Rogue Spy (28 page)

We are young only once, because God is merciful.

A BALDONI SAYING

A candle next to the door showed six beds lined up against the long wall under the slanted ceiling. Five beds held young men and boys, asleep. Pillows and blankets gave a glimpse of Baldoni faces, hard to tell apart in the weak light. Most of them looked old enough to shave. Barely. He'd probably been introduced to them.

These and some others would be the gang of laborers who would soon be taking furniture from a house one street south of Semple. They'd be the men who would hide in a load of hay being delivered to an inn on the southern corner of Semple and Medwall.

A dog, sleeping between the first two beds, woke and looked at him, accepted him, and resettled its head between front paws and closed its eyes. It was a well-trained Baldoni dog and didn't bark when familiar smells came and went in the night.

That was the dog saying, “You belong here. You're one of us.” It was strangely heartening to be approved by a dog.

He wove between chairs piled high with coats, stepping over shirts bundled and thrown on the floor. Found footing
among books, empty wine bottles, and cricket bats. Passed a table playing host to three rather fine throwing knives. The empty bed was at the end of the room. He lay down fully clothed, booted, and armed. The snores, the rasp of bodies against blankets, the smell of men together in a close space were all familiar. It felt like being back in the hills in Piedmont, with his men under cover and safe for the night.

He let go of wariness. He was deeply asleep in three minutes.

*   *   *

He woke himself an hour later to the same dim light and reassuring small sounds. He rose from the bed in the same silence he'd taken it and walked the length of the room and out the door without disturbing anyone.

In the dim yard behind the Baldoni house, a lantern still burned at the back door. Cami's window was lit only by the fire on the grate, still no welcoming lamp.

He needed a cold, empty room.

He took a while, going up and down the obstacles of wall and shed and alleyway, looking at all the windows, till he picked his entry point. If he had to, he could cut fingerholds and go up an unbroken plaster wall. But this front door was furnished with pilasters and an ugly pediment and the window directly above the peak of the pediment was dark as a well.

It could be a trap, of course. Always that to consider.

He toed one boot into a tight corner, set the other in the next crevice. Fingerhold by fingerhold, toehold by toehold, his cheek flat to cold stone, he climbed. A minute later, he curled his fingers over the lip of the lintel and pulled himself up.

No curtains blocked his view into the room. Light leaking under the door at the far side showed a small bedroom with the clutter of somebody's possessions. The bed was empty. Good.

The locks in a Baldoni household, he wasn't surprised to find, didn't slide away tamely to a knife edge. But where there's a glass window, there's a way through. He braced
himself against the sill and slowly, patiently scraped putty from one of the windowpanes with the point of his knife. If anybody heard, it would sound like a mouse gnawing away at the woodwork.

He'd entered a lot of houses, planning to kill somebody. Nice to break and enter for the purpose of loving a woman.

A little prying and the glass pane fell into his hand. He reached through and pulled back the dead bolt that held the window in place. The sash lifted silently. He climbed into a faint smell of perfume and soap.

A woman's bedroom, then. He laid the pane of glass aside. By touch and the smell of soap, he found the washstand, brought the soap ball back to the window, and ran it over and over the edges of the putty. He fit the pane of glass into the empty square, tapped the edges in, and it held. That would do for now.

The bedroom door wasn't locked. He eased it open.

On the rug in the hall, in a line, three dogs sat and looked up at him.

The Baldoni favored a breed of ugly, brown-and-white dogs with a calm, deliberate temperament and a well-toothed underbite.

He squatted down, murmured,
“Signora,”
and offered the rightmost bitch his fingers to sniff. “
Buonasera, dolce mia.
” He pulled the soft ears. Scratched the high-domed head.

He went down the line, doing the same for Caterina and Lucrezia, giving a few words to each. Curved lower fangs gleamed in the light of the little candle at the end of the hall. He didn't let himself imagine what that trio would do to housebreakers.

When he got up and walked away, not looking back, the three padded off in the opposite direction, patrolling, doing their job.

