by Erica Ridley
His voice was droll. And closer. “Trust me, I’d remember a face like yours.”
Then she saw his. And he wasn’t Mr. Bothwick.
Susan backed up, slipped on a slick rock, landed on her bruised arse.
The almost-Mr.-Bothwick didn’t laugh. Didn’t float closer. He cocked his shimmering head to one side and watched, silent.
The truth hit her.
“You’re Mr. Bothwick’s brother,” she breathed. “The misplaced one.”
“Timothy,” he confirmed, then frowned. “Who, exactly, misplaced me?”
“Mr. Bothwick did,” she answered promptly, then faltered when the Dead Mr. Bothwick’s frown grew deeper. “Er, that is to say... I think he may have done.”
What on earth had happened to the razor-sharp conversational skills she’d once been so proud of possessing? She’d sounded like a halfwit all day today. Exceptional circumstances notwithstanding.
“Might he now? Well, that changes things.” Dead Mr. Bothwick’s face cleared and he gave a short, wry laugh. “Or does it?”
She wasn’t quite sure how to answer that question, so she said nothing at all.
“May I give you a hand up?” the ghost asked politely.
“Oh! No, it’s all right.” Susan scrambled to her feet. She dusted the sand from her skirts as best as she could. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. I can only see you.”
“And hear me,” he pointed out.
“Er, right. I can only see you and hear you.” There she went, sounding like a ninnyhammer again. When it seemed he might press the issue, she rushed to add, “What were you doing in that cave? Wouldn’t it make more sense to haunt... people?”
The look he tossed her was irritatingly amused. “Is that why I’m still here? To haunt people?”
“Well, how would I know?” she snapped defensively. “Maybe you have a mission.”
“A mission,” he repeated, his expression thoughtful. “That I do.”
In a burst of sudden lucidity, the morning’s events clicked into place. Red had had a mission. He’d promised to disappear the moment she’d helped him break the news to his sister. She’d done so—however reluctantly and inelegantly—and now he was missing. But what if he wasn’t missing? What if he was simply done?
“I’ll help,” she announced, willing to do almost anything for this new ghost to be gone from her increasingly complicated life. She gave him a sharp nod and tried not to be discomfited by his similarity in appearance to the (still living, she hoped) Other Mr. Bothwick. She’d quickly fulfill the Dead Mr. Bothwick’s mission. Then he’d disappear forever.
He disagreed. “You can’t help.”
“How do you know I can’t help? You haven’t told me what the problem is.”
A self-deprecating smile quirked his lips. “I have many.”
Susan sighed. “Let’s start with the first.”
After a long pause, he admitted, “I’m looking for something.”
“There you go! I’ll help you find it.” She beamed at him. “Er... what is it?”
“Look,” he said, “I appreciate the offer. I do. But you can’t help. I’m invisible. You’re not. So don’t worry. I’ll take care of this. In fact...” He cast a startled look behind him as if half-expecting a herd of stampeding cattle to burst forth from the cavern. Susan shot a glance into the crevice herself, just to make sure. “In fact,” he repeated, “this is not the best location for an unchaperoned young lady. What are you doing here all alone, might I ask? Don’t you know caves are dangerous?”
Conceding the point, Susan followed his iridescent form away from the cavern, back toward Bournemouth.
“Caves don’t frighten me,” she said aloud with far more bravado than she felt. No way would she have trespassed within its walls.
“That one should.” Dead Mr. Bothwick’s voice floated back, casting a chill deep into her bones. “Promise me you won’t come here again.”
“Er, all right.” Easy peasy. There wasn’t enough gold to tempt her. “But don’t try to change the subject. I am determined to help you.”
“Look, Miss...”
“Stanton.”
“Right.” He rubbed at his semitransparent face. “Look, Miss Stanton. You can’t help. I can walk through walls and I haven’t seen hide nor hair of it.”
“Well, what if it’s not within walls?”
His ghostly sigh was unsettlingly like his brother’s. “I’m not just checking houses, lady. Did you not see me inside a cave?”
