Daughter of Mystery (17 page)

“Armin to Maisetra Sovitre,” she answered and clarified, “Maisetra Margerit Sovitre.”

His eyes widened slightly and he bowed to the other two women. “My apologies, I didn’t recognize…but you shouldn’t be standing here.” He took in Margerit’s muddied state. “Like this.”

Margerit took a step closer to her and said, “I understand there are certain questions you need to ask.”

Barbara was amused to note that Margerit had the air of one granting, not seeking, protection. With a few brief sentences she laid out the bare facts of the attack, with Margerit adding confirmation. And then more quietly, for the magistrate’s ears only, the other details: what she knew, what she guessed. It made no difference, she knew that. One couldn’t go around accusing a baron of attempts at abduction and rape for no better reason than a jilted proposal.

The magistrate asked only, “What is your proof?” Barbara raised her hands helplessly and he sighed, more in relief than resignation she thought. “Well, there’s no harm done,” he said with an air of dismissal.

It was the best she could hope for: that he would rule the death as falling within the legitimate scope of her employment. There was little doubt of that. There had been no doubt of it the time in Rotenek either. The trouble there had been political, not legal.

He offered his own carriage to carry the ladies home, to her relief. The onlookers had long since drifted off; no doubt some had carried the word ahead to Chaturik Square. Maistir Fulpi had not been home but he had been sent for and arrived hard on their heels. He took only a moment to satisfy himself that Margerit was unharmed, then Barbara found herself the target of his glare and he said shortly, “In my office.”

This was no time to play games of waiting to be questioned. She reported to him as she would have to the baron, sparing no details and omitting no conjectures.

“There is no doubt,” she concluded. “Mesner Chazillen—Baron Saveze, that is—was behind this. If he had succeeded—”

“If he had succeeded then you would have failed at your duty.”

“I didn’t fail,” Barbara said evenly. Years of practice kept her temper on short rein, but he seemed to delight in goading her. “I doubt there will be another attempt of the same nature. He won’t have the resources.” It was tempting to ask him whether he still doubted the need for an armin. She counted that battle as won.

“Was the killing necessary?”

She found the question odd. Did he think it amused her to murder untried boys? “Yes.”

He tried and failed to stare her down but hid the failure in a distant look as if he were thinking of something else entirely. She waited.

“Do you think it is wise,” he asked at last, “to take her to Rotenek? When he will be there?”

Barbara’s mind raced. Nothing must divert that plan. “Rotenek is no more dangerous than any other place. There are more eyes, fewer lonely places. And more people to disapprove should he go too far.”

“Well, perhaps so. And perhaps there are additional measures that can be taken.”

But if he had thoughts on the matter, he chose not to share them.

Chapter Twenty-One

Margerit

The shock of the attack faded but in the days that followed Margerit felt a wall rising between her and her guardians. Uncle Fulpi watched her with a speculative and measuring eye when he thought she didn’t notice. Did he regret refusing Estefen’s offer now that he’d shown his teeth? Was he considering the possibility of hurriedly offering her up to some other noble suitor, less dangerous but just as hungry? He spoke of a season in Rotenek now more in the way of a treat for good behavior and not for the marriage market. Aunt Honurat sorted through her invitations ruthlessly for those she might and might not accept. The favored ones included far fewer of the suitable young men than before. There were no more balls at the great houses. Had her aunt dared to decline them or was she no longer enough of a novelty to be amusing? She didn’t care about the dinners or parties themselves but she was nagged by hints of unknown plans and by the constant scrutiny. Axian Park was banned to her entirely. She protested at last to her uncle, “Am I being punished? Do you think it was my fault?”

“We only want to keep you safe,” he answered in a tone that allowed no contradiction.

If the strictures had kept her from going to Fonten Street she would have rebelled. LeFevre’s lessons and the treasures of her library remained as consolation. But even those visits were more closely watched. There were no more walks across town accompanied only by Barbara. Now she was required to send for her carriage and there was always another in attendance, even to the transparent stratagem of sending Sofi and her governess along to try her hand on the clavichord in the yellow parlor.

