by Beth Byers
“I don’t know,” Severine replied, deciding that only stark honesty would do for this woman. Mrs. Grantley had an air about her that pulled more and more truth from Severine.
“You’re a good girl,” Mrs. Grantley said and then as if it were comforting—though it was not—she added, “Your parents were fools.”
Severine leaned down and kissed the air near Mrs. Grantley to avoid leaving lipstick on her and then said, “And you are kind. Thank you for inviting us to your party.”
“Perhaps,” Mrs. Grantley said, “after today you’ll believe.”
An excited expression crossed Mrs. Grantley’s face and then she welcomed the rest of them. As they moved away, Mrs. Grantley told Grayson, “You look like her, you know.”
Grayson went from languid to tense, and Severine admitted to herself that her ears perked up.
“She’s very like you. Those green eyes, that fox’s jawline, that air of a certain something. Self-possession, arrogance, and cleverness all wrapped into a very pretty little package.”
Grayson cleared his throat, but there was still the smallest of quakes in it when he asked, “When did you see her?”
Mrs. Grantley shrugged and glanced at her daughter, but if Amelia knew who they were talking about, she said nothing.
“Please,” Grayson added, and Severine thought it might have been the first time he’d said that word for more than a refill on his coffee. “Please think?”
Mrs. Grantley’s brow furrowed. “I’m really not sure.”
Oliver cut into the conversation. “We need to know.”
There was too much snap in Mr. Oliver’s tone for Amelia. “Come Grandmama. You should relax.”
The dark look Amelia Grantley gave Mr. Oliver had him backing up, but there was a stubbornness in his jaw only matched by Grayson Thorne.
“What was all that?” Lisette demanded the moment they stepped into the parlor with the low light and the flickering candles. “Sister?”
“Never mind,” Grayson muttered.
Lisette’s jaw dropped and her gaze narrowed on Grayson and Oliver, but Mr. Brand was the one who said, “I thought we were allies here. You’re looking for a person, and we didn’t even know it. What’s happening?”
“That doesn’t give you the right to all of the details of our lives,” Mr. Oliver told the others flatly. He turned and walked away.
Grayson Thorne looked after him, glanced at the rest, his gaze pausing on Severine for a long moment before he too excused himself and left.
“What in the world was that?” Mr. Brand asked, rubbing his brow.
“She’s obviously their reason,” Severine said with a deep breath. “She, and whatever happened to her, are their secrets.”
“They were awfully intense about when she was last seen,” Lisette said. “But—”
“Why wouldn’t they tell us she was missing?” Mr. Brand muttered. “What is going on?”
“It’s interesting that they found their way to our family,” Severine added, with a cold logic that left her colder as she spoke. “Why were they hanging on Grandmère when we first arrived? Remember how they were dancing in attendance at that first party, Lisette?”
She nodded, her frown as deep as the one that Severine was hiding. “Mr. Oliver has spent a lot of time with Florette, but he’s never done or said anything that would be considered a promise.”
“He was furious in the way of someone who is afraid for a person they care about,” Mr. Brand said. “I know that feeling with you, Sev. But perhaps not as a brother.”
“What do we know about them really?” Lisette demanded with a hurt that also matched Severine’s.
“We know that they helped us at the big house,” Severine replied. “Grandmère must have invited them because she thought, when it came down to it, they’d be eyes and mouths for her. Only they haven’t been.”
Mr. Brand cursed low and then apologized before he added, “Can we trust them?”
The silence was too long for comfort. Severine finally said, “We’re the fore-swearers if we change the agreement now.”
Lisette groaned. “And to think I liked them.”
Severine paused, her mind racing. “They’ve never lied to us. They’ve been reliable for our part. We knew they were here for their own purposes. Having those purposes be secret or painful doesn’t make them our enemies.”
“But can we trust them?” Mr. Brand asked.
