Dark Season

by Joanna Lowell

  He felt composed, suddenly. Lucid. The way was lit before him. Light shining on the dark path. All he needed to do was take one step. And then another.

  “What of Ella?” he asked. “Miss Reed? How does she fit in to this? What knowledge does she have?”

  “Most likely none.” Clement rose gracelessly. They were both moving like old men. “I overreacted.”

  “She didn’t speak to you of … the murder?” The word “murder” still tripped up his tongue. Phillipa had been murdered.

  “All she said was that I kept a secret that ate away at me.” Clement walked wearily to the leather chair he’d vacated and fell upon it. “Tell a man he keeps a painful secret. Tell a woman she dreams of love. Simple enough. Put me in a Gypsy caravan, I too could astound customers with the clarity of my visions in the crystal ball. It’s not what she said so much as her very presence, the suggestion that she might conjure Phillipa … ” He gave an involuntary shudder. “Stirs it all up, doesn’t it?” He paused, staring into space. “She’s an unnerving woman besides. The way she looks at you … ” He shut his eyes. “Christ almighty,” he whispered. “I let Phillipa’s murderer go free. Covered up his crime.”

  “For me.” Isidore smiled a bleak smile. “All these years, I’ve wondered. I couldn’t figure out why you pulled away. We sat for hours together by Phillipa’s casket, and you never looked at me. Never said a word. I felt … ” Betrayed. Abandoned. Forsaken. “But you thought … ” His throat threatened to close. He tilted his head back, tipping the whisky bottle until it emptied. “I don’t know how you endured sitting by my side.”

  The last drop of liquor rolled back down the neck of the bottle. He put the bottle on the breakfast tray. Jenkins wouldn’t thank him when the tray was collected, the food virtually untouched, the empty bottle testifying to the morning’s less wholesome repast.

  Clement’s head was nodding. The sleepless night catching up to him.

  “Clement,” Isidore said, and the head jerked up. The green eyes opened.

  “I’m listening,” Clement rasped. Isidore leaned again against the wall. He took a breath. Ella had told him he was a good storyteller. She meant he told stories well. Not that he had good tales to tell. Most of the stories he knew were tragic. He was going to tell Clement one of them. Phillipa’s story. He couldn’t tell it through to the end, because it wasn’t over. Phillipa’s murderer walked among them. Phillipa’s soul was unquiet—Miss Seymour had been right.

  He spoke dully, mechanically. By the time he’d finished, he knew what course of action he would take. Ella’s presence stirred things up. That was exactly what he needed. He needed to unnerve, and then unmask, a murderer. He needed to hire a private medium.

  • • •

  “Coffee” was all he could mutter when he arrived back at his house. He took the stairs to his study two at a time. He expected his footman to appear, but it was his housekeeper who came with the tray. She put the tray down with an abrupt motion and fisted her hands on her hips.

  “The young lady’s dress is ruined, my lord,” she said.

  “I imagine it is,” he said, pouring himself a cup of syrupy coffee. His cook might not have a gift for pastry, but he’d given her detailed instructions as to how he liked his coffee and he had no complaints. Mrs. Potts was still standing by his desk. In a twit about a bloody dress.

  “Burn it,” he said. The curt tone was meant to act as a dismissal.

  “I’m not concerned about how to dispose of the dress, my lord.” Mrs. Potts’s chins multiplied as she drew back her head like an angry bird. “But Miss Reed needs something to wear. She hasn’t set foot outside the bedchamber.”

  Good. He hadn’t intended her to set a damn foot anywhere. He meant for her to stay exactly where he’d left her. He sipped his coffee. He needed to collect himself. His sanity was hanging by a thread. Mrs. Potts, though, showed no sign that she was ready to leave him in peace. She had warmed to her topic.

  “I couldn’t believe my ears when Mr. Brinkley told me you’d gone out this morning without making any arrangements for her comfort,” she said. “After what she went through! Lor’, don’t mind my saying so, but it’s hard of you. Why, she’s such a sweet thing too. I haven’t heard a cross word from her, and she thanked Violet for the nightdress with such language as made the silly girl blush. She’s not high at all in her behavior, for all she’s a lady through and through. I brought her a shawl, and some cough drops, and she had a bit of omelette for breakfast, and she’s taken tea and a scone. It’s a miracle she’s not dying of the shock she had.” Mrs. Potts shook her head.

