“Are you sure about this?” Natasha meets her eyes in the mirror and adjusts Sharon’s curls.
She doesn’t answer right away. She looks over her reflection. She white dress. The professionally-done makeup. The professionally-done hair. “Yes. But you have to uphold your end.”
“I will. I swear it.”
Within hours, the ceremony is done. Duke Alexander Pierce, the man who took her in after her parents died, has given her – and with her, all of the Carter estates, titles, and fortune – to Earl Brock Rumlow. Brock and Marchioness Sharon sign the papers attesting that everything they own now belongs to the pair of them.
The clock is ticking.
Brock Rumlow has had two wives before. One drowned in the tub after taking sleeping pills. The second fell down the stairs during a thunderstorm. He is easily the most pitiable man in the country. Some people, of course, are suspicious. Each death results in an elevation in fortunes for Rumlow. He’d gone from soldier to Lord to Earl. Now, with his marriage to Sharon, he is something of an honorary Marquess. He’ll mingle with the nobility.
What most of them don’t know is that Rumlow is followed by more deaths than just those of his wives, and countless more disappearances.
And the people who do now will never do anything about it, so long as his rich wives die in accidental ways and only commoners die or disappear.
They arrive at his home late. Sharon is grateful for the velvet cushions in the carriage; the cobblestone streets are useful for staying awake, but they would be murder on her back otherwise.
Rumlow - Brock - eyes her as they pull up to the door. This is his late wife’s home. A stately affair. Plain brick with subtle decorations and touches. He’s already told her he would like to buy her a house more fitting of a Marchioness such as herself, but that it may take time.
She meets his eye, trying not to show any fear, trying not to feel any.
He smirks as if he knows her thoughts. “I suppose you are tired after today.”
“It has been rather a long day,” Sharon admits. “Are you not tired?”
He shakes his head. “But I won’t push you.”
A “yet” hangs in the air, almost heavy enough for him to have said aloud.
He carries her across the threshold and insists on carrying her all the way to her bedroom and setting her on her bed. Her heart hammers. He again looks as if he knows her thoughts, her concerns (fine, fine, her fears) and is amused.
But he leaves her. That’s the important thing. He leaves her.
She locks the door behind him and prepares for bed, but in the night she dreams she wakes and finds him standing at the foot of her bed, watching her.
They eat breakfast together. There are very few servants here, if any. She hears sounds from the kitchen but sees no one. They get food from the buffet from themselves, and they pour their own tea. Not unexpected for breakfast, but she wonders how they’ll manage for lunch and dinner. He has a stack of official letters and notices to go through, and she swears she hears a soft cackle when he reads the document that formalizes their marriage. Her time is limited, she knows. She quietly goes through a stack of well-wishes and congratulations, invitations and organizes them into piles of importance as she’d been taught. There will be no visitations today, nor tomorrow, when they are due to leave on a short honeymoon. Her heart hammers anew at the thought. The clock in the corner seems to mock her.
A knock is heard, and Sharon instinctively turns toward it.
“The house makes sounds sometimes,” he says. “Do you always jump so much?”
“I suppose I’m not accustomed to the noises of this house,” she confesses.
“Doesn’t seem like being jumpy is good for a person’s health,” he drolls. “Steady nerves are better.”
“I’m sure they’ll steady over time.”
“I hope so.” He returns to reading over a newspaper.
A servant, the first she’s seen, shows in a man in the king’s uniform. The man steps forward and hands Brock a brief letter.
Brock scans it and gets to his feet. “I need to leave immediately. Duke Alexander requires my assistance at the front.”
“He’s not in danger, I trust.”
“None. I’ll do what I can to return in time for our honeymoon, but there is no guarantee.”
“I understand.” And she’s glad. And certain that his business will require him to be gone longer than he realizes.
He seems, again, to know what she’s thinking, and his lips quirk upward. For the first time, she wonders if he might truly be able to. “Sam here will see to your needs in the meantime.” The servant behind him bows her head to her. Brock leans over to kiss her cheek and then sweeps upstairs to pack, Sam in his wake.
Within minutes, Brock and the soldier are gone, and Sam enters the room.
“Good to see you doing so well,” Sharon says, able to show her relief and recognition at last.
“And you, too. Ready to get to work?”
“More than.”
They search the house, only taking breaks to eat. Sam has worked his way into Rumlow’s employment and searched on his own, but he has found nothing. By dinner, neither does Sharon.
“Could he have committed the crimes some other place?” Sharon asks.
“No. He isn’t seem coming or going often enough to suggest another location. And he destroyed the last house rather than let anyone else buy it. It’s likely the site is here, just…”
“Difficult to find.”
He nods. They get back to work. They only stop when they hear a knock at the door. Hastily, they take their places, prepared to play their roles. She claims a seat in the parlor and flips randomly to the middle of a book as Sam opens the door.
It’s Natasha, wearing a rain-drenched leather cloak. “I left a note saying I wanted to keep you company while you were alone,” she explained. She removed the cloak, careful to keep the droplets confined to the entryway. “Any progress?”
