Rook

by Cameron, Sharon

  “Raised like your family, but not your family. That would explain it.”

  “Explain what?”

  “Why he thinks that you belong to him, Mademoiselle.”

  That made her lift her gaze. “He does not think that.”

  “I only talk of what I see.”

  Sophia opened her mouth to protest further, but then heavy steps came down the small staircase. Spear and his lantern were back. He was huge in this room, Sophia realized. He had to stoop strategically to avoid the ceiling beams. Spear set the lantern on the mantel and came to the couch with her shawl in his hand, the same one he’d fetched during the disastrous dinner with LeBlanc.

  “Orla said to bring you this until we’ve got the fires going.” He laid the shawl on her shoulders, his hand lingering, brushing across her bare neck before he moved away.

  Sophia shivered, though not with cold. She watched as Spear moved about the room, a small smile on his statuesque face, setting this and that to rights, putting an extra cushion on the couch. For her. Sliding a bowl of shelled nuts a little closer on the table. For her. Now moving down the passage and into the kitchen to boil water for willow bark tea. For her. Just as he’d always done.

  Her eyes went to René, who was uncharacteristically still in his chair, the deep blue of his eyes watching her think. Sophia stood suddenly, letting the shawl cascade over the cushions.

  “Would you tell Spear I’m going to bed?”

  René’s expression was inscrutable. “Another grand escape,” he said. “Perhaps I will try going to bed myself, the next time I wish to run away.”

  She had absolutely nothing to say to that. She was nearly to the stairs when Spear called out, “Sophie, wait.” He had come down the passage from the kitchen, ducking under the door frame. “Let me … Orla says you have to drink this tea. For pain.”

  “No need. I’ll have some in the morning.”

  “Then I’ll show you your room.”

  “It will be the one with Orla and a fox in it.”

  “But …”

  René leapt to his feet. “Monsieur Hammond, if you wish to speak to Miss Bellamy, please do not let me stop you. I will give you my chair.” He was across the floorboards before Spear could answer, pausing beside her at the bottom of the stairs. “I think I should go to bed,” he said near her ear, “as fast as I can. Don’t you think I should, Mademoiselle?”

  Then he was away and Spear was waiting. Sophia went again to the couch, wrapping herself in the shawl before sitting back down. It was awful when the people you didn’t want to be right always were. Spear sat in the chair René had vacated. It looked too small for him.

  “Thank you for the use of the house,” Sophia said before he could start.

  “I’m glad to …”

  “Did I tell you the Bonnards were safely delivered? They will be called ‘Devereaux’ now.” She did not mention their pleas for their daughter.

  “Yes, I …”

  “Durant—or the former Ministre of Defense—is only a few miles away. I’m glad they will have at least one person they know. They …”

  “Sophie, it seems like you don’t want to hear what I have to say.”

  She bit her lip and lowered her eyes.

  “I wanted to tell you that I spoke with Tom. Before he left.”

  Her gaze jumped up to meet Spear’s. His face was so extremely perfect she found herself wishing it had a blemish.

  “We only had a moment, but he told me about getting the marriage contract broken. In fact, he told me to make sure it was broken. No matter what I had to do.” He paused, gauging her reaction before he said, “And it makes sense, Sophie. You can see that, can’t you? Tom said to tell you to let the estate go. To break the contract, so we can start fresh when this is over.”

  Something about the word “we” made her look at Spear sharply. “Is that what he said? That ‘we’ will start fresh?” Sophia waited while Spear looked uncomfortable. “Tom meant all three of us? He knows I’m coming to get him?”

  “I think he assumed you couldn’t be stopped, Sophie. But he meant … I think he meant just in case … things don’t work out.” Spear reached out and took her hand. “Actually, when he said ‘we,’ Sophie, he meant you and me.”

  Sophia stared at her hand in Spear’s, numb with surprise.

  “And that makes sense, too, don’t you think? I think it does.” When she didn’t say anything, he continued, “And I’ve been thinking that if all that’s so, then there’s no need to include Hasard in any of our plans now. You don’t owe him anything. Or his mother. We can get Tom and Jennifer out without him.”

