Joanna Bourne: The Black Hawk

“I would like that.”

His arm came around her waist. He did not merely hold her. He lifted her to sit sideways upon him, leaning against his chest. It would have been entirely innocent, except that he began immediately to stroke her breast, taking pleasure in it, making a deep sound in his throat. “This silk thing doesn’t just look like a flower. It feels like one. Like stroking a petal, with you inside it.”

It was a comfort beyond description to be held with such care and knowledge. To be caressed by a man who delighted in the textures of her body. To relax into the strength and the old familiarity. Shoulder, ribs, along her thigh, he drew her in to him again and again, closer.

The coach ground and rumbled forward at a walking pace, swaying, and the street was filled with the sound of carts and wagons. She lay her cheek on his jacket and closed her eyes and enjoyed this moment. In all of her life, there had been so few times she could rest from wariness.

“You are not a restful person, Adrian Hawkhurst. I have never understood why I feel at peace with you, sometimes, at moments like these.”

“One of life’s mysteries.” He ran his fingers over her nipple and lanced a shock through her body, downward, deep inside, like a star falling from the sky. Her nipples crinkled up, feeling his hand through silk, through the linen shift she wore beneath the silk.

“That’s nice,” he said, speaking of the shudder she made. He was a man entirely too perceptive.

He kissed her forehead. Little shivers began at the edges of her, everywhere. Her skin, wanting. Her nerves, anticipating.

She said, “This is good. I like you touching me.”

“I could do it for the next decade or two. Have you given any thought to marrying me? It’s probably slipped your mind, what with so much going on, but I did ask.”

“It has not, as you put it, slipped my mind. I have decided to leave things as they are.”

“Good reasons for that, I suppose.” He did not seem dismayed. He kissed across her forehead and down her face to her ear. She heard his breath there. Warmth. Whispers. Chouette. Mignonne. His breath and murmured love words filled her. Mon adorée. Ti amo.

The coach that moved through the streets of London was their universe, a little world where they were alone. There was no reason to refrain from this indulgence. No need to hold back. No cautions to lay upon the surface of her mind. She could give herself wholly to the moment and to him. He held her in his lap, and she felt every impact of the horse’s hooves, every irregularity that jolted the wheels, through him. Through his body.

She put her hand upon his shoulder and turned to him to take his mouth. She kissed him deeply and inventively.

She said, “We are idiots to tease ourselves this way. We should stop.”

“You’re right about that, luv.” He slid his hand between her legs to begin sparks and persuasion there. The road vibrated beneath them steadily, and her desire for him was almost unbearable.

When she moved in his lap, he closed his eyes and groaned.

“We will be at Meeks Street soon,” she said.

His hand upon her, stroking, went still. When he took his touch away, the pulses of pleasure inside her did not stop. They breathed into each other’s faces, deep, almost in unison. Ten breaths. Twenty.

He said, “You feel this, don’t you?”

“Desire? It is fire and madness in me. I want you very much.”

He shook his head impatiently. “I don’t mean that.”

Abruptly, he brought his hands up into her hair. His long, clever, lock-picking fingers held her face as if she were infinitely precious. He kissed, once, just upon the threshold of her mouth. “We got a rare amount of wanting between us. That’s fine. That’s good. I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in this world.”

She would have looked away if she had not been held so closely. When a man so hard and secret opens his heart, there is no way to reply except with honesty. “I have never wanted anyone else.”

“But it’s never been just wanting, has it? Not even the first time.” He shook his head impatiently. “It’s the rest of it. You and me, we belong together. We always have.” The carriage jolted over the road, turning a corner. His hold didn’t waver. “Marry me.”

Years lie between us. Years when I made dark and difficult choices. “I am not the woman I was at twenty.”

“I’m not that man. But there’s never been anybody else for either of us. It’s not going to change if we wait a dozen more years.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I know you like skin knows an itch. All that time in Italy and Austria, everywhere, working against each other, we could always figure out what the other one was going to do. We might as well have been sitting like this the whole time, we were so close.” The nape of her neck, the bare skin of her shoulders, her back beneath the silk . . . he ran his hand over her. “There is not an inch of you, inside or outside, that I don’t know.”

“There is no reason—”

Fingers crossed her lips, stealing the words. His breath was warm on her face. He whispered, “Dammit. I love you.”

“I am not an easy woman,” she said.

“I’m a bloody difficult man.”

She had no words for what she needed to say. She had thought they were not in her. Then, somehow, they were.

She said, “It has always been you.”

His fingers sank into her shoulders. “Marry me.”

She said, “Yes.”

It was not enough for him. Dark and intent, he demanded, “Why? Why are we getting married, Owl?”

She said what he needed to hear. She said, “I love you.”

HAWKER DIDN’T LOOK UP WHEN FELICITY CAME IN.

He stood in the middle of the study at Meeks Street, holding the knife, waiting for the play to start. This was the knife that had been sent after Owl. The poison was still on it, filmed across the working edge of the blade. Owl’s blood was dried on it too.

Felicity said, “He didn’t come alone. He brought that lick-spittle dog with him. Reams.” She scowled at the teacups sitting on every bare surface in the study. “I suppose you expect me to clean up in here.”

“That would be nice.”

“It’s not like people couldn’t walk over here and put away their own dishes.” She clattered cups together and thumped through to the dining room to tumble them into the dumbwaiter. “Not as if they have something more important to do, like standing around in the middle of the room staring at the wallpaper.”

He said, “Did you know, there are waiters across London who could remove every cup in the room so silent and swift you’d never see them.”

“How very adroit of them.”

“I didn’t think that would work. You are the most annoying chit. Where did you leave Cummings and his dog? In my office?”

“Front parlor.”

“A wise and moderate choice.” The big desk was clear except for a two-inch pile of papers and a black leather book. He set the knife beside the book, blade facing him, the engraved initials upward. “I need Justine. Find her.”

“I suppose I can.”

“She is not in the Outer Hebrides. Try the library. Get Doyle and Pax too. And Fletcher. He’s downstairs in the workroom. And find Sévie. Tell them it’s time.”

Felicity shrugged, deposited a few more cups into the dumbwaiter, and left, slamming the door behind her.

The desk in the study carried expensive and formidable locks. He’d picked them a dozen times, back in the old days. Now he was the man with the key. Times change.

He took an envelope out of the top drawer and tapped the broken knife tip out onto his palm. A tiny triangle of shiny silver metal, A lesson not to use fine knives for prying into wood boxes. He put the tip on the envelope, centered on the desk. Almost ready.