The Water Nymph (17 page)

“It’s her right cheek,” Crispin corrected.

Lawrence raised his eyebrow. “Right cheek. Anyway, I thought she was lovely, but it was only at Newgate, watching her reduce those guards to quivering masses of fear, that I saw how really remarkable she is.”

“She was pretty spectacular at the prison, wasn’t she?” Crispin mused with a smile, despite himself. “Did you see how that guard cowered when she just looked at him? I don’t think he would have followed us even if I hadn’t knocked him unconscious.”

Lawrence nodded. “And what about when she refused to leave unless we brought all the other women with us? I don’t think my arms have recovered from the pummeling I took before I could convince that one called Helena that I was trying to help Sophie, not hurt her. According to Elwood, your Miss Champion was already quite a hero to some people, but that prison break was the cream on the pudding. She is practically immortal in their eyes.”

“Would that she were,” Crispin replied, recollecting his errand. “Someone tried to kill us both in bed the other night, and damn near succeeded.”

“What?”

“Someone shot flaming arrows into the canopy of my bed last night and set the entire thing on fire. Clearly their idea was to kill me. And Sophie. I want to know who did it, and I was hoping you could tell me.”

A frown passed over Lawrence’s brow. “Someone used arrows to light a fire in your room?”

“Yes. Ingenious devices, they must have been specially made for it. Somehow they managed to keep the fire burning even as they were shot through the air. I suspect gunpowder, but I have never seen anything like them before. I saved one to send to my brother, Ian. Anyway,” Crispin went on, “I thought you might know who had developed such a weapon. Or might have heard something about someone trying to kill me.”

Lawrence shook his head thoughtfully. “I don’t know anything about either the arrows or a contract on your life. Do you have anything else to go on?”

“Just the name of a bank. Loundes and Wainscot. Have you ever heard of them?”

“Damn stodgy bunch of toads,” was Lawrence’s reply. “They once told me, in not so many words, that they would not touch my money. Something about having principles. Bastards,” Lawrence muttered.

“Where are these paragons based?”

“North counties somewhere.” Lawrence waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the rest of England. “Newcastle maybe? I have blocked it from my mind. Why do you ask?”

“Something someone said made me think they might be mixed up with this.”

Lawrence’s head was shaking back and forth violently. “Not a chance. There is not a man among them who would have the imagination to set fire to a bed.” His tone changed, becoming more jovial. “Are you quite sure it wasn’t you and Miss Champion?”

“Your mind, Lord Pickering, is wanton.”

“You are the first person to say so, Lord Sandal,” Lawrence said smarmily. “Most people consider me a paragon of propriety. You are just sore because I saw through your little secret before you even knew it yourself. But you can’t hold it against me. I am quite an expert on love these days.”

Now it was Crispin’s turn to look hard at his friend. “An expert on love? Are you in love? Lawrence Pickering in love?” Crispin asked incredulously. “I don’t believe it.”

“It’s true,” Lawrence said, smiling so radiantly that Crispin could no longer doubt.

“Who is she? How did it happen? When did it happen? Why am I the last to know?” Crispin demanded in a torrent.

Lawrence was almost blushing. “She is someone I have known for a long time, and long admired, but it is only very recently that we have considered a more permanent arrangement.”

“A permanent arrangement?” Crispin repeated with disbelief. “Does this mean you are getting married?”

Lawrence nodded. “If eve—”

The door of the office bursting open stopped Lawrence’s confession. Before he could resume, his deputy, Grimley, strode to the middle of the floor. “My lord, I must speak to you,” he said breathlessly. “I need your advice, my lord, badly. It’s—”

Lawrence interrupted him, nodding toward Crispin. “As you can see, Grimley, I am already engaged.”

Grimley’s eyes settled on Crispin for the first time, and he made an awkward bow. “I beg pardon, my lords, but this is most important. Lord Pickering, I really must speak to you. In private.”

Crispin, unwilling as he was to part from Lawrence in the middle of their interesting conversation, understood the none-too-subtle hint and rose from his seat. “I’ll leave you two to your important and private business,” he said with a grin. “But I promise you, Lawrence, I’ll be back to hear the rest of your tale.”

