The tall man’s face broke into a brief, perfectly formed smile, then fell back into worry. “We’re late, and there are too many. You shouldn’t have taken them all. I don’t think we can be out of sight of the coast by dawn.”
Sophia frowned, running a hand through curling brown hair still damp from the wig, shaking it out once like a dog. A girl of seventeen or so, one of the Bonnards, had been watching this intently, her eyes large and staring through shorn strands of dingy blond hair that was much like her little sister’s. She stood so close, the starlight showed a spatter of freckles through the prison dirt on her nose.
Sophia turned away, quickly tying her brown curls back in the way of an Upper City man as the girl was bundled onto a horse. “It was not possible to take some and turn the key on the others, Spear,” Sophia hissed.
“Not possible for you,” Spear sighed, clicking the loose board into place across the back of the haularound. The horses with the Bonnard family and two other prisoners cantered away from the clearing. The other six residents of hole 1139 clung to one another on the ground, family or no, waiting for their turn.
“Send the twins to lay the usual false trail,” Sophia said, climbing up into the seat, “though it may not help us this time. If LeBlanc is clever, he’ll ride straight to the coast. And I think he is clever. Don’t try to leave together. Push off and get them out to sea as soon as you can. Have them lie down in the bottom of the boats. And tell Cartier to use the fishing nets. Maybe LeBlanc won’t know what he’s seeing. You’ll …”
“Wait.” Spear’s chiseled face, level with her own despite the climb into the haularound, narrowed to a scowl. “You’re not coming in the boats?”
“No room.” Sophia lifted a brow at his expression. “You think I can’t get back to the Commonwealth on my own?”
He stepped closer to the haularound. “I know you can. I just don’t like that you have to, that’s all.”
Sophia picked up the reins. “As if I’d be late to my own engagement party!” she whispered. “What would the neighbors say?” But this only made the young man’s face darken further. “Move them as fast as you can, Spear. LeBlanc will be on your heels. Be careful.” Leather snapped, and the horses jerked forward. “And save me some cake!” she said over her shoulder as the haularound lurched away down the track.
When the woods ended, Sophia took the turning to the sea and picked up speed. The Désolation had not been desolate for many generations, not since the turbulent centuries following the Great Death, and for two miles the horses ran past harvested fields on one side, cliff and booming sea on the other, any ruins long ago hidden by time and turf. Then the haularound turned back inland, drove through a small, sleeping village and straight into the open shed behind a wheelwright’s house. It was not dawn but the sky was paling over the roof tiles, the north lights gone, a sea fog wisping past dark and silent windows. Sophia hurried.
The horses were left to hay and water on one end of the shed, where a fresh, bridled mare stood waiting, already hitched to a tradesman’s cart. The robes of the holy man came out of the haularound, now turned inside out to show a soft green cloth, and the pins of the wig were pulled, releasing a woman’s long, dark curls.
Soon after the arrival of a haularound full of potatoes, a trader’s daughter drove out of the wheelwright’s shed with a cart full of lettuce. Long, dark hair, honey-colored skin, wearing the distinctive green of one with permission to barter in the Sunken City. Sophia clucked to the mare and took the fast road to the coast.
LeBlanc ran his lathering horse down the road to the coast, lifting two pale eyes to a sky that had become a gold-red glory, an escort of gendarmes jangling fast behind him. It was dawn, and they were nearing the sea. Then his gaze came back down to the road and he jerked the reins to one side, only just missing the small cart driven by a girl in trader green, coming at him fast from around the bend. The cart carved a path through his galloping escort like a ship’s prow, the young woman at the reins winking boldly at his men. Then they were off again, never slowing until the road ended suddenly with a cliff.
Horses fanned right and left, but LeBlanc brought his heaving mount to the edge, its breath steaming the air, bending sideways in the saddle to peer down at the rocks and empty beach below. He straightened, pulling an eyescope from his pocket and yanking it to full length. The glass end of the eyescope roved, searching the sea and thinning fog, pausing at the sight of two small boats riding the waves near the horizon. A single figure sat in each bow. One was rowing, the other throwing a casting net, a spiderweb of black against the glowing, orange sunrise.
