Page 2 of The Spy and the Nightingale
“Or perhaps you will learn to play decently before we attempt a rematch,” Nate returned. Quietly he added, “I will send a note tomorrow when I may.”
“I will do the same,mon ami.” Baudelaire began to replace the pieces on the board, his attention back on Les Moineaux, as Nate tossed down a few coins for his share of the wine.
In the gathering darkness, the woman walked slowly in the direction of the Église Saint-Eustache, keeping to the street’s shadowed margins. She gave no indication she was aware of his pursuit. When she reached the square, she sat on the steps despite the damp, gazing upwards at the church. After several minutes, she rose and continued onto rue Montmartre, slowly. Wearily.
The rain began to fall again, light at first, and then more steadily. When she paused in the shadows of another building, he made a quick perusal of the street: No one else was nearby at present. Decision made to apprehend her, he paced silently towards her.
When he was only a step behind, he reached out and spun her against the building, bringing a hand quickly to her mouth as he leaned his weight across her chest. Her arms were trapped at her sides, her valise between them. Her eyes went wide, and she tried ineffectually beneath her satchel’s bulk and his body’s weight to catch him between the legs with a raised knee. He anticipated it,leaning more weight on her, and the fight abruptly left her. “I have questions only, Madame,” he hissed in French. “I do not have designs on your person.”
She was trembling. If she was an operative, she was either poorly trained or very new.
“If you do not struggle or call attention to us, I will not need to hurt you. Do you understand me?” She nodded slowly, and he removed the hand from her mouth. “Drop your valise.” Once she complied, his hands went immediately to her wrists, pinning them at her sides against the brick behind her, but he eased slightly backwards so that his weight no longer crushed her.
“Why came you to be in quartier des Marchés this evening?” he asked her.
Her eyes travelled over his face. An expression passed over her features, surprise and something else fleeting and indecipherable. “Vous êtes Lieutenant Blackmore,” she said just before her body sagged forward.
With an oath, he caught her by the shoulders. A genuine faint: Her body was limp in every muscle, her eyes shut. The bloodless cast to her face was apparent even in the dim light; she couldn’t have manufactured that on command.
He eased her to the ground. Her breathing was shallow but regular. When she did not immediately revive, he searched quickly for any items of interest on her person. The valise could wait for better light and a less public situation.
Concealed in the greatcoat’s inner left pocket was a dirk; in one boot, a small stiletto knife.Unfriendly blades, those, for an innocent person.He had a similar knife in his own boot. Touching down her limbs revealed no further weaponry. The coat’s right inner pocket contained a small purse with a few silver and bronze coins.
He would search the greatcoat’s seams once he moved her, butbarring anything surprising there, she had nothing of interest on her person, nothing conspicuous to reveal either identity or intent.
Nothing save a pair of knives a woman was unlikely to carry unless she was fully prepared to use them.
“You know who I am,” he muttered, looking at her face, “but who the devil are you?”
Cushioning beneath her... but the world moved around her. Or perhaps it was the world around her moving...
Scratchy cloth against her cheek, containing myriad odors: cologne, pipe tobacco, things less pleasant.
The muffled clop of hooves.
Am I in a vehicle?
There was also a quiet tapping close by her ear, nearly rhythmic. Isobel opened her eyes. A tall, masculine boot across a black-clad knee was very near her face. Long fingers moved restlessly against the boot.
Memory flooded her.
It is all over,she’d thought when she recognized the grim-looking, dark-haired man pinning her to the wall. Alarm colluding with stress and deprivation produced an ocean within her ears; her vision dimmed and narrowed before she fell headlong into nothingness.
But she was no longer in that nothingness. She was in a vehicle with a man she neither knew nor trusted. She flattened her palms against the seat and attempted to push herself upright. A wave of dizziness assailed her at once. Briefly she closed her eyes again.
“Do not try to sit up too soon. You’ve been unconscious forsome time.” Lieutenant Blackmore’s French accent was that of a scholar. He had spoken English in Dover at the Gull’s Wing.
She likewise replied in French, “You have moved me.” Her mind was clouded. “Why?”
“The alternative was waiting for you to regain consciousness on the street as night fell, in the cold and rain. We were near a fiacre stand.” Reasonable words delivered in a voice without inflection.
She would not show fear despite the frisson it raised.
He was not overly tall, but he had apparently carried her with ease to this vehicle. And yes, there too was her valise. Testament to the strength in his lean frame that he managed it all so handily.
“Do you not care more about our destination than why I moved you?” He clearly meant his words to alarm her.
She mightalmosthave laughed were this a situation that invited any levity... and had she been less frightened.
