He darted a look to the doorway where Masterman—or Perdita—had disappeared. “For God’s sake, lower your voice. Yes, there is gold, and no, I don’t know where it is. The London office doesn’t know everything,” he said grimly. “Perdita thinks I was here solely on the trail of Gabriel Starke. She believes the colonel and his crew were involved in something nefarious and that you got mixed up in it accidentally by overhearing something you oughtn’t at the villa. She thinks that put you in danger and that’s why we were framed for Talbot’s murder and chased around the Levant.”
I put my head in my hands. “You lied to her.”
I peeped through my fingers to see him tip his head to one side. “I do so hate that word. I prefer to think of it as being economical with the truth. Besides, I don’t think you have any cause to throw that particular stone. If you’d told me about Perdita being out here in the first place, I could have gone directly to her when Talbot was murdered and avoided this entire desert chase.” I felt a little abashed, and he went on, his voice marginally warmer. “Look, I told Perdita as much as she needed to know. My first loyalty is to the other Lost Boys,” he told me flatly. “They were my family when I had none. Do not mistake me—I would never betray the Vespiary, but they do not need to know everything.”
“I understand,” I said slowly. And to my surprise, I found I did. I gave him a long look, taking him in from dusty boots to blood-spattered shirt. I shuddered. “I don’t even think I know you at all. All this time, I thought you were some poor wretch who scribbled figures in ledgers and pushed maps around.” His smile was warm.
“I’ve done that, too.”
“But Gabriel told me about you. I should have listened. He said you were a devil. He told me he’d never seen anything like you in a knife fight,” I told him.
He shrugged. “Everyone has a skill.”
“And yours is cutting people into small bits.”
“Poppy, I do what I have to in order to protect myself and whoever is under my protection. In this case, you were my responsibility.”
I shook my head, trying to clear away the cobwebs. “I actually thought I was going to have to save you. You were always so damnably cheerful, so optimistic. I thought you were too dim to understand real danger, but now I understand. You were never in danger, were you? You knew what you were capable of, so you didn’t worry at all.”
“Poppy,” he said softly, “I’ve found that playing the fool disarms people. I’ve avoided more fights than I care to count because someone thought I was a cheerful imbecile and let me go about my business. But that stupid insistence on hoping for the best isn’t just a façade. It’s the only thing that saved my life when in that prison. Every day I woke up and I looked at the sun, and all I could think was at least this was one more day they hadn’t broken me, one more day I could say I had seen. And every night, I had one more day notched on that wall that I had seen through to the end. I believed I was going to survive, and I did. And nothing I will ever again face in my life will be so bad as what I suffered there. Unless you can’t forgive me,” he finished.
I stared at him, and saw his burnished skin had gone pale.
“I began this because I was given an assignment, and when I left to find Gabriel I thought I’d never see you again. But when you showed up in Damascus, all I could think was I’d been given a second chance. I knew Perdita would have my guts for garters for haring off without permission, and I thought if I could give her something useful, it might appease her a bit. I knew how much it meant to her to assess your abilities. And there is no one better at that than I am. It was the best excuse I had to keep close to you, to protect you, with my life if I had to. And I would have, Poppy. You know that—I know you do.”
His face went blurry and tears fell on my hands. “I don’t know what I know,” I said simply. “It’s all too confusing now.”
“It won’t be,” he promised. “You’ve had a day that would have broken most people. You’ve seen a man killed in front of you.”
“And I’ve killed someone.” I buried my face in my hands again. “Oh, God. I killed someone. The comtesse.”
“The comtesse isn’t dead,” he said, taking my hands from my face.
I peered at him suspiciously. “Are you sure?
“Quite. Rashid’s kinsmen found her at the base of the little rise you knocked her off of. She’s injured, but not fatally. They’re taking her back to Damascus now.”
I felt a rush of relief so profound it was like being reborn. “Thank God.” A sudden thought occurred to me. “You had the knife in your boot all along. Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you use it?”
“If I’d told you, you might have betrayed knowing it somehow. So much as a single glance at my boot would have given us away. And I used it when I needed it. Not before. I had to do it when we stood a chance of getting clear.”
“But we outnumbered Faruq,” I protested.
“Faruq wasn’t the head of the conspiracy,” he reminded me. “I could have dispatched him and we still would have been at risk from the others. It was far better to let him take us along like useful little goats until we could turn the tables.”
I shuddered as I thought of how close we had come to losing our lives. I looked up at him, needing him to understand. “I didn’t want to kill her. I just wanted—”
“I know,” he said simply.
“But when you went after Armand,” I said slowly. “You did want to kill him.”
“I didn’t just want to. I needed to,” he explained, unflinching.
I nodded, almost but not quite touching his hand. “I know.”
* * *
After we had been fed, we departed for Beirut. We might have gone to Sidon, but Masterman—or Perdita, as I had to think of her—thought a larger city would be better. Rashid’s Bedouin kinsmen had brought camels and horses to spare, and they ran us up the coast in a sort of caravan. The bells of the animals’ headstalls jingled as we rode, swift as the gathering wind, and behind us their banners streamed out just as they had in the days of the Crusader knights. Perdita had organised hot water and fresh clothes for us before we left the camp, and she eyed Sebastian’s wounds.
