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.
“I think Jennifer Bonnard might have recognized me last night. She … It’s very possible that she knows who I am.” The Bonnards were half a mile away, and LeBlanc had walked right into her house.
“Are they safe?” Orla asked.
“For tonight. Spear is making certain.”
“And where is LeBlanc?”
“He said he was going back to the city, I would guess on the ferry that leaves at highmoon. Tom was watching, and Cartier will follow. We should know where he goes, and when he leaves.” Sophia grimaced. “It’s all quite lovely, isn’t it? A dream come true. Perhaps René and I will send the children to spend their summers.”
Orla ignored the bitter tone. “Well, I suppose you’ve had a relative or two with a bad name, child, if you’re wanting to cast stones.”
“There haven’t been any thieves in the family for two hundred years, Orla.” Sophia rolled her eyes. Three centuries earlier, every Bellamy in the Commonwealth had been a pirate, before they stole enough to turn to more civilized trades. “Or not the bad sort of thief, anyway. So I hardly think that counts.”
“You know best,” said Orla, in a voice that meant the opposite.
Sophia shook her head. Orla really could be too practical. She put a finger beneath the edge of her dressing table and a drawer that had not been there before sprang out from the decorative carving. It disappeared again with a soft click, the ring from her forefinger and the silver key with it. The bodice finally fell away, and Sophia breathed deep.
“Now, then. I’ve left your newspapers on the table and your breeches on the bed,” Orla said. “And you can be shaking the sand out of them yourself this time, if you please. I plan to be in my bed when you come back. Where decent people ought to be by this time of night.”
Being excluded from Orla’s definition of “decent” made Sophia smile in spite of herself. “And what makes you think I’m going down to the beach tonight?”
Orla had a sharp face, a sharp nose, and now a voice to match. “Just what do you think I’ve been up to for the past eighteen years, child? Do you think I don’t know you at all?”
The highmoon was rising above the secluded cove, making a pale, undulating path across the surface of the sea. A dense growth of bushes and salt-stunted trees made the cliff edge hard to find, the narrow strip of sand below almost hidden by overhanging rock and jagged rows of tumbled stones. Over the rolling surf and spray came a faint clang on the wind, steel on steel, and a silver flash that was the glint of metal catching the light. Parry, thrust. Parry and thrust.
“She works on her parry, Benoit,” said René, his Parisian very quiet. He was flat on his stomach, surrounded by the thick branches, holding an eyescope trained on the beach below. Benoit sat beside him, a small man, nondescript, dressed as a servant, elbows balanced on knees. “The room was searched?” René asked.
Benoit nodded. “Very neatly done, nothing out of place. But the thread across the doorway has been broken.”
“The lock was picked?”
“No scratches.”
“Ah. And the hinges oiled before we arrived. That is excellent planning.” He passed the eyescope to Benoit. “Tell me what you think of the brother.”
“He trains her with the arms only, as he should,” Benoit said after a moment. “But the leg, it changes its stance some, I think?”
“Perhaps it pains him?”
“Or pains him not at all. Who can say?”
René took the eyescope and turned it back to the beach, where he watched Sophia expertly relieve her brother of his sword. He smiled.
“I think we should follow Cousin Albert’s advice, Benoit. This Miss Bellamy seems a much more interesting fiancée than I had first thought.”
Spear Hammond stepped down out of the landover, looking left and right, making certain there was no one else on the road. A slate-colored sky hung low over the trees, and the wind gusted, tearing at his long coat, air whipping past with the feel of a storm on it. He didn’t like this plan; it was risky, more so than usual. But he also didn’t have a better one. He left young Cartier in the driver’s seat of the landover, holding tight to the nervous horses, and hurried across the A5 lane, approaching a structure that had at one time been called a bungalow. Now it was a ramshackle tumble of stone and scavenged concrete, the roof caved in on one side.