Imposter Bride (6 page)

Ramsay turned his thoughts from the events at
Maxwell’s to the prospect of a few quiet minutes by the fire with
his feet up and a nip of brandy in a glass. He’d been reading an
intriguing novel,
Joseph Andrews
, and thought he might
finish it before the night was out if his headache didn’t grow any
worse.

His housekeeper, Betty Betrus, would be long since
in bed, as per the agreement that she need never wait up for him.
She likely thought he made such an arrangement to facilitate the
easy transport of young women to his bed, when in fact he required
more solitary hours than most people and liked being alone and
uninterrupted, especially when absorbed in a good book.

While he thought of his precious solitude, the coach
hit another bump, and the lap robe nearly fell off the opposite
seat. He pushed it back into place, and at the touch of the soft
fabric, he was reminded of the events of the late afternoon and the
last time he’d touched the robe, when he’d given it to Miss Vernet
and told her to cover herself. Damn. He was not returning to a
quiet house after all, but to an awaiting Miss Vernet and the
prospect of interrogating a murderess.

The coach rolled to a stop, and Ramsay climbed out,
feeling the familiar stiffness in his left thigh where he’d
suffered a saber wound seven years ago at Montreal. He ignored the
twinge.

“‘
Night, Captain,” Charles tipped
his hat.

Ramsay looked up at him. “Just a moment, Charles.
What about the young woman?”

“The young woman, sir?” Charles twisted nervously,
and the long whip he dangled above the backs of the horses jiggled
at the end.

“Yes, the one I asked you to take care of.”

“I never saw her, Captain.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Ramsay replied, grateful
for the loyalty of his servants, however misdirected this time.

“But it’s what
I
meant, sir. I never saw
her.”

“What are you saying?”

“She must have slipped away.” He shrugged. “When I
got here, she was gone. The coach was empty.”

“She ran off?”

“That’s right, sir.”

“Hmm.” Ramsay glanced up and down the street, as if
expecting to see tracks in the snow. A slight feeling of
disappointment passed through him, but he ignored it as easily as
the catch in his thigh.

“Very well.” He waved his driver on. “Good night,
Charles.”

Dreams darkened Sophie’s light sleep by the fire,
dreams of her terrifying last few days and of the murder scene
she’d stumbled upon. Once again in her dream she looked up at the
light at the top of the stairs and called out, “It’s Sophie Vernet,
maidservant.” She climbed the stairs, knowing in the dream what she
would find but climbing upward just the same. In the dream, she
didn’t meet a man with a knife, but instead found the door ajar.
She stepped into the room, her heart pounding, afraid to look but
irrevocably drawn to the sight. There, in complete and horrifying
detail was the young man, lying on his stomach, naked in front of a
fire, with a length of silk tied around his throat and crimson
blood staining his thighs, his beautiful young face contorted by
the cruel final moments of his life.

“Captain Ramsay!”

A loud pounding woke Ramsay from his customary light
sleep. He sat up, his chamber chilly in the early morning, the way
he liked it. The fire in his grate had long since died.

“Yes?” He had no trouble making the transition from
sleep to complete awareness and no difficulty in recognizing the
worried voice of his housekeeper. In the distance, church bells
rang, alerting the townspeople to an outbreak of fire.

A century had gone by since the Great Fire had
destroyed most of London, but townspeople still told tales about
the blaze that had raged for four days in 1666. He’d fought a few
fires in Boston as well, and had nearly lost his life once. His
heart skipped a beat at the prospect of disaster.

“Captain, I’m sorry to wake you, but Mr. Puckett
insisted.”

“What’s on fire?” Ramsay was already on his feet,
reaching for his breeches. He could see the puff of his question
hanging in the cold air near his head.

“The Queen & Cross! Mr. Puckett said you’d want
to know.”

“Good God! Miss Hinds is there!”

“Mr. Puckett happened to be driving home from the
club and has come to fetch you.”

“Good Lord.” Ramsay pulled on a shirt and snatched
the nearest frock coat out of his wardrobe, and ran down the stairs
in a matter of seconds, with Betty at his heels.

