Laura Lee Guhrke (9 page)

“Then you can do it. I have every confidence that we’ll manage to get the emeralds back to her somehow. We’ll make her think she had them all along and it will all seem convincing.”

“And in future? If you keep taking things, you will eventually be caught.”

Violet smiled. “You worry too much about me, Sophie. The one to be concerned with is that poor police inspector. We really need to think about how to protect him from this assassin.”

Sophie gave up. She didn’t know why she’d even bothered to attempt a discussion with Auntie about the emeralds. On the other hand, she didn’t want to talk about Inspector Dunbar, either.

“Grimstock said that the police inspector was alive,” Violet went on, “but that was all he knew.”

Sophie did not reply, but Violet continued to look at her across the table, waiting for details, and she capitulated. “He’s fine. Someone shot at him with a gun, but missed.”

“Thank heaven. Still, it must have been dreadful for the poor man.”

Sophie thought of his threats of the night before and found it hard to feel much compassion for Inspector Dunbar just now.

“How fortunate that you warned him,” Violet said. “But the assassin will surely try again.”

“Auntie, he’s fine. My dream did come true, but with a much better result than I had foreseen. Inspector Dunbar is alive, for the moment his life is not in danger, and he is no longer our responsibility.”

“Sophie, I don’t know how you can say that. Yesterday you were worried sick about him. Today, you seem quite callous.”

Sophie stared down at her teacup and did not reply. Dunbar’s words of last night echoed back to her.

I will
uncover everything there
is
to Know about you and every member of your family
.

Dunbar would surely arrest Auntie if he caught her taking anything. Even if he wasn’t that cruel, was he discreet? Auntie might not have money, but she had an impeccable reputation. Eccentricity was one thing, but kleptomania was something else. If people found out, Violet would be ruined.

Auntie wasn’t the only one to consider. There was Grimstock. She knew Grimmy had reformed and was perfectly trustworthy, but she doubted family and friends would agree. And what lodgers wanted to stay in a house where there was a former criminal?

Then, of course, there was Harold. Sophie knew her sister’s husband was taking money out of the trust funds of some of his clients. She wasn’t much concerned for his well-being, but he and Charlotte had five children. What would happen to her sister and the children if Dunbar dragged Harold off to prison? More scandal, more humiliation for the family.

Everybody has secrets, luv. Everybody
.

Sophie knew that better than anyone, and right
now, the burden of knowing other people’s secrets weighed heavy. She rested her elbows on the table and rubbed her eyes with the tips of her fingers. Why, oh why, couldn’t she just be an ordinary person with an ordinary life?

“Sophie, what is the matter?” Violet asked. “The police inspector is alive, yet you look as if the world is ending. Perhaps you should see Doctor Wayneflete about a tonic.”

Sophie wished a tonic were the answer. “I’m just a bit tired this morning. That’s all.” She reached for the first letter on her pile of correspondence, opened it, and scanned the first few lines with growing dismay. She groaned aloud and met Violet’s inquiring gaze. “Mama is matchmaking again.”

Violet made a sound of sympathy. “She always does when she comes down to visit. You know that.”

“Yes, but she writes that this time she wants to stay with us. You know how dreadful it was two years ago, when Charlotte’s house was being painted and Mama had to stay here.”

“I do remember.” Violet nodded in agreement. Though she loved her sister, she had an opinion similar to Sophie’s on the subject of Agatha’s visits. “But Agatha always stays in Hampstead with Charlotte so she can see the grandchildren. Why, this time, does she want to stay with us?”

Sophie glanced through the letter again. “Mama writes that with each passing year, my spinsterhood becomes a more and more serious concern to her, and she is sure the reason for my affliction—” Sophie paused and winced. “She makes it sound as if
I have a disease. My affliction is due to a lack of social activity. Because of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, she thinks this is the perfect time for her to supervise my social schedule. She is lengthening this visit to two months—what a dreadful prospect—and she has discussed her plans with Cousin Katherine already.” Sophie paused again and looked at Auntie in horror. “They want to take me out everywhere and introduce me to proper young gentlemen during Jubilee. Oh, Auntie, this is more than dreadful. It’s torture.”

