Gauzy curtains diffused the light enough to keep it from glaring off the shining brown surface of the table—the part not obscured by newspaper, that is, which was not very much of it. The detritus of the morning meal still waited to be cleared away, and Sophia briefly wondered if she had actually eaten everything on her plate, or if her excitement to begin had distracted her from her stomach’s demands. No, she felt no pangs of hunger, just a rising need to absorb everything these papers had to offer about Lord Endicott and his activities, criminal or otherwise.
“Sophy, are you certain this is a good idea?” Cecy said. “It is too late to convince the War Office that you were correct. Should you not leave it in the past?”
“Lord Endicott had the clerk, Mr. Tate, killed to prevent his speaking out,” Sophia said, laying down her scissors. There was newsprint on her left index finger and thumb, which she rubbed at with her other hand. “He has shown himself without conscience and ready to commit any foul action to protect himself. I seem to be the only person who knows his true nature. How can I sit by and permit him to continue in his crimes? Especially if it might mean saving a life?”
“That is an excellent justification,” Cecy said drily, “but I am certain you have other reasons for pursuing Lord Endicott.” A servant entered the room and, with a hesitant glance at them, began clearing dishes away. Cecy lowered her voice. “You and I both know you have a tendency to become obsessed when you are faced with a problem. Tell me, what was it that happened when we were at school and your pet bird went missing?”
Sophia flushed. “That was different.”
“You spent so much time in Dream that you collapsed and had to be sent home for a week of bed rest,” Cecy said. “When it was clear to everyone that the obnoxious creature had escaped to the forest to live a carefree existence where its shrill and horribly intermittent cries could not disturb innocent girls who only wanted to sleep during the dark hours as God intended.”
“All right,” Sophia said, torn between irritation and amusement. “I will concede your point that I sometimes become…”
“Obsessive.”
“Overly focused on a problem,” Sophia said. “But it is that quality that has brought me my greatest successes, as I’m sure you’ll recall.”
“I believe the Fleet of the Americas is grateful to your obsessiveness, with all those weeks of analyzing Visions that led you to understand the fundamentals of how they work,” Cecy said. “And then more weeks of training your fellow Extraordinaries to use the technique against the remaining pirates. But you came close to collapse again, and you cannot expect me to be happy about that, no matter how much success you had.”
“Cecy, I swear to be careful. I cannot achieve Lord Endicott’s destruction if I collapse; you don’t believe I drive myself to the breaking point because I enjoy it?”
“I believe you do not always know where the breaking point is.”
“Then you will have to remind me,” Sophia said. She picked up her scissors and waved them in Cecy’s direction, snipping the air with a couple of metallic tearing sounds. “I will stop you overexerting yourself, and you will stop me forgetting to eat and bathe.”
Cecy wrinkled her nose. “I daresay I have the less pleasant task.”
“But you are the more recalcitrant of us. Will you see Dr. Garland today?”
“Tomorrow,” Cecy said, “though I feel horribly guilty, dragging her here three times a week only to wait on me and repeat the same temporary treatment every time.”
“You forget she sees your condition as a challenge. Do not deny her the pleasure of treating you like an experiment.”
Cecy laughed. “How strange that the idea does not make me feel angry or dehumanized.” She pushed a few papers aside. “Is there anything I can help you with?”
“You can examine the Morning Chronicle for references to Lord Endicott,” Sophia said, handing over that newspaper and a second pair of scissors. Having Cecy’s cooperation, even if it was not completely whole-hearted, lifted her spirits. She would not admit it to Cecy, but the piles of newspapers daunted her a little. So much to read, and she knew from experience that little of it would have bearing on the Dreams she sought—but she could not know which of them might contain what she was looking for, and she could not risk missing a key piece of information by ignoring one simply because it seemed an unlikely source.
She had a moment’s irritation at Lord Endicott that had nothing to do with how he’d humiliated her or her current pursuit of his criminal activity. What she wanted to do, now that she was free of her government service, was pursue a greater understanding of the mechanism of Dream, as she had Vision. Aside from Bounding, Dream was the least understood of all the talents.
