by Beth Byers
Severine’s gaze narrowed upon Mr. Ruggles. “Well, if so, I’ll find I have chosen a man with no honor and, therefore, chosen quite poorly.”
Mr. Ruggles’s expression mocked her, but she had little patience for him once he’d stopped speaking of Mrs. Oliver.
Instead, Severine excused herself and crossed to Grandmère. Her brother was attempting to charm some young heiress who seemed quite immersed in the conversation, and in the distraction Severine stated, “You know Mr. Oliver is married.”
“Was married, my dear. Widowers are the best of husbands. They know the pain of losing once and are more careful with the second bride.” Grandmère lifted a mocking brow. “How did you know? Been listening at keyholes?”
Rather than snapping back, Severine asked, “Why is it such a secret?”
“What?” Grandmère’s lip curled just enough to signal she was utterly certain of what the secret was and why it was a secret.
“Does Florette know that Mr. Oliver was married?”
“I believe that the fact he was married makes him all the more desirable.”
“Because he’s in so much love with his wife that he won’t speak of her?”
Grandmère’s laugh was enough to have Severine wincing for herself. Was she wrong? Was Mr. Oliver not happily wed? Why were they looking into what happened to her if she wasn’t beloved? Severine’s gaze narrowed on her grandmother. “Is his wife dead?”
Grandmère’s mean smile was enough to make Severine doubt herself. “I thought you were friends with the man.”
“Florette is quite fond of him,” Severine told her grandmother. “Surely you care about that. Do you want her heartbroken?”
“She’ll be fine. She’s a good girl.”
“Good girls have hearts,” Severine snapped.
“Good girls do as they’re told.”
“So you think, even though you aren’t really her grandmother, you can tell her to marry a man who is obsessed with his dead wife?”
“I think Mr. Thorne and his sister were born flush with money. The kind of wealth your father had. I think that his sister married Mr. Oliver regardless of his own financial status, and he’s got a fortune because of that.”
Severine’s gaze narrowed on her grandmother. “So, Florette will be there when Mr. Oliver finally lets go of whatever he’s pursuing with his wife.”
“He’s pursuing the truth of her death,” Grandmère replied casually. “He wants a body or a witness to have her declared dead. Once she is, he’ll find that he’s led Florette on and that a good girl has given him her heart along with her patience. He’s too honorable not to marry Florette and then she will have a fortune that will see her through this life.”
Severine didn’t have it in her to answer. Instead she turned away. Grandmère was a nightmare.
Before she could get away, Grandmère’s claws dug into Severine’s skin. “You stay out of it, girl.”
Severine would do no such thing. Instead, she yanked her arm free and crossed to Mr. Brand. “They’re looking for a sign of what happened to Mrs. Oliver.”
Mr. Brand started, and his eyes held the same shock as her own.
“Mrs. Oliver?” It took him only a breath to make the same connections she had. “Do they believe she’s dead?”
Severine shook her head helplessly. She had no idea what Mr. Thorne and Mr. Oliver thought about what had happened to Thorne’s sister and Oliver’s wife.
There was another scream up the stairs and someone shouted.
“It’s outside again!”
“It’s moved through the walls!”
An unholy scream followed that Severine couldn’t decide was from the audience or the ghost. Either way, it caused a rash of gooseflesh that had her rubbing her arms. She didn’t even believe this was anything more than an act, but it was affecting her.
The form seemed to move through the walls, and the crowd rushed to see if they could see it come through the wall, throwing open the windows and leaning out.
Severine crossed with Mr. Brand to a window and saw the same form as before. A woman, all dressed in black, clinging to the shadows as she moved smoothly, disappearing and reappearing in the trees.
“Look!” a man cried.
“It does seem like she’s floating,” Mr. Brand muttered with disbelief.
Severine didn’t believe it and she was searching for a reason as to how it could happen. A moment later, she felt cold air moving across her, and she frowned deeply, deciding to ignore it rather than let herself get caught up in the fervor. “Perhaps someone hired a ballerina or some sort of dancer.”