“Sophie, you have to expect your mother to do matchmaking on your behalf while she’s here. And, you know, dear,” she added gently, “you don’t really make much of an effort to meet any young men. I have often worried about you on that score myself.”

“You have?”

“Of course. But, unlike Agatha, I understand and appreciate your feelings in this matter. Charles meant a great deal to you, and his disgraceful and callous behavior—”

“It wasn’t his fault,” Sophie interrupted. “What shall we do about Mama? She can’t stay with us. She’ll put the servants in a dither again. If they discover that she’s staying with us, they’ll probably resign.”

“There are my meetings with the London Society for the Investigation of Psychic Phenomena to consider, as well. Your mother hates spiritualism. She’s so very High Church, you know, since she married Mr. Bedford, because he’s a vicar. Why, we won’t even be able to have a séance while she’s here. Something must be done.”

Sophie was in complete agreement. Her mother’s personality was rather like a railway train, running over anything in her path. She strongly disapproved of Auntie’s little society and would insist on an immediate halt to the séances, readings, and discussions that were Violet’s greatest pleasure.

She would take every opportunity to change Sophie’s state of spinsterhood to one of matrimonial bliss, smothering her with Jubilee cotillions, balls, and card parties. If Sophie failed to become engaged within the next two months to a gentleman her mother deemed suitable, Agatha would spend another year expressing her deep disappointment with her unsatisfactory younger daughter, and laud her elder daughters’s matrimonial success to the skies.

There was also the matter of Inspector Dunbar to be considered. Agatha would be horrified to have the police nosing about. She would be sure to place the blame on poor Auntie, and might even be scandalized enough by the whole business to insist on Sophie’s return to Yorkshire. That would be a fate worse than death.

“When does she arrive?” Violet asked, breaking into Sophie’s thoughts.

“Tomorrow, at three o’clock. She says Charlotte has already planned a dinner party for that evening, so we will simply go on to their house from the train station and return here to Mayfair afterward. You see? She isn’t even here yet, and she is trying to run my life.”

“Tomorrow?” Violet cried. “Heavens, what can we do about this on such short notice?”

“I have the feeling Mother’s short notice was deliberate.” Sophie set the letter aside, thinking hard. If only there was a way to force her mother to stay with Charlotte. “Auntie, we have only one unused bedroom at present, is that right?”

“I don’t know, dear. I rely on you to handle these things.”

Sophie hadn’t expected an answer; she was merely thinking out loud. “If that room were let immediately to a lodger, there would be nowhere for Mother to sleep. Then she would have to stay with Charlotte and Harold in Hampstead. We simply have to find a tenant to take that room before Mother arrives tomorrow.”

“Excellent suggestion,” her aunt said with approval. “I’m sure the spirits will guide us in finding someone suitable. I’ll send a letter to Charlotte by runner to let her know the circumstances, which should make her happy. She probably wasn’t pleased to learn Agatha was staying with us in any case.”

“Charlotte is never happy,” Sophie said dryly. Her elder sister had made her childhood a torture, calling her a freak and ridiculing her at every opportunity. Charlotte was now married, and Harold was a wealthy lawyer and eminently respectable, even if he was a criminal. Charlotte had children, possessed a lovely ten-bedroom house, and was the reigning queen of Hampstead’s social circle, all of which gave her little time these days to torment her younger sister.

Sophie was quite glad for Charlotte’s good fortune.

“Miss Sophie?”

Grimstock’s voice interrupted, and both women
looked up to find the butler standing in the doorway.

“That police inspector is here,” he said, his voice heavy with disapproval. Sophie opened her mouth to tell him to inform Inspector Dunbar that both she and her aunt were out, but Violet forestalled her.

“Oh, how lovely!” Violet exclaimed. “I will be able to meet him. Show him into the conservatory. It’s such a lovely morning, and it will be delightful to receive him there.”

“Auntie, why did you say we would see him?” Sophie asked after Grimstock left the dining room. “What possessed you?”

“Why shouldn’t we see him?” Violet looked at her in bewilderment. “We have a humanitarian interest in his welfare.”

Sophie said nothing.

“If you are not feeling up to callers today, I’ll tell him you’re indisposed,” Violet said as she rose from the table. “I’ll see him alone.”

