Dark Season

by Joanna Lowell

  “This fashion for mysticism … Spirit-writing, table-tapping … ” He shook his head. “I’d like to see every table in England milled to sawdust.”

  At this unexpected image, her lips curved. “And we all eat standing up? Even the Queen?”

  He blinked at her, surprised, then grinned. A crooked grin that stole her breath.

  “We would recline on couches,” he said airily. “As they did in ancient Rome.”

  “Of course. Ancient Rome. How could I forget?” She was quite sure her own reading on Ancient Rome had never delved into recumbent eating practices. She found it difficult to imagine Lord Blackwood poring over a book. Papa was her template for the literary man: balding, stoop-shouldered, absentminded, gentle, shy, always a little bit rumpled. The tall, demonic viscount, with his fitted black suit and mane of hair—well, put a sword in his hand, he’d make war on heaven. But a pen in his hand … no, she couldn’t see it.

  “But if destroying all the tables is meant to discourage the table-rappers … ” She hesitated. “Don’t you think they would find something else to rap on?”

  “The tables are not the issue. Is that what you’re saying?” He sighed. “How clear-headed you are.” His voice was rich with amusement.

  This easy, bantering tone. The sudden familiarity between them. It was a hint of what it might be like … if they were friends. She felt emboldened.

  “You subscribe to a more rationalist view of the world, my lord?” His brooding mien did not bespeak a scientific bent. He cocked an eyebrow. She tried again. “You disapprove, that is, of mystical explanations for earthly phenomena? Or perhaps you are pious? You find spiritualist practices offensive?”

  He thinned his lips. “I distinguish between parlor tricks and mystical experience. And I dislike chicanery. Too many weak-minded and weak-hearted people are made the worse for it. Should I meet a true enchantress, I assure you, I would not condemn her in the name of God or science. I have seen too many things that my understanding does not compass to refute the possibility of magic. But … to return to the matter at hand … ”

  His face had set again in its hard lines.

  “I know,” she said, chilled. “I am not descended from Morgan Le Fay. But I promise you I have no ill motive. Mrs. Trombly has been so kind to me … ”

  “And you think the world is in short supply of kindness. So you said. You’re right, of course.” His air was bemused and tinged with self-reproach. “I do not think I have it in me to make the world a better place. But I will not make it a worse one.” He was serious, his voice low and husky.

  “I don’t understand you, Miss Reed.” He said this reluctantly, as though it pained him to admit. “You experienced something at that séance, feigned”—she opened her mouth to interrupt, but he waved a hand and would not be stopped—“or authentic. Yet you tell me you have neither ill motives nor spiritual powers. This is what I don’t understand.” He pressed his fingertips together below his chin.

  She was silent. Again, this impasse. She looked up at the trees. A cool wind rustled their crowns. The fair day was fading fast, and a fouler night was coming. He stepped toward her. Dear God but she felt the distance between them narrow, as though stroked with a finger.

  “I do not want you spreading messages from my betrothed abroad. I do not want you to whisper my betrothed’s secrets in her mother’s ear. If Louisa locks you in the attic with a writing pad and Phillipa’s pen and bids you stay there until you can produce a missive from the otherworld, you will not write a word. You will sit in the attic, and when the month of your mediumship is up, you will take your leave. If Louisa asks you to rap on the table, you will—”

  “Mill it into sawdust?” She met his eyes squarely. “Yes, my lord.”

  “Well … ” The wind flattened his hair against one side of his face. “A truce, then.” He held out his hand. Her heart began to pound. She held out her own hand. She couldn’t feel the texture of his fingertips through her gloves. Those small calluses that had scratched the skin of her lips. Calluses. What did he do that he should have calluses? She felt maddened by the leather that kept those calluses from grazing her palm.

  “A truce,” she echoed.

  “Shall we give the bread to the ducks?” He smiled at her, not his spontaneous, crooked grin, but a practiced smile. “Or should I crumble it along this path so we can find our way back here?”

  “Why would we want to find our way back?” As soon as the words were out of her mouth she blushed furiously. She could feel the heat cresting her cheeks. Even her forehead had to be scarlet.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he said blandly. “Just a bit of whimsy.”

