The Chocolatier's Wife

by Cindy Lynn Speer

  Shush or I’ll stomp on you, she wanted to say, but she didn’t want to give away her pretense at calm. “You’re the one who created the spell that froze my sprites, and the one who made the poison for the chocolates.”

  “Yes, yes, I am very clever and my husband is getting very restless.” She waved it off, not really answering.

  Bonny gasped and Tasmin glared at her. “You surely twigged onto that before now?” She glanced at the bowl, and saw that Lavoussier had rammed the pistol against William’s chest, forcing him back a step. He wasn’t going to shoot William, he was going to force him off the roof.

  Andrew had stood, his hands in the air, looking desperately for some solution.

  “I know it is here. I can feel it. The wind, the rain, and the raging sea.” Franny broke into a beatific smile, reaching out with one finger, threatening to stir the bowl and take the image away.

  “Oh, very well. Your familiar is correct. I’ll get you the Heart of Ithalia. ‘Tis here, but well hid and it will take time to fetch, so please call your husband off.”

  The sprite turned bright blue, the color of truth, and Franny smiled. “Very good, then. Have your little beasts let him up, and he shall go and tell Eric that all is well.”

  “Please, my darlings, let the evil creature go.”

  The sprite sprang up, darted at her and Bonny’s eyes, before flying away swiftly.

  With all her heart, Tasmin begged one to follow. Tell him, tell him what I ask of you, please.

  “Well, fetch!” Franny said.

  “I don’t want Bonny to see where ‘tis hidden. Bid her to go upstairs.”

  “I will not go upstairs!” Bonny snarled.

  Franny shook her head. “You are up to something. No. You think you have room to be clever now, but you do not. If you hurt me, Eric will know it.”

  Tasmin pointed at the bowl. “I love him. More than anything in this world. More than the lives you’ll take using this stone, more than the people you’ll ruin.” Her own words, coming so easily, shocked her. She meant them more than she’d meant anything she’d ever said.

  Franny stared at her a long moment. “Bonny, go upstairs. Your dear sister does not trust you.”

  “I said I won’t go, and that is it.”

  Tasmin glared at her. “If you stay, she will kill you.”

  Bonny paled, and Franny laughed. Bonny swallowed, her courage failing her, and went up to the apartment above, not saying another word.

  Tasmin waited, and then she went to the hidden door, pressing her fingers against the stones. “Open,” she whispered, and the sprites did as she bid. She went and took the stone from the makeshift bed, and unwrapped it from the coat.

  “We found records that the Bishop had had masonry work done, but couldn’t tell where or why. Oh, that intelligent man.” Franny sounded impressed.

  “My aunt told me about the amulet,” Tasmin said, even though she’d never gotten a chance to speak to her at all. “You hold it over your heart, like this.” She demonstrated. “The power inside this is incredible, it rages, willing you to use it. It changes you, calls you in your sleep.” She clutched it to her chest, as if feeling the need of the stone deeply, her knuckles white around it.

  “Give it here!” Franny grabbed it from Tasmin, looking at it with awe. Tasmin walked away, as if bereft, but watched as Franny pressed her hands close to the stone, holding it over her heart, pressing hard, trying to feel what Tasmin meant.

  “You weren’t trained at the Bearbourne, where you?” Tasmin said, removing an iron pin from her hair.

  “No, shush, I’m trying to hear what she’s saying.”

  Tasmin turned, the sharp iron pin between her thumb and forefinger. “She’s saying you made a mistake, angering my sprites, and a worse one, when you angered me.”

  She flicked the pin at Franny, and the sprites that had not left guided it home, next to the knuckle of her left ring finger, and into the stone.

  “That is nowhere near my heart.” Franny reached over and grabbed the pin as light began to appear around the shard of iron.

  “The stone absorbs life and magic. That’s how the mages got it to take Ithalia’s power, by creating something triggered by heart’s blood, something that would absorb the very being who held it. Really. I didn’t go to Bearbourne, either, but even I knew that from simple amulets class.”

