The Water Nymph: The Arboretti Family Saga - Book Two

by Michele Jaffe

  “No, just the meringues. But I figured that Tottle’s News must have worked the same way. Any of the people we interviewed would have been good candidates for blackmailing.”

  Crispin agreed. “Have you looked at the body yet? We should be sure that there are no more handy pieces of paper lying about with your name on them.”

  Sophie watched with dismay as Crispin lifted the baker’s head from the pile of flour on the table. His eyes were still open, his face a mask of shock, just as Richard Tottle’s had been. Whoever had killed them both had certainly taken them by surprise, suggesting it was not someone from whom they felt they had anything to fear. Sophie thought this over as Crispin frisked the corpse, delving into the waist of his breeches and feeling among the folds of his tunic, careful to avoid the long, unmarked knife that protruded from the man’s stomach.

  “Nothing,” he announced, slumping the baker’s head back onto the table. “They must have assumed—”

  Crispin stopped midsentence. For the first time, he noticed the man’s hand, dangling down along the side of the seat. It looked strange, and lifting it, Crispin discovered why. Something was clasped between the man’s fingers, something shiny. With great difficulty Crispin pried first one finger, then another open and extracted the object. It was a piece of shimmering light blue fabric with a bumblebee embroidered on it.

  He held it up for Sophie to see.

  “That is one of Octavia’s bees,” she exclaimed. “You know, from her dresses. She is famous for them.”

  “Do you have any gowns with bees on them?” Crispin asked slowly. “Any, for example, in light blue taffeta like this?”

  Sophie’s face fell. “I have one exactly like that. She made me wear it to several balls recently so people could see her new design.”

  Crispin could only imagine how spectacular Sophie looked in that color blue, and how memorable. Anyone seeing the bee against the blue background would undoubtedly connect it with the beautiful renegade already wanted for one murder. Even in his brief foray from Lawrence’s house to the bakery, Crispin had heard talk of little else besides Sophie Champion, divided fairly evenly between condemnations of her as a murderess and applause for her wondrous escape. He had also heard, in passing, several women comparing stories of friends of theirs who had been given funds by Sophie Champion for enterprises they wanted to undertake, and several others who had been rescued from bad fathers, brothers, or husbands with Sophie Champion’s aid. Even allowing for exaggeration, Crispin calculated that Sophie had given away the better part of three fortunes, and found himself struggling not to confront the question of where all that money had come from. But unlimited resources—no matter how they were procured—would not save her from the gallows. Whoever was trying to frame her had to be found. Soon.

  The sound of a key turning in the lock of the front door interrupted Crispin’s thoughts abruptly and underscored their importance. Jamming the piece of fabric into his doublet, he moved toward Sophie and pushed her into what appeared to be a closet at the back of the chamber, following behind her. They had only just closed the door when they heard footsteps enter the room they had left, and stop in front of the corpse.

  Sophie and Crispin found themselves standing on a shallow, cold landing, completely dark but for the thin line of light dribbling in from under the door. Crispin reached out a hand toward Sophie and she took it, grasping it tight. Behind them, the darkness was absolute, and Crispin concluded that there must be a set of stairs, descending into the cellar of the building.

  Those stairs, and the pitch-blackness at their base, were their only hope, Crispin knew, and probably the incarnation of Sophie’s worst fears. But they could not stay on the landing—the constables who were examining the corpse were sure to open the closet door looking for clues—and their sole chance of escaping from detection was to hide themselves in the darkness below. Crispin squeezed Sophie’s hand and felt her squeeze it back, if not firmly, at least without hesitation.

  The sounds of the corpse being moved in the outer room muffled their footsteps as they descended the stone stairs into the cellar. Crispin went first, slowly, pausing whenever Sophie needed to pause. At one point, when the darkness had become complete, she stopped and pressed herself into the wall.

  “Go without me,” she whispered breathlessly. “I can’t. Please, just go.”

