Rook

by Cameron, Sharon

  “I see.” Mrs. Rathbone turned back to Sophia. She was sweating just a bit.

  “So,” Sophia said, turning the tables, “not that I would wish to get too personal, either, Mrs. Rathbone, but do you have that kind of money? To buy Bellamy House?”

  “Oh, I’ve been putting it by. Your father is … Your father was a very dear friend, and I would be very happy to do his children a service. Think on it, Miss Bellamy.”

  “I’ll have to speak to Tom, of course.”

  “Of course. Shall we say until tomorrow? That should give us time to make any arrangements before … well, you know.”

  After Mrs. Rathbone was gone, Madame Hasard had said, “Will you take the offer, Miss Bellamy? Because I would advise that you do. I would advise it strongly …”

  Sophia slipped down lower in the tub, keeping the cut on her arm free of the water. She’d felt like giving Madame some advice of her own, but it was advice that Madame would probably rather not follow. She hadn’t mentioned any of it to Tom in the end. Or at least not yet. He’d gone straight into hiding at the farm, and maybe the extra day or two that the sheriff couldn’t find him would give Émile and René the time they needed to dig up a miracle.

  It was when Sophia was in her dressing gown, leaning against the stone casement of her window, drying her hair with a towel, that she saw someone walking furtively across the clipped grass of the lawn. She straightened, blew out her candle, and opened the window slightly to get a better view. She knew only one person who would be tottering in heels across a lawn with a covered lantern. Madame Hasard. She watched as the woman picked her way carefully through the grass, stealing around the corner of the empty print house.

  Sophia slipped on her boots, half tied them, flung on a coat, and looked out again. The bottom floor of the print house was a large, open space, and now there was a dim light passing from window to window. She unlatched her own window, swung her legs out, and stepped onto the tiles, this time going up and over her gable rather than sliding down. The air was sharp, biting on her damp head, and she knew by feel that a wintry fog would be on the ground by dawn. She also knew her route, light unneeded. A quick climb, around another gable, and to the flat place between the rooflines that gave an excellent view of the lawns. She was almost unsurprised to see another figure already sitting there.

  “What are you doing?”

  René looked over his shoulder. “Watching my maman. And you?”

  “Watching your maman.”

  She saw half of his grin in the dark. She could also see that he’d come more prepared than she had. Two sets of blankets, one to sit on, the other for covering up. The top layer was now being held open for her. “Come here to me,” he said.

  She came, settling into her usual place between his body and arm. But as he began to wrap the blanket around her, René said, “Is your hair wet?” He muttered something in Parisian and pulled the blanket over both their heads without waiting for an answer, scooting her down until they were covered full length, and she was using his arm for a pillow. It was impenetrable blackness under the blanket, much warmer, and very full of René.

  “I am discovering that you require much taking care of, my love.” He ran a hand along her arm, where there was a bandage underneath, and then the curve of her side, where one end of her stitches had been. His voice was low, and very close. “Are you well?”

  “Not particularly. Though better at this moment.” They hadn’t been completely alone since the linen closet, and he was distracting her from pain. She found the cut she’d put on his lip by feel in the darkness.

  “You smell of cinnamon,” he whispered.

  He kissed her once, twice, and then he did not stop. She pulled him in, this time with handfuls of his hair, again pinned by his weight, this time to the blanket and the roof tiles beneath, the noise in his chest resonating in hers. He took his mouth away abruptly and put his forehead on the blanket beside her head.

  “Why,” he asked, voice rough, “are we always on a roof?”

  “I’m thinking of climbing one every day,” she breathed. She felt him smile in the dark. He lifted his head, and she began very softly kissing the fading bruises on his neck, or at least where she thought they were. The pulse at the base of his throat beat hard against her lips.

  “You … are driving me mad,” he said. “And you make me forget what I came for.” He reached up and peeked over the edge of the blanket without interrupting her, then pulled it back over their heads. “The light is in the second floor now,” he said. The blast of cold air had been startling. It had become very warm inside their universe beneath the blanket. She laid her head back on the blanket, stroking his hair.

