Joanna Bourne - Rogue Spy

The Merchant’s eyes found Cami. “You will be my martyr for the cause. My loyal revolutionary, shot by the British Service as she tried to assassinate the Prime Minister.” He jerked his hand from hiding. Something glittered in the sunlight. A thick silver pencil case, smeared with blood.

No!

A gun. A trick. A toy for idle gentlemen. A tiny pistol, good for one shot only. Pointed at Cami.

She snapped her pistol up.

She has no time. His own finger was on the trigger. Without drawing, he shot through the pocket of his greatcoat.

His bullet hit the Merchant square in the middle of his forehead. The man fell backward, already dead. He looked . . . surprised. As if death had refused to follow the plans he had for it.

He had to push Cami’s gun aside so he could pull her to him, breathe in the smell of her, kiss her face, eyes, ears, nose. Her hair. Her mouth. It wasn’t enough. Cami was alive. He’d never be able to hold her close enough.

* * *

On the edge of the small, excited group that had gathered to comment upon the first shooting and was now expounding upon the second, two old women craned their necks to observe events.

Violet said, “He appears to be dead.”

“There is a hole in his forehead. Ipso facto,” Lily said.

“I cannot help but feel this is the simplest solution to several difficult problems. Mors omnia solvit.”

“As you say, death solves everything.” Lily had been holding a small gun hidden in the folds of her skirt. She returned it to her reticule. “The business of shooting one’s father is fraught with social and moral implications. One cannot like it.”

They were both silent while they considered the complications of a man shooting his father.

“Paxton’s actions are . . . unfortunate,” Lily said. “On the other hand, one would not have wished that task to fall upon dear Cami.”

“A sensitive girl. More so than one would think,” Violet said. “Young Paxton, as well.”

“A young man of some complication. Not really suited to be a patricide.”

“We must see this hushed up a bit,” Violet said.

“It can’t be silenced.” Lily waved a thin, blue-veined hand across the collection of British Service agents and Baldoni. “Everyone saw. Gossip and rumor will scatter to the four winds. No stopping it.”

“We will shape the official story.”

More thought. Lily said, “We could say that I did it. By accident, of course.”

“You tripped.”

“While I was examining the gun.”

“The man was shot twice,” Violet pointed out.

“Not the sort of thing one would do inadvertently. A pity we can’t just drop the body in the Thames.”

“Heir to an earl. So necessary to prove the succession has passed.”

Lily said austerely, “It is more than necessary to demonstrate the Merchant is actually dead this time.”

“Perhaps . . . a robbery. In St. Giles.”

“Or Hampstead Heath.”

Violet said, “I’m tempted to have him dropped in an alley in Soho. It adds a French flavor to the death.”

“Soho. Yes. Excellent.”

Another minute passed. “They should remove the body,” Violet said. “It’s unsightly.”

“They’re waiting for those two to finish.” But Lily’s voice was indulgent.

“So romantic.” Violet applied her elbow ruthlessly to the kidney of the man in front of her, gaining a better view. “I do admire an enthusiastic man.”

“Eventually, they’ll have to come up for air,” Lily said.

“There is nothing, absolutely nothing, more attractive than a man who’s just killed on your behalf.”

“They should clear away the body, though. And find privacy for that.”

Violet sighed. “Amantes sunt amentes, as Terence says.”

“Lovers are lunatics.” Lily sniffed austerely. “I’m not surprised Paxton overlooks the matter. Men are not naturally tidy. But Cami has always been neat in her habits. It’s not like her to leave a body lying about.”

“They are distracted,” Violet said. “And who shall blame them?”

Over the rumble and jabber of the crowd, in the background, where the landau was still being drowned in buckets of water, the sound of sobbing continued.

Violet said, “We should see to her, I suppose.”

“She very likely is our niece.”

“She does sound exactly like Hyacinth in one of her crises de nerfs. Hyacinth did have a delicate spirit.”

“This one, too, apparently,” Lily said.

They turned to walk toward the sobbing. “I think,” Violet said judiciously, “we should find her a French husband.”

“Soon,” Lily agreed.

They glanced back, one last time, to Cami and Pax, madly kissing, surrounded by a circle of interested spies and criminals.

Lily said, “That’s taken care of.”

Violet nodded. “I do like a happy ending.”

She knew he’d come to her window. Not a sound in the night, but she knew he was there.

It crossed her mind that he had come to many windows this secretly. The deaths that haunted him had begun this way. It would be healing to him to use his skills on such benign purposes.

She got out of bed in her shift, slipped on shoes, and padded along the blue carpet to the window, which was open, even though it left the room chilly. She carried a knife with her, being prudent, but laid it aside on the table when she looked out and saw him below.

His hair was perfectly white under the moon, disheveled and unraveling from its tie. He was outside the window, sitting on his haunches, keeping an eye on the empty backyard and maybe studying London.

She said, “Have you come visiting, or did you climb up to enjoy the view?”

“I promised Bernardo I wouldn’t go to your room tonight.”

“Did you, now?”

He would not come into her room, only this close. Close enough, maybe, to hear her turn in her bed or sigh in her sleep. He wouldn’t lightly break his word, once given.

“I’m not sure why. It had something to do with your great-aunt Fortunata fixing me with an unwavering stare.”

“You are wise to be terrified of her.”