  Crispin could tell by the way her palm had grown cold and stiff that she was gripped by fear. “Close your eyes, Sophie,” he whispered. “It will be fine. Remember last time? Remember how nothing happened? I will not hurt you. Close your eyes and trust me, tesoro.”

  The sound of his voice when he said that word soothed Sophie as it always did, as he knew it would. She obeyed him, shutting her eyes, and felt the warm safety of Crispin’s arms closing around her, then lifting her to his chest. Her breathing became more even as he descended the last ten steps, taking them sideways to ensure that Sophie’s head did not hit the stone wall.

  The floor at the bottom was covered in rushes, which crunched with a crazy echo each time he moved. It was even colder down here, and over the wheaty smell of the rushes, Crispin caught a rich, milky scent.

  “Mmmm,” Sophie murmured into his chest. “Butter.”

  She was right. They must be in Sweetson’s buttery, or at least his cold storage. And if that was the case, there must be another way out, a way that opened directly into the court at the back of the house so that deliveries need not be carried down the narrow, rickety stairs.

  “Sophie, if I set you down, will you be able to stand?” Crispin whispered to the bundle in his arms.

  “Do not leave me alone,” she answered, desperation tingeing her words again.

  “I have no intention of leaving you alone. I will be right here in this room with you. But I must look around for a way out, and if we both look, we will make more noise.”

  Sophie pressed herself against him. “You won’t leave me alone? You won’t leave me here?”

  “No, tesoro. Never.” Crispin felt her release her grip on him slightly and he lowered her to the ground. Feeling with his foot, he found a large, hay-covered block and steered her toward it. “Sit down here, and don’t move.”

  Sophie did as she was told, keeping her eyes closed, and listened attentively to the noises around her. She could make out the clamor of voices, at least two, in the room upstairs, and the shuffling of feet. A heavy thud told her that the body was being moved again, but the sound of dragging stopped before it could have reached the outer door.

  At that point, footsteps approached the door of the closet. Sophie felt the block, definitely of butter, beginning to melt beneath her as the hinges of the door above squeaked open. She opened her eyes to see light flooding in from upstairs, illuminating the top two thirds of the staircase, but leaving the bottom dark. Sophie leaned forward slightly on her slippery perch and looked up.

  She saw two men at the door. One of them was so wide that he blocked most of the light, but in the little that remained she was able to see enough of his features to know that she recognized him. He had been at Lawrence’s the night she was taken to prison. As had the shorter one standing next to him, she now realized. Yes, even though she only had him in profile, she was sure that he was another of the men who had hauled her from Pickering Hall.

  “Come on. There ain’t no one down there. Let’s go.” The shorter man addressed the wide one strenuously.

  “I smell something,” the wide one said. “Something suspicious.”

  “It’s butter, you idiot,” the shorter one told his companion. “Haven’t you ever thought of a baker having butter? We want to get him out of this place before the others come. We don’t have time to be looking for anyone in a buttery.”

  The wide man took one step down the stairs and, bending slightly, squinted into the darkness. For a moment Sophie could have sworn he had seen her
, was looking right at her, but then he straightened up. “Very well. We will move the body. But I am going to lock the door and come back later. I still say there is something suspicious down there.”

  The two men left the landing and shut the door behind them, plunging Sophie once again into darkness. Worse, this time she heard what had to be a heavy chain being dragged through the door handles and a lock being clicked into place.

  The noises upstairs died down and at last faded away entirely. It was completely dark, completely silent. A chill ran up Sophie’s back, and then another as she heard a rustling in the straw in front of her and felt someone’s breath on her face.

  “Crispin,” she whispered.

  There was no reply.

  “Crispin,” she whispered again, now more desperately. “Crispin, is that you?”

  The rustling ceased for a moment, but there was still no reply. Then Sophie felt something brush against her, and then a hand, grabbing her, first her arm, then her thigh.