Lawrence smiled broadly at his friend as Crispin crossed the threshold, but as soon as the door shut, his face wore a deep, troubled frown.

The message was delivered shortly after Crispin left, not by a footman, but by Octavia, in person. She was ushered up a secret back passage by Thurston so that her visit would not be known to anyone. Sophie, seated at a wide desk in the library carefully tossing dice, did not hear the concealed door open, and only looked up when Octavia’s feet echoed on the wooden floor. At the sight of her friend, a warm, welcoming smile spread across Sophie’s face and she rushed forward.

“It is wonderful to see you, Octavia,” she said, coming around the desk to embrace her. “Did you get my message?”

It took Octavia a moment to reply. She was not sure what she had expected, but after receiving one cryptic message from Sophie delivered by a prison guard, and another by the Sandal Hall footman, and having heard about the fire in Sandal Hall the night before, she had assumed that her friend would at least be careworn, if not entirely haggard. Instead, she looked radiant. “Sophie, are you all right?”

“Yes,” Sophie answered positively. “I feel wonderful.”

“And the Earl of Sandal?” Octavia asked. “He is treating you well?”

Sophie blushed. “Very well. His cook is very good. Don’t tell Richards, though.”

Octavia nodded with astonishment. When a discreet messenger had delivered a note to Hen House telling her that Sophie was safe and hiding with the Earl of Sandal, she and Emme had been worried. For two years, one of Sophie’s principal amusements had been to read aloud the stories about the Earl of Sandal, pointing out, with minute precision, all the ways in which he was a mealworm or a caterpillar or, on particularly bad days, a tick. They had concluded, therefore, that finding herself in his clutches would be worse than boiling in oil to Sophie, worse than being stung by a hundred bees, worse than a life without orange cake. They imagined Sophie pacing impatiently, cursing Satan’s knockers a thousand times as she bashed a toe or knee into a piece of furniture, railing against the louse and his house at the top of her lungs.

But Octavia found Sophie wearing one of his robes, naked beneath it, happily playing dice games at his desk. If the errand that brought her had not been such a painful one, Octavia would have been inclined to laugh.

Instead, she said, “I think we should sit down.”

The broad smile on Sophie’s face vanished as they moved toward a silver-and-burgundy-striped divan. “What is it? What is wrong? Did something happen at Hen House?”

Octavia shook her head, pushing a lock of light blond hair behind her ear with an unsteady hand. “Everything is fine at Hen House. You will be glad to know that Helena has settled in nicely.”

“Helena?”

“You know, the young woman who escaped from prison with you.”

Sophie nodded, remembering now.

“The others all had places to go,” Octavia explained, “but Helena asked if she could stay. Richards has begun letting her do the roasts. She says Helena has an extraordinary sense of smell, which makes her indispensable with seasonings.”

“Richards lets her in the kitchen?” Sophie asked with a mixture of surprise and envy.

“Yes. But that is not what I came to tell you about.” Octavia hesitated for a moment, gnawing on her lower lip. She kept her eyes aimed at her lap as she went on. “Sophie, this is very difficult for me to tell you. I did not respond to your message yesterday, because I did not know what to say. Finally, Emme told me I owed you the truth.”

“My message about the meringues?” Sophie was puzzled. She had only asked where they came from and when they had begun arriving.

Octavia took a deep breath. “You see, I ordered the meringues. From Sweetson, the baker.”

“Good,” Sophie said, trying to be encouraging.

But Octavia only looked more miserable. “It is not good. I did not want to. I—” She paused, then raised her eyes and rushed on. “I am being blackmailed. A letter came, hinting about something in my past, and with it was a billet which explained that if I did not want duplicates of the letter sent to my friends and clients, I would accept the subscription which would be offered to me within the week. And then Sweetson’s man came and offered me a subscription for meringues at a hundred pounds a month.”

“A hundred pounds a month?” Sophie repeated with surprise.

