The Water Nymph: The Arboretti Family Saga - Book Two

by Michele Jaffe

  The light of the lantern shimmered in the thousands of gemstones that surrounded them, refracting their color and fire off the mirrors, filling the room with shards of color that moved and flickered each time they breathed. A hundred small rainbows danced over Crispin’s chest, across Sophie’s cheeks, along his arms, around her neck, and spilled down her back. The light slid over them, slid inside them, bathing them in its rainbow prisms, filling them with its hot power, melding them together.

  Their lovemaking shined that night, rainbows danced from the places their bodies met, exploded from their fingertips, flashed from their lips, wrapped around them, and held them in their warmth. The glittering gems tumbled over them, falling from the shelves to join them, to sanctify them with their brilliant light, to give them their blessing, the blessing of a jewel thief. The stones wrapped their colors around the lovers, binding them together, glowing and ecstatic.

  Sophie grasped Crispin’s hand, holding on to him as tightly as she could, and Crispin felt himself soaring. She took him places he had never been, never even imagined. His body trembled with happiness at her proximity, with wonder at the immense joy she inspired within him, with ecstasy, and with a deep, overwhelming contentment that he had never experienced before. He gripped her hand and knew that he was holding on to the only thing he needed in the world to be happy.

  Crispin felt limitless, superhuman, extraordinarily happy, and extraordinarily grateful. The woman next to him had given him more than he ever dared ask, more than he had known how to ask, had given him himself.

  “Thank you, Sophie,” he whispered, pressing their joined hands to his lips and looking directly into her eyes as together they climbed toward their release. Crispin had never felt so free, so vulnerable, so completely alive. He plunged into her and felt like he was tumbling off a cliff, floating and spinning and falling and flying at once, until he could contain himself no longer, and shouting her name and laughing and clutching her hand, he exploded into a pounding climax unlike anything he had dreamt of. Sophie’s laughter mingled with his, shaking the foundation of Sandal Hall, shooting out of the chimneys, bouncing off the roof tiles, rising up to soar past the sun, past the moon, into the stars, and up and up and up.

  Afterward, when their laughter had died down, they held each other solemnly, religiously, and so tenderly. Although they could not both have known that the unravelable knot they had just tied was about to be ripped crudely apart, they held each other as if they sensed its peril.

  They lay together quietly, half dozing, their bodies always touching, their hands clasped, their hearts still pounding. After a time, Crispin raised his head and balanced it on one hand to watch Sophie. He dipped down, kissing her lightly on the nose, and was disappointed when she did not stir. There was something that he needed to do, and soon. But first there was something he had to ask her.

  He dipped down again, this time kissing her eyelid. Still nothing.

  “Sophie,” he whispered. “Sophie, are you sleeping?”

  Nothing.

  “Sophie.” He nudged at her with his body, then ran his toes up the back of her calf. “Sophie, can you hear me?”

  Getting no response, he sat up.

  “Sophie.” He stared down at her, his face only an inch from hers. “Sophie?” He reached out a finger and poked her arm. “Sophie, are you awake?” Not even a twitch.

  He drew back from her and said in his normal voice, “I know you are not sleeping. I can tell. Open your eyes. This minute. Before I count to three. One. Two. Th—”

  “What happens if I don’t?” Sophie asked, her eyes still closed.

  “Bad things. You won’t like them. Open your eyes.”

  Sophie wrinkled her nose, took a long, long stretch, planted a kiss on the back of Crispin’s hand, then slowly raised her eyelids. “Lord Sandal, you really are a most charming companion. First you starve me. Then you will not let me sleep. Then you threaten me. I feel like I am in training to go to war against the Spanish fleet.”

  “I have to ask you something,” Crispin said without remorse for his army-camp tactics.

  “Oh, good. Now there will be an interrogation.” Sophie slithered slightly to prop her head on Crispin’s knee and wrapped his arm around herself. She looked up at him, trying to be serious but unable to repress a smile. “I am ready, Admiral.”