  “But …”

  “The last thing Tom said to me was that Hasard couldn’t be trusted. He’s a liar, and he’s playing his own games, Sophie. Let’s get Tom, and let the rest of it go. There’s still this house, and the farm. We’ll move on, like Tom said … together. You know that would be … a good thing. Don’t you?”

  “Spear …” She shook her head, gently removing her hand and putting it in her lap. “Listen to me. If Tom said that, then … he was talking out of turn. I’m not …” She took a breath. “I don’t think now is the time to be talking about it.”

  “You know it’s what everyone expects.”

  Sophia felt her eyes widen. Did they? “Spear, I gave my word to René, to help him get his …”

  “You gave your word,” Spear repeated. The acid in his voice took her by surprise, just as much as the way he’d held her hand. “And what about the marriage? Did you give your word on that, too? Because I thought that was Bellamy’s doing.”

  Sophia stood up a little too fast. She wrapped an arm tight around her wounded side. “Actually, Spear, I don’t particularly fancy marrying anyone at the moment. And I think you’ll find that my fiancé was no happier about being engaged to me than I was to him. But I don’t intend to discuss it again with anyone, not until Tom, Jennifer, and Madame Hasard are out of the Tombs. Is that clear?”

  Spear didn’t answer. He was still, fingers tented over his perfect face. He looked so cast down, like when she was small and had acted unreasonably petulant because he’d won their race to the top of the oak tree. She’d felt guilty then, too. She softened her tone.

  “I have to concentrate on getting them out. Nothing else. Surely you can see that?”

  Spear looked up. His eyes were a cool, clear blue, as far from the smoldering fire of another set of blue eyes as could be. And they were very sincere. “Let’s go on our own,” he said. “Like we always have.”

  “I’m not going to break my word. Not without reason.”

  Spear sat back, chair creaking in the quiet. The look on his face made her heart twist. Tom was a brother to him, too. He couldn’t be worried any less than she was.

  “But I will be careful. Very careful. I can promise you that. All right?” She waited, and when he didn’t reply, she put a hand on his shoulder and kissed the top of his head, the same as she’d done after the incident of the oak tree. She left him in his chair, taking the stairs as fast as she could with heavy limbs, hand against the pain in her side.

  She made the turn at the narrow landing and saw a figure in the dim, hair so red there could be no wondering who it was. René leaned against the wall at the top of the staircase, arms crossed, waiting for her. She came up the last step before she whispered, “You were eavesdropping, weren’t you?”

  “Yes. But I am a very honest eavesdropper, as you can see.” He was also holding his voice low, but she could hear the anger in it, loud and clear, like she’d heard in the dilapidated bedroom. “Do you think I am lying to you?” he asked. “Do you?”

  “Yes.” She was surprised by the question. He had to be lying about something.

  He took a step closer, voice a growling whisper. “I had a part to play, Mademoiselle. As did you. But I am not playing one now, and I have told you nothing that was not true. I swear that.” The fire-blue eyes searched hers. “Do you believe me?”

  S
he didn’t know what she believed. She was tired, and upset, and this anger of René’s seemed to have come out of nowhere, just like the direction of Spear’s conversation below.

  “Do you believe me?” he said again.

  The only light was from a ceiling lamp hanging farther down the corridor. Much of his face was in shadow, but something about the line of his jaw was making her thoughts pause, like in the sanctuary, when she’d forgotten pain in favor of inquisitiveness. She wondered what stubble would feel like beneath her palm.

  “Listen to me. I told you once that you do not see because you will not look. Open your eyes. Why might Hammond tell you Tom said those things? What does Hammond want? Think!”

  She shook herself awake, wishing she could take a boot to her own shin. What was wrong with her? “Spear would not lie to me. Not about Tom.”

  A smile moved across René’s mouth, a smile that did not do one thing to lessen his fury. She was instantly angry that she’d noticed it at all. “Then tell me this,” he said, the words barely a whisper. “If I handed you your precious marriage fee right now, would you take it? Or no?”

  She met his gaze. “No.”

  “Then I would say, Miss Bellamy, that between the two of us, I am not the liar here.”

