Rook (48 page)

She looked up as Tom came out of Bellamy’s room, still bearded and in the uniform jacket of the Upper City. He sat down beside her with a little difficulty, stretching out his bad leg. He took her hand.

“Sophie,” he said. “Father’s gone.”

She said nothing, just frowned and petted St. Just. For a few blissful moments she felt nothing but numb shock.

“I tried to do the right thing,” she said.

“I know you did.”

“Do you think he ever forgave me?”

Tom put his arms around her. “Yes, Sophie. I think he did.”

They both knew Tom couldn’t know that, but Sophia chose to be comforted by it, anyway. First Spear, and now her father. The five of them reduced to three. Her grief for both of them was flavored with guilt the way salt flavors the sea; she could taste it in the tears.

It was after highmoon when Sophia stood in the Bellamy stables, watching Cartier get Tom’s horse ready, Spear’s horse and her own beside it. Nancy’s husband had been caring for them all together in Cartier’s absence. She was grieved, still dirty, and so tired she could barely stay on her feet. Jennifer Bonnard stood beside her, not much better though her fever was gone, also unwilling not to see Tom off. Sophia held her up, and had a suspicion that Jennifer might be doing the same for her. Tom mounted from his good leg, grimacing at the pain from his bad one.

“I’ll see you up on the hill first thing,” Sophia said. They were burying their father there at dawn, like people did in the years after the Great Death. No coffins and no fuss. “And don’t start any fires!” she added.

Tom rolled his eyes once. “I’m not an idiot, Sophie.” But then he smiled at her through his sadness, and smiled even more at Jennifer. He turned the horse and rode out of the stable, toward the A5 and Graysin Lane. It was going to be difficult for him to be at the Hammond farm, but there was no better place for him to hide on short notice. He might not be able to prove his ability to inherit his father’s estate, but the Commonwealth saw no problem in the world with Tom inheriting his father’s debt. They would have Mr. Halflife and Sheriff Burn on them. Soon.

“Will they arrest him?” Jennifer asked.

“Not if they can’t find him.” Her meager plans, begun in her head during the landover ride, had not changed in light of her father’s death. Now, it was just Tom she was keeping out of prison, instead of her father. And she would see her brother back in a prison cell over her own dead body.

“I knew it was you,” Jennifer said, looking over at Sophia. “I recognized you that night, when you shook out your hair. You always did that when we were children. But I told them it was him. I suppose because I knew you so much better, and …” She ran a hand over her head, the hair grown out only a little from its ragged cut for the Razor. “I told Tom what I did, when we were in the Tombs, and he said I did the right thing. Why do you think he would say that?”

Because he is Tomas Bellamy, Sophia thought, though she didn’t know quite how to express that to Jennifer.

“I think it is because he is the best man in the world,” Jennifer said. “That’s why.”

Sophia looked again at Jennifer. They’d been little girls the last time they’d spent any real time together, Sophia having moved beyond dolls and quiet games beside a fire rather quickly. She’d never felt sorry about that, not until now. Now she was wondering just what sort of friend she might have missed.

She gave Jennifer one slightly ferocious hug, careful of her bandaged arms, picked up the lantern, and hurried out of the stable without another word, St. Just at her heels. The sharp air whipped past her face, stinging her cheeks as she made her way across the autumn dead grasses of the lawn. Someone’s foxes were barking in the distance, and St. Just barked back. She rounded the corner of Bellamy House and found Émile waiting for her, his fading red hair pale in the highmoon light, arms crossed as he leaned against the house stones. He was in the fancy breeches and waistcoat of her engagement party, evidently preferring that to the stolen uniform of a city gendarme.

“I thought perhaps you were not coming, Miss Bellamy,” he said. “I was very sorry to hear of your father.”

“Thank you, Émile.” She retrieved the key and unlocked the door to the sanctuary. “It just makes our meeting all the more urgent, I’m afraid.”

He followed her light down the winding stairs, the skitter of St. Just’s claws moving ahead of them. Émile said, “I find Bellamy House fascinating, Mademoiselle. Pieces of the Time Before are everywhere. It is remarkable. And I have just discovered something else remarkable. My elder brother has confided his identity to you.”

“Yes. I was a bit peeved with your nephew for not telling me that himself.”

“Ah. I would never discourage you from being cross with René, Mademoiselle. It is good for him. But the fact that Benoit has told you is …”

He waited so long to complete his sentence that Sophia turned around on the stairs. Émile was grinning at her. Oh, dear. Daughter stealer. “I am impressed,” he said, “that is all.”

“And why is that?”

“Because it is a mark of particular trust. Benoit considers you one of the family.”

She smiled as she continued down the stairs. “Your sister doesn’t agree.”

“Adèle will not give up her place easily.”

“Her place?”

“I am meaning her son, Mademoiselle.”

“Well. I am going to outplay her, Émile. If I can.”

“And how will you do that?”

“By giving René the marriage fee, which he can then pay to me, and we can pay our debts and keep my brother from going to prison.” She glanced back over her shoulder again. “She has already signed.”

Émile was grinning from both sides of his mouth now. “So she has. Forgive me, Miss Bellamy, but if the fee is even more than your father’s debt, how do you propose to raise such a sum on short notice, when you could not do so before?”

