Ghost of the Thames (20 page)

“Would this suffice?”

The room was perfect.

“I remember sitting on the floor and
playing the instrument,” Sophy told her.

“You may play it wherever you wish.”
Angela went around the room and collected a few pillows, placing
them near the fireplace.

Maneuvering in the dress so she could
sit on the floor was not as easy as Sophy had imagined it would be.
But with the help of her hostess, she managed it, sitting and
balancing the instrument between her left foot and right knee. She
knew her hands needed to move freely without having to carry any of
the instrument’s weight.

She plucked a couple of strings.
Immediately, emotions welled up in her chest. She looked up and saw
Angela standing near the door.

“Do you need some time
alone?”

Sophy nodded. “I am sorry for not
being a good guest.”

“You are doing exactly what I’d hoped
you would do. Sophy, you are here because I want to help you
remember.”

Angela turned and left the room,
leaving the door slightly ajar. Sophy stared after her for a moment
and then withdrew into the solitude of a lost past.

Taking a deep breath, she focused on
the instrument on her lap. It took her a few moments before she
could recall the images she’d seen in the other room. Playing the
strings, she let herself float off exploring the harmonies and the
texture of sound. She drifted again back in time.

The air was thick and steamy. The rain
had been falling incessantly for days. Fields and roads were
flooded. People were sleeping in the barns and stables. She could
hear a loud commotion in another part of the house. Voices crying
out in sadness.

Leaving the instrument on the floor,
she went to the door. She was only a child. She wanted to find more
about what was happening. A hand took hold of her wrist. The thinly
built woman, wearing a sari, held her back. She spoke soothing
words, a mixture of tongues. Her voice was calming, so much like
the music Sophy loved. They waited, hand in hand. She knew now that
the tumult was coming to them.

A man in white stepped into the room
through the sheer curtains, his face sad and his eyes on the floor.
He was bringing the news. Sophy felt the pressure of the woman’s
grip tighten on her wrist.

Her mother is
dead.

Sophy stared. She knew what dead
meant. Dead meant going away.

Her mother was gone, like the other
people she knew who had been afflicted with the sickness and the
fever. She had been watching the bodies being taken away from the
house and the barns and the stables. She had watched them from the
wide verandah. That was as far as she had been allowed to go for
many days.

And now her mother was gone, too.
Sophy hadn’t been allowed to see her since she had been confined to
her bed. She would miss her now that she was gone.

She looked up at the woman holding her
wrist. Tears were rolling down her dark cheeks. Sophy started to
cry, too. She cried because she didn’t like to see her sad. That
was when she realized she loved Priya as much as her own
mother.

Sophy found her vision blurring.
Someone was playing. She couldn’t hold back the tears. There was no
beginning or middle or end to the song. The music droned on and
then she suddenly stopped. She was the one playing.

The door was open. A handful of guests
were gathered there, watching her. Just inside the door, she saw a
man dressed in formal naval uniform of blue and gold. Captain
Seymour.

CHAPTER 21

She might as well have been plucking
the strings of his heart.

The burning fire cast a golden glow
around her. The light from dozens of candles tried in vain to
compete with her radiance. Edward didn’t think he’d seen anything
more beautiful than Sophy holding that instrument and sitting on
the floor. She seemed to be lost in a dream, swaying softly to the
sounds she herself was creating on the sitar. Her tears, glistening
on her face, were his undoing.

When her eyes focused on him, their
gazes locked. No one else existed. He had only one thought in his
mind as he moved toward her. She was his. Family, wealth, her
reputation, her lost memory--all the other doubts that had been
plaguing him since he’d guessed her true identity suddenly didn’t
matter. This was the woman that he had been waiting for all his
life.

The other guests appeared to be as
enthralled by her performance as Edward. When she paused, applause
broke out from the gathered throng. Edward was angry to see Wren
reach her side before he did. He offered his hand to assist her
rising. Before she could take it, though, Edward moved around his
friend, took the sitar off of Sophy’s lap, and handed it to
him.

“Be useful, old fellow, and put this
back on the shelf,” he ordered.

“So, you can insult our host and our
lovely guest of honor by coming around so late,” Latham said,
smirking, “but we are still yours to command?”

Edward ignored him and reached down
and offered his hand to Sophy. He was relieved when she took it and
came up to her feet.

“I never thought I could be jealous of
a musical instrument” he whispered to her. “But tonight I
was.”

“Well,” Wren said, breaking in,
“You’re more than welcome to have it back.”

“On the shelf, Latham,” Edward said
without looking at the nobleman.

A beautiful blush had colored Sophy’s
cheeks, and she politely withdrew her hand. Edward saw many of the
guests were approaching them.

“I am so embarrassed. I didn’t realize
I had an audience.”

“Miss Sophia—” one guest
began.

“Miss Howe,” another interrupted. “How
did you ever learn to play so beautifully?”

“—
such an exotic
instrument?”

“And so beauti—”

“Is it common among young women in
Boston to learn to play such an instrument?”

She was surrounded by questions, and
Edward stepped back slightly, allowing her the attention she was so
deservedly receiving.

“What is it? Have you made up your
mind?” Wren came back into the room and stood next to
him.

Edward frowned at his longtime friend.
Wren was studying Sophy too closely.

“You will stay away from her,
Latham.”

“I shan’t if you are going to remain
so distant.”

“Really.” Latham was beginning to lose
his appeal as a friend.

