Immediately, dense white columns of steam roared up from her exhaust pipes. When the ferry began to discharge its throngs of passengers, Seth was not among them.
In a burst of decision, Sophy hailed one of the horse-drawn public carriages that traveled as far as City Hall. She was not the type of woman who could sit meekly awaiting her man’s return. He needed her. She would go to him. Her heart slowed its pounding.
Dismounting at the City Hall terminus, she pulled her cloak tightly around her to keep out the damp chill air. Fires, built to warm laborers, flared and burned fitfully. The jagged roofs and spires of Manhattan rose gray and ghostly through the squall, while the falling snow turned the city’s lights into ethereal bursts of color.
Bursts of conversation drifted to Sophy, overlaid with echoes created in the wintry atmosphere. Ragged, pinch-faced newsboys shrilled their wares, adding to the cacophony of sound.
It was a different scene down by the river. Here, a gentle hush engulfed the wharves. Lights shimmered wanly over the broad slope of the cobblestone roadway, the rows of shipping vessels tied up along its base punctuated by their feeble glow.
Lances of light shot from the moving crests of the water. Both light and sound were distorted. It was very quiet now. She couldn’t hear the river at all except for a faint swish, the soft sound of the water running up the wood piers and falling back again. Tall sailing vessels were reduced to two-dimensional shadows, their insectlike antennae sending mysterious signals to the sky.
Going to find Seth, Sophy appeared as gossamer in the swirling snow. It was hard to see clearly. Snowflakes caught on her lashes, making vision difficult.
There was no sign of Seth. She peered up and down the quay. It was quite dark now. She turned her head, thinking she heard a sound. Eerie echoes of another world. The fittings on the ships creaked rhythmically in a kind of soothing litany.
Crossing her arms against her breasts, Sophy shivered and thought of turning back but persuaded herself against it. No more vacillation. With all her strength she mastered herself and walked quickly toward the pier where they had berthed the
Orion
.
Two shadows, dark and sinister, grotesquely elongated, swept across the dock. She saw the dark shapes and ducked into the shelter of a huge bowsprit jutting over the dock.
Neither man noticed Sophy, who crouched, motionless, against the packet ship. She shrank farther into the shrouded shadows as she recognized one of them as Charles Lethbridge.
Sophy felt terribly chilled, numbed into immobility. Her vision spun, staggered, sharpened with bitter clarity. It was impossible! Unthinkable! Yet it was happening! Charles
was
the villain! And she had been so sure he had only cast a few red herrings into the accounts to mislead her!
She shivered again, involuntarily, as she thought of Seth. He couldn’t know, of course, she knew that. Would he guess? She thought there was a chance. He would take care of things. Seth. He was all that mattered.
Heart pounding so hard she could feel each double pulse like a shock running through her, Sophy settled down to wait. It was so quiet, and dark, inky black now. She could barely see anything anymore. It was like being at the bottom of a well. But the dark no longer troubled her.
Seth was coming. Her thoughts kept running back to him, like a river back to the sea. Love is eternal, she thought, a soft smile on her lips.
There is no fear in love. Perfect love drives out all fear
. The thought stayed with her. She drew her image of him around her like a quilt, feeling his strength enter her flesh, her bones.
All she had to do was make sure Charles did not discover her. Seth would have to come eventually. In spite of herself, Sophy shuddered.
In the hideously compressed time while she waited, the minutes ticked by with excruciating slowness. It seemed like hours, but it was probably less than five minutes. The snow was falling more thickly now, its whiteness stifling.
The cold was the worst part, she decided as she stood shivering helplessly. She wrapped her arms tightly about herself. With an effort, she looked back, and felt her heart speed up and her knees go weak.
The two men were still waiting in the shadows at the end of the dock. She didn’t move. Neither did the men in the shadows. Whoever they were, they weren’t coming down the pier, or passing by. They were just waiting.
Waiting for Seth.