“Those are walls, too, even if they’re not made of wood. What if whatever you’re looking for isn’t aboveground at all? What if someone put it in a box and buried it?”
Dead Mr. Bothwick appeared unimpressed with her reasoning. “It is a box.”
“Well, there you go,” she babbled anyway. “Anyone worth their salt knows you hide boxes by burying them, not by sticking them in some locked room where anybody could walk through the wall and find it.”
She bit back a startled gasp when he turned around—without turning around. One minute she’d been following his ghostly shoulders and the next minute he’d rematerialized facing in her direction, with an expression that indicated she was treading on very thin ice.
She had learned to stay clear of thin ice.
“If you don’t fancy my help, that’s fine,” she assured him hurriedly. “I was just thinking that two heads might be better than one, that’s all. Especially if one of the heads were attached to a corporeal body capable of wielding a shovel and things of that nature.”
He turned-without-turning again and continued toward town once more. But she heard him.
“You have a point.”
She had a point! Ha! She’d help solve his mystery, which was a plus for both of them, and he’d go away forever, which was also a plus for both of them. Now she just needed to know what she was looking for.
“What kind of box is it?” She jogged to catch up. “Pine? Fir?”
“Jewelry.”
Jewelry? Another fragment of memory replayed in her head, and she couldn’t stop herself from murmuring, “I wonder if it’s the same thing.”
Dead Mr. Bothwick stopped cold.
Susan jerked to the side at the last minute, barely avoiding dissipating the new ghost right when the substance of his mission was starting to take form.
“You wonder if what’s the same thing?” His voice was chilly, his tone suspicious.
“I can’t help but notice that we’re not the only ones digging for missing items,” she explained hesitantly. “Valuable, missing, important... things. It’s probably just coincidence.”
“I don’t believe in coincidence.” Dead Mr. Bothwick’s ghostly arms crossed. “Tell me about this other missing item. Is it a box? What does it look like?”
“I’m not certain. I haven’t seen it,” she pointed out, “because it’s missing. All the giant said was—”
“The who?”
“That is to say...” What was his real name? The girls had told her yesterday. “Mr. Oliver Hamilton.”
The ghost came unhinged.
“What? Ollie knows about the box? Od’s blood and damn it. For Christ’s—why didn’t you say so to start with?” His ghostly form seemed to double in size.
“I didn’t know it was the same box,” she stammered, suddenly nervous despite the knowledge he couldn’t touch her without disappearing himself. “We still don’t know for sure. Besides, you didn’t want my help with your precious mission!”
“Oh, it’s the same box, all right.” Dead Mr. Bothwick zoomed forward far too fast for her to keep up safely. “It’s definitely the same box. Damn and triple damn. How did he know? Who could’ve told him? And—” He stopped again and re-misted toward her. “How do you know?”
“He... happened to mention it one day?”
“He happened to mention it? You’re in such confidence with him that Ollie just up and said, ‘You know, I’m going to bury this priceless antique jewelry b
ox,’ and you said, ‘Yes, do, capital idea.’” The ghost’s short laugh was chilling. “No, Miss Stanton. You can’t help. Go away.” He shot forward again.
“No,” she called after him. “You’ve got it wrong. Assuming it’s the same box, they’ve been trying to find it, too. It must be lost.”
Dead Mr. Bothwick stopped without turning. “What do you mean?”
“He and the scare—and the butler. They’ve been searching. I saw the manservant digging in town.”
“In town?” He swiveled to face her. “Where in town?”
“In the sand behind the buildings, for one.” Susan wracked her brain and had another flash of insight. Of course. There were no missing children—only a missing box. “The grave garden! I mean, the gravesite. In the rock garden. At Moonseed Manor. Someone has definitely been digging there, too. Which means the box could be anywhere.”
Dead Mr. Bothwick rose a few inches off the ground in excitement. “You said you know where to get hold of a shovel?”
“Er, actually what I said was, they’d searched themselves and couldn’t find whatever it is they’re looking for.”
“No, no, no.” Dead Mr. Bothwick’s features blurred with each shake of his head. “They don’t want to find anything. They want to keep everything hidden. I’m running out of time. Without that box...” He snapped into focus. “We’ll have to dig it up. Tonight.”
