Laura Lee Guhrke (20 page)

Mick’s suggestion to get her home was agreed upon by all the family, but Sophie had no chance to feel relieved.

“I’ll go with her,” Agatha declared.

That would never do. Sophie had been counting on Auntie to volunteer to go home with her. Alone with Agatha, she’d never have a quiet, peaceful evening. She could hear the lectures starting already.

If you’d try a bit harder, dear, and not be so
outspoken
,
you could have any gentleman in the country. And your figure is excellent, if you’d dress properly and make the most of it
.

Sophie decided she’d better wake up at once.

With another moan, she lifted her head from Mick’s shoulder and opened her eyes, blinking at everyone in sleepy surprise. “Oh, dear. What happened?”

“You fainted,” Mick told her gravely, but when she looked up at him, she thought she detected a suspicious curve to one corner of his mouth.

Sophie ignored it. “I did?” She looked about in pretended astonishment, then frowned. “My head aches.”

“We must get you home, dear.” Agatha looked at Mick. “Put her down at once.”

“With all due respect, ma’am, I don’t think that’s wise,” Mick answered, and Sophie felt his arms tighten around her. “She might faint again, you know.”

“Very well, then, let’s at least get her into the carriage and out of this rain.”

“Mother, I’m all right,” Sophie said, desperate to divert her mother from the intention of accompanying her. “I just need to go home and go straight to bed. You needn’t come along. I wouldn’t dream of ruining your evening.”

“Nonsense. Of course I’m going with you. We’ll get you home and send for a doctor.”

“It’s probably a bilious attack,” Charlotte said, disinterested.

“It’s her head that hurts, Charlotte, not her tummy,” Violet pointed out. “It’s just a sick headache, isn’t it, dear? You didn’t have a vision?”

Sophie shook her head, and Auntie patted her cheek with a smile of affection. “You’ll be fine after a good night’s rest. There’s no reason for any of us to go along.” She looked up at Mick. “Please escort her home safely, Michael, in your carriage. I’ll ride to Crossroads with Victor and Katherine.”

Sophie was so astonished that she couldn’t help blurting out, “Auntie, you’re not coming?”

“Darling, there’s no need, Michael will escort you home, you’ll take a spoonful of my tonic—the one in the brown bottle, not the blue—and go to bed. Come along, Agatha.”

“Violet, we can’t go to the party!” Agatha cried. “We need to go home with Sophie.”

“Nonsense. What good would we be? She has a headache, and she’s going straight to bed. Michael will escort her there, and see that she arrives home safely, won’t you, dear boy?”

“Of course,” Mick answered. “We’ll go straightaway.”

“What?” Agatha’s voice boomed out in horror. “He can’t take her home alone. Him? Without a chaperone?”

“He
is
a policeman,” Violet pointed out. “How could she possibly be any safer than that?”

Agatha started to protest again, but Violet interrupted. “My dear sister, Sophie hasn’t been sleeping well of late, and she’s just tired. She needs peace, quiet, and a decent night’s rest. There is no need for us to go. Besides, you never get to see Lord and Lady Heath, since you’re usually only a short while in London each year. Sophie will be perfectly safe in Inspector Dunbar’s company, and he will escort her home. She’ll get a good sleep and by tomorrow she’ll be right as rain. Come along, dear.”

“Sophie will be fine, Mother,” Charlotte said with an impatient tug on Agatha’s sleeve. “For heaven’s sake, let’s be on our way before we get soaked out here. It’s starting to pour.”

The rain was indeed coming down harder now, and
Sophie watched as her mother reluctantly allowed herself to be led toward Harold’s carriage. Mick turned in the opposite direction and carried Sophie to another hansom.

The driver had put the top of the carriage up before the rain started, and the interior was dry. Mick instructed the driver to take them to Lord Fortescue’s estate, then he lifted her into the carriage and laid her across the seat. He followed her in and took the opposite seat as the driver shut the door.

The carriage jerked into motion, then moved along the graveled drive that led to the main road, only one of many vehicles leaving the racecourse. Sophie sat up, pressing her fingers to her temples with what she hoped was a pain-filled whimper.

Mick burst out laughing.

She looked at him, pretending wide-eyed surprise. “What is so amusing?”