“I did not take all of it from the household funds,” Octavia assured her quickly, but she had misunderstood.

Sophie’s surprise was not at the size of the sum, but at the fact that, multiplied times twelve months, it was the exact amount of the bill Lord Grosgrain had asked of her. For a subscription. Was Lord Grosgrain being blackmailed before his death?

“But that makes no sense,” Sophie said aloud without realizing it.

Octavia looked at her. “That I used my dress money to pay the blackmail?”

“No, no, I was thinking about something else,” Sophie apologized. “You could have used the household funds. You could have used any of my money. Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

“I was afraid.” Octavia looked miserable.

“Afraid?”

“Afraid that if you found out, if I told you and Emme what the note said, you would make me leave.”

Sophie was aghast. “Nothing anyone could tell me about you would do that.”

“Not even if they told you I murdered a man?”

Sophie did not miss a moment. “No. Not even that.” She leaned forward and asked with excited interest, “Did you?”

Almost sorry to have to disappoint Sophie, Octavia shook her head. “I did not murder anyone. But it certainly could have looked like it. It was while I was with Lawrence Pickering, and—”

“You know Lawrence too?” Sophie interrupted.

“Have you met him?” Sophie nodded, and Octavia went on. “Yes. For a time”—here Octavia’s eyes left her friend’s—“for a time when I was very young, he and I were lovers.”

Octavia could not help but smile when, raising her eyes, she saw the expression on Sophie’s face. It was one of pure, unmitigated shock.

“You were Lawrence Pickering’s mistress,” Sophie paraphrased.

“If you prefer to put it that way,” Octavia agreed, and pressed on. “While we were together, a man was killed, a man whom I was known not to like, and the evidence pointed at me. Lawrence found the real murderer, but with all the tension, things between us soured then and I left for the country. Where I met Emme. And then you.”

“Have you told Emme this? About Lawrence?” Sophie asked with concern.

“Yes. She was not happy, but she understands. It was fourteen years ago. He was eighteen and I was only sixteen.”

“Were you in love with him?” Sophie asked.

“In love?” Octavia echoed. “I suppose I thought I was, at the time. Now, in retrospect…”

Sophie did not press her, putting aside the thousand other questions she wanted to ask about intimate relations, in the interest of finding out more about the blackmail. “Why did you decide to accept the subscription? Why not tell them that you were innocent and refuse to pay?”

“Can you really imagine the Duchess of Ivry having her dresses designed by someone who might have been a murderer? Or even someone associated with Lawrence Pickering? It would have ruined my dress business.”

“I would have supported you,” Sophie put in, almost hurt. “I would have given you as much money as you needed.”

“More, probably, knowing you, but it was not about money. I design dresses because I love to, not for the money.”

Sophie nodded absently, her mind back on the knotty question of what Lord Grosgrain could possibly have been blackmailed for. From what Octavia had said, she realized that the reason for the blackmail need not be a real crime or indiscretion, but she still had a hard time imagining what damaging information anyone could have had about her godfather. She had not yet stopped thinking about it when their interview ended and Octavia disappeared back down the secret passage.

It was this question that compelled her to go and see Sweetson, the baker. She needed to better understand how the blackmail worked, needed to learn if the people issuing the subscriptions had the injurious information themselves, or if they were just agents for someone else. And, if the latter was true, who that someone was.

Donning Don Alfonso’s outfit and, with Thurston’s assistance, a new mustache, she had set out for Sweetson’s to get her questions answered. In order to avoid being seen by too many people on the streets, she used smaller byways to traverse the city, until she found herself behind the baker’s shop. She knocked and got no answer, but the door gave under her hand and opened of its own accord.

There was no one in the back storehouse, unless they were well concealed as a bag of flour, nor in the adjacent kitchen. It was when she reached the front room that she saw him, seated in a chair in front of a large table with his face lying in a pile of flour.

Her initial surmise that he was asleep was quickly put to rest by the blood, now dried brown, which had drizzled out of the corner of his mouth and stained the flour.

Sophie was staring at the corpse, unable to move, when a voice spoke from behind her.

