“Stop,” he whispered. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
He felt her teeth against his palm, but she couldn’t get much skin. “If you quit trying to bite me and promise not to yell, I’ll take away my hand.” She gave a sharp nod in acquiescence.
As soon as his hand moved, she started talking. “I don’t know why I assumed you had a hint of that DeSilva honor, but no one who lurks in my closet, watching me undress, has any integrity at all.”
“Don’t pretend you’re upset about that.”
“Of course I am,” she said, writhing against his grip.
“No. You’re more upset that I listened to your conversation and stumbled onto some of your secrets.”
She froze.
“How many of my servants are working for you?”
No answer.
“Was everything you said to your ladies true? What’s this about the wells?”
“Release me,” she said, stomping on his foot. “I think you enjoy interrogating me far too much. I still have bruises from the last time.”
He had to give her credit: She knew exactly what to say to make him feel like a horrible person, and he released her. “Maribelle, I am sorry—” His words cut off when he caught a sharp elbow to the gut and grunted.
“I thought I made it clear,” she said, hurrying to the bedroom door and locking them in. “I’m on your side. I said as much.”
“But,” he said, giving up on his apology. “You gave Belem an exact report of my weapons stash, and my weaponsmaster died an hour after you last saw him alive. Why would I believe you’re telling me the truth about anything?”
“What has telling the truth brought me? You attacking me in a barn and now in my bedroom?” She put her hands on her hips, and the already short camisole pulled up even higher, revealing more of her legs.
Dom couldn’t help but notice.
“Do I meet your approval?”
“I’ve never complained about the way you look.” That was putting it lightly. Her dresses never left much to his imagination, but he couldn’t have imagined her like this.
Which is why Brynn is marrying the butcher’s son, you heartless bastard. You can’t keep your thoughts focused on one girl even when you’re trying.
He gave himself a mental slap. “What’s your endgame? You want to bring down your father, but then what?”
She shook her head, eyeing him in stony silence.
“You’ve got to give me a reason to trust you.”
“You heard what I just said. I was protecting your water supply.” She pointed to the wet skirt piled near his feet. “Why would I do that—in a downpour, I might add—if I wasn’t trying to save your state?”
He didn’t have an answer to that. “You think someone was trying to poison the wells?”
“That might be the goal, but if so, no one has taken action yet.”
If it wouldn’t have brought her attendants running, he would have screamed in frustration. Instead he said, “I’ll have everyone lay out extra barrels to catch rainwater. It will provide a small backup.”
“It’s always good to think ahead.”
A smile forced its way onto his mouth. “I’ll never outdistance you.”
“You’ll never even catch up.”
They stood for a moment, battling with their gazes, her expression giving nothing away. Not embarrassment from standing there in her underclothes, not anger from his intrusion, not annoyance at his constant mistrust.
Light, she was tough, and he respected her for it.
He gave in first, offering a mocking bow. “Good night, Maribelle.” He walked past her, heading for the door, but she reached out and touched his arm.
“Birds.”
“What?” He looked down at her hand, against his forearm.
“I want you to trust me, Dominic. So I’m telling you that I keep birds in my closet.” Her fingers glided down his sleeve till they rested on the back of his hand. “You forbade me from using the pigeons on the roof, so I bought two ravens. They aren’t as reliable over long distances, but they ferry notes to a contact in town, and he sends the messages on.”
“Who in the township?”
She tilted her head to one side. “I told you that your brother was in Camaçari. I helped you narrow down the list of possible spies in your household. You don’t expect me to give up all my secrets, do you?”
Dom’s eyes traced down her body, making his perusal obvious. “I don’t think you have that much left to hide.”
Leaning forward, she pressed a lingering kiss against his cheek. “Haven’t you learned anything yet?” Her whisper made the hairs on his neck rise. “I’ve always got something to hide.”
Chapter 58
* * *
Dom
Dom left Maribelle’s room via the window and clambered onto the slick tile roof. The rain had turned from a sprinkle to a deluge, and he lost his footing more times than he dared to count. Once, a tile crumbled under his boot, sending him careening into a stone-sided chimney. He clung to it for a moment, catching his breath and cursing Maribelle under it.
The rocks that ringed the chimney were dry. Raindrops fell but evaporated quickly.
It gave him an idea—a crazy, dangerous idea.
Instead of heading back to his room, Dom climbed to a lower part of the roof and dropped to the ground, startling the guard standing near the kitchen’s outer door.
“Get four men and meet me at the washhouse,” Dom said as the young soldier slid his sword back into its scabbard.
“The washhouse, sir? But why?”
“If I wanted you to know, I’d tell you,” Dom said, a hint of DeSilva temper lacing his tone.
The washhouse was a small, separate building tucked behind the main house. It had a large cement floor, an enormous fireplace, two huge brick basins for wash and rinse water, and underground access to the cellars.
It was perfect for Dom’s plan.
Whoever had poured salt water into the cannon powder had known exactly what they were doing. No one would have noticed that the powder was wet if the influx of supplies hadn’t overrun the cellar. If the servants hadn’t been forced to stack boxes and crates of food in the tunnels where the powder had been stored, the soldiers would have carried up a few barrels the night before the battle and been shocked when it wouldn’t ignite.