They entered the sanctuary, and Émile’s eyes widened. “That is why I wanted to meet with you. I’m beginning to wonder what the Bellamy family has that might have been previously … undervalued. So, as an honorary member of your family, Uncle Émile …” Sophia crossed the patched floor to Tom’s display shelf. “What sort of price do you think these things could fetch?”

S
ophia
sank down into the warm bath in front of her bedroom fire, aching inside and out, but incredibly grateful for the hot water she’d discovered. And the cinnamon in her soap. Orla was a heroine.

There had been very little time during the day, but she’d taken some of it to be with Orla. Orla had only ever once been moved to tears in Sophia’s memory, and that had been when she was very small, when they lost her mother. And now they had lost her father. And Spear. Seeing Orla cry had made her do the same again, but when she’d tried to explain to her about René, the woman had only waved a hand. “There’s no great surprise in wanting to marry your own fiancé, child,” Orla said, wiping her eyes, sending her off to bed with a light smack. What had come as a surprise was who she hadn’t found when she got there. Jennifer Bonnard had disappeared, and Sophia would have gambled a marriage fee that there was another horse missing from their stables, and an extra one stabled at the Hammond farm. Not that she had a fee to gamble.

Uncle Émile had given her hope for some money from Tom’s collection, but not near enough to fund a marriage. She’d taken him to the ballroom gallery to see the statue of the Looking Man as well, a piece that made him say things like, “Ah, extraordinary!” and “I am amazed!” But he did not think the statue would bring actual money. Or not very quickly. Even with his connections.

“A collector wishes for small things, things he can put discreetly on a shelf and move when needed. With this … the transportation alone would be dangerous and difficult. A museum might risk it, but not for a tenth of its worth, Mademoiselle.”

But he was taking René and Enzo and Andre up to the west fields to dig the next day, to see what could be found. Even one plastic bottle with its label on, he’d said, especially the ones with the mysterious word
DIET
, could bring what she needed with the right buyers, though finding one surviving in that kind of condition was rare. Very rare. It was a nebulous hope to be sure, and much less concrete than her offer from Mrs. Rathbone.

Mrs. Rathbone had come calling in what should have been their after-dinner time, though nothing was regular at Bellamy House at the moment. Sophia had just set off to find René when she spotted a flowered hat in the drawing room.

“Mrs. Rathbone?” Sophia inquired, backtracking to the door. She’d had her head wrapped up and was still in her filthy breeches, face streaked with dirt and tears. “I thought you were in the Midlands.”

Mrs. Rathbone sat herself straighter in the chair before Sophia could say more. “I haven’t come to chat, Miss Bellamy, though it looks to me as if we could chat all night. You seem to have been doing things I would find interesting. But as I was saying, that isn’t what I came for. I have come to remind you about my offer to buy Bellamy House.”

Sophia came and sat down heavily in her father’s chair, and only then did she notice that Madame was also in the room, legs crossed and with a cup of something hot in her hand. Giving her what Sophia had come to think of as the Hasard eyebrow.

“I wouldn’t be able to offer what it’s worth, mind,” Mrs. Rathbone continued. “Who could?”

Who indeed, Sophia thought. She seemed to be flush with valuable items that could do her absolutely no monetary good.

“But you could come close to the debt. I know you’re two days from Bellamy’s arrest …”

“Actually, Mrs. Rathbone …”

“… and I thought this way you could at least keep the sheriff away. You might prefer it to jail and the house going to Parliament …”

“Mrs. Rathbone, Bellamy … my father has just … died.”

“What?”

Sophia saw Madame again raise the one brow. It made her unreasonably indignant, that eyebrow. Was the woman incapable of lifting the other one? Or maybe it was just heartache that made her so irritable. Or Mrs. Rathbone.

“I’m also sorry to tell you that Spear is gone as well, Mrs. Rathbone.” The woman sat still in her chair. “He was buried in the Sunken City.”

“What?” Mrs. Rathbone repeated. She seemed truly taken aback. “Buried in the city? Whatever happened to him?”

Sophia stared down at the worn place her father’s shoes had made in the carpet, started feeling tearful, and with that, her journey to anger was complete. She was not going to talk about what had happened to Spear. She pressed her lips together.

“Well!” said Mrs. Rathbone. “This is not what I was expecting to hear, my dear. Not at all. Then it all falls to you, doesn’t it? I am so terribly sorry for you.”

“If you mean the debt, Mrs. Rathbone, that falls to my brother, actually.”

“Tom? But I thought …”

“News is a bit slow coming out of the city right now …” There was no telling what the papers would say when they did come. That was probably dependent on who ended up in power as much as the truth. “Tom is free. They had the wrong man.”

“So they did,” commented Madame Hasard.

Mrs. Rathbone shook her flowered hat. “This visit has taken me by surprise, and no mistake. Not to be crass, Miss Bellamy, but it’s getting hard to keep up with which Bellamys are alive and which aren’t, who’s jailed and who isn’t. And what about Monsieur, then? Not to get too personal, Miss Bellamy.”

Sophia narrowed her eyes. Perhaps Mrs. Rathbone would also like to know the amount of money in her purse. Madame Hasard tilted her head to one side. “Mrs….?”

“Rathbone,” Sophia supplied, as if she hadn’t already said the name at least ten times. “I assume you’ve met Monsieur’s mother, Madame Hasard?”

Madame said, “I fear that things have not turned out as we had hoped in that regard, Mrs. Rathbone.”

Poor woman, Sophia thought, looking at Madame. How hard she must be wishing that lie was true.

“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.