Page 83 of The Spy and the Nightingale
What does that mean?
“—and what Cuvelier told us, there were more than enough grounds to secure Dubois’s arrest within hours as an enemy of theFrench state. It greatly pleased Cezares, the French minister of police, to take charge of Dubois. Dubois hadn’t gone to ground, even knowing we’d intercepted your sister, even knowing we’d brought in Cuvelier. He believed himself untouchable.”
She could well believe that.
“Baudelaire was instrumental in ensuring Cezares was fully apprised of the particulars,” Nathaniel added.
She smiled, briefly diverted by the mention of Étienne Baudelaire. “He is well, M.Baudelaire? Or was when last you saw him?”
Nathaniel nodded.
“I am glad to hear it. But what of Compton?” Was it telling that Nathaniel had not led with Compton when Compton was the focus of his investigation as far as she’d known? That was why he’d been in Paris. Compton was the reason her path and his crossed.
“Dead.” He was silent for a long time after that single soft word. Then he sighed. “He was slipperier than Cuvelier. I tracked him first to Boulogne. Lost him there. Finally ran him to ground in early January, back in London, waiting on one of his West Indiamen to be made ready for passage to the Caribbean. He thought to slip out of the country permanently, no doubt to continue his criminal enterprises overseas. He nearly succeeded.” Nathaniel fell silent.
“What happened?” she asked softly.
“We struggled. He wounded me. My orders were to bring him in alive if possible, but he knew it was over, that there was nothing ahead but hanging for treason. I had a knife to his throat, waiting for Quinn. I...”
And Compton was now dead. She understood, she thought, what he wasn’t saying—that Compton had given him no choice in the matter.
She wanted badly to touch him, to ease the grim line of his mouth, but she kept her seat, curling her fingers into her skirt instead.
“He was full of malice to the end, Compton. He pushed himself onto my blade. Chose to end it with his death rather than face the consequences of his actions. Even so, it was my knife and my hand holding it.”
The distinction mattered to his sense of integrity. She was glad—no,viciouslyhappy—that Compton was dead. Compton had a large part in authoring Lucy’s ordeal, maybe the largest. But she was not happy that it had come at some cost to Nathaniel’s honor.
Or that he’d been wounded—that suddenly registered. “Were you badly injured?”
He took a sip of his whisky and lifted a shoulder in a noncommittal gesture.
She’d known him well enough, once, to suspect the multitude that laconic act might cover. She gentled her voice, although it wanted to shake. “What was the wound?” That shrug said whatever it was, was a near miss.
“A knife, here.” He touched his chest. “The blade struck my sternum. Had it gone just beside or struck lower and slipped between ribs, it would have gone worse for me. As it happened, it had too little force to pierce bone and on through to anything vital.”
Panic seizing her chest said it little mattered that he was breathing at this moment. She remained in her seat with great effort. She wanted to go to him. “Will you show me?”
She thought at first he would not, but then he set down his drink. He’d discarded his jacket earlier; now he undid his waistcoat, a single-breasted garment of heavy linen, and shrugged out of it. “Come closer, then.”
Memory tugged at her. He’d said something similar justbefore he kissed her for the first time, giving her the choice to approach.
With hands suddenly shaky, she set down her glass and rose. He kept his eyes on her. When she was a handbreadth from him, he pushed down his braces and tugged his shirt loose from his trousers. She held her breath as he pushed the fabric up.
The wound was as he’d described it: a freshly healed slash beginning a hand’s width below the hollow of his throat, nearly centered, running in a jagged line downwards for several inches before curving below his left pectoral muscle and across his ribs, disappearing just after it crossed the wider silvered scar from the French bayonet. This new scar was still purple where the blade had bitten most deeply, crimson elsewhere.
“Nathaniel...” She had no words, nothing save his name, shakily. How very close he had come to death.
“I was younger than Compton.” His voice was quiet. “Stronger too. His aim was unskilled or perhaps just poor this particular time. Either way, he failed.”
“You were fortunate, then.” How close he’d come once again to yet another near-deadly wound. Almost as shocking as evidence of the injury itself was the realization that she would not have heard of his death. He might even now have been dead—and she would never have known.
It was insupportable. The immensity overwhelmed her.
She hesitated a bare moment and then laid her hand flat on the scar. Beneath it his heart beat strongly.
His hand came up to cover hers and hold it there.
Air sat heavily between them until he released her hand. She took a step back. “I am glad you survived it.” And oh, affirming that aloud recalled immediately the first night they’d come together in France. She’d used similar words about his battle wounds then.
