chapter 21
The séance was in the small family parlor this time, the walls done in silvery paper and the curtains a deep blue velvet. Oil lamps burned brightly. Lord Jasper’s family was there, along with the Ashfords, Mr. Travis, Peter, Tabitha, her uncle, and Caroline. Tabitha would not look at me. Mr. Travis, on the other hand, wouldn’t stop.
“My dear, if you don’t mind,” Lord Jasper said after one of his sisters sniffed at me disdainfully. “Out of scientific interest, Miss Donovan has suggested you be searched before we begin.”
My eyes widened. “Pardon?”
“It is the accepted method in many Spiritualist circles. And you can have nothing to object to, can you, Miss Willoughby?” Caroline did not smile. Her demeanor was that certain one ingrained in every unhappy governess. Her hair was pulled back so severely it pulled at the corners of her eyes. I wasn’t sure what to say or think. Elizabeth scowled on my behalf.
“I have every faith in Miss Willoughby and her abilities,” Lord Jasper said smoothly.
I stepped forward, holding out my arms and feeling faintly ridiculous, but I wanted to prove Lord Jasper right. I had nothing to hide about what went on tonight and nothing on my person. Besides, Mother had taught me that mediums never carry evidence that might be discovered. She usually left all the danger of exposure to Colin and me, with the bellows under my skirt. But in the end, she’d been the one caught out in her underwear.
“Why don’t you check me over yourself,” I asked her pointedly. “That way you can have no doubts.”
Caroline looked briefly taken aback. I supposed it was hardly unexpected that such a demand might be made of me. That it was her specifically, however, gave me reason to pause. There was obviously something behind her “scientific interest,” and I could not be convinced otherwise. She was very thorough and not particularly gentle. Peter leered at us over his glass of port the entire time. Tabitha didn’t say a word.
“Well?” Lord Jasper asked. “May we continue?”
Caroline nodded stiffly.
“As I thought,” he said.
“We still have to bind her,” Caroline insisted stubbornly.
“Bind me?” I squeaked. They were going to tie me up? What kind of séance was this? Peter snickered suggestively at me. “You can’t be serious.”
“Don’t be alarmed,” Lord Jasper said, which was absurd. I stared at Elizabeth wildly. She stared back just as wildly.
“This kind of testing is all the rage according to the Spiritualist papers,” Frederic explained. “I’ve seen it done myself.”
Sir Wentworth rolled his eyes. “Leave the poor chit alone,” he said. “This is all a bit of fun anyway. You can hardly take it seriously.”
All eyes turned toward me. I was on boggy ground now. If I agreed it was only entertainment, I was damning any future respect and confirming that I was fraud like my mother. On the other hand, if I wanted to be taken seriously, I was going to have to submit to being restrained. I sighed. I might not want particularly to be a medium, but I didn’t want to be accused of lying either.
“Fine,” I said reluctantly. “In the name of scientific inquiry.”
I was led to a cabinet with a single opening in the front. The sides and back were thick wooden panels carved with leaves and roses and impish gargoyles. There was a short stool for me to sit on. Before I could do so, Caroline tied my wrists with red silk thread, even going so far as to seal the knot with a drop of wax from one of the candles. I felt nervous and vulnerable. And, frankly, belligerent.
“Are you quite finished?” I asked her after she’d pulled the excess thread out and looped it to the outside of the cabinet.
“This will ensure that Miss Willoughby stays in the cabinet,” she explained to everyone. “Should she move or attempt some trickery, the thread will alert us.”
She twitched the curtains in place and I was left in the darkness most mediums required. The amount of light hadn’t seemed to make much difference to my communications with Rowena thus far, but at least this way I was tucked away from any suspicious or mocking glances and Lord Jasper’s supremely calm countenance. He had far more confidence in what I was about to attempt than I did. I felt like a fool, trussed up in a cupboard with my bruised face.
There was nowhere to go now and nothing to do but give it a try. I was doing this for Rowena, so she had bloody well better show herself to everyone. Or at the very least I might be able to convince Mr. Rochester to prance around on the table. Or pee on Caroline’s perfectly pristine slippers. If only.
I could hear the rummaging of everyone taking to their seats. There was a murmured prayer and the usual assortment of songs. I could barely hear Tabitha, she was whispering so faintly. Mr. Travis was looking around the room almost desperately. I wasn’t sure what he was hoping to see.
“Whenever you’re ready,” Lord Jasper called out.
I had no way of knowing if this would even work. Rowena was capricious, popping up to frighten me at any time of day or night; it seemed monstrously unfair that she might stay away now that I actually had need of her. I focused on the spot between my eyebrows. Lord Jasper’s book had referred to it as my “third eye.” It was simple enough to imagine an eye there, blue as violets, opening slowly, pupil dilating like spilled ink.
“Rowena,” I whispered, too softly for the others to hear. “Rowena, make yourself known to them.” I blinked several times until the shadows of the sitters at the table wavered slightly through the crack in the curtains. All the light in the parlor seemed to coalesce over the table. No one seemed to notice, though they did seem to feel the blast of cold air. Frost formed on the window panes, delicate as lace.
