Night of a Thousand Stars (28 page)

“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 weeks 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 the 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.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know how you saw anything. I hardly remember, it’s all such a blur. Tell me,” I said, venturing a small grin. “What did I do that was so surprising?”

“You smiled.”

Twenty-Two

We parted at Southampton. Sebastian had work in London, Perdita told him firmly, and she was taking me straight to Father’s for a long-overdue chat. Through Perdita’s efforts, the story had been squashed in the international newspapers, and the only thing the London papers reported was the sad death abroad of a war hero. There was a lovely obituary for the colonel, and Perdita sent a handsome wreath to his memorial service. Cubby was listed as chief mourner, and I heard later he was the heir to his uncle’s modest fortune as well as Peeky. And as I read the obituary, my eyes lingered on Cubby’s name and I thought back to our conversation that fateful day at lunch. He had introduced us, giving me the opening I needed to follow Sebastian to Damascus. I had assumed it was Hugh who managed the affair, but I asked Perdita if the colonel could have arranged it and she thought it likely.

“We suspect he may have been tracking Sebastian and waiting for him to make a move to find Gabriel. Although, what the old fellow would want with Gabriel, I can’t imagine. He might have had his own contacts in French or Syrian intelligence working counter to our interests,” she finished with a shrug. She did not pursue the matter, and I wondered how much she suspected. The explanation of competing intelligence agencies running afoul of one another was too easy. She ought to have dug deeper, but perhaps she knew if she did, she would uncover things about her beloved Lost Boys she’d rather not know. She had collected them, misfits and renegades, and shaped them into a family. Turning a blind eye to their unsanctioned exploits might be the only way to avoid catching herself between opposing loyalties.

She went on, knitting up the loose ends as neatly as if she were making a jumper. “The donkey cart was Faruq’s doing at Armand’s behest. The idea was to make you nervous of the city so you would be likelier to put your trust in either Armand or Hugh. They were prepared for the wind to blow either direction,” she added. “Not a bad plan, all things considered. But they reckoned without your eccentric sense of duty to find out what happened to Sebastian Fox.”

I said nothing. Even after all that had happened, I could not explain what had compelled me to travel halfway around the world in the hope of saving a man I had only met once.

A sudden thought struck me. “How were you able to hush it all up? There hasn’t been a breath of it in the newspapers, and none of the French authorities in the Lebanon seemed bothered in the slightest by what we were up to. It’s almost as if we weren’t there at all.”

“Officially we weren’t,” she said with a cool look.

“But how? Does the Vespiary have an understanding with the French government?”

“With the government? No. But the government is made up of individuals, you know. And I have made a friend or two along the way.”

I stared at her, comprehension dawning. “A friend. You mean a man!”

“Poppy, you may be adept at winkling out other people’s secrets, but I think I’ll keep my own, if you don’t mind.”

She said nothing more about the subject, but my imagination filled in the gaps. It was delicious to think about the possibilities. Was he her opposite number in French intelligence? An army general? Ambassador? Junior minister? He must be highly placed if he could do her such favours. And he must be very fond of her to bother.

But Perdita was as good as her word, and she refused to speak another word on the subject. She left me at the village of Abbots Burton. “Aren’t you coming?” I asked as I alighted at the station.

“Alas, no,” she said with a bright smile. “Work. I’ve spent too much time away from my desk as it is.”

“Coward,” I said, returning the smile.

She smoothed her skirt. “Well, I don’t relish the idea of explaining to Uncle Plum
precisely
what you’ve been up to. I think you’ll find it best if it’s just the pair of you.” She paused and put out her hand. “I hope to see you next week in London, Poppy.”

She had offered me a post with the agency, and training was due to start in just a few days. A handful of days to make my choice.

I shook her hand slowly. “I don’t know, Perdita.”

“Yes, you do,” she said with that familiar mocking look.

I walked slowly to Father’s cottage, letting myself through the wicket gate as I approached. “So you’re back,” George said sourly when he let me in. “He’s in the studio. I suppose you’ll want to spend the night.”

I told him I would and went to find Father. He was perched on a stool, putting the finishing touches to a portrait. He turned when I entered, lifting his brows in a rueful smile.

“Ah, the prodigal returns.”

“Hardly prodigal when your own father is responsible for your running away,” I returned evenly.

