Imposter Bride (3 page)

As they had to wait for Katherine’s grandmother to
arrive, and since the Metcalfs were not in London, Katherine was
forced to pass the time at the inn. She took a lingering bath, all
the while discussing with Agnes the kind of wedding she would
have—what kind of gown, what kind of flowers, and what kind of
feast. Sophie washed her mistress’ hair and attended to her nails
and feet, only half-listening to Katherine’s chatter.

Just after eleven, while Katherine dressed behind a
screen, someone knocked upon the door. Concealed behind the screen,
Sophie continued to pull at Katherine’s corset ties, while Agnes
answered the door.

“Good morning,” a deep voice greeted. “I’m looking
for Miss Katherine Hinds.”

Katherine leaned over to look through the crack of
the screen. Sophie did the same at the space just above the hinge
on the other side, and caught sight of a tall man standing in the
doorway. He was dressed in black, with a snowy white cravat tied
around his neck and tall black boots. His clothes looked well made
and clean, and Sophie found herself trying to make out his
features, but the shadow of his hat concealed his face.

“Miss Hinds is not available at the moment,” Agnes
finally replied.

“Then may I leave my card?” He reached into the
folds of his Brandenburg coat. “It is important that I speak with
her.”

Katherine straightened. “Agnes,” she called from
behind the screen. “Show the gentleman in.”

Agnes glanced over her shoulder in surprise.

“Show him in.” Katherine continued. “He may state
his business while I dress.”

Sophie looked up just in time to see Katherine’s
glare and her raised hand, ready to slap her dallying servant.
“What are you gawking at?” she mouthed.

Instantly Sophie rose up and resumed the task of
cinching Katherine’s waist to a fashionable thirteen inches. Yet
she couldn’t resist the urge to stare at the visitor with the deep
voice, and managed to get a view of him through the crack in the
screen as she worked.

“Thank you.” The man moved forward and politely
turned his gaze to the fire instead of the faint silhouettes behind
the screen. He gave his hat to Agnes, revealing hair as black as
the coal with which Sophie had earlier built the fire. The queue of
his hair brushed the tops of a pair of wide shoulders.

“My name is Ian Ramsay,” he began.

Agnes delivered his card to Katherine, bustling more
than usual, as the appearance of a man had completely changed the
atmosphere in the room. Katherine glanced at the printing on the
plain ivory paper.

“Captain Ian Ramsay,” she repeated, reading the
card.

“At your service.” He gave a short bow that was
neither overly effusive nor awkwardly stiff, but a quick fluid
movement of man accustomed to physical activity.

“And to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit,
captain?”

“As to that, Miss Hinds, perhaps it would be better
if I came at another time.”

“Not at all. Speak, sir.”

“You are a stranger to London, are you not?”

“Yes, but where do you come by your
information?”

The man shifted his weight onto his left foot and
clasped his hands behind him. “‘Tis well known that Edward Metcalf
awaits his betrothed from the Americas.”

“Really?” Katherine raised her chin and flushed with
pleasure. She loved being the center of attention.

“And I have made it my duty to keep informed of all
ships arriving from Santo Domingo.”

“To what purpose?”

“To meet you, Miss Hinds, and to suggest that you
investigate Edward Metcalf before you enter into any legal
arrangement with the man.”

Color flooded into Katherine’s face again, but this
time it was a flush of anger. “I beg your pardon?”

“I mean no disrespect, madam, but you are to inherit
a large sum of money. There are those so desperate, they would drug
you and marry you under false pretenses.”

“Surely not the earl!”

“Surely not. But bear in mind that just because he
has a title does not guarantee he has financial security.”

“Sir, I will not listen to such slanderous
talk!”

The captain frowned and glanced at the screen for a
moment. “I come only as a friend, with your best interests in mind,
to warn you.”

“Friend? What kind of friend would say such a thing
about my intended husband? You insult me! And you insult his
lordship!”

Sophie reached up to drape a petticoat around
Katherine, but in her outrage, her mistress drove her away with a
harsh smack. At the sound, the captain jerked around and surveyed
the screen as if to discern what had just transpired behind it. He
had dark features and dark, intense eyes.

