Chapter One #2
The waning light made her hair seem more brown, which in turn darkened her eyes. She looked younger than when they had left London.
She was a changeling, his client. He’d boarded the train in London with an efficient young woman whose hair sparkled gold in the sunlight. He was returning home with a girl who appeared nervous at the thought of having him out of her sight.
But that was too fanciful for her, and too vain of him. He could wish all he wanted that she would miss him, but that didn’t mean she sat by the window waiting for him to stop at her door.
Most days she wasn’t even in the office when he arrived. Instead she was out with a cab because a driver had fallen ill or had an emergency in their family, and business was business, after all.
The coach bounced over another rut, this one deeper than the last. It sent them both slamming against their walls and their bags skittering across the floor.
Noah was torn between balancing his writing slope and rubbing his elbow to alleviate the pain. He chose the slope because the cap was off the ink bottle, and it would make a mighty mess. If they weren’t buying Middleton’s company, it wouldn’t do to leave a stain on the floor.
If they were buying it, new floorboards would be costly.
“Perhaps I should have let you climb up top. You would have done a better job of getting us to our destination.”
Sophie bent to pluck her hat from the floor. “I’m not certain of that. I can handle a pair well enough, as long as the carriage is small. This rig would take practice.”
She would master it, though. Noah clicked the inkwell shut and secured the lid. He had watched Sophie do more daunting things during their short acquaintance.
When Matthew Foster had introduced them, Noah had been surprised that the boy in front of him spoke with a clear, rich alto. His fingers had been far too shapely as he’d removed his cap.
Noah had been rendered speechless by the lovely girl with a pointed chin and an upturned nose. She had stared at him like a wary street cat, waiting to be laughed at or chased away.
Matthew had stepped into the breach, coaxing Sophie to sit and explaining the future that lay before them if they chose to do business together.
Over the past few years, their successes had been as cautious as that first meeting. And Sophie, for her part, had been just as wary at every new turn. But he’d seen her go from a cap and trousers to a straw hat and skirts. A coach-and-four would be a doddle.
Though he hoped she wouldn’t try.
He liked seeing her in skirts. He also didn’t want to miss seeing her while he was in this barren, foggy place.
“You could hire an overseer,” Noah offered.
“If they’ve worked for Middleton, I would reject them out of hand.” The coach bounced over a rock. “I don’t think he hires the best of the lot,” she said through gritted teeth.
Noah had to agree. “You would have the same problem looking elsewhere.” They were strangers here, and no matter how good the opportunity might be, the wrong ally would be disastrous.
Night had fallen, and now moonlight polished the thick fog to a bright silver.
“It looked so different this morning,” Sophie said, wrapping her arms about her as she stared out the window. “I don’t know if it was the sunlight or the speed of the train.”
“It was the sunlight,” Noah said. “Even at speed, this place would be eerie.” He couldn’t see landmarks.
The fog, which drifted on the shallow places and eddied into deeper ones, swallowed everything, including sound.
The cold damp seeped into the coach to the point that the lanterns offered light but little else.
“It’s easy to see why they believe it’s haunted. ”
Sophie looked over her shoulder, one eyebrow raised, the corner of her mouth hitched in a smile. “You believe in ghosts?”
Noah shook his head. “I could see a vengeful spirit springing from the mist quicker than a heartbroken coachman.”
“I wonder if the lady knows he’s lost his head,” Sophie teased. “Romance might be difficult, even in the—”
They careened around a turn, ending sharper and faster than they had gone into it. Everything in the coach shifted to one side, leaving Noah facing Sophie. Their feet tangled together. Her eyes were wide.
“Perhaps all Yorkshire coachmen lose their heads on the moor,” Noah joked. He reached for his writing slope, which was resting against the door, only to have it slide out of reach as they rocked the other way.
“Leave it.” Sophie’s command cracked like a whip. “Grab on to something solid.”
Noah mimicked her, looping his fingers through the cold brass bar that waited for such occasions. “You don’t think—”
The coach, still crooked in the road, hit another gaping rut. There was a god-awful crack, followed by a horrified scream. It might have been the coachman. It could have been the horses.
“Put out the candles,” Sophie ordered him as she reached for the nearest one.
Everything pitched forward, and she ended up in his lap. Noah released the bar and wrapped both arms around her as the coach dropped and twisted. The sconces swung madly, throwing hellish shadows across the walls.
The coach fell to one side, slid, and then began to roll. Over and over again, until Noah wasn’t certain which way was up. He pulled Sophie tighter, keeping her from the shattering windows and the pieces of their lives that were flying about, searching for an escape.
If they were going to die on the moors, at least they would die together.
Maybe they could do their own haunting.