“You don’t think it’s real?” a stern voice demanded behind them.
Severine and Mr. Brand both gasped with an actual start.
It was Mrs. Grantley, her old face fixed in fierce determination on Severine. “What do you think it is?”
“A living woman dressed in black who is clinging to the shadows.”
“Surely that could be a ghost,” Mrs. Grantley said with a sniff. “How did she get through the walls.”
“Perhaps,” Severine agreed. “But I can’t quite believe it, and I’m sure we can both think of ways about how this might have been done.”
“Why?” Mrs. Grantley demanded almost as though it were an accusation. “Why would anyone do that to me?”
Carefully, Severine considered before she answered. “I—”
Mr. Brand interrupted. “Miss DuNoir has a great deal of experience with women wearing black outfits in otherwise spooky environments, Mrs. Grantley. For our Miss DuNoir—well, she’s seen quite a few women walking under the trees in the dark, all in black.”
Mrs. Grantley examined Severine and then the old woman sighed. “That’s what I think too. There’s been so much playing at spirits and the supernatural among the society that it’s impossible to believe anything anymore.”
“I’m not sure we’re supposed to have the answers the true seekers in the society are seeking, Mrs. Grantley.” Severine’s voice was low and kind, and she hoped it was gentle enough for the woman who seemed desperate to get the answer she was seeking.
“There have been episodes,” Mrs. Grantley told Severine and Mr. Brand. “Things that I can’t explain, but I can’t quite believe.”
Severine wasn’t sure how to respond to such a thing and she glanced at Mr. Brand to get his take.
“Don’t look at each other,” Mrs. Grantley snapped. “I’m old. I’m dying even, but I’m not senile.”
Severine winced. “I didn’t think you were.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“Mrs. Grantley,” Severine retorted, giving the woman her irritation, because Mrs. Grantley didn’t want to be coddled. “I was taken in by nuns. I have seen them become senile, and I’ve also seen them stay sharper and cleverer than me into their old age. You aren’t confused. You recognized me as a grown woman after all these years, and you’ve never struggled with my name…so yes, if you tell me that something is happening in your home, I believe you.”
“But you don’t believe it’s ghosts.”
Severine searched the woman’s face and knew Mrs. Grantley wanted the truth. “No, I don’t. That wouldn’t be my first suspicion.”
Mrs. Grantley sighed and Mr. Brand reached out and took her hand. There was such sweetness in the move that Severine wished she could see him as something other than a brother.
“This”—Mrs. Grantley gestured to the people gathering back into the parlor—“was never supposed to be the joke it has become.” Her tears shone and Severine could see real and fervent passion in Mrs. Grantley’s gaze. “It’s been fun over the years, but now that I’m at the end, I remember that earnest desire to learn something more, to reach beyond, to see and know and be unafraid. It’s been my greatest passion since my dear husband died. To know what happened to him.”
Severine’s breath caught on one of Mrs. Grantley’s words. Unafraid. Oh goodness. She’d seen too many people die. Sister Léonie dying on
a cold evening in late February from illness. She struggled for breath up to the end, but she hadn’t been afraid when her eyes turned sightless and empty. Sister Charlotte had been confused often in the years before her death. Severine had spent many a day with Charlotte when she was still mobile so she didn’t get lost. When the time had come, Charlotte murmured a name, smiled, and a breath later, she was gone.
And then there were her parents, lying upon one another soaked in blood.
Severine dug her fingers into Mr. Brand’s arm as she struggled with the weight of her empathy for Mrs. Grantley. It took a thick swallow and a careful controlling of her voice as she said, “I don’t think that there is anything to fear, ma’am.”
“You haven’t lived my life,” Mrs. Grantley told Severine flatly. “You were raised by horrible parents, I agree. I never liked your father, and even though he was the greater crook, he was better than that fool Flora. You, however, were handed off to nuns. Who can feel sympathy for you? You have the aura of peace of a woman who has done no great wrongs. Of course you don’t fear the next life. Your lack of fear doesn’t apply to all of us.”
