Elias tipped his hat to her. “I’ll wait by the green bench a few houses down.”
She walked up to the door with his gaze on her back, steadily nudging her forward. She clicked her tongue at the cat. She rang the bell. Footsteps sounded inside right away, though what followed was a clanging and rattling of metal as though several locks and chains were unlatched. At last, a burly man in a butler’s livery opened.
Catriona handed him her card. “Mrs. Weldon is expecting me.”
The butler studied her face with an inappropriately penetrating stare. Whatever inspection this was, she seemed to pass it, for he eventually stepped aside.
“Mrs. Weldon will see you in the library, milady.”
The house was dim, as all curtains were indeed drawn, and the hallway smelled like burned herbs. They passed a shelf with dozens of crystals on display. The library was small, the effect of the low light compounded by black ebony shelving. An oxblood red velvet divan stood in the middle of the room. Mrs. Weldon balanced on her tiptoes, on a chair in front of one of the bookshelves, and for a moment she carried on with her inspection of the spines as though she were alone. She appeared like a regular middle-aged matron, fuller figured, with a soft jawline in profile, her graying hair in a plain chignon. Her dress gave Catriona pause—it was jet black but made of fine silk rather than crape or bombazine, so it could well be a fashion statement rather than a sign of mourning.
“Hullo there,” said Mrs. Weldon. “Thomas, send in Suze with the tea, please.”
She stepped off the chair with a huff, the book tucked under her arm, then looked Catriona up and down with curious eyes. “Well, don’t you bring interesting company.”
Catriona glanced back over her shoulder in case Elias had followed her on soundless feet. The hallway behind her was shadowed and empty. The butler had vanished.
“No, ma’am,” she said. “Though my . . . companion is waiting outside.”
Mrs. Weldon’s gaze became oddly fixed. “That’s not what I meant.” She lifted a pale hand toward Catriona’s head. “The veil is markedly thin around you. Are you certain you don’t perceive anything?”
Catriona stood with her arms stiffly pressed against her sides. “Perceive what?”
Mrs. Weldon’s hand made a flourish. “The presence of the unseen.”
A chilly draft seemed to brush through the room.
Catriona shook her head. “I don’t, I’m afraid.”
The woman’s tone turned businesslike. “Hm. Do you experience any visions or voices?”
“No?”
“But your intuitions or predictions come true rather often?”
“Often enough, I suppose—”
“Ah.” The woman glided closer. “How about fellow humans—can you abide their presence? Or do most strike you as rather . . . loud?”
The situation was becoming more absurd by the moment.
Mrs. Weldon nodded slowly. “It’s not the volume of their voices that bothers you, Lady Catriona, it is everything else they bring with them, the things unseen, the untouchable ones. Now, with some practice, someone like you could achieve remarkable things in the field of the occult. An open mind is of course required.”
The skeptical tilt of her lips said she considered Catriona’s mind severely closed. Nevertheless, she asked Catriona to take a seat on the red divan. The elegant piece of furniture was badly upholstered and sagged under Catriona’s weight.
“I’m afraid there has been a confusion, Mrs. Weldon,” she said. “I’m not here to inquire about the occult.”
Mrs. Weldon stilled. She folded her hands in her lap. “Lady Middleton recommended you. She said you were a young lady undertaking research for a novel. Naturally, I assumed you were seeking out my expertise in intercommunication.”
A hot pressure built behind Catriona’s forehead. “The truth is,” she began haltingly. “The research is about a lady who lives separately from her husband . . .”
Mrs. Weldon stayed her by holding up her hand. Her absent-minded stare seemed to go right into Catriona’s skull, and then her round face froze. Her eyes widened.
“Lies,” she whispered. “That’s not why you’re here, is it.”
“I’m afraid I don’t—”
“You aren’t writing a novel at all.”
“Erm,” said Catriona. “No, but—”
Mrs. Weldon shot off the couch and looked down at her with a sharp expression. “What is your purpose?”
Catriona seemed stuck to her seat.
“He sent you, didn’t he?” the woman demanded.
“Who?”
“Oh, I curse the day I married him.” Mrs. Weldon’s hand curled into a claw. “The knave—the spiteful creature.”
“No, I—”
The woman cried for the butler, who dashed into the room so quickly, he must have hovered right outside the door all along. A tall woman in a maid’s cap and apron followed right on his heels.
Catriona rose.
Mrs. Weldon gestured wildly. “Please assist the lady to the door.”
Catriona raised her hands. “Ma’am, it appears there is a terrible misunderstanding—”
“Out, out!”
The female servant moved between Catriona and Mrs. Weldon.
“Ma’am, kindly follow us outside,” the butler said, moving in on her, too.
Behind him, Mrs. Weldon had buried her head in her hands, and her shoulders were shaking.
The house all but spat her back out onto the path, and the white door firmly shut behind her. She blinked into the sun as she stumbled toward the pavement. What on earth?
Elias took one look at her face when she approached, and he abruptly rose from the bench. “What happened?”
“I’m not even sure. The poor thing seems unwell.”
He fell in step with her. “She’s ill?”
“Not in that sense—she knew about my plans, somehow. She is a spiritualist.”
“What’s that?”
“Apparently, the veil is thin around me,” she said. “She thinks I’d have a knack for communing with the dead.”
“Yiii.” He crossed himself.
“Her credentials were perfect: her husband is a captain—Parliament would be loath to send a military officer to jail, and he would probably prefer prison rather than spend time with her because I daresay she was odd.”
Elias fell into a more leisurely pace, compelling her to slow.
“I understand it wasn’t the success you hoped for,” he said.
“It wasn’t, it was creepy.”
“There’s an oyster bar near the railway stop,” he said. “Am I allowed to take a female cousin there?”
She shot him a consternated look. “Female anythings may dine or lunch in most eateries these days, even entirely unaccompanied.”
He grinned. “Do you mind the rustic fare? Come, let’s have lunch.”
She balked; how was she supposed to summon an appetite at such a moment?