“Leave Oliver Hobbs’ body now or I shall make you, Lord Harding,” Sophie said resolutely.
Her mind went to Rupert. Please, let him still be alive!
He tilted his head to the side, in a creepily thoughtful manner.
“Are you and my wife the absolute best of chums? I wonder if you’re just as whorish. With that outfit on, you look like the personification of innocence but then the clothes don’t make the character. Nonetheless, I don’t want to dilly-dally with you, sweetness. I want my wife to die, now, she can join me in death.”
Bone chilling dread rushed through Sophie at his threat. She glanced quickly over at Eden, who looked absolutely petrified. Her large blue eyes were wide, and her lips quivered as if she held back a sob.
This son of a bitch had ruled over Eden with an iron first. No wonder she had done the scandalous things she’d done while he was away from home. She couldn’t blame her for attempting to find some kind of comfort in a world that was otherwise cold, brutal and unforgiving.
“That won’t be happening for a very long time! You, sir, are the one that is dead. You must now face the fact and be a man about it. You must deal with your lot in the Afterlife!”
Her powerfully spoken words belied the quick thundering of her heart. She felt as if her legs were about to give way beneath her, and she didn’t even know how she continued to remain upright.
He let out a hellish roar, and broke free of the shield she had erected around him. Seconds later, he knocked her off her feet to the floor. He landed on top of her with a great thud, as pain lashed through her body. His eyes leering at her, as he groped at her body.
She brought her knee up and nailed him right in the crotch but even that didn’t dissuade him. He was supernaturally charged, and hell bent on making her pay now.
“Get off her, you demon spawn,” Ingles’ harsh voice interrupted her panicked mind.
She had to get them both on even ground, and though Seraphina had suggested it to her in the past, she had only tried it once, and hadn’t exactly liked the experience.
She closed her eyes, inhaled deeply and then, she left her body.
As she astral projected out of her body, she slipped inside of Hobbs’ and after a rather gruesome struggle, she managed to propel Harding’s spirit out of his body. Thus, ending the possessive hold he had on the man.
She glanced back hastily at her own body. Lying prone, she looked like she were sleeping beauty on the floor. Ingles and Eden were crouched beside her.
“She is still alive, thank God,” Eden murmured, her eyes gravitated upward, and locked straight on Sophie spirit.
Ingles’ eyes followed Eden’s and her mouth opened and she let out a startled gasp, answering the question in Sophie’s head. She and Eden could see her and that meant there was a high probability that the other women in the room could as well.
Harding was disoriented, and she didn’t know how long that state of being would last for him. If he regained control of his senses quickly, she had more than a quandary on her hands.
Where in the blazes was Rupert?
If he didn’t come soon that could mean he was—no, she couldn’t contemplate that. She needed him, and he would come. He had pushed her into this situation, and if he didn’t get off his ass and help her out, she would never forgive him!
“Somebody please help me,” she murmured fervently, wishing with all of her might that she could summon someone who knew how to handle these kinds of ghosts with more finesse than she did.
She had made this visit thinking, it wouldn’t be quite this intense. Instead, she had entered hell on Earth, and still hadn’t figured a way to get out unscathed. Seeing and feeling Sylvie hadn’t helped her any either. She felt so out of sorts—so confused—so lost.
Already she had left her body in a last ditch effort to pull a miracle out of her hat, and she was still as dazed as ever. She knew one thing, she couldn’t allow him to inflict bodily harm on any of the women in this house, including her.
Now that she had separated him from his biggest advantage, she had leveled the playing field, somewhat. Even now she feared the cards were stacked against her. Doing battle against this kind of a spirit was far different from sitting down at a table and pretending she was holding a séance.
No this wandered into a much darker realm—and she wanted out as quickly as possible without having to do the unthinkable. The sound of a bugle playing caught all of their attention, and when Seraphina and her Uncle Lloyd came floating through the wall behind Harding, she almost wept for joy. Had she been corporeal, she probably would have.
“Sophie,” Seraphina sounded startled. “You shed your earthly bonds again. Well jolly good for you, my dear,” she smiled tremulously at her. A slight glow radiated around both Lloyd and Seraphina. Why Sophie had never noticed that before was beyond her.
“What is this a fucking party for the dead?” Harding sneered, staring hatefully at Lloyd and Seraphina.
“You, sir, are no gentlemen,” Lloyd said, casting a worried gaze at Sophie. “What kind of mischief have been you up to, Harding?”
“None of your goddamned business! This is still my house, old man, so get the fuck out!”
“Old man! Who are you calling an old man! How dare you!” Lloyd puffed out his chest. “You are talking to a FitzCharles, Harding.”
“I don’t give a bloody fuck who you are! All I care about is taking my wife with my on my journey through the Afterlife.”
Lloyd’s eyes snapped with realization. “Murder will not be happening here today, you craven blackguard. If Sophie was outmatched before, she is not outmatched now. She only had to call upon her bloodline to help her send a bastard like you to hell where you belong!”
“You know what to do?” she asked incredulously.
