The Shock Box: A Gothic Romance (Templesea Tales)

by Jill Harris

  Branwell watched as Miss Winslow sized him up. For a moment it seemed as though she had the upper hand, which was infuriating to say the least. She patted her mouth with her napkin and laid it in her lap, refusing to rise to his insult of her dull attire, which only forced his bile to rise even higher.

  "I'm an ordinary woman, Captain Hughes, that is true. But your devotion to oddities is safe with me. Rest assured, I'll never be disturbed by priapic demons or tales monsters in order to get your attention."

  He banged a fist on the table, causing the cutlery to rattle. "Is that what you think? You think I have the idiocy to make up tales of... of horror and hauntings to get a reaction from you?"

  "Perhaps."

  "Why would I bother?" he shouted. "All the attention in the world wouldn't make it easier to bear the burdens thrust upon me."

  She cast him a cool glance. "Well then, I am forced to believe that you believe everything you say. It doesn't mean I have to."

  Chapter 16

  Branwell Hughes watched sharp blue triangles, pulsating with calculation floating over Miss Winslow's head. She was thinking about him, and he didn't like it. Intelligent women unsettled him. In fact, he'd avoided them his whole life because they made him feel stupid and uncomfortable. Above her right shoulder he could see a magenta circle of curiosity.

  He threw down his napkin. Damned infuriating woman. All he was to her was a damaged specimen for her to study, and even possibly dissect if she got close enough.

  The laceration on his thigh burned with pain, twisting his mood even more to the dark side. From the corner of his eye he made out the infernal profile of the demon who was hovering like an evil gas over by the window. It seemed to be mocking him as it always did, goading him to even more fury. Yet he was determined to guard his temper, assuming that Miss Winslow might well ridicule him if he were stupid enough to lose control in front of her.

  He noticed that the bow of her mouth was the colour of a wild rose, like the ones which grew around the gate of the walled garden when his mother was alive. All the flowers had been reduced to dead stalks almost the minute he returned from Crimea.

  Perhaps he would do best to ignore Miss Winslow for the rest of the meal by pretending she was not there with her probing mind, and incomprehensible desire to make light talk with him.

  Adeline could see the Captain squirming as he strove to pay no attention to her, and she turned to the door as Hoxley came in. There was a taut silence as Hoxley served the soup, a light consommé. He passed around a silver plate of fresh bread rolls which smelled sweet and were warm to the touch. Adeline's stomach tightened with emptiness, and she became aware she was too hungry to talk, making quick work of the soup and the rolls.

  "This is delicious," she said, once she had finished off three rolls and two servings of soup.

  "Have you not eaten for a while?" the Captain said, growling the words as they escaped his mouth.

  "Why ever would I refrain from giving my body the fuel it needs to live?" she said.

  The Captain grabbed the last roll as if he was clutching it from the jaws of Satan himself.

  The main course was a delicious roast chicken with honey glazed vegetables, rich, dark gravy, and accompanied by a robust red wine. Adeline chewed everything properly, noticing the Captain glancing at her sideways from time to time as if he expected her to disappear in a puff of wind. She surmised he was not used to dining companions and had forgotten how enjoyable it could be to break bread with a fellow human being.

  When Hoxley had cleared the plates, he brought in steaming bowls of a delicious plum pudding, presented in a lake of fresh, yellow cream. Adeline ate steadily and with enthusiasm, but was careful to sip her wine slowly.

  On top of the pain in his wound, the Captain's leg ached that night, particularly the part of it that was missing. He took his mind off the misery of it by observing his guest. He could tell Adeline Winslow was used to the finer things in life. Despite her eager appetite, her manners were those of a young woman from a gentile background. This was no surprise. It matched her references, and the things he had heard about her.

  She seemed on edge, her skin shining with an almost electrical energy, when she first entered the room accompanied by a series of orange triangles indicating discomfort and conflict. Nevertheless, his rough manners had not bothered her one whit, and she had mellowed considerably with the food inside her. Comfortable pale blue circles rose about her as they ate. He realised grumpily that it was a refreshing to be around a person who didn't feel the need to fill every silence with pointless words. However, he still preferred the company of night flowers when it came to woman. They never said anything to challenge him.

  When Adeline had finished her meal she sat back with the expression of a cat after it had caught a mouse. A small green circle of contentment hovered over the top of her head before popping like a bubble. Beneath it though, he was pleased to sense a red haze all round her, indicating she was still apprehensive of him, perhaps even fearful despite her bravado.

  Good. He was well known to set women on edge, even those he paid to bring him relief. But most especially, over-educated women like his mother found his conversation, and manners, disturbing. He could sense it rather than see it, as if Adeline was able to hide her emotions at will unlike most people, which showed an immense amount of self-control.

  Branwell tried hard, but could not relax during the meal, remaining guarded, and covering his glass with his hand when Hoxley brought round the wine a second time. It wouldn't do to be in a state of confusion under the critical eye of Miss Winslow.

  When he'd first accepted Miss Winslow"s application to work as his nurse, he was fully expecting her to remain. That is, if she made it through the first few days. He longed to heal the wound in his thigh. Every day the pain got worse. Now, after meeting her, he didn't want her to take on the task. So far his attempts to alarm her had failed. Worse than that, she had had a perturbing effect on his mood.

