The Victorian Gothic Collection Boxed Set 1-3

by Chasity Bowlin

  “What sort of darkness?” Adelaide demanded.

  “This is where it becomes truly interesting, Lady Montkeith… I sense that Mrs. Llewellyn has gifts of her own, because beyond the most vague sense of unease in her presence and that darkness which seems to surround her, I can tell you nothing about her. She conceals her true self, her nature and her intentions very well.”

  It was frustrating to have no further inkling of what Frances was planning and what she was capable of. Adelaide had her own suspicions about Frances and they involved her being right in the thick of all the things that were happening at Cysgod Lys. While she had no questions that the power she’d encountered was ancient, evil and all too real, she could not shake the feeling that Frances had been dancing with the devil in that particular regard.

  “She is with child, as you know, and never fails to remind me that I am not and likely never will be.” Adelaide made the statement matter of factly, hoping to keep her own resentment and jealousy concealed. Neither emotion was one she was particularly proud of or wished to encourage, and yet both seemed to grow daily. Knowing that Frances would have something that she herself never would had created a terrible bitterness inside her, almost as if the darkness of Cysgod Lys was invading her to her very soul.

  Madame Leola smiled sadly. “So she is, Lady Montkeith. But it is not a joyous thing for her. Merely a means to an end and whatever gifts she may have, the ability to foretell your future is not amongst them.”

  That thought did not make it better, Adelaide realized. “But you do not know what end she seeks. How can you be certain?”

  Madame Leola nodded sagely. “Women who are with child are, generally speaking, filled with joy and anticipation at the thought of it. I sense none of that in Mrs. Llewellyn. Only shrewdness and calculatory glee. Forgive me for speaking so boldly and so plainly about your relatives, my lady. Regardless of your relationship with her, it is not my place--.”

  “But it is your place!” Adelaide protested. “We invited you here, along with Lord Mortimer, to help us discover precisely what is going on at Cysgod Lys. That applies to the natural and the unnatural order of things, Madame Leola. And Frances is right at the heart of it all, I think.”

  The mystic eyed her for a moment, cautiously and curiously, her head cocked to one side as if in deep concentration. “Forgive me for saying so, Lady Montkeith, but you did not need me to find those answers. The power to discover the truth lies within you. You have only to seize it.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Madame Leola squeezed Adelaide’s hands in what was meant to be a consoling manner. She felt a frisson of something that she could not name. Power, perhaps, like a jolt of electricity through her skin. “My dear, Lady Montkeith, you are possessed of gifts that are very similar in nature to my own. The difference is that I have been training from the time I was a child to utilize and harness those gifts. You are untrained, untutored, and it is because of that these dark forces at work in this house are drawn to you. They want that power for their own. And we must, whatever the cost, prevent that from occurring.”

  Adelaide laughed. “You could not be more wrong, Madame Leola. There is nothing about me that is extraordinary or special in anyway. Surely, you must see that?”

  Madame Leola rose, closed the distance between them and took one of Adelaide’s hands in her own. That slight frisson of current that she had felt when their arms brushed in the hall was only a shadow of the power that Adelaide felt in that moment. It rushed through her fingertips, raising gooseflesh on her skin and making her breath rush out of her in a hiss. “I don’t understand this.”

  “Your mother sheltered you from your own abilities… because they mirrored her own and she wished to spare you such things,” Madame Leola said. “It was an extraordinary testament to her gifts that she was able to do so. But we must strip all of that away and uncover the raw power that exists within you, my lady. That is the only way.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “There is something about you, about this untapped power that courses within you, that it is drawing from… if we do not grasp how to harness your power for yourself and prevent this house from using it and you, all will be lost.”

  Adelaide frowned, “It’s my fault, then? These things have happened here because of me?”

  “It isn’t your fault, at all, my dear. The power here is elemental and fierce. It did not require your presence to attempt this coup, if you will, on the world of the living. It has an agenda and would have found a way regardless… but at the moment, you are fuel for it. And we must find a way to halt that.”

