by Fran Baker
“You must heed her warning and keep these suspicions to yourself,” he told her. “If there is any hint that your birth is questionable, the entire ton will drop you instantly—that I know.”
“I have heard that such is the case,” she said sadly. “I shall be obliged to keep my own counsel. But how shall I be able to discover the truth about myself? I have memories, you see, which contradict Aunt Ruth’s tale. For one thing, I remember my mother.”
“Indeed?”
She moved away from him, pausing in front of a window to stare at the darkened pane. “I remember a beautiful, laughing woman with brown eyes and black hair. I can still see her face bending over me. That would not be possible if I had lost my mother while I was still an infant—as you did—would it?”
“Perhaps the woman was a visitor,” he suggested.
“No, she was my mother, I am sure of that. And I believe she lived at Vaile Priory for a time, because I have an earring which I found entangled in the fabric of a sofa. I can remember the day I discovered it. I was still quite young, but I knew at once that it had belonged to my mother because I had seen her wear it. It is made of sapphires and diamonds—beautiful hanging stones. I’ve kept it hidden from Aunt Ruth all these years.”
“How strange of you not to tell her you found it. Certainly you don’t feel that Aunt Ruth, of all people, is hostile to you in any way?”
“No, but I am confident she is hiding something from me.”
“So you are both keeping secrets,” he said in a low voice.
“There is more,” she told him. “I remember an old woman who used to live at the Priory. I believe she was my nurse. Did you ever hear mention of anyone named Agnes Baxter?”
He thought for a moment then shook his head. “No, I’m confident I have never heard the name.”
Sophie sighed. “Somehow I have it in the back of my mind that she went away to London ‘to visit the queen’ when I was tiny. And I’m convinced she will be able to give me facts about my infancy, if only we can find her.”
“I’ll do a bit of investigating,” he said. “Perhaps I can discover something.”
“Will you?” she cried, slipping an arm around his waist and leaning her head against his shoulder. “Will you help me, dearest Jonathan? If you do, I’ve no doubt we’ll be able to clear away this dreadful mystery. You always accomplish everything you set out to do.”
Jonathan, who had stiffened with surprise at her touch, unwound her arms and gently pushed her away from him. Under his tan, his cheeks had darkened.
“Sophie,” he chided, “you must never put your arms around me. If you should, by some chance, forget yourself in front of others, you would immediately be labeled brazen.”
“But I shall not,” she assured him. Unaware of his agitation, she caught one of his hands and raised it to her cheek. “You’ll soon solve this mystery for me, I am confident. At first I feared that some terrible secret was at the core—that my birth was perhaps tainted—and I was afraid to learn the facts. But then I realized my fears were unfounded. Lord Reginald would never have taken me into his care if my birth had not been impeccable.
She sighed forlornly. “But who, indeed, can my parents have been? I have wondered if, perhaps, I am the child of some illustrious individual who wishes my existence to remain a secret. Perhaps my father was one of Lord Reginald’s eminent friends.” She bit her lip. “What I cannot understand is why Aunt Ruth keeps my history a secret. I’m confident she knows the truth, but chooses to conceal it.”
“I’m of that opinion, also,” Jonathan agreed. “But even without her cooperation, you and I will get to the root of it before long, never fear.”
* * * *
When it was time for Sophie to find her bedroom and refresh herself before dinner, she made a quick running tour of the lower levels of the house, opening doors to peek into various public rooms. To her delight she found charm and beauty everywhere—lofty salons with lush carpets and sparkling chandeliers. She was especially thrilled by the intricately carved plaster ceilings; and to her delight the scrolls on the walls of the staircases and corridors were repeated in the patterns of the thick garnet runners, lending stylishness and de bon ton touch that was nowhere to be found in the ancient corridors of Vaile Priory.
Sophie’s bedroom was decorated in blue and white. Her clothes had been unpacked. She found her maid, Anna Finch, bending over her dressing table, setting out combs and pins and bottles of lightly scented lotion.
“Ah, Anna,” she said, tossing her bonnet onto the bed. “We are here at last.”