Cami's door wasn't locked. He stepped into the room far enough to see her in bed, awake, looking at him. The trundle bed beside her held one of the children—Lucia—asleep.

He slipped back into the hall and waited.

Her door opened and closed noiselessly. She threw herself into his arms as if every inch of her would cling to every inch
of him. Cami's body—warm, breathing, holding everything important, alive with promise. He closed his eyes and took her to him.

She didn't say anything, just held him as if he might be torn away in a storm. He lifted her face, still by touch, still with his eyes closed so he could feel every density and softness of her skin, and found her mouth with his and kissed into her.

Knowledge of what was coming tomorrow swept around him like turbulent water. The islet of safety they stood upon eroded by the minute. They had so little time.

He kissed her over and over again, every feature of her face. The darkness around them made this a moment of touch only. Of shapes emerging into the darkness, disappearing into the dark again.

“Not here,” she whispered.

She was wearing only a night shift. She'd be cold in this open hall. They needed a room.

“Downstairs,” she said.

She took his hand and led him down the hall to the stairs. The warmest thing in the night was her hand. The kitchen, when they came to it, was a haven with the good fire on the hearth and the order of well-used, accustomed shapes and shadows. Square of the table, circles of pots hung on the walls, golden bronze in the light of the fire.

Cami wrapped herself around him and he pushed her back against the wall. So much warm skin everywhere. He wanted to kiss it all. Suck it all. He wanted to be inside her.

He devoured her with his mouth. Couldn't think. Couldn't formulate a plan. Couldn't force his brain away from the manic desire to push her shift away and open his trousers and get into her.

A man doesn't take his pleasure. He gives pleasure. Damn, who said that to him? Doyle. Doyle said that once, in the offhand way he said important things. A man gives pleasure to a woman.

Hair the black and silver of volcano glass. Endless depths of color in it and the heat captured there forever. He stroked her forehead, her eyelids, and followed that, kissing. The
memory of contour and color turned to sensation in his mouth. The tiny strands of her eyebrows gritted between his teeth. Her skin smelled like the lavender in the sheets she'd been sleeping on.

She reached up and dragged her fingers into his hair and held him. She said, “You shouldn't have come,” and kissed him. “They know you were here last night. Nobody said anything but after dinner Fortunata and the aunts started talking about”—she kissed him again and shook her head—“stupid things. Money, land, politics. Marriage.”

“Marry me,” he said.

“Yes. Of course. We'll do that.”

“Fine. Work out the details later.”

“Yes,” she said and stopped his mouth with kisses.

He slid his hand between them, over the cloth of her shift to the hard bead of her nipple and the soft breast. He felt her gasp into his mouth. She gasped again as he explored the nipple between his fingers, gently, then harder. She liked that. He'd find everything else she liked.

She took her hands from around his neck, stroked in under his jacket and down his body. She fumbled with the buttons at the fall of his trousers.

Too much. Too much. He threw back his head and groaned. His hands clenched reflexively where they held her, on her shoulder, on her breast. He was going to hurt her. He was going to grab her and push her against the wall so she couldn't escape. He was going to ram into her and use her like the bastard he was. He shook with the need to do that. Every muscle tightened, tightened under the vise.

Cami freed his cock from his trousers. It sprang up between them, hard as hell.

He gritted out, “I don't think I can go slow.”

“We'll go slow next time.”

“Have to please you first. Make you happy.”
Don't let me disgrace myself.
“Have to do things to you.”

She pushed herself to him. Her hands guided him inside her. “We'll do things later.”

He was almost sure that made sense. He gripped her buttocks and drove into her.

She arched back with a strangled cry, her face turned upward, beautiful as a mad flower, eyes blank, mouth open and gasping. Her fingernails dug into his back and it was lines of fire that should have hurt but didn't.

“Do things like this.” She panted that out.

She was silk inside. Warm velvet. He shoved into her, pulled out. Into her and out. Hard. Avid. Her throat was milky white and vulnerable. He caught her earlobe with his teeth, licked and bit his way down her throat. “Supposed to be in a bed. Damn. We need a bed.”

“Find a bed later.”