“You are a fine one to talk.” Sophie swung around to face him. “I only seem to find them when I am with you. What are you doing here, anyway? Are you following me?”

“Following you, in those breeches, is something I would very much enjoy, but I came here on my own. And you? Aren’t there enough baked goods for you at Sandal Hall?”

“How can you joke in front of him?” Sophie gestured toward the dead man.

“I assure you he is well beyond hearing. I am assuming that you had nothing to do with his death, but I would like to hear it from your lips.”

“Are you accusing me of murder, again?” Sophie was appalled.

“No.” Crispin shook his head. “Merely pointing out the strange coincidence of finding you here and him dead. You did not kill him, then?”

“I arrived only a few minutes before you did,” Sophie answered distractedly.

Crispin, noting her failure to answer his question directly, circled around to look at the corpse without moving it. “If that is the case, then you are certainly not guilty. This blood has been dry for hours, if not a full day.”

Sophie nodded, not really paying attention to this absolution. The bet was weighing heavily on her mind. If Crispin did not know about the blackmail then she did not want to tell him, but if he did, perhaps he had information that could be useful to her. In the interest of finding Lord Grosgrain’s murderer, she decided to take a risk. “How did you find out about the blackmail?”

Crispin spread his hands. “Informers,” he replied vaguely. “And you?”

“Octavia. She was forced to subscribe for meringues.” Sophie leaned toward him. “Did you know that she and Lawrence Pickering were lovers?”

“Octavia your friend and Lawrence my friend?” Crispin asked with real surprise.

“Yes. Years ago. That is what she was being blackmailed about.”

“Octavia,” Crispin mused to himself. “Really.”

Sophie nodded. “Yes. I guess there was something about a murder. You see, the blackmailers send a letter—”

“I know all about it. Very neat scheme. Did she have to subscribe to Tottle’s paper too?”

“No, just the meringues. But I figured that Tottle’s
News
must have worked the same way. Any of the people we interviewed would have been good candidates for blackmailing.”

Crispin agreed. “Have you looked at the body yet? We should be sure that there are no more handy pieces of paper lying about with your name on them.”

Sophie watched with dismay as Crispin lifted the baker’s head from the pile of flour on the table. His eyes were still open, his face a mask of shock, just as Richard Tottle’s had been. Whoever had killed them both had certainly taken them by surprise, suggesting it was not someone from whom they felt they had anything to fear. Sophie thought this over as Crispin frisked the corpse, delving into the waist of his breeches and feeling among the folds of his tunic, careful to avoid the long, unmarked knife that protruded from the man’s stomach.

“Nothing,” he announced, slumping the baker’s head back onto the table. “They must have assumed—”

Crispin stopped midsentence. For the first time, he noticed the man’s hand, dangling down along the side of the seat. It looked strange, and lifting it, Crispin discovered why. Something was clasped between the man’s fingers, something shiny. With great difficulty Crispin pried first one finger, then another open and extracted the object. It was a piece of shimmering light blue fabric with a bumblebee embroidered on it.

He held it up for Sophie to see.

“That is one of Octavia’s bees,” she exclaimed. “You know, from her dresses. She is famous for them.”

“Do you have any gowns with bees on them?” Crispin asked slowly. “Any, for example, in light blue taffeta like this?”

Sophie’s face fell. “I have one exactly like that. She made me wear it to several balls recently so people could see her new design.”

Crispin could only imagine how spectacular Sophie looked in that color blue, and how memorable. Anyone seeing the bee against the blue background would undoubtedly connect it with the beautiful renegade already wanted for one murder. Even in his brief foray from Lawrence’s house to the bakery, Crispin had heard talk of little else besides Sophie Champion, divided fairly evenly between condemnations of her as a murderess and applause for her wondrous escape. He had also heard, in passing, several women comparing stories of friends of theirs who had been given funds by Sophie Champion for enterprises they wanted to undertake, and several others who had been rescued from bad fathers, brothers, or husbands with Sophie Champion’s aid. Even allowing for exaggeration, Crispin calculated that Sophie had given away the better part of three fortunes, and found himself struggling not to confront the question of where all that money had come from. But unlimited resources—no matter how they were procured—would not save her from the gallows. Whoever was trying to frame her had to be found. Soon.