“Excellent acting, Sophie,” he said as he leaned back against the dark red leather of the seat. Still laughing, he pulled off his hat and tossed it aside. “You almost had me convinced.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Damn me if you don’t. You pretended to faint so you wouldn’t have to go to the party and have your mother push Lord Heath’s son at you as a potential husband. Clear as daylight.”

“I didn’t pretend anything.”

“Uh-huh. That’s why you were snuggling into my shoulder like a happy kitten. Because you were unconscious.”

“I did no such thing!”

“Liar. You were practically purring.”

“I was not.” She glared at him, “Besides, no well-bred gentleman would ever accuse a lady of lying.”

“You already know I’m not a gentleman, and I’m not well bred. I grew up in the East End, and the only family I ever had was an old prostitute named Flossie Mulvaney who let me live in her flat for the price of six handkerchiefs a week.”

“Handkerchiefs?” she asked, temporarily diverted from arguing with him. “What do they have to do with paying rent?”

“Handkerchiefs bring a ha’penny apiece from any receiver.”

Sophie was puzzled. “But what is a receiver?”

“A receiver pays thieves for stolen goods, then sells them secondhand to the public.”

“Stolen handkerchiefs?” She stared at him in disbelief. “You? But you’re a policeman!”

“I wasn’t a policeman when I was ten.”

“No, you were a pickpocket.”

“I was born in an orphanage. My mother had died there having me. When I was six, they sent me to the workhouse, and I ran away from there when I was ten. After that, I had to survive on the street. I became a pickpocket.” He grinned at her. “Just like the Dickens story, don’t you think? I’m still waiting for the rich man to adopt me.”

She didn’t know whether to feel sorry for him or laugh at the irony. She decided to laugh. “The policeman who used to be a pickpocket.”

“It’s an asset to me now. Having been a thief myself, having been around the gangs and prostitutes who
work the streets, I understand the criminal mind pretty well. It helps me immensely in my work, and that’s why I’ve risen to my present rank so quickly. Most men my age are still detective sergeants, or possibly divisional detective inspectors.”

“But you’re a detective inspector, too.”

“I work out of Scotland Yard itself, not a specific division. I am one of only a few detectives who have roving commissions. I have authority to work any case in any division.”

She slid back, settling herself more comfortably on the seat of the carriage. “What on earth made you decide to become a policeman in the first place?”

“It’s a good job for a man with no formal education. But I really wanted to be a private detective.”

She smiled. “Like Sherlock Holmes?”

“Just like Sherlock Holmes. When I read the first story in
The
Strand Magazine
, I thought that was the most interesting profession a man could have, but I went into the police force because I needed food to eat and a place to live, and I didn’t want to be a petty thief for the rest of my life. Nor did I want to settle for work in a factory or on the docks.”

“How did you learn to read?”

“I taught myself when I was fifteen. Flossie and I moved around too much for me to go to a national school.”

Sophie was astonished. Though she had very little money, there were things she had always taken for granted. A governess had taught her to read, and she’d always had food to eat and a warm, comfortable place to live. Though her family had their flaws, at least they
were there, and even Charlotte could he counted on for help if she ever got into real trouble, even if it was only to avoid a scandal, “I can’t imagine anyone teaching himself to read,” she said with admiration. “How did you do it?”

“The truth?” When she nodded, he said, “I dug old newspapers out of rubbish heaps, and I’d stand on street corners, newspaper in hand, and ask people to read me the headlines as they passed by. When they told me what a headline said, I memorized what the words looked like.”

Sophie tilted her head to one side, studying him. The corner of his mouth curved in a hint of a smile and his gaze seemed focused on the far distance, as if he were remembering himself standing on that street corner, asking people to read him the headlines. “You must have been quite determined to learn,” she murmured, bringing his gaze back to her.

“I knew the only way to get out of the gutter was to learn to read, so I did it. I also taught myself French and German, by correspondence course when I was a constable. It helps an officer get promoted if he knows more than one language. I also took diction classes for several years to rid myself of the worst of my dialect.”

The more he talked about his upbringing, the more she wanted to know. “Why did you move around so much?”

