Rook (13 page)

“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 flickering 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.”

He was right. On every single count. She’d been upset earlier, barreling about as if she were going to ride for the next ferry, when she knew this was going to take careful planning. Planning she’d never done without Tom. She kept her eyes down as she said, “If LeBlanc does confiscate your mother’s fortune, and if you were to scrape together everything you had left, would you have enough for the marriage fee?”

“No. But if Maman is out of LeBlanc’s reach, there may be things we can do. I could force my claim, make LeBlanc fight me. But what do the laws of the Sunken City mean now? LeBlanc may take it anyway. Or it may be that we gather our assets and flee. But I will not do so without Maman. She is head of the family. The flat, the ships, they are in her control.”

Ships. Maybe that was how he’d gotten the physique of a sailor. “But if she gets out? What then? The assets that are in her control, without the money. Would it be enough for the fee?”

René met her eyes. “I do not know. Possibly.”

But still, “possibly.” Then getting Adèle out could save her father, and Bellamy House. Possibly. And what would she do, what would she risk, for even the slimmest chance to set all this right?

“Mademoiselle,” he said. “Sophia.” She watched him hesitate. “I would suggest that we leave the discussion of our marriage until after your brother and my mother are out of the Tombs. There is much here that is not known. Do you agree?”

Sophia looked down at her own hand, showing creamy tan against the rolled-up edge of the gold brocade. Two weeks ago she would have never believed that she would go to such lengths to marry anyone, especially an admitted liar and thief with a half grin and hair that shone like dark red fire in the candlelight. She knew she couldn’t believe a word he said. She nodded.

“And Adèle?” he asked.

Maybe René could be trusted where his mother was concerned, but for everything else, she would have to be on her guard. The truth was that she found him fascinating, down to the tiny little pulse that she could see beating at the base of his neck, just beyond the open collar. And he could trick her so easily. He already had. She needed him, but she was vulnerable, and she could never let him know it. She could not allow him to manipulate her. She looked up.

“Yes. Help me get Tom and Jennifer out, and I’ll get your mother, too.”

This smile came slower onto René’s face. He took her free hand and lifted it to his lips, like he was the one wearing the gold brocade, like they were standing in the Bellamy ballroom. His mouth was warm on her hand. “Agreed,” he said. “And you may even enjoy it, Mademoiselle …”

Sophia jumped hard as the door to the bedroom flew open. René’s gaze darted up, and Spear stood looking in at them, a stampede that had come to an abrupt halt in the doorway. Feathers from the decrepit pillow floated gently to the carpet. Sophia pulled her hand from René’s and pushed herself upright.

“Spear, we …”

But her irrational need to explain was interrupted by Mrs. Rathbone forcing her way around Spear, a feat that took considerable strength, especially considering the size of her flower-trimmed hat. A
Wesson’s
page seventy-four.

“Right! You said there were voices, and … Well, really!” exclaimed Mrs. Rathbone, taking in the room, the bed, and specifically Sophia’s attire, which obviously all belonged to René. Then she dismissed the situation with a wave of the hand. “Sophia. I had no idea. But I’m sorry to say I was only too happy to be part of Tom’s schemes, not knowing it was Tom, and that I would do it again. So to say the truth, not sorry at all.”

Sophia laid down her head.

“And now I think it might be good for my health to visit my sister in the Midlands, don’t you think? And you should come with me. Especially now …” She gave René a sidelong glance. He came across the room and bowed over her hand, the man of the magazine despite the disarray.

“You bring spring into the autumn,” he said, the heavy Parisian accent back. Sophia saw Spear’s eyes open wide before she threw an arm over her head.

“I’ve always said you were a charmer,” Mrs. Rathbone giggled. “Remember that I was the one that said it. Now listen to me, Sophia. People are going to be beastly. They were holding off on the beastly before, but now that Tom is caught it’s ten times worse and there will be no holding back at all. And Mr. Halflife was here, wanting you to march down the stairs and sign over the deed—at once, I should say. I know you won’t. Not yet. That’s why I’ve come to say that I think you should sell me the house.”

Sophia moved the arm from her eyes.

“I can’t give you near what it’s worth, of course, but I think you could come close to the debt and keep Bellamy out of jail. We can’t have the whole family locked up. It would be indecent. Especially with the state your father’s in …”

Sophia sat up instantly, gasping as she pulled on her stitches. She looked to Spear. “What about Father?”

“That’s why I’ve been trying to find you, Sophie. Orla says you need to come. Now.”

“F
ather?”

Bellamy sat in the armchair of his bedchamber, facing the window that looked out over the sea. There was nothing there to see but blackness. His hair, once exactly like Sophia’s and Tom’s, was a thin, disheveled mass over his head, his hands folded carefully on top of the blanket Orla had laid across his lap. But his room was destroyed. The furniture toppled, pictures flung from the walls, broken glass crunching into the rugs beneath their feet. Sophia had put on Bellamy’s slippers just to enter. Now only his breath and the occasional blink showed that he was even alive.