Once, she might have turned to Aunt Bertrut, who seemed unchanged through all the shifting tensions. She went on as she always had: playing
vizeino
when it pleased her, retreating to the company of her own friends when she quarreled with Uncle Fulpi. But Bertrut would never support her at the cost of her own comfort. And, as LeFevre repeatedly cautioned her, her uncle had both the right and duty to do as he thought best for her. So she walked meekly and patiently on the paths they allowed and kept her eyes on the distant goal of Rotenek.

On the first day of summer, the tension eased abruptly with the unexpected arrival of Cousin Nikule. To be sure, the university term was over. Last year he’d returned early and there were shouted arguments behind closed doors. But she knew he’d had other plans this year: friends to visit, a more meandering path back from the freedoms of the city to the smaller world of Chalanz. She felt suddenly shy in his presence. Three years past, when he’d first been sent off at considerable expense and trouble to collect a gentleman’s education, she’d pounced eagerly at every return visit for stories of Rotenek and the university. And when he’d deigned to humor her with droll stories of his fellows and their adventures, it was with the air of indulging a baby sister. He found her zeal for scholarship amusing. His own studies were clearly fit in between less mentionable masculine pursuits to the barest extent necessary to satisfy his father’s ambitions.

Now so much had changed between them. Even simply being out in society might have been enough to shift the balance and there was so much more. Nikule clearly looked at her in a new light, bowing formally and kissing her hand, in contrast to the light-hearted teasing he’d shown previously. She saw him in a new light as well. When he was her only window on those distant lecture halls, his scraps of stories had fed her fantasies. Now she was impatient with his indifference. She would have made any sacrifice to be in his place and he’d always treated his studies as a tedious chore. If he looked at her as a grown woman now, she saw him as a careless boy, breaking his toys in the certainty that he’d be given new ones.

The attention that would have been flattering the year before left her skeptical and curious. He was attentive over dinner. Instead of disappearing afterward to spend time with old friends, he was content to enjoy a quiet family evening, listening to Sofi play and sing and even indulging Iulien by joining in childish card games. And in the morning, when he saw her and Aunt Bertrut putting on their bonnets to go out to the waiting carriage, he offered to escort her instead.

“After all,” he said, “you need to have more care taken of you now.”

Margerit laughed and gestured at Barbara who had come up the back stairs to join them. “You’re quite unnecessary on that account! Didn’t Uncle tell you? My fortune came with its very own bodyguard.”

She saw his eyes narrow in annoyance as he looked around. Barbara, in turn, bristled at the scrutiny. “Indeed?” he said. “Well, today you can dispense with all that.” He took her gloved hand in his own and tucked it under his elbow. “It can be just us two, like old times.”

It was tempting to ask him which old times he was thinking of, but she only slipped her hand free and said, “If I go out, Barbara goes with me. Your father is quite firm on that point. But I’d be happy to have you accompany me as well. I have some books to deliver back to Fonten Street, which you may carry for me. And Aunt Sovitre finds LeFevre’s account books hopelessly boring so I’m certain she’ll be delighted to let you take her place.” She took mischievous delight in handing him the two substantial tomes waiting for her on the sideboard and watching him juggle them along with his brass-knobbed walking stick as they climbed into the carriage. Clearly the illusion of assistance would have been undermined by simply handing them off to the footman.

He bore patiently with her errands or at least he pretended to. It was tempting to see if he would suffer having a visit to the milliners inflicted on him after the long hour with LeFevre, but since she found the choosing of bonnets equally tedious, it hardly seemed worth the entertainment.

That entertainment wore thin over the next week. He must have been called home to help watch over her, for now Aunt Honurat presented her with a new and more extensive list of social engagements to attend and it seemed that Nikule would be available to escort her to most of them. It wasn’t entirely a burden; he was a competent dancer and a witty enough dinner partner. But if she’d been eager to secure a fiancé, the hovering presence of someone who was practically an older brother wouldn’t have been welcome.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Barbara

Barbara didn’t care much for Nikule Fulpi. Perhaps it shouldn’t be counted against him that his looks echoed his father’s so strongly: the same long face and arrogant mouth. He had picked up a dandy’s habits in Rotenek and his light brown hair was more daringly styled, but there could be no doubt whose son he was. No, it was the clumsy attempt that was being made to throw him in Margerit’s path. Margerit had laughed when she pointed that out. “Don’t be silly; he’s my cousin!”