  Whimsy.

  “Don’t you care for fairy tales?”

  She smiled tightly. “Yes, my lord.”

  “Remind me to tell you the Egyptian story of Rhodopis.” He said this casually, as though future tête-à-têtes were an inevitability.

  She wanted that to be so. She wanted to return here with him, to this little scrap of woodland in the park, brown and green and redolent of rich, pure dirt. It was the closest thing to a fairy-tale forest in the whole city. She wanted to take him to Arlington Manor, to ride with him on the moors, to go all the way to Exmoor and picnic on a low stone wall and wander between oaks and look for the golden stag.

  This wanting—it frightened her. She looked away from him, down the path, which was transformed by the rolling clouds above the tree crowns into pools of light and shadow.

  “We should head back,” she said. “Mrs. Trombly will be wondering what became of us.” She was shivering as she walked past him.

  It was the wind, she told herself. It was just the cold wind.

  • • •

  As soon as they were admitted into the entrance hall of Trombly Place, Mrs. Trombly came to meet them. She wore a reproving look. Ella handed her gloves to Rutherford and almost touched her bare finger to her tender lower lip.

  But Mrs. Trombly was not looking at her lips. She was shaking her head at Lord Blackwood.

  “No hat?” Mrs. Trombly tsked at him, hands on her hips. “If I’d seen you go out I would have insisted you take one of Michael’s.”

  Lord Blackwood raked his fingers through his hair, disarranging what few locks the wind had neglected.

  “I go hatless to improve myself,” he said with a winning smile. “The air stirring the hairs stimulates the intellect.”

  “What nonsense,” said Mrs. Trombly, but the fondness in her voice was unmistakable. Ella tried to fade into the wall. She had no place in this, what felt like the greeting a fussing mother hen would bestow on a wayward chick. She began to sidle sideways toward the stairs. Rutherford made a discreet evaporation seem so natural. He’d already vanished from the hall.

  “Did the Greeks wear hats? Or the Romans? Miss Reed … ”

  Lord Blackwood’s drawl caught her by surprise. She blinked, froze in mid-sidle, and straightened.

  “Miss Reed knows something of the Roman proclivities.” Lord Blackwood’s eyes glinted.

  “Are you asking me if the Romans wore hats?” What funny notions of the classical world he harbored! She thought of senators, hatless, strolling by the Tiber, then returning to the capitol to swallow grapes in complete prostration. “Oh, not until the decline of the empire, I’m sure, my lord.”

  She shouldn’t feel warmed by the quirk of his lips, the suppressed smile that indicated his appreciation. She shouldn’t be looking at his lips at all.

  “I rest my case.” He winked at Mrs. Trombly.

  “Nonsense,” she repeated. “You should have worn a hat in Egypt at least. To keep the sun off your face. The other day, Mrs. Wheatcroft told me her daughters are calling you ‘the gypsy.’ And the Wheatcroft girls haven’t had one original notion between the five of them for as long as I’ve known them. If they’re calling you ‘the gypsy,’ that means it’s all over London.”

  “The gypsy is such a fashionable figure.” Lord Blackwood cocked a black brow. H
e looked every inch a gypsy king. “Everyone tells me this is the season for gypsies. They’re in the highest demand.”

  “At costume balls,” said Mrs. Trombly. “Where the effect is achieved with boot polish.” She glowed as she said it. Lord Blackwood tilted his head, striking an even more raffish pose. He knew what pleasure Mrs. Trombly derived from scolding him. His absurdity was calculated. It was … kind. Watching them together made a lump rise in her throat. She had enjoyed scolding her papa.

  Is that jam on your nose? Papa, surely you could put your book down to eat.

  “Miss Reed, how did you enjoy your walk?” Mrs. Trombly’s melting eyes swung in her direction. “Did it strain your sensibilities to appear in public with this vagabond?”

  Damn her pale skin. She wished she had taken more sun. If she had a fraction of his tan it might disguise the flush that she felt again creeping up from her breasts.

  “I enjoyed the walk,” she said carefully. Lord Blackwood was watching her with undisguised interest.

  “Was it crowded near the lake?” Mrs. Trombly’s benignant smile was turning ever so slightly quizzical.