Mr. Brand glanced down at Severine, and she could see the agreement in his gaze. “She doesn’t see it in us. She’s young yet.”
“What?” Severine asked.
“The weight of all of our mistakes,” Mr. Brand told her. “They’re so heavy if you have any bit of a soul.”
Severine wasn’t sure she agreed. She saw the mistakes, or if not the mistakes, the way they weighed down the people around her. But, she didn’t think that they deserved the weight they carried. She thought that sometimes people punished themselves for far longer than they deserved.
“Have you changed?” She spoke to Mr. Brand, but the question was directed at both of them.
“I try.”
“There are some things you can’t take back,” Mrs. Grantley told Severine starkly. “There are mistakes that you can’t fix. There are things you did—that you knew were wrong—and there isn’t a way to go back and fix them.”
Severine didn’t have an answer for that, so she just said, “Maybe I haven’t made the big mistakes yet.”
Mrs. Grantley snorted.
“But I have known those who have.”
Mrs. Grantley eyed Severine with thick doubt.
Severine laughed. “We all think of nuns as women who felt a call to the Lord and were always good and sweet and perfect, but they aren’t. They have varied histories and often things behind them that would fell weaker souls. Peace is possible, Mrs. Grantley.”
Mrs. Grantley shook her head and Severine knew that there wouldn’t be any convincing her.
“Do you think you’re being haunted?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Grantley answered with exhaustion. “But as much as I want to believe that it is my dear Antoine or my mama, I think it’s something else. My fear, my dear, is that it is those I’ve wronged rather than those who might love me still.”
Severine really didn’t know what to say to that. “You think you are being haunted, but not by your husband? A vengeful haunting?”
“If, however, your theory that this is a living person playing with my heart is the correct one”—Mrs. Grantley closed her eyes with a fragility that spoke of the death she was so sure was coming—“I should like to know.”
Mr. Brand cleared his throat and Mrs. Grantley’s eyes opened, her gaze sharp and fixed. She studied Severine before she spoke. “I know things about your father. Things that will help you with what you are trying to find out.”
Severine held her breath. Was this it? Was this the break she needed to finally start moving on why her parents had been killed?
“I’ll tell you everything I know about them.”
Severine cursed herself slightly even as she knew she had to add the rest. “And Mrs. Oliver?”
“And Mrs. Oliver,” Mrs. Grantley agreed, “if you find out who is haunting my house.”
Severine glanced at Mr. Brand, who shrugged and then she acknowledged she couldn’t do anything else. “Of course, we’ll do whatever we can.”
“I should have said I’d help you without bargaining,” Mrs. Grantley told Severine.
She laughed lightly and then told the woman kindly, “I should have said the same.”
Chapter 6
Severine was dressing when Lisette’s mother, Chantae, knocked on the door.
“Cher,” Chantae said with a careful gentleness. “Are you well?”
“I saw my brother again,” Severine told the woman, who sat next to her on the edge of the bed. She curled into Chantae’s side and felt the warm weight of her arm around her shoulders. It was almost as good as curling into Sister Mary Chastity’s arms. Her nose pressed into Chantae’s shoulder.
“He wasn’t a good brother before, cher,” Chantae said in a low murmur.
“But now he can never be,” Severine whispered. “I’ll never get a good mama like you, a father who wasn’t wicked, or a brother who hasn’t tried to kill me.”
Chantae smoothed back Severine’s hair and said with common sense and her usual flat honesty, “It was never a very likely chance.”
Severine laughed an unhappy little sound. “Sister Mary Chastity would tell me to count my blessings, look for opportunities for kindness, and put my brother from my mind.”
“Vengeance is mine,” Chantae quoted with the same ease as any of the nuns.
Severine sniffed and sat up. “Thank you.”