Severine glanced after Mr. Thorne and knew in that moment her feelings had become more complicated than she had known. She also knew she was partially ready to deal with those feelings regardless of what they might someday find out about Thorne and Oliver. Perhaps there was no need for concern. But, perhaps there was very much a reason for concern. Either way, Severine’s heart was still recovering from a lifetime of hurt, and she didn’t trust it in the least.
Chapter 4
She saw it first when she rose to avoid Grandmère. Osiris Oliver and Grayson Thorne were aware enough of Severine that when she turned towards the large French windows and then lingered for too long, Mr. Thorne stepped up next to her.
“I—” He paused, watching what she watched. “Is that—”
Severine glanced up, realizing she felt a flash of fury followed by a determination to put up a wall between them. She had trusted him too quickly. She tried not to fixate on his square jaw and those dark green eyes or the handsome face. Handsome meant nothing, she told herself. What mattered was trust, but it had been shattered so easily, and now it was gone.
Careful to keep her tone even, she said, “I believe someone is wandering through the trees out there.”
“You don’t think it’s a ghost?”
“I think that doctored wine has been passed around, that we’re surrounded by those who want to believe in something, and that there’s a woman in black in the trees just after enough time has passed for the wine additions to be effective.”
Severine smiled politely but coolly as she eyed Mr. Thorne, and she could see he saw the shift in her. It was as if he didn’t blame her for the change, and he wasn’t apologetic. Whatever force had brought Mr. Thorne to leave his home country and journey here wasn’t something he was going to share easily, and she wasn’t sure she could move past it given that he’d somehow worked out of her so many of her own secrets and worries.
She shook her head and turned, motioning to Mr. Brand, who joined them at the window.
“What the devil is this?” he asked.
“I believe,” Severine said, “this is where we cry out and motion everyone over.”
“Whatever do you mean?” Mr. Brand asked.
She winked as she said low, “I’ll show you.”
“Show?” Mr. Thorne asked. He examined Severine as though she were something of a puzzle to him, but she sidestepped when he offered an elbow.
With forced loudness and a touch of pretend fear, she cried out, “Oh goodness, Mr. Brand! What is that?”
Heads turned their way, and she felt his hand on her arm as she leaned towards the window and gasped in a pretense of horror. She gasped for real as the figure darted into the trees again, seeming to disappear. It wasn’t fear that caused that second gasp, but wonder. How had they arranged such a thing?
Severine, however, had little doubt that this whole scenario was intended. Why did these people have a Spirit Society when so much of it seemed intentionally set up? The first Ouija board session she’d attended had been followed by more than one where she’d have bet her fortune was pre-arranged.
They’d had their tarot cards read, but the fortune teller had known too many specificities to be believed. It wasn’t the vague and yet somehow too accurate generalizations. Instead, the woman had used actual first names and references to private past events.
Severine had also seen members of the society murmur together in corners unbothered by the supposed supernatural in front of them, and her suspicion had grown to certainty that this society had a purpose far beyond the name
d one.
A crowd formed around the window, straining to look out. She took that moment to slip back away and watched from behind as excitement flooded the group, even while Amelia Grantley rubbed her arms and stepped back. Severine eyed Amelia, who watched carefully with an interested expression, but without pushing forward.
She felt a hand on her arm and glanced up, finding Mr. Brand.
“Are you well, Severine?” Mr. Brand asked. “You’re not afraid?”
As her guardian, he had become her protector since she’d left the nunnery. As her protector and the only person who seemed to care what she wanted or how she felt, he’d become the brother of her heart.
“That,” Severine said in a low whisper, “is a woman dressed in black with something over her face.”
“You don’t believe it is a spirit?”
Severine snorted, trying to hide her mocking given the excited chatter only a few feet away. “I lived in a nunnery, Mr. Brand. That isn’t so different from the sight of Sister Bernadette coming home late and her face covered from the cold. I believe the only difference is that someone made an effort to use wispier, black, lacy garments rather than a habit. Outside of those differences, the only thing that I see is that our actress is staying in the shadows, no doubt purposefully. Are you a believer, Mr. Brand?”
