Rook(10)

“You are leaving, Sophia?”

The lined face of Bellamy, her father, looked up at her, full of concern. Bellamy had been sitting at one of the little tables set up along the walls, eating cake with Mr. Halflife and Sheriff Burn. They both nodded at her, a little grim. Sheriff Burn was probably worried he would soon have to arrest the man he was having pudding with; Mr. Halflife was probably worried that the coming wedding would prevent the arrest.

She looked back at her father. Surely he knew what sort of family he was chaining her to. Allies of a government that had legalized mass murder in the Sunken City. That had taken the very real injustices of locked gates, and poverty, and the fear that a return of technology would steal livelihoods and starve children, taken them and used them, whipping the Lower City into a mob of frenzied hate against the Upper. Execute the rich, seize their assets, disenfranchise their religion, use terror to control the people and create new laws to justify their actions. That was Allemande’s so-called revolution. And this was the family she was being sold to, blood relatives of the man that had sentenced people she loved to die beneath the Razor. And all because her father could not face reality or balance his own bank account. But Bellamy looked so uncertain, so miserable and guilt-ridden as he searched her face, that all at once her temper left her. Without it she was empty, bereft.

“Of course I’m not leaving, Father,” she said. “The party is beautiful, and everything is going so well.” She squeezed his hand, offering him a brief, false smile that she knew would make him feel better, seeing it tentatively returned before she moved away. She waited until Bellamy was distracted by the vicar, then made a dash up the back stairs.

She hurried through the gallery, clicking heels unheard in the din of music and reveling, past the Looking Man, up again, and then she was welcoming the quiet of a deserted corridor. Around she wound, through doors, past corners, and up more stairwells, some of them wood, some of them Ancient concrete, until she was in the long hallway of the north wing.

The hall was silent, a single candle left to illuminate the age-blackened paneling. Sophia took the taper from its sconce, poufy skirt rustling over the threadbare carpet, and quietly approached a door set back in its own columned recess. She stood still, listening. The Banns downstairs had everyone occupied, but René might have brought a manservant with him. He seemed the sort that would think himself incapable of carrying his own luggage. When she heard nothing but her own breath struggling against the restricting bodice, she reached up into the piled hair on her head, removed a silver key, and put it to the lock. She slipped inside René Hasard’s door without the first creak of a hinge.

It wasn’t long after that Sophia was opening the door to her own rooms, on the other side of Bellamy House, having seen nothing worse than three more jackets in the style of the gold one, shirts, breeches and pants, various articles of underclothing, reserves of hair powder, two razors, a book of questionable Parisian poetry, and some very dull correspondence. Nothing to connect him with the crimes of his city or his cousin. Or the Red Rook. René was a prat and that was all. The revelation made her both relieved and unhappy.

St. Just the fox barked once as she shut her door, his sharp ears pricked while he sniffed her skirts. She patted his head, and then Orla was there, reaching up for the heavy dark hair. She had it off Sophia’s head in an instant, setting it aside on the dressing table before spinning her round to unlace the bodice. Orla had been her nurse as a child, somehow going on with those duties long after Sophia had outgrown them. Mostly, Sophia supposed, because no one had ever told her to stop.

She relaxed, both from the relief at the lack of weight on her head and Orla’s ministrations. Her room, at least, felt unsullied. She pulled out hairpins one by one while St. Just completed his investigation of her shoes, approved, and returned to his basket.

“Your Banns was tolerable, then?” Orla asked.

“Intolerable, I’m afraid.”

“And Monsieur?”

“My father’s choice of business partner is very handsome, knows it, and does not possess an intelligent thought. And he has some very nasty relatives.”

“Your father or your fiancé?”

“Very funny, Orla.” She felt uncharacteristically close to crying. “He brought one of his cousins to visit me tonight. Would you like to guess who was just downstairs?” She caught sight of Orla’s questioning face in the mirror. “Albert LeBlanc.”

Orla’s fingers paused on the laces. “And he came as a relation, I suppose? Family duty?”

“I think not.” Sophia watched worry press down on Orla’s mouth. “Well, at least now we know why the Hasards haven’t lost their heads to Allemande. Or their business. It’s good to have friends in high places, don’t you think, Orla?”

Orla didn’t answer; she was too busy frowning. Sophia pulled the last pin from her hair and ran a hand through the damp, thick curls, shaking them all out once like a dog. The sight made a little line appear between the paint on her eyebrows. Jennifer Bonnard had been so young when Sophia saw her last, with those wide eyes and that freckled nose. Sophia wouldn’t have dreamed Jennifer would recognize her, dressed in a man’s clothes and with her hair cut like a boy’s. The other Bonnards certainly hadn’t.

“And what else has happened?” Orla asked. St. Just lifted his rust-colored head and whined once from the basket. He knew her moods as well as Orla.