Rogue Spy (24 page)

With a small decision, we change all the future.

A BALDONI SAYING

The road back to Cami felt familiar, even though he'd only walked it twice now. It was all in the anticipation.

At the end, almost there, Pax went motionless in the dark at the doorway next to the Baldoni house. Men approached behind him on the street, walking without reservation or wariness. Two . . . three of them.

He breathed shallowly. He was too old a hand to hold his breath in a situation like this. Tense the forearm, shake the knife down across his palm. A seven-inch blade, long enough to get through clothing and into a vital organ. Silent weapon. Silent death.

Laughter. The cadence and intonation of Italian. He was listening to the approach of some Baldoni. Soon enough he could recognize the voices. That was Cousin Tonio, who was too good-looking and confident to be quite reliable on a job. Maybe. Or maybe Tonio enjoyed playing the likable rogue. The English branch of the Baldoni's well-respected and meticulously managed Banca della Toscana had not been placed in the hands of a fool.

The other voices must be Alessandro and the young Giomar.

They strolled past him, not seeing him. They were dressed in cloaks of invisibility themselves, the patched, secondhand garments of the poor. Groom, hod carrier, mason's apprentice, bootblack, stevedore, butcher's boy . . . they could have been any of those. They wore poverty and an exuberant vulgarity as if they'd been born to it. Anyone who saw them on Semple Street would know they were up to no good, poking and prying about, hoping for some trifles that weren't nailed down.

But, if the Merchant saw them or heard them described, he'd never suspect them of scouting out the territory. All the cold intelligence of the Merchant, and he had no sense of humor. He'd never understand the Baldoni appetite for exuberant gestures.

They passed, laughing, talking about music, climbed the front stairs, and pushed into the house.

His opportunity. Any attention would be on them. He went over the high wall to the side of the house and into the garden. Ran to the back garden and entered a slice of shadow he'd picked out the last time he was here.

The Baldoni, enterprising crew that they were, left a lantern burning at the back of the house in the window beside the kitchen door. Somebody might want to get in, quietly, at an odd hour.

One of the household dogs scented a stranger on the wind and whuffed a warning but the boisterous entry to the kitchen and demands for food covered that up. It wasn't repeated. Perhaps the dog was one of the ones he'd snuck food to earlier.

He breathed quietly and waited. Ten or fifteen minutes passed. Behind the brick and mortar, in the kitchen, voices lowered to sober conversation. A dog whined and Alessandro's complaint quieted it. A woman's voice spoke. The windows up and down the house stayed dark. They must be used to feeding their young men at midnight.

He remained undetected, but there was watchfulness in the Baldoni household, a sense of somebody awake besides those men in the kitchen. He'd snuck into army camps that were less alert. Whatever quarrels he might have with the
Baldoni in the future, tonight he was glad Cami rested in her bed with a couple dozen dishonest, competent, cynical Tuscans between her and harm.

Upstairs, over the kitchen, one window was lit by more than the red light of a banked fire. Somebody'd left a candle burning in the window in the corner room at the far end.

That would be Cami, waiting for him. He hadn't asked her to wait. He hadn't expected to come to her. Yet, here he was.

A wooden shed backed to the house directly below the window. It was no challenge to hook his boot into a rough board and draw himself up to the shed roof, which was embedded with broken glass. Somebody'd spread a wool blanket over some of it. That could be some enterprising young Baldoni sneaking in and out. It could be Cami's fine hand.

He scrambled across without noise, hands and feet spread to support his weight.

She'd thrown the sash up. A slit in the curtain showed a bedroom of tidy whitewashed walls and a dark, shiny wood floor, with a rag rug in front of the hearth. The dressing table would belong to a woman. The framed paintings on the wall, to a young girl.

The candle he'd seen from below was in a glass chimney on the dressing table. Another was at the bedside.

He pushed aside the curtain with the back of two fingers. Cami lay on her back in bed, eyes closed, her hands clasped behind her head on the pillow. She'd pulled the sheets and coverlet as high as her heart. Her breasts were covered in a chaste white night shift, made of linen so thin her nipples showed through. Her hair lay in curls on the white of the pillow like the first ink on clean canvas.

She showed she wasn't asleep, and provided a reason it would be unwise to be a burglar entering this house, by opening her eyes. A knife had found its way to her hand that hadn't been there an instant ago.

If he'd been less certain of his own skill, he might have thought he'd made some sound climbing up. He hadn't. Cami just knew.

