Dark Season

by Joanna Lowell

  Something flared in his gaze—surprise. At her words or her tone, Ella couldn’t be sure.

  “Be that as it may,” he said, voice dropping into a lower register to become even more menacing, “it is not for Mrs. Trombly to make up the deficit.”

  “Isidore.” Mrs. Trombly laid her hand on his arm. “Miss Reed has done me a great kindness in agreeing to stay with me. She did not seek me out. I all but kidnapped her. I told you, she’d collapsed. She wasn’t even conscious when I had her brought here. What greater proof of her disinterest do you need?”

  “And was her performance at Miss Seymour’s séance a disinterested piece of theater?” He put his hand absently atop Mrs. Trombly’s, swallowing it whole in his grasp. A casual, tender gesture. But he kept his glittering eyes on Ella. “She fell insensible at a convenient moment. She knew it would capture your interest.”

  “I knew nothing of the sort.” He wanted to stare her down, did he? Well, she could match him there. She knew that her eyes disconcerted. She fixed him with her gaze and stepped closer. She wished immediately she had not. His maleness flooded her. His heat and his scent, a mixture of coffee and amber, whisky and pepper, cedar and musk. It made her giddy. Her vision swam, and she almost blinked. The effort it required to keep her eyes locked on his made her clench her hands at her sides. “I had never heard of Mrs. Trombly before that night. I had never heard of her daughter. I did not perform. I … ” Again, she had come up against the truth. She heard Mr. Norton again, his nomenclature making no concessions to her youth or gender.

  When the morbid material in your blood reaches a sufficient level it operates on your brain. This causes the convulsions. It is desirable that you have these convulsions. If the vertigoes and convulsions become less frequent, this is a sign that the condition has become masked and will find other outlets. The automatisms will become more condensed, more profound in nature. Assault, homicide, arson. All of these terrible deeds have been documented.

  She let out her breath. No, she could not explain herself. She would rather deceive kindly Mrs. Trombly and all her kith and kin. She was lying. She was a charlatan. But not in the way he insinuated. She had not orchestrated this situation. She couldn’t have done so if she’d wanted to. The idea that she could have was ludicrous.

  “I never dreamed I would wake up in this household,” she said, hearing the bitterness in her voice. “I don’t know what motivation you ascribe me, my lord, but you do it wrongly and in haste, based upon a very cursory study of my character.”

  This speech affected him; she could tell. His eyebrow lifted. She doubted he had revised his opinion of her, but she had awakened some new interest. A muscle ticked in his jaw, and he tilted his head, considering her. He glanced at Mrs. Trombly, whose eyes had filled, predictably, with tears.

  “My dear Louisa,” he said, turning to her, trapping her hand now between both of his own.

  “Why don’t you sit down?” said Mrs. Trombly, blinking rapidly. Her voice was a wisp. She forced a smile and spoke with more vigor. “Why don’t both of you sit down? I’ll ring for a tea tray. Cook has made red-currant scones.”

  “Oh.” Ella looked at her in dismay. The last thing she wanted to do was sustain a sitting-room farce with Satan, to look at him for the next hour—massive, scowling—across Sevres china tea cups and the silver cow creamer. “Thank you, but I couldn’t possibly intrude. I’ll leave you to your tea.”

  “You are dressed for going out,” said Mrs. Trombly, as though seeing her for the first time since she’d entered the room. “Well, it is a lovely day for a walk. You are going out?”

  Ella hesitated.

  “I’d hoped to walk to Hyde Park,” she said.

  “You won’t be gone long?” Mrs. Trombly’s voice was mild and held no objection.

  “However long it takes to reach the park and take a turn by the lake,” said Ella. The prospect of imminent escape almost turned her knees to jelly. She was transforming the wobble into a passable curtsy of farewell when Lord Blackwood spoke.

  “I’ll accompany you, of course,” he said.

  “Really, Isidore,” began Mrs. Trombly at the same time Ella murmured, “There’s no need … .” Both women stopped.

  The viscount lifted Mrs. Trombly’s hand to his lips and kissed it. Seen in profile, the planes of his face were even starker, his nose, cheekbones, and jaw prominent. Alfred scarcely had features at all compared to this man.

