“The Reeve was expecting you, Master Talbot. Come in.” His voice was as expressionless as his face.
Giving in to the impulses that had often brought her grief in the past. Sham slipped the statuette into her hand and gave the valet the little dancer with her glittering green eyes and begemmed costume.
“Someone is bound to have missed this by now.” Her tone was nonchalant. “You might take it to the first long room to the right of the main entrance and give it to one of the footmen.”
A brief snort of masculine laughter emerged from a darkened corner of the room. “Dickon, take the stupid thing to the emerald meeting room and give it to one of my mother’s servants before they shrivel with terror.”
With no more than a slight nod of disapproval, the manservant left the room holding the statuette in two fingers as though it might bite him.
Sham looked at the expansive room that managed somehow to appear cluttered. Part of the effect was caused by the way the furniture had been arranged to he easily accessible by a wheeled chair, but most of it was the result of the wide variety of weaponry and armament scattered on walls, benches, and shelves.
“Thank you, Talbot, I see you found her.” As he spoke, the Reeve wheeled into the light that drifted into the room through colored glass panels of the three large windows high on the outer wall. Although the original builders of the Castle had planned on the building being fortified, later Southwood Kings had added a second curtain wall and traded safety for comfort and light.
Sham was surprised at how unaltered the Reeve seemed. Though confined to the chair, the silk of his thin tunic revealed the heavy muscles in his upper arms and shoulders. Even without the bulk of the chainmail he’d been wearing the night of the Spirit Tide, he was a big man. She couldn’t tell anything about his lower body because it was wrapped in a thick blanket.
“Have you satisfied your curiosity?” There was bitterness in his voice, though the man’s innate courtesy kept him speaking Southern rather than his native tongue.
Sham looked up into his face and saw there the changes she hadn’t seen in his body. Pain darkened his eyes to black and made his skin grey rather than the warm brown it had been. Lines she didn’t remember seeing before were etched deeply around his eyes and from nose to lips.
Remembering the young soldier who sought the company of a child too young to hide her curiosity rather than endure the sympathetic pity of his former comrades, her reply was different than courtesy demanded.
“No.” Her voice was neutral. “Do you cover your legs because they are deformed or because you are cold?”
She knew that she’d chosen correctly when his crack of laughter covered Talbot’s gasp at her temerity.
“A bit of both, I suppose,” Kerim answered with a surprising amount of humor considering his former bitterness, “The wretched things have started to twist up. Since it bothers me to look at them, I wouldn’t want to inflict the sight on anyone else.”‘
Sham observed him shifting slightly uncomfortably in the chair and said, “You ought to have more padding in the seat. And if you asked your wheelwright, he’d tell you that a lighter, larger wheel would turn more easily. You might try something like the ones on the racing sulkies—” she shrugged and found a seat on the wide arm of an expensive chair, “—if more padding and bigger wheels work for horses, they should work for you.”
The Reeve smiled. “I’ll take that under consideration. I trust that Talbot explained what we need you for?”
She grinned at him. “He said that I get to rummage through the houses of the aristocrats with your permission. It will certainly make life easier, if not as much fun.”
Talbot cleared his throat warningly, but Kerim shook his head and said, “Don’t encourage her, she’s just baiting you.”
“Who else is going to know about me?” she questioned, realizing that she was enjoying herself for the first time in a long time.
“Just Talbot and myself,” answered the Reeve. “I don’t know who else to trust.”
“What about your source?”
The Reeve’s eyebrows rose.
“You know, the one who told you the killer is here?”
“Elsic,” said Talbot. “He doesn’t know about ye, and we won’t be telling him.”
Sham looked at the Reeve’s discomforted face and Talbot’s bland one and thought that the first thing she would look for was this Elsic.
“Do you have any particular house that you want me to ... explore first?” she asked.
Kerim shook his head and gave a frustrated grunt. “I don’t have any idea where to start. If you’ve robbed the manors of Landsend as frequently as the Whisper claimed, you probably have a better idea than I.”
Sham shook her head. ‘“No. I’ve been fairly selective in my targets. I haven’t stolen anything from anyone with close connections to the Castle for ... hmm ... at least a year.” So she lied —did they really expect her to give them something solid enough to hang her with?
The Reeve grunted; she almost hoped he knew how much her answer was worth. “Talbot and I have talked about it. We thought it might help you to meet the people of the court before you decide which residences to ... explore. I tire too easily of late to keep abreast of the latest gossip, and Talbot has no entrance to the court proper, as he not only is a stranger and a peasant, but also a Southwoodsman.”
“So am I,” she commented, “stranger, peasant, and Southwoods native as well.”
Talbot grunted. “But you’re not the Master of Security either.”
She allowed her lips to twist with amusement. “How are you going to introduce me to your court? ‘Excuse me, but I’d like to introduce you to the thief who has been relieving you of your gold. She’s going to look around and see if she can figure out which of you is killing people, so be sure that you tell her who it is.’”
Kerim smiled sweetly with such innocence in his expression she knew immediately that she wasn’t going to like what he was about to propose. “The original idea was that you could become one of my household.”
Sham raised both of her eyebrows in disbelief. “Half the servants know who I am, and the rest of them will know before I leave here this morning. The only reason the thief-takers haven’t hauled me in is because they can’t prove what I do, and you have the reputation of punishing thief-takers who work with more zeal than evidence. A reputation, I might add, that I am extremely grateful you deserve.”
Kerim’s smile widened, and the innocence was replaced with sudden mischief and a certain predatory intentness that made her realize again how well the title of Leopard suited him. “When we found out just who and what you were, lady, Talbot and I came up with a much better solution. They know Sham the Thief—a boy. You are going to be Lady Shamera, my mistress.”
Talbot put his hand to his mouth and coughed when Sham spit out a surprised curse she’d learned from one of the more creative of her father’s men.
“Ye won’t have to go quite that far, lassie,” commented the Reeve blandly, in a fine imitation of Talbot, complete with seaman’s accent. “I don’t demand anything so ... strenuous from my mistresses.”
Sham gave Kerim an evil glare, but she held her tongue. He was almost as good at teasing as she was, and she refused to present him with any more easy targets. She took a deep, even breath, and thought about what he’d proposed, her foot tapping on the floor with irritation.
“I expect—” she said finally, biting off the end of each word as if it hurt her, “—that you mean I am to play the role of mistress, not fulfill it. If that is the case, I am inclined to agree that the role would have its uses.”