It would have been a disaster.
Or a bigger disaster, Dom thought as he studied the first cask’s stopper. Marks marred the cork. It hadn’t been some kind of fluke or accident. Each cask had been opened, soaked, and sealed.
Giving information to the enemy was treason, but secrets shared between servants and then whispered to an untrustworthy friend or bedfellow were an unfortunate risk of running a large house. Sabotage, however, was an entirely different level of betrayal. And this particular act was something that would have resulted in the death of people that the spy knew.
The cannon powder came out of the caskets in wet clumps, sticking to Dom’s fingers and coating his hand with a sulfurous muck. He was certain the stench would stay with him for the rest of his life, but if they didn’t defeat Belem, there was a very good chance that the DeSilva line would be extinct by the week’s end. The duke could—and likely would—have Dom and his mother hanged from the estate’s gates, and Rafi, too, if he was ever found.
Careful not to flick it into the fire, Dom smoothed the powder in a thin layer on top of bedsheets he’d torn from the drying line. He prayed the exposure to the air and heat might dry the powder enough to make it usable.
It took hours, even with the fire built up high, but it was working. At least some of the powder would be ready as early as the next morning. Hopefully, by then the barrels would have also dried out enough to reuse.
Dom rolled into one of the washbasins full of soaking clothes, and let the citrus-scented water close over his head. He didn’t know if it was particularly clean, and he didn’t care. It washed some of the stinging grit away. Then he found
himself a set of unused sheets, curled up in a relatively powder-free corner, and went to sleep.
• • •
Dom couldn’t say what exactly it was that woke him. He was dozing in a giant powder keg, so he certainly wasn’t sleeping deeply. But like so many times over the last few weeks, he had a sense that something was amiss.
He sat up slowly, eyeing the rows of sheets that hung from the drying lines like hammocks, weighted with the nearly dry powder. The only light in the too-warm room came from the fire in the hearth, which had burned down significantly while he slept. He wished he’d taken the risk of having a lantern nearby.
The rain fell steadily on the tile roof outside. One of the soldiers, standing protected under the eaves, called to his counterpart on the opposite corner. The next voice responded and passed the call to the next soldier, till all four had answered. Whatever had startled Dom wasn’t outside the building. Fingers of dread tickled up his spine.
Could the sound have come from inside?
The hanging pouches of powder swayed lightly, as if stirred by the wind or a gentle touch. Dom scanned the windows, but all were shut tight, keeping out the rainwater that would have destroyed his efforts.
Had the sheets been swinging on their own earlier or . . .
Sand through a sieve, salt spilling from a jar, something hissed across the floor with the tumbling of a thousand grains. He knew that sound.
Bolting to the trapdoor, Dom found it open wide, a trail of cannon powder trickling down the stairs in an unbroken line.
Oh Light.
He scuffed out the line, breaking it up, but he’d seen the powder in action and knew that one spark would light every speck. One firefly-size ember would land, and the entire thing would go, racing up the stairs and turning the washhouse and everything around it into a ball of flame.
Dom couldn’t let that happen. Afraid to yell and startle the culprit into lighting the powder, he sprinted after the sound of the footsteps and the hiss of powder as it trickled out of a sheet.
Whoever it was knew the way through the tunnel system and into the cellars, moving toward the stairs that would lead up to the kitchen. Before he turned the corner, Dom heard a sharp shtick of flint against steel.
The smell of the powder hung in the air. Could it burn, too?
“No!” Dom screamed as he dove around the corner and into the body holding a knife and flint.
His shoulder sank into the intruder’s stomach, and they tumbled to the floor. A slashing pain burned across Dom’s chest—a knife wound, he was sure—but he ignored it and used his weight to keep the weapon pinned between their bodies. A glancing blow crossed Dom’s head, but he managed to raise an elbow and block the second attempt.
The blade grazed Dom’s ribs again, but he used his toes to propel himself up the intruder’s body and slam the heel of his hand into a jutting jaw.
A bobbing light appeared over Dom’s head, then a booted foot materialized out of the darkness and kicked the traitor in the ear.
Once, twice, and the body went still.
Dom rolled to his side, pressing his hand against the gashes on his chest, and looked into the face of his savior.
“Maribelle.”
She dropped to the ground at his side, lowering the lantern to cast its light on his wounded chest.
“Don’t set it down,” he said, raising his hand to stop her. “We’re surrounded by cannon powder.”
A puddle of powder spilled out of the torn sheet and coated the ground around the intruder’s body.
“Is it dry?” Maribelle asked, holding the glass-entrapped flame high over her head.
“It is now.” Dom had hoped to be able to keep the secret a little longer, and announce it with more fanfare. It had been a brilliant, dangerous idea, and he was proud. Instead of celebrating, he was lying on the cellar floor bleeding with . . . “Who is it?”
Maribelle swung the light over the traitor’s face. “It’s the butcher.”
“You mean his son, Renato?”
She shook her head. “Not unless all his hair fell out and he doubled in girth overnight.”