Lloyd rolled his eyes to the heavens, “Well, of course I know what to do my little niece. In my day, this was my vocation! Why do you think that Seraphina and I have such an affinity for you? And you may stop acting like an ignorant child, you know what to do just as well as Seraphina and I do!”
Affinity?
She knew he was fond of her, but she thought he and Seraphina only followed her like faithful puppy dogs because she was the only one that could actually see them. Maybe she’d been a bit hasty in that assumption.
“Vanquishing this wretch of a man shouldn’t be that hard for you to do. By the way, didn’t you leave with your intended? Where did he get off to?” Lloyd looked past her, seemingly trying to see if Redding was in the bedchamber behind her.
“I left him in a pile down in the billiards room,” Harding sneered. “He was easily disposed of.”
A gust of wind whipped through the hallway like a tornado.
“Did someone say my name?” Redding appeared, completely unruffled and from what she could see, he hadn’t been injured in the slightest.
Suddenly, it all made sense. She had been led purposefully into this. This had all been a trial by fire. He wanted to see if she could still do what she had been trained to do even without her memories of said training! He hadn’t planned on Sylvie reaching out to her and restoring those memories!
Anger overcame her, her senses heightened. She pointed her hand at Harding. She’d had quite enough of everyone’s machinations. She had never wanted this life, but she had wanted Rupert. How he had wiped her memories and fought the pull of the Ruby, she would never know.
Why it hadn’t still affected her, she didn’t know the answer to that question either. He had reignited the fire of love between them, and now, they would both have to deal with the consequences.
As for the MIA, she had resisted being recruited by the Agency, and now they continued to come at her in a different and equally annoying manner.
“Be gone from this house, and this plane of existence, Lord Harding! You are an evil spirit not fit to be wandering the Earthly Realm! As a witch with the ability to vanquish souls like you from this realm, I order you banished and sent to the realm
of Fire and Brimstone! This Soul Protector calls upon those who will see you brought to justice!”
Harding’s smirk vanished in an instant, despite his eyes still dancing merrily with arrogance. “Lady Sophie you are quite the dense little lady. I do not believe you have the power to do such a thing…and besides, you are in spirit form as well. Therefore, you have no dominion over me.”
“Good God, Harding you shouldn’t have said that. You just sealed your fate,” Lloyd murmured.
Power rippled through her and around her. She had lived in denial for far too long—her quiet tranquil life was about to get a whole busier, and a hell of a lot more complicated.
She wouldn’t be able to keep the Agency at bay now. She had walked a tightrope of sorts before Sylvie’s death, only taking on cases when Rupert had begged her to do so. But now the Agency would come at her with everything they had at their disposal to recruit her as one of their agents.
They would have her for life. She was about to take on the mantle of a Soul Protector—and her life as she knew it, was over.
Chapter Eleven
“Give it time, the coach is probably just a wee bit busy at the moment,” Lloyd smirked knowingly, and leaned lazily against the wall. This time he remained solid enough not to pass right through it.
Sophie merged with her body, no longer in spirit form, she pointed her hand at Harding and closed it into a fist. He went stock-still and started to pull at his collar.
“What are you doing, you little cunt…”
“Giving you the chains you will wear for the rest of your pitiless existence,” she murmured, her voice deadly calm, and filled with purpose.
The sound of horses hooves charging toward them, filled the small space, and in the next second, a black coach of Death bound for the Dark Underworld stormed toward them all. Lloyd smiled, and Seraphina looked wistful, almost as if she wished she could return to the land of the living, and take up the mantle she had discarded so many years before.
There were four coachmen, two that rode up front and two that rode on the back. They had never lost a passenger, nor had they ever failed to deliver that passenger to their intended destination.
They were all dressed in black box coats with shoulder capes of pure gold, and the whip that rode beside the driver jumped down from the boot and opened the door to the coach.
“No, I take back everything I said,” Harding said, fear lacing his voice. “I never wanted to actually kill Eden, I only wanted to have her with me for all time—” Harding was scared witless.
Gone was the threatening overbearing man he had been only minutes before. Like most men that were cruel, he was a coward of the highest class!
The coachman, known by some agents as the Jarvey, spoke in a dangerously low voice, “Judgement has been cast for your crimes in life, and for your sins in death. You have sealed your own fate, Vincent Hubert Harding. You are a rapist, wife beater, slave owner and murderer. Not to mention many other despicable atrocities that we do not have time to list off, you have an appointment to keep.”
She shivered, as Harding was forced into the cab and the door shut with a finality that made her inwardly relieved. No longer would Eden be ruled by such a horrible man.
Sometimes blackguards like Harding avoided the law of the living land, but in death, they could never escape their judgement day.
The horses let out a loud neigh, and they were off again, with their prisoner in tow. She sank down to the floor, suddenly realizing what she had done, and what she’d given up by doing so.
Rupert came toward her, intent upon picking her up, and gathering her into his arms. Weakened, she allowed him to do just that. As he cradled her against his chest, she looked up at him and said the words she knew he never expected to hear, “You tricked me, Rupert. You pushed me into a vocation I never wanted. You took my memories because you thought I wasn’t strong enough to keep them, and now, now, I will never forgive you.”
