“It’s just a fact.” She shrugged. “I can’t help it.”
Anything Charlotte said to that would sound like a criticism. The coldness was likely a barrier Sophie had built, and the fact that it was there meant fragility. Charlotte stayed silent. Perhaps later, if they had a chance to forge more trust, she could return to it.
“You’re planning to expose Brennan at the Grand Thane’s wedding,” Sophie said.
“How do you know this?” Did Richard actually tell her?
Sophie raised her head. Light filtering through the trees dappled her face. “Hawk.”
Charlotte looked up as well. A bird of prey soared above the treetops, circling around them.
“It’s dead,” Sophie said. “George is guiding it. He is very powerful.”
The realization washed over Charlotte in a cold gush of embarrassment. “Is George spying on Richard and me?”
“Always,” Sophie said. “All those perfect manners are a sham. He spies on everyone and everything. Declan hasn’t been able to conduct a single business meeting in the past year without George’s knowing all the details. He does let go when you make love. He is a prude.”
“‘Prude’ is a coarse word. He has a sense of tact,” Charlotte corrected before she caught herself.
“A sense of tact,” Sophie repeated, tasting the words. “Thank you. The other one is somewhere around here, too.”
“The other one?”
Sophie surveyed the woods. “I can smell you, Jack!”
“No, you can’t,” a distant voice answered.
The dog barked and shot through the bushes to the side.
“I told you.” Sophie smiled. “Spider will attend the wedding of Grand Thane. He’s a peer of the Dukedom of Louisiana. His rank demands it.”
“You can’t kill Spider,” Charlotte told her.
“I just want to see him. He took my mother and my father away from me.” Sophie’s dark eyes looked bottomless. “I want to see his face. I want to brand it in my head.” She tapped her skull. “So I’ll never forget it. Because we will meet again, and when we do, I want to be absolutely certain that I kill the right man.”
She was frightening.
“Please let me do this, Lady de Ney. Please.” Her words were a fierce, savage whisper. Sophie dropped on one knee. “You have lost someone. You know how it feels. I’m running in circles, like a mouse on a wheel. I just want a way to get off. Please.”
Charlotte’s memory conjured the nightmare of her house burning. She had felt so helpless standing there, on that lawn, watching éléonore’s remains smolder as the ash rained on Tulip’s hair. She chose to do something about it because she possessed the means to do it. When Spider tore this child’s parents from her, she must’ve felt helpless, too. She banished Sophie, gave up the person she was, and became Lark, who cut trees into pieces faster than the eye could follow.
She and Richard, they were exactly alike. Ice over fire, a cool exterior hiding uncontrollable passion and emotion beneath. If Charlotte shut Sophie out now, she would be inflicting another wound. The very fury that fueled the child’s transformation might tear her apart.
Charlotte sighed. “How proficient are you in etiquette?”
Sophie stood up. “I took lessons.”
“Same instructor as Rose?”
“How did you know?”
Charlotte reached over and brushed a twig off Sophie’s tunic. “The gown you wore when I saw you the first time. It’s a decade too old for you. We have a lot of work to do, my dear. If you really want to come with me, you must be flawless.”
*
SOPHIE drank from a tiny cup, holding it with effortless grace. Charlotte sat across from her. In the three days she had spent with her, Sophie had soaked up information like a sponge. She was a natural mimic in the best possible sense of the word—she imitated not only the action but the air, the atmosphere Charlotte projected, and the change in her demeanor was immediate.
The door swung open, and Jack strode into the cabin. Moving in complete silence, he approached the table and dropped a crystal in the middle of it.
“This is everything.”
“Thank you,” Charlotte told him.
He surveyed Sophie sitting in a simple pale peach gown and crouched by her, his eyes big in his handsome face. George had the elegance, there was no question. But Jack was wildfire. There was something about the child, about the way he held himself, the raw potential for unpredictability, perhaps, or the air of danger he emitted, that would give Jack an allure all of his own in a few years.
“I have an idea,” he said.
Sophie tilted her head, looking at him with her dark velvet eyes.
“Ditch the dress and come hunting with me.”
“You’re such a child,” she told him.
“You’re turning into an old lady.”
Sophie smiled and stabbed a dagger into the table. She moved so fast, she was a blur, but somehow Jack had moved his hand, and the dagger pierced wood instead of flesh.
Charlotte sipped from her cup. “One more, and both of you will be down with dysentery for a week.”
Jack moved backward and sprawled in a chair, exasperated.
Charlotte slid the crystal into the thin metal claw of an imager. A light filtered through the crystal, forming the image of a young girl in a vivid blue gown.
“Next.”
Another young blueblood flower, another blue satin.
“Next.”
More young girls. Cornflower blue. Royal blue. Sky-blue.
“Boring people doing boring things wearing boring clothes,” Jack said.
“Blue is in season.” Charlotte surveyed Sophie. “What shade of bright blue looks good on you?”
“I don’t know, my lady,” Sophie answered.
“None,” Jack said.
Sophie arched her eyebrows at him. “When I want your opinion, I will cut it out of you.”