  “Very peaceful, in fact,” she answered in a strangled voice. “Except for the ducks, of course. They were so … animated when presented with their bread.”

  Lord Blackwood made a movement, and she nearly gasped. He wouldn’t produce the old roll now to prove her a liar. That would teach her to make a truce with the devil. But he only reached into his waistcoat for a pocket watch. He’d done it to torture her; she was sure of it. His low laugh could have nothing to do with the hour he read on the face of the watch. What man chuckled over the time? Mrs. Trombly’s smile was definitely quizzical.

  “Well,” said Ella. “I am feeling a little fatigued by the exercise. I’ll just go upstairs now, to rest, if you don’t mind.” She smiled at Mrs. Trombly, then once she was sure the smile was fixed in place, turned to Lord Blackwood. “Thank you, my lord, for the walk. I … ” Drat it, why couldn’t she think of another word? “ … enjoyed it.”

  He grinned, that same crooked grin she had seen in Hyde Park, and again the breath fled her body. She wondered if their truce was more a threat than open hostility.

  “Well,” she said again. And all but scurried for the stairs.

  In the bedchamber, she untied her bonnet and threw it at the wardrobe. She paced the worn carpet. She was a fool. He had kissed her on a whim, a malicious whim, to test her. She had no right to keep thinking of his kisses. Hers was to be a life without kisses, without a husband, without children of her own. She knew that. Her dear papa, who had loved her so much, he had known that.

  Maybe Alfred was right in Papa’s case. Maybe Papa’s kindness hadn’t helped her in the end. If he hadn’t always seen the best in people, if he had suspected Alfred was a selfish, climbing sort of bastard, and that he would not do right by her, he might have made some other arrangements. He might have found a way to leave her with something.

  She had told Papa that Alfred had no love for him or for her. He was sly and jealous. He’d often complained that his mother had married beneath her. He held his own father in contempt and spoke slightingly of the man’s “insufferable bourgeois habits.” By “insufferable bourgeois habits,” she took him to mean decency. A resistance to turning every hunt into a massacre. A willingness to go to his office and work for his clients.

  Alfred is a sporting man, not a poet, Papa had said. He’s clumsy with his words. He cares for you, Ella. He’ll look after you.

  Papa had assured himself that Alfred would allow her to stay at Arlington Manor. He had taken no precautions. Made no provisions. He had left her with nothing.

  No thought had ever felt so much like betrayal. I’m sorry, Papa.

  She hurled herself onto the bed and vented her agitation in gusty, tearless sobs. She dug her fists into the coverlet and buried her face in the pillow. Her hiccupping breaths drew the pillowcase into her open mouth. The fabric tickled her lips, dampened against her teeth and tongue. Her breasts, flattened by the weight of her body, felt full and sensitive. She sat up abruptly. Phillipa’s photograph stood on the bedside table in its silver frame. She was the woman Blackwood loved, even now. Even dead, she had a greater claim on him.

  Phillipa had danced with him. She had felt the hard muscles in his arms and shoulders and dreamed …

  Enough. She lunged forward and grabbed Phillipa’s photograph. She couldn’t look at her anymore, that fetching, slightly blurry face. She could never sit still. She would stuff the photograph into the writing desk. It was such a pretty satinwood desk, with one long drawer and two short drawers, each with a brass-ring handle. She pulled open the long drawer; there were pens inside, and a writing pad and blotter, the pasteboard backing cornered with red satin. Mercifully, the pad and blotter were bare.

  Papa always said handwriting was an expression of the soul.

  Writing unites the hand and the word. In that unity, a man finds himself.

  What would Papa have thought of London’s rabble of spirit-writers?

  She could almost hear him: They can take dictation from the dead? And it’s all marmalade recipes from someone’s Aunt Barbara? No sonnets from Donne? Bah.

  She slid the photograph inside the drawer and shut it hard. There. That was better. She turned around and caught her reflection in the mirror on the wardrobe door. So white, her face. Sunken eyes. Sharp nose, sharp chin. Sharp, crowded teeth. Her hair the color of ashes.