  “You came to get me.”

  She couldn’t see his expression when he said, “I will always come for you. Do you believe that?”

  “Yes.”

  “You belong with me.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you will stay with me?”

  “Yes,” she said. But she didn’t know how to. He rolled onto his side, holding her cheek against his chest.

  “What do you think she is doing?” he asked. He was referring to his mother.

  “I was hoping you’d know.”

  “I do not know anything. She would have died before she signed that paper for LeBlanc. I know it. So why did she? And why push a marriage only to reject you now? What has changed? It makes no sense.”

  “Did you ask her why?”

  “Oh, yes.” He chose not to elaborate on the answer. “She has called a meeting of the family tomorrow, at highsun, in your dining room. I told her that Émile and Andre and I could not come, that we had a field to dig, but she insists. I would think we will be discussing what the family does next.”

  “René,” Sophia said. “If you could be anywhere you wanted, do anything you wanted, what would it be? Where would you go?”

  He propped himself up on one arm, thoughtful, holding up the blanket with his head. “I would be in the Sunken City, I think, where there was no revolution, sitting around the table in the flat with my uncles. And you would be there, seated well away from Émile, and we would be making plans for our next trip to liberate an artifact from the melters.”

  “Our trip? You mean you and your uncles’?”

  “No. This is my fantasy, and in my fantasy you would wish to come. You would, would you not?”

  “Of course. Now go on. We’re about to go nick things.”

  “So we lay out our plans, and our plans would go almost right, but not quite, though we would acquire our item in the end, and then we would hand it over to Benoit and Émile and go … somewhere else. For a time.”

  She leaned up, trying to see the hot blue of his eyes in the darkness beneath the blanket. “Somewhere else?”

  “I think so. I enjoy the game, but it would be good to know I do not have to play it, not all the time. Not if I do not want to.” He ran a hand over her damp head. “Tomorrow at highsun I am going to tell Maman that I am not going back to the city. That you and I will see your forger and that we will go to Spain, where they do not look at papers with such a close eye. What do you think of that, my love?”

  “That you have no interest in living in Spain, and neither do I.”

  “Ah, but I am very interested in living there with you. Come with me, Sophia. We will take Tom with us, so the Commonwealth will not find him.”

  She thought of Madame with her perfect hair and pursed lips, and it occurred to her that a woman did not often rise to the place that Madame Hasard had, and she certainly did not do it by indulging in petty dissatisfactions. The woman had some sort of private agenda, and it was not about her son. It was about Sophia, and it was personal.

  She peeked over the blanket and whispered, “Look.” René lifted his head.

  Madame Hasard had come out of the print house and was picking her way back across the lawn with the covered lantern. If Madame dug her high heels in for a fight, which of them would come out on top?
Sophia wasn’t sure, but she was going to find out. Starting tomorrow.

  “Will you go with me?” René whispered. “Say that you will come.”

  Sophia brought the blanket back over their heads. “Ask me tomorrow. But for now, I am staying right here.”

  It was well after middlesun when Sophia entered the kitchen of Bellamy House, her head tied again in a kerchief, face dirtied behind round spectacles, wearing a plain cotton dress that was a little frayed. Nancy and her daughters were at a near run, sweating in the heat of cooking.

  “Could I bring some soup to Madame?” she asked in loud Parisian. Nancy did not speak Parisian, but she knew what “Madame” meant. She pointed to a pot on the coal cooker, wiping the tears away as she chopped more onions while one daughter frantically washed dishes and the other left with the water bucket. Sophia shook her head as she ladled soup. Nancy’s family deserved a medal, or at least a lot of money. But their distraction with a house full of strangers was serving her purpose. If this went badly, it was best that none of them knew a thing about it.

  She put the bowl on a tray, left the kitchen behind, walked about halfway up to the north wing, where there were no former prisoners milling, and set the tray on a small table. This was a bizarre way to behave after her father’s burial rites, she knew. She should have been spending the rest of her day in quiet mourning, if not helping poor Nancy in the kitchen. But the Bellamys were a bit too desperate for that. Tom would be arrested tomorrow, if they could find him. And she’d already determined what she would risk for René. Which was everything.

