What if he turned out to be like his grandmother and started talking to ghosts? He tried to separate this sudden burst of emotion from his own, to analyze this new awareness. It was similar to the “twinness” he shared with Con—a knowledge that someone was nearby, an understanding that the person was in trouble. But he had never felt such a thing before, except with Con. And he was certain that this was not coming from his twin. It was...different.
He stepped out into the hall and looked over the railing to the lobby of the floor below. As he watched, the door opened and a short man entered. The newcomer crossed the entryway and climbed the stairs. And as he moved, the sensation moved with him. This man—or perhaps he was only a boy, for he was rather small—was the presence Alex felt.
The visitor reached the top of the stairs and started down the corridor toward him. The small man was dressed oddly—well, not oddly, really, for his suit was unremarkable. But he wore a workingman’s cap with a gentleman’s suit, and nothing seemed to fit him. His feet galumphed along, seeming too big for his body. His jacket was outsize, hanging loosely on him, the sleeves obscuring his hands, and his trousers were rolled up at the hem but still pooled around his ankles. He wore the cap pulled down almost to his eyes, hiding his forehead and shadowing the bottom part of his face.
He hesitated when he saw Alex, then started forward again determinedly. Alex watched him walk, and as he drew nearer, the whole sense of the man’s wrongness coalesced into a thought.
“You’re a girl!” Alex blurted out. He knew at once that he had made a misstep, for his visitor let out a little squeak and took a step backward. “No. No, wait, please don’t go. May I help you?”
She pulled off the concealing cap, revealing a cloud of black curls that fell just below her ears. Without the cap, he could clearly see the delicate chin, the heart-shaped face, the big, deep blue eyes. And his entire insides dropped straight to the floor.
“I’m looking for the Moreland Investigative Agency.”
“That’s me. I mean, I’m Mr. Moreland. Alex, Alexander Moreland.” He realized that he was babbling and he forced himself to stop before he started explaining about his brother and the agency and Olivia, who had started it, and everything else that came into his head.
The woman was beautiful. More than that, his feeling of connection and his uneasiness were both centered on her. How could he be so tied to a stranger, to someone not even in his own family? Oh, Lord, she wasn’t a relative, surely?
He was certain of one thing—he could not let her slip away. So he pulled together the remnants of his aplomb and inclined his head, sweeping his arm out toward the open doorway in a courtly gesture as he said, “Please, won’t you come in?”
Her smile was shy, and a faint flush rose in her cheeks; both things, he realized, were charming. She walked before him into the office and sat down in the chair facing Con’s desk. Alex was careful to leave the door open, not wanting to alarm her, and took a seat behind Con’s desk as if he belonged there.
He wasn’t really lying to her, he told himself. He was Mr. Moreland, even if not the one she sought. “Now, please tell me how I may help you, Miss—?”
“I—I came here because...well, I asked the driver at the station where I should go. He said the Moreland Agency was the best in the city at finding someone,” she said, twisting her cap in her hands and ignoring his implied question about her name.
“We will certainly do our utmost to help you.” He opened the top drawer of the desk and was relieved to spot pencils and even a pad of paper. He set them on the desk and prepared to take notes, hoping that he looked like he knew what he was doing. “Now, who is it that you wish to find?”
She gazed back at him gravely and said, “Me.”
“I BEG YOUR PARDON?” Surely he could not have heard her correctly.
“It’s me I need you to find—not the location because obviously I’m here, but who I am.” She sighed. “I don’t know who I am.”
Alex blinked. It occurred to him that perhaps this was an elaborate joke. This lovely girl was an actress, perhaps, and Con had... No, not Con. If Con had played a prank on him, he wouldn’t have left. He’d still be here, laughing his head off. Alex glanced out the door. He had no feeling of Con’s nearness. But who else would arrange a mad jest like this?
“I see,” he said carefully and cleared his throat.
The girl jumped up. “I know. I know I sound as if I’ve escaped from Bedlam, but I promise you, I haven’t. I mean, well, I don’t feel insane...though I suppose I cannot really know, can I?”
She paused, looking so lost that Alex instinctively went around the desk to her, taking her arm and steering her back to the chair. He propped himself on the edge of the desk. “No, no, I’m sure you’re not insane. It’s just... I, um... Perhaps you could explain the situation further.”
She drew a breath and folded her hands in her lap, looking every inch a proper English gentlewoman—except, of course, that she was wearing an ill-fitting man’s suit. “I don’t know who I am. I cannot tell you my name because I have no idea what it is. I think...” Her fingers went up to her throat, touching something beneath her shirt. “I think it may be Sabrina because that is what is engraved on the locket I’m wearing.”
“Sabrina it is, then.” He liked the sound of it, the intimacy of calling her by her given name, as if he had known her for years. “If you will excuse the, um, the informality.”
“Of course.” Her cheeks colored again in that delightful way. “It’s only reasonable, since I have no idea what my last name is.” She added with a sigh, “Or where I’m from. Or why I’m dressed in this mad fashion.”
“You know nothing about yourself?”
“No, nothing at all. It’s the most awful sensation.” Sabrina reached up a hand to push her luxuriant hair out of the way, and for the first time he saw a purple bruise on the side of her face. Two of them, in fact, one on her forehead and one on the cheekbone below, both at the edge of her hairline. He noted, too, that the hand she lifted was scraped.
“You’ve been hurt!” Anger rose in him so fiercely that he jumped to his feet again. “Who did this to you?”
He bent down to examine her bruises, gently lifting the curls aside. The soft hairs clung to his skin, sending a frisson of pleasure straight up his nerves. His gesture was far too intimate to be appropriate, he realized, and he pulled his hand back, forcing himself to return to his seat against the desk.
“I don’t know who did it,” she told him. “If anyone. Perhaps I fell. There’s more.”
“More?”
“Yes. There are bruises on my arm.” She shrugged out of her coat and pushed up one sleeve almost to her elbow to expose her arm to him. There on the pale skin were small faint smudges of blue.
“Fingertips.” Something clenched, cold and hard, in his chest. “Someone squeezed your arm tightly.”
“I rather thought so. And look.” She undid