“Aye, miss,” Anna agreed. “’Tis elegant hoos, this, an’ a pleasure to be ’ere. Everythin’ modern an’ easy for servants.”
A large bathtub, from which inviting tendrils of steam arose, had been placed on a mat in front of a fireplace, which contained a comfortably crackling blaze. As Sophie stood in front of Anna and the girl began to remove her plain redingote and traveling dress, another maid entered with a large pail of water on her shoulder. Bobbing politely to her new mistress, she hurried across the room and emptied the contents into the tub.
“That be all, Meggie,” Anna told her.
“Yes, ma’am,” Meggie replied.
The moment the girl had departed and closed the door, Anna giggled. “Knows her place, do Meggie. I like it ’ere, Miss Sophie. Won’t find nobody ‘ma’aming’ me at Vaile. I be only young Anna at ’ome. But ’ere I got respect. Even Leeds an’ Cook an’ the rest, they all bobs to me, they do.”
“That’s as it should be,” Sophie said.
Anna helped her mistress into the tub, and then as Sophie settled into the warm water and let out a sigh of relief, Anna began to fold her undergarments and place them in a pile.
“Did you see Master Jonathan?” Sophie asked her.
“Aye. ’E looks grand! An’ ’ow near we coom t’ losin’ ’him. Johnnie Aysgarth chased th’ coachman around th’ corner, but there were a hackney cab awaitin’ fer ’im, and drove ’im off.”
Sophie gasped. “Did Johnnie Aysgarth tell Master Jonathan?”
“Aye.”
“What did he say?”
“Nought. ’E scowled at th’ winder an’ roobed ’is nose.”
Sophie clasped her hands under the water. “This is terrible! What villainy is afoot, and who is behind it? We must inform Lady Biskup immediately.”
“But, miss,” Anna objected, “Master Jonathan don’t wish to alarm ’er ladyship.”
“He’s right,” Sophie agreed. “We must shield her from all these horrors. But we must band together to keep Master Jonathan from harm.”
“Aye,” the girl said.
Sophie mused for a moment and then asked, “What shall we do to begin, I wonder?”
“Johnnie Aysgarth an’ th’others be puttin’ a watch on ’im,” Anna assured her. “’E’ll come t’ no harm.”
Sophie sighed and slid deeper into the steaming water, allowing her thoughts to run back over her meeting with Jonathan. Her memories of him at Vaile Priory had faded somewhat through the years, and she could not picture precisely what he had looked like the last time she saw him. But she was reasonably certain that he had changed a great deal. In addition to appearing older and sadder, his eyes had taken on a different expression. They were somehow deeper and darker and more compelling.
“Are you ready to step out, Miss Sophie?” Anna asked as she came to her carrying a towel. “Ye’re ’alf asleep. From weariness, perhaps?”
Sophie nodded. “Weariness, I’ve no doubt.” She rose cautiously and allowed Anna to slip the towel around her before she stepped out of the tub.
It occurred to her, as Anna rubbed her dry, that she had not thought about Albert de Lisle since her reunion with Jonathan. One of her main reasons for urging a trip to London at this time of year had been the hope that she would meet Albert again and be able to bring their romance to fruition.
Over the years, despite skepticism on the part of Lady Ruth and Lord Regin
ald, she had been confident that Albert’s silence was the result of conditions beyond his control. Precisely what had held him captive, unable to travel, unable to write or send word by a messenger, she could not conjecture. But there had never been a doubt in her mind that something had—not the instability of character or wandering affections at which Aunt Ruth had so often hinted, but something powerful and evil, like . . . like a magic spell.
But now—
“Miss Sophie!” Anna chastised. “I be askin’ ye what gown ye wish, an’ you be off in one o’ yer daydreams. We’ve only ten minutes to dinner.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head to clear her fancies away. “The blue silk will be suitable. And the white cashmere shawl. I must look my best since Master Jonathan is home again.”
* * * *
Dinner was simple, as the result of Lady Biskup’s request for something light—consisting merely of a baron of beef, salmon glace, six removes, meringues and assorted ices.