Sophia knelt on a pillow beside him, a hand on his arm. Orla stood just behind her, Spear near the door, hands in pockets, towering over a tearful Nancy. Sophia said his name again, but Bellamy didn’t respond.

“It’s Sophie, Father. I just want you to tell me that you’re all right.”

Bellamy never took his eyes from the window, but this time rasping words came from his mouth. “You did this.”

Sophia looked around the room and then up at Orla, perplexed. Orla’s heavy brows were pushed together. Bellamy spoke again, his voice as broken as the glass.

“You think because I do nothing that I know nothing. You think that I don’t know what it means when your face doesn’t appear for days, that I believe every lie Orla tells me. That I don’t know what is happening when footsteps run across my roof. That when I read that foul Parliament newspaper, I don’t know where you’ve been.”

“Father, I …”

“And now they will kill my son, the last of the Bellamys.”

“Father …”

“They will kill him because of you. Everything is lost because of you.”

If he had slapped her, Sophia could not have felt more of a blow. She sat back on her heels, breathing hard.

“And what would you have had me do, Father? Take up painting and visit the neighbors while the people of the city suffer and die?”

“I would have had you remember your duty! Tom always remembered what he owed to his family.”

The injustice of this cut through the reserve that usually stilled her tongue. “How dare you remind me of my duty? I have not forgotten what I owe my family. I was sacrificing my entire future for this family. And that is your fault, Father!”

Bellamy did not answer, only moved his arm away from his daughter’s hand.

“You sold me off because you did nothing. Nothing! For me or Tom! And what duty did you remember when Aunt Francesca was taken to the Tombs? Mother’s own blood! You would have let them cut off her head!”

His face crumpled. “It is my own son’s head they will take now. My dear son’s …”

She stood up, holding her hand against her side. “I am not like you. I can’t sit in my chair, doing nothing. Wasting my days wallowing in grief. I will not …”

“I will always grieve.”

“You have thought of nothing but your grief since Mother died. But you have children, Father. Two of them!”

“I have only one child now. And he is to die.”

Sophia stepped back, feeling every ounce of force from this second intended slap. Bellamy stared out the blank window, a single tear rolling down his cheek.

“Say to your mother that I have sent you to your room,” he said. “And that she is to tell Orla you’re to have no dinner. Mind that you do that, Sophia! Tell your mother I said you must do as you’re told!”

Sophia felt Orla’s hand on her back, tugging gently on the musty blanket she still held around the gold jacket. “Come away,” Orla whispered. “Come, child.”

Sophia turned away from her father and walked carefully through the debris, Orla’s arm around her waist. Spear moved toward them but Orla held up a hand. “Let me,” she said simply. Spear stepped back, running a hand over his unmussed head. Nancy was still standing in the doorway.

“I’ll watch over him tonight, Miss Bellamy,” Nancy whispered. “And, Miss Bellamy …”

Sophia looked up. Nancy had been cooking her meals since she was eight years old, her face as much a part of Bellamy House as the red and white bricks.

“I just wanted you to know that it’s a shame … a terrible shame that I couldn’t hear a word that was said just then.”

“Thank you, Nancy,” Sophia said, kissing her once on the cheek. She hadn’t done that since she was little.

Orla guided Sophia away from her father’s room and through the dark hallways of Bellamy House, walking slowly. Neither of them spoke for a long time, until Orla said, “He doesn’t know what he’s saying. He hasn’t been right since your mother died. His mind has been failing for a long time, and this business has pushed things to the edge. You know that’s so.”

Sophia nodded. Knowing did not make the pain of it any less. “What do I do?” she whispered. “I don’t know what to do.”

“First is to eat. Second is to sleep and let that cut heal,” Orla said sensibly, her no-nonsense approach to life unshaken. She pushed open Sophia’s door. “I’ll sit by your bed until you do. And third, we’ll just see about bringing him his son back.”

LeBlanc pushed open the door to Tom Bellamy’s cell. The sound of Jennifer Bonnard’s screaming rang from her prison hole, echoing through a round, open space carved deep within the Tombs. There were just five cells here: Fate’s special place for special prisoners.

LeBlanc waited, examining his manicured nails as Tom Bellamy struggled down a long winding set of stone stairs, his bad leg bloody, only kept from falling by the two gendarmes that were escorting him. It took a long time before they got Tom to the open cell door and tossed him through. He landed on his bloody leg with a grunt. When he was shackled LeBlanc shut the door and Gerard turned the key.

But LeBlanc did not go. He stood still, frowning at the sandy floor while Jennifer cried and Gerard and his gendarmes waited. Renaud, standing just a few steps behind, ran a nervous finger beneath his collar, sensing the disquiet.