He pushed the curtain back all the way. “I was passing and I saw your light.”

“I hoped you would. I'm glad it's you.”

“I'm glad it's me, too. I'd be stepping over a corpse, otherwise.”

“Another man would have set the dogs barking.”

“Sausages.” He put his hands on the windowsill, swung across, and put his boots to the floor. “While we were eating, I slipped them sausages under the table.”

“Everyone slips them sausages under the table. Baldoni children in medieval Florence slipped sausages to the ancestors of those dogs.”

“They trust me because I smell like you, from kissing you over the last couple days.”

“They're canny dogs.” She sat up as he crossed the room to her and dropped her knife carelessly on the bedside table.

I'm wearing more clothes than she is. I have to get out of them.
He sat on the bed beside her and leaned to take her head between his hands. He kissed her, not reverently. Not like the prince waking Sleeping Beauty. He kissed her like a man taking his first drink of water when he's dying of thirst.

She pulled herself upward and put her legs underneath her till she was kneeling on the bed, pressed against him, solid and urgent. Her lips tasted like mint pulled right out of the earth, still warm from the sun.

He said, “I have to get my coat off. I want to touch your skin with my skin.”

Her tongue came inside his mouth and he stopped worrying about what he was wearing or not wearing. The world closed in till it held one sensation, one thought, full of the knowledge of her mouth.

His cock, huge and sensitive, rose, moved of its own accord, demanded. He gave a little of his mind to controlling that. The rest, he gave to her.

She withdrew from his mouth. Her arms still around him, she laid her head to his chest and breathed onto his neck.

His. She was his. For this one moment, she was his.

He closed his eyes. This was what he wanted, no light, no color, no shapes and angles. Only the dark velvet of her breath against his throat. The silk of her hair under his chin.

Where did he put his hands on her? What did he touch?

I can get this right. I speak six languages like a native. I know how to fight. How to kill. How to march ten men across a mountain range in winter. Twenty-four years old and I don't know where I can put my hands.

I'm supposed to know what to do next.

None of the books he'd read said anything useful.

He opened his eyes, looked down at her head, resting on his chest, and kissed into the tender, soft cluster of curls.

Touch her. That's what she's saying. She's saying I can touch her anywhere.
He put his hands on her shift, under her breasts, holding that soft curve. Her rib cage was full of breath and the fast pound, pound, pound of her heart. He held life, warmth, breathing, vibration, all the miraculous complex whole of her.

I will never hold a woman's flesh again and not remember this.

He lifted her and she lifted herself, pushing down upon his shoulders till her little, perfect breasts were at his mouth, ready to be kissed. His cock held a hunger so huge it was pain. “I want to make love to you.” His whisper came out low and grating.

She laughed, deep in her chest. He felt the sound of it in his bones. She pushed a little away so they could see each other better. “I want you back.”

“I'd better set about seducing you.”

“Oh, yes.”

She was playing with his hair, drawing it through her fingers. An ache spread from his groin and filled his whole body. He was going to die of this. Practical matters. Deal with practical matters. “I need to take my clothes off but I don't want to let go of you.”

“A problem.” Her face was bright with laughter. Lit from inside with it. Dancing with it. “I'll help.”

She wriggled to a more comfortable position. Torment. He was rigid for her, hard and heavy with wanting her. He was going to . . .

No. He had himself under control. Deep breath. Another deep breath. “Don't move. Give me a minute.”

“I will give you an entire night.” Her hands went to his
cravat. She worked on that, her eyes downcast, absorbed in drawing the knot apart. “We're in no hurry.”

His cock was in a hurry.

She wasn't naked, but she might as well have been. The shift showed her breasts as if she were naked. He didn't need years of experience to tell him she was lovely.

I can live through this.
He'd be inside her in a minute. Two minutes. Ten minutes. A century. “You have very beautiful breasts. I've seen many breasts and those are a fine example.” He was babbling.

So he held her shoulders, thin shoulders all bone and soft skin, and a body filled with fire. Fire like the first fire taken from the hand of Prometheus, clean, vital, unending. That was what he felt under her skin, inside her, where his hands rested on her shoulders.

She unwound the cravat from his neck and pulled it away, long and long, and tossed it over her shoulder. She didn't look to see where it landed. She said, “You're worried. You don't have to be worried. I'm not a virgin.”

“That's good.” His voice was hoarse. Thank God there weren't two virgins in this bed.

