Too Sinful to Deny (13 page)

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Authors: Erica Ridley

Tags: #Man-Woman Relationships, #Historical Fiction, #Smuggling, #Smugglers, #General, #Romance, #Historical, #Secrecy, #Fiction, #Love Stories

BOOK: Too Sinful to Deny
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Chapter 10
Susan searched the shore for the missing ghost until her legs gave out beneath her. She crumpled alongside the vastness of the ocean, her dry tongue tasting of sand and salt and hopelessness.
The problem with Miss Devonshire’s threat was . . . Susan believed every word. She wouldn’t have put a premeditated “mishap” past her
or
Miss Grey, even before today’s interaction. From the sound of things, nobody in Bournemouth would bat an eye. Even the magistrate was blind to everything but Miss Devonshire’s porcelain-perfect beauty.
The bigger problem, of course, was that she could do nothing to change their minds. Short of proving she saw ghosts. How could that happen when even
she
couldn’t find Red, now that she was looking for him? Had she imagined him after all? Was he nothing but the product of a lonely, overactive mind?
If so, perhaps Miss Devonshire was right to take her revenge. Susan had seen the root of the terror in Miss Grey’s eyes: Susan had voiced the very fear Miss Grey had refused to acknowledge to herself. How long
had
the woman been waiting for her brother’s return? Susan sighed. She hadn’t planted a suspicion. She’d salted an open wound.
And now there was no ghost to prove her words.
She’d tried the tavern, the apothecary, the endless trail curling its way up the cliff. No Red. No ghosts at all. With nowhere else to go, she’d ended up wandering along the beach.
When her heart rate returned to normal, she forced herself into motion. She
had
to find him. Talk to him. Demand answers. Or at least some help. Surely there was a way for Susan to “accidentally” stumble across Red’s remains. For his sister to bury him. To have peace.
Because without a body to back up her words . . . Susan shivered in the damp ocean air. That was the only way. Proof or not, she could never admit she saw spirits. She needed her trip back to London to end in Stanton House, not Bedlam.
She clutched her pelisse about her a little tighter. She turned from the fury of the waves, intending to regroup back in her bedchamber, when she caught sight of a telltale flicker farther down the shore.
“Red?” she called out, her voice scratchy in the briny air.
No answer. The beach was empty.
She picked her way along the rocks in the direction of whatever shadow had caught her eye. A thick wall of rock rose from the sea, as high as the cliff on which Moonseed Manor stood.
When she neared, she realized the giant mass of rock was not as solid as it appeared. A man-size crevice gaped in its side. She crept closer. The narrow opening fell inward as far as the eye could see, swallowing the sun’s meager rays in the thick soup of darkness.
“If you’re in there—” She jumped back, shaken, to hear the distorted echo of her own voice bounce among the shadows. “You can just come out if you wish to talk to me,” she whispered.
Something glimmered in the distance.
The darkness shifted.
A shape. A man. Red? No. Too tall, too slender. Not a ghost, then. Someone real. She should quit the premises posthaste before she found herself compromised after all. Except the incoming shadow belonged to—
“Mr. Bothwick?” she blurted out, simultaneously confused and relieved. “What on earth are you doing here? Don’t you know caves are dangerous? I must admit, you gave me quite a start. You—” She broke off, gulping down a lump of rock-hard fear. “Y-you aren’t moving your feet.”
She fought a swoon. Mr. Bothwick was
dead?
How? When? Why?
“You can see me?” he said in wonder. Something in his voice was . . . off.
“Not well,” she admitted, unnerved. She reminded herself that he couldn’t hurt her, that if he touched her he’d simply disappear, harmless. “You’re doing a fair bit of sputtering, like the flame of a candle. And the shadows aren’t helping much.”
“How did you know my name?”
She paused. Had he completely forgotten her, in death? She’d spent all morning in a pitiable frenzy because of his kisses, and the moment his heart stopped beating, the horrid man had put her out of his mind forever. Oh—God—
dead.
Her head swam. Suddenly too dizzy to keep herself upright, she slumped against the opening lip of the crevice.
“I’m Susan,” she heard herself say through a thick mist. “Miss Stanton, rather, since we never did first-name ourselves. Don’t you remember me at all?”
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 box,’ 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?”

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