Ghost of the Thames (23 page)

Sophy wondered if that was also the
case the night he had saved her behind the tavern in Hammersmith
Village. She recalled that he’d refused to explain why he was
there, but how stern he was in his lecture of the dangers she was
bringing upon herself.

“An angel of a child, no one ever
imagined such a thing could be possible. And we all carry our guilt
for what we should have done to prevent her going. And right or
wrong, the Captain is the most troubled, as he was at sea when it
happened.”

“Amelia,” Sophy whispered the name.
She realized she was having trouble focusing. “How much I should
like to meet Amelia.”

The housekeeper leaned forward, gently
tucking the covers under her chin. “I can see the medicine is
working. Sleep, child.”

How strange Fate could be? Edward was
out searching for a lost niece, and Sophy—lost to the world—was
rescued by him. Fate.

It was not Fate. Her own words came
back to her.

It was not Fate that
brought them together
.

*

“Hire whom you must and pay whatever
they ask,” Edward ordered Reeves. “I want Miss Sophy to be guarded
at all times.”

It was near midnight when he returned
to Berkeley Square. At least for the next few days, police officers
would be a visible presence on the street around the clock, but
that was far from enough.

“I will make the arrangements,
Captain. But it will be more difficult to control the situation
when she moves back to her lodgings in Soho.”

“She will remain here in the guest
bedroom indefinitely,” Edward told him. “Polite society and
correctness be damned.”

Edward walked around the house,
inspecting each room and every possible entry point into the house.
The older man followed on his heels.

“The Admiral will approve of the
match.”

Edward glanced at his man
suspiciously. “What makes you say that?”

“Well, if I may, Captain. After your
distinguished career in the Royal Navy, marrying the heiress to
Warren Shipping makes perfect sense.”

“Keep your voice down, you old
buzzard. What I have told you about her identity must remain a
secret until the time is right. You haven’t been sharing it, have
you?”

“
I have
Captain.”

Edward smiled and shook his head,
moving toward the stairs. “So who have you been chattering
with?”

“Well, Mrs. Perkins.”

“Naturally.” There was nothing that
one knew and the other didn’t.

The butler coughed quietly and didn’t
say anything more.

Climbing the steps two at a time,
Edward’s thoughts returned to what they had been able to discover
so far. One person had been apprehended by a policeman who had
heard the shot from the South Carriage Drive. He had tackled the
man before he’d been able to get out of the park. With some
persuasion and the assurance he would be hanging alone for the
“murder” of Sophy, he’d given up the names of the other three. But
that was the extent of what they had been able to determine. Edward
could not get the attacker to identify who had hired
them.

The guestroom Mrs. Perkins had chosen
for Sophy was across the hallway from Amelia’s. An oil lamp had
been left burning on a table. Edward paused and glanced at the
closed door of his niece’s room before turning and knocking
softly.

It took a moment before the
sleepy-eyed housekeeper opened the door.

“How is she?” Edward asked from the
doorway, looking into the room.

“I think the doctor might have given
her a bit too much medicine. She hasn’t moved a muscle since she
fell asleep. No tossing or turning. Nothing.”

The chivalrous act would have been to
get the housekeeper to set up shifts of servants to stay with Sophy
and then to retire to his own bedchamber. But as Edward said to
Reeves downstairs, he was past caring about gossip and
reputation.

“You can go and get some sleep. I’ll
sit with her.”

Mrs. Perkins nodded and stepped out
into the hallway. Before leaving, she touched Edward affectionately
on the arm. “She is a gem, Master Edward. It will be my honor to
care for her.”

“Get some sleep, Mrs. Perkins.
Tomorrow will be a full day, I’m sure.”

He watched the housekeeper disappear
along the hallway toward the back of the house and then closed the
bedroom door.

Sophy looked so small in the bed. He
sat on the edge and pushed the covers away from her face. With her
brown curls spread on the pillow and her porcelain skin golden in
the light of the flickering embers of coal in the fireplace, she
looked like an angel.

She turned her face slightly in her
sleep, and he saw the scratches by her hairline. There were more of
them, he knew, on her arms and back and legs.

The horror of the afternoon came
quickly back to him. The feeling of helplessness. Watching the
villain raise his pistol and not being able to do anything about
it. And then the chase and her fall into the iron fence. The
moments when he’d held her in his arms, waiting for her eyes to
open, were the longest and most painful in his life.

“Never do that to me again,” he
whispered, leaning down and kissing her lips.

She rolled toward him when he drew
back. Her eyes fluttered open for a moment, and she smiled, seeing
him. She took his hand and brought it to her lips. But the drugs
were stronger than her will to stay awake. Her eyes drifted
shut.

“I love you, Edward.”

CHAPTER 26

Come. You must come with
me now.

The battle raged inside Sophy. Her
spirit was pulled between the comfort of Edward’s strong arms
holding her protectively and the tug of a persistent ghost who
would not leave her alone.

Now is the
time.

She sank deeper into the warmth of the
embrace and kept her eyes tightly shut. Edward’s soft breath
caressed her ear. She held on to his arm, hoping he could save her
from the phantom.

Come with me tonight and
you will understand.

That was not enough, Sophy answered in
her sleep. Riddles and puzzles would not lure her from this
embrace. Not after what she had gone through. Not after the dangers
she had exposed Edward to.

Sophy burrowed deeper beneath the
covers and tried to shut her mind against the voice.

The icy chill swept through with the
speed of lightning, but none of the heat. Her mind filled instantly
with images of headstones and graves.

