Surely that could be a coincidence, too.
The more she considered it, the less likely it seemed to Aurelie that Mr. Hawkes’s appearance in front ofthat house on The Strand at the precise moment she was leaving it was a coincidence.
And yet, why couldn’t it be? She wanted it to be serendipity. She wanted evidence to fuel her desperate hope that life was kind more often than it was not. She wanted to believe that lovely things could happen with the startling suddenness of violence.
She could not ask him to expound without revealing who she was, or how she knew who he might be.
And if he had worked in the diplomatic corps, it was entirely possible he’d known Brundage.
She could not believe his presence at The Grand Palace on the Thames was related to Brundage in any way. They were two astonishingly different men.
“If it is any comfort to you, Mr. Hawkes... I am not certain I would be—I was—a good wife. I was brought up mostly alone and raised to do things I have lately learned were not particularly practical. I never learned to haggle, to cook, and that sort of thing.”
“Tohaggle?” He was amused.
She nodded. “There were servants. I learned languages and pianoforte and stitching of pillows and how to dance and play music and so forth. But I am only meant to be one kind of wife, I think. I fear I shall disappoint a man who needs someone more useful. I was very hopeful. I meant to try very hard to be a good wife, at any rate. I intended to do my very best.”
He took this in thoughtfully.
“But then your husband died.”
Suddenly, she could not agree to that. Or even nod.
She let the words ring.
She was not certain she could continue to lie to him.
Her tea was growing cold but she sipped it anyway. She lowered it carefully to the saucer again.
“I should like to say something you may construe as bold, Mr. Hawkes.”
“I will in all probability survive it,” he said easily.
She said, somewhat hesitantly, “I saw the knife beneath your arm.”
He frowned faintly, briefly, then his face cleared. “My tattoo?”
She nodded. “It struck me as unusual for a gentleman. Although perhaps every gentleman has one, for all I know. You see, I have not seen under many... bare arms.”
And all at once between them was the memory of darkness and bare skin and vulnerability.
She seemed to have stolen his breath. He said nothing.
“Did it hurt very much?” she whispered.
“Yes,” he said simply. With a ghost of a smile.
“Why do you have it?”
He was quiet for a time.
He was not a fidgeter, Mr. Hawkes.
“I wanted to know how much pain I could endure,” he said slowly. “I thought it would be useful to know. I wanted to learn about endurance, because I was in a situation in which I could do nothing but endure. And I wanted to be distracted from another painful circumstance. And... I wanted a reminder of what I’d survived.”
She was shocked and mesmerized by this precise list.
He had clearly deliberated over it. The unapologetic, bald honesty left her breathless.