  And now it was anger rather than embarrassment heating her face. “I think you should listen to me, Monsieur, and let me give you a word of advice. You wish to be believed? You wish to appear trustworthy? Then maybe you should get out of my bloody way and stop listening in on other people’s private conversations!”

  She pushed past and marched down the corridor, opening the first door she came to. When she found St. Just inside, she turned and slammed the heavy oak behind her, shaking the walls. In another moment, René had done the same to his door directly across the hall. And done it a little more thoroughly.

  The floorboards shuddered beneath Benoit’s feet as he peeked out his door. His questioning gaze met Orla’s, who was just emerging from the dark end of the corridor, where the hanging light could not reach, a water pitcher in her hand. They considered each other in silence, and then together looked down the hallway, toward the two doors that had slammed.

  “Ce sera une longue séjour,” said Benoit, who spoke no Commonwealth.

  “I agree, Mr. Benoit,” said Orla, who understood no Parisian. “I think we are in for a very long stay.”

  Spear stayed in his chair for a long time after the doors above him had slammed, watching his hands, where a piece of paper, much folded and marked with the seal of the Sunken City, now rested between two fingers. He turned the paper over and over, thinking of lips in his hair, listening to the groan of Sophia’s footsteps moving across his ceiling.

  LeBlanc pulled the heavy wooden door of Jennifer Bonnard’s prison hole shut, listening to it echo in the Tombs. An unfamiliar shudder traveled down his limbs. It was unthinkable that this was fear. The girl must be lying; what she had said wasn’t possible. It was inconceivable that he, Albert LeBlanc, could have made such a mistake. And if he had? Surely Fate had not removed the blessing of Luck from him?

  He dropped to his knees, disregarding the filth and his pressed suit, and drew a hasty circle with his finger in the sandy, torchlit dirt. From his pocket he removed a coin and a small stoppered vial, then pulled the cork from the vial, hands shaking, and tossed Jennifer Bonnard’s blood across the circle. He held the coin between two clasped hands, bowed his head in supplication, and flipped it high into the air. The coin turned, LeBlanc watched, breathless, and then the coin landed, the bronze relief of Allemande’s profile looking up at him from the blood-spattered dirt. Face. Fate’s answer was yes.

  LeBlanc dropped to his elbows in the bloody, dusty grime. Luck was still with him; his mistake was not insurmountable. But he would need to retain the Goddess’s favor. From now on he would be careful. He would inquire often. And he would take Bellamy blood as well, so that such a misstep could never be repeated.

  He shuddered again as he stared at the coin. Fate was not a merciful Goddess. But if he moved forward with his plans to honor her, to give her all the Sunken City as her own, with victims and destinies to choose, if he brought the Red Rook to her altar, then surely Fate would not fail to bless him further still.

  Perhaps she would even give him Allemande.

  Sophia set one of her black boots and a knife on the low square table in Spear’s sitting room while Orla settled in front of the fire. Orla was sewing up the gash in Sophia’s vest, the bloodstains washed out, while Sophia worked on sawing off her boot heel. Her boot heel would be a good place to stash something useful, she’d decided. And it would keep her hands busy and mind occupied while Spear went for the post.

  Before breakfast, Spear had knocked on her bedroom door, insisting on taking her up the hill behind the house. A short, easy walk, he’d said, too early and foggy for anyone to be about on his land. Orla had given her a scolding for it. She was supposed to be resting and therefore healing. But she’d been so afraid Spear would be angry after their conversation the night before, was so relieved when he’d sought her out, that she’d taken one look at his faultless smile and done as he asked.

  And the view had been worth it. The hills were rolling green and autumn orange-brown; treetops still blushed with color, floating in a bed of white mist in the lower glens. She’d smiled, St. Just had leapt about and barked like mad, playing at being a wild fox, and Spear had been very pleased. But now she was alive to things she would have previously missed. Spear had wanted her to see those hills, this new, aware Sophia realized, not because she would enjoy them, or even think them beautiful. It was because he wanted her to love his farm. Because he wanted her to live there. With him.