  All at once, Crispin found that he was not. It had seemed so simple, so easy, just a few moments before when he had settled on it. But now the words seemed to have grown large and furry and terribly difficult to speak. He decided to change tactics.

  “Sophie,” he began. “Sophie, before—after—when at first—”

  Sophie, a bemused expression on her face, sat up to face him. “Is this a riddle? Because if it is one of those complicated ones, I might need paper.”

  “It is not a riddle,” Crispin said seriously. “And it is not a joke.”

  “It sounded like a joke.”

  “Sophie, do you mean it?”

  “Not if you don’t want me to. If you don’t want it to be a joke, it doesn’t have to be.”

  “That is not what I am talking about, and you know it.” Crispin looked stern. “Sophie—” he began again, awkwardly.

  “Yes, Crispin?”

  “Did you mean it? When you said it? That—” He looked simultaneously so much like a little boy of ten and so much like a deeply pained man of eighty that Sophie took pity on him.

  “Did I mean it when I said that I loved you?” she asked.

  “Yes. Exactly. That is my question.” Crispin spoke quickly because he was holding his breath.

  Sophie reached out her free hand for his cheek. “I meant it. I mean it. Against all my better judgment, I love you, Crispin Foscari.”

  Crispin inhaled deeply, three times, then frowned, withdrawing his hand from her grasp. “Against your better judgment? Why? What is wrong with me?”

  “Please, Crispin, it is better to leave it.”

  “Leave it?” The frown deepened. “I want to know.”

  “I really do not think—”

  “Tell me,” Crispin demanded with mock fierceness. “I want to know all my flaws. As you see them.”

  Sophie rolled her eyes and held up a finger. “Very well, my lord, but remember, you insisted. One. You are obstinate. Very obstinate.

  “1 am not.”

  “You are.”

  “Am not,” Crispin maintained stubbornly.

  “Two.” Sophie held up a second finger. “You are bossy. Three—”

  “I am not bossy. Don’t say that.” Crispin found he was enjoying this. “And I am not obstinate.”

  “Three.” Sophie raised a third finger, undaunted. “You interrupt. Four. You—”

  “I do not interrupt as much as you do. You interrupt much more than I do. You are always interr—”

  “Four. You look better in breeches than I do. Five. You are always thinking about food. Six—”

  “Will you marry me, Sophie?”

  Sophie sat frozen, with both hands in the air, six fingers extended. “What?” she whispered hoarsely.

  “I asked if you would marry me.” It was much easier the second time.

  “Marry you?” The hands fell to her lap. “Me? Be your wife?”

  This was not going exactly as Crispin had hoped. “Yes,” he answered slowly.

  Sophie shook her head. “No. I cannot marry you.”

  “Oh. I see. Very well.” He was cool about it.

  “Don’t you want to know why?”

  It was Crispin’s turn to shake his head. “No. No need. I understand.” Crispin felt more naked than he ever had in his life. He reached out for his breeches, but Sophie’s hand on his arm stopped him.

  “I cannot marry you now. But I can, I will, after the bet.”
<
br />   Crispin’s hand hovered over his pile of clothes. “After the bet? The bet we made?”

  “Yes. Once that is settled, once I have won, then I can marry you. But not before.”

  “And what if you lose?” Crispin asked, his heart beating again.

  “That will not happen, so you need not worry.” Sophie smiled at him. But then a concerned crease appeared in her forehead. “Are you sure this is what you want, Crispin? Marriage? To me?”

  “You are what I want, Sophie Champion. You are all I want.”

  The rumble of his voice and the look in his eyes as he spoke washed over Sophie like a magical potion, suffusing her with warmth, intoxicating her with love.

  Only later did she understand what he was really doing. Only later did she see him for the bastard he really was.