LeBlanc clicked the eyescope shut against his palm. Then he reached into his pocket and removed a single potato he’d found in a clearing in the woods. He tossed the potato up and down, up and down, a thin smile creeping out from the corners of his mouth.
There would not be many places they could land. Luck had been with him. The Red Rook, it seemed, was only a man after all.
Sophia Bellamy leaned over the rail, looking down at her engagement party with disgust. The ballroom below her glittered with candlelight and wineglasses, alive with people and music and the excited chatter of distant neighbors and her father’s friends. Ribbons, elaborate hair, billowing skirts, and embroidered coats jumbled into a riot of color, every garment she could see copied straight from Wesson’s Guide to Paintings of the Time Before. The Parliament of the Commonwealth did not choose to print the Wesson’s Guide. Because a printing press was a machine, and machines were technology, and because technology clouded minds, weakened the will, and took away the self-reliance of the Ancients—or so their Parliament said—such dangerous items could be used only by a special license. And since the last license for private printing in the Commonwealth had been removed from the Bellamys, taking their sole source of income with it, the Wesson’s Guide was a thoroughly illegal item, leaving the power to cloud minds firmly in the hands of Parliament.
But for a book that no one had ever seen or read, and had certainly never purchased in the undermarkets of Kent, its contents had been well attended to. The copied clothing made the party opulent, decadent, a spectacle of Ancient curled wigs, face paint, and billowing dresses that was also an understated protest of Commonwealth law. It should have thrilled her. The party should have thrilled her. This was a night she was supposed to have longed for all her life, her Banns, the celebration of her engagement to the son of a Parisian businesswoman. He would be down there somewhere, part of the light and music. Sophia stepped back from the rail. For now, the dark and dusty peace of the gallery held more charm.
“You’re not happy, Sophie,” said a voice from just behind her. A low, rich voice, much like her own. Sophia flipped out her fan and turned, giving her brother a raised brow.
“You thought I’d be up here giggling with excitement, Tom?”
He shrugged a shoulder, his walking stick tapping twice as he limped forward to stand beside her. Tom was not her twin but he could have been, had he not been fourteen months older, male, and she painted and bedecked like some sort of sacrifice readied for the marriage altar. His scarlet coat was pressed and perfect, unlike the bones of his leg, which were not going to unwrinkle in any way that would make him a soldier again.
“You look well,” Sophia said. “What have you been doing this week?”
“Nothing as interesting as you.” Tom glanced once around the gallery before he said, “You were late. And how were the explosions? Spear said he thought they went rather well.”
“They were brilliant, thanks to you. And I was only late because Orla thought I had prison lice in my hair.”
“Again? And did you?”
“Not much.” She elbowed him once when he tried to lean away. “Don’t be such a git, Tom. I don’t have any now! And I got there in time for the introductions.”
“Father’s the one being the git. He’s been so worried something would go wrong with your Banns he didn’t even realize you weren’t here. You’ve had
a cold, by the way.”
“He’s not worried, he’s afraid,” Sophia said. “He’ll lose the estate without this marriage fee and everybody knows it.”
“Do they?”
“Well, they suspect it, anyway. How could they not? And what’s worse, he suspects that they suspect it.”
They peered over the rail, moving a shared gaze through the crowd to the man that was Bellamy, their father. Bellamy was small and bent, thinning hair tied neatly back, exuding an atmosphere of defeat in his conversation with Mr. Halflife, their county’s member of Parliament—one man who was not dressed according to Wesson’s, Sophia noted. Bellamy was desperate for this party to go well, she knew that, down to the gluttony and the wine and the overexposed bosoms. Then everyone, including Bellamy, could pretend that her engagement, and the money it would bring, was not the last thing standing between him and a debtor’s prison.
“Do you think Father knows that man wants our land?” Sophia asked, eyeing Mr. Halflife. Tom sighed.