  She looked left, right, and then emptied the contents of a vial—what she normally kept for filling her ring—into the soup, stirring it in well. She’d really been going through the stuff lately; Tom would have to get more from the hospital in Kent, assuming he wasn’t in prison. She picked up the tray, went to the north-wing door, and knocked.

  “Enter,” Madame called. Sophia stepped inside and Madame glanced up from the letter she was writing, eyes brushing once over the tray, but never high enough to see Sophia’s face. “Set that down and you may be on your way.”

  Madame needed to learn that they asked, not ordered, in Bellamy House, Sophia thought. “Enjoy your soup, Madame,” she couldn’t help adding in husky Parisian just before she closed the door.

  She waited in the dim end of the corridor, biding her time, surprised when not too long after, Madame Hasard opened the door and began a teetering progress down the hall, a black bag in hand, her unbalance having nothing to do with the height of her heels.

  Sophia bit her lip. She had intended for Madame to be snoozing on her bed or on the floor. Why could no Hasard ever be drugged properly? Hopefully, anyone who encountered Madame would just think she’d been in the wine. Hopefully, she’d be able to negotiate the stairs. Hopefully, she’d never remember receiving her soup in the first place. In any case, Sophia thought, now was the opportunity. Her only opportunity. When Madame had indeed made her way safely down the stairs, Sophia dashed into her room, locked the door, went straight to the desk, and began to ransack.

  It was nearly highsun before Sophia managed to find something interesting in Madame Hasard’s room, and that interesting something was sewn into the bodice lining of her silk dress. And it was so interesting that Sophia had to sit down on a chair to read it a second time, a chair that she nearly missed. When she had read the documents a third time, she felt her hazy thoughts focus, sharpened against the whetstone of a hard, grinding fury. It was good to be angry. She much preferred it to being helpless.

  She flung the door open, leaving it swinging on its hinges, almost running the corridor to the stairwell. Down, around the corner, down again, and then she was marching over the multicolored floor tiles of the dining room hallway.

  “Miss Bellamy! Miss Bellamy!”

  She heard the clack of Mrs. Rathbone’s not-very-sensible shoes coming up from the front hall. She’d completely forgotten about their meeting.

  “Miss Bellamy! Really! Who are all these people in your house? What …”

  Sophia threw open the door to the waiting room and then burst into the dining room. None of the lanterns were lit behind the glass, only three sets of candles illuminating Benoit, Peter, Enzo, and Francois seated around the table, their conversation coming to a standstill at Sophia’s abrupt entrance. She looked at them each in turn.

  “How many of you knew?” she said, shaking the documents at them. “Who knew about this? Benoit?”

  Then Mrs. Rathbone came through the door in a panting explosion of skirts. Wesson’s page sixteen, Sophia thought automatically. “Sophia Bellamy, whatever is wrong with you? If this is the way you’ve been taught to conduct business, it’s no wonder the family finances have gone the way of the bulb!”

  Francois frowned. “What is a bulb?”

  “It is a Commonwealth expression, Franc,” Peter explained, “there is no such …”

  “I want to know about this!” Sophia yelled, shaking the papers.

  “Sophia! I insist that you discuss my offer …”

  Benoit frowned just a little. The mix of Commonwealth and Parisian in the room was confusing. “Tell us what you hold in your hand, Mademoiselle, and then we shall …”

  And then they all turned as Tom came through the door, his stick in hand.

  “What are you doing here?” Sophia said. She thought he’d gone straight back to the farm with Jennifer after the burial. Tom came so quickly across the room that his limp was hardly noticeable, then not noticeable at all in the bloom of rage that erupted over his face when he saw Mrs. Rathbone. Sophia stared. Tom was never angry. Not like her. And not like that.

  “Why is she here?” he asked without removing his gaze from Mrs. Rathbone.

  “She made me an offer to buy Bellamy House,” Sophia replied. “I haven’t told you yet …”

  “Did you accept?” Tom snapped.