Something in Dom’s chest loosened, relief rattling. The butcher had come with his son a few days earlier to deliver a large shipment of salted meat. Dom wagered that if he checked, he’d find the meat stored in the same passage where the powder had been. They were trusted members of the community, and with Brynn’s engagement, Renato had been visiting the estate more often.
Poor Brynn. Plied with love for information. Dom could imagine her sharing gossip with the man she thought would be her husband, only to have it passed to Belem.
This would hurt her, and no matter what had happened between them, he never wanted that. But he felt a guilty thrill that this also meant she could go back to being his Brynn.
Maribelle set the lantern on the stairs, then hastily tore strips from the sheet and bound the butcher’s hands together. “How bad are your wounds? Honestly?”
“It’s just a scratch,” he said, rolling to his feet. From one of his pockets he pulled a mostly clean square of linen and pressed against the worst spot.
“You’re sure?” she asked, peeling his hand away from his sternum.
“A few stitches, maybe, but I won’t die from it.”
Her fingers floated over the gash that crossed his heart. “You’re lucky.”
“It was a little knife.”
The smile that had curved her lips failed. “Sometimes the little wounds hurt the worst,” she said, and turned away from the kitchen stairs. “There’s something else you need to see.”
• • •
Dom wasn’t surprised that Maribelle knew her way around the cellar, its passages and storerooms. There weren’t many access points—the kitchen pantry, the washhouse, the barracks’ armory, and the barn—but it was certainly possible that she and her attendants had been using them to get around unseen.
“We have very little time before Belem arrives,” Maribelle said as she led the way. “His spies have ramped up their efforts to destroy us from the inside. I, in turn, have redoubled my efforts to find the traitor by splitting my attendants—”
“All three of them?”
She ignored him and pressed on. “I’ve worked on breaking the cipher his spies are using. I thought Belem was going to try to poison the wells, but the message we intercepted today said to ‘destroy all supplies.’ I thought maybe it meant they were trying to destroy your food stores, and I stationed a couple of people near the pantry and in the tunnel to watch for intruders.”
Maribelle stopped, shifting her weight nervously, before pointing to the gratelike door that led to the winery. Only a few people had keys—Dom had never been trusted with one—but the heavy lock on the door hung open.
A breath stuck in Dom’s lungs, burning like he’d inhaled something toxic.
“Careful,” Maribelle cautioned. “The floor’s wet.”
Of course it is.
The smell in the air wasn’t just noxious, it was slightly citrusy, but mostly it stank of potent alcohol.
Two lanterns hung from hooks on the wall, illuminating three people. One was Maribelle’s attendant; the second had her hood up, pulled forward to disguise her face, but Dom knew this was Maribelle’s secret weapon—another attendant, likely a twin to the first.
But it was the third person who drew Dom’s attention. She wore a tight-fitting tunic and black pants that hugged her body in a way she’d once said was inappropriate. A bruise marred her fair skin, and blood crusted one corner of her mouth. Her hair, bright and untamable, was hidden beneath a black scarf.
She struggled against her captors’ grip, and broke free to run straight into Dom’s arms.
“Help me,” Brynn said, resting her cheek against his clavicle, ignoring the blood on his skin.
He thought she’d feel warm and soft in his arms, but her face was cold and she smelled like the worst sort of pub.
The crates to his right were open; ten empty
bottles and corks littered the floor.
“What did you do?” he whispered into her hair.
“It’s not what you think,” she responded as softly.
Closing his eyes, he ignored the sharp pain in his chest that had nothing to do with the knife wounds. “Then tell me what I should think.”
“I caught them down here—”
“Please don’t lie, Brynn. Not now.” Grabbing her elbows, he pushed her back a step. “You brought me the Álcool Fogo. We discussed how flammable it was. You were the only person who could have guessed that I had plans to use it.”
Tears welled in her eyes. “You don’t understand—”
“That you’ve turned traitor to Santiago. To my family. To me?” The last word was a shout. Dom took a shaky breath and moderated his tone. “I understand that completely.”
“Dom . . .”
He turned his back to her and faced Maribelle. “Can you watch over her while I get the guards?”
Maribelle opened her mouth, and Dom thought she was going to argue, but instead she said, “Yes, of course. And find someone to stitch up your wounds as well.”
Halfway to the stairs Dom stopped and rested his hands on his knees.
He was tired. He was injured. He was facing a battle that, even with all his plans in play, he might very well lose. At least, that’s what Dom told himself as he tried to catch his breath.
A sinkhole expanded inside his chest, sucking at his heart and lungs, crushing them in a black void.
This is not panic, or fear, or heartbreak, Dom coached himself. This is not heartbreak.
Chapter 59
* * *
Jacaré
The soft sound of weeping replaced the thunderous pressure of a hundred voices. The booming pain inside Jacaré’s head disappeared, but it left behind a raw, gaping hole of sorrow. For a few moments, while he channeled the power of the wall through Johanna and Rafi, Jacaré had felt the presence of his friends and family long dead.
The Skylighter (The Keepers' Chronicles Book 2) Page 22