“We are destined to be together, sweetheart. You will get over this and marry me before the Ruby drives us both insane with desire.”
“Don’t bet your life on that, Rupert. You managed to fight the Ruby’s pull for over three years. You shall survive a lifetime more. After seeing what Harding did to Eden, I shall never allow myself to be married. No man will have power over me the way that Harding had power over Eden.”
With a resigned sigh, she closed her eyes, and used her magic to escape from Rupert’s suffocating embrace.
She would return to Rayne House and then, then, she would go back to the Isle of Dragonwyck and seek a way to save her twin. She felt now more than ever that Sylvie wasn’t dead—only lost.
She would do all in her power to save her, with or without Rupert by her side!
Chapter Twelve
Sophie burst into Rayne House, raced past their astonished butler, and dashed up the steps to her bedchamber. Once there, she rang for her maid, and not willing to wait for her, she went to her dressing room and started dragging out a trunk. She had to get away from London as soon as possible.
Their family Isle was her only refuge. She could escape to there and do whatever she needed to do to free Sylvie from the limbo she was stuck in.
Pamela ran into the room so quickly her breathing came in ragged puffs.
“My lady, whatever is the matter? You have never rang for me with such urgency before. Everyone was quite shocked when they heard your bell ringing the way Miss Simone rings her bell!” Her words spilled out of her mouth in a flood as she continued to drag in her ragged breaths. “I feared you were on death’s doorstep!”
“Sit down, Pamela, before you pass out,” she instructed, the strain on her nerves was about to make her snap, and she couldn’t afford losing control when so much hinged on her keeping it all together.
“Are you planning a trip, my lady?” Pamela asked, sinking onto a chair. Her eyes went to the trunk sitting behind them.
“Indeed, I am. I need to get out of London, posthaste! I am leaving for Dragonwyck Isle.”
“I don’t think your mother or father will be pleased to hear that. We overheard them discussing your future while you were out.”
“That doesn’t surprise me, Pamela. They have their hearts set on me marrying that despicable cad, Lord Redding. He has lied to me! He took everything from me, Pamela, and I can’t take it anymore. No matter how much I might care for him, I can’t live with a man who is so highhanded.”
Pamela drew in a breath, and then let it out in a dreamy sigh. “I would love to marry a man like that. It would save me from my daily doldrums, but with my station in life that is about as farfetched as pigs flying. You will probably like to hear this news then. Lord Huntingdon came calling this afternoon, and though Lady Charlotte offered to go for a chaperoned ride with him in Hyde Park, he didn’t want her—only you. You might want to keep away from Lady Charlotte for a little while, she is still quite peeved at you.”
“I have no idea why she even wants Beau. But she can have him,” Sophie said sighing. “I don’t want any man, Pamela. They are too much damn trouble.”
“He told Her Grace that he would be back calling on you tomorrow.”
“Well, he can come and call on me, but I shan’t be here.” Sophie smiled, as a delightfully wicked idea came to her.
She could use Pamela as her decoy so she could slip out of this house without being detained.
“Pamela, how would you like to change into this?” she asked, pointing to the evening dress she would have changed into to go down for that night’s dinner party. The guests included John William Waterhouse, who was her mother’s favourite contemporary artist.
All she would have to do was convince Pamela to undergo a mirroring charm, where she would take on Sophie’s appearance for the duration of forty-eight hours. Fortunately, Pamela could be trusted to keep the secrets of their family—or else she would not even consider this change of plans.
“Pamela, Lord Redding’s family is like our family, if yo
u get my drift.”
Pamela’s eyes widened. “You mean he is magically charmed.”
“Yes,” she murmured, “He wants me to partner up with him not only through marriage, but he also wants me to become his professional partner. I cannot do it, Pamela. I don’t want that life.”
“What about Lord Huntingdon?”
“He is not charmed like our family.”
“I don’t know what to say, my lady. I can only imagine the truly fantastical things you must be able to do and see with your abilities, and the only reason your mother approved of me knowing about your talents is because my own Grandmother was a Gypsy. I saw her divine the future of many influential men and women. Her talents were genuine, just as yours are.”
“You don’t understand. I won’t be a fortune teller. They want me to become an agent within Her Royal Majesty’s Magical Intelligence Agency. It was officially formed during the Civil War to combat the dark magic that Oliver Cromwell and his supporters wielded, and has since gone on to protect Great Britain against numerous supernatural threats.
“Before the MIA, there was a Magical Council of Enchanted Beings that dealt with the matters the MIA now deals with. If I became an agent of the MIA, I would be known as a Soul Protector, Pamela.”
Pamela’s eyes still looked as if they would fall out of her head. It took her awhile to gather the necessary courage to speak.
“I am your devoted companion, Lady Sophie. I will do whatever you ask of me. I do not think I can possibly pass myself off as you, but I will give it my all to attempt to do so.” She stood up on wobbly legs. The nervous energy coursing through her made her shake with anticipation.
The Haunting of Lady Sophie Page 16