“It doesn’t take the local constables long to identify thieves and keep close watch on them. Because of that, I’ve been in just about every street, alley, mews, crescent, or lane from Kensington to East Ham. I
know this city and its environs like the hack of my hand.”

“How did you meet this Flossie?”

“I hooked up with her one night in an alley off Bishopsgate. I saw her with some bloke who—” He broke off and looked out the window. “We’re coming up to the main road. We should be at Lord Fortescue’s in half an hour or so.”

He clearly didn’t want to tell her any more. “You saw her with some man. Then what?”

After a moment of silence, he finally looked at her and said, “She didn’t fancy this bloke, and he didn’t take it very well. I hit him over the head with an empty gin bottle.”

“You came to her rescue like that, and you were only ten years old?”

He gave a cough of embarrassment at her choice of words and went on, “Don’t start thinking I was being heroic or anything like that. Between us, Flossie and I took two quid and six from his pockets.”

“In my opinion, he deserved it.”

“I thought so. Flossie taught me how to be a pickpocket. She let me live in her flat and got me food, even meat when she could afford it.”

She watched his mouth turn down in an expression of distaste, and she knew why. “That’s why you hate mutton. Because it’s a cheaper cut of meat, and it was the only meat you got as a boy.” She gave him a defiant glance. “There now, go ahead and tell me I just made a lucky guess.”

Mick held up his hands, palms facing her in a gesture of peace. “I am enjoying this truce we have at the
moment. Let’s not ruin it by quarreling. Agreed?”

He smiled at her, and she found herself smiling back. She didn’t want to quarrel with him. “Agreed.”

“Good. Now, since we’ve called a truce, be honest. Admit I was right, and fainting was all an act to get out of spending the evening with your mother. Wasn’t it?”

Sophie raised her brows at him, as if surprised he could ask such a question. “You met my mother,” she pointed out. “Would you enjoy spending the entire day and evening with her?”

“Honestly?”

“Honestly.”

He drew a deep breath, then let it out. “No,” he admitted. “But what I think doesn’t matter. She is your mother, she lives a long distance away, and I would guess you don’t see her often. You should spend as much time with her as possible.”

“You’re not serious!” She stared at him in astonishment, but he just looked right back at her, unblinking, and she finally said with a sigh, “I suppose you’re right, but it’s easy for you to say. She’s not your mother.”

“True.” He glanced out the window of the carriage and added as if to himself, “I’ve never had any family.”

“Do you want mine?” Sophie countered in mock desperation. “Except for Auntie, of course.”

Mick chuckled. “They weren’t too bad. Conventional enough that they didn’t think much of a policeman in their midst.”

“Didn’t it bother you?” Sophie asked, surprised that he didn’t seem to mind the rude way he had been
treated by her mother, her sister, and her brother-in-law.

“I’m used to it,” he said with a shrug. “Besides, a beautiful young lady told me only a short while ago that people don’t like being asked all sorts of inconvenient questions, or being under suspicion for something they didn’t do.”

She frowned, uncertain whether to believe him or not. “You’re flirting with me.”

“Wrong.” He leaned back and folded his arms across his wide chest. “And you say you can read people’s thoughts? If you could really do that, you would know that I meant exactly what I said. You are a beautiful woman.”

She ducked her head. His words sent a rush of pleasure through her. She knew she wasn’t one to need a hat that hid most of her face, but she’d never been called beautiful before. By anybody. To hear him say it, knowing he wasn’t being cheeky and flirting with her, made Sophie feel as if she’d taken a second glass of wine with dinner, giddy and warm and wanting to laugh.

He leaned forward, his hands reaching toward her face. He tipped her chin up. “But you really need to learn to tie your ribbons tighter.”

She caught her breath, unable to move as he began tying a ribbon at her throat that had come undone.

As he formed the ribbon into a bow, his knuckles lightly brushed against the skin beneath her jaw, sending an involuntary shiver through her.

He felt it. He looked at her, and this time he wasn’t
smiling. “There’s something I want to know,” he said in a low, tight voice. He let go of the ribbon and moved to sit beside her. “You’ve been telling me you can see the future, is that right?”

“Yes.”

He pulled the curtains closed at the carriage window, and her heart began to pound hard against her breast. What was he doing? she thought wildly, sensing the change in him, a tenseness, a waiting.