Sophia ran both hands through her hair. And René had thought it was Spear, and Spear had thought it was René. What a ruddy muddle all this was.
“Who tried to kill you, cher?” Madame was saying from the doorway. Benoit tried to coax her away from the broken shards of porcelain. And what would have happened, Sophia wondered, if she’d gone with Mrs. Rathbone on that trip to the Midlands?
Mrs. Rathbone clutched her purse. “And since our dear hotelier has not been seen since, I assume you all did away with him. Am I right? It took ages for him to realize you’d only gone down the road, and then he bungled the whole thing. I don’t think his heart was in it. But really, you are all so intent on the details that you’re missing the big picture. Sheriff Burn is on his way to arrest Tom. Who wants to keep Tom from going straight back to a prison when you’ve just taken so much trouble to get him out of one?”
“Was it this one, cher?” Madame slurred, passing behind Mrs. Rathbone and still on the subject of who had tried to kill her son. “Yes? Oh, well then …” She grabbed the back of Mrs. Rathbone’s chair and gave it a violent yank. Mrs. Rathbone went over backward, crashing to the floor with her stockinged legs protruding from a confection of white underskirts.
Sophia woke up. “Émile,” she said sharply, “lock the door. Tom, get that woman upright and keep her quiet.” She came to the table and put a finger on the documents she’d brought to the dining room in the first place. “And one of you should explain these,” she demanded in Parisian.
“What is happening?” René yelled, throwing his hands up in the air.
Benoit had just gotten Madame safely seated. “May I, Mademoiselle?” he asked Sophia. She lifted her hand and let him slide the documents toward himself. Madame watched this movement with interest, then lifted her eyes.
“Did you … drug me, Miss Bellamy?”
That got the attention of the room, though there was some sort of commotion going on behind her, possibly Tom restraining Mrs. Rathbone. Sophia straightened. “Yes. But not very successfully.”
She sneaked a peek at René, who seemed mildly surprised, and then at the uncles, who ran the gamut from shock to amusement. But it was Madame’s reaction that made her raise her brows. Madame’s mouth twitched once, twice, and then she laughed, uproariously, as if she’d never heard anything so funny in her life.
“Oh,” Madame said, eyeing the documents Benoit was so carefully reading while she laughed. “And I suppose you cut those out of my bodice?” Another round of astonishment from the uncles. Sophia lifted her chin.
“Of course.”
Madame slapped the table and laughed more, her red hair falling all about her head. “Well, it took you … long enough, Miss Bellamy. But it is a good thing for you I threw the rest of that soup … out the window!” She waggled a finger at her. “You do not have servants that speak Parisian.”
René’s jaw was beginning to clench. “Someone tell me what is happening.”
“Should I tell him?” Sophia asked. Madame extended her hand in a gracious wave. Sophia turned to René. “You mother didn’t sign away your fortune. Or she did, but what she signed away was worthless. She’s been moving the money, and the business, to the Commonwealth for some time.”
Benoit looked up from his document. “It is so, René. This is an account of deposits made to a bank in Kent, starting nearly two years ago.”
“Your cousin was a maniac!” said Madame, as if this explained everything.
René sat heavily at the table, looking at the document that Benoit slid over to him. He read it without touching it, fingers tented over his nose.
“Adèle,” said Émile, “why did you tell René his inheritance was lost?”
“That,” she said, “was his father’s fault.”
René untented his fingers as Benoit slid over another document. “Your father left a stipulation that you could not inherit. Not until you were married.”
“Well, that would make a mess,” commented Enzo.
“Idiot,” said Andre, shaking his head. He didn’t look all that surprised.
“Sentimental,” Madame added, “that’s what he was.”
Benoit scratched through his wispy hair. “Could you not have stopped him, Adèle?”
“He did not tell me! He wanted his son to have what we had, working the … business, together.”
“Richard never was one for thinking with his head,” said Peter.