Katherine glowered, as if to burn a hole through the
screen. “I’ll have you know you are speaking of Edward Metcalf, the
Earl of Blethin, peer of the realm!”

“Be that as it may, Miss Hinds, my advice still
stands.”

“I won’t even bother to thank you,” she retorted,
turning her back, her nose in the air, even though she couldn’t be
seen by the man. “Good day to you, sir!”

For a moment, the tall man paused, as if deciding
how he could better state his case, and then he reached for his
tricorne hat.

“The address to my club is on the card,” he said.
“Should you desire more information. Or should you need my
assistance.”

“You flatter yourself, sir!”

“Good day then,” he replied, his voice brusque. He
nodded at Agnes, “Good day,” he said again, and ducked out of the
room.

Sophie watched him go and wondered what would induce
a complete stranger to warn Katherine about Edward Metcalf.

A few minutes later, Sophie was sent downstairs for
bread and meat and a bottle of cider. She sat in the smoky, noisy
common room of the inn, grateful to be off her feet for a few
minutes, as she waited for the victuals to be prepared. Everyone
was talking about a murder in Kensington, a crime so heinous that
the details had been left out of the morning newssheet. Sophie
clasped her hands together in her lap and forced herself to remain
calm. Surely they spoke of the murdered man she had seen in the
Metcalf’s carriage house, his handsome young face frozen into a
mask of agony by death, his thighs covered in blood. In no way did
she wish to be associated with such a crime or to discuss it with
anyone either.

Still, she couldn’t help but listen to the buzz of
voices while she kept her head down and fussed with the ruined
sleeve of her dress where the murderer had struck out at her. Was
that detail known as well—that a young woman had been at the scene
of the crime and had suffered a knife wound? With trembling
fingers, Sophie brought the two edges of her sleeve together, and
when she did so, something dislodged from her cuff, fell to the
slate floor, and bounced under the bench where she sat.

Sophie bent down and looked beneath her seat,
surprised to spy a small buckle glittering in the dim light. She
snatched up the bauble and glanced at it briefly. Were those
diamonds flashing back at her or pieces of cut glass? She couldn’t
tell. Where had the buckle come from? How had it lodged in the cuff
of her sleeve? Could this buckle incriminate her by linking her to
the murder?

“Your order, miss,” the innkeeper called, sliding a
metal tray across the bar toward her.

Shaken, Sophie reached for her pockets and deftly
dropped the buckle in before she selected a copper to pay for
Katherine’s meal. She would deal with the bauble later, when she
had more time to think.

“Thank you.” Sophie paid with the coin and then
glanced down at the thick slices of bacon. She’d been ravenous when
she’d entered the common room, but after hearing the talk around
her and discovering the buckle, she’d lost her appetite. In fact,
when she looked again at the thick slabs of meat piled next to the
bread, she had to force back a wave of nausea.

“Are you all right, miss?” the innkeeper asked,
leaning closer and tilting his head. “You look as pale as a
sheet.”

“I’m fine. Thank you.”

She gave him a weak smile, grabbed the tray without
letting her gaze drop to the plate of food, and carried it up the
stairs.

Sophie was surprised to see the door to their room
open, and a man’s figure standing at the threshold. Had Captain
Ramsay returned? On second glance, she realized the visitor was not
their former visitor. This man wore a black cloak, not a coat,
carried a long black staff, and was much shorter than Captain
Ramsey. Sophie paused in the hallway a few paces from the door. Her
intuition urged her to be wary. She could hear the caller’s voice,
a nasal drone that betrayed a lack of spirit in the man or a lack
of imagination.

“—
in Kensington, miss. Last
night.”

“‘
Tis absurd,” Katherine answered.
“What reason would she have?”

Sophie froze. They were speaking of her, she was
sure of it. But how could she possibly be connected to the
murder?

“Theft.”

Sophie thought of the buckle in her pocket, and her
blood ran cold, slicing through her veins. She glanced again at the
man and guessed he might be an officer of the law, a constable
perhaps, or a hired investigator.