“Right.” He pulled her to him tightly, lifted her off the floor to take her breast in his mouth. He growled—yes, growled—in his throat and consumed her.

The throbbing center of her clenched around him with every nip, lick, suckle. She answered what he did to her with shocks that ran through her, with sharp gasps, with the thrashing of her whole body, writhing and ecstatic.

Her response stunned him.
I did this to her. I made her feel this.

She dug fingers into his shoulders, steadying herself, and thrust to meet him. They rhymed. They matched. They were one motion. One dance.
This is how it's done.
He took her mouth and breathed in her breath.

She gave a cry like pain and joy and her teeth bit down on his lips. Beyond control, beyond thought, he slammed into her and slammed into her and lost himself in her.

The world was dark and full of pleasure. Somewhere in the madness he remembered to hold her tight so she wouldn't slip down on the floor. The hard, cold floor. He held her and held her and maybe they both fell asleep for a minute, standing up.

*   *   *

Bernardo Baldoni awoke from the light sleep of the old and heard various small noises in the house. He considered and discarded possibilities, decided what those particular sounds must be, turned over, and pulled the covers higher over his shoulder.

He was a romantic at heart, as any good Tuscan and especially any good Baldoni must be.

It would seem Mr. Paxton was amenable neither to practicality nor threat. He would do very well for Sara. Very well indeed.

Cami, he reminded himself. Very well for Cami.

Trust in God, but remember He does not plan for you to live forever.

A BALDONI SAYING

Cami drew out the watch Uncle Bernardo had given her a few hours ago. It was gold, enameled in indigo flowers, very pretty and very old, smooth and cool in her hand. Uncle Bernardo said it had belonged to her grandmother. She clicked it open. “Twenty minutes. Then I walk out and play the tethered lamb.”

Pax said, “The tethered tiger. You're nobody's lamb.” He smiled. “You should check your powder.”

She did, to please him, and because it gave her something to do in these last long minutes. The powder was dry. It was a warm and sunny day for London.

She put her pistol away carefully—the dress she wore had several spots for concealing such weapons.

They stood in the rough track beside the grocer's. She didn't bother to hide because she was expected. Pax kept himself against the wall, in the lee of a drainpipe, where he was inconspicuous. He was so close she could have stretched out a hand and touched him. But there were already many eyes on her so she didn't.

They could see Number Fifty-six from here. When she
crossed the street and went to her appointment, Pax would be watching.

“Everyone in place?” Pax turned his head to say that to a space farther down the alley.

“Ready and accounted for.” A man emerged, unaccompanied by any sound. Hawker. He wore a blue workman's smock and carried a basket under one arm, where a few sheets of window glass were packed in straw. “They're placing bets whether the Merchant will show up at all.”

Pax said, “We'll find out.”

Hawker set the basket down at the mouth of the alley. “The guns are on top.” He shoved straw aside to show a line of pistols, nose down in the straw. “Don't cut yourself on glass.”

She said, “Several guns. Do you think we'll need them?”

“Hard to have too many guns,” Pax said.

“I use knives myself.” Hawker shifted his gaze to her. “A more elegant and reliable weapon. I'll teach you to throw knives when I get a chance.”

That was unexpected. “Thank you.”

“You're going to be with Pax, looks like. He'll need somebody who can watch his back. Today, we'll watch yours. Now I will blend into the passing scene by repairing a window.” He inspected a small, dirty window that led to some cellar room. “This one, I think.”

“It's not broken,” she said.

Hawker's sideways kick was too fast to see. There was little noise and most of the glass fell inward.

Hawker said, “Now it is.”

“I don't suppose you actually know how to fix a window,” Pax said.

“No idea.” Hawker was already taking a sheet of glass and a half dozen miscellaneous tools out of the basket. He squatted to inspect the window. “That is why I am just going to pretend to fix it.”

Her watch fitted into one of the little pockets sewed into the sleeve of the dress. She took it out again, as much to hold it as to open it and read the time.

“How long?” Pax said.

“Fifteen minutes.” Now that the time was so short, she
wished it would hurry by. “This'll be over, one way or the other, in an hour.”

