Wondering Sight (The Extraordinaries Book 2)

by Melissa McShane

  “It was my pleasure, Lady Montclair,” Sophia said, wanting to wince at the woman’s tight grasp. “And… the other matter?”

  Lady Montclair lowered her gaze. “It is true I am increasing,” she said, even more quietly. “My husband is so pleased. We had thought—” She looked across the room to where Lord Montclair stood near the fireplace, talking rather animatedly to Lewis and a young man with tousled blond locks so perfectly disordered they could only have been arranged that way intentionally. The Earl was a short, round man, ten years older and two inches shorter than his wife, with prematurely greying brown hair parted in the middle and breath that smelled of tobacco, but Lady Montclair gave him such a fond look that Sophia was a little embarrassed at having witnessed such a private thing. Love certainly appeared in the most unlikely places.

  “Again, it was my pleasure,” Sophia said. Lady Montclair gave her a last grateful look before turning away to greet her new guests. Sophia smoothed her dress, realized her palms were sweating inside the silk gloves from Lady Montclair’s firm grip, and went to a quiet corner to remove them briefly. Only a few more guests, and the fire would be unnecessary. She was already more relaxed after speaking with Lady Montclair. Cecy was right: she had been spending too much time in Dream and needed to socialize. Besides, Lord Endicott was socially and politically prominent; it was not beyond reason that someone here might know something of him that would give her Dreaming the detail she needed.

  The door opened again, admitting more guests, and Sophia donned her gloves and turned in time to hear Lord Montclair say, “Rutledge! Come, man, tell us what you think about this news out of the north.”

  In which Mr. Rutledge makes an apology

  he room, which had formerly seemed warm, now stifled her. A familiar large figure came into the drawing room, straightening his coat, which was disordered from removing his greatcoat. When she had spoken with him before, his clothes had had a shabby look to them; now he wore knee breeches and waistcoat and a well-starched shirt and cravat, but his tailcoat was undistinguished, his breeches a muddy brown, and his overall appearance was that of someone who had only a nodding acquaintance with fashion.

  He saw her in her corner, but gave no sign that he recognized her other than the briefest widening of his eyes, and passed through the room to join Lewis, Lord Montclair, and the fashionable blond man in their group at the fireplace. The heat of the room made Sophia dizzy. How should she react to him? He clearly wanted to pretend they had never met before this evening, but did she owe it to him to play along? Don’t be ridiculous, she told herself, what would be the point of claiming acquaintance with him?

  She strolled around the room to give herself time to reclaim her composure. It still infuriated her that he had assumed so casually that she would leap at his offer, that she would be willing to retract her accusations against Lord Endicott, and remembering that made it difficult for her to maintain her calm, though maintain it she did. Lady Montclair deserved better than to have her valued guest begin shouting accusations at someone her husband was clearly friends with.

  Sophia made her fists relax. Mr. Rutledge had been impertinent, had accused her of lying—no, he had said he thought her mistaken in her Dream, but that was only a slight difference—and he had offended her. He knew how she felt about him. He would likely not approach her, and the two of them could both pretend they had not met before.

  “We should ask Mrs. Westlake,” Lewis said, and Sophia realized her perambulations had brought her close to the fireplace. “Sophia, how is the Army payroll distributed?”

  The question was not at all what she had expected, and she felt a moment’s anger at Lewis for asking her anything to do with the war, knowing her history with the War Office. But the four men were looking at her with patient expectancy, so she said, “There is a Bounder corps attached to the quartermaster’s office, tasked with bringing the money each month for distribution to the units. It is a relatively new system—Field Marshal Wellesley is a great innovator, but his superiors are slow to accept change.”

  “Sounds damned uncertain to me,” the blond man said, “trusting all that money to a single person. Should’ve continued sending it by ship.”

  “It only took one capture of a ship carrying the Army’s payroll to convince the government of the greater security of Wellesley’s plan,” Mr. Rutledge said. Sophia avoided looking at him; his deep voice was pitched to carry no farther than their little group, which made his conversation feel uncomfortably intimate.