“Eh?” Sir Wentworth mumbled. “Deuced cold in here, Jasper.”
Tabitha stared intently into the shadows. Mr. Travis looked hopeful, almost painfully so.
“A trick?” Caroline asked, her voice breaking.
White lilies tumbled down from the dark ceiling, petals scattering like snow. I couldn’t help but smirk at the collective gasp. Ha, I thought uncharitably. If I’d been ten years old again I’d have stuck my tongue out at Caroline. At sixteen, I ought to be above such behavior.
I wasn’t.
“Rowena,” I whispered. It wasn’t easy to concentrate as deeply as I needed to on that spot on my brow. I was getting the vague pressure of a headache. The room tilted and I was pulled backward through time, wind tangling my hair, stars blurring.
I landed in Rowena’s body. She was holding a letter again, the same one I’d dug through ghostly ashes to retrieve. It wasn’t burned now, merely worn at the edges from being handled. I was being transported into memories out of order and somehow I’d have to link them together, like beads on a necklace. For now I could only watch, could only feel emotions that weren’t my own, trapped in Rowena’s recollections.
She read the letter for what felt like the hundredth time. I knew without conscious deduction that the handwriting belonged to her father and had been sent all the way from India. There was another written on solicitor’s letterhead from a London office.
I, Lord Wentworth, Earl of Whitestone and Dainsborough, grant my permission to my eldest daughter, Rowena Wentworth, to marry as she chooses. Her betrothal to Peter Burlington, of the Berkeley estate, has been rescinded and his family has been compensated accordingly, as per my solicitor’s instructions, enclosed herein.
Attached was a personal note to Rowena:
Cease and desist, daughter. I have had dozens of your letters, as have all my acquaintances. You’ve had your way. Be happy now, little one.
Rowena was only fifteen years old. She needed a parent’s or guardian’s permission to marry. Since her father had already secured her a future husband, she was clearly determined to elope with someone else entirely. It was the only reason neither Tabitha nor her uncle knew about the letter. She kept it hidden inside her pillowcase, with a pile of other letters in a different handwriting. She touched them reverently before hearing a noise in the hall and tucking the coverlet back into place with a sharp tug. It was only Caroline come to tell her Peter was waiting downstairs with a scowl. She’d promised him a tray of tea and lemon biscuits to soothe his temper while he waited for Rowena to finish getting dressed.
The room turned liquid, the colors bleeding and smearing like watercolors. My stomach dropped suddenly, as if I were falling. And then I was back in the same bedchamber, still in Rowena’s body, only it was nighttime now. A single candle burned on a chair by the bed. There was a packed suitcase underneath and somehow I knew I’d be leaving soon. Wearing Rowena’s favorite nightdress, I reached for the letters, to read them one more time before going to sleep.
The letters were gone!
And I was back in my body so abruptly, I jerked as if I’d been touched by lightning. I hit my head on the wood paneling of the cabinet and muffled a curse. The sitters turned their heads toward me, filled with curiosity. Caroline looked smug, as if I’d been caught trying to pull a trick or escape my bindings.
Cross, I snapped an order at Rowena in a quiet undertone.
“Rowena, is your murderer here?”
The lilies shivered as the table rocked back and forth. The flames from the lamps shot taller, dancing madly.
“Show me.”
I wasn’t entirely sure what to make of the next spirit gift.
A dead trout landed with a marked splat on the table. There was the stink of fish. Sir Wentworth wrinkled his nose as it flopped in front of him before shooting across the wooden surface, skidding in a trail of murky pond water before it landed in Caroline’s lap.
“Get it off me!” she shrieked, leaping back and brushing at her damp skirt.
Apparently this particular spirit gift was corporeal. Elizabeth turned slightly and even in my shadowy cabinet I could tell she was gaping at me. The candlelight continued to coalesce until there was a flash of a young girl’s face with blond hair, quick as a falling star.
“Rowena!” Tabitha called out, stricken. Poppies rained over her head.
Nothing touched Peter, not fish nor flower. He sat, looking bored. Mr. Travis was similarly untouched.
My third eye felt like a garden gate, shutting with a snap under a brisk wind. The force of it reverberated through my entire body. There was silence as the frost melted and the table stilled. Fish and lilies and poppies were thick in the air.
Then the quiet broke like a cup dropped on flagstones. It shattered into excited murmurs, shouts, and the scraping of chairs shoved backward.
“Tea is served in the parlor,” Lord Jasper announced. “If you’ll join me? We’ll give Miss Willoughby a chance to rest. Mr. Burlington, as you’re nearest, if you would unbind her and then join us?”
The guests chattered loudly among themselves as they retired to the more formal dining room for cakes. There was a long, quiet moment.
The last person I wanted to be alone with right now was Peter.
I tested the silk thread at my wrists but it was surprisingly strong and I only managed to irritate my skin. I rose slowly and carefully to my feet. It would be just like me to take a tumble now when I didn’t have the use of my hands to break my fall. I was going to have to use my teeth to pull the curtains aside. I was leaning over, baring my teeth, when the thick curtain was yanked aside.