Chapter Seventeen
“S
ophy?” There was no answer. The only sound was the subdued hiss of the gas feeding the flame. Seth shrugged off his coat, threw it over the back of a chair and walked stiff legged to his desk.
He leaned against it, and picked up the crumpled slip of paper lying there. Held it, looking at it. Nothing changed in his face or his bearing, yet his fingers curved like the talons of some predator as he turned it over in his hands.
Slowly, ever so slowly, he unfolded the missive. It contained three words written in Charles Lethbridge’s odd, backward-slanting hand and, below it, two words written in George Dunwoody’s easily identifiable, cramped writing.
He lifted his head like an animal questing, his face a savage and alien terrain. Sophy! Lacking the strength to push his fears away anymore, he felt the first hard pangs of panic welling up in his chest. He had no thoughts now about money and embezzlement. His overriding concern was for Sophy.
Unable to quell the feeling of mounting dread that filled him, he called for a carriage. She needed him and he couldn’t get to her fast enough. She was most assuredly in danger, and he felt totally impotent being so far away from her.
Time seemed to leap forward. There was a disturbance in the street ahead and the carriage was slowing. Snow was rushing toward the vehicle, a waterfall of white liquid metal, thick and blinding.
Seth continued to peer ahead, but the low light was making vision difficult. The encroaching darkness spread rapidly like a vast funereal shroud drawn across the heavens by an unseen hand. What people remained on the streets in the face of the rapidly building snowstorm hurried along, eager to reach the warmth of their destination.
Sounds drifted in the snow-filled air. The cries of the street vendors, drunken laughter, the heavy creak of wooden-wheeled carts laden with tomorrow’s produce and dry goods, the snort of horses, hooves clip-clopping on the cobbles.
There were few people about the wharves now, one or two drunks staggering along walls of buildings, a hunched figure asleep, huddled in a sheltering doorway, a pair of fragile old men rolling dice. A bit of newspaper fluttered across the gutter, lifted, then fell, like a mammoth moth searching for a flame.
Here it was very still. The darkness was like velvet, thick, soft and impenetrable. A voice, instantly muffled.
Transfixed, Sophy held her breath, listening.
The soft down along her arms lifted. Fear crawled inside her, making her breath come hot and fast. Bat other than the fact that the voice was male, sounded a bit urgent and uneasy, she could tell nothing.
Consumed by the intimation of some acute danger, she shrugged the snow off her cloak. She was abruptly aware of the length of her own shadow. Angled against that of the bowsprit, it was like a finger pointing directly at her.
The shadow began to move. To swirl, to shift, to coalesce.
Sophy moved closer to the water’s edge, and heard the rale of her own breathing. She was aware of how ragged it sounded. Not knowing what to do, she stood quite still.
A crunch of footsteps. The shadow moved. Faded. Grew. The darkness possessed shape now. It pulsed with life, and it was drawing closer to her. It was only a handsbreath away from her.
Sophy could see the shadowy form, hear a soft laugh as an instant later a large figure loomed beside her. His hair and long, red merino muffler were flecked with snowflakes.
She stiffened and backed away. Her heart hammered. Her palms were cold, her head light. She was backed against the end of the wharf, her hands gripping each other with such force that her fingers were numb. Then relief surged through her. It was Richard Carlton!
Large and bulky, the man yet moved stealthily in the shadows. He blended into the darkness so well that he had been upon her before she became aware of his presence.
“My humble apologies, Mrs. Weston.” Breath hissed, frosting in a miniature cloud in front of him. “I was not expecting you at this late hour.”
Sophy’s hands flew to her cheeks. If Charles was the villain, then the agent must be the innocent pawn!
“Be careful, Richard. There are dangerous men lurking here!” Her words were swift, urgent, her voice low and thick with suppressed emotion.