She was standing in the middle of a
foul and dismal place. A cemetery. Fog and mist enveloped her. The
reek of death and decaying flesh assaulted her senses. She
staggered a little, almost tumbling into an open pit. Yawning
graves containing scores of bodies, filled nearly to the surface,
spread out around her.

She could hear the low cries of women.
Near a gate, a cart was pushed into the yard by faceless men.
Corpses were heaped up, spilling over the tops of wooden slats.
They stopped by a grave near Sophy, and the cart tipped. Bodies of
women rolled down into the pit.

Some appeared to be dead, but others
were not. She stared at the living women—maimed, sick, young, old,
thin, ragged—but clearly not ready to meet their Maker. And yet,
they were all treated the same, left to rot in the same
hole.

Silently, the men backed the cart
toward the gate and then disappeared into the fog.

Sophy bent by the grave. Dropping onto
her hands and knees, she reached in, trying to save those who were
still alive. At the far end of the pit, a body stirred, pushing
upward through the corpses. As Sophy stared, the body began to
glow. And then she recognized her. It was her ghostly guide. Her
friend.

I need you to save me. To
let him know.

In terror, Sophy’s eyes remained
riveted on the apparition.

The graveyard disappeared. She was
looking at the wavering glow of the image hovering near the foot of
her bed. She no longer hesitated. Pushing back the bedclothes,
Sophy quietly slid out of bed.

Follow
me
.

*

Edward sat up and watched Sophy walk
toward the door as if in a trance. He had seen her behave this way
before, the evening that she led him back to the warehouse on the
Isle of Dogs. But there was a difference. There had been a sense of
urgency in those other occasions. Now, however, she moved with a
composure that made the hackles rise on his neck. It was as if she
was absent. As if someone else had taken over her body.

The noise of him rising from the bed
didn’t attract her attention. He’d only discarded his coat and tie
and boots to get in the bed with her earlier. Now, as she opened
the door, he wondered how far she planned to go, dressed as she was
only in a thin robe.

He quickly pulled his boots on and
followed her into the hall. When he reached the door, he was
surprised to see Sophy standing in front of Amelia’s bedroom. She
never turned, never looked around to see if she was alone. Her
entire focus was directed on the door, as if she could will herself
to walk through it.

The oil lamp was still burning in the
hall. He considered calling her name, but he stopped himself when
she reached for the handle and pushed the door open. She went in
and he followed.

Standing in the doorway, Edward’s
throat tightened as he looked around the room. From the lamp in the
hall and the light of a gas lamp from the street, he could see it
had been kept exactly as Amelia had left it.

This had been his sister Sarah’s room
when they were young. Her portrait hung over the fireplace mantel.
It was a reminder of how alike in looks the mother and daughter
were. Edward had been avoiding coming here. He didn’t care to look
on his sister’s face when he’d failed her in his
promise.

The light from the hall cast a soft
flickering glow on Sophy as she stood before the fireplace, staring
up at Sarah’s portrait. He’d never told her anything of his sister
or Amelia.

Suddenly, Sophy reached out and
pressed her fingers against the ornamental molding on the fireplace
mantel. To his surprise, a small door popped open in the ornate
paneling. He had lived in this house for most of his life, and
Edward never knew of any secret compartment. But he also had no
idea how someone who had never been in this room could know exactly
where that panel was and how to open it.

She reached inside and took out a
wooden box.

Sophy did not turn around when she
spoke. “She wants me to show this to you.”

She had not looked at his direction
since entering the room, but she clearly knew that he was there
with her.

“Show me what?” he asked, coming
closer.

She turned around. Edward looked up
into her face, and there was no longer a statue staring at him.
Sophy had returned. There were tears on her cheeks as she held out
the box to him.

“She says she wants you to look inside
the box.”

“What are you talking about, Sophy?
Who wants me to look inside?” He couldn’t mask the hardness that
was creeping into his voice or the anguish that was gripping his
heart.

“Please, Edward,” she
whispered.

He took the box and opened it roughly.
Holding it to the light, he stared at a jeweled cross that had been
in the Seymour family for generations, passed on from mother to the
eldest daughter. A bracelet that had been a wedding gift from
Sarah’s husband. A locket. There were other pieces of jewelry in
the box, as well, favorite pieces that his sister had loved and
cherished . . . and given to Amelia. He took out a lock of her hair
that Amelia had insisted on keeping after her mother’s death. These
were precious possessions that Edward knew his niece kept. They
were all there in the box.

Edward found his vision blurring as he
looked up again at Sophy. He steeled himself against his
emotions.

“What is this?” he snapped. “How did
you know about these things? About this box?”

“She wants you to know that she would
not have run away without them.”

He slammed the box on the mantle and
turned threateningly toward her. “What do you mean? Who wants me to
know?”

Sophy held her ground. Her chin high,
her eyes shining with tears, she looked up at him. “Amelia. Your
niece. She asked me to show you these.”

“Where is she?” He took her by
shoulders and shook her once. “How do you know her?”

“She is the one who saved me from the
river. She is the one who put me in the path of your
carriage.”

“You are talking nonsense.”

Sophy shook her head. “I see her. She
is the one who comes to me . . . as a spirit.”

“Don’t
lie
to me, Sophy!”

“I am not lying to you.” Tears were
rolling down her cheeks. “I never made the connection until
tonight. She brought me here. She showed me where the secret hiding
place was and how to open it. You tell me how could I have known
where to look? Please, I’m telling you the truth.”