Rook(86)

“Will he garrote me in my sleep?”

“Not unless Benoit tells him to. But he is a lip-reader, and if he can see you, he will know everything you are saying. And if he doesn’t stop listening to our conversation now, I will be the one to garrote him in his sleep.”

The level of René’s voice had not changed, but when Sophia looked over at Enzo, he made a quick strangling motion before he winked.

“But I am also noticing we are a smuggler short,” René said. “We seem to be missing Maman.”

And Spear, Sophia thought. They were also missing LeBlanc.



Sophia danced her requisite two with René, who then left to go do his requisite flirting. It had been hard not to look at him this time, rather than the reverse. She received five more token feathers, slipped surreptitiously into her hands as she moved through the dance, all of which went down the front of her dress. Then, finally, through the milling crowd of somber grays and city blues, she spotted LeBlanc coming through the front door of the flat. He was impossible to miss with long billowing robes like a holy man, the white streak in his hair, and a huge pendant with the sign of the Goddess dangling from his neck. And he was positively strutting, confidence surrounding him like a stench as he greeted the proper gentleman, the ally of Allemande from the receiving line. The noise in the flat died down just a little as the crowd noted who had arrived. LeBlanc had a young woman on his arm, a girl much too young for him, curls hanging limp on either side of her face. She appeared to be petrified.

“Hello, Sophia Bellamy,” said a voice near her ear. “Welcome to the family.”

She found herself looking up into a face that was René’s, but not. This face was much more weathered, red hair that was not quite as rich, a pair of keen blue eyes regarding her beneath fine brows. It was René’s face, she thought, but in thirty years’ time. “Uncle émile,” she said. “Am I right?”

“My nephew has been talking of me?”

émile was handsome, though not conventionally so. But he was most definitely dangerous, like his nephew. Though perhaps he’d be more likely to nick the mother rather than her daughter. She smiled. “He has talked of you, Monsieur, but only with the greatest respect.”

émile tsked quietly. “How sad that you should be a liar, and that I should come to know it so quickly. Now if you had said he praised my looks, then …”

He shrugged once and grinned. Actually, Sophia thought suddenly, Uncle émile might not have any need for stealing any woman’s anything of any sort; he might only have to ask.

“René seems to be besotted with you, Mademoiselle, but it is Benoit who has taken us by surprise. He has defended you to the skies. How did you bring him to your table, may I ask?”

“I did not know I particularly had, Monsieur.” She looked at émile curiously. Just who was Benoit? The respect he commanded in the Hasard family seemed unlimited. “Though I am glad to hear it. And why, exactly, did I need defending?”

“My sister, René’s mother, she had certain questions.”

Sophia flicked open her fan. “Well, she signed the contract, didn’t she?”

émile’s mouth quirked. “Only too true. But let me say for all the family how sorry we are for the arrest of your brother. He will die a hero, Mademoiselle. May I kiss your hand?”

Sophia smiled and lifted her hand. Uncle émile’s mouth remained a trifle too long, but at the same time she felt something slip beneath her fingers and into her palm. Not soft like a feather but hard and metallic. She slid her hand away and switched her fan to it, so she would not be seen clutching what she now realized was a ring.

“What has René told you?” she asked, still smiling as she leaned forward to listen.

“Only that you were in need, and through you, him. But time, Miss Bellamy, will be precious to us.”

“Did you get it off his finger?” she asked, darting a glance at LeBlanc and his wilted companion across the room.

“No. I did not wish to be dead. But it was not on his finger, nor was it in his pockets, which René has now picked twice. Would you have guessed robes have pockets, Mademoiselle?”

“What I don’t wish to guess is how you got it,” she said, looking at him through her lashes.

His mouth quirked again. “My brother Andre says the top left drawer of his desk. It should be returned there as soon as possible. Andre is here, and waiting to do so.”

Sophia gazed at the man beside her. They must think much of their nephew if they took this kind of risk on René’s word alone. “I need to go to my room,” she said.

“You are next to my sister, I assume?”

“Yes.”

“I am sorry for you. I will be there as soon as I can. Hurry, Miss Bellamy.”

He bowed and walked away through the dancers, hailing a friend or some relative as Sophia turned in the opposite direction, clutching her fan and moving as quickly as possible. But progress through a crowd of René’s business associates of collectors and criminals, all of whom wished to speak to her, was an impossible task, and time was slipping before she was able to plead the loo and escape into the corridor.

When the door was shut she ran the curving hall, grabbed a candle from the wall on her way—startling a young woman carrying a tray of cheese—found the back stairs, and then she was shutting the door of her room behind her and turning the lock. She slid a chair in front of the connecting door to Madame Hasard’s, tossed an unlit taper from its holder, and put in her lit candle instead. Then she went to her suitcase, tripped a switch, and pulled out the false lining of the top.