“Dispensations can be had for a price,” she’d countered.

What confirmed her opinion was the principle that the servant reflected the master, and the fellow Maureld that Nikule kept as his valet was a poor reflection. He was boastful, his hands made too free with the younger kitchen maids and he was working to discover exactly how far he could needle her without giving her an excuse to respond. He was, for all of that, harmless in the ways that mattered to her. And so she ignored him.

She didn’t care to ignore Nikule but he was outside the scope of her duties. With Estefen’s stillborn proposal, her concern had been for the threat of force. That was easy to face. Harder was the thought that one of these silly young men would succeed in winning Margerit’s heart. Not Nikule, perhaps, but there would be others—more deft, more subtle. It was no part of her job to come between them, though he raised her hackles.

That was what she was pondering one afternoon over a late lunch in the kitchen when the house had fallen still. She had left Margerit reading in the parlor, Maisetra Fulpi had taken to her bed with a sick headache and the elder Maisetra Sovitre had taken the younger children out for a walk to preserve the quiet. The men were about somewhere, doing whatever it was that men of leisure did in the middle of the day. And Barbara was so lost in thought that it took a moment for the conversation to rise to her notice. Maureld came down the stairs with his usual swagger and blocked the path of the maid who was about to go up with a tea tray. “Now where would you be going with that?”

In a voice sharp with scorn she replied, “It’s for Maisetra Margerit and it’s none of your business!”

“If you’ll take a hint from me,” he returned slyly, “I’d keep clear of the parlor for a bit yet.”

It wasn’t his words that set off the alarm bells, it was the shade his face turned when he realized she’d heard them. She upended two chairs in her plunge for the door to the stairs. The corridor was a blur. She thrust the parlor door open on the heels of a thud and crash to see Margerit struggling in Nikule’s embrace. In two steps, she grabbed his shoulder and wrenched him aside, throwing him to the ground to the sound of tearing cloth as she planted herself between them. Behind her, she heard Margerit breathing heavily.

Nikule picked himself up from the hearth, looking more bewildered and chagrined than angry. Her memory flashed back to her own misstep at the reading of the will. But his transgression had been deliberate. When he saw who faced him, he cursed at her and—looking around—snatched up the poker from the stand by the hearth.

Barbara went into a crouch, reaching reflexively for her sword—the one left upstairs in her chest. After all, what need would she have to carry a weapon in Maistir Fulpi’s own home? On the street it would have been a fatal mistake but instead the forced hesitation let good sense creep back in.

“Ho! Help! Murder!” she shouted, caring nothing for the inaccuracy of her words.

That gave him pause. He looked down at the poker as if unsure how it had come to his hand and began, “Margerit, I…” He seemed to realize there were no words that could mend the moment.

The tableau was broken by a clatter of approaching footsteps and voices. Nikule froze, visibly unsure of his next step. Fulpi’s voice cut through the babble. “Go about your business!” The small cluster of servants scattered. Barbara watched him take in the scene, glaring from Nikule as he dropped the poker with an expression half sheepish, half defiant, to Margerit, holding the torn edge of her bodice closely over her bosom where she stood by the sofa, and back to his son.

A brittle silence stretched out. In the distance came the sound of a door opening and a burst of cheerful laughter, as incongruous as a canary at a funeral. The laughter was silenced and a patter of quick steps heralded Maisetra Sovitre bursting in exclaiming, “What in heaven?”

Nikule found his tongue at last. “You were the one who told me I should make sure of her.”

“I meant,” his father said icily, “that you should engage her affections. Not that you should compromise her virtue.” He slapped him lightly across the face. “Get out!”