“That was my job,” said Madame, giggling. “We did make a wonderful team …”
René’s voice maintained only a thin veil of calm. “Will someone please explain to me why I have never been told this? And will someone help Tom restrain that woman?”
Sophia realized they’d all been ignoring the sounds of struggle coming from beyond the table, where Mrs. Rathbone had been set upright, her hat and purse on the floor, Tom behind her chair, his walking stick braced across her middle. Francois slid out from the table, crossed the room, and suddenly Tom’s stick had been replaced with a knife. Mrs. Rathbone went instantly still. And then the door latch to the dining room rattled, the lock held, and someone knocked. Silence descended.
“Sophie! Are you in there?”
“Orla,” Sophia breathed. She hurried to the door and opened it.
“Sophie, the sheriff and Mr. Halflife are here, and …” Her angular face grew even more so at the sight of all of them hiding away in the dining room, Madame with her head on the table and Mrs. Rathbone with a knife to her side.
“Well, it’s a good thing Tom is here,” said Orla, calm unruffled. “They’ve already been to the farm looking for him. They’re arresting him today instead of …”
“Tell them you’ve found a note saying we’ve all gone to dig on the far west downs,” Sophia said. “There are holes there already. And you never saw any of this.”
Orla glanced once more around the dining room before she said, “I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” and shut the door. Sophia turned the lock.
“Maman,” René was saying, causing his mother to raise her head. “I am waiting for my answer. Why did you never tell me of this?”
“Because I did not want you running off to get married just so you could inherit! Which is what you would have done. Better not to have … the money.” Madame was starting to sound more like herself. She was also looking a bit ill. “And in any case, I had already picked out a wife for you. Years ago …”
“What? Who?” said Sophia and René together.
“Miss Bellamy, of course! I chose her when she was nine years old.”
“But I only met you a few days ago!” Sophia protested.
Madame shook her head. “No. No. Nope. You are wrong. I met you both. Your brother was so polite, and you told me the dearest little lies about … circus performing.”
“Sophie!” Tom said. “It’s the woman …”
“… from the night the rope broke!” she finished, incredulous. René lifted his head while his mother waggled a finger at them.
“And I thought,” she continued, “that any little girl who could scale a cliff, fall on her brother’s head, brush herself off, and lie to a stranger like a rug on a floor—even if she did get a little dramatic—and a stranger who could have had her taken up by the guard, too? Now that …” She pointed emphatically. “… was a fitting wife for my son. It was easy enough to find out who you were.”
Sophia watched Benoit sit back and stretch his arms behind his head, as René did sometimes, a bit of a smile leaking onto his unremarkable face.
“But, Maman!” René said. “I agreed with your choice …” He paused, seeming to take in the oddity of this fact. “… but you are still rejecting her!”
“I had concerns.”
“What concerns?” said Sophia and René together.
“For one, my son, you were very good at charming young ladies into behaving like nitwits for you. Much, much too good …”
Émile chuckled.
“… and Miss Be
llamy here was in need of money. Badly. This was not a good beginning. Your father may have been sentimental, René, but I did at least agree with him in wishing your future happiness rather than a lifelong misery. I had intended to be here myself, of course, to observe, but … alas, I went to prison.”
René slammed the table. “This is nonsense. Tell the truth, Maman. Whoever I married was also going to inherit the business with me and take your place. And you could not have that, could you?”
“No. I have not given thirty years of my sweat and blood to have it ruined by your father’s whim and a silly girl who has been enticed by your charms.”
Sophia opened her mouth, but René’s other hand came up and took hers, asking her for silence.
“However,” Madame continued, her voice stronger, face and lips a little more white, “you, René, showed a rather unforeseen devotion to Miss Bellamy, one that left me pleased and quite satisfied. But Miss Bellamy, while capable of many things, had not yet proven herself capable of handling me. An essential skill when becoming a Hasard.”
“Perhaps you should explain your expectations, Adèle,” said Benoit. Sophia’s eyes widened as he winked once at her.
