“If Tom is executed, there’s no heir and they take the land anyway! And Father will be considered dependent because of the debt. Halflife will be wanting me to sign …”
René said something that Sophia had heard only in the back alleys of the Lower City, grabbed a flickering taper from the wall sconce, sprang up three stairs, and held out his hand. “Come!” he said, and then again. “Come!”
She went. Up the stairs, painfully, leaving the sounds of a full-blown argument behind them, and then René turned left down an unlit corridor ending in a large window, where another stairwell led to an upper floor. “What is in here?” he asked, throwing open a door opposite the stairs. He pulled her inside and shut the door.
It was a bedroom, one of its corners a small, round tower that looked over the cliffs to the sea. There’d been a time when all these bedrooms were in use, when an entire clan of Bellamys had lived under one roof, adding the rooms as they added the children. They’d been doing the opposite the past century. Closing the doors as they closed the coffins. The door to this room had been closed for a long time.
René was looking for another candle, but there wasn’t one, only an empty, rusting iron holder. He shoved the candle he had into it, doing little to illuminate the gloom of coming dusk and dark-papered walls. He picked up a blanket folded across the bed and shook it, making a dingy cloud before he held it out.
“Take the blanket, Mademoiselle. You are not dressed, and the room is cold.”
She was “Mademoiselle” and “Miss Bellamy” now, she’d noted, never “my love.” She wondered if this meant they weren’t playing games. She laid the maps and the money bag on a dusty table, took the blanket he offered without meeting the blue of his eyes, and went to stand in the round-walled tower. Outside the windows, the lower roofs of the house slanted downward to the lawns, and beyond that were the cliffs and the sea, a gray dark coming down on the whitecaps. She hardly recognized the view from this room. She hardly recognized herself. Tom was gone, and here she stood, hiding in her own house from a member of Parliament, half dressed in the half dark with a half-wild Parisian with red hair and almost all her secrets.
“You should stop moving,” René said after a moment. He’d chosen the floor instead of a chair, resting his back against the wall, elbows on his knees. “Or perhaps you would like for me to sew you up again?” A smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. “I would not mind.”
Sophia turned back to the window, hoping it was dim enough that he could not see her flush. It had not escaped her that if René Hasard had never drunk Mr. Lostchild’s brew, then he had never been drugged. And that meant he had known exactly what he was doing in Tom’s sanctuary. Saying those things in her ear, making her think he wanted to kiss her. Making her wish he had. He was good. Very good. She vowed to look only out the window. Looking at René was not safe.
“Is it canceled, then?” she asked, eyes on the sea.
“Tell me about this Mr. Halflife,” René said instead of answering. The tease was gone from his voice. “Are you certain he is not here to help your brother?”
“Very certain. Parliament wants the land. There is a bay just down the coast, with a tidal river. They want a new port. Tom thinks it was Mr. Halflife who made sure the printing license was taken, to drive us into debt. He’d be more likely to put Tom on the boat than take him off, I think.”
“And what about Hammond? He has been a colleague of the Rook, yes? Is it possible that he will not let your brother leave these shores?”
She shook her head. “He won’t risk twenty gendarmes. He can’t call the militia without Mr. Halflife or the sheriff, and the Commonwealth would say it’s your own business to make sure you can’t be carted off, anyway. So says our doctrine of self-reliance.” She smiled slightly. “A convenient excuse for Parliament to be weak, that’s what Tom says about the doctrines.”
“Tom was militia?”
“Until he broke his leg. He still is, officially.”
“And is that where you got your training, Mademoiselle?”
“He brought most of it home, yes.” Tom had been training her regularly since she was twelve years old. And if LeBlanc thought she had worked her parry on the Bellamy beach for the last time, he was sorely mistaken. She looked back over her shoulder. “How do you know I have training?” Waving that sword around in the north wing definitely did not count.
“I notice things. That is all.”
Sophia ran a hand through her hair, which was sticking out in all directions. What else had René Hasard seen that she was unaware of? “So, is it canceled, then?”