  “I can’t let go of it! It won’t let me let go,” Franny cried, and Tasmin closed her eyes.

  The expected flash of light came, leaving nothing but the stone, rocking on the floor.

  Tasmin felt ill and faint. She wanted to sink to her knees, but instead, she grabbed the table edge and looked into the bowl.

  Chapter 24

  Auguro fifth, Gold Mn. Qtr 1792

  Dear Tasmin,

  Ah, I am chastised. Of course I should have told you ahead of time, but as I suspect you and I shall be sharing the same abode soon, it will be much easier for us to discuss things.

  In that light, what precisely are your current plans? I should not care to interrupt any activities that you wish to finish, for when the words are said, then you must come, and you will have no say in that matter, either.

  Yours soon,

  William

  It was not, as places to stand went, a place he’d ever wanted to spent any amount of time. His boots felt firm upon the roof edge, despite the bit of heel that was over the air, but his back felt squeamish, as if any second it knew it was about to impact with the rocks below.

  “So, while we wait for Franny to retrieve the stone from Tasmin, do you care to illuminate me on some points?” he asked cheerfully, as if they were sitting at a café.

  Lavoussier grinned. “Not particularly. Life is not certain. An earthquake could hit, or a bolt of lightning, or a garrison of soldiers could suddenly leap upon the roof, and I’d have spilled the plot and I would get away with nothing.”

  “You sound as if you’ve spent too much time with my intended,” he said, amused despite the situation. That was exactly the sort of logic he would have expected to hear from her.

  “Not nearly, William, and not as intimately as I would have liked. Though, she’s not nearly as pretty a bed decoration as is his wife.” He pointed to Andrew. The words Andrew used were not complimentary. “Shut it before I kill you both. After all, I do have two weapons.”

  “Three, if you count your mouth,” William said, “and all of them unimpressive.” Lavoussier’s eyes narrowed. “I know you’re going to kill me, no matter what Franny manages to convince Tasmin. Don’t you want your older brother, whom you resent so much, to know just how greatly you outwitted him? How cleverly you have avenged your honor?”

  “You are not the older,” Lavoussier snapped. “Not by any means.”

  “But still, I am the one who gets everything, and you, the byblow of one of my father’s moments of weakness, get nothing. How you must have hated the fact that I beat you out of yet another prize.”

  Lavoussier’s eyes darkened with spite. He sneered. “I am not your father’s bastard. I’m our mother’s.”

  Even Andrew had to laugh in disbelief. “Our mother... ”

  “Was a pretty ... well, pretty enough for a bunch of men who’d been out to sea for months without any delicate comforts ... young thing traveling from her parent’s coffee fields across the sea to Berengeny, there to wed her intended, when the ship fell to pirates. I don’t really know which one was my father. I like to believe it was the Captain, of course. Especially since he was doubtless first.”

  “Of course. You always did like to puff yourself up.” William didn’t feel anything. He could see his brother was deeply upset and angry, but William felt quite calm, despite Lavoussier’s attempts to shake him. “I suppose the people my parents gave you over to told you the truth out of pity.”

  Lavoussier shrugged. “P
erhaps. I did try to be decent, but blood will tell. I was actually a very good captain, loyal and all that, looking for my chance—until I heard of the Heart of Ithalia and all its possibilities. I wanted it.”

  “Bad enough to kill the Port Admiral?”

  He shook his head. “That, my dear half-brothers, was fate. So mi’dear wife and I decided to see what we could engineer. We knew one or the other of you had to have the Heart. All we needed was time.” William watched as the Skellitt sprite alighted on Eric’s shoulder. He didn’t hear what it said, partly because a soft, breathy voice was saying—no, not saying, but communicating that Tasmin said all was well. He wasn’t sure if he believed it, but he had no choice.

