Ghost of the Thames

by May McGoldrick

  She would have, too, even if it meant implicating herself and her father’s name.

  “This was part of our family’s business, wasn’t it?” she asked through a painful knot in her throat.

  “Sadly, yes.”

  “And my father was part of it.” Fresh tears gathered in her eyes, knowing of the answer.

  “Your father was a good man. A fair man. He treated all of us much better than any other Englishman. He loved my country and he showed it in the way he raised you. He instilled in your education and upbringing what he couldn’t practice himself. But so long as he didn’t have to see the women and children who were taken or get involved directly, he turned his face and let it happen.”

  Sophy felt the weight of the world descend on her shoulders. The prospect of a future with Edward went up in flames and disappeared like smoke in the wind.

  He was a man of honor who planned to build a political career. She was a slave trader.

  “It was the long arm of your uncle that ran that part of the Warren business, not your father.”

  It made no difference. Her father was guilty of it, as Sophy would be if she didn’t try to stop it. She stabbed away the tears and focused on the present and what she still had control over.

  “And then I jumped off that ship into the river.”

  “To escape him.” Priya nodded again. “You thought you had no choice. You could see the shore. And you were a good swimmer.”

  “I was wearing men’s clothing.”

  “Easier to swim. You had a bag with you containing money and your own clothes to change into once you were on shore.”

  None of that was with her when Amelia saved Sophy from the river.

  “I didn’t know anyone in London. Where was I going to go? Who did I think could help me?” she asked, confused.

  “Your godfather.”

  This was perhaps the last piece of puzzle she’d been missing. But it fit perfectly. It all made sense.

  “Lord Beauchamp,” Sophy whispered, remembering.

  CHAPTER 37

  “The girl didn’t notice anything wrong until after she gave the Bengali woman her medicine, sir,” the butler explained in a rush. “The door to Miss Warren’s rooms was closed. She knocked, wanting to ask if Miss Catherine was ready for breakfast. There was no answer and when she tried the door, it was locked.”

  John Warren was in his dressing room when he received the news. Now, putting more weight on the cane to try to lengthen his steps, he hurried down the hallway. It would be too much to ask to have Catherine do something as helpful as taking her own life. Of course, it would need to look like an accident.

  In fact, he thought as they approached the wing where her rooms were located, if the bloody chit hasn’t done it herself, something of the sort might still be arranged for her.

  “Do you have your keys?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  A handful of servants were standing around in Priya’s room, giving the place the look of a circus. The old woman, though, looked dead to the world.

  “What about the other doors from the hall?”

  “We tried them all, sir,” one of the girls chirped nervously. “But she has something pulled in front of them, blocking the doors.”

  Warren motioned to the butler to unlock the door. The key turned, but they couldn’t push it open.

  “There is something up against this one, too.”

  “What do I pay you gorillas for,” Warren shouted to the servants who were standing around. “Take it down.”

  An uncomfortable feeling burned in Warren’s stomach as he watched the men struggle. She’d definitely put something large on the other side of the door, for there was a harsh, scraping sound of it on the floor.

  “Trunks,” one of them said.

  “She must have stacked them up against it.”

  Warren reached around them, pushing the door with the tip of his cane, as if that would make a difference. There was a great deal that could go wrong if she somehow managed to escape. There was a two-story drop from her window, but he didn’t consider himself lucky enough to have her break her neck. And there were watchmen posted in the garden and by the gates to the street. She couldn’t leave the grounds unseen.

  Doubt continued to pester him, though. If she was able to manage to get out of here undiscovered, Warren had no doubt that she’d run to Seymour. They’d probably go off immediately to Gretna Green. Having married without his blessing, Catherine could still stand to lose her inheritance, but not without a lengthy and bloody expensive court battle. That was something that Warren wanted no part of. Damn the girl.

  “Open this!”

  His shout caused the servants to give the extra shove. Something large and heavy tumbled and crashed to the floor on the other side. The door opened slightly and with another shove, one of the men was able to crawl through and move the trunks.

  Warren used his cane to clear the servants out of his way and went through into the apartment. A cold wind was blowing in from an open window. The sitting room was empty, but beyond it in the bedroom he could see the dance of the sheer curtains.

  The butler reached the windows before Warren.

  “She climbed out of this window, sir.”

  Warren seethed with anger as he approached. A sheet was tied to the foot of the bed. Other knots connected the fabric to the next piece. With his cane he struck the servant who was leaning out the window and blocking his view. The man scrambled out of his way. Warren looked out.

  The makeshift rope ended some ten feet above the courtyard. There was no sign of her below that he could see from here. Most of the leaves were gone off the trees and the bare shrubbery offered little as far as a place to hide.

  “Gather those useless idiots outside,” Warren bellowed. “They all will be feeling it.”

  People scattered, running. He moved to where the Bengali women lay unconscious. Warren pointed the tip of the cane at the two servants remaining in the room.

  “You will stay with her around the clock. My niece will be back for her.”

  He lured her in once after the servant—he needed a plan to do it again.