LeBlanc said, “I think I would like to hear again from our informant in the Commonwealth, Renaud. Send the message tonight with the fastest rider we have, and I will require an immediate reply. And, Gerard, have one of your gendarmes quiet that girl.”

Gerard nodded to his men, Renaud bowed, and LeBlanc seethed until well past nethersun the next day, when the answer from his informant arrived. He read the contents, read them again, then hurled the message into the fire, watching the paper writhe until it blackened and disintegrated into ash.

He walked out his office door, waving Renaud away, and stepped into the lift, taking it all the way down the center of the white stone building, through the ground level of the Upper City and down through the cliff itself, where it stopped at the first level of the Tombs. He walked alone through the tunnels, listening to the burble of misery that was the music of the prison, and unlocked a metal door. Down the steps, down and down again to Fate’s special cells, savoring the quiet in which he would vent his anger. He turned the key, and the door of Jennifer Bonnard’s prison hole swung open.

Spear pushed open the door of his farmhouse, hinges creaking in the dim. He strode forward to light a lamp while Sophia waited, the others filing in behind, bringing the sharp air of an autumn night with them.

When Sophia had finally opened her eyes earlier that day it was to Orla packing her things in the light of a sun that was long past its height. Her fiancé, Orla had informed her, had not slept the day away. Instead he had met early with Spear, and then had a talk with Mrs. Rathbone, asking the woman to do him the personal favor of letting it be known that Sophia Bellamy and Monsieur Hasard would be traveling with her the next day to her sister’s home in the Midlands—when, in fact, they wished to remove to an undisclosed part of the Commonwealth to “discuss their options.”

Mrs. Rathbone had been more than happy to be included in one more piece of subterfuge, René had reported, especially if it meant keeping Sophia away from Mr. Halflife. If Mr. Halflife couldn’t find Sophia, then no deeds could be signed, and Sophia could consider Mrs. Rathbone’s offer to buy Bellamy House and its lands.

“She’s better off selling it to me than giving it to Halflife,” Mrs. Rathbone had said, “but don’t forget, there’s not many days left, and they’ll take Bellamy to prison no matter what he says or what he doesn’t …”

Bellamy had stopped speaking, Nancy had said, and did not move from his chair.

“… and she can’t hide forever. So don’t be away for long! You leave at dawn, I presume? Or middlesun? And where are you going again? I can recommend some excellent little places in Manchester …”

But René had only smiled, not choosing to divulge that “remove to an undisclosed part of the Commonwealth” meant a mile trek down the A5 in the dead of night, taking the turn onto Graysin Lane, and stepping through the door of Spear Hammond’s farmhouse.

Light blossomed from the lamp in Spear’s hand, showing a strong, plain sitting space, low-ceilinged and timbered, an Ancient piece of steel girder forming the fire lintel. A fishing rod hung across the chimney, hawk feathers gathering dust in a vase in the window. Very much a man’s room. Spear stood with the lamp in one hand and now a candle in the other, shifting his feet while the sound of Cartier riding a horse with padded hoofs thudded softly away down the lane. Orla had insisted that Sophia should not walk. She was probably right.

“Wait here, Sophie, and I’ll go light the bedrooms,” Spear said finally, leaving the candle and taking the lamp.

Orla and Benoit followed, arms laden with bags, St. Just’s claws skittering after them up the stairs. Sophia sat straight-backed on the overstuffed couch, making a study of her hands while René dropped into a cushioned chair beside the hearth. He had his hair tied back, unpowdered, and she wondered vaguely where the plain black jacket and tall boots he was wearing could have been hidden when she searched his room. Was this version of René the real one, she mused, or just another persona he took on and off with the season? It was still safer not to look at him.

“So, Mademoiselle,” he said into the quiet. “You have made your grand escape. Now tell me what you are thinking. How long will we need to prepare before we sail to the city?”

“I need the numbers of the prison holes. Two days, maybe three, and we should know where they are.” The normal waiting period for execution was fourteen days, to extend the period of misery and suffering, Sophia supposed. She wanted her brother out in five. The thought of Tom in a prison hole was unbearable.

“You have ways to get this information, I assume.”

“Of course. The message went on the dusk boat.”

René had his brows drawn down. “You will need more time than that to heal, Mademoiselle.”

She lifted a hand to the bandage under her shirt, just above the waistline of her breeches. She was sore, scabbed, and a little swollen, though not in terrible pain, not as long as she was tightly bound. And the knot on her skull was shrinking. But it was true that as the Rook, she would be limited. She went back to studying her hands. The things she’d seen in the Tombs were true, too, and she’d not forgotten Jennifer’s arms. Time for her to heal might not be a luxury that either Tom or Jennifer, or perhaps even Madame Hasard, could afford.

René leaned forward in his chair, elbows on knees. “Allemande is a man of … let me think of the words … a man of standards. He cares for the look of things. Murder is all well, as long as it has the appearance of the law, yes? And the execution of the Red Rook, that will be an event for everyone’s eyes.”