“And how can you be certain, Constable Keener?”

“The victim was missing the buckles of his knee
breeches, madam. Very expensive buckles. Fashioned in silver and
diamonds, I’ve been told.”

“Surely, my maid servant did not steal
anything—”

“She was there last evening, according to the
butler.”

“And gone a long time,” Agnes put in, never missing
a chance to discredit Sophie. “Only to come back with that cut on
her arm and a tall tale!”

Sophie felt her heart sinking to her tattered
shoes.

“Really?” The constable’s voice plumped with a
pleased smile. “Interesting.” He craned his neck to take in a full
view of the room. “And where is she now?”

“Downstairs,” Katherine answered. “Supposedly buying
our midday meal.”

The constable turned his head in the direction of
the stairs and for a long, awful moment his cool gray eyes locked
upon Sophie’s, imprisoning her entire body in his hard stare. He
realized instantly who stood in the hall behind him, and she knew
she must act. If he so much as searched her pockets, he would find
damning proof of her culpability, and she knew she could not count
on Katherine to protect her.

“Miss Vernet?” the constable called out.

Mesmerized by his eyes, she didn’t answer. Then he
took a step toward her, and the movement broke the spell, crashing
through the storm of panic whirling inside her head. Frantic, she
hurled the tray of food at him and heard the
thunk
of the
bottle upon the floor, the clatter of pewter, his gasp of outrage,
and shattering glass. Then she swept aside her skirt and petticoat
in one fist, and raced down the stairs.

As the long winter night closed in upon London,
Sophie was still running. Her shoes were soaked through, her hair
was matted with snow, and her breath dragged through her parched
throat, as she paused in her race to outrun the constable.

Sophie peered around the back of an empty carriage,
only to see Constable Keener stride around the corner at the far
end of the block. His tattered lackeys—homeless street boys he
employed for such things—fanned through the crowds like hounds
after a fox. She glanced in the opposite direction, desperate for
an avenue of escape, and it was then she realized she had made a
fatal mistake. She had run into a busy square, with a fountain in
the middle and tall stone buildings all around—and no way out but
past the advancing constable.

The thought of capture scared Sophie witless. She’d
heard what became of female criminals at Tyburn Tree. There,
condemned women were hanged while thousands of Londoners looked on.
Such an end was not for her, not as long as she had the power to
keep running.

Warmly dressed couples stared at her in alarm as
they hurried by on their way to roast-beef dinners, to games of
whist, to cigars and cognac. She couldn’t meet their glances, and
gripped the carriage wheel with fingers numbed by cold. She forced
herself to keep thinking, to keep trying, to come up with a way to
outwit Keener.

How close was he? She dared not peek around the
carriage again. The smell of the Thames hung in the gray light of
the dying afternoon, filling her bursting lungs with dank, musky
air. She dared not breathe too heavily in case the constable should
hear her or spot the telltale cloud of her strident
respiration.

“Find her!” she heard him bark. “She can’t be
far.”

His harsh voice spurred Sophie to action. She
unlatched the door of the vacant coach, swept up her skirts, and
scrambled into the cab, thankful that her slight frame and the
heavy construction of the vehicle kept the coach from swaying
beneath her weight. A neatly folded plaid lap robe lay on one seat.
She dropped to her hands and knees and pulled the warm folds of the
blanket over her, making sure to hide every trace of the muddy hem
of her blue dress and quilted petticoat, and hoped the blanket
would hide the silhouette of her pocket panniers. There in the
darkness of the coach she huddled, smothering her own breath for
fear of being discovered.

The coach smelled of lamp oil, leather and
horseflesh, and a faint pleasant fragrance she thought might be the
cologne of the owner of the vehicle. Under the blanket, she made
herself as small as possible, while her ears felt as if they grew
larger and larger, the harder she strained to hear what was going
on outside.

Muffled footsteps ran past on the street side of the
coach. She heard a boy yell, and then the constable shouting out
for them to look harder. Sophie held her breath, praying her
pounding heart couldn’t be heard over the noise in the street.