Rook(6)

Sophia shook her head. “That is irrelevant. Obviously.” She’d meant to go on with the teasing, but she knew Tom had caught the bite beneath her words. The one fact on which Bellamy remained perfectly clear was that he had a daughter old enough to marry a man who would pay for the privilege.

Tom leaned against the railing. “So tell me what you thought of him.”

“Who? My fiancé?” Sophia glanced downward, searching through the rising haze until she found a young Parisian in a coat of gold brocade. He was surrounded by a gaggle of women, their smiles and their fans fluttering like bird wings. She’d thought him remarkably good-looking, even if it was in a very polished, Upper City sort of way. But that was before he’d said anything. “I’ve decided that Monsieur René Hasard will be a very manageable sort of husband.”

“So the introduction went well?”

“I suppose. He went on and on to Father about his tailor and the fashion for Wesson’s in the Sunken City and spoke barely two words to me.”

Tom smiled. “Oh. Now I see. You’re not unhappy, sister. You’re ticked.”

Sophia frowned and forced herself to examine René Hasard. His hair was powdered silver-white, like many in the room, though with him, the contrast of two very blue eyes and the gold brocade was striking. His gaggle of women certainly seemed to think him charming, and he seemed rather comfortable in the knowledge that they did. She saw him kiss the hand of the daughter of an ink-maker from Canterbury, watched him smile as Lauren Rathbone sidled much too close with her smudgy eyes and the blue plastic earrings dangling down to her neck. She was hanging on René Hasard’s every word. And his arm. Sophia felt her painted brows draw together. She detested hair powder.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” said Tom.

“Nothing. Just … I just never thought I would marry, that’s all.”

Tom gave her a sideways glance, deep brown eyes identical to her own. “Then you’re as big a git as Father. I’ll have to let you borrow my stick, I think.” He paused. “To fend off all your lovers.”

Sophia laughed before she whacked Tom once with the fan. Below them, René Hasard made an elaborate gesture and an eruption of feminine squeals and giggles floated up through the candlelight to the gallery shadows. He was smiling with only half his mouth. She couldn’t look at him. She stared instead at the red and white brick arches that ringed the ballroom, then at the “Looking Man,” as she’d always called him, a larger than life, round-bellied bronze statue of some Ancient man gazing upward in a blowing wind, presumably to examine a sky he could never see.

She kept her eyes on the statue and away from Tom when she said, “I’ve been thinking this could be an … arrangement. I would keep my rooms, and he would stay in the north wing. He could do as he pleases and so would I. So nothing would change. Not really.”

They both knew everything would change. When she was little, she had wriggled her body into the metal folds of the Looking Man’s coat, hiding from the world. Or Orla. She was half considering trying it again tonight. Tom rubbed a hand across the back of his neck.

“And this ‘arrangement,’ ” he said, “is that what Hasard wants, too?”

“I’ll make sure it’s what he wants. That’s all.”

She stared down into the noisy party, so her brother couldn’t see her thoughts. After she was married and the debt was paid, there might be just enough left to fund a business for Tom. She’d been doing the numbers while Orla did her hair. Men of the Commonwealth were notoriously leery of working with a man who’d made himself dependent, even if it was just on a stick, but Tom was clever. If they could just last long enough to get Tom solvent, then the estate would pass to him and they would be free of her father’s mismanagement. The land would be safe.

Sophia felt her determination solidify. Money was the only thing to set all this right, and she was the one to provide it. She would pay her father’s debt, every last quidden of it, and hand the rest to Tom on her wedding day. He would refuse, of course, but she would make him take it. At sword point, if necessary. Maybe they would fight over it. Maybe Tom would have to kill her before her wedding night. This thought made her smile. She snapped open the fan.

“Time to go be brilliant, I think. Wouldn’t want to disappoint Father’s investor.” She picked up her pouf of white skirts, a faithful copy of Wesson’s page thirty-eight, and moved toward the stairs.

“Come down to the beach tonight, Sophie,” Tom called after her. “You’ve been tight with your sword arm lately. And your parry and thrust could use a bit of work, I think.”


She didn’t answer, just threw him a look from the top of the stairs. Then she was descending, down grooved metal steps so old their middles were slightly shorter than their edges, leaving the comforting dark for the dazzle and noise of her Banns. Her hair was black tonight, piled high and sparkling with jeweled combs, the soft brown curls that were like Tom’s hidden beneath the more vivid locks. The music paused. She smiled at everyone and everything, looking anywhere except at the face above the gold brocade coat that waited for her at the bottom of the staircase.

“Mademoiselle Bellamy,” said René Hasard.

Two words and she understood exactly what game he would play with her. He was going to be the gallant suitor, the sophisticated man of the city that girls like Lauren Rathbone oohed and ahhed over in smuggled Parisian magazines. He would have to play that game by himself. She fixed her gaze on one of the intricately cast silver buttons, the second one down on the gold jacket. He took her hand and kissed it.