“Captain,” Puckett greeted tersely, still dressed in
the same clothes he’d worn at Maxwell’s. “I’ve taken the liberty of
bringing the coach around.”

“Excellent.” Ramsay grabbed the coat and tricorne
that Betty held out for him and dashed out to the street.

“Do be careful, sir!” she called after him.

A scream startled Sophie awake. She sat bolt
upright, her heart pounding from her dream, with no idea where she
was or what the horrible smell was that enveloped her. The choking
odor brought her to her senses immediately, and she struggled to
her feet, coughing and gagging. Something was not right. The
darkness in the room was very different than it had been when she’d
settled down to sleep. This darkness was opaque and acrid and stung
her eyes. Smoke!

The floor was hot, even through the folded blanket.
Beyond the curtain of smoke, she could see nothing but the faint
circle of the moon outside the window across the room. She
scrambled to her feet.

Behind her was complete chaos—people shouting and
screaming, the thunder of a huge blaze, and pounding feet running
by in the hall. Off in the distance, the fire wagon clanged as it
raced up the street and church bells rang, calling all able-bodied
men to help put out the blaze. She could just make out the bed, and
saw that it had not been slept in. Katherine and Agnes must not
have returned yet.

The floor beneath her shoes was so hot, she had to
scamper about to keep from burning the soles of her feet. It was
then she saw the flames licking under the door of the chamber, like
the tongue of a serpent, searching for prey.

Coughing, Sophie held her skirt to her nose, trying
to block out the fumes while tears ran down her cheeks. She dashed
for the beckoning moon, stumbling over trunks and small pieces of
furniture, falling to her hands and knees and burning her palms on
the hot floor. Something gave way behind her. She dared not look
back as a hot wind blew her dress up around her waist and scorched
the back of her neck. She scrambled to her feet and flung herself
toward the window.

Gasping and half-blind, Sophie felt in the darkness
for anything at hand with which to break the glass. She knocked
over a hot metal candlestick, and caught it before it rolled out of
reach. Then she rose up and bashed out the window panes, closing
her eyes tightly against the rain of glass that splintered beneath
her blows. She thought fresh air would have flowed in to revive
her, but instead hot air blew outward, sucking away what little air
remained in the room.

Sputtering, Sophie climbed onto the windowsill,
slicing her hand on a shard of glass still hanging from the
battered mullions. She ignored the stab of pain. Below her, the
drop was at least fifteen feet, but she knew she had to jump. The
heat behind her raged, wafting through her hair and blowing her
tattered gown around her legs. A crowd had assembled in the street
below, but all she could make out were the white ovals of their
faces against the darkness of their winter clothes. While she
teetered on the ledge, a man yelled for her to jump.

“Jump! Jump, dammit!”

She jumped, her skirts whipping up around her
shoulders, her heart leaping with terror for the impact to come.
Before she could form a second thought, she plowed into something
firm—the arms and chest of a man—not the hard cobblestones she had
expected to hit. The impact knocked the wind out of her, and she
fell out of the man’s arms into the slush upon the road, which felt
wonderful on her hot skin.

“Are you all right?” she heard a familiar male voice
inquire. “Miss Hinds, are you all right?”

A dark shape loomed over her. She tried to focus her
stinging, watering eyes on the features of the man that had broken
her fall, but he was backlit by the roaring furnace behind him, and
all she could see was the outline of his hat and a set of wide
shoulders.

She tried to reply that she was unhurt and that she
wasn’t Miss Hinds, but the words wouldn’t form on her lips. In
fact, all sensation flowed from her limbs, as if her life force was
draining away into the snow. Was she wounded and bleeding to death?
Before she could find an answer to her question, all went black and
quiet.

“Is she dead?” Puckett gasped as Ramsay carried the
limp form of Miss Hinds toward the carriage. Ramsay strode to the
vehicle, surprised at the feather-like weight of the woman in his
arms. When she’d slammed into him a few moments ago, she’d felt
like a cannon ball.

“No. Open the door, Puckett.”

“Of course.” His secretary scrambled to comply and
watched in concern as Ramsay gently deposited Miss Hinds on the
seat of the coach.

