Chapter Three
Giselle made it home in the usual amount of time.
Unfortunately, that meant she had plenty of time to remember every touch, every caress she had once shared with Jonathan.
He had been her first love, and the lesson that had taught her to keep her family secret just that: a secret.
Indeed, it had been a lesson for the entire family and surely the reason that every one of them remained unwed.
Her twin Gwenivere met her at the door, her green eyes alight with excitement. “Did you do it? Did you get Madame Ille to increase our pay?”
Giselle sighed. “No. She was—”
“I knew it!” she huffed. “I knew I should go instead of you. We cannot survive on what she pays us.”
“And she cannot convince her customers that father’s prayers are worth more than a few pennies.”
“So you say,” her twin huffed. “I say—”
“That we threaten to go to all the other apothecaries. I know. But we have gone to them, and they will pay us less and only if we throw off Madame Ille. So it is an empty threat, isn’t it?”
Gwenivere pursed her lips. “She doesn’t know that.’
“But I do. And I—”
“Cannot be so bold as I am.” Gwennie flounced back into the chair by the window. “I know!”
Sometimes being a twin was the greatest blessing, and sometimes they were too much in each other’s company.
Gwenivere always pushed for more action, more determination, more noise in the world.
Giselle was more patient, and perhaps more apologetic since it was her relationship with Jonathan that had lost their father his parish and destroyed the family’s finances.
She’d learned the cost of being bold.
Father had never blamed her for it, but then, he hadn’t needed to. Every moment that they existed in this tiny home with not enough coal was another moment when Giselle felt guilty.
To distract her twin, Giselle looked about their empty home. “Where is everyone?”
“You know Papa. He’s ministering in…” She shook her head. “I don’t know which rookery. And Mama’s at the hospital. She won’t be back until late.”
Ten years ago, they’d been sent to Stepney parish in London.
Plenty of work here for a man of God, but not much money.
Thankfully, Mama could work as a midwife in the lying in hospital.
It had been a bitter pill for their father to swallow—that the bulk of their income came from his wife—but he was a holy man, willing to minister wherever he was called, even if it was not well paid.
And Mama wanted to do it. Their family was so plagued by the dead, she wanted to work where life began.
Which meant this afternoon, it was just Giselle and her twin at home. Giselle busied herself by setting out the jars that Papa would bless tonight. Gwenivere returned to whatever book she was reading.
Or so Giselle thought. A moment later, her twin was poking at her again.
“Did you argue with Madame Ille?”
“What? No. Of course not.”
“Did you get robbed on the way home?”
Giselle stared at her twin. “No.”
“Then what is it?”
“What is what?”
“You’re in a mood.”
“I am not!”
“You are. Something’s happened. I can tell.”
“You cannot!” But of course, Gwenivere could. Indeed, everyone in the family was ridiculously sensitive to each other’s moods and her twin was no exception. Giselle might as well get it out.
“I took a walk with Jonathan today.”
It took a moment for the words to make sense to her twin. Then Gwennie’s eyes widened in shock. “Lord Jonathan? Lord Holier-than-thou?”
“That’s not what he’s like!”
“Are you sure? Didn’t he tell you that there were no such things as ghosts? Didn’t he say he was better educated, smarter, and more rational than the rest of us?”
Giselle crossed her arms over her chest. “He never said ‘smarter.’” He had, however, implied it. As well as everything else.
“I rest my case.”
“He was seventeen. All teenagers think they know best.”
“You didn’t.”
True. But she’d had first-hand experience with the paranormal, so she knew better than to claim otherwise. Most people—even the haunted—took a while to accept the truth.
She looked down at her hands. “He’s being haunted. I think it’s his father.”
Gwenivere sat upright. “What? Really?” Then she smirked. “Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.”
“Stop it!” Giselle snapped. “No one deserves to be tormented like that. And certainly not Jonathan. What happened was his father’s fault.”
“Not entirely,” Gwenivere said.
“You’re right,” Giselle shot back. “It was mine, too, for telling him I could see ghosts.”
Her twin crossed her arms. She looked the picture of a stern matron at the end of her rope, but she couldn’t hold the attitude for long. Her moods were like spring storms, blowing with violence in the moment, but gone in the next.
“All right,” Gwenivere finally said. “How bad is it?”
“Awful. The ghost just screams and screams. It’s like an ice pick to my brain. And if I can hear it, imagine how awful it is for Jonathan. I don’t know how he’s endured this long.”
“Do you think he’s been haunted for the last year?” They both knew that spirits had their own timing. Some lay dormant for years until something stirred them again. Others were at their most vicious immediately after death. It all depended on the situation.