  For always being so assured of her own cleverness, Sophia Bellamy—she was discovering—could be extraordinarily stupid. She had always, always thought of Spear as a brother. He was fearless. Like Tom. And handsome. Like Tom, though in a colder, cut-marble sort of way. He was loyal to her. Like Tom. Her cohort in crime. Like Tom. And she had thought his feelings on the subject of her wedding were the same as Tom’s, too. Indignation, a general wish for her future happiness, the desire for Bellamy House to go on as it had been.

  But last night had changed all that. There had been nothing brotherly in the plans Spear had suggested to her. And now she was remembering certain comments dropped here and there by Mrs. Rathbone, their neighbors at the Banns, and even Tom, words she’d taken as silliness and teasing and never thought of since. Evidently she was the only person in the county who hadn’t been looking on Spear Hammond as her right and natural suitor. At least before her engagement. Even René had realized. The whole idea left an uncomfortable, uncertain place in her middle.

  She’d tried to think it through all night, pacing the wooden floor, staring up into the spidery shadows around Spear’s ceiling beams. René made her uncertain, too. But for being the same word, “uncertain,” the two feelings couldn’t have been more dissimilar. Nothing about René was remotely brotherly. But by the time the sun rose she’d been able to draw only one conclusion: Neither Spear Hammond nor René Hasard needed to know what she felt about anything. One because it would hurt him, the other because it would give him the power to hurt her. René was much too good at the game, and there was too much at stake to be playing games with anyone. She ran a hand through her hair, pushing through the tangle where she’d felt René’s words moving the curls near her ear in the sanctuary. And he wanted her to think he didn’t lie.

  “Is that cut difficult, Mademoiselle?”

  Sophia bit her lip, absorbing her start of surprise. René’s tall boots and brown breeches were standing right beside her, and she’d been staring aimlessly at a window too filmed with salt spray to be seen through, her knife halfway through a boot heel.

  “That’s not what our Sophia is finding difficult, Mr. Hasard,” said Orla, pulling a long thread.

  “I’m being punished,” Sophia said quickly, in case the all-seeing Orla had a mind to
elaborate. “For walking too much when I was supposed to be resting. I have to sit still until highsun.”

  “Or I’ll take my hand to her,” Orla stated.

  “I envy you, Madame,” René said, folding himself into his chair from the night before.

  Orla snorted once with laughter. Sophia was about to express her righteous anger in some clever way she’d yet to devise when René held up a hand.

  “Can we have peace? For a short time? I have brought you news.” He tossed a newspaper onto the table, the Monde Observateur. “Benoit has just brought it from Bellamy House. I have been having them sent on since I came.”

  Sophia snatched up the paper, and then paused. “Did he speak with Nancy?” She was asking about her father, but realized instantly that it was a nonsensical question; Benoit did not speak Commonwealth.

  “He went to see himself,” René said. “There is no change.”

  Sophia nodded, and unfolded the paper as Spear came down the passage, filling up the doorway to the sitting room, a steaming mug in one hand. Sophia read aloud, the Parisian falling quickly from her lips, occasionally pausing to translate for Orla, who had left her sewing in a forgotten pile. The entire first page was about the execution of the Red Rook. Sophia looked up, wrinkling her forehead.

  “Sixteen days from capture? Why do they wait?”

  “Keep reading, Mademoiselle.”

  She did, her eyes widening until she raised her head again. “He’s insane. LeBlanc, Allemande, they’re both mad!”

  “Yes, they are mad. The whole city is mad,” René agreed. “But they are also clever.” Sophia could hear the anger again. He leaned forward in the chair. “First, they take advantage of the unrest in the Lower City. They promise bread, and equality, and an open gate, and that technology will never return to replace the tradesman. They point to the Upper City and say these are your oppressors, these are the ones who look down from their high flats, they lock you in, they fund machines, feeding the hatred with lies until they have a revolution and the hatred feeds itself. Then they use the mob like a weapon, bring down the premier, seize the government and the chapels, anything with power. They kill all who oppose them, man, woman, and child. All in the name of revolution, and justice. But they cannot keep the mob rioting forever, and the list of traitors who have not fled the city grows short, yes?