  “I should go,” Adelaide said, even though she knew it wouldn’t work.

  “This thing followed you to Chester, it forced you to return here upon fear of death… if that is not proof that it views you as not only extraordinary, but imperative to its agenda, nothing could sway you.”

  Madame Leola returned to her seat and sipped her sherry quietly, as Adelaide mulled over that rather disturbing possibility.

  “You’re not a believer, are you, Montkeith?” Mortimer asked. He paused long enough to take a short draw from the cigar he was savoring. “I wasn’t always.”

  “What changed?” Eldren asked, eyeing the brandy in his glass. He wasn’t overly interested in it at the moment. But he was intrigued by the notion of a well respected peer traveling in the company of a charlatan such as Madame Leola. She was a charlatan, of course. How could she be anything else? Despite a lifetime of experiencing and witnessing unusual phenomena, he didn’t have the kind of faith that Adelaide did.

  “My wife was the true devotee of the occult,” Mortimer began. “It fascinated her and, like you, I largely humored her in that interest. But then she died. It was unexpected. We had never been blessed to have children and when, at nearly forty years old, she found herself with child, we were thrilled beyond measure, but understandably concerned. Alas, she died and the child with her. Some sort of seizure of the brain when she was still months from delivery.”

  The naked pain and grief of the other man was unsettling. It made him consider things he didn’t want to acknowledge, such as the possibility of losing Adeladie. It wasn’t only the dangerous and unsettling events that surrounded them that promoted such fear. Theirs was an unconventional relationship and one that she might one day grow dissatisfied with.“And that made you a believer?”

  “No,” Lord Mortimer replied with a sad smile. “That made me hopeful… hopeful, but not foolish. I was well aware that many of those I sought out were little better than criminals or confidence men. Both in some cases. But there were others who inspire just enough doubt in the grounded reality of the here and now that I could not dismiss them out of hand. I discovered that I have a knack for discerning those who have true abilities.”

  “And is Madame Leola one of those?”

  Mortimer placed his cigar in the small crystal dish on the table beside him. “Madame Leola is something else altogether, Montkeith. The things she sees, the things she knows… they defy logic and explanation. And yet, they come to pass every time. I have had her at my side for almost two years now. I have yet to see her proven wrong.”

  Eldren considered his response carefully. He had no wish to offend the man, but he was not so eager to believe as Lord Mortimer was. But then he did not have Mortimer’s motivation. If he were to lose Adelaide, would he find himself seeking the same sort of connection to her even beyond death? No. Not because he wouldn’t want it, but because he would want her to be at peace. At least he hoped he would be able to be so selfless.

  Finally, after some time, Eldren admitted, “I am skeptical. I cannot help that. Living here, I have often encountered the strange and unexplainable, but I have always felt that Cysgod Lys is the exception and such things are not so pervasive elsewhere in the world. Perhaps that is wishful thinking. But I will endeavor to be open minded about all of it. What precisely will Madame Leola’s first order of business be now that you a
re here?”

  “I cannot say. She will get the lay of the land first, I imagine. Try to decipher what nature of activity is taking place. At some point, we will likely hold a seance in an attempt to achieve contact with whatever forces are at work here… but I must show my own skepticism now. I met your wife years ago when she was a very young girl, before her mother died. I sensed a certain talent in her then, and I sense it still. But often, those who have gifts, also are cursed. Their mind can manufacture horrible things. Is it possible that all of this is being drawn from Adelaide’s own pain?”

  He might have been offended had it not been so laughable. “You are only just acquainted with Adelaide, barring your previous meeting, but I can assure you that she is the least likely person I have ever encountered to have fits of hysteria. As to the events that occurred here, they’ve been occurring to some degree for as long as I can remember. They are typically worse and much more violent with female members of the household rather than the males, especially those who have Llewellyn blood. We are assuming, based on how swiftly and intensely these events began to impact her, that she must have some blood connection to the land.”

