Rook (49 page)

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.

“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 …”

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 Bellamy 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?”