“Smuggling?” Sophia repeated.

“We are smugglers, Mademoiselle.” His smile quirked.

Sophia turned back to the darkness of the tower window and leaned against the wall, her legs shaking just a little. Of course they were smugglers. Why shouldn’t they be smugglers? She was considering just how much it might hurt to slide her back down the wall and sit when she realized that René was standing right beside her.

“You will permit,” he said before he scooped her up, carrying her the few feet to the end of the high bed. “No. No more,” he said before she could voice any indignation, or anything at all. “You not only endanger my excellent stitches and all my best shirts, but now your refusal to stay still jeopardizes my gold jacket. It is what they call the last straw.”

Sophia closed her mouth. She was so tired, and she liked the way he smelled. He must pack his clothes with cedar. She’d been smelling it on the jacket ever since she left the north wing. Which was not at all what she should have been thinking about. He laid her down carefully along the wrong end of the bed, adjusting the blanket over her legs.

“And in any case, Mademoiselle, you did not mind so much when I carried you last night …” He dragged a nearby chair to the edge of the mattress and sat on it backward. “To say the truth,” he said, looking elsewhere, as if to spare her embarrassment, “we had to pry your arms from my neck.”

Again she was hoping the dimness of the room hid her flush. What a ridiculous habit this was becoming. Sophia turned to face René on her unstitched side, head propped up on her hand. “And perhaps you might remember, Monsieur, that I was suffering from a head injury at the time? Is it any wonder that I would act insane?”

Both corners of his mouth were turned up now. And there it was again. Daughter stealer. She wished he wouldn’t do that. She looked at the fraying coverlet. It might have once been dark green. “So, the Hasards are a family of smugglers. I assume my father doesn’t know about this.”

“I would think not.”

“And what do you smuggle?”

“Plastics, Mademoiselle.” He leaned over, elbows on the mattress. “It is noble. The city has allowed them to be melted down and reused for many years, but how are we to understand the past if we destroy it? And when they are gone, how shall we ever get them back? So Maman, Uncle Émile, and Uncle Francois, in particular, are noted collectors—purely a pastime for the owners of Hasard Glass, you understand—but we assist in the buying and selling of artifacts, entertain other collectors and investors, host showings and arrange transactions with … certain individuals who we know will appreciate them. Sometimes a discreet removal is necessary. Or, if an item is in danger of falling into unappreciative hands, we might feel the need to … liberate it.”

“You mean you have people steal them for you.”

“Ah. Uncle Andre and Uncle Émile used to do most of the liberating, but … well, I am better at it than they are.”

Sophia blinked long. Of course he was.

“One must buy and sell something, and we are saving history from destruction.”

“And I suppose acting like a first-class git gets you a better price, does it?”

“You wound me, Mademoiselle!” He appeared completely unwounded. “Our clients find me charming. And I find out things Maman and my uncles never could …”

“Because people think you’re an imbecile.”

“Being … how do you say, underestimated, that is never a bad thing.” He shrugged, looking every inch the scoundrel. “It could be that I enjoy it overmuch.”

She’d noticed. And yet he’d deliberately shown her something different during that chess game. She wondered why. “And so it’s clients that you’ve been entertaining, then, ever since the night of our Banns? Is that right? Or were you hoping Tom would underestimate you so badly that he would be compelled to sell you his artifacts for half their worth?”

“Ah.” René shifted on the chair, showing the first tiny glimpse of shame she’d ever seen in him. “I said I would speak plainly, and so I will. I told you before that I was not happy with this arrangement between us. I thought that perhaps if I made myself very distasteful, that you or your father would break the marriage contract.”

It almost made her laugh. Almost. She wished she could have told Tom. No bribery necessary to get rid of René Hasard after all. What had truly been underestimated was the desperation of the Bellamys.

“Don’t look like that, my love,” René said. He very carefully removed a long curl from her face. “Lovely as you are, you did not strike me as a particularly sweet-tempered wife.” He paused. “At first.”

Sophia met his gaze, forge-fire blue in the dim of their flickering candle, for once not immediately looking away. He was teasing her, she could see that, but there was something else behind it, and she could not tell what that expression meant. She studied the coverlet again. “So, your mother sends you to the Commonwealth to marry a girl you’ve never seen because …”

“She says I need a firm hand.”

“… to tame your wicked ways. But then she is imprisoned, and your cousin offers to release her if you find the Red Rook. And you do not agree to this because …” She left the question in the air.

“Oh no, Mademoiselle. I told you that LeBlanc is not going to release her either way, but my maman has taught me much better than that. I accepted LeBlanc’s offer. I told him I would find the Rook, and so I did. But do not reach for my dagger.” He sat back, grinning. “I agreed because I wanted the Red Rook for myself. Perhaps Adèle Hasard will not give in, but that does not mean I will let her rot out her years in an Allemande hole. It is possible I could break her out myself, of course, but when the opportunity came, I thought, why not go to one who has had, may I say, such spectacular success?”

Sophia played with a thread from a hole in the coverlet.

“And so I sailed to the Commonwealth to engage myself to a girl I may not have the inheritance to marry, to find the identity of the Red Rook and convince him that Adèle Hasard should be the next prisoner on his list. All so that I could have the inheritance to pay the fee for this same girl that I did not so much wish to marry.” He put his elbows on the mattress again, and she looked up to find the blue eyes very close, gazing at her from beneath heavy lids. “Imagine my surprise.”

Yes, she could imagine it. It had to be almost as extreme as hers was right now.

“Make a bargain with me,” he said, voice low. “You are thinking to bring out your brother, yes? And Jennifer Bonnard? Get Adèle out of the Tombs as well, and I will help you. And there are many ways that I can help you, Mademoiselle.”

Sophia frowned down at the bed, considering.

“Come to the city as my fiancée and you can travel openly. Nothing would be more natural, and my connections in the … less than legal circles of the city are many. I can give you the flat to operate from. I can get you whatever you need. I can even smuggle them out. I can smuggle you out.” He waited before he said, “I think you will not be able to rely on the methods of the past. LeBlanc will be careful with this prize, and this will not be a mission the Red Rook will wish to leave to chance.” He straightened the edge of the blanket. “I believe that you will need me.”

He was right. On every single count. She’d been upset earlier, barreling about as if she were going to ride for the next ferry, when she knew this was going to take careful planning. Planning she’d never done without Tom. She kept her eyes down as she said, “If LeBlanc does confiscate your mother’s fortune, and if you were to scrape together everything you had left, would you have enough for the marriage fee?”

“No. But if Maman is out of LeBlanc’s reach, there may be things we can do. I could force my claim, make LeBlanc fight me. But what do the laws of the Sunken City mean now? LeBlanc may take it anyway. Or it may be that we gather our assets and flee. But I will not do so without Maman. She is head of the family. The flat, the ships, they are in her control.”