Ramsay reached for the lap robe and drew it over the
young woman’s slight figure. Miss Hinds was barely recognizable as
an heiress from Santo Domingo whom he’d met the previous afternoon,
albeit through her dressing screen. Her hair was singed, her face
was covered with soot and her dress hung in dirty tatters. Blood
ran across her palm and down her fingers. “I think she has merely
fainted.”

“Shall I tell Charles to take her to hospital?”

“And have her contract a fever there?” Ramsay shook
his head. “I’m taking her to the townhouse.”

“The townhouse?”

“She’ll receive better care there. Far better
care.”

“But her reputation, sir—”

“We’ll inform the innkeeper tomorrow of her
whereabouts, as soon as the worst is over. And with Betty at the
house, all will be proper.” He sat on the same seat as the heiress,
his thigh pressed along her shin while he pulled a clean
handkerchief from the cuff of his frock coat. “Tell Charles to
drive on.”

Puckett carried out his orders while Ramsay lifted
Miss Hinds’ wounded hand. Carefully, he wrapped the soft cotton
cloth around her palm and tied the ends, hoping to stop the trickle
of blood from the gash on the soft mound of her thumb. She moaned,
and he inspected her for further signs of trauma while Puckett
climbed into the carriage.

“No broken bones?” his secretary asked.

“I don’t think so. But we’ll have Dr. Pimm examine
her as soon as we get back.”

“Lucky girl,” Puckett remarked, adjusting the cravat
at his scrawny neck. “Looks like she might be the only survivor
from the upper levels.” He nodded at the sight behind his master.
“Look at it, Captain. The inn is going up like kindling.”

As the coach rolled away, Ramsay looked over his
shoulder at the Queen & Cross, one of the few wooden structures
to have survived the Great Fire decades before. Now its old timbers
were finally succumbing to the inevitable onslaught, roaring toward
oblivion, throwing a thunder of flames and sparks into the inky
sky. There was nothing the townspeople could do to save it, and no
amount of water great enough to douse that blaze.

“She’ll owe you a favor, now, sir,” Puckett added
after a moment. “Not an entirely unwelcome position.”

“My thoughts exactly, Mr. Puckett.”

Sometime just before dawn, Sophie awakened to find
herself in a clean bed in a small plain chamber she’d never seen
before. The remains of a fire glowed in the grate of a little
fireplace across the room, and near it sat an old woman in a wing
back chair. She was attired in a black dress and knitted shawl,
gloves, and a white cap with the ribbon ties trailing over her
ample breasts.

Sophie angled herself up on one elbow, and her body
protested with a cry of sore muscles and bruised flesh. She looked
down at herself and found someone had dressed her in a white cotton
night rail even though her skin was still cloudy with soot. One
hand bore a bandage and the flesh on both her palms was tender with
burns. It was then she remembered the terror of the past evening
and her leap from the Queen & Cross. Who had broken her fall?
Where was she? In prison?

The room where she lay was severe enough to be a
prison cell, but had she really been in prison, she wouldn’t have
been afforded a fire and a change of clothes without first bribing
a gaoler. Since she hadn’t a farthing in her possession, she knew
she couldn’t be partaking of purchased comfort in a gaol cell. So
where was she?

Perplexed, Sophie slowly drew her legs up and
slipped them out from under the bedclothes. Wherever she was, she
knew it would be too dangerous to remain a moment longer, however
wonderful the prospect of sleeping a few more hours. Though she
might not be in a prison, she would surely become a prisoner once
the household woke up and discovered who she was. Wincing, Sophie
stood upon her tender feet. She took a careful step, but the floor
beneath her squeaked loudly, betraying her.

She glanced at the old woman in the chair, and to
her dismay saw the woman’s eyes flutter open.

Sophie stopped in her tracks.

“Miss Hinds!” the woman exclaimed, struggling out of
the chair. “You’re awake!”

Sophie stared at her, confused. Miss Hinds? The old
woman must mistake her for her foul-natured mistress. In fact, the
man who had broken her fall last night had called her by the same
name as well. Her initial fright gave way to temporary relief that
no one seemed to recognize her for whom she really was. Sophie had
no recourse but to take advantage of their ignorance until she
found a way to leave.