  “And then,” Eric Lavoussier said, “that hell-bitch of a mother of ours tried to poison me.” He cocked the pistols and aimed.

  All is well, William reminded himself, and he reached forward, grabbed hand holding the closest pistol, and yanked Eric forward, slamming his head against the other man’s hard enough that his own vision blackened for a second. He spun, and Andrew, who had roused with William’s abrupt movement, succeeded in tripping Lavoussier, thus helping William throw their half brother over the roof. The Skellitt creature started to scream and then crumbled into dust.

  “I’ve killed better pirates than he while eating breakfast,” William spat. He felt the enormity, as he always did, of taking a life, but he also recognized the practicality. He couldn’t have risked his brother getting shot, or himself losing the battle. But still, he would have liked to have taken a different path.

  “My God. Do you think they’ll put us in prison now?”

  “Good question. Do you want to say goodbye to Bonny before we lay it all before the Bishop and the Governor?”

  “Lay it all?”

  “Well, the bits that suit.”

  Andrew looked over the precipice, then back at William. He looked likely to upend the contents of his stomach at any moment. “Do you mind if I let you do all the talking?”

  William took his brother’s arm and helped him up, pulling him back a bit more from the edge as he did. “I think that might be the best course.” They walked in silence, William weighing everything, wondering if he would see Tasmin again…but knowing that it was time to get everything squared away.

  They did not end up putting the case before anyone but the Governor.

  “It is a hard thing to believe,” the Governor said, once the things William thought needed to be told had been, “but I recall what happened to your poor mother. I’m one of the few who knew. Your Grandfather put it to me, to free your father from his obligation, but Justin had already fled, intending to wed her. They awaited the birth of the child, and then had their joining ceremony in some small village to the East. If the timing of things had been different, I do believe that he would have made a case for claiming the child as his own, but your mother—I gather the experience was quite—it took her years to recover.” The Governor looked over his glasses at William, who blushed, feeling guilty that he had been so willing to blame his father for having a child out of wedlock. Still, he had bullied Andrew into taking that route.

  The Governor sat back, mulling it all over. “Bonny will have to spend time in prison for adultery, I fear. She did break the law. She could be punished for far worse crimes, but I am willing to leave it at that.”

  So, she would be the scapegoat. William sighed, but he was angry enough with her right now that he thought, perhaps, she was getting off lightly. They hadn’t mentioned Andrew’s own adultery, and William was determined that he, too, would somehow make it up to his wife. He understood that his brother would buckle under their father’s every whim, that it was impossible for him not to, but he also felt disgusted by the fact that Andrew had, indeed, betrayed his vows to his wife.

  “But I want to keep this secret, I don’t want to shame her,” Andrew protested.

  “Prices must be paid. If you want me to believe that Eric Lavoussier tried to bring your family down by blackmail and lies, then you must allow me to act according to the law. Otherwise the people will be unsatisfied, and your and your family will never recover. The Bishop was a well-loved man, and while it is feasible that the Port Admiral wanted to punish the Bishop for his part in keeping the Pandora prize and all its attendant glory and remove a rival at the same time, if there is any feeling of favoritism, the whole thing falls apart.”

  “Then I should go, too.” Andrew’s hands gripped the chair.

  William stepped on Andrew’s foot. “Let us not blame ourselves for our wives’ faults, shall we?” He thought a prayer that Lavoussier had burned all his papers.

  “Indeed,” the Governor said, and William wondered if the papers were already in the man’s possession.

  His eyes flickered to the mantle, where a painting of the Governor’s son hung. Terrence had been his name, and a final piece clicked together.

  “Sir, it occurs to me that the Bishop would have trusted only you with the sale of the shop. The sale was taken care of by a clerk acting for a Terrence Derbyshore. Your son—his ship was the HMS Derby, was it not?”

  A slight smile flickered.

  “Did you choose me to guard what the Bishop held?”