“You should pay attention to my grammar, Benoit. I said ‘had not yet.’ I had been trying to help Miss Bellamy along by being as unpleasant and unreasonable as possible …”
Like mother, like son, Sophia thought, remembering the first few days she’d known René.
“But … drugging me and cutting official documents out of my bodice and laying it all on the table in front of the entire family? Oh, I would say that does it. I will watch my soup from now on, Mademoiselle.” She giggled, though the mention of soup made her face blanch.
The door latch rattled and then someone banged. “Tom? Tomas Bellamy!”
It was Sheriff Burn, who was evidently not looking for them on the west downs. Sophia held up a hand for Tom to wait while Mrs. Rathbone made little sputtering noises. She hoped Francois wasn’t cutting her throat. Or maybe she hoped he was. She leaned across the table. “Madame, is there money for the marriage fee, and will you pay it?”
“Yes. Could I trouble someone for a bucket or a bowl?” said Madame.
The door banged again. “Tom! Sophia!” called the sheriff. “Come on, now. I’ve got the militia with me. Open the …”
Sophia turned. “René, you love me, yes?”
His brow went up. “Yes.”
“And I love you, too. Then will you marry me? Right now?”
He stuttered. “Well … yes. I …”
She spun on her heel. “Tom, do I have your blessing?”
Tom shrugged from behind the squirming Mrs. Rathbone; Francois did indeed have the knife at her throat. “All right, Sophie.”
“Maman,” said René, “is the money in Kent?”
“Not anymore, cher.” Madame reached into the black bag she’d been carrying and set a box on the table. She opened it with an unsteady hand, and inside was a plastic bottle, perfect, without dents, its cap in place, a faded, scratched, but still legible plastic wrapping around its middle. Just above the lettering was the tiny word DIET.
There was a surprised silence from the room, made even louder by the banging of the sheriff. René shook his head. “Were you really not going to say something, Maman?”
Madame tossed her bedraggled hair. “She was the one who left it to the last moment.” The door banged harder; it sounded as if he were ramming it with something.
“Émile, how much is that worth?” Sophia asked quickly.
He was bent over with a tiny eyescope, inspecting the bottle carefully. “The fee,” he said. “Ten thousand in quidden, or probably more.”
“There is a … valuation, signed, in the box,” muttered Madame. “Could I please trouble anyone for a bowl?”
“That will do, then,” said Sophia. “Can I borrow that?” She took the black bag without Madame’s answer, shutting the box and shoving it inside. “Tom, come with us and be witness before the sheriff takes you …”
The door shuddered on its hinges.
“And, Benoit, see what you can do about her,” she said, tilting her head at Mrs. Rathbone. “We have a sheriff here, the body of the hotelier buried on the cliff, and you and Orla as witnesses. And I’m sure Jennifer Bonnard would not mind backing up whatever you decide to say. It wouldn’t hurt to let the sheriff know Mrs. Rathbone was trying to buy the house, too, since she ratted out Tom. He won’t like that.” Mrs. Rathbone struggled, then remembered the knife. “See if you can’t get her tossed out of the Commonwealth at the least.”
“That can be done, Mademoiselle,” Benoit said, still smiling.
“I leave it in your hands.”
“And Miss Bellamy,” said Madame, her voice a bit weak, “when you return, I’d like to discuss the empty building on your grounds, and the empty cottages, the prisoners in your house who have nowhere to go, and the need for Hasard Glass to … relocate.”
“Of course,” Sophia replied, pausing for a moment. What an interesting thought. Perhaps she and Madame would have more in common than previously anticipated. “Have coffee with Tom and me tomorrow at middlesun,” she said. “Or make that the day after tomorrow.” She started toward the pantry door, and then looked back at René and Tom. The other door was beginning to splinter. “Are you coming? Either of you?”
René jumped up and they both followed, Sophia careful not to set a pace that Tom couldn’t keep. She shut the pantry just before she heard the dining room door burst open, sidestepped quickly through the dusty storage room, opened a trapdoor, and slid through a short access tunnel into the closet below. René came through next.