“Naturally. Sophy is beautiful, smart,
talented, charming, no doubt very rich, and still unknown to the
scores of eligible bachelors in England . . . never mind all the
old goats. In fact, I’ve always believed a little competition is a
good thing,” he said thoughtfully. “Never mind that I showed you
the courtesy of asking your intentions. I believe I will compete
for her affection.”

“You know that I am not above knocking
you down right here in this room,” Edward threatened.

Wren turned his attention to him. “A
bit cocky, this evening, are we not?”

“Let me see. My years in the Royal
Navy fighting for queen and country versus your years of idleness,
drinking, and debauchery . . .with the occasional gentlemen’s club
boxing match."

“Well, I must say that you have
described the life in politics admirably, but I seem to recall
holding my own against you back in school.”

“If you think the sad memory of some
glory days that never really existed, except in your own
mind—”

“I’m thinking that this prize may be
worth—”

“And I’m thinking I may just have to
swab the deck with y—”

Angela Burdett-Coutts slid between two
men.

“I just love this nautical talk,” she
said in a low voice, smiling and putting a hand on each one’s arm.
“It is so lovely to see how well you two continue to get along
after so many years of friendship. Shall we return to the drawing
room for cards before some of these priceless artifacts are
damaged?”

Edward looked around to see Sophy
leaving the library on the arm of Mrs. Dickens.

“Just a moment, gentlemen,” Angela
said, holding them. “Lord Latham, since you will be staying for the
weekend, I was hoping to entice you to go riding with me and a few
of my guests tomorrow morning.” Angela waited until the nobleman
nodded before turning to Edward. “And you, Captain. I’ve been
informed that Mrs. Dickens is anxious to get back to her children.
Since you will not be staying the night, I was hoping you might do
me a favor and drop Miss Howe at her residence.”

“It will be my pleasure,” Edward
replied with a bow before Wren had a chance to object. “In fact, I
was planning on it.”

“Good,” she said with a smile. “Now
come along amicably . . . both of you.”

The next hour dragged on, leaving
Edward with feeling of a ship becalmed, rolling listlessly in a sea
of people he cared nothing about. He knew he couldn’t leave until
Mr. and Mrs. Dickens were ready to go; the rest of the guests
assumed Sophy was staying with the novelist and his wife. He had no
interest in cards and realized, to his frustration, that he also
couldn’t even get close to Sophy. It seemed as if everyone at the
party had become interested only in her.

Listening from afar as he
stood by a fireplace, Edward realized he would also need to start
accepting invitations to the pre-Season affairs put on by these
year-round Londoners.
Clearly
, he would have to attend,
for there was no way he was about to let her travel alone in this
company of wolves. He glared ferociously at Latham, who had somehow
managed to secure a seat next to her. It only cheered him
negligibly to see that Sophy would not show him her cards and
treated him with courtesy, but nothing more.

When they all rose from the card
tables, he was relieved to see Mrs. Dickens suggest to her husband
that it was time for them to be going. Still, Edward had to keep up
the pretense of indifference through a lengthy farewell.

“A successful night, I should say,”
Dickens said as they stood in the marble foyer, waiting for their
carriages to be brought around. Sophy was saying goodnight to the
novelist’s wife. “I will be quite interested to hear what Sophy
tells you. Will you join me for a walk tomorrow,
Captain?”

“I will, indeed.”

Edward watched his carriage roll up to
the door, and he and Sophy went out into the chill of the night. He
had been torn as to whether he should come to the party or not. At
the last minute, he’d convinced himself that the priority needed to
be to help Sophy recover her past, and so he should make the long
journey out to Angela’s Holly Lodge. His battle with his conscience
continued to rage, however.

“Priya,” she said as soon as he
climbed inside and the door closed behind them. “I remember a woman
named Priya. I believe she was very important. She was like a
mother to me.”

Edward recalled an older Bengali
person referred to in the newspaper. The woman was Sophy’s servant
and had traveled from Calcutta with her. At one of the coroner’s
inquests, it had been suggested that she might be the only one
qualified to make a positive identification, if a body should be
found. Edward wondered if she could be the same person.

“Did you remember this
tonight?”

“Her face and her name came to me as I
was playing the sitar. The image was from a long time ago. Perhaps
I should be worrying about what might have happened to
her.”

“Was there anything else that came
back to you?”

“My mother. She died of a fever during
an epidemic that killed many others.”

She was sitting across from him.
Edward reached out and took her hand. “I am sorry.”

Sophy nodded and looked out the
carriage window. “It had to be years ago. I don’t remember her face
or anything more about her. But in this daydream I was more upset
because Priya was sad. That is how I know she was very important to
me.”

Edward wondered if there was any way
he could arrange a meeting between Sophy and the Bengali servant.
There was a risk, of course. The woman might simply take the news
of Sophy’s existence and whereabouts back to the uncle.

“When I arrived at the party, you were
playing the instrument, but you did not seem to be aware of
anything else around you. It looked as if you were in a
trance.”

“I suppose that’s true. The music did
something to me.” She looked into his face. “Playing that sitar, I
was taken back to a different time. I was in another room. It was a
place that I knew very well, and the people in it were real. I am
certain they were from my past. I know I spent part of my life in
another country. It wasn’t that someone taught me to speak the
language here in Britain. I was in India.”

“And what you remembered tonight,
those images. Were they different from the ones that have come to
you before? The ones that draw you out into the streets of London,
or to the Isle of Dogs where those children waited to be
rescued?”