by Megan Chance
“A pistol?” Dudley said from beside me. “Why would the spirits do that?”
Michel frowned as he rose and walked to where Peter stood. He reached into his pocket and took out a penknife, which he worked into the wall, probing until he’d pried the ball from the plaster. It fell, round and bright, into his hand, and he rolled it between his fingers. “A real ball, eh?”
“Meant for who?” Benjamin asked.
“For Michel,” Peter said grimly.
Dorothy made a sound of dismay.
Michel looked at her quickly. “Never fear, ma chère.” He held up his hand. “You see? I’m untouched.”
“Was anyone hurt?” Peter asked.
“Why do you think it was meant for Jourdain?” Ben asked.
“Look where it lodged. It could’ve been you it was meant for. Or Dorothy. My God, one of you could have been killed.”
I looked at my husband in horror. What had seemed a harmless trick, a show, had taken a terrible turn. “It’s from a pocket pistol,” Peter said. “Who among us has such a gun?”
“No doubt we all do, as you well know,” Jacob Colville said impatiently. “I’ll warrant even Sarah has one.”
Sarah nodded, trembling. “My father gave it to me. I’ve never had occasion to use it.”
“Perhaps someone was standing at the edges of the room—or behind the curtains,” Wilson Maull suggested, rushing to investigate.
Robert Dudley said, “Sit down, Maull. If they were there, they are surely gone now. And who else is in the house but us, and Dorothy’s servants?”
“They’ve been with me for years.” Dorothy’s voice was shaking.
“Enough of this,” Michel said. He pocketed the ball neatly and strode to Dorothy, settling his hands on her shoulders, as if to steady her. “No doubt it was an accident, eh? Someone had a primed pistol and it went off.”
“What if it wasn’t an accident?” Peter asked in a low voice.
“We’re all friends here, aren’t we? The only new one among us is your wife.” Michel’s glance came to me. “What of it, Madame? Did you mean to murder me tonight?”
“Why would I want to kill you?” I asked in surprise.
“What a preposterous idea,” Peter said.
“You see?” Michel shrugged. “Best to forget it, eh?”
Sarah looked uncertain. “Perhaps we should call the police.”
“Whatever for?” Jacob Colville asked with a snort. “D’you really expect them to do anything at all without a bribe—or without exposing us to ridicule? I’ve enough trouble trying to persuade my family this is no passing fancy; I hardly need police gossip to make matters worse. I’ve my position to maintain. As does Dudley.”
“Jacob’s right. No police.” Dorothy spoke firmly, glancing up at Michel and reaching to grab his hand.
“It was just a misfire, then—are we all agreed?” Michel asked. When no one protested, he said, “We should all go home and get some rest.”
Our hostess was visibly shaking and so pale I thought she might swoon. I rose and went to my husband, taking his arm. “Perhaps we should go,” I said quietly.
“Yes,” Peter said. “Perhaps we should.” He called out to Benjamin, “Ben, let’s get our things and take our leave.”
The two of them went to find Lambert, and I waited, leaning down to look at the hole in the wall, a nearly direct hit through the printed center of a drooping yellow tea rose.
“I hope you don’t let this frighten you away, Madame.”
Michel’s voice was behind me; I jumped. When I glanced back I saw that Dorothy’s nurses were helping her from the room. He was standing quite close, and when I turned to face him, he didn’t back away. “You don’t seem the least bit worried. You aren’t afraid the bullet was meant for you?”
“Non. Who here means me harm?”
“How can you be so certain?”
“You’re the only one here I don’t know, Madame. Should I not trust you? Your husband is here quite often. Perhaps you’ve grown tired of being lonely.”
I laughed. “I’m hardly likely to go about shooting those who displease me, Mr. Jourdain.”
“Ah. So I displease you?”
“No, of course not. That’s not what I—”
“Were you disappointed tonight, Madame Atherton?”
“On the contrary. I’m quite… stunned… at your accomplishment. I’ve never seen anything like it. Peter’s mother… why, she seemed to inhabit you. How do you manage it?”
He shrugged. “I’ve no idea. The gift came to me early. I’ve never questioned the method.”