“We’ll what?”
“You’ll have to, that is.” He nodded slowly. “You were right. I can’t do this without you. Someone human will need to open it once we’ve dug it up.”
A ball of ice formed in the center of her stomach. “W-where am I digging?”
“The rock garden, of course. At Moonseed Manor.”
Dig amongst the graves? Was he barmy? She wasn’t stepping foot anywhere near that garden of forgotten bones, tonight or any night. One ghost at a time was bad enough.
“Er, I’m afraid that one’s going to be a ‘No, thank you.’” She tried for a smile and failed. “But I’m sure there’s something else—”
He was already shaking his head. “It’s the only way.”
“There are dead people there! What if I dig up a corpse? An unhappy one?”
Dead Mr. Bothwick did not seem to care. After all, he was dead, too. And not particularly happy. What was one more ghost to him? Susan tipped her face to the murky sky and considered screaming. Or tearing her hair out. Or both.
“Without your help,” he said softly, “I will never be able to fulfill my mission. I need you.”
Argh. That’s what she was afraid of. She’d have to find a shovel... and pray she didn’t get caught digging.
Chapter 20
Evan hauled the old rowboat ashore and hid it upside down in its usual place—right out in the open. Nobody else was fool enough to take a tiny speck of a watercraft like that out on waves as vicious as these. But he’d needed to think, needed to release pent-up energy in some way other than chasing down Miss Stanton and pinning her to a wall. Much as he’d have preferred the latter.
He trudged back toward town with his hands in his pockets. His arms were a pleasant sort of heavy from all the exercise, his back and shoulders just as tired as he was. Perhaps he’d stop by Sully’s before heading up the sheer cliff leading to home. Have some laughs, and a pint of whatever swill was on tap this week.
Wait. What was happening up ahead? Evan paused at the edge of town, far enough away he doubted he’d be noticed, yet close enough to have a reasonably good lay of the land. Gordon Forrester, by all appearances, was angling for a lay of his own.
The holier-than-thou magistrate had one foot in the sand and the other on the second step of the dress shop porch. He had his arms crossed over his bent knee as he leaned forward in conversation with Miss Dinah Devonshire. Whom the magistrate no doubt imagined as pure and self-righteous as himself. They made a pair, all right. Evan hoped Forrester did succeed in winning Miss Devonshire’s obsessive attentions.
Invite her to the damn assembly, Evan channeled in Forrester’s direction. For all that’s holy, get her out of my hair.
There was no chance in hell that Evan would be caught dead at that stupid assembly. Bath was just far enough away that they’d be forced to stay the whole weekend. Besides, he held no interest in restorative waters that couldn’t be distilled into something with a little more punch.
Miss Devonshire’s high-pitched jabber assaulted Evan’s eardrums, even at this distance. Forrester, apparently deaf to chipmunk frequency, merely inclined his head toward her and smiled.
Perhaps Evan would be better off not walking any farther into view. He could wait to have lukewarm ale another day, if it meant he might finally be wriggling free from Miss Devonshire’s talons. The last thing he wished to do was inadvertently catch her eye and ruin everything Forrester was working toward. Although why anyone would want to court a woman—any woman—remained beyond Evan’s comprehension.
He dropped to the sand and leaned back on his elbows to wait. And watch. Hopefully Forrester would try to steal a kiss, because then Evan would run forward screaming, “Saw you! Saw you!” and compromise Bournemouth’s two most upstanding citizens right then and there.
A figure appeared on the horizon.
What started out as a small dot in the distance was looking more and more like the delectable Miss Stanton. Gesticulating anxiously and deep in discussion with herself, as was her wont. Evan wished he found her quirks alarming instead of intriguing. Perhaps if she’d just froth at the mouth a bit he could finally get her out of his head.
He wasn’t the only one to notice her steady, hip-swaying approach. Forrester nearly broke his neck turning to watch her. As it was, the magistrate lost his balance and half-fell, half-leapt from the porch.
