“By the pricking of my thumbs!” Hester proclaimed.
Chapter
19
“Hester!” Parthenope cried. “You good little boy!”
“Silly bird!” Aunt Molly scolded, twisting out from under the comte’s arm to look at him. “What are you doing here? Now, don’t go doing to my Auguste what you did to poor old Lady Exton. You quite ruined her shawl, you know.”
Sophie stared at the comte as he turned his head slowly to look at the bird on his shoulder. It was him. Thoughts and memories of the last months began to rearrange themselves into a new pattern. How could she not have even suspected him, even after what Peregrine had just told them?
Because she hadn’t wanted to.
Before she could think anything more, the comte said something, very quietly. Hester stiffened and tumbled from his shoulder.
“Hester!” Parthenope launched herself across the floor and scooped him up, holding him against her breast. “If you’ve hurt him, you—you—”
“Sorcier,” Sophie finished for her, stepping into the circle as well.
The comte looked at her, and a slight smile touched the corners of his mouth—but not, she noticed, his eyes … his eyes that she had always thought so sad and sincere. “Ah, Lady Sophie. I think I am not wrong in saying that it takes one to know one.”
Sophie lifted her chin. It wouldn’t do any good to deny it, and it would do even less good for him to know that just now, her magic was all but nonexistent. Let him think there was at least someone present who could possibly oppose him. “What if I am?” she said haughtily.
“I suspected as much,” he said, nodding. “When I saw you on the stairs after Marie’s fall, I wondered. And when the glass broke in your father’s hand at Lady Montashton’s—”
“It was poisoned,” Sophie said. “I could tell.”
“Sophie, what is going on here?” Papa asked. “What poison? What are you talking about?”
The comte glanced at him and made a small gesture, and Papa clutched at his throat, eyes wide. Sophie stepped forward, but the comte shook his head. “I am not hurting him—merely keeping him from disturbing our conversation.” He glanced around the crowd staring at him fearfully, inching away. “I shall be happy to do the same to anyone else.”
“Let them leave,” Sophie said. “No one else here matters.”
“On the contrary.” The comte bowed ironically, one hand on his breast. “I am pleased to give them a little sample of what I can do. It will make it easier for them to be docile when His Imperial Majesty returns to Brussels in the not-very-distant future.”
Sophie felt Peregrine come up behind her, shaking with repressed emotion. She put a warning hand behind her and felt him take it and squeeze it gently, then release it. His touch somehow made her feel braver. “So you admit that you work for the emperor,” she said.
“But of course. I am a little surprised that no one suspected me until now. You are very credulous, you English.”
“And the duke?”
The comte smiled. “The duke is quite unharmed. He is just elsewhere. His presence here in Brussels was thought … unnecessary by my emperor. That is why I was sent here, you will understand—to remove him, by whatever means came to hand.” He nodded to Amélie. “It was nothing personal, madame. You were simply a convenience.”
She stared at him in horror.
“And I suppose my aunt was a convenience as well,” Sophie said.
The comte shrugged, but a slight flush told Sophie that she’d scored a hit. “You are correct … but maybe a little more than a convenience. More—let me see—more a chance for retribution. It was a—an added bonus to the task.”
“Retribution against an innocent woman who loved you?”
“Against her family who kept us apart, who thought I was not good enough for her. She herself was no longer important, except as my tool.”
Aunt Molly was staring up at him. “Auguste,” she said, and there was little of her usual vagueness left in her eyes.
“I am sorry, Marie,” he said. “It has been pleasant, seeing you again. Perhaps once, all those years ago … if your family had not been so proud, things might have been different.”
“I had thought they would be different now,” she said, her voice cracking. “You made me think that we would finally be—that you loved me.”
He shook his head. “Of course I had to make you think that. I had a job to do. But it was nothing more. My wife is a patriotic woman, but she would not be pleased if I were to turn bigamist, even for the emperor’s cause.”
“Your wife.…” Aunt Molly’s face seemed to change somehow, as if the bones beneath it were disintegrating.
“My wife,” he agreed. “Did you really think I had stayed single all these years, after what your father did to me? It was a pleasure to come back and try to take my revenge on your family, all in the name of working for my emperor.”
Amélie, who had still been staring at him, straightened her shoulders, gave him a defiant look, and put her arms around Aunt Molly, drawing her away and turning her back on him. It was a magnificent gesture, and Sophie would have cheered if her anger hadn’t almost choked her. How could he have been so cruel? Being a spy was one thing, but to deceive poor innocent Aunt Molly—
“And now what?” she asked, when she thought she had mastered her voice.
“Stalemate,” the comte replied calmly—almost too calmly. It told Sophie that he felt in complete control of the situation, even with her there. “Now you know what I am, but only I know where milord the duke is.”
“I’ve been trying to figure out how you did it,” Sophie said. It seemed wise to keep him talking, to buy time—or in hopes that he would let some secret about the duke’s whereabouts slip. “I know there was a spell on the floor here. I found it this afternoon—”
“Ha! Do you not remember that I called this morning, to take your aunt driving?” He looked smug. “It was only the work of a few minutes to set up the spell, while she went to put on her hat.”