“Hoist with my own petard,” he answered, turning back to the portrait. I stood beside him. The subject was beautiful, that much was apparent from the structure of her bones. But something was off in the face, some vitality that seemed lacking.

“All these years and I’ve never managed to capture her,” he mused. He dipped his head towards the stack of canvases against the wall. They were all the same subject, a dark-haired woman, and it was easy to see he had painted her through the years. The hair had silvered and the cheeks had wrinkled, but the bones were always the same.

“It’s Aunt Violante, isn’t it? Uncle Lysander’s widow. I read about her in Aunt Julia’s memoirs. You’re in love with her.”

He did not deny it. “She is the reason I was never able to make a go of things with your mother. Poor Araminta. She knew I was in love with another woman when we married. She thought I’d grow out of it. She gambled poorly.”

I smoothed my jacket. “Well, congratulations. You’ve actually made me pity Mother. I never thought that would happen.”

He put down his brush and fixed me with a bright gaze. “Poppy, your mother knew precisely what she was getting herself into. I never made a secret of my love for Violante. Araminta thought she could change me. She was wrong. Let that be a lesson to you.”

“What? Don’t try to change a man?”

“Leopards and spots, child,” he said sagely. “We all have them, and they’re indelible. And I’m not just talking about a man. I mean you. It’s time for you to take hold of who you are with both hands and stop pretending to be something you aren’t.”

“I walked out on my wedding to Gerald,” I reminded him.

“Because I offered you the means,” he countered. “I provided you with people to help you get away. But walking away from something is only living your life as a repudiation. How will you live it as an affirmation?”

I blinked at him. “Have you been studying psychology?”

He shrugged. “One must keep up with the times. I mean it, Poppy. To walk away from something is only half the picture. What are you walking towards?” I said nothing and he gave me a pitying look. “You still don’t believe in yourself quite enough, do you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know myself,” I said slowly. “I’ve sort of stumbled into this opportunity, and I want to take it. I want to train and learn and go back into the field. I think I’m suited to it. I just wish I knew.”

His smile was proud and devilish. “You have everything required to make a success of it, Poppy. Why else do you think I chose you?”

I blinked. “Chose me?”

The smile deepened. “You still haven’t put all the pieces together, have you? I told you I had reports of you growing up. You thought I meant only your schoolmistresses and dancing masters, but there were others. People who knew what I was looking for in you. And they found it. It takes a unique combination of characteristics to do this work, child. I’d never have considered you for the job if you hadn’t shown them—and in spades. Every time you broke the mould and did something audacious, every time you thwarted expectations, I knew you had it in you. It was my job at the Vespiary to assess potential in the young ones, and I got quite good at it,” he said with an air of satisfaction. “But you’re the only one I ever had to assess at a distance, from second-hand information and my own instincts. But you are one of us, Poppy. I know it in my bones and in my blood, and I am not wrong. I chose you because we will ask much of you, but you have everything you need to answer that call.” He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was softer. “I’ve read the reports from Perdita and young Fox. You have quite a promising future at the Vespiary if you want it.”

I brushed away the sudden tears and squared my shoulders. “I do.”

“And what about Fox?” he asked shrewdly.

“Oh, I expect I’ll marry him,” I told him. “But not now. Perdita and I have work to do first.”

* * *

Perdita, with a stroke of inspiration, paired me with another of the Lost Boys to complete my training. Affectionately called Nibs by the other Boys, he had known Sebastian, and he understood—perhaps more than anyone else would have—what it was like to be in the field with him.

“Did you happen to see his knife work?” he asked me the first day.

“There might have been an occasion,” I said, thinking of the bits of Armand scattered on the hilltop ridge.

He shook his head admiringly. “Finest skill with a blade I’ve ever seen. Of course, he only uses it as a last resort. Gets far more enjoyment out of running about in bits of disguise. Rather like me.” A sudden grin lit his slim, handsome face. “You don’t recognise Selim the beggar from outside the restaurant in Damascus, do you?”

I thought of the grimy beggar with the outstretched hand and pleading eyes. “But—but you’ve got both legs! I distinctly remember stepping over your stump to get into the restaurant.”

The grin deepened. “A particularly effective trick, don’t you think? Hell on the knees, of course, but worth it. I made rather a packet doing that and learned quite a lot to boot.”