  Chapter Twenty

  I killed my first woman I consecrated my first sacrifice to Beauty when I was fifteen. The woman’s filthy desires dishonored the gifts Beauty had given her, dishonored her comeliness and her wealth, making them wretched. She was unworthy, a blot, a cloud which cast a shadow over Beauty. I killed her for Beauty, and Beauty rewarded me, showered me in the woman’s gold, more gold than I had ever seen.

  But not more gold than I wanted. Not enough gold. Never enough gold. Not until now.

  The pen stopped its progress across the parchment as the blindfolded man was led into the room. “I have been expecting you,” he heard in his ear when he was seated.

  He smiled, showing the gaps between his teeth. “I figured you would be when you got my note.”

  “Is it true? Have you identified the Phoenix?” The whisper tingled with excitement.

  “It is true,” the blindfolded man confirmed. “But I must have the girl. Where is she? Sandal Hall was searched and she was not found.”

  “Sandal Hall has many hiding places, many more than the Queen’s constables would ever unearth. I am sure she is still there. Safely ensconced between Crispin’s arms. Or at least between his legs.”

  “Between the Phoenix’s legs, you mean,” the man said dryly.

  The man heard a sharp intake of breath, and then, “Do you mean to say that the Earl of Sandal is the Phoenix?” When the man nodded, he received a whispered challenge. “Prove it.”

  The man swiveled in his chair to drop a piece of paper from his bound hands. “I intercepted this outside Sandal Hall this morning.”

  He heard his companion bend down, then the sound of the paper being unfolded. After a few seconds, a hand grabbed his ear and dragged it painfully forward. “I thought you understood that I was not to be toyed with. I shall have your Sophie Champion killed for this.”

  “I am not toying with you.” The blindfolded man twisted his head away and sat back in the chair. “It is a cipher. Translated, it reads, ‘To the Phoenix: counterfeiters will be moving their supplies three days hence.’ The footman had orders to deliver it directly to Lord Sandal.”

  Air stirred beside him as Kit, presumably in response to some signal, rounded the desk and leaned down to receive a set of hasty orders. Straining his ears, the man made out the words, “Move operations… couriers… warehouse tomorrow morning.”

  The blindfolded man felt air move against his cheek again and heard the door to the chamber close with a click. “I thought you might find that paper provocative,” he said.

  “Your thoughts interest me only so far as they concern the death of the Phoenix,” he was told in a snappish whisper.

  “And yours interest me only so far as they concern Sophie Champion.”

  “When you have destroyed the Phoenix, you shall have the girl. I give you my word.”

  The blindfolded man rose clumsily from the chair. “And I give you mine. The Phoenix will be dead by midday tomorrow.”

  Leaving the workshop, eyes uncovered again, the man did not meander lazily down the Strand as was his custom after the meetings, but rather turned into the first well-appointed tavern he came upon. He ordered a tankard of ale, took a sip, then moved toward the back of the establishment to relieve himself. Usually he stopped in six or seven taverns to make sure that the fellow who followed him from the workshop was good and drunk before giving him the slip, but today time was limited. Ensuring that his tail was absorbed in a lusty game of darts, the man leaned into an apparently solid piece of wood paneling that gave way noiselessly to reveal a flight of stairs. When he had descended these and was sure he was safely inside of Pickering’s Highway, he scratched the blackening from his teeth, pulled the scar off his forehead, and shrugged out of the too-small doublet he always wore to the meetings. Only after he had completely changed his clothes and had concealed all the elements of his disguise in the basket of candles at his feet, did Crispin allow himself to sigh with relief. The masquerade had been exhausting and had taxed all his self-control, but at last it was almost over.

  As he wound through one secret passage after another, he even found himself grinning. He had done what he set out to do, learned who was trying to harm Sophie and undermine the Phoenix, and why. What was more, he was forcing the counterfeiters to play their hand earlier than expected, play it on his schedule, play it so he would be waiting for them. Emerging from Pickering’s Highway in the stable yard of a completely different tavern, he mounted Fortuna and turned her toward Sandal Hall. All that remained, he reflected lightheartedly, as he rode home, was to move Sophie to secure quarters and then spring his trap.