Parthenope made a strangled sound. The comte smiled at her. “Yes, you invited me to see the flowers and let me come up alone. It was very kind of you to give me the opportunity on a silver platter, as it were.” Then his attention shifted back to Sophie. “So you found it, did you? That is very interesting. I had thought I had hidden it well enough. You are a very clever young witch, mademoiselle. I have perhaps underestimated you. It was a mistake on my part.”
Behind her, Sophie felt Peregrine move slightly and tried to ignore him. “It was keyed to work only on the duke, wasn’t it? That way, all he had to do was walk over it, and you would not have to do anything else. You could pretend to be as shocked as any of us and shift the blame to Amélie.”
He nodded slowly, looking at her. “You are mostly right. I set it that way, in case I could not manage the job in person. But that does not mean that I cannot use it in other ways, if need be.” He smiled and raised his hand, crooking his finger at her. “Like—this.”
* * *
Sophie landed hard on her hands and knees on a cold stone floor, feeling shaky and weak. She stayed there for a moment, trying to catch her breath; she felt winded, the way she had the first time she’d fallen from her horse as a small child. It was a horrid feeling.
How could she have let the comte catch her off guard like that? She must have been standing right in front of his trap for the duke, but she had been so intent on him that she hadn’t paid attention … and he had yanked her through it before she could even react. She should have known that he would not stop at anything—look at how he deceived poor Aunt Molly.
When she was mostly sure that she wouldn’t faint or throw up, she struggled awkwardly to her feet, wishing she had her cane, and looked around her. She was in an enormous rectangular room made of gray stone, its ceiling lost above her in shadows. Doorways pierced the walls at irregular intervals, leading into what looked like passageways, though the dim, grayish light that pe
rmeated the space made it difficult to see very far. It was cold, and a strong breeze blew from somewhere, ruffling her hair. There was no sign of the duke.
“Sir!” she shouted. “Are you here?”
Her voice echoed against the stone and was shredded by the wind. Had he fallen as he passed through the portal and hit his head? He might now be wandering in a daze down one of the passages. “Duke!” she shouted again. “Can you hear me? Duke! Please come back!”
No sound but the wind. She turned her head slightly so that it didn’t blow so loudly in her ears and cupped her hand to her mouth to shout again. It sounded weak and thin, though she put all that she had into it. Why couldn’t she be like Madame Catalani or the other opera singers she’d heard, who could fill any room, no matter the size, with her voice? “Duke!”
Nothing. The solitude of this echoing room seemed to mock her. “Duke?” she screeched, and hated the desperation edging her voice. “Here! In here!”
“Hoy!”
Had she heard that, or was the cruel wind playing tricks on her ears? “Duke!”
And then she didn’t have to shout again, because he came striding, almost running, from one of the doorways.
“Good God!” he exclaimed, checking at the sight of her. “Lady Sophie! What are you doing here? How—”
She held her hand out to him. It trembled with relief—at least she had found him. Being alone in this strange, cold room had begun to unnerve her.
He came forward and took it. “What devilment is this?” he said. “Where are we?”
“I don’t know, sir. It’s not anywhere that I know.” She hesitated, then added, “I’m not even sure that it exists on a map.”
He looked at her down the length of his distinctively hooked nose. “It’s some kind of witchery, isn’t it? I’ve always thought it a hum, but I see that I was wrong. Who’s responsible for it?”
“The Comte de Carmouche-Ponthieux. It seems that he’s working for Emperor Napoléon. He tried to kill Lord Palmerston and my father and others in London, and then came here to get rid of you.”
The duke whistled. “Working for Bonaparte! So the emperor’s found himself a wizard to do his dirty work, has he?” He frowned. “You should not have come after me. It was a foolish thing to—”
“I didn’t.” Sophie wished she hadn’t had to say that. It would have been much less humiliating if she’d actually been trying to rescue him. “I’d hoped to find some other way to get you out, but he caught me instead when I wasn’t watching. I didn’t have a chance to block his spell.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Then you’re a—”
“Yes.”
“Here, you’re shivering,” he said after a minute and started to take off his coat.
“I’m not cold,” she said stiffly. She’d failed him; a kindly gesture on his part somehow made her feel worse.
He looked at her for a moment, then shrugged. “Let’s get out of this wind. If we stand in one of those doorways, we can escape some of it and still keep an eye on this room, since it seems to be the way into this cursed place.”
Sophie followed him, feeling numb—and not just from cold, though her bare neck and arms above her long gloves felt as if they’d been turned to marble. What would they do? She did not think they would find a way out if they followed any of the doorways … and as he said, this room must be the entrance point to this horrible place.
What would happen? Had the comte just abandoned them here, eventually to die a slow death? What was happening back in the ballroom in Brussels? Would anyone try to apprehend the comte, or were they all too frightened? Surely he would try to escape … and some of the guests—the duke’s aides, surely—would try to stop him, hoping they could force him to release the duke … and her.
But could she count on that? All he had to do was refuse to say or do anything; they would never hurt him, as he was the only one who could bring the duke back. And in the meanwhile, Napoléon would find it much easier to march on Brussels and secure his northeast border again—all his borders, really. With the duke gone, the heart would be wrenched from the Allied armies. No other general in Europe commanded such faith and respect.