Shortly after completing the repast, the entire party retired to bed. Lady Biskup had pointed out to them that they should put their conversation aside, as they would be obliged to perform a great many tasks the following day and were all exhausted from their long, arduous journeys.
Jonathan would have liked to talk longer with Sophie. But he fell into bed, and before his head touched the pillow, he had sunk into a deep happy sleep, blissfully content to be home again and in the bosom of his loving family. Shortly before dawn, however, he was sucked down into the vortex of a terrifying nightmare.
He was back in India, seated in front of a large basket. Out of the top an enormous cobra had raised itself on its tail and spread its hood. It poised motionless for several seconds then began to sway slowly from side to side.
“Gently,” the man servant Kumar whispered close to Jonathan’s left ear. “Move the horn back and forth. Keep his eyes fixed on the shining metal. Keep him moving. Don’t give him time to think, or he’ll strike.”
Jonathan shifted uneasily on the powdered dust of the square. “This is not happening, Kumar,” he protested. “I’m not here. I’m in London at Lord Reginald’s Berkeley Square house. Grandfather Cobra can’t hurt me anymore.”
“He can hurt you,” the snake charmer told him. “His spirit can creep into your body wherever you are. India will always be a part of you.”
Jonathan moved the tip of the pipe slowly back and forth, concentrating his thoughts on the column of silky black scales. He stared hard into the flat little discs of yellow that were the cobra’s eyes. “Down!” he thought, willing the snake to obey him. “Down into the basket!”
With a sudden shiver the cobra deflated and slid out of sight inside the coils of rushes.
Kumar clapped the lid shut. “There, you see?” he said in his dark, roughened voice. “You have defeated the evil in him. One day you will be as powerful as any of us.”
Before Jonathan could answer, a horrendous blast of wind whipped into the square. It swept up all the people who were standing about and swirled them down the street, like pieces of paper, until they disappeared around the corner of a low mud building. Even the snake charmer and his cobra basket were sucked into the flow.
Jonathan leaped to his feet and tried to catch them, but they were gone . . .
* * * *
Struggling upright, Jonathan fought against the bedclothes and sat up in bed. Sunlight was pouring in through the east windows, gilding the curving edges of the white coverlet and filling the room with such an aura of warmth and good cheer that he wondered how he could have fallen victim to such a foul dream.
“India will always be a part of me, indeed!” he snorted. “Nothing could be further from the truth. I have not given the wretched place a thought in the past ten years.”
Shimmering diamonds of light refracted off the faceted edges of a mirror and onto the opposite wall.
No place on earth could be safer and warmer and more cheerful than this room, he thought.
Still, he could not shake a feeling of menace that hung over him. And what was at the bottom of this feeling? The events of the day before, perhaps, when he had come so close to being crushed by the team of runaway grays. Danger had come so suddenly out of the shadows.
He let his thoughts run back over what had happened. The dwarfish little coachman—was there something familiar about him? No, Jonathan could not remember anyone of that build and large beakish nose.
Perhaps it had been an accident after all, as Lady Biskup believed. But there had been such a venomous look on the little man’s face as the team bore down on him. The coachman had been after him, there was no doubt about that. And it had only been after his hands had left the reins that the team had swerved away from the fence. Jonathan shuddered as he realized how close he had come to a crushing death. If it had not been for the fact that he was an athletic sort of person and in prime condition, and if he had not been in the perfect spot to step onto the dido and vault over the fence, he would certainly have been hideously mangled under the team’s grinding hooves.
All in all, he realized, he had not enjoyed the most auspicious homecoming. To find Sophie grown into such a luscious beauty but in love with Albert de Lisle . . . and to have her state that she had not recognized him because he appeared to be so old. How had Lady Biskup phrased it? “You’re looking so fagged.”