  His smiled broadened a little more. “You may go, William. Good fortune in your business. I think you will find any rumored troubles over the ownership of your shop are just that.”

  William grinned and rose. Andrew followed quietly. Once they were well on their way home, he asked, “The dossiers that you said Lavoussier had on all of us ... what do you think will happen to them?”

  “Well, we can pray they were burned. After all, Lavoussier was doubtless ready to leave the second he had the Heart. He would have had to make a quick get away, after he killed us,” William said hopefully.

  “Aye.” Andrew looked at his brother. “How hard is it, precisely, to make chocolate?”

  William placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “As hard as it is for us to find an honest manager, and keep him honest by watching his every move?”

  Andrew smiled sadly. “You always did make it sound too easy. But life will never be the same. After all, I have lost my ring. Do you think she will even notice?”

  “Well. We can only go and find out.”

  Chapter 25

  Desero 28th

  Sphr. Mn. Qtr 1792

  Tasmin,

  I hope you will find the enclosed present of use. It is not half as lovely to my eyes as the woman to whom it belongs.

  Still, when next I see you, I suspect that you will be wearing it, and the sight of you will surely break my heart with its beauty, as I hope your words, when you join your fate to mine, will heal it.

  Yours,

  William

  There were not a lot of people present at the wedding of Tasmin Bey and William Almsley, and that suited them perfectly fine. The bride was lovely, of course, in a dress that looked gorgeously familiar, and yet was practically new. The old dress, what was left, comprised the lining, and with the pearls and the silver thread that had been rescued worked into the new dress, Tasmin felt that all the women who had been married in that gown, alive or dead, were smiling at her and wishing her joy.

  “All that satin,” Bonny was heard to mumble to her mother-in-law, “and they couldn’t have made something a little less fifteenth century?”

  Tasmin sighed. It was hard to get too angry with Bonny, who stood slightly apart from her husband. Tasmin had been certain that tie was shattered, but last night she had gone to visit Bonny in prison and had seen Andrew, sitting next to the bars in an ever-constant vigil, reach his hands through the bars to pat her on her down-turned head. There was hope, she thought, that they would make the best out of what they had. She wondered where the two brothers got their deep kindness.

  Her gaze fell on Justin, and she remembered William had said that once, Jus
tin had been a young man who had taken his intended away, cared for her until her child was born, and refused to put her aside.

  Andrew’s children (only one was actually his, according to the spell she had done) would go to the North and live with Tasmin’s uncle. He had no children of his own, and it was hoped it would bring the two families closer.

  “I rather like the dress,” Henriette said, and looked up at her husband, who shrugged. She smiled slightly and patted her husband’s arm, then leaned forward. “William, do stop slouching!”

  William, not allowed to turn around and look at his wife-to-be yet, sighed and forbore to comment.

  Tasmin looked through the veil of lace at William, then took a breath and began walking toward him, a bowl in her hands. Her mother placed a rose in it, her father a handful of rice, her mother-in-law a scroll of paper on which would be written the bride’s prayer, her father-in-law a silver chain. Cecelia stepped forward and, with a smile, placed a perfectly wrought, heart-shaped piece of chocolate in the bowl and winked.

  Tasmin laughed and tried not to weep as the bowl was taken and her hand was placed in her husband’s, the words that bound them finally said. The ring felt like perfection on her finger, and the truth was, one would not have rightly been able to say who kissed whom, just that a kiss was exchanged, and that it was a little too long to be proper, and that it seemed very deeply meant.

  The cake at the reception that followed was topped with a frigate completely made of chocolate. Chocolate abounded; in fact, so much so that no one noticed little pieces of it going missing, as invisible hands treated themselves to a well deserved feast.

  All in all, Tasmin thought, as her aunt and mother laughed at something William said and she leaned against her father’s shoulder, feeling deeply content, it was exactly the wedding of which she had always dreamed.

  Desero twenty-eighth, Sapphire Moon Quarter 1792