“There were two men, back home in Brodemere. One, when I was seventeen. The other—”

“Doesn't matter.” Another thought came, breaking through the madness that filled his brain. “Unless I have to kill somebody.” His hands tightened. “I can do it next week. Just tell me who.”

“You don't have to kill anybody. They were fine men. I liked lying with them. It was . . . pleasant.”

“Pleasant. Good. I'm glad. Let me get some of this clothing off me.”

Pleasant wasn't good. He'd have to do better than pleasant. His hands didn't quite shake when he unbuttoned his vest, but they weren't steady either. He pulled his arms from jacket and vest together and tossed them on the floor beside the bed. He managed to do that without dislodging Cami.

She said, “I think I would have liked lovemaking more if my lovers had not had to hurry so much. They always worried we might be caught.”

Sounds like a couple of selfish bastards.
“I'll try to go slow.” His shirt now. He'd get out of his shirt. He undid the buttons at the collar. “We might be caught. You have a house full of cousins. Uncles. Aunts.”

“I locked the door and wedged paper in so it won't open. If anyone comes you can flee through the window as if this were a bad play.”

She was teasing him. Laughing. Everything that was Cami, all her spirit, all her courage, all her wild embrace of life, was under his hands.

He fell into her grin. He wanted that on canvas. He wanted everything of her. Everything of Cami. Wanted to draw it, taste it, see it again and again. He was caught by the planes of her face. He ran his fingertips there and there as if he were light falling on her.

She said, “Love me.”

He held her hips and pressed her down onto the raging hunger of his cock and kissed her. On the soft, pulsing temples, on her cheeks, under the curve of her throat.

She was the one to shudder now. The one to breathe faster.

Not her mouth. Not yet.
That would have undone him.

He licked the curve of her ear. Took her earlobe and bit down on it and let himself drown in madness.

Seize the moment.

A BALDONI SAYING

They sat in rush-bottomed chairs in the kitchen in front of the long hearth—two old people, brother and sister. They were rich, back in Tuscany, in land, farms, and vineyards. Rich in power, which was more important.

If they chose to sit in the kitchen with their feet at the fire, if they dabbled in fraud and bamboozlement, if they raised a pack of noisy, larcenous grandchildren in London or, barefoot, in the big villa in Tuscany, it was because a wise man does not forget his roots.

“The boys”—Giomar, Tonio, and Alessandro—had eaten hugely, downed a pitcher of red wine between them, and gone off to bed.

Bernardo drank hot watered brandy. Fortunata, a tisane of mint and cloves from a flowered teacup. “He's upstairs now,” she said.

“Admirably silent.” They'd heard no sound when he entered the window on the floor above. Bernardo cradled the terra-cotta cup between his palms. “An Italian would serve as well, a family from Piedmont or Sardinia. One of the Rossi in Milan. We could find someone who would not meddle in politics.”

“A milksop.”

“He would be more welcome.”

“Not to Sara.” Fortunata was very sure. Two brown dogs sat at her feet, alert but silent, knowing there was a stranger upstairs, sensing he was to be tolerated, intrigued by this.

“To give her to someone so far from home, on this cold island, among the English . . .” Bernardo said what he thought of the English with the sweep of one hand.

“It is familiar to her. Confess, Bernardo, you agree with me. In all ways, she's better off with an Englishman who will command some respect and keep her safe, but who will play no politics in Italy.”

“Or play only to British interests.”

“Which are our interests,” Fortunata said comfortably, “in the long run. They have no imperial ambitions in Italy. Next year or in ten years or thirty, this man or his sons will help us oust the French and the Austrians from Italy. He has made his start with his band of killers and idealists in the mountains. We will shine in the luster of his exploits when it becomes known the daughter of the house of Baldoni married Il Gatto Grigio.”

They sat, listening to the still of midnight and the small sounds of an old house on a cool night. They were not so old they could not remember what a man and woman would do in bed.

“Is he worthy of Cesare's grandchild?” Bernardo looked into the cup he held. “We know nothing of his family, or even if he has one. I will investigate.”

“Do so. Though it would be a pleasure to acquire a spouse for the family who does not come with a horde of rapacious relatives.”

Bernardo set his cup on his knee and looked into the fire. “He is a warrior. A subtle, cunning man. Even-tempered. Ruthless when necessary.”

“Almost a Baldoni.”

Bernardo smiled. “Almost a Baldoni.”