The sound of a key turning in the lock of the front door interrupted Crispin’s thoughts abruptly and underscored their importance. Jamming the piece of fabric into his doublet, he moved toward Sophie and pushed her into what appeared to be a closet at the back of the chamber, following behind her. They had only just closed the door when they heard footsteps enter the room they had left, and stop in front of the corpse.

Sophie and Crispin found themselves standing on a shallow, cold landing, completely dark but for the thin line of light dribbling in from under the door. Crispin reached out a hand toward Sophie and she took it, grasping it tight. Behind them, the darkness was absolute, and Crispin concluded that there must be a set of stairs, descending into the cellar of the building.

Those stairs, and the pitch-blackness at their base, were their only hope, Crispin knew, and probably the incarnation of Sophie’s worst fears. But they could not stay on the landing—the constables who were examining the corpse were sure to open the closet door looking for clues—and their sole chance of escaping from detection was to hide themselves in the darkness below. Crispin squeezed Sophie’s hand and felt her squeeze it back, if not firmly, at least without hesitation.

The sounds of the corpse being moved in the outer room muffled their footsteps as they descended the stone stairs into the cellar. Crispin went first, slowly, pausing whenever Sophie needed to pause. At one point, when the darkness had become complete, she stopped and pressed herself into the wall.

“Go without me,” she whispered breathlessly. “I can’t. Please, just go.”

Crispin could tell by the way her palm had grown cold and stiff that she was gripped by fear. “Close your eyes, Sophie,” he whispered. “It will be fine. Remember last time? Remember how nothing happened? I will not hurt you. Close your eyes and trust me,
tesoro.
”

The sound of his voice when he said that word soothed Sophie as it always did, as he knew it would. She obeyed him, shutting her eyes, and felt the warm safety of Crispin’s arms closing around her, then lifting her to his chest. Her breathing became more even as he descended the last ten steps, taking them sideways to ensure that Sophie’s head did not hit the stone wall.

The floor at the bottom was covered in rushes, which crunched with a crazy echo each time he moved. It was even colder down here, and over the wheaty smell of the rushes, Crispin caught a rich, milky scent.

“Mmmm,” Sophie murmured into his chest. “Butter.”

She was right. They must be in Sweetson’s buttery, or at least his cold storage. And if that was the case, there must be another way out, a way that opened directly into the court at the back of the house so that deliveries need not be carried down the narrow, rickety stairs.

“Sophie, if I set you down, will you be able to stand?” Crispin whispered to the bundle in his arms.

“Do not leave me alone,” she answered, desperation tingeing her words again.

“I have no intention of leaving you alone. I will be right here in this room with you. But I must look around for a way out, and if we both look, we will make more noise.”

Sophie pressed herself against him. “You won’t leave me alone? You won’t leave me here?”

“No,
tesoro
. Never.” Crispin felt her release her grip on him slightly and he lowered her to the ground. Feeling with his foot, he found a large, hay-covered block and steered her toward it. “Sit down here, and don’t move.”

Sophie did as she was told, keeping her eyes closed, and listened attentively to the noises around her. She could make out the clamor of voices, at least two, in the room upstairs, and the shuffling of feet. A heavy thud told her that the body was being moved again, but the sound of dragging stopped before it could have reached the outer door.

At that point, footsteps approached the door of the closet. Sophie felt the block, definitely of butter, beginning to melt beneath her as the hinges of the door above squeaked open. She opened her eyes to see light flooding in from upstairs, illuminating the top two thirds of the staircase, but leaving the bottom dark. Sophie leaned forward slightly on her slippery perch and looked up.

She saw two men at the door. One of them was so wide that he blocked most of the light, but in the little that remained she was able to see enough of his features to know that she recognized him. He had been at Lawrence’s the night she was taken to prison. As had the shorter one standing next to him, she now realized. Yes, even though she only had him in profile, she was sure that he was another of the men who had hauled her from Pickering Hall.