I couldn’t resist the urge to bait him. “The spirits just flit down from heaven to possess you? I wonder that you’re not frightened of visitations from those less elevated. Or does no one make his way up from hell?”
“Evelyn,” Peter called from the doorway, and I glanced up to see him waiting there, my cloak draped over his arm.
“I must go,” I said. “Thank you, Mr. Jourdain. It’s been an enlightening evening.”
Michel took my hand. “Delighted to meet you, Madame Atherton. I hope to see you again, eh?” He pressed my fingers to his lips—my hand was still bare, my fine kid gloves still upon the table, and his mouth was warm and moist against my skin. It was too intimate. I drew back quickly enough that his gaze flicked to mine.
Firmly, I said, “You will take care?”
“I treasure my skin above all others, Madame,” he said with a small smile. “Good night.”
I hurried away from him, grabbing my gloves before I went to my husband, who waited, frowning, in the doorway. As he put my cloak about my shoulders, he said, “What were you talking with him about?”
“Nothing,” I said. “The spirits.”
We went downstairs and out of the house, and into the fog, which had grown heavier. Now it was almost a soft, chill rain. I could barely see Cullen as he waited at the open door to the brougham. I pressed my skirts to maneuver them inside, and edged my thin-booted feet close to the brazier. When Peter sat down, and the door was shut, I said, “Dear God, to think that you might have been killed by a misfire… .”
Peter was silent. Then he said, “I’m going to leave you at the house tonight. I must go out.”
“Tonight?” I asked in dismay. “So late?”
“When is the Reid soiree?”
“Saturday night.”
“I’ll meet you there.”
“But that’s two days away! And you’ve been gone so much lately—”
“The bullet wasn’t a misfire,” he said curtly.
I stared at him in surprise. “What?”
“It wasn’t a misfire,” he said. “It was meant for Michel. And I intend to find out why.”
2
_
AN INVITATION TO MELODRAMA
TWO DAYS AFTER THE SPIRIT CIRCLE
The first time I’d laid eyes on Peter Atherton, it had been four years ago, on a February so cold that the single window in my father’s office was covered with a thin sheet of ice. The tiny coal stove in the corner barely broached the chill, no matter how much fuel I piled on, and my fingers were numb as I tried to write the figures in the ledger book.
When I’d seen Peter’s shadow against the wavery glass window of the office door, I thought he was one of the young men Papa often employed to help him, and I hoped it was not Clancy Owen, who fancied himself in love with me, and who exhausted me daily with his protestations of undying servitude.
But then the door opened, and Peter walked into the office, and I was struck dumb. This was not one of Papa’s callow boys. This was a man, and a rich one at that. He wore a greatcoat and a top hat, but what pale blond hair peeked from beneath it seemed to be possessed of some ethereal shine. He was handsome in that way wealthy men always are, well groomed, expensively clad, cologned, and smooth skinned. He seemed a terrible aberration in the office, though my father had appointed it as well as we could afford, and we were respectable enough. But the br
illiance of Peter Atherton made the silk-upholstered settee look frayed and and the side tables seem coarsely stained and lathed. I was suddenly aware of the soot on the ceiling from the gaslight, and the fact that the carpet on the floor was one of A. T. Stewart’s more inexpensive rugs—and a popular enough pattern that no one could fail to notice it.
I felt myself flush as I put down the pencil and straightened and asked, “May I help you, sir?”
He glanced at me, and then—I noticed with satisfaction—glanced again, before he smiled and said, “Are you the new girl?”
“Both old and new. I’m Mr. Graff’s daughter.”
He swept off his hat and gave me a little bow. “Mr. Peter Atherton, at your service, miss. I’ve come to see your father. I don’t have an appointment, unfortunately, but I had hoped he could spare me a few moments.”
I gave him my most charming smile. “I’m sure I can persuade him to make time for you, sir.”
“I’ve no doubt that if anyone could do it, it would be you.”
I rose, wishing I’d worn one of my better gowns instead of the tartan wool, which was at least two years old, and conscious of my every move as I eased my skirts—which were not quite wide enough to be fashionable—past the table that served as my desk. I knocked briefly on my father’s door. At his grunted “What is it, Evie?” I pushed it open and stepped inside, closing it firmly behind me, and said breathlessly,
“There’s a Mr. Peter Atherton to see you, Papa.”
