Laura Lee Guhrke (19 page)

“Breathtaking news, indeed.” Sophie fanned herself with her hands. “I am all astonishment.”

“Sophie, dear, don’t be tiresome. Lord Heath’s youngest son Robert is not yet married. I believe the two of you might suit. He has always been quite fond of you.”

That her mother was talking about her marital prospects in front of her cousins was had enough, but in front of Mick, it was humiliating. Something inside her snapped. “Robert is not fond of me at all,” Sophie answered tartly. “He prefers the servant girls, especially the kitchen maid.”

Without waiting for a reply to her scandalous words, Sophie turned on her heel and walked away, seething. She marched down the steps of the Grand Stand and across the manicured lawns, so furious and mortified that she paid no heed to where she was going. She did not stop until she hit the white rail of the paddocks that housed the horses.

Breathing hard, she curled her fingers around the fence rail and rested her forehead between her hands. She was an oddity, a freak. She “saw” things. To marry any man, she would have to pretend. She would have to lie, and she was a very bad liar. She’d tried to deceive Charles, but it had not worked. She would never pretend again.

“Why are you so opposed to your mother’s efforts to marry you off?”

Sophie stiffened at the sound of Mick’s voice as she felt him stop beside her. She turned her head to look at him. “You’re a detective. Draw your own conclusions.”

“All right.” He folded his arms across his chest and leaned his hip against the fence post. “Perhaps it’s because your mother keeps shoving it at you, and no one wants anything that is pushed at them over and over again.”

She turned and looked out at the horses in the paddock. She did not reply.

“Or,” he went on in a musing, gentle voice, “perhaps it’s because you don’t think any man would want to marry you, and you don’t want to get hurt.”

Sophie let out an exasperated breath. “No one understands!” she cried, turning toward him. “It’s much more than that. I won’t pretend anymore. I spent my entire childhood trying to be a good girl, an ordinary girl, the kind of daughter any mother would be proud of. The more my sister ridiculed me, the more my mother silenced me, the harder I tried to be what they wanted. But I couldn’t stop these . . . these things that would pop into my head. I would try to deny them, but I couldn’t. I’d have visions, images that would flash through my mind and make my head hurt. They’d overwhelm me, and I’d faint. I was always fainting.” She began to laugh. “My mother told people I was delicate.”

Mick said nothing. He just watched her, his head tilted slightly to one side.

“I would have these dreams all the time. I would wake up sobbing, because I had dreamed that old Mr. Carr at the smithy was going to die the next day, or
because I knew that Freddie Lowe was torturing cats again because he liked to do it.”

“Dreams can be very frightening. I have nightmares about criminals I’ve met. Cases I’ve worked on.”

“It isn’t the same. You have dreams about things that have already happened, or things that aren’t ever going to happen. What I dream comes true. The things I see actually occur.”

The breeze whipped a loose tendril of hair across her cheek, and before she could push it back, he did it for her, tucking it behind her ear. She pushed his hand away. “I used to pretend that I didn’t see things, that I didn’t dream the future. I’d pretend I was normal. It didn’t work. I won’t pretend any more, and people think I’m a freak.”

“I don’t think you’re a freak.” A tiny smile tipped the corners of his mouth. “A little odd, perhaps. A bit disconcerting when you blurt out secrets, like Lord Heath’s son and the kitchen maid. A bit dithery.” His lashes swept down as his gaze lowered. “Always coming undone.”

Sophie looked down and saw that the enormous bow of the sash at her waist had loosened to a half-knot. With a cry of dismay, she retied the bow. “I don’t know why I can’t keep my clothes in place.”

He gave a shout of laughter, and she looked up again, glaring at him. “That’s not what I meant.”

He smothered his amusement. “I know what you meant. Your finch is falling over.”

Her hands lifted to her hat, and she adjusted the bird ornament that trimmed it back to the proper angle. “Is that better?”