“None,” Sharon says, happy despite their lack of good fortune. She had been raised with Natasha. Though suspected of being an illegitimate Romanoff, there wasn’t proof enough to ennoble Natasha. Thus, though they thought of each other as sisters and best friends, Natasha was often forced into a more servile role. “I hoped you would come, but I didn’t dare mention anything to Rumlow.”
“You should call him Brock,” Sam points out. “Get in the habit.”
Sharon wrinkles her nose and shivers. “I have no intention of getting into the habit. He’s… unnerving. I had a nightmare about him last night.”
“Yeesh,” Natasha mutters. “How’d the rest of the wedding night go?”
Sharon rolls her eyes. “I dreamt he was standing over me, watching me sleep.” Rain hits the glass, and she frowns. “I don’t imagine I’ll get much sleep tonight, either.”
“Well, I bought us time. Even without the explosions I set in place, the rain is going to bog down all the country roads.”
“He’ll come by horse. On his own if he has to.” Sharon says decisively. “I think he likes unnerving me.”
Natasha is quiet. “Let’s get to work, then.”
They go back to searching. Sharon’s family members include diplomats and spies, but she isn’t particularly practiced in the art herself. Natasha has a servants’ eye and is unafraid to search any crevice. Sam, the only one of them with actual spy training, is the most methodical of them all. But they all come up empty.
They eat dinner in the kitchen together, their spirits troubled or outright low. Sharon can’t bear to sit in the foreign dining room alone, and she isn’t sure how to ask them to join her. It’s simpler to follow their lead in such matters. Rumlow will return soon, and then he will likely kill her at his leisure. It would be too easy to have her death look like an accident.
Toward the end of dinner, she straightens. “We should search my room next.”
Sam looks at her curiously. “There something we should know about what you get up to in there?”
Natasha kicks him under the table.
“Just… that dream,” Sharon says uncomfortably. “It was so real...”
“You think he might have been there,” Natasha muses, voice low.
“More like I’m hoping he wasn’t.” She shares a look with the others; time is of the essence. Not being murdered is more important than food right now.
Natasha gives her a brief nod and gets to her feet. “I’m not taking care of your dishes, my lady.”
Sharon sighs and follows Natasha’s lead in carrying her dishes to the sink. They and Sam leave the dishes there as they are and go up to her room.
“Where was he?” Sam asks. “When you saw him.”
Sharon points to the exact spot.
Sam moves to the spot and looks around. “Let’s assume he truly was here. How did he get in?”
“My door was locked,” Sharon explains.
“He wouldn’t go far from his entry point.” Natasha moves to the wall nearest Sam and knocks toward the wall going toward the hallway. Sharon moves beside her and knocks toward the outer wall.
Natasha is almost to the corner when the sound of her knock changes. Sam joins her, examining the wall while Natasha continues to knock. “Size of a door.”
“Hold on.” Sam presses part of the moulding, and a door opens a fraction of an inch away from them.
They glance at each other, then Natasha and Sam each grab a candelabra from Sharon’s bedside tables. Sharon spins in search of one for herself. By the time she’s unattached one of the wall sconces, Natasha and Sam’s candles are alight.
“I should tell you not to come,” Natasha says, lighting Sharon’s candles. “But I know you won’t. So you stay between, all right?”
Sam is already in the opening; Sharon falls in behind him, Natasha behind her.
They find themselves in a closet of another bedroom.
“This is disappointing,” Sam admits.
“One word for it.” Sharon tries not to think of Rumlow’s return.
“But now we know how he operates,” Sam offers. “We know he’s hiding something, and now we know how he’s hiding it. We just need to figure out where.”
Natasha sweeps into the hall. “So we just have to figure out which proportions are off. Find a hidden room.”
“And preferably soon,” Sharon murmurs.
Their tactics change. They map the house and measure proportions to the best of their ability. Sam notices the proportions are off in a downstairs pantry. Natasha notices what may be a discrepancy in Rumlow’s bedroom. Sharon searches her bedroom again, uncertain about the depth of her closet. With a better idea of what they’re looking for, they split up.
Each of them finds a stairwell. Shouts of their discoveries go up, and they meet hurriedly in the downstairs foyer.
“We shouldn’t split up to explore,” Natasha says firmly.
“We don’t have enough time to do otherwise,” Sharon counters.
Sam is the deciding vote. He obviously wants to agree with Natasha, but his eyes slide toward the front door. “Split up,” he says. “But be careful. Especially you, Sharon.”
She doesn’t take offense. With her skirts, she’s the one who’s most likely to set off a booby trap.
Nonetheless, with a candelabra in her hands, she’s able to go down the stairs with little trouble or fanfare. The door at the bottom is also, eerily, easy to open. She can smell something that makes her nose sting and her eyes water. Bleach. Far, far too much bleach.
She swallows and cautiously pushes the door open, only to find Sam aiming a gun at her and Natasha holding a knife. They relax when they recognize her.
“Took you long enough,” Natasha says.
“How’d you get her so fast?” Sharon demands.