The comte had declared they were at a stalemate, but that wasn’t true. He had won. The only way to keep Napoléon from running roughshod over Europe again was for her to figure out how to get the duke out of here. And how could she, when she had no idea where “here” was … and not enough magic to lift a pin?
The duke led them a few feet inside a passage, then took off his coat and put it over her shoulders. This time she didn’t protest; being proud wouldn’t help matters. He held out his hand and gestured to the floor. “I think it time we talked about what we can do, Lady Sophie,” he said. “Tell me more about this comte and the rest of it.”
Sophie sat, her back against the cold stone wall, and huddled into the duke’s coat. Talking was the last thing she felt like doing right now, but there was no gainsaying the Duke of Wellington. So she told him about meeting the comte at Lady Whiston’s ball and the falling statue, and about all the other times he’d tried to kill Papa and the others … and about her illness and her mother and her magic. He nodded, asking an occasional question, but she could not tell what he thought, as his heavy-lidded eyes gave away very little.
“Your magic—it’s come and gone, has it? Why do you think that is?” he asked when she ran out of words.
“I don’t know. If I had any idea, I would have done something about it,” she said wearily.
He climbed to his feet and paced a little ways up and down the passage. Watching him, Sophie realized that the gray light that suffused the space did not diminish farther down its length, but was uniform everywhere, with no visible source. Then they couldn’t be anywhere real, but had to be in a magical place of some kind. The realization was not reassuring.
“I don’t think you ever lost your magic,” the duke said suddenly, stopping before her.
“No?” she said, trying to remain polite. “I’m afraid I don’t see why you’d think that. Believe me, I’ve tried.”
He crouched next to her. “You say it’s something that runs in families—that your mother had it too, yes?”
“Yes,” she said, listlessly.
“Just as fair hair may run in a family. Someone can dye it, but it will still be fair.”
“I’m afraid I don’t see the analogy, sir.”
He blew out his breath in an impatient sound. “You’re an intelligent girl, Lady Sophie. Use your wits. Dye may cover fair hair, but it’s still fair. And your grief after your illness and losing your mother may have covered your will to do your magic, but it must still be there as well.”
She shook her head. “Don’t you think it more likely that since illness damaged my leg, it might have damaged my magic as well?”
“You don’t know that it did.”
“I don’t know that it didn’t, either,” she snapped.
He ignored her, and after a moment rose and resumed his pacing, perhaps to help keep himself warm. Sophie drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, hiding her face against them.
“Lady Sophie, how do you think I became what I am?” he asked, stopping beside her after a few moments.
She raised her face and looked up at him. “I don’t understand, sir. You are what you are.”
“That’s exactly right—and so are you. But I could have been someone else, once.” A shadow seemed to cross his face. “When I was your age, no one would have thought I’d turn out to be much of anything at all.”
She stared up at him. “But—”
“Do you know what I did for most of my seventeenth year? Lay about playing with my dog and practicing the violin. I didn’t do much more than that for the next few years, either. Not until I was in my twenties did I begin to make anything of myself. Do you know why?”
“N-no.”
“Because I decided it was time to.”
“So you think that it’s
my fault that I can’t use my magic because I’m too busy feeling sorry for myself. No, sir. I don’t think it works that way.”
“Why shouldn’t it? I had abilities, but until I determined to use them, they did nothing.”
“But I’ve tried,” she nearly shouted at him, trying to clamber to her feet. He held out his hand, but she ignored it, pulling herself up and balancing against the wall. “Don’t you think I’ve tried?”
“I just saw you stand by yourself because you wanted to, despite your lameness,” he replied coolly.
“Because Parthenope gave me shoes to make my legs the same length.”
“What does that signify? You still did it.”
Sophie turned away. Thinking about Parthenope giving her the shoes was making her want to cry. Would she ever see Parthenope again … or Peregrine? He’d come back ready to admit that he’d been wrong about Amélie. Had he also come back hoping that she still had some feeling for him? “She thinks as you do,” she muttered.
“What, the Hardcastle girl? I knew she was a clever chit. What does she say?”
“She says—” Sophie swallowed the lump in her throat. “She thinks that I—because I was able to do magic again after—after Lord Woodbridge asked me if he could speak to my father about … about—”
“Woodbridge—Lord Rendlesham’s son, is he?” The duke raised an eyebrow. “What do you think?”
“I don’t know!”
He looked at her steadily. “Lady Sophie, I think you do know. But it’s easier to blame what’s wrong with you on everything around you, rather than on yourself—”
“Oh, so becoming lame was my fault, was it?”
“Of course not, you little fool. I am not surprised that your magic left you for a while after your illness and loss. But I think it might have become a habit to think of yourself as someone who’s suffered and lost.”
“So how am I supposed to think of myself, if you please?”
“As who you are—and who you want to be. If I had waited for someone to tell me to be Duke of Wellington, I’d still be on that couch scraping my cursed violin. You’re the only one who can make you what you ought to be.”
Courtship and Curses Page 26