  “Miss Reed has all but invited me to familiarize myself with her character,” he said. “I confess I find the prospect enticing. And I love to take the air in pleasant company. You do trust me with your … medium?” He gave “medium” just enough of a lilt to make the term, rather than the phrase, the question.

  Ella had already drawn a breath to decline his offer on some maidenly pretext—it couldn’t possibly be appropriate to gallivant around London with an unmarried man—but his exaggerated pronunciation of the word “medium” brought her up short. She was no longer protected by, and subject to, the rules of etiquette that dictated the behaviors of aristocratic young ladies. She existed in some other, far hazier, social category. She had neither wealth nor even her name to fall back on. She was impecunious, orphaned Ella Reed, private medium to Mrs. Trombly. A fraud who needed to cling tight to the one shaky branch of security fate had thrust in her path. Cling tight and hold fast. No matter what Lord Blackwood might do to dislodge her.

  He wanted to dislodge her. He wanted to send her whirling back into the storm. She had read it in his eyes. She had to treat with this man warily.

  “I appreciate Lord Blackwood’s offer.” Ella smiled at Mrs. Trombly, what she hoped was a sunny, careless smile, then turned the smile on the viscount. “I count chief among life’s pleasures an afternoon walk to the varied pace of animated, congenial conversation.”

  “Your simplicity does you credit,” was the viscount’s dry response. He folded his arms across his chest. The fingers of his left hand lay upon the swell of his right bicep. Long fingers, bronze skin against the black coat. “I am told you’re from the country?”

  “Somerset.” Her smile, which had failed so demonstrably to dazzle, faded from her lips. Her tongue felt wooden. This would never work. She didn’t possess the charm to win him over or the wit to deflect his questions. He looked so at ease, awaiting her reply. Such a large man shouldn’t be that well formed, that graceful. The tiny Mrs. Trombly was a Lilliputian beside him; by all rights, he should have looked clumsy in comparison, an ogre best kept away from the glass-fronted cabinet of porcelain figurines. But his body was perfectly in balance. His proportions had achieved some mathematical perfection. His trousers molded to the curving muscles of his thighs; his impeccably tailored coat hugged his broad shoulders. The flick of his wrist as he swiped at another errant lock of hair made something flick inside her. She might as well be set upon by a panther as this man. She was as ill-prepared by her life thus far to meet with either.

  “Somerset. But how delightful. Let me guess what part.” He was playing with her now.

  He shut his eyes. No wonder his eyes seemed to blaze like the cerulean centers of flames, hedged about as they were with those thick, black lashes. His eyelids darkened near the lashes, as though lined with kohl. “Glastonbury!” His lids swept up, and she was skewered again by his gaze. “You can only be from Glastonbury, resting place of King Arthur and Guinevere, his queen. And now I can guess at your lineage. You are descended from the enchantress Morgan Le Fay. What a perfect pedigree for a woman of your profession. Your American competitors must be quite put out.”

  “I am not from Glastonbury, my lord.” Had she thought her tongue wooden? How optimistic she had been. It was heavy as lead.

  “Ah, well, so I am not a clairvoyant. Where, then, are you from?”

  “From farther west, my lord.” She would keep as near to the facts as she could. Simpler that way, and there could be little harm in it. Only if he really were a clairvoyant would she have cause to fear he cou
ld divine her story. She could have been part of his world—the Arlingtons might easily have rubbed shoulders with the Blackwoods, with the Tromblys … if everything were different. Papa had sold the townhouse after Robert died. He never went back to London. He had withdrawn into books, reading and writing, a world of imagination he shared with her alone. Theirs had been a society of two.

  Alfred Gunning, barrister at law, would appear in Debrett’s this year as succeeding to the title and estates of Baron Arlington. Her name would not be mentioned. Lord Blackwood could never guess who she really was. Unless Alfred … but no. Alfred would not find her. Not here.

  “Miss Reed, from farther west than Glastonbury.” A half smile played on Lord Blackwood’s lips. His cheekbones were so bold, the shadows beneath them dark as ink.