  It’s a miracle she’s not dying of your neglect and vulgar treatment. He could all but hear Mrs. Potts’s unspoken reprimand. It seemed Ella had made the most of her morning’s confinement, winning over his staff. Last night, Mrs. Potts had looked at her as though she was the Whore of Babylon. Now she was willing to challenge the master of the house on her behalf.

  Good work, Miss Reed, he thought.

  “Will Miss Reed be continuing in the house, my lord?” Without clothing? Mrs. Potts pressed her lips together as though preparing herself for a bitter blow. His answer was bound to scandalize her even more.

  “For the night, at least, Mrs. Potts. Beyond that, I can’t say. Send a porter to Trombly Place for a gown, shoes, and necessary items.” He stood. Mrs. Potts opened her mouth, no doubt to continue her harangue.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Potts,” he said. “Your interest in the lady’s welfare does you credit. I assure you I have the situation well in hand.”

  “Don’t take the situation too much in hand, my lord, if you catch my meaning,” said Mrs. Potts. The knowing look she leveled at him was so much at odds with her prim demeanor that his coffee went down the wrong pipe. He spluttered for a moment, at a loss.

  “Will you be needing anything else, my lord?” she asked, and while he was still coughing, she turned on her heel and left the room.

  Maybe he deserved it. He’d treated Ella badly, leaving her to wait for his return and wonder what fate he’d decided for her. He hadn’t intended to keep her waiting as long as he had. Hell, he hadn’t predicted any of this when he’d quitted the house. The morning had taken an unexpected turn. He’d stepped out of his own nightmare into Clement’s and then into yet another.

  He stood. It was time to invite her to join him in darkness. He rather wished he had something else to offer.

  • • •

  He tapped softly on the door before he pushed it open. She was standing by the window, looking out at the rain. He felt a stab of disappointment to see her wrapped in Mrs. Potts’s woolen shawl. That nightdress pulled taut across her hips and breasts, firelight sliding up and down the curves and planes—he hadn’t forgotten the sight. Her hips were wider, her breasts fuller, than he’d imagined. The delicate bones of her face, her posture, and that severe black mourning gown made her appear thinner than she was. Her body was lush.

  He cleared his throat. She turned. The lavender shadows that hollowed her eyes were darker today. Her hair had been hastily done; only a few pins anchored the twisted mass. It would be so easy to pull them out and watch her hair fall about her shoulders. He hadn’t gotten to appreciate her unbound hair last night, when it was tangled and coursing with foul water. Quite a few activities last night he hadn’t gotten to appreciate. His eyes fell to her feet. They were bare. The nightdress was too short. He could see her ankle bones, see up to where her heel curved toward the lower calf. His groin tightened.

  “Leave the door open.” She reached out her hand as though to stop the door from closing as he stepped into the room. He looked at her a moment. And shut the door deliberately behind him.

  “The servants will talk.” She stepped behind a chair, hiding her exposed ankles. This show of modesty amused him. Why not admit it? It excited him. Cat and mouse …

  “I carried you past them all in the middle of the night,” he reminded her. “They won’t talk of anything else for months. Unless
a volcano erupts and blocks out the sun. Even then.” He crossed the room slowly, stopped in front of the chair. “Unless Queen Victoria marries the ghost of Abraham Lincoln … ”

  Her smile flashed then vanished. He felt absurdly gratified. He knew how to conjure those rare smiles. Serious, philosophical Miss Reed had an undeniable taste for nonsense. She appreciated the ridiculous. Her life had made her dour and dark and awkward with her body, as though she were an operator working a badly oiled industrial machine. But nature had made her warm, imaginative, sensual. She had moved against him in the coach, unconsciously seductive, while he whispered the tale of Rhodopis in her ear. She had sighed with satisfaction. She desired such stories: romantic, impossible. She dreamed of happy endings. He wanted to whisper all kinds of foolishness into the curve of her neck, tickling her with his breath until she laughed helplessly, gasping for air, begging for mercy. He wanted to have that power over her. He wanted to make her writhe in his arms, respond to his words, his touch, spontaneously, unable to divide her mind from her body. He wanted her fused, mind-body-soul, and opening, to him.