Seers knew that immersing themselves in the facts surrounding a person or event led to more detailed and accurate Dreams, but not why this was so, and no one understood how knowing facts, which necessarily existed in the past, could produce knowledge of the future. Sophia was convinced there was an answer, but she had no time, thanks to Lord Endicott. Proving him guilty was crucial. Proving him guilty in a way that caused him maximum public humiliation…it was not necessary, but it would satisfy her in a way she felt vaguely guilty about.
She snipped another story out of The Times. Lord Endicott was speaking to Parliament yet again in favor of the war. Possibly he was involved in some other crime connected with the military, if he were yet so passionate about Britain’s continuing support of the fight against Napoleon.
Sophia, though she was in favor of her country defending itself against a merciless aggressor, nevertheless was uncertain about the morality of taking action against civilians who were in the thrall of an Extraordinary Coercer such as Napoleon. He had the gall to brag about his talent, as if it were not something foul that corrupted everything it touched; how could the ability to sway the emotions of multitudes, to make them believe they loved him, be anything but a curse?
No Coercer, Extraordinary or otherwise, had emerged in England for more than one hundred years, but the unexpected manifestation of an Extraordinary Scorcher talent had made some question whether Coercers might not simply be concealing themselves. Two of Sophia’s newspapers had sections devoted to speculation as to which prominent member of Parliament might owe his power to a secret talent, though Sophia thought they were simply fond of looking for conspiracies where there were none to be found. She hoped. The idea of having her emotions manipulated frightened her.
“You intend to call on Lady Claresby this morning, yes? Would you mind stopping in at Floris? They know which scent is mine, you need only ask after my name,” Cecy said.
“I would enjoy running your errand, as the day seems so pleasant, though I am certain you simply want me away from my obsession for a few hours.”
“You know me so well,” Cecy said with a wink.
It was, in fact, a beautiful day. The sky was clear, brightening the winter sun and warming the chill air so that Sophia asked Peter to lower the hood of the barouche. She even considered leaving her pelisse behind. But she settled for respectability, and relaxed into the leather seat that warmed with her body’s heat and that of the sun until it was perfectly comfortable.
All of London appeared to be out today, enjoying the respite from the oppressive frozen fug that had gripped the city for the previous three days. The pedestrians Sophia passed seemed more animated than before, as if they too had been gripped with immobility by a winter that already seemed as if it might never end.
She resolved to run Cecy’s errand first, so it would not weigh on her during her visit with Lady Claresby and Daphne. The route took them near King Street, which brought Almack’s to mind again, and Sophia found, to her surprise, that rather than being infuriated by the memory, she felt pleasure—pleasure at knowing she could bring Lord Endicott down if only she applied herself. She turned around in her seat after the carriage passed the turn that led to Almack’s, watching until it was hidden by the shops of Jermyn Street. Y
es, she thought, I will have justice, and stifled the fleeting thought that perhaps justice would not be enough.
She found that Floris, at least, was one of the shops that had not changed during her absence—that likely had remained the same for more than eighty years. She always enjoyed her visits there, with delicate scents in the air that were discreet and never overwhelming. She chose a comb for herself while waiting for Cecy’s purchase to be wrapped. The shop seemed designed to lure one into making a purchase, if only for the pleasure of holding one of the little boxes, beautiful in itself as well as for the jewel-like treasure it contained.
Sophia held her parcel and went to the multi-paned window, nearly filling the front wall of the shop, to watch Jermyn Street’s constantly moving traffic. The edges of the glass where they met the leading were slightly curved and made the passing men and women flicker as they passed. Sophia amused herself by considering how they would look if the window had the power to magically transform them to match those brief flickers. Tall and skinny, like the pair of chattering women with arms linked who strode rapidly down Jermyn Street? Or spherical, like the large man who stood outside near the door as if waiting for someone? Why he would choose to wait in the cold instead of the comfortably warm shop was a mystery.