For a heartbeat the silence of stupefaction, then the agent whirled. Anger, outrage, frustration limned his features. Sophy edged backward as far as she dared. There was the sound of rushing feet over wooden boards, a yell, more footsteps.
An instant later, the man swung back, half crouched, searching, nurturing his fury. His lips curled in an odd smile. He seemed beyond reason. The hiss of his breath was like a dragon’s sigh.
Raw protest transmuted into insanity. He shook his head, not knowing what he denied. Wrath rose in a bloodred tide. He lifted one shoulder, and flung his solid girth against Sophy. The breath whooshed out of him like a collapsed balloon.
“So be it! We’re all dead, one way or another!”
Then a strange, hunched shadow, looming over them, springing. Dimly, distantly, Sophy knew the shock of a great weight like a cord of wood falling upon her. She staggered and fell, saw in a vision from her mind, or the real world, the lithe and slender figure of Charles Lethbridge pitch forward against her.
The world rushed by her, all fuzzy. Curiously, she felt no fear. In her mind the only thought was to warn Seth, and she cried out, one short, shrill shout of alarm.
Then she was in someone’s arms. Pressure against her throat, and her breath was instantly whipped away. There was a humming in her ear, as of cicadas. But this was wintertime. There were no insects.
Sophy choked and twisted, found the edge of that quelling hand and bit hard. The terrible weight on her throat lifted and she sucked in air. Steel clamps bit into her arms.
Struggling, she struck out a blind blow. She seemed to be in midair, rocked as she had been when she was a child. The memory pierced the veil of time with pristine clarity.
She butted her forehead into that distorted face swinging in front of her like a lantern at Halloween. For a long moment they poised, stretched at arm’s length like partners in a spinning dance.
A tearing sound. As the steel clamps shifted to keep hold, Sophy jerked her body downward, and she was free. She opened her mouth to scream again, filling her lungs with air.
Then weight and world were gone, swept away. She had the sensation of falling and shooting forward at the same time, spinning like a leaf in the wind, toppling from the safety of...?
The scream never escaped her throat. It was cut off by the sudden invasion of water into her mouth and nostrils. With blinding clarity, Sophy realized what was happening just as she fell into the icy water. Her mouth clamped shut.
The water was cold. Ice-cold. It bit into her face like tiny needles, the weight of her cloak dragging her down, the balloon of her skirt slowing the process.
The shock of sudden immersion cleared Sophy’s reeling senses sufficiently to allow her to realize that, although totally submerged, she was rising. She hung on to that, rising.
For a long, black, nightmare time, she thought she would never reach the surface again. The water was icy and her skirts were dragging at her legs, but the air trapped under her cagelike extension skirt was providing a measure of buoyancy!
When her head struck some object and checked her progress toward the air, a hideous panic gripped her. The touch of a hand on her ankle sent her over the edge of reason into terror. She’d never make the surface. She must!
Desperate panic lent strength to Sophy’s thrashing attempts to free herself. Something pushed down on her head and she twisted in panic, clawing upward. Pain was shooting through her chest.
Tiny flaming meteors danced and streaked before her eyes. There was a roaring in her ears. She fought her way up a steep path that wound through a swirling, eddying, red mist, and kicked frantically.
Her consciousness seemed to have condensed to a tiny pinprick of life. She struggled blindly, until, magically, the obstruction overhead moved aside. Her lungs were almost depleted of air when she surged to the surface, and fresh air suddenly gushed into her aching lungs.
Then she heard a splashing beside her and struggled, trying to break the death grip that anchored her body against some solid object. She opened her eyes and her mouth, at the same time taking a gulp, half air, half river water.
“Just hold on. Stop struggling. Sophy! You’re all right! I’ve got you,” the voice gasped, as if its owner’s lungs labored, crying that there was no air.
Seth’s voice! Sophy let wonder rise about the fear, riding on it, arming herself with it. It was as if her dream were merging with reality. Her outstretched arms folded inward. The grip shifted, tightened.
