The River of No Return

this was the fifth. She put her foot on the first step and looked up. Watery sunlight was streaming down and she could hear the rain pattering on glass; there had to be a cupola, invisible from street level. She climbed higher, around the curve of the stairs, her hand on the thin wooden railing. Then, when she was halfway up, she sensed it—someone was up there. She stopped still. The count? She climbed one more step. A servant? She held her breath, listening. A small rustling sound—a page being turned. Whoever it was seemed to be reading. Not the count, she thought. He didn’t have the soul to steal away to the top of a house to read in the rain.
    Then she knew. It was Blackdown.
    She should have been terrified of him, now that she knew he was an Ofan-killer. But this wasn’t terror that sent her climbing silently still higher. It was something else. Her heart was beating so fast and so hard that she was sure it was booming out like a drum. Then she could see him. The staircase opened directly into the cupola, which was a simple glass room, more rectangular than square. A deep, upholstered bench, like a wide window seat, was built around all four walls and liberally tossed with cushions. Blackdown was lying along one side, one leg stretched out, the other bent at the knee, his back propped up by big pillows. The book he held was tiny, its pigskin binding white. He held it in one hand, his other hand behind his head. She watched him read, hardly daring to breathe. If he looked up—when he looked up—he would see her head almost at floor level. She would look like a kobold popping up out of the earth. Should she try to descend, or simply keep climbing? She couldn’t decide, and in the end, her predicament was too ridiculous. She laughed.
    He looked up and for just a moment his eyes, as gray as the rain outside, were blank with surprise. But then he sat up. “Hello.”
    “Hello,” she said. “I did not wish to disturb you.” She started to go back down the stairs.
    “No.” He put his book down quickly on the floor, took two light steps over to the stairwell, and reached out a hand. “Come back.”
    She put her hand out and he took it, pulling her gently up and into the glass room. “Oh.” She looked around. The rainy city stretched out on all sides; it was like being a bird up on a chimney, except that the falling rain never reached her. “How magical.”
    His fingers were warm around hers; no leather between them now.
    “Please,” he said gently. “Do sit. I wish I had refreshment to offer you. But I neglected to procure Madeira and biscuits before coming up here.”
    She sat and looked down on Berkeley Square, all gray and green and misty. “What a perfect place,” she said. “I had no idea it was here.”
    He sat down next to her and took her hand again. “It is something of a secret,” he said. “Everyone knows of it, but no one thinks to come up. I was almost afraid I should discover it had been blown away in a storm, or dismantled. But when I climbed up here this morning, I found all just as I had left it. This book even, still here.”
    “What is it?” She was grateful that they were talking of nothing, but there was her hand in his, and as they talked their fingers intertwined of their own accord.
    “John Donne,” he said. “His early works. I had forgotten that I was reading them here before I left for Spain. Now I find they are useful to me.” He glanced at her for a moment. “Personal liberty and social responsibility,” he said. “Do you ever think about those things?”
    She smiled. “Oh, all the time.”
    He squeezed her hand and said nothing. He seemed troubled in spirit.
    “I have not read Donne,” she said after a moment.
    “No, I wouldn’t suppose that you had.” His fingers slipped more intimately in among hers. “His early poems are not . . .” He seemed to be searching for the right words. “I suppose they are not considered appropriate for . . . young ladies.”
    Julia’s eyebrows flew up. “I see.”
    “Are you always careful of your purity, Julia?” His voice was soft, his eyes half-lidded.
    What was he asking her? She withdrew her hand a little, but he kept it firmly in his own. “Of course,” she said automatically, for it was the only possible answer. But as she said it she remembered that it had been she who pulled his head down to hers for a second kiss. “Or rather, I think I am. I mean . . .” She looked at her hand, caught in