  The current … the current between them. She could feel it again, warm and dark and irresistible, tugging her. She wanted to rest her fingertips in the hollows beneath those cheekbones, stroke the length of his jaw, and run her forefinger along the cleft in his chin.

  No one had prepared her for this. No one had told her this was possible. A man who could pull her like the moon pulled the tides. He was aware of it; he had to be. He was doing this to her. He was in control of it, exerting this force. Wicked. His half smile was only a shade different from his sneer. He lifted a black brow.

  “So,” he purred in that smoky voice, “you disclaim your ties to Avalon?”

  She couldn’t breathe, concentrated all her might on simply returning his stare. Where did he come by this ability to befuddle her senses? She had no charm; she had no wit. But she had always had a will. She had always known her own mind. Her will, her discipline, her self-control—that was what she had. Her will was her only defense against her illness; although, in the end, will wasn’t enough.

  This man’s proximity, the heat of his body, the blue fire of his eyes, made her head fill with fog, made her unsure of her direction. She had no direction of her own. She was groping her way … toward him.

  Mrs. Trombly, clearing her throat, dispersed the mist.

  “Do you want bread for the ducks, Miss Reed?” she asked. “I’ll call for some old rolls.”

  Ella’s gratitude was out of all proportion to the offer.

  “Oh, why yes, thank you. That would be lovely. Old rolls. Wonderful.” Relief made her babble. She angled her body away from Lord Blackwood, tying the strings of her black bonnet more firmly beneath her chin. She would not let him overwhelm her. She didn’t have much, only her freedom. She wouldn’t let him take that away.

  Chapter Seven

  She walked quickly. Isidore’s legs were long, and he matched her pace easily, but she, far smaller, was taking little hopping steps, almost running. Her face was composed, but her legs betrayed her. She was nervous. Why? What exactly was she hiding?

  He intended to find out.

  Trombly Place was on Mount Street. Miss Reed headed straight for Berkeley Square. A few minutes into their silent ramble, he thought perhaps she might check her speed, but if anything, she went faster. Very well then. He slowed. The sun shone on the upper stories of the Georgian buildings that fronted the square. The bricks glowed a baleful red. The plane trees dappled the grass with shadows. He stopped and watched her as she increased the distance between them. Her skirts were swinging. She really was as close to breaking into a run as one might get without the enabling occasion of a footrace. How her heart must be pounding.

  Suddenly she too stopped. She had realized he was no longer walking with her. She turned, jerkily, with that same rigidity he’d noticed before, as if clockworks determined her movements. She didn’t seem to be one with her body, a continuous organism composed of flesh and its vitalizing forces. Rather, she gave the impression of being divided—a disembodied will standing against her body, holding her body in check. Her awkwardness was the result of her exerting too deliberate a control over every gesture. He’d never seen anything quite like it.

  He watched her as she came back toward him. She was no longer running. Her walk was slow and stately, but she couldn’t eradicate that tense, hitching skip from her gait. Lord, but she was strung tight. Good. The easier to make her vibrate. To turn and pluck her and figure out to what pitch she’d been tuned. And then to snap her. He remembered the feel of her wing bones beneath his hands. He’d almost snapped her then.

  Her chin shot up. She had noticed his appraisal. He folded his arms and let his gaze wander from her boots to her bonnet and back down. He was being insolent. Parceling her out. He wanted her to know he was taking her measure. He wanted her to think he saw through her. But he didn’t. Not yet. He was more confused, less able to guess what she was about. She presented too odd a mixture of elements for him to fit her easily into a category. As he’d charged to Trombly Place to dislodge this medium, he’d imagined she would show signs, under closer observation, of more obvious charlatanry. Cosmetics purpling her eyelids. Amulets around her neck. A voice that veered between registers as she responded to unheard frequencies. He’d expected her features, scrutinized, would appear harder. Her attitude more garrulous and theatrical.