She accepted her parcels with a smile and exited the shop only to nearly run into the spherical man, who still stood near the door. He was several years older than she, and not really spherical, of course, but well over six feet tall, and powerfully built. His dark eyes came to rest on her with such swiftness that Sophia was unsettled. “I beg your pardon, sir,” she said, taking a few steps away.
“No, I should beg your pardon, Mrs. Westlake,” he said. His voice was deep and smooth, and in tone unnervingly like Lord Endicott’s, though in a much lower register. His well-bred accent was completely at odds with the pantaloons and undistinguished greatcoat he was wearing. “I was not paying attention to where I was standing.”
“You know my name,” Sophia said, trying to conceal her irritation. Once again her red gloves left her open to impertinences. It was not uncommon for admirers, or supplicants, to follow her in the hope of convincing her to perform some service for them, regardless of propriety; had she been any ordinary gentlewoman, it would have been the height of bad manners for this man to accost her on the street. Many Seers enjoyed their notoriety, and most accepted commissions—at a hefty fee, of course—as a way of making a living. Sophia, having no need of money, found the whole thing annoying. “I do not accept commissions, sir.”
“I’m not interested in a commission, not the way you mean it,” the man said. “My name is Rutledge, and you used to work for me.”
“I beg your pardon again, sir,” Sophia said, “but I know the men and women of the War Office for whom I used to work, and you are not among them.”
Mr. Rutledge took Sophia’s arm and drew her a few steps away from the shop door before releasing her. Sophia was too startled to resist. “My…employer…has no Extraordinary Seers—no Seers of any kind—of its own,” he said. “General Omberlis occasionally loaned me your services. You must remember that some of your Visions seemed unrelated to the war?”
“I am not at liberty to discuss my military service,” Sophia said. His size, and the deepness of his voice, and the way he stood so near to her, were beginning to make her nervous. Granted, he was unlikely to assault an Extraordinary nearly on the doorstep of Carlton House, but if he did, the fact that he would face a long prison sentence would be no comfort. She began assessing the distance from where she stood to her waiting carriage. Why did the stupid driver not see her predicament?
“Then I will tell you about it,” Mr. Rutledge said. “You entered the service in aught-nine, when you came of age, as is expected of an Extraordinary Seer. You had an exemplary record for over three years. Perfect accuracy. And then you had a Dream that was disproven and you refused to admit you were wrong. The War Office expelled you, though it concealed the details of that expulsion to protect you and it both. Am I correct?”
“How do you know that?” Sophia said.
“I told you. You used to work for me. And now I would like to employ you on a somewhat more regular basis. I have need of an Extraordinary Seer. I know and respect your abilities. And I believe I can offer you something beyond money.”
“And what would that be?” Sophia said.
“An opportunity to reclaim your reputation. To prove you are still as reliable as you ever were.”
Sophia caught her breath. Vindication. Someone, finally, realized she had been telling the truth. “Then you are employed by the government,” she said. “Who is your employer?”
He shook his head. “I can’t tell you that until you’ve agreed to work for me. I can assure you it would not be immoral or degrading work, but I am not at liberty to reveal my connection to it to anyone who is not similarly committed.”
“I am not comfortable with that.”
“Are you comfortable with how things stand now? With the War Office considering you unstable and irrational?”
It was like a blow to the chest. “I say you are impertinent, sir,” Sophia said.
“I apologize if my words were inappropriate, but I believe they are no less true for all that,” Mr. Rutledge said.
Sophia considered briefly. “And how is my work for you to redeem my reputation? How does it involve Lord Endicott?”
“It has nothing to do with Lord Endicott,” Mr. Rutledge said, frowning. “I thought you had put that behind you.”
The ache in her chest tightened. “Then you believe my Dream was false,” she said.
“I don’t believe you deserved to be expulsed simply for one incorrect Dream,” Mr. Rutledge said. “The War Office acted out of fear of what political pressure Lord Endicott might have brought to bear, and that was wrong.”