  He went out of the room with the butler on his heels. Shouting angrily, he made sure one and all could hear his displeasure through out the house.

  “Bring the carriage out to the front.”

  By the time Warren reached the foyer, Hodgson was arriving. It was apparent that he had already been told of the development by the footmen outside. He didn’t shed his cloak or remove his hat. He held out a newspaper.

  “Miss Catherine’s discovery is on the front page of the Times today. I assume this is the novelist Dickens’s doing.”

  Warren snatched the paper and glanced at the headline. “Warren Heiress Found Alive.”

  He knew what they were doing. They were trying to make her case so public that his every decision would be scrutinized. He shoved the paper back into Hodgson’s chest.

  “Sir, do you think she will go to Captain Seymour or Miss Burdett-Coutts?”

  “To Seymour.”

  “I have a carriage in front. I am ready to go.”

  Warren moved within a couple of inches of Hodgson’s face. “You are not going anywhere near Seymour. He’ll cut off your head with a cutlass and make you carry it like a melon. No, Hodgson. You are the problem. You have no courage, no charm, no looks, no wit. My mistake was to think you could do me some good as a potential suitor. No, that was a waste of time, and you know how I hate to waste anything.”

  Warren put on his cloak and hat as he watched the younger man’s face turn a dozen shades of red. As usual, the overpaid clerk kept his mouth shut tight.

  “The most useful you can be now is to stay here and make sure no one steals the old woman upstairs. Can you manage that?”

  “I can, sir.”

  CHAPTER 38

  “But don’t you see? She is in danger!”

  “You cannot rush into that house and rescue her, Edward. He will
not harm her. He would not dare,” Angela Burdett-Coutts reasoned. “Not after all the witnesses that claim Sophy is alive. Not after that article in the Times. His plan of forcing her to marry a man of his choice is enough for Warren. With that, he gets what he is after. And he told me he is having the banns posted immediately. So we have three weeks.”

  Edward was furious that everyone had waited until he’d come back to London to act. Telling Edward of the abduction as he entered the house, Reeves also told him that Angela had been waiting two hours for his arrival.

  He trusted his staff and his friends to keep Sophy safe. And now she had been taken by the one person who truly intended to do her harm.

  “I cannot let Sophy remain in her uncle’s clutches as the police bring him to bay,” he snapped angrily.

  “Do you have proof of his illegal activities?”

  “Yes, I do.” Edward didn’t want to share any of the details with Angela at this time, but Captain Lewis had named John Warren specifically as the person who had made the financial arrangements for the transfer of the women from the Far East on his last crossing. He’d also offered the names of other Royal Navy officers who were employed in similar activities by Warren. The disgraced captain had been very cooperative in offering up his friends as well as information on the operators of warehouses along the Thames where the human cargo was delivered.

  Captain Lewis claimed he knew nothing of Henry Robinson’s murder and had no involvement in it. But the police were just beginning to gather up civilian culprits, and it was only a matter of time before some of them started talking and pointing fingers.

  “I don’t care what I have to do to get her out of there, but Sophy will not remain in that house with Warren.”

  “I told you I went there yesterday, Edward. He wouldn’t even allow me to see her. You have no chance.”

  “I shan’t be asking to see—”

  A knock on the door was followed by the entry of Reeves.

  “Excuse me, Captain. But you have a rather agitated guest in the foyer. He refuses to wait in the library and demands to see you at once.”

  “Who is it?”

  “John Warren, sir.”

  “Sophy’s uncle?”

  “Is he, Captain?” The butler’s raised brows indicated his confusion. “A rather angry, older gentleman. He offered only his name.”

  Edward ordered Angela to stay behind and went out the door. He was angry enough to break the man in two, but he had spent his life training himself to be cool in the face of battle. Still, he was taken aback when Warren fired a broadside even as Edward was entering the foyer.

  “This is most uncivil of you, Captain,” Warren shouted, shaking his cane at him. “You have no right to be interfering with family business that has nothing to do with you. I demand that you return my niece to me this instant, or I shall call in the police.”

  “Lower your cane or I’ll have you thrown into the street, sir.”

  “I want her back.”

  Stone-faced, Edward stared the man down, trying to hide the revelation that Sophy was not in Warren’s clutches. He silently wondered where she could be. She might be on her way here, right now.

  “You speak of your niece as if she is a possession,” Edward responded in a harsh tone. “Or that you have the right to hold her prisoner. Why can she not go where she wishes?”

  “So she is here.” Warren banged his cane angrily on the floor. “I demand to see her.”

  “No one in this house gives a damn about your demands, Warren.”

  Edward would have liked nothing better than to throw the man out on the street himself. But for the sake of gaining more information about when Sophy had gone missing, he needed to pursue a more diplomatic course.

  “Why don’t you step into the library, and we can discuss this in a more civil fashion.”

  “I have nothing to discuss with you. My business has to do with Miss Warren. I am telling you it is to her benefit to come out of wherever she is hiding and see me.”

  A footman slipped through the door and approached Edward, holding out an envelope.