“No, rather not. I fear that this wouldn’t have been my passion if not for our quest. I’d much rather spend an evening with a book and a cigar or the company of good friends.”
The quest to uncover her father and mother’s killer was her focus, and therefore Mr. Brand’s efforts, not a desire to prove there was life on the other side or to reconnect with a dead loved one. If she were entirely honest with herself, Severine didn’t want to connect with her dead parents.
She wanted justice for them. She wanted to know why they had died, but she didn’t need to see them or speak to them again in this life.
That ‘why’ haunted her. Why had they been murdered? If someone was going to kill Father, why Mother too? Was she only an accident of circumstance? Or had Mother been the intended victim all along? Was it Father’s business interests? Did Mother have a jealous lover? Had they committed a crime that had begged for vengeance?
Severine had spent the last several months pursuing the truth and being blocked by those who knew the details of her parents’ lives. Was it because they were attempting chivalry with the arrogance of a Southern gentlemen who was so certain he knew what was best for her?
Or, perhaps, it was because they were criminals looking to remain undiscovered. Severine smiled at her friend and then glanced beyond him to Lisette, who had gasped as dramatically as any of the true devotees of the Spirit Society. Lisette winked at Severine and nestled in close to Mrs. Grantley. She held out a steadying arm, and the old woman took it tightly.
They whispered together while the entire crowd murmured. Mr. Oliver had weaseled his way near Mrs. Grantley, no doubt pursuing the aside she’d made about Mr. Thorne’s sibling, but Mrs. Grantley hushed them.
Severine glanced at Mr. Thorne, who had stepped back to lean down to Amelia Grantley and listen intently to her murmur. A moment later there was a sound in the hall, and Amelia gasped. “But the servants have been let go for the night. We should be alone!”
A near-stampede to the hall followed, and when the door was open someone cried out, “The stairs!”
Severine, given her height and the vantage point at the back of the crowd, saw the dark form in the shadows of the stairs. The guests chased after, and the form looked back and then seemed to fade away.
Severine lifted a brow when Mr. Oliver called back, “There’s no one here.”
She wanted to roll her eyes and call out, “Check the closets, my good lad,” but she said nothing, choosing to watch instead. She wasn’t surprised that Mr. Thorne and Mr. Brand were doing the same.
There were mostly young devotees that Severine guessed were true chasers of spirits and the supernatural. The older crowd, those of her parents’ age and her aunts and uncles, hadn’t presented themselves. Why? Why was Mrs. Grantley the sole representative of her age beyond her friend, Mr. Harland Ruggles? He was one of those Southern gentlemen who spoke in a slow drawl, was prone to smoothing his rather dominant white mustache, and was known for pretty words. Severine had come to the conclusion by their second meeting that he practiced his compliments. She had also concluded that he knew far more about her father than he would ever tell her.
He had, in fact, told her not to worry herself over it. He’d actually squeezed her hand, and she wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d patted the top of her head. Thankfully, they were both spared the indignity of such a thing, but he had told her to smile more and suggested she try wearing a pretty pink gown to attract the boys.
Mr. Ruggles had sent Severine flowers the day after he’d told her not to worry over her parents and to count her blessings. Severine had wanted to shout at the fellow, but instead she’d forced a smile and told him she was blighted by stubbornness.
As the crowd of excited spirit-chasers gathered to discuss what had occurred, Severine frowned at Mr. Ruggles, who, for once, wasn’t telling her what to do or leaning over some other woman with that frustrating slow drawl and uttering pretty words that meant nothing. Instead, he had a dark frown and it was fixed on Mr. Oliver. Severine’s head tilted and she scolded herself even as she crossed to Mr. Ruggles and asked, low and sweet, “Mr. Ruggles, I wonder if you might lend me your ear and your advice?”
He started at her touch, but he smiled down at her the moment she said the magical word ‘advice.’