“He said something about it being a difficult year. He didn’t give me specifics, but I’ll bet it’s the old viscount.”
“He made misery for everyone in life. Of course he’d do the same in death.”
“He made misery for us,” Giselle countered.
Papa was sure the old viscount was the reason he’d never been given another parish.
But rather than fight the situation like Gwenivere wanted, their father called it the will of God and ministered to London’s poor.
And they’d had to scrimp and save ever since. “He loved his family.”
“Did he? Or did he simply like having them under his thumb?”
It was a good question and not one she could answer. That was between the living viscount and the dead one. “It doesn’t matter now. They’ll have to figure it out without us.”
It took a moment for her sister to understand. Too much to hope that she wouldn’t figure it out. But still, Giselle had wanted to keep some things private. But her twin always understood.
“You told him! After everything that he did to us—” she quickly amended the statement.
“After everything that his family did to ours, you still offered to help him, didn’t you?
” Her voice took on a mocking, singsong tone.
“Please, my lord, please let me fix your problem after you threw us out of our home!”
“I didn’t offer,” Giselle snapped. “I told him what was going on, and then he…” She sighed. “We both know it’s a hard thing to believe.”
“Did he laugh at you?”
“No!”
Gwenivere arched her brows, and eventually Giselle elaborated.
“He dismissed my words, as do so many others. And so he will just have to muddle through like everyone else who refuses our help.”
Gwenivere was quiet for a long moment, her gaze heavy as she considered her twin. And though Giselle hoped that would be the end of the discussion, her sister proved herself smarter than anyone else.
“You gave him our direction, didn’t you? So he could call on you if things got worse.”
Giselle winced. “I didn’t give it to him.” She sighed. “I gave it to his footman.”
Jenny rolled her eyes. “You’re still in love with him, aren’t you?”
“Of course not. It’s been ten years!”
“It has. But you’ve never made eyes at anyone else. It’s always been him. Don’t deny it, I know it’s true.”
“You don’t know anything. There have been other men.
” Good ones who were kind and even funny.
All of them had been seminary students, come to work with her father.
A few even had aristocratic heritages, though they were all younger sons.
She’d liked each one, but none had ever made her feel the way Jonathan had.
Thankfully, Gwenivere didn’t argue. She’d had her own share of heartache for the same reason.
It was hard to tell anyone that you could see ghosts.
Harder still to endure when they thought you mad enough for Bedlam.
For all that their father called it a blessing from God, every one of them had labeled it a curse at one time or another.
“What are you going to do?” Gwenivere asked.
“Nothing. If he wants my help, then he can call on me. Otherwise, I have work to do.” Her father wasn’t the only one who worked with the poor.
They all did their part in one way or another.
Hers was as a seamstress. She didn’t work for money at any shop, though she could easily get a job as such.
No, her task was to help the bitter poor.
It was hard to get a job when one’s clothing was in tatters or was so filthy no one would hire you.
She took whatever was thrown away or given to the church and remade it for those in need.
And so she always had a pile of stitching at hand.
And if she stitched blessings into every garment she touched, then that too was the work of God.
Or so her father claimed. She never expected that the next person to enter their home would be another soul from her past.
But then, a moment later, a tentative knock sounded on their door.
A moment later, Giselle opened the door to reveal Lady Susanne, Jonathan’s sister. She looked young and out of place in her fashionable gown and bright copper curls, but the torment in her eyes would reach the hardest of hearts.
“There you are!” she gasped when she stepped into their home. “You must come immediately. Please.”
The entreaty was heartfelt, but it still took Giselle back a step.
“Please,” Susanne continued. “I know you hate us and rightly so, but we need your help.”
Her father would disown her if she ever refused such an honest entreaty. Besides, she knew how little control women had over what their fathers did. Of all the people at fault here, Susanne was the least of them.
“What has happened?” she asked.
“I think Father’s going to kill Jonathan.”
Gwenivere abruptly slammed down her book. She was not one to forgive anyone easily. Especially since she’d once been Susanne’s best friend. She’d taken Susanne’s loss as hard as Giselle had at Jonathan’s disappearance.
“Who is going to kill Jonathan?” she mocked. “Did you say your father? Your dead father.”
“Yes, I did!” Susanne cried. “I never doubted you! Now please help us.”
And since Giselle did not have a hard heart, she reached for her cloak. Gwenivere was there beside her, though her face was still angry.
“You needn’t come,” Giselle said.
“You aren’t going alone,” her twin retorted.
Then they both squared their shoulders and headed out to confront a ghost from their past and a literal ghost at the same time. Why couldn’t the dead leave the living in peace?