Rook (14 page)

Sophia looked up. René was telling her that no matter what happened, LeBlanc would have to ensure that Tom looked well enough for a public scaffold.

“Have you ever been inside the Tombs?” she asked. He shook his head, and Sophia kept her silence. There were many, many things that did not show. It was good of him, she supposed, to try to reassure her. She would be smarter to discern his motive, not trust in his goodness.

René’s fingers tapped restlessly on the chair. They could hear Spear moving about upstairs, and Orla and Benoit. “How long has he lived here?” René asked. He meant Spear.

“Since birth, I think.” Spear’s father had put back money for his son very early. Between the two of them, Spear had saved enough to prove his fitness for inheritance on the day he turned eighteen. “But he’s spent most of his time at our house since his father died. Father practically raised him.” At least as much as Bellamy had raised anyone.

“Ah,” René replied.

Sophia felt the little line forming between her brows. “ ‘Ah,’ what?”

“Raised like your family, but not your family. That would explain it.”

“Explain what?”

“Why he thinks that you belong to him, Mademoiselle.”

That made her lift her gaze. “He does not think that.”

“I only talk of what I see.”

Sophia opened her mouth to protest further, but then heavy steps came down the small staircase. Spear and his lantern were back. He was huge in this room, Sophia realized. He had to stoop strategically to avoid the ceiling beams. Spear set the lantern on the mantel and came to the couch with her shawl in his hand, the same one he’d fetched during the disastrous dinner with LeBlanc.

“Orla said to bring you this until we’ve got the fires going.” He laid the shawl on her shoulders, his hand lingering, brushing across her bare neck before he moved away.

Sophia shivered, though not with cold. She watched as Spear moved about the room, a small smile on his statuesque face, setting this and that to rights, putting an extra cushion on the couch. For her. Sliding a bowl of shelled nuts a little closer on the table. For her. Now moving down the passage and into the kitchen to boil water for willow bark tea. For her. Just as he’d always done.

Her eyes went to René, who was uncharacteristically still in his chair, the deep blue of his eyes watching her think. Sophia stood suddenly, letting the shawl cascade over the cushions.

“Would you tell Spear I’m going to bed?”

René’s expression was inscrutable. “Another grand escape,” he said. “Perhaps I will try going to bed myself, the next time I wish to run away.”

She had absolutely nothing to say to that. She was nearly to the stairs when Spear called out, “Sophie, wait.” He had come down the passage from the kitchen, ducking under the door frame. “Let me … Orla says you have to drink this tea. For pain.”

“No need. I’ll have some in the morning.”

“Then I’ll show you your room.”

“It will be the one with Orla and a fox in it.”

“But …”

René leapt to his feet. “Monsieur Hammond, if you wish to speak to Miss Bellamy, please do not let me stop you. I will give you my chair.” He was across the floorboards before Spear could answer, pausing beside her at the bottom of the stairs. “I think I should go to bed,” he said near her ear, “as fast as I can. Don’t you think I should, Mademoiselle?”

Then he was away and Spear was waiting. Sophia went again to the couch, wrapping herself in the shawl before sitting back down. It was awful when the people you didn’t want to be right always were. Spear sat in the chair René had vacated. It looked too small for him.

“Thank you for the use of the house,” Sophia said before he could start.

“I’m glad to …”

“Did I tell you the Bonnards were safely delivered? They will be called ‘Devereaux’ now.” She did not mention their pleas for their daughter.

“Yes, I …”

“Durant—or the former Ministre of Defense—is only a few miles away. I’m glad they will have at least one person they know. They …”

“Sophie, it seems like you don’t want to hear what I have to say.”

She bit her lip and lowered her eyes.

“I wanted to tell you that I spoke with Tom. Before he left.”

Her gaze jumped up to meet Spear’s. His face was so extremely perfect she found herself wishing it had a blemish.

“We only had a moment, but he told me about getting the marriage contract broken. In fact, he told me to make sure it was broken. No matter what I had to do.” He paused, gauging her reaction before he said, “And it makes sense, Sophie. You can see that, can’t you? Tom said to tell you to let the estate go. To break the contract, so we can start fresh when this is over.”

Something about the word “we” made her look at Spear sharply. “Is that what he said? That ‘we’ will start fresh?” Sophia waited while Spear looked uncomfortable. “Tom meant all three of us? He knows I’m coming to get him?”

“I think he assumed you couldn’t be stopped, Sophie. But he meant … I think he meant just in case … things don’t work out.” Spear reached out and took her hand. “Actually, when he said ‘we,’ Sophie, he meant you and me.”

Sophia stared at her hand in Spear’s, numb with surprise.

“And that makes sense, too, don’t you think? I think it does.” When she didn’t say anything, he continued, “And I’ve been thinking that if all that’s so, then there’s no need to include Hasard in any of our plans now. You don’t owe him anything. Or his mother. We can get Tom and Jennifer out without him.”

“But …”

“The last thing Tom said to me was that Hasard couldn’t be trusted. He’s a liar, and he’s playing his own games, Sophie. Let’s get Tom, and let the rest of it go. There’s still this house, and the farm. We’ll move on, like Tom said … together. You know that would be … a good thing. Don’t you?”