“What? Our wedding?” His face took on an expression of mock hurt. “How could you think me so ungallant?”
“You don’t consider lying ungallant?”
“But I am so good at it, Mademoiselle.”
“And you wonder why no one trusts you.”
“Do you trust me?”
“Of course not.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because you have a dagger in the inside pocket of your jacket.” He smiled with that same corner of his mouth, the corner she really shouldn’t find so interesting. She’d forgotten she wasn’t supposed to be looking. “And I would hate to suffer and die from that curiosity you warned me of.”
René leaned his tousled head back against the wall, fire-blue eyes a little sly. “You are curious, Mademoiselle? Tell me what you are curious about.”
She was curious about why he had really come to Bellamy House. She was curious about what they were doing right now, alone in this room. She wanted to know about this game he’d been playing, why his hands were rough, what red hair felt like, and what would have happened in the sanctuary if she had turned her head. No, Sophia thought, her curiosities were one thing she definitely would not be sharing with him.
Then all at once René was on his feet without a rustle, cocking his head toward the candle. Someone was coming down the corridor. She pretended not to know what he wanted for a moment, then sighed and stepped around the flame, shielding the candlelight with her body and the blanket. René took one of the pillows from the bed, its rotting case leaving a trail of gray feathers, and pushed it along the crack below the door, so their light would not show.
“… can’t have lost the both of them. That is very careless …”
Sophia’s eyes darted up. Mrs. Rathbone. Was the entire county running about Bellamy House today? René met her gaze and put a finger to his lips.
“… and I have something very delicate to say to her. It’s no use asking me what.”
“Mrs. Rathbone, Sophie is resting. She isn’t well …”
Spear, and he sounded tired.
“And so where is she, then?” said Mrs. Rathbone, her voice quite close. They must have been standing on the back staircase, just outside the door. “And where is he, and what have they been up to? Tell me that! You’ll have to keep a much better eye on her from now on. Could she be up here? And when are you going to stop being such a coward? Stand up for yourself, young man! Why don’t you just ask and be done?”
“I don’t know. I will! Just … Leave it alone!” Those last words from Spear had been a shout, coming from a distance as they moved to the upper floor. Sophia bit her lip. Spear usually kept his emotions under tight command. Not today. She closed her eyes. If Spear was back, then Tom was on the Channel Sea, sailing in chains to the Sunken City.
René turned from the door. “Your neighbor seems to believe that you are now Hammond’s responsibility. That is interesting. I think she has also assumed that our wedding is canceled.”
Sophia lifted her gaze. “How could she think you so ungallant?”
“I cannot imagine.” The grin tugged again at his mouth.
Sophia looked away and pulled the blanket tighter, wincing at the pain from her side as she went back to the safety of her tower corner. Dusk had come. Their candle was already brighter in the room than it had been. She said, “You asked what I was curious
about. I want to know why you didn’t tell him. You came here to help him. You knew where I’d been the night before. But then you didn’t tell him.”
“I assume you are referring to my cousin. And if that is so, Mademoiselle, I will tell you that I came here to help him do nothing.”
Sophia turned to him again, ready to protest, thinking of the half-finished letter. But then she held her peace. LeBlanc had left that letter to be found, of course, just like he’d left a man to watch his room. What better way to bait Tom than insinuate his sister was being used? Perhaps she had been. Perhaps she was.
René had settled into his place on the floor, open collar hanging loose, hair untied, elbows back on the knees of his breeches, but now his expression was thoughtful. “It is time to speak plainly, I think, Mademoiselle. I came to the Commonwealth for two reasons. First, because I had been ordered by the head of my family to marry a young woman named Sophia Bellamy. And since I am being truthful I will tell you that this was not any more agreeable to me than I think it was to you. But the head of my family happens to be my maman, and she is a woman … difficult to refuse.”
Sophia could not tell if he meant that as an insult or a compliment. His gaze was on the carpet.
