Rook(43)

He shuddered again as he stared at the coin. Fate was not a merciful Goddess. But if he moved forward with his plans to honor her, to give her all the Sunken City as her own, with victims and destinies to choose, if he brought the Red Rook to her altar, then surely Fate would not fail to bless him further still.

Perhaps she would even give him Allemande.





Sophia set one of her black boots and a knife on the low square table in Spear’s sitting room while Orla settled in front of the fire. Orla was sewing up the gash in Sophia’s vest, the bloodstains washed out, while Sophia worked on sawing off her boot heel. Her boot heel would be a good place to stash something useful, she’d decided. And it would keep her hands busy and mind occupied while Spear went for the post.

Before breakfast, Spear had knocked on her bedroom door, insisting on taking her up the hill behind the house. A short, easy walk, he’d said, too early and foggy for anyone to be about on his land. Orla had given her a scolding for it. She was supposed to be resting and therefore healing. But she’d been so afraid Spear would be angry after their conversation the night before, was so relieved when he’d sought her out, that she’d taken one look at his faultless smile and done as he asked.

And the view had been worth it. The hills were rolling green and autumn orange-brown; treetops still blushed with color, floating in a bed of white mist in the lower glens. She’d smiled, St. Just had leapt about and barked like mad, playing at being a wild fox, and Spear had been very pleased. But now she was alive to things she would have previously missed. Spear had wanted her to see those hills, this new, aware Sophia realized, not because she would enjoy them, or even think them beautiful. It was because he wanted her to love his farm. Because he wanted her to live there. With him.

For always being so assured of her own cleverness, Sophia Bellamy—she was discovering—could be extraordinarily stupid. She had always, always thought of Spear as a brother. He was fearless. Like Tom. And handsome. Like Tom, though in a colder, cut-marble sort of way. He was loyal to her. Like Tom. Her cohort in crime. Like Tom. And she had thought his feelings on the subject of her wedding were the same as Tom’s, too. Indignation, a general wish for her future happiness, the desire for Bellamy House to go on as it had been.

But last night had changed all that. There had been nothing brotherly in the plans Spear had suggested to her. And now she was remembering certain comments dropped here and there by Mrs. Rathbone, their neighbors at the Banns, and even Tom, words she’d taken as silliness and teasing and never thought of since. Evidently she was the only person in the county who hadn’t been looking on Spear Hammond as her right and natural suitor. At least before her engagement. Even René had realized. The whole idea left an uncomfortable, uncertain place in her middle.

She’d tried to think it through all night, pacing the wooden floor, staring up into the spidery shadows around Spear’s ceiling beams. René made her uncertain, too. But for being the same word, “uncertain,” the two feelings couldn’t have been more dissimilar. Nothing about René was remotely brotherly. But by the time the sun rose she’d been able to draw only one conclusion: Neither Spear Hammond nor René Hasard needed to know what she felt about anything. One because it would hurt him, the other because it would give him the power to hurt her. René was much too good at the game, and there was too much at stake to be playing games with anyone. She ran a hand through her hair, pushing through the tangle where she’d felt René’s words moving the curls near her ear in the sanctuary. And he wanted her to think he didn’t lie.

“Is that cut difficult, Mademoiselle?”

Sophia bit her lip, absorbing her start of surprise. René’s tall boots and brown breeches were standing right beside her, and she’d been staring aimlessly at a window too filmed with salt spray to be seen through, her knife halfway through a boot heel.

“That’s not what our Sophia is finding difficult, Mr. Hasard,” said Orla, pulling a long thread.

“I’m being punished,” Sophia said quickly, in case the all-seeing Orla had a mind to elaborate. “For walking too much when I was supposed to be resting. I have to sit still until highsun.”

“Or I’ll take my hand to her,” Orla stated.

“I envy you, Madame,” René said, folding himself into his chair from the night before.

Orla snorted once with laughter. Sophia was about to express her righteous anger in some clever way she’d yet to devise when René held up a hand.

“Can we have peace? For a short time? I have brought you news.” He tossed a newspaper onto the table, the Monde Observateur. “Benoit has just brought it from Bellamy House. I have been having them sent on since I came.”

Sophia snatched up the paper, and then paused. “Did he speak with Nancy?” She was asking about her father, but realized instantly that it was a nonsensical question; Benoit did not speak Commonwealth.

“He went to see himself,” René said. “There is no change.”

Sophia nodded, and unfolded the paper as Spear came down the passage, filling up the doorway to the sitting room, a steaming mug in one hand. Sophia read aloud, the Parisian falling quickly from her lips, occasionally pausing to translate for Orla, who had left her sewing in a forgotten pile. The entire first page was about the execution of the Red Rook. Sophia looked up, wrinkling her forehead.