas, in mellow womanly shapes of maple wood.

He pressed something metal into her palm, cold and heavy. “Turn it on your finger, facing in.”

Which told her the bare bones of his plan. She put the ring on her left hand, third finger, and faced the signet inward so it was hidden. Only the band showed. That easily, she was a married lady.

The shops of the Palais Royale lined up one after another under the arcade, each one bright and inviting. All the booty of the world was gathered together here, and every example was the best of its kind. Jewels, fans, handkerchiefs, dressing tables, ribbons, ivory carvings, whores. If you could not buy it within the Palais Royale, it was probably not worth buying.

He chose a shop a dozen feet onward and drew her into it. This one sold rugs from the Orient. These were not carpets to cover the floor, but works of art to be displayed on the walls.

A long mahogany counter separated the shop from the walkway of the arcade. The owner, a wizened man who was also the color of mahogany, leaned his elbows on one of the gems of his collection, thrown over the counter. A brass samovar and tiny china cups stood ready at his right for the entertainment of clients. Behind him, two hundred—three hundred—rugs were piled one upon the other in stacks as high as a man.

Hawker was already at the counter, negotiating. “. . . her husband follows.” A gold coin appeared between fingers. “He is a dolt. A selfish brute.” It would be a coin Hawker had just stolen, of course. A coin from one of the drunken Englishmen. “. . . a man without the taste to appreciate his gentle flower.”

Gentle flower? We stray into the realm of fairy tale.

Hawker was speaking now in another language. Arabic? Hebrew? Turkish? He was endlessly curious. It would not amaze her to discover he had involved himself in studying any of these.

The words in his own tongue surprised and delighted the rug merchant. The coin disappeared. They were bowed into the rich cave of a shop, to walk on rugs crossed two and three deep.

“Here. Behind the counter. If you will . . . Yes. It’s quite soft. Very soft. These are the finest.” A dozen rugs were piled upon one another, laid flat. The brown hand waved. “Sit. No one will see you.”

The topmost rug was a checkerboard of squares, each with the design of a flower. Soft as silk. Perhaps it was silk. Rugs could be made of silk. A memory came of her home, the chateau, in the country and long ago, stroking a rug like this, soft as a kitten.

“My cousin keeps the gold shop, there. See. No one will be surprised if I drink tea with him for a few minutes. This time of the morning I am less use in this shop than the cat.” The cat, a black fellow with not a hair of white on him, had been motionless on the highest tower of carpets. He sprang down from stack to stack and made a regal exit as the iron lattice rattled its way across the entrance of the shop.

Hawker spoke again in the same language, a phrase that called forth laughter. Then he ducked down behind the counter, beside her on the pile of rugs. They were together in the dimness of the shop.

“Five or ten minutes should do it, then we’ll double back on the trail. We’ll leave separately.” Hawker let his head rest back against the wood. His knees were folded in close with his arms resting on top. “Our merchant is across the way, and he’s watching. Don’t try to make off with one of the rugs.”

“I had planned to stuff a few in my bodice and disappear into the alleyways. How much did you lighten those Englishmen, mon vieux?”

“Couple of watches, two little sacks of coins, and that ring you’re wearing.”

It was half light inside this shop, like dusk, but she could see him clearly. Everything smelled sleepily pleasant. Cardamom, tobacco, and some thick musk she could not identify. Possibly that was the smell of sheep. “It is a valuable ring. You should dispose of it and the watches. Also any banknotes you have acquired. They are incriminating.”

He turned his head, lazily, toward her. “You’re teaching me the thieving trade now, are you?”

“I would not presume.”

“You’d presume to teach the devil to make fire. What’s the name of this man we’re hiding from?”

“He is someone I do not like.” She allowed herself to smile. Allowed herself to relax, entirely, against this barrier of wood behind her. Truly, when she was with Hawker she lost all sense of prudence. “You set drunken Englishmen upon him. With any luck, they will call the gendarmes. I am altogether delighted with you.”

“Are you in trouble, Owl? With your people?” He could have been staring through her like glass, staring into her bones, the way he studied her. “I’m not prying for secrets. I just want to know.”

“All is well with me.”

“They set somebody to following you—that man who came into the arcade. You’re scared of him.”

“I am wary of him.”

He touched her shoulder lightly, as if he could read what was inside her with the skin of his fingertips. Perhaps he could. “This is fear. I never saw a service eat its own people like the Police Secrète does.” He pushed her hair back behind her ear, so he could look at her. “I make your life difficult, don’t I? I put you in danger.”

“I have a hundred explanations ready if anyone connects us. I will tell them I seduce secrets out of you. They will believe me.”

“It’s still not safe. I’m like a boy with honey cakes. I’m hungry—starving really—for you. I don’t think.” He took his hand away and sat back.

“You are not alone. ’Awker, I starve myself for you as well.”

“Right. That makes me feel much better, that does. Both of us starving. Just marvelous.”

His jacket fell open around him, pulled by the weight of the knives he carried in the secret pockets inside. He slouched beside her. The gray waistcoat fitted his body as close as skin, showing a man of lean muscle. A tomcat of a man. A sleek, imperturbable hunter. The strength of him, the danger, the coiled spring of unlikely possibilities that was Adrian Hawker—all contained within that elegance.

Honey cakes. He was the very ideal and pattern of forbidden honey cakes, this one.

“You wonder why I did not say good-bye, ’Awker.” She pulled her skirts loose and rolled to kneel beside him. Now they were face-to-face, as he had demanded. “This is why. I would have wanted to do this. I would have let myself have one last . . .” Her hands went to one side of his face and to the other. She cradled him and drew herself down to him and kissed his mouth. “Taste.”

The effort to touch him lightly—to feel his lips open and not consume him—left her shaking.

He went still, not kissing back. When she opened her eyes, he was looking up at her. “You don’t want this.”

“Not again. Not anymore. This is saying good-bye.”

He eased away. Left her lips. His hands on her shoulders were warm iron covered by velvet, and he held her till there was space between them. “If that’s good-bye, it’s just as well we didn’t start saying it.”

“That is what I thought.” From her belly, trembling rose in waves. Her skin prickled.

“Don’t do that to me again,” he said.

“I will not. It is not fair.”

“It’s likely to get you tupped on a pile of rugs.” He ran his hand over the silk beneath them. Over the rug. “It’s soft enough. And I could make you like it. Don’t think I couldn’t.”

“I am sorry. I—”

“You’re trusting a lot to a man of my background and proclivities. You don’t want to find out how we do things in Whitechapel, Chouette.” But in the middle of speaking, his voice changed. “It’s a chessboard.”

“Upon the rug? No. It is only squares. They make such rugs in . . . What?”

He shook her shoulders, where he held her. “I figured it out. I know.”

“You have figured what out?”

“La dame, le fou, la tour.” He pushed up to his feet. “Chess. They’re all chess pieces.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. “Listen to me. It’s chess. La tour—it’s not Tours, the town. It’s ‘the tower.’ It’s the chess piece. The castle. It’s chess pieces.”

“Le fou. What you English call the bishop on the chessboard. La dame. What you call the queen. They are chess pieces. And the most famous chess club in the world is the Café de la Régence.”

“In the Palais Royal. We could throw a stone from this shop and hit it.” He blazed satisfaction. “It makes sense. Chess. Damn, but I’m good.”

“You are more than adequate.” He was her Hawker, and he was brilliant. “We will meet there tonight. You may walk in the door and play chess, but I must coerce the owner into giving me some plausible role. That is a café for men only.”