Sophia focused on his face. He was surprisingly attractive for a faithless deceiver who was stupid enough to be taken in by Lord Endicott. How attractive would he be if she balled up her fist and struck him in the eye? “My Dream was not incorrect,” she said, winding her fist into the fabric of her gown so it would not attack him independent of her control. “Lord Endicott is an embezzler and he arranged the death of Clive Tate. And I refuse to work for someone who believes I am a liar.”
“I do not believe you are a liar,” Mr. Rutledge said. His tone of voice, so patronizing, was that of someone soothing an injured animal. “You made a mistake—”
“The mistake was in speaking to you at all,” Sophia snapped. “Do not approach me again.”
The pleasant expression fell away from the big man’s face. “I expended a great deal of political capital to get the—my employer to agree to my proposal at all,” he said. “Some of those in positions of power have learned of your expulsion and believe you to be a liability. I am the only one who still has faith in your abilities. You cannot be so foolish as to reject that.”
“Perhaps you should have spoken to me before you wasted all of that effort,” Sophia said. “I am not so desperate that I will go crawling back to a government that thinks so poorly of me. I have no need of your offer, sir, and if repudiating what I know to be true is what it will take to reclaim my reputation, then I would rather the War Office continue to consider me unreliable.”
“You are making a mistake.”
“I believe, in your eyes, I am making another mistake. I wonder you can have any need of my services at all, if you believe me to be so entirely in the wrong.”
“I—” Mr. Rutledge stopped. He appeared to be controlling his impulse to shout. “Mrs. Westlake,” he continued in a calmer voice, “I wish I could tell you the details of how you have assisted me in the past. I believe it would convince you of my sincerity in offering you this position. We need never speak of your service with the War Office again, if that would satisfy you. I know you. You have a passion for justice that I believe would be put to good use in working for my employer. Please reconsider.”
&
nbsp; Now it was Sophia who had to struggle to control her desire to shout at him. “Mr. Rutledge,” she said, after a moment’s tense silence, “you and I have never met before this day. You do not know me, and I am at a loss to understand why you believe you do. I will do you the courtesy of accepting that you mean me no insult in choosing to disbelieve my story. After all, everyone else feels the same; why should you be different? But this means that you can only think of me in one of two ways: either I am a liar, or I am deluded, and I cannot accept a close association with anyone who believes me to be one of those. So I must decline your offer and ask you not to approach me again, because my mind will not change however you renew your request.”
Mr. Rutledge’s lips thinned as he pressed them hard together, probably trying to contain the words that wanted to escape his tongue. “As you wish. It seems the War Office was right. Forgive my importunacies.” He took a few steps away from Sophia and bowed, raising his hat to reveal dark hair swept back from his brow, then turned and walked away up Jermyn Street.
Sophia watched him until he was a few yards away, then came to her senses and went to Cecy’s carriage. “Don’t leave yet,” she said to Peter, and kept her eyes on the tall retreating figure until he reached the end of the street and turned left out of her sight. “All right,” Sophia said. She scooted down in her seat in case they passed him, but the barouche turned right instead of left and Sophia could breathe more easily.
The encounter had left her as angry as her dance with Lord Endicott had, though in a completely different way. How Mr. Rutledge could expect her to work for someone who believed her either a liar or unstable was a complete mystery. No, she had been inaccurate in making that claim; he simply believed her to be wrong, and she probably should not hate him for that, since it was true there was no shame in being mistaken. But she knew she was not wrong, knew it the way she knew what her Dreams meant, and that was what ate at her, because she could have endured making a genuine mistake.
He thought I should be beholden to him, that I should be grateful for his intervention on my behalf, she thought, and that infuriated her all over again. She didn’t need the War Office’s approval or good will. She needed to see Lord Endicott brought low. She needed the world to see what evil hid behind that beautiful face. And she needed him to know she was the architect of his destruction.
Wondering Sight (The Extraordinaries Book 2) Page 3