“Now, just so I have this straight, my love,” René said, turning to catch Tom’s legs on the way through. “Where are we going?”
“To our wedding. Just as soon as we find the vicar. I hope he’s at home.”
“That is what I thought was happening. But it has been a strange day.”
They got to the stables, which were not being watched—Sheriff Burn was a nice man, just not particularly good at his job—and rode at a gallop for the vicarage, Tom on his horse, René behind Sophia, setting the rookery to flight in their haste. Tom was the first to get there, startling the vicar from the loo as he came thundering into his yard. There was a sleek landover waiting out front.
“Tom!” the man said. “And Miss Bellamy … What?”
“We’re in need of a wedding, Vicar,” said Tom. “Right now, before the sheriff finds us.”
Who they found waiting in the vicar’s dark-paneled study was Mr. Halflife, at his ease in a leather chair.
“Miss Bellamy, my dear,” he said. “How good it is to finally greet you. I had a feeling you and your charming fiancé might be coming here after the to-do that was going on in Bellamy House. I am very sorry, Monsieur, to know that your mother has such a weakness for drink.”
Sophia and René glanced at each other. He must have run into Madame wandering the halls. What could she have said? There really was no telling. But it must have had something to do with a marriage. Here he was.
Tom and the vicar were at the desk, doing the paperwork, Tom with one eye on the window and the view of the A5. Mr. Halflife had no power to arrest Tom on his own, and as soon as they were married, the sheriff would have none, either. Tom would have the money, in the form of a plastic bottle, in hand.
“So I assume, Monsieur Hasard, that you are able to pay the marriage fee after all? I had heard your family was in financial difficulties.”
His posh accent was jangling every one of Sophia’s nerves. She answered before René could. “Why, yes, Mr. Halflife, there is a fee. So I’m sorry to tell you that the Bellamy land stays as it is, and Parliament will not have a port. Not on our coast.”
Mr. Halflife smiled. “But I am afraid a port on your section of the coast is going to be paramount to the safety of the Commonwealth, Miss Bellamy. Have you never considered—but of course you haven’t—what woul
d happen if there should be war between the Sunken City and ourselves? The Parisian shores are only a short boat ride away. Or we might wish to expand beyond our own shores one day. One never knows.”
Sophia looked at Halflife with his non-Wesson jacket and slicked hair. Her father had been right, she realized, not to give the Commonwealth the Bellamy fire. The secret would go with her to her grave.
“But you also forget, Miss Bellamy,” said Halflife, satisfied by her silence, “that no matter what happens today, your brother must prove his fitness for inheritance before the Bellamy land is secure.” He glanced at Tom, standing beside the vicar, still prison thin and limping. “Do you think it is likely he will do so? I am not sure he will.”
Sophia smiled at him. “Is that a threat, Mr. Halflife?” She knew it was. He was going to make certain Tom had no opportunity to prove his fitness at all.
“Monsieur …,” René said. Sophia looked at him sharply. He had taken the seat opposite Mr. Halflife, leaning back elegantly, and all at once, there was the man of the magazine. She didn’t understand quite how he was pulling that off. You didn’t even notice the untied hair and the mud.
“You were asking about the financial matters of my family,” René went on, “which interests me, because I am wondering who could have mentioned this to you. My cousin, perhaps? The same cousin, just perhaps, who was paying you for information about what was happening on the Bellamy coast? And were you, just perhaps, using Mrs. Rathbone to find out these things that my cousin was paying you for? Letting her know of little opportunities that might come her way, like denouncing the Ministre of Trade that was opposing your plans for a Parisian port, a port Parliament says is for shipping goods, but that they will use for their own interests? Like invasion?”
He smiled at Mr. Halflife’s expression. “And would I be right in thinking that Mrs. Rathbone does not want Bellamy House as much as she wants to be the wife of a Parliamentary member? That perhaps she is under the impression this will occur rather soon, when the Bellamys are removed?”
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