She took another gulp of precious air. For a while none of her senses, saving that of touch, seemed able to function. Coughing and half-strangled, she clung to her beloved anchor, drifting in a timeless void, only dully aware of being lifted from the water.
Sophy opened her eyes. Above her was the snow-filled sky, beneath her was the hard dock. She was gasping as she clawed at the wet ropes of hair in her eyes, sucking air so deeply that she hurt in every part of her body.
Coughing. Ragged gasps.
“I’ve got you. You’re safe. Just breathe.” Seth’s voice. Low, hard, uneven, but sounding magnificently in command.
The hands upon her eased but did not let her go. Relieved and encouraged, Sophy did as she was bid. The pain in her chest was still present, but the meteors, the roaring in her ears, were gone. In her mind, an echo:
I’ve got you. You’re safe.
The earth was solid beneath her, cold and wet. Lying flat on the dock, gulping precious air, she turned her head. Soaked and struggling for his own irregular breath was Seth, looking just as exhausted as she was.
His beloved face was slightly out of focus, but shifting, steadying as she concentrated her vision. Around them the river rocked in tiny splashes like a child playing contentedly.
Sophy tried to form his name with her lips, but her lungs were on fire and she could only pant hungrily for air without uttering a sound. She could only muster a tiny smile as she touched his cheek with a fingertip, and laid her head weakly against his chest. Exhausted, Seth turned his head far enough to drop a tiny, tingling kiss on her wet hair.
She was drifting, dreaming, drifting. She was in a pink shimmering world of delight. The light came back slowly. Infinitely slowly. Its focus was dim, more suggestion than shape, carved bedhead, vaulted window, clustered shadow outlined in the light of the flame.
A brass lamp, squatting on a table like a giant insect, was making the shadows leap and dance on the wall. They moved up and down, up and down, the motion of a fairyland boat from tales her father used to tell her as she was falling asleep years ago.
The weight across her thighs was considerable, and inescapable. Languidly, Sophy attempted to move her foot, found it trapped beneath a heavy male leg. Emerging completely from the realms of sleep, she lifted her hands, sought the ridge of muscle, the security of warmth.
The imagined warmth and delight of Seth’s strong arms about her were real. His breathing was deep and even, and his eyes were closed. She touched him, a feather-brush of her hand across his cheek. Instinctively, her fingers entangled themselves in his dark hair, caressing.
Sophy raised her head, and gave a sigh of satisfaction. Her smiled deepened, and she put her arms around Seth’s wide shoulders, reveling in the hardness of his muscles. Beneath she could feel the pulse of him, the steady tide of his breathing.
She lifted her hands to cradle his face. Her fingers traced the patterns time and living had carved round his eyes. She stroked the tips of her fingers against his cheek, softly kissed him there, where one black curl fell just over his forehead.
Her lips gently caressed him there, where hair mingling with soft sideburns curled against the arch of his ear. He stirred, and shifted his weight until she lay totally pinned beneath him, his warm, even breath moving tendrils in the thick black forest of her hair.
Slowly, tenderly, Sophy held his beloved head close, wishing she could kiss the fine modeling of his mouth, just where he would be warmest, except for...
Her mouth curved upward in ancient witchcraft, and she let a light hand dance down his-body, across his flesh, invitingly. Seth grunted, burrowed his head deeper into the crook of her shoulder.
Drunk with fire and sweetness, Sophy let her fingers rove over the webwork of scars that were his battle honors. A whisper, a caress, a warmth as soft as dawn.
The gentle drift of her fingers against his skin and the warmth of her mouth tracing lazy kisses along his ear awakened Seth. Her arms encompassed him, her lips touching his ear. They were moist, and she made a tiny sound.
Her slender hands roamed his body, exploring still. Seth lay passive, trying to prolong the pleasure of Sophy intent on seduction, but his muscles betrayed him. They had a will of their own, bunching and quivering at her delicate touch.