  It might take another dip in the Thames to shrink the signs of his arousal.

  “I’m sorry I kept you waiting.” The effort it took not to reach over the chair and run his thumb along her jaw made his voice harsh. “I’m glad to see you’re not much the worse for last night’s ordeal.”

  “I would have left before you returned, but … ”

  “But you haven’t anything to wear,” he drawled. “I noticed.” The image of her standing before him in just the nightdress rose again in his mind. Wonderful piece of luck that Violet was so small in stature.

  “Where would you have gone?” he asked, watching her closely.

  “To Trombly Place,” she said immediately. “To collect my belongings.” He heard the split second of hesitation before she said the word “belongings.” She numbered among her belongings not a shilling but quite a few jewels. He narrowed his eyes. “And to take my leave of Mrs. Trombly,” she rushed on. “She must be quite … That is, when she discovered this morning that I was not in the house … ” Her lips parted. She could not hide her discomfort. As she stumbled over the words, her mortification only increased. She looked like a debutante caught kissing in a garden. Her lips were red, as though she had been kissing. Red and full. “I wanted to write, but … ”

  He was staring at her too intently. She dropped her gaze. Her eyelids too had a lilac tinge. She needed more rest. She needed someone to take her cares away from her. And here he was, preparing to introduce her to greater horrors.

  “You needn’t have troubled yourself about it,” he said. “I wrote to Mrs. Trombly.”

  “You wrote?” Ella’s eyes lifted. She always mastered herself quickly. She took an audible breath. “And you’ve had a letter back?”

  He hadn’t opened Louisa’s response. His letter to her had been brief. He’d written it and posted it at Clement’s.

  “I don’t know why I worry what you told her.” Ella’s lips curved. A faint sneer, self-mocking. He recognized the type. It was similar to the one he often wore himself. “She won’t think well of me as a thief if she has less cause to think ill of me as a woman.”

  “I told her you had another vision,” he said, and she jolted, brows winging upward. “You walked out into the night in a trance, and I found you staring up at Clem—St. Aubyn’s house. The scene, as it were, of … ” The crime. “The misfortune,” he finished. “I detected the signs of spirit possession. I took you here at once so as not to disturb her household.”

  Her eyes were wide. She was gripping the back of the chair.

  “Why?” Her pink tongue moistened the corners of her mouth. “Why would you tell her such a thing?” She lifted her chin. “How could you write such a thing? You accuse me of playing with her emotions, and then you write a lie that needs must excite and terrify her. That needs must raise false hopes.”

  “I regret raising her hopes falsely,” he said. “But she will talk of your latest trance to Mrs. Wheatcroft. And Mrs. Wheatcroft will talk to Mrs. Hatfield. And Mrs. Hatfield will talk to everybody. And before too long, rumors of your stunning feats of mediumship will reach the ears of someone whose hopes are not raised by the news that you have opened a powerful channel to the otherworld. Someone who feels nothing but fear at what you might say.”

  She shivered. Perhaps the cold was creeping out of her bones now as well. No sweet dreams for the likes of us, he thought. Strange that he should now think of that agonized coach ride as a hallowed interlude. They’d been inside a magic circle, everything complicated and insoluble locked beyond the glass and the wooden panels, their bodies close together, struggling to exchange animal heat. Protection.

  “I have a proposition for you,” he said.

  “A proposition?” She stepped back from the chair. Suspicious. Outraged, even. Too late, he realized he had been infelicitous in his word choice. She would leave his house without shoes, in that sheer nightdress and bulky shawl, before she would accept a proposition. Her situation didn’t permit her the luxury of such pride. But he couldn’t help but admire it. She was as stubborn as he.

  He didn’t want to coerce her. To threaten her with Newgate.

  “Let’s call it a devil’s bargain,” he said. “To free an immortal soul from its bondage.”