  He had not expected her to be so... delicious. No, that wasn't it.

  She was so far above him in both looks and wit. And her small frame, and glittering eyes made him feel like a great, ugly fool. He didn't know if he could allow her to get close enough to see his wound. It would be too intimate.

  And then there was the demon.

  Despite her sturdy temperament, he found he didn't want Miss Winslow to be exposed to that which tormented him day and night ever since he came back to life in a far land. To put it plainly, the thing over by the window was evil. Branwell was evil. Miss Winslow, however, was most definitely good.

  He had to protect her.

  Chapter 17

  She-Who-Dwells didn't come back to irritate him during the meal which meant she was probably sulking somewhere in the library, and Branwell was glad of it. The weight of a headache blossomed behind his eyes the way it did when he'd spent too long in the company of the dead. He felt weary in his bones but at least he had the delightful Miss Winslow to distract him.

  He glanced up at her once again, bathed in candlelight at the end of the table. He noted the gentle slope of her shoulders, the soft line of her mouth, and was surprised and pleased to realize how relaxed she appeared to be both in his home - and most intriguing of all - in his company. She might even be warming to his brusque character, although he doubted it.

  For many years, as far as he was aware, no woman had enjoyed spending time with Branwell, and he had become a master of his own solitude. If you could call it that, since the legions of spirits which surrounded him never left him entirely alone for long.

  Branwell drained his glass of wine and refilled it. Using his resources he'd discovered many things about Adeline Winslow, and he want over them in his mind.

  Her parents both died when she was seventeen, leaving all their money, and estates to a male nephew they favoured to carry on the farm. Alone in the world except for her beloved Aunt, Miss Winslow left the wilds of Dartmoor for the city, and by all accounts she adju
sted well to the somewhat Bohemian social whirl of London society. Before her Aunt married at the ripe age of forty one, Miss Winslow and Aunt Theodora took a trip to Egypt to visit the pyramids.

  They also took a steamship to India for an extended time, visiting temples and palaces.

  When Miss Winslow returned to London, she discovered that Theodora had one weakness. Cards. Branwell understood the allure of the gaming tables, which was why he stayed away nowadays. The Aunt, however, lost almost all her money and property on the turn of a card, and then Miss Winslow made a fatal mistake.

  Two years ago, at the age of twenty-two, she had an affair with a married man twice her age. After he disgraced her, he spurned her - leaving her reputation in ruins.

  That was what drove her to the Crimea with Miss Florence Nightingale.

  Not for the first time, Branwell was astounded at the stupidity of social convention.

  On the one hand, an older woman who had been widowed, such as Miss Winslow's Aunt, could have as many affairs as she liked. On the other, a young, unmarried female such as her niece, was treated with scorn if she did anything of the kind. As far as he knew, Miss Winslow's brief affair with the erstwhile Doctor had done the man no harm at all. His wife was known to frequent opium dens and spent most of her days lying around entertaining a motley crew of debauched friends.

  According to Branwell's source, it was last summer when Miss Winslow's Aunt, a Mrs Theodora Haringey, a much celebrated widow of forty four, married Mr Albert Finnegan, a wealthy gentleman of independent means, and as a result, Miss Winslow found herself under constant criticism. Her new Uncle, Albert Finnegan, demanded the highest standards of morality under his roof.

  He did not approve of young ladies who gave in to the demands of the heart.

  Miss Adeline Winslow was an adventurer at heart, this was something Branwell surmised from the glitter in her eyes, and the way she fell easily into new surroundings as if she'd always been there. She was also a fallen woman according to society's norms which, as Branwell Hughes knew only too well, meant that she would carry on falling if someone didn't catch her. This was his trump card. It was also his biggest concern. For he would like Adeline to fall even further, although he hated to admit it to himself.

  And if she had an affair with him, she would ruined forever. Her only way out, he ruminated, would be to marry him.

  He exhaled and finished off his tumbler of water.

  "I can see the pudding was also to your liking Miss Winslow," the Captain said, his mouth twitching in a smile.

  She placed her napkin back onto her lap, fixing him with those deeply disturbing, wide brown eyes.

  Adeline noticed the Captain had finished his food but left his glass of wine virtually untouched. "It was excellent. Is your cook from Paris?"

  Hoxley cleared his throat. "My wife, Mrs Hoxley, is the cook. She's from Bath," he said without a hint of irony.

  Adeline had attended a production of Shakespeare's, The Wife of Bath, with her Aunt and Uncle only last week. She lowered her eyes in order to avoid the intense gaze of the Captain.

  After Hoxley had cleared the dishes Captain Hughes offered her another glass of wine but she declined.

  "Are you ready for me to change your dressing?" Adeline said.

  He looked at her, another smile playing on his lips, yet it did not touch his eyes. Instead, he seemed sorrowful, or at least, in a great deal of pain. She noticed the scar on his eye was much whiter than the skin around. It had healed well. This was a good sign that his other wound would also heal completely with the right care.

  "Not yet," he said.