He glanced up. His eyes were rheumy behind his glasses, and because of it many had been deceived—to their detriment—into thinking he had poor eyesight as well. But Joseph Charles Graff was an acutely observant man, which was why he was so much in demand as an investigator.
“Atherton?”
“Yes.”
My father gave me a shrewd look. “Don’t keep him waiting then, Evie. Let him in.”
Peter hired Papa that day to help him investigate one of his cases, and after that, he came more and more often, and I dared to think it was due as much to me as to my father’s competence. I didn’t think I was imagining the sparkle in his eyes as he came through the door, and after that first time, he never failed to bring some small thing for me: a flower picked from the window box of some stoop he’d passed, a lovely bright orange, a ribbon. I dared my father’s glowering looks in my attempts to make Peter smile and laugh—he had a good laugh, one that seemed to fill the very corners of the room. As time passed, I found I truly liked him, and the weeks when he didn’t come filled me with terror; I began to imagine that each visit would be his last, that he would find some woman of his own class and forget all about me.
Papa sighed over me at dinner. “Our girl’s got herself in a state again today.”
As Mama sipped her laudanum-laced tea, she said, “Might as well try for an English duke, Evie, as that son.”
I was taken aback. “Really, Mama!”
Papa grunted skeptically. “Your mama’s right. You keep your distance. And keep your head. He’s an Atherton.”
“You talk as if we’re not good enough for them,” I said, stung. “The Graffs are respectable tradesmen. You’ve said it often yourself. You’ve said we have nothing to be ashamed of. It’s not as if we live in the Bowery.”
Papa pointed to the framed landscape on the wall. “You see that lithograph?”
“Of course.”
“You know what’s on his walls, Evie? The original, that’s what. The Athertons are Knickerbockers—from the Faubourg St. Germain set. You stay away from what’s so far beyond you. It’ll only lead to misery.”
“You told me the world was changing,” I said. “You said I was good enough for anyone.”
“The world hasn’t changed that much. You keep to your place.”
“My place,” I said bitterly. “What’s that, Papa? What were my studies for if not to use my mind for something better?”
He glanced at Mama, who would not meet his gaze. “I’ve come to think perhaps your mama was right about that. Perhaps I’ve done you a disservice.”
His betrayal nearly made me cry. “Oh, I see. So I’m to marry Clancy Owen and spend my life having babies until I’m half mad with boredom like—” I broke off as my mother glanced blandly up at me.
Papa gave me a warning look.
“It’s not right to want what you can’t have, Evie,” Mama said.
But I did want Peter. I couldn’t help it. And I thought he wanted me too. He began coming to the house a few evenings a week, his eyes glittering with admiration as we discussed philosophy with my father, or, more often, played chess at the table overlooking the narrow street.
One night, as I took his white bishop, he smiled and said, “You are damnably good at this for a woman!”
I smiled back at him. “One of my many skills.”
“I honestly believe you’re playing to win.”
“Of course I am. What other reason is there?”
He moved a pawn. “Well, most women I know would never dare to best a man. Don’t you know we’re supposed to be the superior chess players?”
“Should I hide my skill then? Even if it meant I was insulting you?”
“How so?”
“It would mean I thought you stupid enough to not see I was pretending. And it would mean you were that stupid, for believing a win was your right simply because you’re a man.”
He laughed. “Oh, I would love to see you among society, Miss Graff. How they would blink!”
“Somehow I don’t think they’d quite appreciate me.” I glanced at my father, who was across the room, supposedly acting as our chaperone, but so immersed in his book I doubted he would notice if Peter leaned across the table to kiss me, which I could not help wishing he would do. Still, I lowered my voice to keep my father from hearing. “Papa says the upper ten expect their women to be demure and unclever.”
“I think most of them are. Or at least they pretend to be.”
