Rook(17)

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Stupid of me. The wind has me nervous, I think.” She saw the surprise on Spear’s face; she didn’t dare look at René. “It’s been such a long day, I think I should go to bed. Good night, Father.”

Bellamy was still looking about, blinking in confusion. René had righted the table and was on his feet, taking her hand to kiss it as usual. But this time Sophia felt her own eyes dragged up to meet his, two wells of knowing over half a smile before his lips touched her hand. She could not fathom what lay behind that smile. Then he whispered, “Je pense que nous pouvons dire que ce jeu est un match nul, n’est-ce pas?”

Sophia pulled her hand away, only just keeping her walk from breaking into a run as she crossed the room to the door, where St. Just was already waiting for her. She shut out the light of the sitting room with a slam and leaned against the heavy oak.

René had offered to call their game a draw, when they both knew full well that he had won. And he’d said it in Parisian. She was unsure whether that, or his unsuspected skill at chess, or the way he had been looking at Tom’s leg was the most unsettling. Or maybe it was the way he’d been looking at her. St. Just ran down the corridor, unperturbed by the dark, while Sophia shivered, waiting for her eyes to adjust and her heartbeat to slow. She’d forgotten a candle, and the corridor was not heated. They only heated the rooms they had to in Bellamy House.

She heard feet approaching from behind the door and slid a few steps down the hall, but it was only Spear coming out of the sitting room with a light. He moved down the corridor to lean against the wall opposite. Spear was built like a fighter, or a footballer, so tall she had to tilt her head back to look at him in the chilly, narrow hallway.

“So what happened?” he asked quietly.

“Nothing,” she said. Or at least nothing that she could explain to Spear in a few stolen moments in a corridor.

“He’s lying about LeBlanc,” Spear said. “I swear he didn’t leave the north wing until he came out to find you this morning.”

Sophia wrinkled her forehead. “Why lie about that? It makes no sense.”

“It doesn’t make sense. Which is why you shouldn’t go tonight.”

“I think it’s the exact reason why I should go.”

“Put it off, Sophie. Please. Just for a night.” He reached out and straightened one of the sleeves on the gauzy pink dress. She shivered again. The corridor was freezing. “You know Tom is going to agree with me,” Spear said.

She bit her lip, thinking. “Are you sleeping here tonight, or going back to the farm?” Spear had had his own room a floor up from Tom ever since they were children.

“I can stay here.”

“Then between you and Tom, let’s make very certain that my fiancé does not leave the north wing.”





“I’ll do as I was told,” Orla said stoutly.

The hotelier of the Holiday folded two meaty arms across his chest. “I’ve no instructions about any shirts. The man said no one in his room till he’s coming back.”

“Then Monsieur LeBlanc has made a mistake. He specifically asked to have his shirts cleaned before tomorrow.”

“And you’ve come to get them in the rain.”

“I have no control over the weather.”

“And where do you come from again?”

Orla drew herself up straight, pulling her coat close around her, the picture of female dudgeon. “I don’t see how that is any of your business.”


The hotelier sighed. “Come back in the dawn, if you must.”

“Is that when Monsieur LeBlanc said he would return?”

“At the soonest. Now be on your way. I’ve things to attend to.”

“On your own head be it, then,” said Orla. She pulled her coat even closer and stepped out of the Holiday, into the inky rain and a waiting haularound. From the dark corner of the common room, where the firelight did not reach, Benoit lowered his mug.



LeBlanc lowered his eyescope. He was standing in the stable, watching sheets of rain batter the house of Mrs. Rathbone. The house was large and respectable, the light of oil lamps shining out from the windows onto a recently harvested, now soggy field. The horses whinnied, kicking at the stall doors, upset by the storm and the scent of wild dog on the cloth that LeBlanc had been waving before their noses. A house door opened, as he had hoped, and a small figure stepped gingerly into the rain. LeBlanc moved back into the shadows.

The figure entered the stable, unwrapping a shawl from around a blond head shorn short about the ears. The girl set a covered lamp carefully on a shelf, its light showing a spatter of freckles over her nose, and went to lay a hand on the nearest horse. The nape of her neck glowed bare and pale in the lantern light. LeBlanc’s smile crept wider. Luck truly was with him. He’d taken one step toward the girl when the stable door burst open. LeBlanc slid back into the gloom of an empty stall.

“Jennifer!” It was Ministre Bonnard, now shaved and looking considerably more clean, though no less fearful. “What are you doing?” His eyes darted over the interior of the stable, and he lowered his voice. “What are you thinking of, coming out here alone?”

Jennifer frowned. “It’s raining, Papa, and the horses were frightened. No one is going to be out here looking for us in the rain …”