by Archer, CJ
He blinked once then looked down at our linked hands. He lifted them to his mouth and skimmed his lips across my knuckles. "Do you really believe that?"
"Yes! Jacob." I caught his face and drew it up so he looked at me. Our gazes met, briefly, then his flitted away to a point over my shoulder. "You are not to blame. Do you understand me?"
He smiled but it was weak and unconvincing. "I am to blame. Just because I didn't mean it, doesn't mean I didn't do it."
"But he attacked you first!"
"And I hit him last. That's what counts."
Men! Why did they have to think like brutes when it suited them? "Your logic is ridiculous, Jacob. No court would convict you."
"Emily." He said my name with great effort, as if he was beyond exhausted. "You don't understand. I hit him. I wanted to hit him. I wanted to stop him annoying me so I could go home, and to do that...I knew I would have to hurt him."
I frowned and shook my head. "That doesn't matter. You're a good person and I will not see you so angry with yourself because of something that wasn't your fault."
He drew my hands away from his face. His nostrils flared as his gaze met mine and held it. "You're not afraid of me?"
"No."
"You should be." He shoved my hands away, setting me unceremoniously back on my haunches, and stood up. "I'll stay away from you unless it becomes absolutely necessary." And then he was gone.
CHAPTER 12
I sat on the rug and stared at the chair where Jacob had been sitting. The cushion, embroidered with a vine pattern by my mother, hadn't yet sprung back to its full plump shape. I lowered my head and would have cried—I wanted to cry—but the tears wouldn't come. Perhaps I had none left. I felt empty.
After a while I climbed back into bed and pulled the covers up to my chin. But I didn't sleep. I couldn't. Jacob might come back. He might explain the meaning of his final words to me.
You should be.
I should be afraid of him. But I wasn't. Not of Jacob. He was gentle and considerate and protective. He would never hurt me, nor would he harm someone who didn't deserve it, I was certain. Frederick had hit him first and he'd been dogging Jacob for some time if his visits to the Beaufort's house were an indication. Jacob wasn't to blame for his death.
But Frederick was the key to Jacob's.
I knew that as well as I knew my own name. The events leading up to Jacob's murder were too coincidental for it not to be linked to Frederick and the incident in the alley. But if Jacob had killed Frederick in the fight, who had killed Jacob later?
The answer to that lay in what might have happened after Jacob felled Frederick. I couldn't believe he'd leave the boy lying there, dying. Jacob was no coward. He would have faced up to his actions and I doubt he simply walked away.
So what had happened next?
And who on earth was Frederick?
These questions and a thousand others swirled around my head until, drained, I finally drifted to sleep.
I awoke with a start the next morning to knocking on my door. I jumped out of bed. "Jacob!" I opened the door but Celia stood there alone.
"No," she said with suspicion. "Why would you think I was he?" Her already narrowed eyes became slits. "Has he been visiting you?"
"Occasionally."
Her lips puckered. "Please don't tell me he's been in your room."
If Celia wanted to make it easy for me then she'd just given me the perfect opportunity. "Of course not." Of course not, I won't tell you. It wasn't exactly a lie...
"Because if I learn that he has—."
"Celia, stop questioning me." I stood with my hands on my hips blocking the doorway but she still managed to slip past me into my room.
"It's most improper," she said from my wardrobe where she contemplated my gowns.
"I doubt my reputation will be ruined by the irregular visits of a ghost."
She turned to fix me with a withering glare. "Don't be so sure. Anyway, I'm worried about more than your reputation."
More than...? Oh. "Jacob has been the perfect gentleman, Sis, don't worry." I bit the inside of my cheek. He’d kissed me. Perhaps perfect was too strong a word.
"Emily..." She shook her head but I could tell she was bursting to ask me something. I had a feeling I would regret prompting her but I did anyway.
"Ye-es?"
"Well, do you think ghosts can...you know?"