  “Her stepmother intimated otherwise when we last met,” Lord Mortimer insisted. “I had occasion to visit with the Hampton Parks’s in New York just last year and Muriel was quite insistent that the girl was falling into madness due to the grief at the loss of her mother.”

  “And Mrs. Hampton Parke is quite possibly the most grasping and avaricious soul I’ve ever encountered, excepting my own sister in law, of course,” Eldren pointed out.

  Lord Mortimer sighed. “I find little to admire in Mrs. Hampton Parke myself, but she was rather insistent that her young stepdaughter had been left… well, delicate, I suppose, after the death of her mother.”

  “Muriel Hampton Parke spread such lies and rumors to isolate Adelaide socially. I suspect that she hoped to limit Adelaide’s marital prospects in New York in order to manipulate her ultimate choice of husband.” It was a theory he had not discussed with Adelaide, but it had been often on his mind.

  “To what end?”

  “The marriage settlement left for Adelaide is generous… It accounts for more than a third of her father’s estate. I suspect that Muriel had hoped to engineer a match to someone in exchange for a portion of that coming back to her own accounts.”

  Mortimer let out another sigh, this one tinged with disgust. “It would not be the first time such a plot was hatched. I do hope that your faith in her is not misplaced. If she is, even inadvertently, creating these elements of paranormal activity, it will be much harder to deal with.”

  “No, it is not the first time. Nor will it be the last, sadly. Regardless of her stepmother’s behavior, Adelaide is quite grounded and completely rational… even in the face of things that would challenge anyone’s ability to remain cool and calm. My faith in her is very well founded, Lord Mortimer.”

  Lord Mortimer was poised to reply when a scream rent the air. Eldren rose immediately and headed for the corridor, Lord Mortimer behind him.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Adelaide jumped, the scream echoing through the halls. Her heart was in her throat and her pulse was pounding from the fright. “I think that was Frances.”

  Madame Leola rose to her feet. “I believe you are correct, Lady Montkeith. We should see what prompted her shrieking.”

  The woman’s doubt was obvious and it sparked ugly suspicions in Adelaide as well. Frances had never been troubled by the dark occurrences at Cysgod Lys, or so it had seemed. Not until now, when there were others there to help them investigate it and she was being excluded from those efforts.

  Rushing from the room, they met with Eldren and Lord Mortimer in the corridor. “It wasn’t you?” Eldren asked immediately.

  “No. I think it was Frances,” Adelaide replied.

  “Then we should go and see where she is and what she is shouting about,” Lord Mortimer stated firmly.

  They did not have to go far. Dyllis came tearing down the stairs, a look of panic on her face. “Oh, my lord, my lady! It’s Mr. Llewellyn. He’s fallen and struck his head… There’s so very much blood, my lord!”

  Eldren cursed under his breath and made for the stairs, taking them two at a time as they rushed to keep up with him. By the time Adelaide had caught up to him, he was kneeling beside Warren’s fallen form. There was a large gash at Warren’s temple and blood welled from it at an alarming rate. Without hesitation, Adelaide opened the nearest linen cupboard and grabbed whatever she could reach first that might staunch the flow.

  Kneeling at Warren’s head, she pressed the makeshift bandage to the wound. “What happened?” she asked, as Frances stood back and wrung her hands in mock distress.

  “He was drinking, of course. He stumbled and fell.” Frances offered the explanation flatly, as if she had no feeling at all for the man she was married to, the man who was even bleeding at her feet.

  “He was drinking heavily at dinner but not enough to have warranted this. I know for a fact that it takes a significant amount of liquor to create such disequilibrium in him,” Eldren insisted.

  “He had been drinking prior to dinner,” Frances insisted. “He is quite good at concealing when he has overly imbibed, my lord!”