“You’re my girl now, too, cher,” Chantae told Severine. “You rescued Lisette from pinches, cruelty, and poor wages. You rescued me from cleaning those houses, and set me up over the house where my girl lives.”
“I dragged her into my troubles and asked her to follow me into madness,” Severine said and then rose, crossing to her closet.
It was somewhat amusing to open the door and see all of her black and grey dresses. Anything else would look and feel awkward on her. Was it because she’d embraced the look since Meline had created it for her? Or was it because Severine had spent the last six years in a nunnery? Maybe it was because she felt as though she were in mourning for the parents who had been buried years ago, but she wasn’t able to let go of their deaths. There were too many unanswered questions about their murder that her mind couldn’t ignore.
Now that she’d been pursuing it for a while, she felt as though her continued existence required the solution. Would her half-attempt save her life if she stopped? Severine didn’t think so. She felt hunted by the very hounds of hell, and she didn’t think her great guard dog, Anubis, would be enough protection.
With a random decision, she grabbed a dress.
“No,” Chantae said, crossing to the closet and taking out another dress. It was a straight black dress that was sleeveless and dropped into a pleated skirt below Severine’s hips. She wasn’t overly curvy, but her dresses normally left her somewhat feminine. This one hid her chest and her hips and left her a long line of lean.
With her slightly curling hair hovering around her shoulders and back, and with a little blush on her cheeks and a little color on her lips, she was still undoubtedly feminine. She added a long strand of pearls which she looped around her neck a few times.
When she was finished, she looked put together enough that Chantae nodded in approval.
“That Meline is a genius. You’d look like a wilting flower in a rose color.”
Severine laughed and followed Chantae down the stairs. As they reached the bottom and turned towards the breakfast room, there was a knock at the door. Severine glanced at Chantae, who lifted a brow. They had seen those silhouettes through the frosted glass before. On the other side of the door were Mr. Oliver and Mr. Thorne.
Severine wished she’d decided how she felt about their secrets. She was in the same indecision as she’d been the night before. On the one hand, she felt they had every right to their secrets, and she’d known they were here in search for someone. It was just that it had never come up before, and
she’d assumed it didn’t matter as much as her own concerns. Which was, when she got down to it, arrogant and idiotic. She didn’t like facing that truth about herself.
At the same time, she was self-doubting enough to wonder why they had insinuated themselves with her. Was it really the sister? If it was, why had they never talked about her? What if, instead, they were being pushed into approaching Severine? What if they weren’t allies at all but another set of gentlemen in the command of the same fellow who had controlled her brother?
Was she being paranoid? Or had she been too trusting this whole time?
Severine crossed to open the door while Chantae disappeared, saying something about cafe au lait and beignets. Slowly, she swung the door back and eyed the gentlemen.
They were, in some ways, opposites. Osiris Oliver was golden with blue eyes and a skin that lent itself towards flushing without being overtly fair. On the other hand, Mr. Grayson Thorne was dark. His hair was even blacker than Severine’s.
They were both tall and both clearly strong. They had the kind of energetic awareness that said they were comfortable in their skin and very capable. They had the attitude of those who could strike out at any moment but stayed on the side of the line without aggression.
Mr. Thorne’s intelligent, green eyes fixed on Severine, and she refused to look away. She wasn’t going to pretend she had the same faith in them she’d had before. “Good morning.”
In the days before, Severine might have simply opened the door and allowed them entry. This time, however, she waited, poised with the door in hand.
Mr. Oliver looked at Mr. Thorne when the moment had lasted too long, and he said, “We’ve news.”
She started to tell him to wait, that she wanted Mr. Brand present, but her guardian opened the door to the house opposite hers and jogged across the street. “Severine, good morning.”
She stepped back and let them inside, but not without catching the look that Oliver tossed Thorne. “We were about to have breakfast,” she told them.
Severine led the way to the dining room and avoided the powdered sugar beignets for plain ones given her black dress. Lisette joined them a moment later, and by the time they’d all received food and coffee, an awkward silence had fallen.