  "But you said--"

  "I said I had an open wound. It doesn't mean I want you to deal with it."

  "I am a nurse. Trained by Miss Nightingale. You have employed me to deal with it."

  "And if I don't want you to touch it - then your period of employment is terminated. It's as simple as that."

  She cleared her throat. "Let me see. After the battle you were found unconscious and bleeding on the field. One doctor declared you dead."

  "I was dead. For a few minutes."

  "Be that as it may. They had to amputate your left leg below the knee. A sword sliced open your thigh further up the left leg. That wound has not yet healed, despite it being over a year ago since it happened."

  He raised his eyebrows. "You've seen my medical records?"

  "I was trained by the finest."

  "Yet you are not a physician. Merely a nurse."

  "Exactly so. A nurse has other ways to gather information at her disposal."

  Captain Hughes scraped back his chair and limped over to the mantelpiece. "I don't wish to know what they might be."

  Adeline wiped the corners of her mouth with her napkin. "One simply asks the right people nicely."

  The Captain stood up, limped over to the mantelpiece, and took the glass sphere from its resting place on its little cushion. He brought it back over to the table. Adeline watched him move, aware that despite his limp, he had a certain male grace. He put the sphere down carefully in front of him.

  The sphere caught the light from a nearby candle, shining with many colours, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. Small rainbows dancing in the cracks and flaws. It was beautiful.

  "Do you know what this is?" he said.

  Adeline shook her head. "I don't."

  "It's what my mother used to call a scrying ball."

  "What does it do?"

  "Nothing. It just sits there. Until a person wants to see something which is not apparent on the surface."

  "What sort of thing?"

  He gazed at her, as if he'd already seen plenty of things in her that weren't apparent on the surface. She shivered and looked away.

  And if he could see into her soul, she hoped he hadn't seen the one part she didn't want him to see. For Adeline couldn't help imagining how it might feel if he put his arms around her. How it might be, if he tilted her chin up for a kiss.

  Warmth glowed in her womanly parts.

  She could not help but glance once again at the satyr, at its swollen member. The atmosphere it created was having an effect on her, and she fetched her fan from her reticule, flicked it open, and used it to disguise the flush she felt spreading across her face.

  She tried her utmost to banish thoughts of what the Captain himself might look like in a natural state of nudity, but it was to no avail. She looked away from the statue to the Captain. Then her eyes, against her will, slid back to the statue.

  And when she looked at it this time, it was as though it had the face of Captain Branwell Hughes. The full lips thinned into a beckoning smile.

  Adeline blushed with fury at her own weakness.

  It was at that moment she realised with a terrible certainty, that she should never have come to this cursed place.

  Chapter 18

  Smoothing her skirts, Adeline stood up and came to stand beside the Captain's chair for a better look at the glass ball. She could smell his skin, the clean scent of carbolic soap. She knew that wounds could have an aroma of rotting flesh, yet there was nothing like that coming from him. His hair was barely under control, swept back from his forehead in waves.

  She wondered if he had made the whole story up about his unhealed wound to lure her here. But to what end?

  "All you have to do is stare into it," the Captain said. "And tell me what you see."

  "I don't have to do any such thing."

  "Indulge me."

  "I have to tell you now that I'm a skeptical person."

  He moved the glass so it was in front of the chair to the side of him. "Doesn't matter. Just sit down and look. Soon, you might see clouds or flowers or whatever else fills a woman's mind. Try it."

  Adeline sat down and folded her arms on the table in front of the scrying glass. Close up, she saw that it was the size of an ostrich egg, its surface almost opaque, and the material composition more like quartz crystal than glass. It was a perfect sphere. She l
et her eyes rest upon it and soon noticed that within its depths it had what looked like cracks or broken shards which caught the flames from the fire, distorting them in a restful way.

  "If I'm not mistaken, this isn't glass at all. It's a piece of natural crystal," she said.

  "You know something of geology?"

  She looked up. "I've studied the sciences. Where did you get it?"

  "From an Egyptian magician. After a storm, he washed up on the shores of Sea Witch Cove, just below the town of Templesea some years ago. My parents took him in and gave him a home."

  The idea of that sent a shiver of ice through her. This magician or whatever he called himself may well have had something to do with the Captain's parent's introduction to the dark arts of the occult kind. She glared at the crystal ball. It might even be the very thing that sent them both insane at the end of their lives.

  "This is another parlour game," she said. More to herself than to him.

  "I can see you like games."

  "Sometimes. But I prefer cards to this."

  "Keep trying," he said. "Some say you'll see your future if you"re lucky."

  "Surely luck depends on the future that is seen?"

  He laughed, a low rumbling sound. "Everyone sees something."

  "I don't know if I'm doing it right," she said.

  "Let your eyes go out of focus. Relax. Pretend you're looking at something beyond the sphere."

  Adeline let her shoulders relax and continued staring at the fire dancing in the crystal. Then she saw it. Or rather, she saw him. "I can see a man."

  "Excellent. Who is he?"

  The figure was more of a flickering shadow than anything else, but he was walking along what appeared to be a beach. He leaned heavily on a cane. "Why, it's you Captain Hughes. You're walking by the sea."