  “No. I …”

  “Then ask her where she got the money.”

  Tom’s face had been made into something hard-edged. But there was a hint of a smile from Mrs. Rathbone.

  “Ask her!” Tom demanded.

  Sophia glanced over at the sound of footsteps in the waiting room, and then René, Émile, and Andre filed in, mud on boots and, in René’s case, streaked across his shirt.

  “Ask her, Sophie!”

  She turned to Mrs. Rathbone. “Where did you get the money to buy Bellamy House?”

  Mrs. Rathbone looked at them all, and then she pulled out a chair and sat, her large purse perched on her knees. “Tom would like me to confess. Wouldn’t you, Tom?”

  “I don’t mind confessing,” said Mrs. Rathbone, “because it won’t do me any harm or you any good. I’ve already called on Mr. Halflife and Sheriff Burn to let them know that Bellamy is dead and that you’re both back safe and sound, and I’ve hinted just the tiniest bit that Tom might be taking off to parts unknown. They’ll be here quite soon, I think, instead of waiting for tomorrow. But if you sell me Bellamy House … Well, then I imagine you can show him the money, as it were, I’ll show Mr. Halflife the deed, and your troubles will be over.”

  Sophia stared at Mrs. Rathbone. Then Tom reached into his jacket and pulled out a piece of paper, much folded, the seal of the Sunken City showing through from the other side. He held it out to Sophia and let her read. It was the denouncement of the Bonnards, the real one. Sophia looked up again. “But …”

  “Let me guess,” René said to Mrs. Rathbone. “Your name before marriage was Jacques.”

  Sophia’s eyes widened at the name on the paper. Mrs. Rathbone smiled. “Yes, indeed. I was born in the Sunken City. I helped Mr. Rathbone set up his trade there. Until Ministre Bonnard taxed the daylights out of imported scrap and put him out of business. I was never very fond of Ministre Bonnard after that.”

  “And so you sent them to their deaths. And their children! For a law you did not like,” said René. Enzo was translating quickly into Benoit’s ear.

&nbs
p; “LeBlanc was going to pay someone to do it, and it was lucky for me that Bonnard didn’t have the sense to take an oath when he needed to. Vengeance is sweet, young man, and money no small matter. As you should well know. Now, about Bellamy House …”

  “You denounced them,” Tom said. His expression was something Mrs. Rathbone should have been frightened of, if she’d had the sense to be frightened. “Then you took them in, pretended to help them, turned them in again, and collected. Again!” René’s uncles were a row of solemn faces.

  “But why?” Sophia asked.

  “Because she wants the house,” Tom said.

  “Well, that is presumptuous, Tom Bellamy,” replied Mrs. Rathbone. “Your father broke it off with me long before I met Mr. Rathbone, and while I must say I agree that it should have been my girls spending their summers in the Sunken City and betrothing themselves to handsome Parisian heirs at their Banns ball—an event they would not have failed to appreciate, I am sure—none of that is to the point. The Bellamys have mucked up the entire coast for at least a century too long now, left the whole countryside empty and the property worthless, and it’s high time someone else had the power to steer the ship, young man. Now, as glad as I am that we’ve had this honest chat …”

  Every head turned as the vase on its stand beside the door tumbled, smashed to the floor in a powder of porcelain. Madame Hasard stood reeling against the doorjamb, her hair half falling onto one shoulder, bag clutched in her hand. Sophia blinked. She’d nearly forgotten about Madame. The woman must have been wandering the corridors ever since she left the north wing.

  “Is this the dining room?” Madame said. “Finally …”

  “Maman, are you drunk?”

  “Nope!” Madame replied.

  “Excuse me!” said Mrs. Rathbone loudly. “I absolutely insist …”

  René cut her off and put his eyes on Sophia. “She had the hotelier try to kill me.”

  Sophia looked sharply at Madame Hasard.

  “No! Her!” René pointed at Mrs. Rathbone. “Not to keep me from the Sunken City, but to keep me from paying your family a marriage fee. She could not have the Bellamys’ debt paid. She was the one informing LeBlanc, before I ever came …”