“No!” Sophie jumped to her feet, knowing she couldn’t let her aunt visit with that man alone. God only knew what secrets he’d worm out of Violet if he had the chance. She followed her aunt down to the conservatory, where Dunbar was waiting for them.

He was studying a table of Sophie’s prize orchids when they entered the conservatory. He heard their footsteps on the terrazzo floor and turned toward them, straightening to his full height as they approached. He was so tall that the ballerina-skirted fuchsias trailing down from the hanging baskets overhead touched his hair and caressed his broad shoulders, in sharp contrast
to his dark hair and the gray morning suit, white shirt, and navy silk tie he wore.

He was such a large man and so powerfully built that he seemed to utterly dominate the feminine environment around him. Against the backdrop of soft pastoral frescoes and delicate ferns, surrounded by statues and flowers, he was such a stalwart presence of masculine strength and implacability that Sophie caught her breath. Her steps faltered, and she stumbled to a halt, staring at him.

Violet, however, seemed delighted to see the dreadful man, and she came forward to greet him with ease. “So, you are Sophie’s dream man.” She looked him over with approval and completely feminine appreciation for a moment, then ushered him to one of the cushioned wicker chairs that looked out over the rose garden. She seated herself on the wicker settee opposite and added, “She didn’t tell me how handsome you were.”

A modest man, a man of breeding, would have been embarrassed by such a compliment. Dunbar laughed, leaning back in his chair, looking completely at ease. “Thank you, ma’am.”

Sophie sat down right beside her aunt. She didn’t want to visit with him or watch him bask in Violet’s admiration like a well-fed lion in the sun, but she had no choice. She must protect Auntie and make sure he didn’t weasel any information out of her that was none of his business.

“Dunbar is a Scottish name,” Violet commented in a conversational tone. “Is there by chance Irish in your ancestry?”

“I have no idea,” he replied.

Sophie received a sudden flash of insight. “Mr. Dunbar is an orphan, Auntie.”

Dunbar turned his head, giving Sophie a look of surprise. “I was orphaned as a boy,” he admitted. “But how did you know that, Miss Haversham?”

Violet laughed. “Oh, Inspector, Sophie knows so many things about people, it’s uncanny. You are already aware of how she warned you that your life was in danger, so you can see she has dreams about the future. She can even sense people’s thoughts.”

“Is that so, ma’am?” he asked politely and returned to their former subject. “To answer your question, I never knew my parents, and I don’t know very much about my ancestry. But my Christian name is Michael, and my friends call me Mick, which is definitely Irish. Why do you ask if my ancestry is Irish?”

“You have Irish eyes. Blue, with those thick black lashes. Put in by an angel with a smutty finger. You know the saying, I’m sure.”

“I have heard it before, ma’am.” He turned his head and met Sophie’s steady gaze with a smile. “I may not be able to read people’s thoughts, but I can guess yours at this moment, Miss Haversham. I don’t think you want to discuss my eyes.”

“You are correct, sir.”

He smiled at the primness in her voice. “We could discuss yours,” he murmured. “Brown, like chocolate. I’m quite fond of chocolate.”

There was something in the way he said the word
chocolate
—slowly, as if savoring the remembered taste of it—that was quite improper.

Her face grew hot.

“Tell me, Inspector,” Violet said, not seeming to notice her niece’s discomfiture, “have you any idea who is threatening your life?”

“He thinks I’m the one who shot at him, Auntie, or that I know who did. He thinks that I or someone I know goes around shooting innocent people in parks in the middle of the night for no apparent reason. He thinks there is no way I could have known an attempt would be made on his life unless I were involved.”

Violet did not seem offended by that. She actually laughed and shook her head at Dunbar as if he were a naughty child. “You don’t believe in psychic ability, Inspector?”

“I confess that when your niece first came to me yesterday, I was skeptical of her story. It did sound farfetched.”

“That’s because you don’t know Sophie,” Violet answered. “If you did, you would know how accurate her predictions arc, and would have believed her at once. Spirits work through her.”

“It’s no use, Auntie,” Sophie said. “Inspector Dunbar is a nonbeliever. He thinks people like you and I are quite mad.”

“Your niece misunderstands me,” Dunbar protested, smiling in the face of Sophie’s annoyance, which only annoyed her more. “I know that there are many baffling things in life,” he went on, “things that cannot always be explained by conventional means.”