  She opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out. And then, just when she thought she could, someone put a hand over her mouth, gagging her. She whimpered in terror, flailing in the darkness, tears streaming down her face, too scared to hear the voice whispering in her ear.

  “Shhh, Sophie, I am right here,” Crispin repeated. “It is okay, it is just me,” he went on, soothingly.

  Sophie stopped moving.

  “If I take away my hand, tesoro,” he asked, “will you shout?”

  Sophie, numb with fright, shook her head, and Crispin removed his hand.

  “What scared you?” he asked, pulling her close to him.

  “Why didn’t you answer me?” Sophie panted. “When I said your name, why didn’t you tell me it was you?”

  “I did not hear you say my name. I was in another part of the chamber.”

  Sophie clutched his arm. “There is someone else in here with us. He touched me. He breathed on me. And now he is locked in here with us.”

  Even in the pitch blackness, even without seeing her face, Crispin could tell that she was petrified with fear. There was no chance that he could convince her to move through the darkness toward the other side of the buttery in this state, he knew.

  With Sophie still hanging on to his arm, he fumbled in his tunic until he found a tinderbox and a scrap of candle. Having heard the lock click into place on the door above, he judged that they were, for the time being, safe from intrusion, and so he lit the candle stub. The wick flickered to life, confirming that they were indeed in a buttery, surrounded by large blocks of butter, with several metal tubs containing cool water lining the walls. Sophie exhaled slowly as she looked around her, seeing that her fears had been groundless, that there were only the two of them there.

  She had never thought she would be so relieved that she had been locked alone in a pitch-black room with a man. Her heartbeat had almost returned to normal, when a shadow moved on the wall beside her. Sophie leapt toward Crispin, bumping into him and sending both him and the stump of candle spluttering to the floor. The flame blew out as it fell, leaving them once again in complete, heart-wrenching darkness.

  “Who is there?” Crispin demanded, rising quickly. He held Sophie to his chest with one hand and rested his other on the hilt of his rapier. “Identify yourself, or I shall strike.”

  The only reply was a muted shuffling.

  Crispin drew his sword. The sound of the steel blade sliding from its sheath and cutting through the air echoed terrifically in the stone chamber. He flourished it once, slicing the air with a succinct whistle, and heard a whimper from just in front of them.

  “Please,” a small, female voice begged through the whimpering. “Please don’t hurt me. I ain’t meant no harm.”

  “Who are you?” Crispin asked, directing the point of his rapier downward.

  “Just the chamber girl. Just the girl who works for Sweetson. I ain’t no one.”

  Crispin’s tone softened. “What are you doing down here, in the buttery?”

  “They told me to hide until they come for me, and not show myself or talk to no one, and then when they say, to tell what I seen.”

  “What did you see?” Crispin asked with interest.

  “I saw her kill him. The woman in blue. I saw her stab my master.”

  Sophie drew a sharp breath as the girl spoke, but Crispin pressed her to his chest to keep her quiet.

  “A lady in blue,” Crispin repeated. “You saw her kill your master.”

  “Yes, sir. Lady in blue.”

  “What color hair did she have?” Crispin queried.

  “I ain’t supposed to tell anything about her hair. Just that I seen a lady in blue. Blue taffeta.”

  “I see.” Crispin seemed to take this in for a moment, then his tone changed. “How much did they pay you to say that?”

  “They didn’t pay me nothing to say it, it’s true,” the girl answered defiantly, but her voice had become higher pitched, and the faint noise of coins being fondled in a purse reached Crispin’s ears.

  “I bet,” Crispin mused aloud, “that they said that if you told anyone about them paying you, they would take the money away. Isn’t that right?”

  “No.” The girl shook her head so intently back and forth that Sophie and Crispin could hear it. “They said if I told anyone, the money would turn to ashes. Imagine, all them pretty gold pieces turning to ashes. So I said I’d not tell who paid me. Only about the lady.”

  “That was wise. Say, how many pieces did they give you?” Crispin asked conversationally. “I once had two gold pieces.”