Oh dear, regret wasn't a strong enough word for how I felt about this conversation. It was heading into very murky waters. "I have no idea what you're talking about and I don't think I want to."
"I know you know what I'm suggesting because we had that little chat only last year."
"Oh, that," I said, feigning nonchalance. "You're asking me if ghosts can have marital relations?" It was the phrase Celia had used during our talk on how babies were made. Even though most unwed girls my age were quite ignorant about what happened between men and women, my sister had insisted I be made aware. I'd thought it very progressive of her, particularly since she was essentially a prude. Not even I had seen her without her clothes on. Still, discussing it with her now was no less embarrassing than it had been then.
"Yes," she said. "Well, what do you think? Can they...you know?"
"I don't know. Would you like me to ask Jacob for you?"
"No!" She turned back to the wardrobe and studied the clothes with extra intensity.
I think I won that little battle.
"Why have you been crying?" she asked suddenly.
Oh dear, I was losing the war. I rubbed my eyes and yawned dramatically, putting my arms above my head and twisting my body for effect. "I slept poorly. I've a lot on my mind."
She seemed to believe me this time. She patted my arm and sighed. "So have I. What are you going to do today?"
"About the demon?" I padded across the floor to my dressing table and peered into the mirror. Good lord, I really did look awful. My eyes were rimmed red, my nose had swelled up and the dark shadows made it look like someone had punched me. Not even a strong cup of tea would help me look like myself again. "I think I'll go and see if George has contacted Leviticus Price," I said, frowning at me reflection. Hopefully a dose of cool air would help my complexion.
"Good idea." She laid the dress on the bed and whipped her palm down the skirt to flatten it. Satisfied, she made for the door. "If there's anything I can do, let me know." She left, her back not quite as straight as usual. She must still be blaming herself for letting the demon loose.
What she hadn't asked me was if there'd been another victim and burglary overnight. Of course I didn't know because Jacob had not appeared that morning.
My heart dove violently into my stomach as I realized he may not appear at all, ever again.
***
George was home, as was his mother unfortunately. When Mrs. Culvert saw us together in the drawing room, she turned her nose up at me and said, "You again," as if I was the plague. "George, a word."
"Yes, Mother." But he didn’t move.
"In private."
With a loud sigh, he joined his mother outside the drawing room. A few moments later, I heard him say, "This is my house and I can entertain any sort of guest I want. Emily is an outstanding girl and—."
His mother's voice cut him off but I couldn't quite make out what she said. The click-clack of her footsteps retreating on the tiles was a welcome sound to my ears.
"Sorry," George said with a sympathetic smile when he returned. "Mothers."
I smiled too even though I didn't necessarily understand his meaning. My mother had never dictated who I could be friends with, but then I'd had so few friends growing up she'd probably have encouraged me to speak to the poor little girl who sold matches on the street corner.
"Now, where were we?" he said, sitting down opposite me once more. "Ah yes, Leviticus Price. I sent him a message requesting to see him."
"A message? Requesting to see him? George, you are being much too polite."
He looked
slightly taken aback at that. "Emily, there is no such thing as too polite."
I refrained from retorting that he might as well live in a prison with all the society rules he and the people of his station had to live by. I suddenly felt an immeasurable amount of freedom, as I had done after speaking to Adelaide Beaufort the day before. My life, while complicated, was at least my own. "Come on, let's pay him a visit now."
I stood. After a moment, George stood too. "I'm not sure this is a good idea," he said slowly. "Price isn't the sort of man who likes insolence, particularly in youngsters."
"You're nineteen!" The urge to click my tongue, roll my eyes and generally make him see how immature he was behaving was very strong.
"You're right. Let's go." He tugged on his coat lapels and stretched his neck. "Greggs!" he called as he strode to the drawing room door. "Send word to the stables for the carriage."
***
Leviticus Price rented a few rooms in a brick terrace house in one of the newer suburbs on London's outskirts where street upon street was lined with identical brick terrace houses. The only distinguishing feature between them seemed to be the color of the door, but even there the palette was limited to blue, white and green.