Natasha shrugs, and Sharon gets her first good look at the room. There are what look like cages against one wall. Most of the devices are arranged about the room, and she doesn’t recognize many of them. A few she recognizes from penny dreadful covers, and she looks away before she can think about what Rumlow may have used them for.
Sam’s gun rises. A beat later, Natasha’s eyes widen, and she lifts her knife. Before Sharon can ask why, she feels a hand around her throat, pulling her back against someone’s body. She instinctively knows whose body it is.
“Not the welcome I expected, my dear.” His breath is hot in her ear, and she suppresses the urge to shiver, which only makes her shiver harder.
“Let her go, my Lord,” Sam says. “Sergeant Wilson of the King’s Guard.”
“Put your weapons down.”
Sharon feels something hard and cold against her temple. Again, she knows instinctively what it is.
Sam and Natasha hesitate, and Rumlow presses the gun harder against her temple, forcing her head to the side. “Do it. Or she dies here and now. No sound can escape this place. Trust me on that.”
Sam starts to lower his gun; Natasha, after a moment, follows suit.
Sharon bites her lip. She doesn’t want to die, and she doesn’t want Rumlow to kill others. But she’s helpless. Just a helpless lady. A lady, a doll.
Except she isn’t.
More determined to make it work than convinced it will, she blindly thrusts the candelabra into his face. He instinctively lifts his hands to protect himself, and she spins, grabbing blindly for his gun.
The next thing she knows, gunshots fill the air. She’s knocked to the ground. People are yelling, but her ears are ringing too much to make anything out.
Rumlow is dead. With him go the secrets of all those he killed. Or at least, that’s the belief until the investigators pull up parts of the floor in search of victims and find a cache of trophies and multiple journals chronicling his exploits, including his plans for Sharon.
The news spreads like wildfire through the city, becoming less recognizable as it goes. Evidently, some people think she fought him off herself. Some think Rumlow told her not to open the door, and she and her sister – another point of confusion to her – got curious and couldn’t help themselves. Sam, however, doesn’t feature in any of the stories. If she didn’t know of his connections, she would perhaps be confused.
Sam writes to ask her to visit and give her official statement when she feels better. As she’s been coddled for over a week now by people treating her as if she’s fragile, she’s more than a little offended by the wording. She tells Natasha they’re needed at the castle and goes to change.
In the castle, the two of them follow a guard into an office with sumptuous velvet chairs and a jeweled desk. Sharon stares at the insignia on the desk and feels her confusion return. She turns to the opposite door just as it opens to admit the king. She drops into a deep curtsy, Natasha following suit.
“I hear you married Rumlow with the intent of gaining access to his home and finding evidence of his crimes.” The king takes his seat and invites Sharon and Natasha to sit with a wave of his hand. His hand is gloved to hide an old war injury, his brown hair trimmed neatly.
“There wasn’t enough evidence for an official investigation, your Majesty. Stopping a murderer sometimes calls for less traditional methods.”
He seems amused. “And did Sergeant Wilson approach you about this plan?”
“No, your Majesty. I spoke to Sergeant Wilson about it only after marriage negotiations began.”
“I see. So Captain Rogers approached you.” He nods to the wall, and Sharon glances over to see Captain Rogers, the same man who delivered the letter – supposedly from Pierce – and tried to distract and delay Rumlow as long as he could.
She’s relieved he’s all right. “Am I to understand your Majesty suspects a conspiracy against him? Because I assure you no one involved in this investigation would ever mean you harm. Well, perhaps Rumlow, but fortunately, I don’t believe you’re his type.”
The king almost grins. “No, I don’t believe anyone meant harm to me. Rogers and Wilson were with me in the war. I trust them with my life, and more than that.” His fingers drum against the desk. “You are a marchioness. You have nearly as much access to court as a duchess.”
She inclines her head. It isn’t untrue, but she is unsure what he expects her to say.
“We don’t have many women in the King’s Guard,” he admits, sounding somewhat sheepish. “And it’s difficult to get women to join law enforcement or spy agencies. Wilson says you handled yourself well. That you have courage, resolve, and a quick wit. I’d like for you to join. And Ms Romanoff, as well, if she’s willing. Wilson had much to praise in your performance, as well.”
Natasha’s smile is smug. “Thank you, your Majesty.”
Sharon isn’t so quick to speak. Part of her believes she ought to talk to Pierce first. He’s the man who acted as her father for much of her life. He’s also the man who was willing to give her away to a man who would have murdered her.
“We’ll need training,” she says carefully. “Certainly more than we have.”
He nods. “Wilson, Rogers, and I can help with that.”
Natasha’s fingers curl, and Sharon raises an eyebrow. “You, too, your Majesty?”
He nods. “I’ve seen battle. By the time we’re done, you’ll be ready for our Progress.”
“Of course,” Sharon says, trying her best to hide her feelings. “But your Majesty, forgive me. Isn’t the Progress scheduled to begin in a month?”
“And we got a slew of threats on my life in yesterday,” he says cheerfully. “Handle yourself well, Marchioness, and you may yet get a duchy out of it.”
She doesn’t care for a duchy. She cares about not dying and not letting anyone else die, either. “Let’s begin the training.”