“Best get those cleaned up and bandaged, Fox. I don’t think the hotel will appreciate you bleeding on the floors.”
He shrugged. “Scratches.”
She gave him a severe look. “You need stitches and that arm is well on its way to infection. Either clean it up now or we can wait a week and take it off at the shoulder.”
He smothered a curse and strode off, clean clothes in hand. She turned to me with a thin smile.
“Don’t mind him. It takes some that way.”
I felt heavy and sleepy, as if waking from the past few days to find they were only a dream, as insubstantial as a mirage in the Badiyat ash-Sham. I roused myself to respond.
“What does?”
“The end of an assignment. Some agents feel euphoric, thrilled at a job well done. Others tend towards anger. Sebastian is one of the latter.”
“Why should he be angry?”
The look she gave me was pitying. “Because the thing he’s best at in the world is what he just did. And it’s over.”
“You mean he’s good at killing people.”
“It was his primary job here. Didn’t he tell you? He was Gabriel’s protection officer. Whenever he was in a tight spot, Sebastian is the one who waded in and took care of things.”
“Gabriel tried to tell me,” I said woodenly. “I thought he was joking. I thought Sebastian was a sort of clerk.”
“That’s what people were meant to think. He’s made a good job of cultivating that sweetly cheerful, scholarly façade. People underestimate him. It’s his greatest advantage.”
“I underestimated him,” I admitted. “I’ve spent the past week
s believing he was something entirely different than he was, thinking I was saving him. And all this time—”
I faltered, feeling more of a fool than I had in the whole of my life.
Perdita took pity on me. “Don’t crucify yourself over it, Poppy. He’s fooled people with far better reason than you to suspect what he is. It’s his job and he does it well.”
* * *
By midnight we were in Beirut, where Perdita had arranged a suite of hotel rooms for us. I fell into bed and slept the whole night and most of the next day, rousing late in the afternoon. Perdita sent up an attendant—armed with various potions—from the hotel’s salon to turn my hair back to brown. I almost didn’t know myself when she was finished. The flat black glamour of the henna was gone, and in its place was the girl I had once known, only different. Irreparably and incomparably different.
When the attendant left I washed again, filling the bathtub with scalding hot water and handfuls of scented salts. As the water cooled, I drained and filled it again, and a third time, scrubbing my skin until every particle of dust and dirt had been removed. My trunk had been brought from Damascus and was waiting for me, every garment neatly folded in tissue, just as Masterman always insisted. I wondered if Perdita had packed it herself and decided I didn’t care. There was a note instructing me to join her for dinner and I slipped into my peacock evening gown, watching the silver beads flash in the light. It wasn’t half so glamorous as my Circassian robes, but it was distinctly more comfortable. I had thought it would be just the two of us, but when I appeared at Perdita’s door, Sebastian answered. He was dressed in formal evening wear, his beard neatly barbered. He handed me a cocktail before I’d even crossed the threshold.
“Dutch courage?” I asked thinly.
“The only sort I’ve got left,” he replied, lifting his glass. I followed him to the main room of her suite. A table had been set for dinner, and the waiters were busy lifting domed lids off an assortment of dishes. Perdita sat at the head of the table with Sebastian and me on either side. She was wearing a scarlet wool dress, very simply cut but striking, and I wondered again if she deliberately played down her good looks. She might have been stunning with a little effort, but she seemed unaware of it or unwilling to do anything about it. I wondered if I would ever understand her, but her smile to me was one of genuine pleasure.
“Glad to hear you slept the day through,” she said, waving us to our chairs. “It’s the best remedy for an experience such as you had.”
She showed the waiters out, leaving us to dine tête-à-tête, helping ourselves from the heaped platters of food. Sebastian poured the wine, generous servings, and as the evening wore on, the food and wine began to work their magic. We had started out stiffly, with Sebastian nearly silent and Perdita steering the conversation. But by the time we had dipped into the finger bowls and helped ourselves to the piles of honey-drenched rose toffees and nut-studded baklava, we had all begun to thaw.
“So,” Perdita said, sitting back and surveying Sebastian, “it’s time for your report. I shall want a formal one for the record, but you can write that up on the voyage back. Give me the high points.”
“Report on what?” I asked, hiccupping only slightly as I finished my third glass of wine.
“You,” Sebastian replied. He tipped his head, studying me in the candlelight, and for once I didn’t look away. I don’t know if it was the wine or the evening, but I felt reckless, stronger than I had ever been before. I lifted my chin and studied him right back. He looked different, but then a razor and a bit of hair trimming can do that for a man. It was more than that. He was dressed impeccably. His evening clothes, unlike his curate’s garb, were beautifully tailored, and I wondered if he didn’t have more in common with the dashing desert warrior than the shambling English clergyman after all.