Price's landlady showed us up to the tiny parlor where a thin man with short white hair and a long white beard sat eating breakfast. The Times was open on the table beside him and several books and journals were piled or scattered around the small space. Oddly, the mantelpiece was empty except for a smoking pipe on a wooden stand. The walls too were bare. It was almost as if he'd just unpacked after moving in.
Although it was almost noon, Price didn't seem concerned that he'd been caught eating at such a late hour, or that he'd been caught eating at all. He kept right on shoveling eggs and bacon into his mouth as if it was his first meal in a week. By the thinness of him, it might very well have been.
He greeted George with a nod of his long, horse-y head but hardly acknowledged me at all until George introduced us. My name did, however, catch his attention.
"Emily Chambers," he said, pausing in chewing to look me over properly. "Well, well, well." He had eyes of the palest blue, like a frozen lake, which left me shivering in the wake of his bald scrutiny.
"You've heard of her," George said, sounding pleased.
Price wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, all the while watching me. It was most unnerving. "I have indeed. She's the spirit medium. Quite a good one, I hear."
I did not like the way he spoke about me as if I wasn't there, or as if I was an object without the capability of thought or speech. "Mr. Price, if you would stop staring, I would be most grateful." I gave him a tight smile. "I'm not at my best today you see." It was a light-hearted attempt to cut through the awkwardness I felt in his presence but it was also a grim reminder of why I wasn't looking my best—I'd been up half the night crying over Jacob.
I shoved all thoughts of my ghost away. I needed to concentrate and I couldn't do that if I let sadness consume me.
Price snorted a laugh and sat back in his chair. The move made his smoking jacket gape open, revealing a plain linen shirt underneath. "Sit, sit, both of you." I sat on the only spare chair, a hard-backed, unpadded affair that looked as old as the white-haired man himself. George removed a stack of books from another chair and, not finding anywhere to deposit them, piled them up on the floor near the unlit fireplace. He sat too and offered me a small shrug. Price wouldn't have noticed since he was still staring at me. I felt like an exotic bird at the zoo, a feeling that wasn't entirely foreign but definitely not welcome.
"Can you really see ghosts, Miss Chambers?"
"Yes." I saw no reason to lie to him, or indeed to anyone. Once upon a time I would have been considered a witch but this was an enlightened age. Society had come a long way since the days when my kind was burned at the stake.
Price rested his elbows on the arms of his chair and pressed his steepled fingers to his lips. "Interesting."
Usually at this point people ask me to demonstrate my abilities by summoning a loved one. Sometimes I oblige them but most of the time—because Celia is with me and insists upon it—I agree to come back for a séance. Price didn't ask and I didn't offer, although he undoubtedly was intrigued. He couldn't stop staring.
I tried not to let him see how unsettled his scrutiny made me. It wasn't easy.
"We've come to ask you about a Mr. Blunt from the North London School for Domestic Service," George said. He offered no preliminaries, no how-do-you-do's or idle chatter and I sensed that was the best way to deal with Price. He didn't seem like the sort of man who liked to discuss the weather. George may not be the most socially adept person but he knew enough about Price to keep to the point. Was that because they were so alike in their obsession with the Otherworld?
"Blunt?" Price turned to George and I let out a relieved breath. I'd had enough of being viewed as a museum piece. "I'm on the board of his school. What of it?"
"He told us you and he had a discussion about demons, mentioning myself as an authority on the subject."
"We might have. What of it?" he asked again.
George cleared his throat. "I was burgled recently. The Complete Handbook of Shape-shifting Demons and Weres was stolen from my library."
I think Price squeezed his lips together but it was difficult to tell with his untrimmed moustache hanging over his mouth like a hedge in need of pruning. "A good general primer on the subject, suitable for a newcomer to the art of demonology."