  She gave him a measuring look and drew the shawl tighter about her shoulders. She nodded slowly, as though considering. As though she were free to make her own choice. A lady through and through.

  “I will hear your proposition,” she said.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The porter came before dinner with her gown of black bombazine. Ella dressed but ate alone in the room. Waiting for the summons. It came, and she went to Isidore’s study. He sat behind his desk, and she sat on a chair across from him. There were sconces on the walls fitted with gaslights, but he’d opted for oil lamps. The light they gave was low, intimate.

  “Brandy?” he asked.

  She shook her head. He poured two glasses and put one down in front of her.

  “You’ll need it,” he said. They stared at each other. Two generals at a war council. He looked tired, tired as a general in the field, and as determined.

  “Yesterday I told you in no uncertain terms that you were to leave Trombly Place.” He took a sip of brandy, but his eyes remained locked on hers. “You made no answer to allegations that you are a thief.” He paused, as though to give her time to make answer now.

  She said nothing. What was the use? Protestations of innocence rarely swayed opinions founded on the bedrock of preexisting prejudice. Nothing could be easier than assuming the worst of her. She wouldn’t embarrass herself with declarations or appeals. He didn’t care if she was a thief. Not anymore. You don’t ask an angel to make a devil’s bargain. She waited. His eyes narrowed.

  “I wasn’t happy that Mrs. Trombly had hired you in the first place. I did not conceal my misgivings.”

  No, he hadn’t. He had made his misgivings plain. She glanced at his mouth then quickly away, but not before she saw those lips curve. He’d noticed. Damn him.

  He leaned forward but not to taunt or tempt her. The tempest in his eyes obscured their blue light. They were black, fixed. “I worried that your position as medium would give you the power to make claims about the dead. Claims that might gain currency. People tend to be credulous when it suits them. The ton has an insatiable appetite for scandal, the more sensational, the better. Séances just extend their reach—gossip from beyond the grave.”

  “Surely it isn’t only gossip people want.” She sounded so brittle. Why did his cynicism provoke her? Maybe she was more of a contrarian than a cynic. Maybe he just flustered her.

  He shrugged as though the point weren’t worth debating. “In some cases, spiritualist fervor is prurience disguised as sentiment. In other cases, it’s sentiment disguised as prurience. For the practitioners, the mediums, the spirit-writers, it’s money in the bank.”
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  “Your thoughts on spiritualism are known to me, my lord,” she said stiffly. She didn’t disagree. But she’d be damned if she admitted as much now.

  He tipped his head. Relaxed his posture. He wasn’t challenging her anymore. The weariness crept back into his face.

  “Phillipa died with certain secrets,” he said. “Secrets that I wanted buried with her. I felt I could not allow any tapping from beyond the grave to spell out some message—however cryptic—that hinted toward the truth. I even feared that you may have discovered something about Phillipa, through spiritual or worldly means … ” He smiled a faint smile. “And that you had planted yourself in Trombly Place to turn this knowledge to your advantage.” He paused again. She couldn’t keep herself from shaking her head slightly.

  “No,” he said. “I begin to believe you. I begin to believe your presence is a dark coincidence. Or, if you prefer, the workings of fate. I believe you are to be the instrument of justice. Of retribution. Divine or demonic—it matters to me not in the least degree.”

  She clutched the glass of brandy. He was right. She needed it. To hold on to if nothing else. The snifter was cool and smooth in her hand, narrowing from the wide base, delicate enough to crush. He could crush his snifter certainly. His long fingers cradled the transparent curves. He tipped the glass this way and that, absently, swirling the brandy. Watching her.

  “Until yesterday,” he said, “I thought that my fiancée had thrown herself from that balcony.”

  “Why?” Her face burned as soon as the word slipped out. She sipped at the brandy. Now her lips burned as well. Heat rolled down her throat. The question had pounded in her head all night.

  “We had a row.” He leaned an elbow on the desk. She saw the muscle in his arm bunch as he raised his hand to rub the back of his neck.

  “It must have been a bad one.” She could have bit her tongue at the inadequacy of this remark.