“But what were you doing there? I thought all the Lost Boys were scattered after the war.”

He gave a nod to Perdita’s closed door. “I’m the only one of the Lost Boys who stayed in the field in Damascus after the war. I was supposed to be looking for Gabriel,” he finished coolly.

“And not trying terribly hard to find him, I’ll wager,” I said. “I won’t ask if you ever found him. I suspect you wouldn’t have told anyone if you had.”

The grin was back. “Smart girl. Now, time to practise your unarmed combat. Come at me and I’ll flip you.”

* * *

For the first time in my life, I worked hard, day and night, and within five months—not the six she had anticipated—Perdita had deemed me ready. In spite of the fact that Perdita was in command of the Vespiary, she liked to preserve the fiction that she merely carried out her brother Tarquin’s orders. She claimed it was because she could keep an ear closer to the ground with regard to what the operatives were thinking, but I suspected it was because she enjoyed getting her hands dirty.

The day I went to see her she was in Tarquin’s office, and I was told to wait a few minutes. I picked up a newspaper to pass the time, skimming the society columns with interest. One item in particular caught my attention: Gerald Madderley, heir to Viscount Madderley, announced his engagement to a certain South American nitrate heiress. I smiled to myself remembering what Cubby said about her squint. Good for Gerald—I only hoped the girl had low sex-tides to go with her pots of money.

I turned the page to glance over the world news. It was at the bottom—a small piece with no details, just the barest facts: a grisly discovery had been made in the Syrian desert near Palmyra. It was the remains of a party of English archaeologists that had gone missing between Damascus and Baghdad in an arid stretch of the
Badiyat ash-Sham
. Curiously, only two bodies had been found, both of them male. Of the lady who had been travelling with them, there was no trace, and it was apparent that the bodies had lain in the desert for some time. As it had been so many months, no attempts were being made to find the lady and she was presumed dead, as well.

I put the newspaper aside, thinking of the cool beauty with the raven hair who had prepared our dinner on the plateau in the shadow of Mount Lebanon. Had she seized the opportunity to do away with her travelling companions? Or had they been victims of tribal warfare? Desert brigands? The possibilities were endless, but so was the desert, and it occurred to me that the
Badiyat ash-Sham
was a very good place to make a new beginning.

I was still thinking of Rosamund Johnson when a buzzer sounded indicating Perdita was ready for me. I let myself in and closed the door behind me. She was standing at the desk with a companion—a raven, an enormous bird with feathers so black they had a blue sheen to them in the light, precisely the same colour as Rosamund Johnson’s hair, I thought idly. Perdita smiled without looking up as I entered.

“Handsome fellow, isn’t he?”

The bird quirked its head in my direction and gave me a long sideways stare. Its eye looked like a polished jet bead, cool and impervious.

“Very,” I said. He might have been unnerving at close range, but he was still a beautiful creature.

“Our Aunt Julia had one, as you will remember from reading her memoirs,” she said, holding a bit of meat between her fingertips, just out of range of the bird. “Grim was an actual Tower raven. I’m afraid this lad’s provenance is much less impressive. Still, he’s clever.”

She dropped the meat into a small box and snapped it closed. She tapped the box once and the raven bobbed his head. “That’s for me,” he said in a peculiar little voice.

“Yes, it is. Go to it,” she commanded. The bird eyed the box greedily and applied himself. Within a moment, he had it open and was tearing into the meat. I looked away as Perdita wiped her hands.

“Much faster this time. They really do learn. Fascinating, isn’t it?”

“Is he a pet?” I asked.

“No. A wager, actually. Tarquin thinks they can’t be trained to do fieldwork, but I think they can.”

“Fieldwork? A bird?”

She shrugged. “They’re teachable and intelligent, more so than most creatures. I have no doubt I can put him to good use.”

The raven was still enjoying his titbit when Perdita handed me a piece of paper. “Your first assignment. You’ll be in the field but not entirely on your own. It’s a bit of information gathering, nothing too taxing. And I’ve arranged for you to partner with an experienced agent to keep an eye on you.” She paused, a ghost of a smile touching her lips. “Just a precaution. You’ve done well, Poppy. And I think you’ll be an asset to the Vespiary.”