Page 3 of The Spy and the Nightingale
I will not show fear.“What do you mean to do with me?” She levered herself slowly upright. She was still lightheaded but not so much as before, and it seemed better to face him sitting.
“I intend to learn what occupies you in Paris. I suppose that will determine what is to be done with you.” His face was mostly in shadow. What she could see of his expression in the dim light supplied by the oil lamp hung outside the fiacre did nothing to alleviate her fear.
She knew nothing of this man save what little she had overheard in Dover: Compton interested him, and at least one of his identities was a lie.
Lieutenant Blackmore—he’d given another name boarding the packet—had stripped her of bonnet and coat. The air was chill, even in the fiacre’s enclosed cab. She shivered.
“My purpose concerns no one but myself. If you will set me down on the street, I will trouble you no further.” She did notexpect him to do so, of course. “I am no one of interest to you,” she added softly.
“On the contrary.” His voice still lacked inflection. “The frequent overlap of our pathstroublesme. And you’ve called me Lieutenant Blackmore.”
It was unwise of me to say it aloud.She barely recalled doing so. What response to make? He was a dangerous, possibly lethal, man. She recognized that much, however little else she understood.
“It hardly inspires me to trust you with my own motives, knowing you’ve had reason yourself to be in each of those locations.” He had her greatcoat and thus the dirk in its pocket. She inched a hand in the direction of her boot. It would be something, at least.
His eyes missed nothing despite the dark. “I’ve confiscated the boot knife.” Matter-of-fact. Still flat.
“You searched me before I woke.” The futility of her situation overtook her. She couldn’t manufacture any outrage, nor had she energy to care. She could not, in fact, identify within herself emotion of any sort. Even fear was ebbing, replaced by... nothing.
“The fact of you reaching for a knife rather confirms my foresight.” Dry now, his voice. “Who are you?”
Rather than answer, she returned the question with one of her own. “I ask you again, Lieutenant: What do you mean to do with me?” She let her head fall back against the cushions and closed her eyes. She was so very tired. She should care more than she did, how he might answer that question.
Truly, why had she believed she could navigate the ever-widening circles of corruption and vice surrounding Compton on her own? With lack of experience in such matters, with meager resources and no practical help? Without detection—or worse? This conversation certainly suggested the possibility ofworse.
Even had I run Compton to ground, what would I have done then? She had not allowed herself to think much beyond finding Lucy’s trail. It hardly mattered now.
“I am taking you somewhere more private and rather less damp than rue Montmartre. We will talk there. And you will drop theLieutenant, if you please. Plain Blackmore will suffice for the moment.”
He could play at beingplain Blackmore,but it was abundantly obvious there was nothing simple about him. She pressed fingers to eyelids, willing dizziness to subside. Truly, how had she ever believed she might succeed?
“You’ve nothing to say?” His voice suggested amusement, but she did not believe him amused.
“What would you have me say, Monsieur?” She felt entirely detached. “You outmatch me physically. You have confiscated my knives. If I reach for the door, I do not doubt you will immobilize me immediately. What recourse is left me at present?”
“None. Are you not afraid?”
She sighed and opened her eyes to find him studying her. “Of course I am. But I do not think I was your intended target regardless of our paths intersecting once more. Thus far, despite apprehending and overpowering me, you have neither wounded nor molested me. I am not even restrained. Have you any plans to take any of those actions?”
“Not at present.” Curt now. Odd that such a question would perturb him, but it had, just a little. Possibly telling the truth, not that she’d be wise to take it as such.
“So long as you remain cooperative,” he added.
For several minutes they rode in silence, unbroken save by street noises beyond the fiacre’s confines.
“With whom are you working?”he asked after a time.
“No one.”
“There is no one awaiting your return from quartier des Marchés? No one anxious for your safety?”
“They are all dead.” They were, those who had once cared for her security. Dead... or lost, likely forever.
Blackmore’s voice sharpened. “Who is dead?”
She made no response.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