Art? Now there was a word I'd not thought to hear in the same sentence as demonology.
"What a shame to lose it from your collection," Price went on, "but I fail to see the connection to myself or Blunt."
"I suspect it was stolen by my new maid who was sent to me from Blunt's school. I wondered if she perhaps overheard your conversation with the schoolmaster before she left. He suggested you might remember when exactly you had the conversation."
"He did, did he?" He appeared to think about this for a moment, then said, "No, sorry, I can't recall. Memory's not what it used to be. Could have been last week, could have been a month ago." Price picked up a piece of bread from his plate but didn't eat it. "What does it matter anyway? I assume the girl's long gone."
"She is but we'd like to find her."
Price frowned. "Does the book really mean that much to you?"
"It's not so much the book." George glanced at me.
"What then?" Price prompted and popped the bread in his mouth. He had not so much as offered us a cup of tea. Not that I would have agreed to one—I didn't want to stay any longer than necessary—but it would have been polite.
"A demon was summoned from the Otherworld during one of my séances," I said. "It was unwittingly done but it appears to have been orchestrated by someone intent on doing harm to others. The only lead we have is the stolen book."
We waited while Price chewed then swallowed. His frown grew deeper and darker as his mouth worked slowly. "You think the girl is using this demon for her own nefarious reasons?" he eventually asked.
"Yes," I said quickly before George could tell him we suspected she'd been ordered by others to steal the book. Thankfully he didn't counter my answer. "But we wouldn't like to blame her if she's not responsible. So if you could remember when you had that conversation with Mr. Blunt, we would be most grateful. Indeed, if you could remember anything at all...you could be saving lives."
Price rubbed his beard, dislodging a few crumbs, then reached for the newspaper. He flipped it open to a page and pointed to a small article with the headline DOG ATTACKS SERVANT. "Read it only this morning. It says the police think the footman was mauled to death by a stray dog. He sustained terrible injuries that killed him a few hours later. Do you think that's your demon?"
"Probably," I said without reading the article. "So you understand we need to find out as much as we can. The police can't do anything in this situation. It's up to us."
He nodded, stroking his beard aga
in as he re-read the article. Then he suddenly folded the newspaper and placed it back on the tea table. "Sorry, Miss Chambers, but I can't recall the exact date of my conversation with Blunt." His freezing gaze shifted from me to George then back again. "I do, however, remember that he asked some very precise questions about demons."
"What do you mean?" said George.
Price suddenly stood and pressed a hand to his temple. "I don’t like to tell you this as it might get the man into trouble."
George and I exchanged glances. "Go on," I urged Price.
He sighed and picked up the pipe from its little stand on the mantelpiece. He put it into his mouth but didn't light it. "Blunt wanted to know how to summon one," he mumbled around the end of the pipe, "how to control them, all the different kinds of demons, that sort of thing."
"You didn't think his questions unusual?" George asked, incredulous.
"Of course I did, boy!" He pulled the pipe out and pointed the end at George. "I told him about you and your library and I said if he wanted to know anything, you were the man to ask." He sighed, and folded his long, thin arms over his chest. "I even told him about that specific book you mentioned. I said it was a good place to begin."
George groaned and I closed my eyes. It was looking more and more like Blunt was involved. But if that was the case, why did he tell us about the conversation with Price at all? He must know Price could turn the suspicion back on him.
"And no one else overheard you?" I asked.
Price shrugged sharp, angular shoulders. "They might have. I don’t know, do I?" He strode to the door, reaching it in two giant strides even though he had to avoid George's chair and a pile of books stacked beside it. "Anyway, it's not my problem, I didn't summon the bloody thing." This he directed straight at me, as if it were my fault my sister had accidentally released the demon. I suppose it was, in a way. "Give my regards to Blunt."
George stood but instead of leading the way out, he confronted Price. "I say, you don't seem too perturbed by the fact there's a shape-shifting demon loose in the city and that you might be partially responsible."