“That’s what I thought.” Pax tilted his head back to look up at her. He looked natural and at home, standing on a bit of roofing in the night. He was, maybe, being the Gray Cat right now.

She leaned out the window and reached her hand out to him. He reached up to take it. They could just clasp hands.

He said, “You’re beautiful.”

“You can’t see me.”

“I don’t have to see you to know you’re beautiful. Moonlight become woman. Light and darkness. Chiaroscuro, painted on the night.”

She wasn’t certain what “chiaroscuro” meant. With luck, a month from now she would be living with him in a studio in Florence, pretending to be his model and his lover, spying upon the French and the Austrians. She’d best acquire the language of artists.

But not tonight.

The kitchen rumbled with voices and rattled with the clanking of pots. The women of the house—the men, too—were cooking for tomorrow. Every spy and swindler in London and a surprising number of quite respectable folks would be in this house to witness her wedding.

Everyone acted as if a solemn and significant merger of great houses was going forward. Perhaps it was. Uncle Bernardo had explained matters to her at length, involving at least a dozen families and much of the north of Italy.

Aunt Lily had been more succinct. “You have an obscene amount of money. I’ll put my man of business on it. He’s used to dealing with obscene amounts of money.”

She’d signed a marriage contract two inches thick, in English and Tuscan. Frankly, she’d rather not think about it.

As he sometimes did, Pax followed thoughts she hadn’t spoken. He said, “When I asked you to marry me, I didn’t know you were rich.”

“I didn’t know you would be an earl, so we’re even.”

“I’m not going to be an earl.” Flat words, holding a heavy cargo of annoyance.

“A dozen men heard the Merchant say you were legitimate. Eventually it’ll get back to your grandfather.”

She felt a little nerve in his hand twitch. “Who will ignore it, the way I do. Just lies. The Merchant spitting a last drop of venom. There’s no proof, in Amsterdam or anywhere else.”

But most likely there was. That would be the Merchant’s long, subtle vengeance—to give his family a French spy as the next heir. The proof, when it turned up, would be watertight. Pax would find it difficult to escape the Royal College of Heralds.

“In any case,” she said, being tactful, “we won’t be around to argue the succession to minor English earldoms. We’ll be in Florence, living in a garret, spying on all and sundry.”

“A garret with good light and a big bed.”

If they were going to talk about beds, she was too far away from him. She couldn’t see his face in this romantical dimness. She hooked her hands onto the windowsill and spilled forward into the dark, making her careful way down the slope of the roof. Soon, he would be holding her.

He stood before her. His big, warm hands cradled her at her hips as she slid close. He stretched out, long and easy under her hands, taking his coat off. He held it so she could get her arms in. The sleeves ran long and she had to fold them back twice.

“This marriage won’t be legal.” He found her hands and took them in both of his and settled the two pairs in the space between them. “We’ll get married again somewhere in France. A dull civil ceremony.”

“And once more when we get to Italy. I think my grandfather will insist on it, and another huge celebration. We’ll be very thoroughly married before we’re through.”

“I don’t know why they’re letting me have you. Your family.” His thumb indicated the voices in the kitchen. She felt it where their hands were locked tight. “Maybe it’s about making you Danish. The French will leave Danish property alone.”

“So will the Austrians, when they next invade. Denmark is a small but useful neutral country. But this has nothing to do with Denmark. My cousins approve of you.”

The angular planes of his face were sharp and dark. Slowly, he freed his hands from her hold and took them to lie heavy on her shoulders. “They think I shot my own father to save your life.”

“You did. They are shocked, but approving. This is the meat of tragedy and romance to the Baldoni. Fifty years from now, grandmothers and aged aunts will tell stories about you and pity you and praise you for a grand heroic gesture. If there were an initiation to be a Baldoni, you passed it this morning.”

“You know it wasn’t like that.”

“Nonetheless, they believe it. You are one of us now. They like the scent of vengeance about this, too. It consolidates your reputation among the young men. We’re a ruthless lot, we Baldoni.”

“Not vengeance.” Pax’s eyes, which saw the world with such pitiless clarity, were turned inward. “All the evil that old man had done, all his schemes and plots . . . but all I thought about when I pulled the trigger was keeping you alive. There’s no meat for the Harpies to sink their claws into. No unclean horror. No sacrilege. Now all I feel is relief that you’re here, alive, under the sky with me.”

She had to smile. “I’m relieved, too.”

“It felt inevitable,” he said. “When I took off after him on Semple Street, I think I already knew I’d kill him.”

“Somebody had to. I’d have disposed of the matter myself if I’d been faster. The Fluffy Aunts were sneaking around the outer fringes of that mob with the same intention.”

He shook his head. “I’m his son. He was my problem to clean up.”

She could imagine how hard it was for him to say, “I’m his son.”

She reached up to the long-fingered, rough-skinned hands that grasped her shoulders and pressed them tighter to her. “He wanted death, you know.”

Pax looked past her, out into the night. “I know.”

“You saw it, too. He wanted death at your hands,” she said. “So he left you no choice but to kill him. There was nothing ahead for him but humiliation, trial, and execution, so he bought a quick martyrdom. And he made you suffer.”

“He tried,” Pax said.

“If you feel the Furies breathing on your neck, he’s won. If you think these”—she squeezed his hands, tight, to make perfectly clear what she meant—“are stained with blood—”