  The girl almost snorted with disdain. “I got four. Four o’ the shiniest you ever laid eyes upon. Do you want to see them?”

  “Very much,” Crispin answered enthusiastically. “But first we have got to get out of here. I don’t suppose you know where the door to the kitchen courtyard is?”

  The serving girl, in her element now, begged to differ. “If you give me your hand, I’ll lead you there,” she offered.

  After only two collisions with yielding cubes of butter, Crispin, Sophie, and the serving girl found themselves standing in the courtyard behind the baker’s house. Sophie was taking huge gasps of air, drinking it in, while the other two stood off to the side.

  The serving girl looked to be about ten, with huge eyes and filthy pieces of brown hair clinging to her head. She smiled shyly at Crispin once they had emerged into the light.

  “Let’s see those gold pieces,” Crispin said, winking at her and extending his hand.

  “I’ll show ’em to you. But I don’t like him,” the serving girl pointed to Sophie. “I don’t like men with mustaches.”

  “Neither do I,” Crispin confided in her, motioning to Sophie to stay behind them. “We won’t let him see the coins.”

  The girl nodded, then reached into her petticoat and extracted a purse. It was blue, made of the same fabric that Crispin had found clutched in the dead man’s fingers. The serving girl emptied it into her hand, revealing four gleaming gold coins.

  “Aren’t they beautiful?” she preened as they caught the evening light. “Aren’t they the goldest you ever seen?”

  “Yes, they are,” Crispin agreed enthusiastically. “What would you say to making a trade with me?”

  “A trade?” The serving girl was wary.

  “Yes. I will give you five of my gold pieces, in exchange for four of yours.” Crispin reached into his purse and laid the five pieces of gold enticingly in his palm.

  “Yours are dirty,” she replied. “Mine are clean.”

  “Yes, but mine won’t turn to ashes if you tell who gave them to you. And you will have five instead of four.”

  The girl seemed to consider this. “Five,” she repeated, nodding. She handed over the four glittering disks and then clutch
ed the five dull gold pieces Crispin laid in her palm. When she had examined her new coins to her satisfaction, she raised her eyes to Crispin’s to ask, “You won’t tell them I traded their gold pieces, will you? I wouldn’t want them to think that I didn’t like their pretty ones.”

  “I promise,” Crispin swore. “But you’ll have to tell me who it was so I know who not to tell.”

  “I saw a lady in a blue dress,” the girl repeated firmly. “Blue taffeta. She killed my master.”

  “I know. But who paid you?” Crispin asked patiently.

  The girl crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head. “I don’t know nothing but a beautiful lady in a blue dress.”

  “I told you, these gold pieces that I gave you won’t turn to ashes if you tell who paid. Now who was it?”

  The girl grinned widely, like a student who knows they have the right answer. “You did. You paid ’em to me.”

  Sophie, who had been listening to their exchange at a distance, let out a chuckle. “It looks like she has you routed, my lord.”

  Crispin ignored her. “I know I gave you those old ones,” he said, smiling through his clenched teeth. “But who gave you the ones before? The shiny ones?”

  The girl shook her head. “I wouldn’t want to tell you and have them turn to ashes. I wouldn’t do that to you. Him maybe”—the girl jammed a thumb in Sophie’s direction—“but not you. I like you too well.”

  “It would seem,” Sophie started in on him as they made their way back to Sandal Hall on foot, “that you are entirely too likable to the fair sex. If I might give you some advice, my lord—”

  “I don’t want any of Don Alfonso’s advice about women,” Crispin growled.

  “Very well.” Sophie shrugged. “But it is only fair to point out that Don Alfonso has never been duped out of a gold piece by a girl one third his age. Never.”

  “Fascinating,” Crispin replied in a tone that suggested the conversation was over.

  “No, not once,” Sophie went on over Crispin’s protests, warming to her theme. “Not only that, but Don Alfonso always gets his money’s worth.”