“And then my cousin comes to me, a man I have never seen in my life …” Sophia raised a brow at this. “… but high in the Allemande government, and he says, ‘I have been told you go to the Commonwealth to be married to the daughter of the Bellamys. Then I will offer you a bargain. The Red Rook is on the coast; perhaps he is on the Bellamy land. Find this Rook for me, and I will let your maman out of prison.’ ”
Sophia felt her mouth open. “Your mother is in the Tombs?”
“I am the last of my father’s line. Without me, the Hasard fortune goes to LeBlanc. But, like a miracle, Maman’s freedom will be restored just as soon as she signs away my claim and makes Albert LeBlanc her heir. Which she will never do. Or, like a miracle, if I bring him the Red Rook, then my reward shall be Maman’s release, and LeBlanc will allow the Hasard fortune to stay with the Hasards. Which, you can be assured, Mademoiselle, he will never do.”
Sophia watched René closely, her vow to keep her eyes elsewhere once again forgotten. She doubted her ability to catch him lying, but she did know anger when she saw it. His fingers were clenched together, jaw tight.
“He ought to challenge me for it, if he wants my inheritance. The laws of dueling are not so hard to understand. But perhaps my cousin does not like his odds. So he takes the easy way, thinking to use me in the Commonwealth while he waits out Maman. That she will crack in the Tombs like underfired glass. LeBlanc is an idiot about women. As if Adèle Hasard has not run the business of our family for the past eleven years …”
“Your mother runs Hasard Glass?” Sophia asked. “Herself?” She’d assumed it was one of René’s uncles, or a manager, since René’s father had died. Such a thing was unheard of in the Commonwealth, and must be nearly so in the Sunken City.
“Yes, she runs the glass factory. Some of her brothers are part owners, but we all know that Maman has the head for money. But … we have other interests as well.” René’s blue gaze finally lifted to find hers. “As we are laying our cards on the table, Mademoiselle …” He shrugged. “Mostly, the business Adèle runs is smuggling.”
“Smuggling?” Sophia repeated.
“We are smugglers, Mademoiselle.” His smile quirked.
Sophia turned back to the darkness of the tower window and leaned against the wall, her legs shaking just a little. Of course they were smugglers. Why shouldn’t they be smugglers? She was considering just how much it might hurt to slide her back down the wall and sit when she realized that René was standing right beside her.
“You will permit,” he said before he scooped her up, carrying her the few feet to the end of the high bed. “No. No more,” he said before she could voice any indignation, or anything at all. “You not only endanger my excellent stitches and all my best shirts, but now your refusal to stay still jeopardizes my gold jacket. It is what they call the last straw.”
Sophia closed her mouth. She was so tired, and she liked the way he smelled. He must pack his clothes with cedar. She’d been smelling it on the jacket ever since she left the north wing. Which was not at all what she should have been thinking about. He laid her down carefully along the wrong end of the bed, adjusting the blanket over her legs.
“And in any case, Mademoiselle, you did not mind so much when I carried you last night …” He dragged a nearby chair to the edge of the mattress and sat on it backward. “To say the truth,” he said, looking elsewhere, as if to spare her embarrassment, “we had to pry your arms from my neck.”
Again she was hoping the dimness of the room hid her flush. What a ridiculous habit this was becoming. Sophia turned to face René on her unstitched side, head propped up on her hand. “And perhaps you might remember, Monsieur, that I was suffering from a head injury at the time? Is it any wonder that I would act insane?”
Both corners of his mouth were turned up now. And there it was again. Daughter stealer. She wished he wouldn’t do that. She looked at the fraying coverlet. It might have once been dark green. “So, the Hasards are a family of smugglers. I assume my father doesn’t know about this.”
“I would think not.”
“And what do you smuggle?”
“Plastics, Mademoiselle.” He leaned over, elbows on the mattress. “It is noble. The city has allowed them to be melted down and reused for many years, but how are we to understand the past if we destroy it? And when they are gone, how shall we ever get them back? So Maman, Uncle Émile, and Uncle Francois, in particular, are noted collectors—purely a pastime for the owners of Hasard Glass, you understand—but we assist in the buying and selling of artifacts, entertain other collectors and investors, host showings and arrange transactions with … certain individuals who we know will appreciate them. Sometimes a discreet removal is necessary. Or, if an item is in danger of falling into unappreciative hands, we might feel the need to … liberate it.”