  “Security from France, maybe, but not from theft by some light-fingered Bounder.” The blond man jerked his head, making his curls gleam in the firelight. “They’re always flitting away without so much as a by-your-leave, be hardly any trouble for them to make off with the money.”

  Sophia, infuriated on Richard’s behalf, sucked in a breath to blast the stranger with an angry retort, and Lewis overrode her, saying, “I imagine the Army has already considered that, isn’t that so, Mrs. Westlake?” He accompanied this with a warning look that said as clearly as speech that her host would be offended if she started a fight in his drawing room. She glared back at him. Her host had said nothing in counter to his obnoxious guest’s comments—but then, Lord Montclair likely knew nothing of Bounders and would certainly not remember Sophia’s husband had been one.

  “Yes, Mr. Barham, the Army has many safeguards in place,” she said. “The coin is counted three times before it leaves Whitehall, and again when it reaches Lisbon, and the Bounder signs for it—she is accountable for any missing money, and I assure you the punishments for a shortfall are severe. But our greatest security is of course that our Bounders are as patriotic, and as committed to winning the war, as anyone.”

  “You see, Skeffington?” Lord Montclair said. “The government isn’t as cavalier with our money as you’d like to suggest.”

  “And yet they insist on paying in coin, when there is such a shortage of it,” Skeffington said. He jerked his neck again as if he had some kind of nervous spasm, but likely he was simply drawing attention to how beautiful his hair was. Since he was standing next to Lewis, he merely looked ridiculous, like an overbred pony trying to draw attention away from an elegant stallion.

  “What alternative would you suggest?” Mr. Rutledge said. Now he sounded amused, as if he already knew what Skeffington would say, and that it would be something idiotic.

  “Well, banknotes, of course,” Skeffington declared, and Sophia had to choke back a laugh.

  “I believe our soldiers would have some difficulty finding anyone in Spain or Portugal willing to accept a piece of paper in exchange for goods,” she contented herself with saying.

  “Are you implying English money isn’t good enough for the guerrillas?” Skeffington exclaimed.

  “The Spanish are in the middle of a revolutionary war as well as fighting the dominance of France,” Sophia said. “Those bills might have been scrawled out by a soldier instead of printed by a reputable bank in England or Scotland, for all the good they will do them. Paper money is only as good as the gold or silver it is backed by, and everyone instinctively knows that.”

  “And with so many smaller banks failing thanks to the gold shortage, there are many people in England who feel the same as our hypothetical Spaniard,” Mr. Rutledge said. “With banks prohibited from paying out in hard money, people have no choice but to accept banknotes, but there is still a feeling, as Mrs. Westlake says, that they are not truly money. You yourself pointed out the greater value of specie, Lord Skeffington, when you alluded to our shortage of coin. We would not have a shortage were people not convinced of the superiority of gold and silver, due to the precarious situation many banks find themselves in these days.”

  “That, and the need for bullion to fund the war, given that our Continental allies are also reluctant to take paper,” Lewis said. “Another reason for using Bounders to transport money, rather than shipping it—those French privateers armed with Scorchers have no fear of attacking our
ships of the line.”

  “That we need that bullion is even more reason not to dump it all on the Spaniards,” Skeffington said. “They’re hardly the most useful of allies. Hiding in the bushes instead of attacking directly the way an Englishman would.”

  Hiding in the bushes. The guerrillas had so often been her eyes—the Spanish were reluctant to allow the English to attach Speakers to their bands, but their reverence for Seers meant they were agreeable to Sophia and the other Extraordinaries following them in Vision, relaying what the guerrillas saw. They were better at reconnaissance than Bounders, more familiar with the territory and more committed to defending it, and she had watched them strike at French troops despite being poorly armed and small in number, watched them fight and watched them fall. Her natural vision had sometimes been blinded with tears as she relayed the last moments of Sight before the Vision went black forever, clinging to some doomed man or woman as if that distant connection could be enough to keep the person alive.