“Spear …” She shook her head, gently removing her hand and putting it in her lap. “Listen to me. If Tom said that, then … he was talking out of turn. I’m not …” She took a breath. “I don’t think now is the time to be talking about it.”

“You know it’s what everyone expects.”

Sophia felt her eyes widen. Did they? “Spear, I gave my word to René, to help him get his …”

“You gave your word,” Spear repeated. The acid in his voice took her by surprise, just as much as the way he’d held her hand. “And what about the marriage? Did you give your word on that, too? Because I thought that was Bellamy’s doing.”

Sophia stood up a little too fast. She wrapped an arm tight around her wounded side. “Actually, Spear, I don’t particularly fancy marrying anyone at the moment. And I think you’ll find that my fiancé was no happier about being engaged to me than I was to him. But I don’t intend to discuss it again with anyone, not until Tom, Jennifer, and Madame Hasard are out of the Tombs. Is that clear?”

Spear didn’t answer. He was still, fingers tented over his perfect face. He looked so cast down, like when she was small and had acted unreasonably petulant because he’d won their race to the top of the oak tree. She’d felt guilty then, too. She softened her tone.

“I have to concentrate on getting them out. Nothing else. Surely you can see that?”

Spear looked up. His eyes were a cool, clear blue, as far from the smoldering fire of another set of blue eyes as could be. And they were very sincere. “Let’s go on our own,” he said. “Like we always have.”

“I’m not going to break my word. Not without reason.”

Spear sat back, chair creaking in the quiet. The look on his face made her heart twist. Tom was a brother to him, too. He couldn’t be worried any less than she was.

“But I will be careful. Very careful. I can promise you that. All right?” She waited, and when he didn’t reply, she put a hand on his shoulder and kissed the top of his head, the same as she’d done after the incident of the oak tree. She left him in his chair, taking the stairs as fast as she could with heavy limbs, hand against the pain in her side.

She made the turn at the narrow landing and saw a figure in the dim, hair so red there could be no wondering who it was. René leaned against the wall at the top of the staircase, arms crossed, waiting for her. She came up the last step before she whispered, “You were eavesdropping, weren’t you?”

“Yes. But I am a very honest eavesdropper, as you can see.” He was also holding his voice low, but she could hear the anger in it, loud and clear, like she’d heard in the dilapidated bedroom. “Do you think I am lying to you?” he asked. “Do you?”

“Yes.” She was surprised by the question. He had to be lying about something.

He took a step closer, voice a growling whisper. “I had a part to play, Mademoiselle. As did you. But I am not playing one now, and I have told you nothing that was not true. I swear that.” The fire-blue eyes searched hers. “Do you believe me?”

She didn’t know what she believed. She was tired, and upset, and this anger of René’s seemed to have come out of nowhere, just like the direction of Spear’s conversation below.

“Do you believe me?” he said again.

The only light was from a ceiling lamp hanging farther down the corridor. Much of his face was in shadow, but something about the line of his jaw was making her thoughts pause, like in the sanctuary, when she’d forgotten pain in favor of inquisitiveness. She wondered what stubble would feel like beneath her palm.

“Listen to me. I told you once that you do not see because you will not look. Open your eyes. Why might Hammond tell you Tom said those things? What does Hammond want? Think!”

She shook herself awake, wishing she could take a boot to her own shin. What was wrong with her? “Spear would not lie to me. Not about Tom.”

A smile moved across René’s mouth, a smile that did not do one thing to lessen his fury. She was instantly angry that she’d noticed it at all. “Then tell me this,” he said, the words barely a whisper. “If I handed you your precious marriage fee right now, would you take it? Or no?”

She met his gaze. “No.”

“Then I would say, Miss Bellamy, that between the two of us, I am not the liar here.”

And now it was anger rather than embarrassment heating her face. “I think you should listen to me, Monsieur, and let me give you a word of advice. You wish to be believed? You wish to appear trustworthy? Then maybe you should get out of my bloody way and stop listening in on other people’s private conversations!”

She pushed past and marched down the corridor, opening the first door she came to. When she found St. Just inside, she turned and slammed the heavy oak behind her, shaking the walls. In another moment, René had done the same to his door directly across the hall. And done it a little more thoroughly.

The floorboards shuddered beneath Benoit’s feet as he peeked out his door. His questioning gaze met Orla’s, who was just emerging from the dark end of the corridor, where the hanging light could not reach, a water pitcher in her hand. They considered each other in silence, and then together looked down the hallway, toward the two doors that had slammed.

“Ce sera une longue séjour,”
said Benoit, who spoke no Commonwealth.

“I agree, Mr. Benoit,” said Orla, who understood no Parisian. “I think we are in for a very long stay.”

Spear stayed in his chair for a long time after the doors above him had slammed, watching his hands, where a piece of paper, much folded and marked with the seal of the Sunken City, now rested between two fingers. He turned the paper over and over, thinking of lips in his hair, listening to the groan of Sophia’s footsteps moving across his ceiling.