  “This arrived for Mr. Warren from his house, Captain,” he said in hushed voice. “The servant bringing it says it’s urgent, sir.”

  Edward motioned toward Warren, and the footman handed it to the older man, who took the envelope and tore it open. Edward could not see the contents from where he stood, but there was an immediate and noticeable change in the man.

  “We are not finished discussing this, sir,” Warren said sharply, punctuating his words with his cane on the floor. “And tell Catherine I will be back.”

  Edward stood and watched the man limp out the front door. He turned and found Reeves a couple of steps behind him.

  “Miss Sophy didn’t arrive through the back door, did she?”

  “No, Captain.”

  Angela stepped out of the library. It appeared she’d overheard much of the conversation, too. “I am going to go back to Holly Lodge, just in case Sophia has made her way out there.”

  Edward nodded, but he doubted Sophy would go anywhere but here if she had indeed escaped her uncle’s house. Something about Warren’s sudden departure bothered him. The old man must have come here the moment he’d found his niece missing. He called for the doorman.

  “A single runner arrived from the gentleman’s house, Captain. Said it was urgent that the message be delivered to Mr. Warren, so passed it along. Hope I did right, sir.”

  “From his house,” Edward repeated angrily, turning to Angela. “Warren’s servants must have discovered Sophy back at his house.”

  CHAPTER 39

  No mystery remained. She remembered it all.

  Standing by a window in Lord Beauchamp’s drawing room in Seaton House, watching the traffic on Chapel Street, Sophy knew this was exactly what she had intended to do the night she’d jumped from the deck of the ship into the River Thames.

  She had no recollection of ever meeting Lord Beauchamp. But she recalled how her father always talked about him. He was a major investor in their company. But on the personal side, he was her godfather. He was the one person she knew she could count on to help her.

  Related to the queen by marriage, the aristocrat would certainly know nothing of the sordid nature of the business John Warren conducted. Slavery of any type was against the law in England, and here she had proof that her uncle was a major operator in the illicit trade. With Lord Beauchamp’s help, that would all come to an end.

  Climbing down from the window in the pre-dawn light, scaling the garden wall, hiding in shrubbery, sneaking along alleys and lanes, Sophy had managed to make her way to her godfather’s mansion in Belgrave Square, still carrying with her the ledger book.

  It had been midmorning when Sophy arrived at Seaton House. Having already drafted a short letter of introduction and stating the urgency in this meeting, she’d given it to a liveried doorman to be taken in. The house appeared to be in an uproar because of the ball that was scheduled for that evening.

  Within minutes, she’d been ushered into a drawing room, and a servant had brought in some breakfast for her and later come back and taken away the tray. Still another servant came in to inform her that his lordship was still busy, conducting the morning business with his secretary, but that he would be joining her soon.

  It felt like hours that she’d been waiting.

  An army of servants seemed to be working in the mansion, preparing for the event. Sophy glanced at the ledger she’d left on a side table and took a walk around the room.

  She’d known Lord Beauchamp’s address from the invitation she’d received, but she had no idea of the splendor in which he lived. Seaton House was palatial, its interior obviously inspired by Italian Renaissance architecture. The huge columns and grand marble staircases were decorated with massive amounts of gold leaf, and the chandeliers of crystal were dazzling. Tables she’d passed on the way here groaned with the mountains of flowers. The smell of food wafted throughout the ha
lls.

  Sophy felt guilty about leaving Priya behind at her uncle’s. But she had no chance of bringing her out safely. She’d go back and free her friend. She was certain of that.

  She practiced what she was going to say once Lord Beauchamp received her. An explanation. He would listen to her. She didn’t desire her uncle’s prosecution, but they must stop the wrongs that were being done in her name. The enslavement and transportation of humans had to stop. Also, she wished to make her own decision regarding the future and marriage. Sophy knew this was the way her father intended it. What John Warren was trying to force on her was a lie.

  Thoughts of Edward rushed into her mind. He had to be back in London by now, and she guessed he already knew of her dilemma. Sophy’s stomach knotted with worry about how he’d reacted to the news and what he might be doing because of it. Her first impulse after escaping from John Warren’s house had been to go to Berkeley Square. But the thought that her troubles had multiplied since the last time they’d been together had pushed her to come here. Sophy’s predicament was too scandalous. She couldn’t allow herself to daydream of a future with him now. Not the way her life was turning out.

  Hearing voices outside the door, she ceased her pacing.

  The door opened and Lord Beauchamp entered, eyeing her with curiosity.

  Right behind him was John Warren.

  CHAPTER 40

  The house was under siege and there was nowhere for Peter Hodgson to hide.

  The butler told him there were a dozen constables already arrived on the street, waiting for John Warren’s return. Hodgson knew the old man had gone too far. The niece had become a public figure over the past couple of months. The announcement today in the Times was the final straw. Too many eyes were watching them.

  Warren should have tried to make a friend of her and run her affairs the same way that he’d run her father’s business. There was no reason for all this scheming, for the threats on her life, or for forcing her to marry against her will. The man didn’t know when to stop. And now this.