“I guess they wouldn’t take to me then. I don’t think I could be demure. Mama says intelligence in a woman frightens men, but I couldn’t abide not being respected for my mind. It’s a terrible flaw, isn’t it? I suppose any man would think so.” I spoke honestly, but nervously too, in the hope that I had not misjudged him, and Peter did not disappoint me. He looked at me with an expression that seemed to light a fire within me.
“If a man feels threatened by your intellect, it’s his flaw, not yours. I don’t think most of my fellows know how invigorating it is to have a real conversation with a woman instead of listening to her go on about gewgaws.”
“I don’t even know what a gewgaw is.”
“You see?” Peter’s smile was broad. “You are a rare creature indeed, Miss Graff. If they could only meet you! I think they’d find you as refreshing as I do.”
“I hope you still feel that way after I beat you.” I moved my rook into place, lifting the pawn he’d just set there. “Checkmate.”
His laughter was golden and sweet, and Papa rose and put aside his book and went into the kitchen for a drink of water, and Peter put his hand on mine, and I linked my fingers with his and felt charming and beautiful and alive. Peter made me believe that my ambition and intelligence and desire to be respected were things to appreciate, instead of the faults I knew they were, and as the months passed, I fell in love with him—or at least, I fell in love with who I thought he was. I harbored dreams of him carrying me off to live uptown. I dreamed that what he said was true, that the upper ten would embrace me, that I would charm his family and they would grow to love me, and Peter and I would have children and be romantically in love for the rest of our lives.
Even clever girls can be fools sometimes. In my heart, I knew those things could never come true, but I grew more and more daring nonetheless. I would touch his hand, or brush against him. I said such outrageously suggestive things that they made me blush even as I said them. All in the hopes that he would suddenly go down on his knee and proclaim his undying love.<
br />
And then, one day, I was coming back from running an errand for my father. It was May, and the days were warm and growing hot. The spring had set my mind into a whirl—the rich perfume of flowers, bees buzzing around pollen-laden stamens, dogs mating in the streets—it seemed the world around me was consummating its love, and I felt bothered and irritable. I was short-tempered and hot as I came hurrying back to the brick building on lower Broadway that housed my father’s office, and the traffic was loud and unbearable, and the stink of the street—of dust and garbage and manure—made my head ache. I reached for the lever on the cast-iron gate just as another hand did—a man’s hand—and I looked up into Peter’s face.
“Why, Miss Graff,” he said. “How fortunate that I’ve run into you here.”
I smiled prettily at him. “Why should it be a surprise, Mr. Atherton, when I can be counted on to be here every day?”
“I meant here, in the street. I was just on my way up to see you, as it happens. I had wondered”—he looked down at his hands, as if he were nervous, though of course he could not have been, not a man like him—“I had wondered if you’d care to accompany me on a short promenade.”
“Oh,” I said stupidly. “I… I see. Is there something you wish me to…”
“As it happens, I do wish to ask you a favor,” he said quickly.
Of course there was some errand he needed of me. There could be no other reason. But I would have done anything to be with him—he could have asked me to swim the Hudson in mid-winter and I would have agreed—and so I nodded and said, “Of course.”
He crooked his arm and held it out to me, and I tucked my hand at his elbow. He glanced back at the building. “Should I tell your father I’m taking you away for a bit?”
“There’s no need. He’s sent me on an errand. He’ll think I’m still on it.”
“Then you trust me enough to see to your safety?”
I smiled at him. “You’re a gentleman, Mr. Atherton, aren’t you? Is there a reason I should worry?”
“None at all.”
He led me away from my father’s office, and farther down Broadway toward the Battery, where couples often promenaded in the summer evenings for the cool breezes coming off the bay. But making our way there was filled with peril—omnibuses and carriages and wagons were too busy dodging the dogs and pigs scavenging in the piled-high refuse gutters along the walks to care much about pedestrians, and their wheels splashed heedlessly through the slime-covered, fetid sewage. Drovers unloading merchandise clogged and blocked the sidewalks with their barrels and boxes; a load of rolled carpets forced us to abandon the side-walk for the street, and Peter directed me courteously over the piles of garbage and back to the flagstones again, and said, “I apologize. How anyone expects a gentlewoman to get about without offense in the city, I’m at a loss to know.”