“You mean you have people steal them for you.”
“Ah. Uncle Andre and Uncle Émile used to do most of the liberating, but … well, I am better at it than they are.”
Sophia blinked long. Of course he was.
“One must buy and sell something, and we are saving history from destruction.”
“And I suppose acting like a first-class git gets you a better price, does it?”
“You wound me, Mademoiselle!” He appeared completely unwounded. “Our clients find me charming. And I find out things Maman and my uncles never could …”
“Because people think you’re an imbecile.”
“Being … how do you say, underestimated, that is never a bad thing.” He shrugged, looking every inch the scoundrel. “It could be that I enjoy it overmuch.”
She’d noticed. And yet he’d deliberately shown her something different during that chess game. She wondered why. “And so it’s clients that you’ve been entertaining, then, ever since the night of our Banns? Is that right? Or were you hoping Tom would underestimate you so badly that he would be compelled to sell you his artifacts for half their worth?”
“Ah.” René shifted on the chair, showing the first tiny glimpse of shame she’d ever seen in him. “I said I would speak plainly, and so I will. I told you before that I was not happy with this arrangement between us. I thought that perhaps if I made myself very distasteful, that you or your father would break the marriage contract.”
It almost made her laugh. Almost. She wished she could have told Tom. No bribery necessary to get rid of René Hasard after all. What had truly been underestimated was the desperation of the Bellamys.
“Don’t look like that, my love,” René said. He very carefully removed a long curl from her face. “Lovely as you are, you did not strike me as a particularly sweet-tempered wife.” He paused. “At first.”
Sophia met his gaze, forge-fire blue in the dim of their fli
ckering candle, for once not immediately looking away. He was teasing her, she could see that, but there was something else behind it, and she could not tell what that expression meant. She studied the coverlet again. “So, your mother sends you to the Commonwealth to marry a girl you’ve never seen because …”
“She says I need a firm hand.”
“… to tame your wicked ways. But then she is imprisoned, and your cousin offers to release her if you find the Red Rook. And you do not agree to this because …” She left the question in the air.
“Oh no, Mademoiselle. I told you that LeBlanc is not going to release her either way, but my maman has taught me much better than that. I accepted LeBlanc’s offer. I told him I would find the Rook, and so I did. But do not reach for my dagger.” He sat back, grinning. “I agreed because I wanted the Red Rook for myself. Perhaps Adèle Hasard will not give in, but that does not mean I will let her rot out her years in an Allemande hole. It is possible I could break her out myself, of course, but when the opportunity came, I thought, why not go to one who has had, may I say, such spectacular success?”
Sophia played with a thread from a hole in the coverlet.
“And so I sailed to the Commonwealth to engage myself to a girl I may not have the inheritance to marry, to find the identity of the Red Rook and convince him that Adèle Hasard should be the next prisoner on his list. All so that I could have the inheritance to pay the fee for this same girl that I did not so much wish to marry.” He put his elbows on the mattress again, and she looked up to find the blue eyes very close, gazing at her from beneath heavy lids. “Imagine my surprise.”
Yes, she could imagine it. It had to be almost as extreme as hers was right now.
“Make a bargain with me,” he said, voice low. “You are thinking to bring out your brother, yes? And Jennifer Bonnard? Get Adèle out of the Tombs as well, and I will help you. And there are many ways that I can help you, Mademoiselle.”
Sophia frowned down at the bed, considering.
“Come to the city as my fiancée and you can travel openly. Nothing would be more natural, and my connections in the … less than legal circles of the city are many. I can give you the flat to operate from. I can get you whatever you need. I can even smuggle them out. I can smuggle you out.” He waited before he said, “I think you will not be able to rely on the methods of the past. LeBlanc will be careful with this prize, and this will not be a mission the Red Rook will wish to leave to chance.” He straightened the edge of the blanket. “I believe that you will need me.”
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