“Much better. I don’t suppose I should tell you about your missing earring?” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the pearl droplet. “It came off on the path down here.”

He took her hand and dropped the piece of jewelry into her palm, “Thank you.” Her gloved fingers closed around the earring and she looked up at him. “Why are you suddenly being so nice?”

“Maybe I’m just a nice bloke,” he murmured.

Sophie shook her head but began to laugh. “No, that’s not it.”

“You think not?” He gave her a look of mock pity. “If you were truly psychic, you would know that I am in truth a nice, decent, hardworking, fair-minded fellow, responsible and trustworthy. You would be able to appreciate all my fine qualities.”

Ignoring her sound of disbelief, he gestured to the horses in the paddock. “You want me to believe you have psychic ability. If you could tell me who’s going to win the first race, I might become convinced.”

“It won’t do. This sort of thing never works for me. I never have premonitions about horse races or sweeps numbers or shares on the exchange, or anything that involves money. Sometimes I can see what cards will come up if Miss Atwood is playing patience. But not on command, and certainly not if there is money involved.”

“It’s worth a try, isn’t it?”

She studied him, and her eyes narrowed. “If I can convince you I’m psychic, do you agree to stop prying into my life and that of my friends and family?”

“Why should it bother you?” he countered. “Now
that I’ve discovered the skeleton in your family closet, what do you care?” Suddenly his gaze hardened. “Or perhaps there arc more skeletons I haven’t uncovered?”

If Violet being a kleptomaniac wasn’t scandal enough to ruin the family, Harold going to prison for fraud and embezzlement certainly would be. And she doubted Mick would be quite as nice about her brother-in-law as he’d been about Auntie. After all, Auntie was an elderly lady who couldn’t help herself. Harold, on the other hand, was an out-and-out criminal. Mick wouldn’t hesitate to send him to prison, but the scandal would be just as humiliating.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Don’t be defensive.”

“Defensive with you, you mean. And that’s easily explained now that you know about Auntie.”

“There’s more here than just your aunt.”

“Of course there is. People don’t like being asked all sorts of questions and being under suspicion for things they didn’t do.”

“My life is at stake here,” he reminded her. “Forgive me for not putting your sensibilities first.”

“I appreciate the dangers you face. I truly do. It is always very frightening to me when I predict someone’s death. Why can’t you believe me?”

She looked at him, and she knew her earnest attempt to convince him of the truth had failed. “I don’t know why I am always so disheartened and frustrated by skepticism,” she murmured. “I should be used to it by now.”

He pulled off his hat and raked a hand through his
hair. The sun shimmered off a few silver-gray strands amid the black ones, and the breeze danced in the longer tendrils at his collar. “Sophie, you can’t expect me to just take your word for it,” he said, looking down at the hat in his hands. “I never take anyone’s word for anything.”

“You needn’t take my word alone. Ask Auntie or Miss Peabody or Miss Atwood. They can give you many examples of predictions I’ve had that have come true.

“All of them are spiritualists,” he pointed out and lifted his head to look at her. “They would see a connection between one of your predictions and any vaguely similar incident.”

“Grimstock, then. He knows.”

“He’s very loyal to you and your aunt. He would say whatever you wanted him to say.”

“You see,” she said bitterly. “You will try to explain away anything I tried to tell you as something other than the psychic power that it is. And you still believe I’m involved with whoever shot at you.”

“Sophie, I am fully prepared to acknowledge that you are a very perceptive woman and you possess strong intuition, but I cannot believe what you say about yourself without solid proof. I need evidence. I’ve spent seventeen years as a policeman, and I can’t set that aside to believe in some sort of spiritualistic theory that can’t be proved. Until then, I must regard you as a suspect. You want me to believe you can read my mind and see the future. I just can’t swallow it.”

“Fine.” She turned toward the horses. “I’ll see if I can change your mind.”

There were eight geldings, two gray, two chestnut, three black, and one dun yellow. She closed her eyes, but she could sense nothing from these racehorses to indicate which might win. Nothing at all.