“I talked to him about it again while you were gone, about the river and the rumors of a new port, and why Mr. Halflife would have no interest in helping either him or me keep the estate. I told him that taking the printing license was likely Mr. Halflife’s particular way of not helping. But … it’s hard to know what Father understands these days and what he doesn’t.”
“He probably isn’t understanding anything of that conversation at all,” Sophia said. Mr. Halflife’s posh Manchester accent was very thick.
Tom gave her a small smile, and Sophia smiled back, agreeing that the joke was not particularly funny. The more debt that had accrued, the more muddled their father’s thinking had become. The solution should have been easy. If Tom could prove his fitness to inherit, as the laws of self-reliance required, the estate would pass to him and out of their father’s mismanaging hands. All Tom had to do was amass enough money or assets on his own. For generations, Bellamy fathers had been quietly aiding their eldest sons in this, helping them earn the legal right to an inheritance by creating jobs, business opportunities, or even a clandestine windfall of cash. But their father had seemed unable to grasp that Tom was no longer ten years old, or that the time for his help was long overdue. He’d been hurt and confused by Tom’s decision to join the militia, even when it began to produce the badly needed savings.
Sophia looked across the dark gallery. Tom’s injury had put a stop to all that, or very soon would, when the colonel found out Tom’s leg was never going to heal properly. If Tom could not prove his fitness to inherit before the age of twenty-five, then the Bellamy estate would go to Parliament, which would make Mr. Halflife very happy. If Bellamy didn’t pay off his debt in twenty-six days, then he would go to prison with no proven heir, and the estate would go to Parliament. Which would make Mr. Halflife very happy.
“Well, I think the whole thing is unfair,” Sophia said lightly. “If I’m the one earning the money, then I think the land ought to go to me.”
Tom gave her a look of mock offense. “You’re younger than me.”
“Eighteen is not all that different from nearly twenty.”
“My extra months of life imply clear superiority. And in case you’ve forgotten, you are also a daughter.”
Sophia shook her head. “That is irrelevant. Obviously.” She’d meant to go on with the teasing, but she knew Tom had caught the bite beneath her words. The one fact on which Bellamy remained perfectly clear was that he had a daughter old enough to marry a man who would pay for the privilege.
Tom leaned against the railing. “So tell me what you thought of him.”
“Who? My fiancé?” Sophia glanced downward, searching through the rising haze until she found a young Parisian in a coat of gold brocade. He was surrounded by a gaggle of women, their smiles and their fans fluttering like bird wings. She’d thought him remarkably good-looking, even if it was in a very polished, Upper City sort of way. But that was before he’d said anything. “I’ve decided that Monsieur René Hasard will be a very manageable sort of husband.”
“So the introduction went well?”
“I suppose. He went on and on to Father about his tailor and the fashion for Wesson’s in the Sunken City and spoke barely two words to me.”
Tom smiled. “Oh. Now I see. You’re not unhappy, sister. You’re ticked.”
Sophia frowned and forced herself to examine René Hasard. His hair was powdered silver-white, like many in the room, though with him, the contrast of two very blue eyes and the gold brocade was striking. His gaggle of women certainly seemed to think him charming, and he seemed rather comfortable in the knowledge that they did. She saw him kiss the hand of the daughter of an ink-maker from Canterbury, watched him smile as Lauren Rathbone sidled much too close with her smudgy eyes and the blue plastic earrings dangling down to her neck. She was hanging on René Hasard’s every word. And his arm. Sophia felt her painted brows draw together. She detested hair powder.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” said Tom.
“Nothing. Just … I just never thought I would marry, that’s all.”
Tom gave her a sideways glance, deep brown eyes identical to her own. “Then you’re as big a git as Father. I’ll have to let you borrow my stick, I think.” He paused. “To fend off all your lovers.”
Sophia laughed before she whacked Tom once with the fan. Below them, René Hasard made an elaborate gesture and an eruption of feminine squeals and giggles floated up through the candlelight to the gallery shadows. He was smiling with only half his mouth. She couldn’t look at him. She stared instead at the red and white brick arches that ringed the ballroom, then at the “Looking Man,” as she’d always called him, a larger than life, round-bellied bronze statue of some Ancient man gazing upward in a blowing wind, presumably to examine a sky he could never see.