“We'll go back and eat afterward, I imagine. What are they cooking?”

“Cooking?” Her mind seemed perfectly blank. She knew someone had talked about this. “I don't—Fish. We're having fish. Whatever they found at the market. And soup with sausages. I'd forgotten how much I missed soup with sausages.”

“Then we'll eat soup, and revel in it.” Pax held her in his complete attention. He also watched Semple Street with that same complete attention. As did Hawker.

As did she. Semple Street looked almost unreal. Like a stage setting waiting for the actors. “There'll be something with apples for dessert. There was a big bowl of them beside the sink.”

A portly citizen—he was completely a civilian and bystander in this matter—emerged from his house and turned left, walking briskly, leaving the scene and the interesting events to come. He lifted his hat politely to a pair of women who stood at their door, chatting and wearing particularly ugly bonnets.

Carriages passed, but none of them contained the Merchant. Not yet.

Pax said, “I like apples. I remember the time we went over the wall, hunting them.”

At the Coach House.

They must have been mad. Thinking back, that was the only explanation. But the two of them used to slip over the wall and go stealing in town. They stole food. The Cachés were kept hungry.

The apple expedition had been especially satisfying. They'd stolen a few dozen from vendors in the market on the quai de la Tournelle and sneaked a basket back over the wall. Then all of them had gorged on apples—two apiece, an amazing feast—in the back of the practice field behind the targets and bales of hay and old benches. Not a scratch on anyone. No one beaten for it. A wholly successful operation.

A good thought to carry with her today.

Reluctantly, she opened the watch and turned the face to Pax, silently. She felt cold inside and strange.

“It's time,” Pax said.

She'd planned to walk away from him, calmly and bravely, as a soldier parts from a comrade to go to battle. But he took her wrist and pulled her to him and kissed her, strongly and thoroughly.

He said, “I love you. Be careful. We'll move in when you give the signal.”

She'd been cold, so cold, inside. Now she carried that fire away with her, in her belly.

*   *   *

Pax returned to his selected piece of shadow where his choice of clothes made him invisible.

Hawker went on repairing the window, looking knowledgeable, using the tools pretty much at random. “It's not the code,” Hawker said, just loud enough for him to hear. “It's her.”

“I know.” It had been obvious from the start the Merchant was after Cami. “She knows.”

“There's about no documents to decipher from Mandarin yet. It's too new.” Hawk tap-tapped at jagged glass. “And we'd stop using it the day she disappeared from Goosefat-on-Tweed anyway. She could hand the real code over this morning, down to the last orange pip, wrapped up in a red bow and stamped by the post office. Everybody's warned. It's worthless.”

“If he wanted codes, he would have kidnapped one of the Leylands and beaten it out of an old woman. This is too elaborate for that. He's wanted Cami, and only her, from the beginning.”

“Now he's got her.” Hawk went on calmly scraping putty. “He's brought Cami to this street, this morning, at this hour. We can assume that's exactly what he wants. I'm glad somebody's pleased with this morning's work.”

“We've handed her over to him.” But that wasn't quite true. Cami had handed herself over to the Merchant. She walked toward him now, without hurry or any sign of nervousness. The wind was strong enough to pull at the curls of her hair. Grey would have to compensate for that wind when
he shot. She wore no cloak, no bonnet to get in the way if she had to fight or run.

Carts, horses, and the occasional carriage passed. Men and women went about their business on Semple Street. A child rolled a hoop down the street. The background hum of London filled the air. It was a bright day, an hour short of noon.

Hawker said, “There are a number of us keeping her alive. And she's deadly competent all on her own.” He picked up a small trowel. “Good choice, by the way.”

“I think so.”

“Probably kill you on your honeymoon, but you'll die happy.”

“I agree. Hand me that pistol, will you? Is it loaded?”

“Why do you ask questions when you know the answer? Of course it's loaded.”

He didn't care how careful and wise and deadly Cami was. A piece of lead the size of his fingernail could take her from the world forever. One bullet. Break the goblet, and life pours out.