“Well?” Mick asked beside her. “Which are the winners?”

“I don’t know.” She shook her head, unable to help feeling discouraged despite her knowledge all along that it wouldn’t work. “I have no idea.”

“Perhaps you will for the next race.”

Sophie took the very blandness of those words as a challenge. With every race that day, she studied the horses with great attention, but not once did she get a premonition of a winner. Not even a glimmer of insight. It was very disheartening.

The day was not made any better by her mother and sister. Though Mick’s manners were impeccable, neither her mother nor her sister said a word to him through the entire afternoon, nor did they once acknowledge his presence.

They spent their time in an open discussion of various possibilities for Sophie’s matrimonial future. Sophie tried to ignore their conversation, but she did notice that Charlotte’s suggestions always had a sting: men who were old enough to be her grandfather, or notorious for drunkenness, or inveterate gamblers. The two women deigned to ask Sophie’s opinion once, and when she tartly replied that she wanted to marry the costermonger at the end of her street, they gave up and did not ask her again. Sophie was glad when the last race had been run.

Her mother had said they were supposed to go on to
supper and cards afterward at Crossroads, but the last thing Sophie wanted was to be thrust at Lord Heath’s son as if she were meat on display in a butcher’s window. She longed for a cup of tea and a quiet, peaceful evening. She wished she could think of an excuse to go back to Victor’s estate.

It was starting to rain a bit as they left Ascot. The entire party paused outside the gates of the racecourse to coordinate the carriage ride to Crossroads.

Victor offered Mick a ride in his carriage, but Mick refused. “I hired a carriage of my own at the station, my lord, and—”

“Victor,” Harold interrupted, “Mr. Dunbar was not invited to the party, and we can hardly bring him along uninvited.”

“Nonsense!” Victor said. “No one cares about that sort of thing these days.”

“With all due respect, I must agree with my husband,” Charlotte interjected, making no effort to hide her eagerness to be rid of Mick. “Lady Heath would care. You know what a stickler she is for proprieties. She would be shocked. And a policeman, no less.”

As Charlotte spoke, an idea began to form in Sophie’s mind, and she hoped Auntie would understand and help her along.

She made a moan loud enough to get everyone’s attention, pressed a hand to her forehead, and tried to look as pathetic as possible. “Oh, dear,” she said and moaned again. “I feel quite dizzy all of a sudden, and I have such a headache. I think I’m going to—”

Everyone watched as Sophie suddenly went limp. Her knees buckled beneath her, and her eyes closed. She set her jaw, bracing herself for what she knew was going to be a hard landing on the gravel, then collapsed as if she had fainted dead away. She hoped it was a convincing performance.

Ten
 

She never even hit the ground. Mick, standing close by, caught her as she fell, curving one arm behind her back and the other beneath her knees. He lifted her into his arms as if she weighed nothing, his action so quick and effortless that Sophie wondered if detectives were trained to rescue fainting ladies.

Her family was quite alarmed. With her eyes closed she could not see their faces, but she could hear their voices and sense their concern. Agatha asked for smelling salts. Katherine suggested that someone find a doctor. Charlotte said they should get her out of the rain. Victor and Harold agreed how astonishing it was that women were such fragile creatures.

“Perhaps she’s had a vision,” Violet said. “She faints whenever she has a vision.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Agatha snapped. “She’s probably just laced too tight.”

“Do we have to stand out in the rain?” Charlotte wailed.

Mick’s voice, deep and decisive, cut through all the others. “We need to get her home.”

Sophie was starting to like him.

She had never been held in a man’s arms this way before, and it was rather wonderful. The perfect fit of her cheek against the curve in his shoulder, the strength of his arms as he held her without moving, the warmth of his body, made her feel protected and safe. She yearned to curl her arms around his neck, savor the scent of bay rum that clung to his skin, but she couldn’t. She was supposed to be unconscious, after all.