“Come on. There ain’t no one down there. Let’s go.” The shorter man addressed the wide one strenuously.

“I smell something,” the wide one said. “Something suspicious.”

“It’s butter, you idiot,” the shorter one told his companion. “Haven’t you ever thought of a baker having butter? We want to get him out of this place before the others come. We don’t have time to be looking for anyone in a buttery.”

The wide man took one step down the stairs and, bending slightly, squinted into the darkness. For a moment Sophie could have sworn he had seen her, was looking right at her, but then he straightened up. “Very well. We will move the body. But I am going to lock the door and come back later. I still say there is something suspicious down there.”

The two men left the landing and shut the door behind them, plunging Sophie once again into darkness. Worse, this time she heard what had to be a heavy chain being dragged through the door handles and a lock being clicked into place.

The noises upstairs died down and at last faded away entirely. It was completely dark, completely silent. A chill ran up Sophie’s back, and then another as she heard a rustling in the straw in front of her and felt someone’s breath on her face.

“Crispin,” she whispered.

There was no reply.

“Crispin,” she whispered again, now more desperately. “Crispin, is that you?”

The rustling ceased for a moment, but there was still no reply. Then Sophie felt something brush against her, and then a hand, grabbing her, first her arm, then her thigh.

She opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out. And then, just when she thought she could, someone put a hand over her mouth, gagging her. She whimpered in terror, flailing in the darkness, tears streaming down her face, too scared to hear the voice whispering in her ear.

“Shhh, Sophie, I am right here,” Crispin repeated. “It is okay, it is just me,” he went on, soothingly.

Sophie stopped moving.

“If I take away my hand,
tesoro
,” he asked, “will you shout?”

Sophie, numb with fright, shook her head, and Crispin removed his hand.

“What scared you?” he asked, pulling her close to him.

“Why didn’t you answer me?” Sophie panted. “When I said your name, why didn’t you tell me it was you?”

“I did not hear you say my name. I was in another part of the chamber.”

Sophie clutched his arm. “There is someone else in here with us. He touched me. He breathed on me. And now he is locked in here with us.”

Even in the pitch blackness, even without seeing her face, Crispin could tell that she was petrified with fear. There was no chance that he could convince her to move through the darkness toward the other side of the buttery in this state, he knew.

With Sophie still hanging on to his arm, he fumbled in his tunic until he found a tinderbox and a scrap of candle. Having heard the lock click into place on the door above, he judged that they were, for the time being, safe from intrusion, and so he lit the candle stub. The wick flickered to life, confirming that they were indeed in a buttery, surrounded by large blocks of butter, with several metal tubs containing cool water lining the walls. Sophie exhaled slowly as she looked around her, seeing that her fears had been groundless, that there were only the two of them there.

She had never thought she would be so relieved that she had been locked alone in a pitch-black room with a man. Her heartbeat had almost returned to normal, when a shadow moved on the wall beside her. Sophie leapt toward Crispin, bumping into him and sending both him and the stump of candle spluttering to the floor. The flame blew out as it fell, leaving them once again in complete, heart-wrenching darkness.

“Who is there?” Crispin demanded, rising quickly. He held Sophie to his chest with one hand and rested his other on the hilt of his rapier. “Identify yourself, or I shall strike.”

The only reply was a muted shuffling.

Crispin drew his sword. The sound of the steel blade sliding from its sheath and cutting through the air echoed terrifically in the stone chamber. He flourished it once, slicing the air with a succinct whistle, and heard a whimper from just in front of them.

“Please,” a small, female voice begged through the whimpering. “Please don’t hurt me. I ain’t meant no harm.”

“Who are you?” Crispin asked, directing the point of his rapier downward.

“Just the chamber girl. Just the girl who works for Sweetson. I ain’t no one.”

Crispin’s tone softened. “What are you doing down here, in the buttery?”

“They told me to hide until they come for me, and not show myself or talk to no one, and then when they say, to tell what I seen.”