“What on earth are you doing?” Peter drawled. “You look positively feral.”
Flushing, I closed my teeth together with an audible snap. I lowered my bound hands. His smile was lazy and yet sharp at the edges. I couldn’t help thinking of dueling swords.
“You are quite at my mercy, aren’t you?” he asked, clearly pleased with himself. Something about the way he was looking at me made my palms sweat. If there had been room, I’d have stepped back.
“Untie me.” I wondered belatedly if appearing less irritated with him would win me quicker results, but I just wanted, quite desperately, to be away from him.
He produced a knife from his pocket. The fact that he’d been holding it the entire time I was trapped between him and the cabinet hardly made me feel more nervous. The blade cut easily through the thread, but his hands closed over mine roughly and he tugged me off balance. I was untied and yet still trapped.
“I don’t know what you think you know,” he growled, “or what game you are playing, Miss Willoughby, but you would be wise to let it go. You’re some earl’s bastard and a whore’s daughter. No one will believe you.”
With a shove that sent me stumbling into the table, he stormed out.
By the time I reached the parlor, Caroline and the Wentworths had gone home, pleading exhaustion. Peter disappeared into the empty ballroom with a bottle of brandy. Lord Jasper nodded at me proudly.
Elizabeth rushed over to the doorway to walk with me to the table. “Oh, Violet, can you believe it?”
“What I can’t believe,” I grumbled, rubbing my wrists, “is that you left me there, alone, with Peter.”
She rolled her eyes. “He always finds the pretty girls.”
“Somehow, I don’t think he had seduction on his mind.”
When I told her what had happened, she bristled. “So he must be involved somehow. It’s becoming more and more of a mess, isn’t it? I hardly know what to think anymore. Tabitha looked so dreadful, as if she was going to swoon, that they’ve gone home.” She raised her eyebrows knowingly. “And Caroline smelled like week-old trout.”
We grinned at each other.
“Do we really think she could have murdered Rowena?” I asked, sobering. “Doesn’t Peter seem a more likely suspect now?” Not that we had evidence of any kind, of course.
Elizabeth shrugged. “She’s cross enough.”
“But why?” I wondered. “And what about Mr. Travis? And is Tabitha in danger? Would Caroline hurt her?”
“Not with her uncle in residence,” Elizabeth said, sounding sure. “He’s very solicitous of her needs.”
I tried not to show my frustration in case the rest of the guests looked at us and wondered what we were whispering about. “We need more information.” I paused. “I have an idea. Risky though.”
“My favorite kind.”
“Peter is in the ballroom, you say?”
“And looks to stay there for quite some time.”
We waited until everyone had retired for the night, then we waited a little longer, until we were certain they were all asleep. We crept back downstairs to spy on Peter. He was slumped on the floor, snoring. The bottle at his hand was nearly empty. We crept back upstairs.
“You’re certain this is his room?” I whispered.
Elizabeth nodded. “Go on.”
“Make sure you keep a sharp eye out,” I muttered, easing the door open so it wouldn’t creak. “I don’t want to be clapped in irons for snooping.”
She waved that away. “Uncle Jasper would never do that.”
“Peter might.”
“Oh. Right.”
Peter’s guest quarters were palatial, with burgundy paper and a mahogany washstand and armoire. It was dark except for the circle of light shed by my single candle. I went straight to the desk and shuffled through the papers there: a bill from his tailor, a glass of old sherry, an unsigned letter from a lover. Nothing whatsoever to implicate him. I even rifled through his shirts and checked under his cravats. I was half-buried in the armoire when Elizabeth stuck her head in.
“Violet,” she whispered. “He’s coming.”
I pushed myself out so quickly, the cupboard wobbled.
“He’s on the stairs,” she added, horrified. Peter’s steps were unsteady and loud. We didn’t have time to get back to our respective rooms. I blew out the candle.
The steps came closer.
I grabbed her hand and yanked her into the opposite room. We huddled, straining to hear. Neither of us dared to breathe, listening for the sound of his door closing.
What we heard instead was snoring.
We both froze.
“Oh no,” Elizabeth mouthed. I could see her clearly in the moonlight falling through the windows. There was another snore. We looked over, half-afraid of what we were going to see.
It was only Frederic, sprawled on his back, chest bare. Elizabeth’s eyes widened so comically I nearly laughed out loud. She clapped her hand over my mouth to stop me. I had to do the same to muffle her giggles. We stared at each other, nearly choking on nervous laughter.
I nodded my head sternly toward the door. We had to get out of here.
She shook her head and took a step closer to Frederic. I knew that look on her face.
Slipping away before I could stop her, she crept over to the side of his bed. I motioned to her frantically. If she leaned over to kiss him, I would kill her. She did lean over a little, but not enough to actually touch him.
And then he shifted, eyes opening slightly, before closing again on another snore.
Elizabeth hurled herself toward the door and we escaped in a flurry of muffled giggles.