  In the end, it was not quite that simple.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Fortuna and her rider were only a few steps from Sandal Hall, just passing the alley in front of which Lord Grosgrain had been thrown from his horse, when a dingy man stepped into the street and grabbed Fortuna’s bridle.

  “You the Earl of Sandal?” he asked, shielding his eyes from the late evening sun with his free hand as he looked up at Crispin.

  “Who is inquiring?”

  “There’s a gen’lman down here says as how he wants to speak to you,” the dingy man explained, pointing down the alley. “Says how I’m to watch your horse and you’re to go down there.”

  “What is his name?”

  “Didn’t tell me no name. Just told me to deliver my message.”

  “What did he say to do if I refused to dismount and go down the alley?”

  “He didn’t really say, but he gave me this to use.” The man took his hand from his eyes to extract a dagger from his sleeve, letting its blade flash in the sunlight.

  “Would you be using that on me or my horse?” Crispin inquired politely.

  “Horse,” the man answered without hesitation.

  Crispin admired the man’s sense of purpose, and his return home could wait. So instead of spurring Fortuna over the dingy man’s head and careening down the alley, he dismounted gracefully, whistled something in Fortuna’s ear, and strode past the man.

  “You need not watch her. She’ll go home on her own from here,” Crispin explained, and then disappeared down the alley.

  It was an extremely narrow passage, so narrow in spots that Crispin had to turn sideways to keep his shoulders from getting stuck, and extremely dark. The air, thick with humidity, hung heavily in the constricted space, clinging to the shadows along the walls, giving the whole place a murky feeling. Crispin moved slowly, his hand on the hilt of his rapier, but none of his instinctual reactions to danger were triggered. Indeed, despite the strange atmosphere and even stranger way the invitation was issued, Crispin did not feel that he was in any physical peril at all.

  Nor was he wrong. He was halfway down what he could see of the alley when a voice on his right announced, “Over here.”

  Turning, Crispin saw what had to be the world’s smallest court. And standing in the middle of it, which was also the front, back, and sides, was Basil Grosgrain. “Stay where you are,” Basil told Crispin, moving his cloak slightly to reveal a massive
broadsword at his waist.

  Crispin was tempted to laugh. In the time it would have taken for Basil to unsheathe the clumsy instrument, organize both of his hands correctly on the hilt, and swing, Crispin could have had him dead six different ways. But he refrained from pointing this out. Instead, leaving his hands in plain view, he bowed politely. “You sent for me, Lord Grosgrain?”

  “Yes. We need to talk.”

  “There are more comfortable places to talk than this.” Crispin gestured around. “My library, for example.”

  “We needed to talk where we could not be overheard,” Basil elaborated. “And I don’t give a damn about your comfort.”

  “It was not my comfort I was thinking of,” Crispin assured him.

  “Oh, certainly. Of course. My comfort is of the utmost concern to you.” Basil sneered unappetizingly at Crispin. “That is why you did your level best to upset me this morning at your house.”

  “I do not know what you are talking about, Basil, but if I did anything—”

  “Shut up.” One of Basil’s hands curled over the hilt of the broadsword. “You are wrong to think that I killed my father.”

  “I do not think anything of the kind.”

  “Don’t lie to me. You said as much today. You said that my alibi was false.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “Shut up.” Basil had begun to look a little wild-eyed, so Crispin complied. “You thought you were so clever. So funny. But will you think it is so funny when I slit your throat?”

  “No.” Crispin was unequivocal. “Absolutely not.”

  “Good. Now shut up and listen. Just you wait until you hear what I have to say to you, Lord Sandal. You won’t be laughing then.”

  Crispin, who was beginning to be slightly alarmed by the expression on Basil’s face, did not mention to him that slitting a man’s throat at two paces with a sword that was four paces long was a near impossibility. “Back to this question of the alibi—”