She kept her eyes on the statue and away from Tom when she said, “I’ve been thinking this could be an … arrangement. I would keep my rooms, and he would stay in the north wing. He could do as he pleases and so would I. So nothing would change. Not really.”
They both knew everything would change. When she was little, she had wriggled her body into the metal folds of the Looking Man’s coat, hiding from the world. Or Orla. She was half considering trying it again tonight. Tom rubbed a hand across the back of his neck.
“And this ‘arrangement,’ ” he said, “is that what Hasard wants, too?”
“I’ll make sure it’s what he wants. That’s all.”
She stared down into the noisy party, so her brother couldn’t see her thoughts. After she was married and the debt was paid, there might be just enough left to fund a business for Tom. She’d been doing the numbers while Orla did her hair. Men of the Commonwealth were notoriously leery of working with a man who’d made himself dependent, even if it was just on a stick, but Tom was clever. If they could just last long enough to get Tom solvent, then the estate would pass to him and they would be free of her father’s mismanagement. The land would be safe.
Sophia felt her determination solidify. Money was the only thing to set all this right, and she was the one to provide it. She would pay her father’s debt, every last quidden of it, and hand the rest to Tom on her wedding day. He would refuse, of course, but she would make him take it. At sword point, if necessary. Maybe they would fight over it. Maybe Tom would have to kill her before her wedding night. This thought made her smile. She snapped open the fan.
“Time to go be brilliant, I think. Wouldn’t want to disappoint Father’s investor.” She picked up her pouf of white skirts, a faithful copy of Wesson’s page thirty-eight, and moved toward the stairs.
“Come down to the beach tonight, Sophie,” Tom called after her. “You’ve been tight with your sword arm lately. And your parry and thrust could use a bit of work, I think.”
She didn’t answer, just threw him a look from the top of the stairs. Then she was descending, down grooved metal steps so old their middles were slightly shorter than their edges, leaving
the comforting dark for the dazzle and noise of her Banns. Her hair was black tonight, piled high and sparkling with jeweled combs, the soft brown curls that were like Tom’s hidden beneath the more vivid locks. The music paused. She smiled at everyone and everything, looking anywhere except at the face above the gold brocade coat that waited for her at the bottom of the staircase.
“Mademoiselle Bellamy,” said René Hasard.
Two words and she understood exactly what game he would play with her. He was going to be the gallant suitor, the sophisticated man of the city that girls like Lauren Rathbone oohed and ahhed over in smuggled Parisian magazines. He would have to play that game by himself. She fixed her gaze on one of the intricately cast silver buttons, the second one down on the gold jacket. He took her hand and kissed it.
“You are radiant tonight,” he said, very Parisian, and very much for the benefit of the crowd around them. “A bright star fallen to the earth.”
She smiled. “Why, you offend me, Monsieur. Isn’t that what the Ancients said about Lucifer?” Parry, Monsieur, she thought. Even the vicar was laughing.
“But unlike the devil,” René replied, “I am certain your beauty reflects your nature.”
She eyed the button in the midst of all that gold brocade. “If you keep trying to flatter me, Monsieur, I will grow brighter still. So bright that your tailor will be disappointed.”
“Disappointed, Mademoiselle?”
“That his most extravagant work should go unnoticed.” And thrust, Sophia thought as a titter went through the delighted crowd. René’s voice was unfazed. And possibly amused.
“To be eclipsed by you, Miss Bellamy, could only be an honor.”
Oh, he was good, she thought. Just as glib and empty-headed and Upper City elite as Lauren Rathbone could have wished for. Sophia took his arm, careful not to disturb the balance of her hair, allowing him to charm her neighbors and her father’s friends as he led her through the congratulations and well-wishes and more than a few looks of envy. She smiled until her face hurt, nodding at the appropriate times, her mind not really on any of it. She was thinking how unfair her brother’s last words had been. She’d thought her parry and thrust were in quite good order.
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