  Her heart beat faster with fury at the stupid, vain man, and she had to turn away from him briefly to maintain her composure. In looking away, she met Mr. Rutledge’s eyes, and his expression mirrored what she knew hers to be so exactly that she had a moment of perfect accord with him. It made her forget, for the space of a moment, that she was angry with him. If he were not so intent on believing me wrong, we might actually be friends, she thought, and that ended her feeling of camaraderie and reminded her again of why she disliked him. At that moment, Mr. Rutledge’s expression of good humor and shared resignation at being forced to endure that fool’s company vanished, and he looked away from her, and she felt unexpectedly guilty, as if she’d slapped him in public.

  “…expect them to simply steal what they need?” Lord Montclair was saying. “They are Englishmen, after all, and men of honor, even if they do come from the lower classes.”

  Memories of what she had Seen some of their English soldiers doing rose up uncontrollably before Sophia’s eyes. “I—” she began, then realized there was no graceful way to end that sentence. How to explain that few men, even good men, were able to withstand the brutalities of war? “They are expected to behave honorably,” she said.

  “Which includes paying for things in hard coin,” Lewis said.

  “And that brings us back to the currency shortage,” Lord Montclair said. “You’re in favor of paper money, Skeffington, aren’t you worried about counterfeit banknotes?”

  “Too much effort to be worth it,” Lord Skeffington said. “Forging receipts, possibly, on an individual basis, but banknotes are designed to be hard to counterfeit, what with all the engraving and scrollwork they put on them.”

  “On the contrary, forgery of banknotes has been a problem for years,” Lewis said. “People often don’t know the difference between a legitimate note and a false one, especially if it’s issued by some small bank no one’s ever heard of, which gives those counterfeiters an advantage.”

  “I thought the Bank of England had resolved all of that—or possibly you’re too young to remember this, Barham, Mrs. Westlake,” Lord Montclair said. “They made a big push about fifteen years ago to wipe out forgery. It drew in all the Bow Street officers and most of the provincial police as well. Covered the whole country.”

  “Fifteen years is a long time for criminals,” Mr. Rutledge said. “I understand forgery is on the rise again. The lure of the easy profit is too great for some men to withstand, even with the threat of execution should they be caught.”

  “Well… that’s what the Royal Mint is for, isn’t it?” Skeffington sputtered. “Keeping our money safe from damned criminals.”

  “Would the Warden of the Mint have jurisdiction, though?” Sophia asked. “I mean, one thinks of minting as something relating to coin, not printed money.”

  “The Mint does not,” Mr. Rutledge said. “It is the banks that have to deal with it, individually. Which is why the Bank of England has, in the past, taken a prominent role in opposing forgery. It has the resources to offer the kind of rewards that entice the Bow Street officers to actively hunt down forgers. They would not promise to pay out so much money were forgery not a serious problem.”

  “How much success have they had?” Sophia asked. Something was niggling at the edge of her awareness, like a memory she could not quite grasp.

  “Not as much as they have in the past,” Lewis said. “Most forgers are caught when they try to pass their false receipts, but forged banknotes are more difficult to spot. Better if they could find those counterfeiters before they can distribute the forged money, but this generation of criminals is clever—more clever than the average thief. I’ve even heard it suggested that this is not several forgers working independently, but an organization run by only a few, and that is how they manage to stay ahead of the police. The Chief Magistrate at Bow Street must be tearing out what little hair he has left in frustration.”