“She’s rough yet,” he said slowly, his eyes roving from my lips to my eyes and back again. “She has enormous potential, but she needs just the right handler to keep herself from getting killed. She needs to be trained in unarmed combat as well as light weapons. I suspect she might prove an excellent shot, and she has good reflexes. I’d recommend a small pistol rather than knife work for her. She’s competent in navigation, but a thorough training in maps is essential. You might take a look at her linguistic skills. I taught her a word or two of Arabic and her gift for mimicry is substantial.”
I stared at him, mouth agape, as he enumerated his findings. He stopped, a slow smile curving his lips.
“Go on,” I prodded. “What are my flaws?”
“Nothing that can’t be remedied with training,” he said smoothly.
Perdita looked from one of us to the other. “Excellent. How long until she’s field ready?”
He shrugged. “Six months. But only if she works extremely hard. And only if she’s able to trust her instincts. Without that, there’s no point. She’ll fail.”
I felt a rush of blood flood my face. “My instincts, in case you failed to notice, were appalling. I trusted the wrong people, suspected the wrong people.”
His thoughtfully assessing look never faltered. “Did you? I seem to recall you never fully trusted Hugh Talbot, not even when he was kissing you in the moonlight.”
“Well, of course not, he was a cad. Any girl could have told you that.”
“I also know that you told Perdita you didn’t like the atmosphere at the comtesse’s villa. Another point in your favour.”
“The house was creepy,” I said sullenly. “Anyone would have disliked it.”
“Furthermore, you were intent upon following me halfway across the world because you were convinced something had brought us together for a reason. You weren’t wrong,” he said, his voice low and caressing.
“Perdita—” I began.
“Perdita could never have got you on that ship if you hadn’t insisted upon going,” he said flatly. “You drove this adventure, Poppy. From the beginning. We were only in place to offer you assistance if you needed it. You unearthed every lead, followed up every clue. You did it yourself.”
“He is right,” Perdita broke in, her voice gentle. “I offered you no more than a nudge. It was up to you to pursue it. Which you did—with a vengeance.”
Her eyes were almost feral in the candlelight, and I saw how much satisfaction she took in her job. “You enjoy this, don’t you?” I said, almost accusingly. “You like moving us all about as if we were chess pieces on a board.”
She gave me a calm smile. “We all have our strengths, dear. Mine is knowing people. That’s how I knew Sebastian could lead me to Gabriel.”
Sebastian didn’t move, but I sensed him stiffen. Perdita flicked him a glance. “Don’t worry, Sebastian. I won’t press you. I know you saw him and that’s enough for me. You might find it hard to believe at times, but I do have a soft spot for my Lost Boys. I simply wanted to know he was alive. He’s finished with us and I have to accept that. It’s enough to know he survived.” She paused, and looked as if she were struggling with emotion. But she mastered it immediately and rose, taking a deep breath. “I’m going to bed. You two are free to stay as long as you like. The view from the balcony is particularly nice,” she said.
She left us then, and Sebastian lifted a brow. I nodded and he guided me onto the balcony. It overlooked the Mediterranean, the sea shifting and glittering under a blanket of stars. A low moon hung in a curve just above the horizon and I shook my head.
“It’s too much. Do you think she arranged for that, too?”
“Probably,” he said lightly. “And the flowers,” he said with a nod towards the perfumed vine blossoming on the column beside us. The scent of jasmine was heavy in the air.
“Poppy,” he said finally, “you said you wanted adventure. You said you wanted to finish something. You did both. And it doesn’t have to end here. You do have the makings of an agent if you want th
e job. Perdita will take you and train you well.”
I gave him a long look. “What makes you think I can do this?”
“Because it’s been my job to watch you,” he told me. “I’ve followed you even when you didn’t know you were being followed. I’ve tested you and pushed you and warned you—”
“You were the shadow who warned me off in the souk,” I said in a small, hollow voice.
“And the beggar who read your palm,” he said with a grin. “But no matter how much I warned you, you wouldn’t give up.” He stroked his beard thoughtfully. “Although you might have done a better job of penetrating my disguises. I’ll tell Perdita to make sure she includes basic physiognomy in her training program. A little knowledge in that field and you’d have been able to tell it was me from the bone structure.” He gave me another small grin then sobered. “Poppy, I’ve seen you under the most demanding circumstances. You were frightened, hunted, cold, hungry. And through it all, you didn’t lose your head. You were mentally fit, optimistic, rational. But most of all, I saw what you did on that ridge when you seized the moment and didn’t hesitate to shove the comtesse off.”
I shrugged. “I did what anyone would have done under the circumstances,” I said.
His eyes held mine steadily as he shook his head. “No, you didn’t, Poppy. Perhaps one woman in a thousand could have done that. You seized the opportunity and you acted, without hesitation and without fear.”
Something within my chest tightened then, some feeling of pride that I had risen to a challenge and given him a reason to think me worthy, and—more importantly—given myself a reason to feel worthy.
Still his eyes never left my face. “And I know you have what it takes to be one of us for another reason, perhaps the simplest of all.”
“What’s that?”
“I saw what else you did when you shoved the comtesse off the cliff.”
Night of a Thousand Stars Page 31