  She was a ruin, but without former glory. A ruin born. She flung open the wardrobe door. Now she saw only her black dresses, neatly hung. She knelt down, and her fingers found the ring of the wardrobe’s single drawer. She tugged the drawer open.

  It was filled with Phillipa’s relics. Gloves in kid, satin, and lace. Beaded reticules. Embroidery rings. Ella sifted through the neat piles and selected a cream-colored purse embroidered with roses. She opened the purse and drew out her velvet pouch, weighing it in her hand before she untied the strings and shaped each of the items inside with her fingers. Bracelet, watch, hair clips, spoon, ring. Everything that remained after she’d sold what she needed for food and lodging and cab fare when she’d first arrived in London. She returned the pouch to its hiding place. She checked twice a day to make sure its contents were accounted for. If something should go wrong here, with Mrs. Trombly, those small pieces of metal would once again provide her only security.

  She covered the purse with a pair of opera gloves. Then hesitated. She lifted the opera gloves and ran her thumb over the cool ivory leather.

  How did you find the third act, Miss Trombly?

  Orfeo’s aria made me shiver, Lord Blackwood. So mournful.

  Mournful, yes. But Amore herself rewards him for it with the return of his Eurydice. And so it is the happiest of songs.

  And if Amore had not favored Orfeo? If Eurydice had remained below?

  Were I Orfeo, my darling, and you, Eurydice, then only one course of action would lay before me should Amore prove so cruel.

  Yes, my lord?

  I would join you in Hades.

  She laid the gloves back down. Her imagination had always been vivid. It wouldn’t take much to convince herself that her fantasies were visions. Maybe she really could be a medium. A reticule in the back of the drawer caught her eye, bronze beads against black silk. She slid it out, picked at the knot in the black ribbon drawstring, worked her fingers inside the narrow neck, and spread it open. She brushed something soft and pulled. A fold of white emerged from the black bag like a magic trick. She turned it in her hands—a creased linen handkerchief—and touched the initials embroidered on the corner in thick blue thread.

  IHB.

  She lifted the handkerchief to her nose. Dust and the faintest whiff of gardenias. The scent had nothing to do with the man who’d held her in his arms, who smelled musky and hot, who smelled of wood shavings and smoke.

  Once he had daubed himself with perfume and gone courting, this prince of darkness.

&nb
sp; It was quiet in the room and getting darker. She remained on her knees in front of the wardrobe, the black reticule in one hand, the white handkerchief in the other. She didn’t want to move just yet. Maybe if she stayed in that attitude a little longer, peace would find her.

  Chapter Nine

  As soon as Miss Reed had made her way down the hall with that halting clockwork gait, Louisa turned to Isidore.

  “You aren’t leaving?” She didn’t wait for a reply. “I would speak with you a moment.” She followed him into the sitting room and shut the door.

  “You didn’t quarrel with her?” She did not take a seat but stood, peering anxiously into his face. “You think I’m behaving foolishly, and maybe I am, but she isn’t to blame for it. She’s a dear girl, without an ounce of presumption. And she’s been hurt very badly by something; you can see it in her eyes. I want her to stay with me. She reminds me … Well, actually, she reminds me of … ”

  “Don’t say Phillipa.” Isidore stepped around her and flung himself onto the sofa. He sprawled there, regretting his words, feeling clumsy and rude. He had always taken the liberties of a son with Louisa. He didn’t deserve them. He had failed, in the end, to perform a son’s duties.

  “I wasn’t going to say Phillipa.” Louisa walked to the sofa and stood over him. “I was going to say that she reminds me of you, Isidore. The look that would come upon your face at the end of day when it was time for you to leave us and return to Castle Blackwood—it used to break my heart. Resigned and defiant at once. Like an innocent man at the scaffold. Such a terrible expression for a boy to wear.”

  Isidore pressed his fingertips into his jaws to loosen the muscles. His face felt locked.

  I am no innocent. Not anymore. And neither, I think, is your Miss Reed.

  In the hallway, he had watched the dusky blush stain her pale cheekbones. She looked so wretched, so undone. He would have pitied her. Except the kiss had affected him too. Had left him scorched. Restless. The only way to soothe the burning in his body would be to hurl himself back into the flames.