Muttering to himself, he slid his feet out of bed and scrambled to the mirror that was mounted on the wall over his dressing table. He peered into it anxiously and found a somber, slightly rumpled face looking back at him. It did not appear to be really old, he decided—not wrinkled and leathery or sagging in folds, although there were several crow’s feet radiating from the corner of each eye—but it was certainly no longer a child’s face.
It was the sort of face one would expect to find on the average soldier of twenty-six years who had marched through sun and storm for five interminable years, had been wounded several times, and carried an enormous weight of responsibility on his shoulders.
No match, unfortunately, for a beauty of De Lisle’s magnitude. Only yesterday morning, while he was on his way to his tailor’s establishment, he had encountered Albert on Regent Street and had been struck by his boyish appearance. De Lisle’s cheeks were still smooth and untouched by time, his hair curled around his face with a freshly childlike innocence, and his mood was so placid—Jonathan had been tempted to dub it vacuous—that he had appeared to be no more than seventeen or eighteen years old, though Jonathan knew for a fact that he was twenty going on twenty-one.
Jonathan had been rather startled to find himself so quickly reunited with his old nemesis, and had drawn up to his full height, wondering how to address the man. He had been spared, however, as Albert raised his eyebrows and turned pointedly away.
At the time Jonathan had been relieved to find that it was not necessary for him to feign cordiality, but he was puzzled by Albert’s action and could not keep from wondering why he had cut him. Was he announcing that they were henceforward to be enemies? Or was it merely a reluctance to be associated with someone who had always been dismissed as impecunious and undistinguished?
“I believe,” he told himself as he gazed into his dressing table mirror, “that he has decided to make a push for Sophie’s hand and he considers me an obstacle in his path. Which is quite true. I shall be the most formidable foe he could find in that quarter, for there is certainly nothing more abhorrent to me than the thought of Sophie paired off with that popinjay!”
As the consequence of these darkling thoughts, he gave the bell pull an unnecessarily violent jerk, which caused his batman to come bounding into the room, his brows knitted in alarm.
“Ah, you are here, Tom,” he observed, as though his servant had been a long time arriving. “I have a special task for you this morning. You must somehow contrive to make me appear young and handsome. Miss Sophie and Lady Biskup have both put down any pretensions I might have had to being anything but a man of advanced years an
d unprepossessing appearance. And if something is not done to remedy this situation rather quickly, I’ll be shoved into the whist games with all the dowagers and married off to one of my mother’s old schoolmates.”
Tom tucked the tip of his tongue against the inside of his right cheek. “Well, sir, may I suggest that you wear your dress uniform today? With the shako brought low over your eyes and the strap holding up your chin, none of the results of your dreadful dissipation will be apparent. You’ll present a gallant sight, to be sure.”
“An excellent notion,” he said, grinning. “I’m going to embark on a brisk lope through the park before breakfast, and I shall see how many hearts I can set aflutter.”
When Tom had completed his ministrations, Jonathan made his way silently down the central staircase, resplendent in his cavalry regalia, his medals gleaming and his cape tossed back over one shoulder. But he was brought up short when Sophie came careening around the corner. She was dressed in a drab old-fashioned riding dress and an attractive hat that was turned up on one side and decorated with a light green ostrich feather. He considered her for a moment and decided that she was a sight for sore eyes.
She surveyed him in return. “How marvelous you look!” she exclaimed. “Are you truly eight feet tall?”
“Perhaps only seven,” he said. “To the top of my shako.”
“Are you on your way to ride in the park? Please say you are, as I shall then ride with you and everyone will turn and stare at us and say, ‘Who is that girl who is riding with that marvelous man? She must be a fascinating creature to entice such an escort.’”
“Rubbish,” he said. “I’m old and unprepossessing. I have it on the very best authority—from Miss Sophie Althorpe and Lady Ruth Biskup.”
“Well . . .” She put a finger to her cheek. “Perhaps it is true that you are plain when your face is in repose, but you have a wonderful smile which transforms you into the handsomest man in England.”
He tilted his head back and laughed.
“How strange,” Sophie said, watching him. “You are so much like Lord Reginald. He laughed in precisely the same way when he was gratified by something I had said to him.”