“Of course, my dear,” he said, patting her hand on his elbow. “Of course. I could do nothing else. Your father was a friend of mine, you know. We shared business interests, friends, this passion, and of course, so many other things. I could do nothing less for dear Lukas.”
Severine let her gaze move slowly to Mr. Oliver, and then she winced dramatically before she turned her eyes wide and pleading up to Mr. Ruggles.
“Dear Mr. Ruggles—” Severine used her sweetest tone. “—I don’t know if you’re aware, but Grandmère introduced myself and my cousin, Florette, to the gentlemen Mr. Oliver and Mr. Thorne.” Mr. Ruggles waited, but she could see him filling in the holes as he wanted to. “What do you know of them?”
Mr. Ruggles’s head cocked and he said, “You know, I don’t approve of these foreigners. It’s not so bad when they’re Brits like those two. But what are they doing here?”
“I believe Mr. Thorne’s grandmother lived in the area,” Severine said. “So I suppose he’s a little Southern.”
“Yes, yes.” Mr. Ruggles nodded sagely and then added, “Knew her, I did. Genevieve Braxton Thorne. Good woman. Good family.”
Severine made a mental note, but she knew she wouldn’t forget the name.
“Genny,” he continued, reminiscing. “We were children together, did you know? She was the belle of all the balls. Quite the catch with all that money behind her.”
Severine waited, breathlessly forcing herself to lean into him, so she seemed an attentive bird. She couldn’t transform herself into her cousin, Florette, who would—certainly—be preferable to herself, but Severine could at least try to channel her cousin’s mannerisms.
“Sweet, pretty Genny. I dreamed of marrying her.”
Severine pretended to be entranced by the romance of it, but the pretty manners of Mr. Ruggles hadn’t extended—even once—to anything other than a gilded cage for the women in his life.
“Where did she live?”
“Oh, an old mansion quite near yours, I recall,” Mr. Ruggles mused and then nodded. “Yes, yes. The red brick one a few down from yours.”
“Did they sell it?”
“I don’t believe so.” Mr. Ruggles shook his head. “But it’s one of those things. Quite a center of otherworldly activity.” He laughed mockingly and then grinned condescendingly at the group of women searching for the ‘ghost’ up the stairs. “I’m surpri
sed Mr. Thorne hasn’t had the Society over there.”
“No one wants to live there?”
Mr. Ruggles shook his head again. “A whole terrifying drama, I’m afraid, my dear. Better to avoid the location than to be sucked in yourself.”
Severine paused and asked, “Is the house to do with what happened to his sister?”
“Mrs. Oliver?” Mr. Ruggles lifted his brows and then winced. “Bad business that. Bad business, indeed, my dear. Better to stay out of it.”
Chapter 5
Mrs. Oliver? Severine’s gaze moved to Mr. Thorne and from him to Mr. Oliver, who was the steady hand at the side of Mrs. Grantley at the head of the stairs. If Mr. Oliver was married, why had Grandmère tossed Florette at the man?
“My dear Severine,” Mr. Ruggles said, focusing on her in that annoying way of his, “you shouldn’t wear so much black. You look like a ghost yourself. You aren’t going to catch a man that way.”
Severine lost control of her tongue long enough to laugh. “I think we’ll all find that the money my father left me is more than sufficient to catch me a whole slew of men regardless of the color of my dress.”
His gaze widened and he demanded, “But you want to make your husband happy.”
“I suppose,” Severine added, “when I meet the man, should I love him, I may want that very much. But do you know something?”
He waited, and she paused long enough to make it dramatic before she continued. “I haven’t met him yet, so it may well be that he likes black dresses on women. Or he doesn’t care. Perhaps he’ll care more for my mind than my looks. After all, youth doesn’t last. So, I shall endeavor to hope for a man who appreciates the other things I have to offer beyond my money and whatever attractions I may possess physically.”
Mr. Ruggles laughed a little mockingly. “You’ll find your man is stepping out on you if you don’t try a little harder than that.”