  Miss Reed was not showy. Her accent was refined. Hardly the accent of an untutored rustic from the forests of Exmoor. Her manners bespoke good breeding. Her dress and bonnet were cheap, but her boots and shawl were fine and would have come dear. Louisa had told him she was in mourning for her father. If she was the daughter of some country squire, a man of old family who drew on his high station and low income until he died destitute, that might explain both her refinement and her need for paid employment. But why hadn’t she married? Surely marriage came before work in the mind of a well-bred young woman? She wasn’t in the first bloom of youth, but she was hardly in its autumn; he guessed her to be in her early twenties, maybe so much as twenty-five or six. Old enough to have debuted and weathered several seasons on the catch for an eligible bachelor. She must have had prospects. Her mourning black emphasized her pallor, her straight, fragile shoulders, and long, slim neck. Her face, stark and white, was wide across the cheekbones, narrowing to a pointed chin. Those lips that had caught his eye in the music room … He couldn’t deny they fascinated him now, the details he hadn’t noticed: upper lip deeply indented, the full lower lip slightly scabbed. Lavender shadows beneath her dark eyes made them seem hollow. Hers wasn’t a pretty face, but it was arresting. He might even say it had a peculiar loveliness. Bound to captivate some man or other.

  Maybe she was some aristocrat’s by-blow. A bastard cut off by her legitimate siblings upon the old philanderer’s demise. She came to London and fell under the sway of some huckster spiritualist. The sort who read up on London’s tragic stories and used his pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo to turn those tragedies into pounds and pence. He could picture the man: short and ferrety, with a pointed beard and round glasses. Always probing into past scandals, looking for a new shred of information. It would be easy to manipulate wealthy, bereaved widows and mothers if you uncovered the right tidbit. Not one of them knew her deceased husband or offspring as well as she thought she did.

  Isidore didn’t doubt a hundred of these men existed within a square mile of where he stood. London was always creating new breeds of scoundrel. If opportunities for honest men were created as quickly, it might go a long way toward reducing the sum total of misery for the rich as well as the poor.

  He’d save that sentiment for the House of Lords.

  This huckster spiritualist, he would always need accomplices, women who fit certain specifications. Delicate and otherworldly, impressionable and adrift. Along came strange Miss Reed. He lured her in, twisted her to his own ends.

  The more Isidore thought about it, the more likely it seemed that some version of this scenario pertained. He didn’t ascribe events generally to grand conspiracies, but criminal networks did exist. And they were adaptable. No sooner had London’s women of fashion decided they absolutely could not be parted from their toy greyhounds and Blenheim spaniels than organized
dog-nappings took the city by storm. Why wouldn’t the fad for mysticism serve as a new pretext and point of entry for underworld masterminds? Miss Reed was not working alone. At the very least, Miss Seymour was involved; she made money from her séances but not enough. She probably designed her public appearances to facilitate private contacts for her girls. It was a time-tested model. Didn’t some mediums even call themselves madams?

  He wondered suddenly if Miss Reed really was in mourning. Maybe mourning attire made her a more sympathetic figure to those she preyed upon. Maybe she knew black became her, emphasized that moony, haunted quality. The urge to laugh rose in his chest. No vulgarity for gently bred Miss Reed. No paint and dye. She must have cultivated those hollow eyes the way a soprano cultivated her voice. Instead of practicing scales, she practiced sleeping in fits and starts.

  The idea of her sleeping caused an odd feeling to wash over him. Her hair was fair; he could see twin slivers peeking from beneath her bonnet, loops swept back from either side of a center part. It was unusual to see blond hair paired with such dark eyes. He couldn’t help but imagine that hair spread out on her pillow.

  She came within two arm spans and stood returning his stare.

  “Do we part ways so soon?” She couldn’t disguise the fact that she found this idea not altogether unpleasing. He smiled. You won’t get away so easily.

  “I said I would accompany you to Hyde Park.”

  This flustered her. Confusion brought her thin, dark brows together. Or she pretended it did. He doubted she was as new to London as she’d claimed to Louisa. The more information she already had, about London, about the Tromblys, and the more ignorance she claimed, the more convincing her messages from Phillipa would be.

  “Yes … ?” she said, searching his face for the answer. She didn’t look like she was pretending. She looked off-balance and irritated and a little self-righteous, as though he were the one playing games. He sighed.