  Coin turns to food and back again. Banknotes turn to clothing to coin and then to notes. Every Dream Sophia had had in the last two weeks slotted itself together, joined by this one piece of information. Could my Dreams mean counterfeiting? Money that is not as it seems? I must not jump to conclusions, I need to Dream again, but—if Lord Endicott is behind this, no wonder the criminals are so clever! She wanted to rush into the street and run all the way back to the Barhams’ house. Or—would it be too much a breach of good manners to ask Lady Montclair for the use of a bedchamber? An absurd thought, but one with some appeal. The evening now seemed interminably long—dinner, and then cards, and then the drive home…

  She suppressed her need to Dream and made herself pay close attention to the conversation. “I had no idea this was such a problem,” she said, overriding Lord Skeffington, whose mouth was open to say something inane or ignorant or offensive or, more likely, all three at once. “No wonder the government is so concerned about it, since I understand they run almost entirely on banknotes these days.”

  “It should have little effect on you, Mrs. Westlake,” Lord Montclair said. “The chances of you being passed a false banknote are very small.” He nodded to her. “Lady Montclair indicates that dinner is served; will you join her?”

  Of course. With no titled Extraordinaries present, and Lady Durston merely a viscountess, Sophia took precedence over every other woman there. Sophia went with Lady Montclair into the dining room, which was more brightly lit than the drawing room and chilly. The walls were an icy shade of white that made the room seem colder than it was, as if they were walls of snow that might begin to melt at any moment. Fat tapers lit the room and the snowy cloth covering the table, which bore a vast number of dishes Sophia was certain the Montclairs could ill afford to share, and it made her feel guilty all over again, guilty and obligated to return their hospitality by eating more than she wanted to.

  She took her seat to Lady Montclair’s right hand, smiling to cover her discomfort, and they waited while the others found their places. Cecy was nearly at the other end of the table from her, which Sophia might have expected. What she did not expect was the man who settled into the chair on her right side. “I hope my company is not unwelcome,” Mr. Rutledge said in a low voice, almost too deep to hear, “but this is where custom demands I sit.”

  Sophia’s guilt redoubled. “I would not be so ungracious, I hope,” she said, “and I apologize if I appeared so, before.”

  Mr. Rutledge nodded, but said nothing more, instead applying himself to the soup before him. Sophia did so as well, but was keenly aware of his large presence at her side, to the point that she responded to Lady Montclair’s conversational gambits distractedly. She was grateful when the Countess turned her attention to Lady Durston, seated on her left, and Sophia could eat her fish and asparagus, no doubt a product of the cousins of the hothouses whence the flowers had come, with at least the appearance of placidity.

  “Mrs. Westlake,” Mr. Rutledge said in the same low voice, and she dropped her fork with a clatter that fortunately drew no one’s attenti
on. Her face reddened, and she did not dare to look at her companion. “I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said.

  “I was simply… lost in my thoughts,” she said.

  “I wish to apologize to you,” Mr. Rutledge said, “for the manner in which I approached you the other day. I should never have suggested that you owed me gratitude for my offer, nor that you were required to accept it.”

  “Thank you,” Sophia said. She still could not bring herself to look at him. “I accept your apology.”

  “Please believe I came to you in a spirit of genuine admiration,” he continued. “General Omberlis would not at first tell me your identity when he offered me your services. I believed you to be a man.” He chuckled. “As time passed, and your predictions continued valuable, I became more effulgent in my praises, and I believe the General took pleasure in revealing the truth and enjoying my surprise. He is very proud of your talent.”

  The room’s frozen white walls threatened to fall on her. “He was proud,” she said, trying to sound as if she were stating a simple fact that was not central to everything she had lost.

  “Don’t—” Mr. Rutledge said. His voice grew quiet. “Believe me when I say I do not wish to cause you pain. Mrs. Westlake, your Dream reports came to me written in such a lively, intelligent voice that I wished to know you better. Can we not find a way to be friends without this… this event interfering?”

  Now she looked at him, this time wondering why he was making such an effort. His dark brown eyes, so dark they were nearly black, were fixed on her with that same intensity that had left her so unsettled at their first meeting. He had a strong chin, a very straight nose, and his mouth showed no signs of the humor she had heard from him only moments before. He looked as if he might wait forever for whatever response she might give him, and she wondered again why it mattered to him that he have her good will. Likely he believed this new approach would carry his point as the first had not.