Based on the scowl contorting her typically wrinkle-free face, Dinah Devonshire was not amused by this turn of events. Neither was Evan.
Forrester didn’t notice, because he was already walking toward Miss Stanton, leaving Miss Devonshire bereft in the open doorway, the last dregs of their conversation still clinging to her tongue. She ran after him, but Forrester apparently hadn’t been interested in Miss Devonshire after all. He’d just been biding his time until the real sweetmeat of Bournemouth walked right into his hands.
Evan hauled himself to his feet. He was going to have to make an appearance after all. Just to keep Miss Stanton safe. Not because he was jealous. He could scarce consider that toady Forrester a romantic threat, for Christ’s sake. Not that Evan was interested in romance.
As he cut across the sand, the disturbing question he should have been asking himself prodded at the back of his mind. What was Mr. Drinking-Is-a-Disgusting-Habit still doing here? Evan hadn’t expected the magistrate’s high insteps to touch town until it was time for the precious assembly.
Granted, Miss Stanton was certainly alluring enough to turn any red-blooded man’s bimonthly visits into biweekly ones. But it wasn’t as if the magistrate had known she’d be moving to town. Was it as simple as an upwardly mobile man seeking to make an advantageous match? Or was there an ulterior motive for the unexpected visit?
A motive like... investigating the Bothwick brothers?
Evan paused, then shook his head, laughed at himself, and continued forward. Forrester couldn’t detect a raindrop in a thunderstorm. The man was too much of a stick to ever actually nab anyone for anything. The day that idiot put two and two together and got an even number would be the day jellyfish fell from the sky.
As further proof, the blank look of confusion that Forrester blinked from his eyes at Evan’s approach was all Evan needed to see—his name couldn’t have been further from Forrester’s flirtatious little brain. Now to get the slug’s sights off of Miss Stanton.
Who, upon catching wind of the dashing magistrate in his dry costume and sand-free hair, set off toward him at a dead run.
It was enough to make a man stop in his tracks. And load his pistols.
From the clenched fists
on her hips and the upward tilt of her chin, if Miss Dinah Devonshire had artillery of her own, Miss Stanton would already be dead.
“Mr. Forrester! Mr. Forrester!” the latter shouted as she ran. “I am so pleased to see you!”
Evan scowled. She had never greeted him such.
The dress shop door swung open. Miss Harriet Grey stalked down the steps and to the side of the building. Presumably to watch the proceedings from the open air, instead of the grimy window from whence she usually spied upon the outside world.
Her attention seemed focused on the back of Miss Devonshire’s head. Miss Devonshire’s attention seemed focused on the back of the magistrate’s head. Forrester was facing the sea—or rather, the undulating bounce of Miss Stanton’s incoming bosom.
Evan’s trigger finger itched.
Miss Devonshire made her move. She sashayed forward, swinging her hips in an almost comical arc until she reached Forrester’s elbow. The magistrate didn’t appear to notice. His gaze remained on Miss Stanton.
Forrester had never looked so focused. Miss Devonshire had never looked so homicidal.
Evan knew the feeling. From the current angle, he’d have to shoot straight through Miss Devonshire in order to hit any of Forrester’s vital organs. While such a trick shot might be eminently satisfying for multiple reasons, Miss Stanton was now within curtsying distance. In a gown far too lovely to splatter with blood.
He stalked closer.
By the looks of the situation, Forrester had completely forgotten Evan watching them from the shadows. The man wasn’t qualified to be magistrate of a weevil in a peapod. Miss Devonshire also had yet to notice Evan’s approach, largely because she was clutching Forrester’s arm and cooing something into his ear so spellbinding that the poor sap’s entire face had turned to stone. Miss Grey kept up her role as flying buttress to the dress shop, one stick-straight arm glued to the wall by five splayed, spindly fingers.
Miss Stanton, on the other hand, had no reason not to notice him. She was the only one facing his direction. He wasn’t more than ten yards away. Nine. Eight. But she’d apparently gone blind to everything but the angelic magistrate, for she reached forward, clutched the hand opposite Miss Devonshire, and reprised her earlier monologue.