  “What did he strike his head upon, Frances?” Adelaide continued, ignoring the sniping between Frances and Eldren. The makeshift bandage was soaked through so she simply added another atop it and continued to apply pressure to the wound.

  “I’m not certain,” Frances said. “I only found him thus.”

  Lies. More lies. Every time the woman opened her mouth lies came out, Adelaide thought. She had not examined the gash carefully. There had been so much blood, it would have been impossible to tell much about it regardless. Once the bleeding slowed—if it slowed—they could get him cleaned up and possibly determine the manner of injury.

  “I think I know.”

  It was Madame Leola who had spoken. She walked toward a small table in the corridor that held a candelabra and a small marble bust. As Madame Leola lifted the bust, there was a streak of red on the base of it. “I doubt, very seriously, that he would have been able to replace the bust on the table after falling upon it. Someone struck him, Lord Montkeith.”

  “Frances, did you hit him?” Eldren demanded.

  “I did not,” she said. It was truth, or at least partial truth. But that did not mean she had not ordered someone to do it for her.

  “Dyllis,” Adelaide murmured, “Go and fetch Tromley. Tell him we need an accounting of all the servants and where they have been for the past half hour.”

  “They were all below stairs, my lady. It was our dinner hour… I’d come up to ready your bed after I finished the evening meal and heard Mrs. Llewellyn screaming in the hall. But I’ll ask him if anyone was unaccounted for at dinner,” Dyllis offered.

  “Do that. Now please.”

  Dyllis nodded, bobbed a quick curtsy and was off.

  “You will accept the word of a lowly housemaid and not your own sister-in-law?” Frances snapped. “Are these more of your American sensibilities?”

  “I will accept Dyllis’ word because she has never lied to me. You, however, Frances, have lied, connived, schemed, plotted and in general shown yourself to be entirely untrustworthy. So please do not feign innocence now. We have more pressing matters to deal with,” Adelaide snapped. “I think the bleeding has slowed enough that we might move him.”

  Lord Mortimer stepped forward then. “I’ll assist you, Lord Montkeith, rather than wait for the footmen.”

  Together the two men lifted Warren and carried him the short distance down the hall to the chamber that she and Eldren had occupied that terrible night not even a week earlier.

  “Surely he would be more comfortable in his own chamber,” Frances insisted.

  “Until we know who struck him, Warren will be under guard. Unless you mean to have the footmen standing over your bed while you sleep, Frances, I imag
ine everyone will be more comfortable if Warren is in here,” Eldren snapped. The implication that Frances could not be trusted to care for him and might even have been responsible for his current condition was plainly evident in his tone.

  Frances’ eyes widened as she shouted, “I will not suffer suspicion and accusations—.”

  “Then you are welcome to leave,” Eldren said succinctly. “I’m certain your family in Bristol would be happy to have you, or you could return to your own home in Birmingham. Warren shall remain here regardless.”

  Frances whirled and stamped her way from the room, the heavy satin bustle of her blue evening gown swishing behind her.

  Warren remained unconscious, but the bleeding had slowed. Tromley sent a stable lad to fetch the doctor and the rest of them remained there in that small bed chamber as the loyal butler was entrusted with discovering who amongst the staff might have had a hand in it. It had been little more than an hour when Tromley returned with news.

  “There is a footman, hired by Mrs. Llewellyn only a month or so before Lady Montkeith’s arrival here,” Tromley began. “He is, as far as we can discover, gone from the house now and was not in attendance at dinner. He had claimed to have a task to attend to for you, my lord. But now it seems that was not the case at all.”

  “What is his name?”

  “It was Charles, my lord. He was a very handsome lad and, while I hesitate to say it, Mrs. Llewellyn seemed to favor him and requested his assistance above any of the other footmen.”

  “Keep talking to the others, Tromley,” Adelaide said. “He might have given some indication, without meaning to, of where he would go. Where he was from, previous employers, or even friends and family… no lead is too small if it might help us discover if he was involved in this and, if so, was it at the behest of Frances.”