Mercury Raine: Twenty and One (Mercury Raine #3)

Chapter 1

Mercury Raine had earned the swagger in his steps and the confidence in his posture. He’d gone from penniless to flush in the pockets, from unwanted and unimportant to sought-after and respected. He was a man of standing and importance and an enviable amount of wealth.

Most of that was based on a lie. A lie that was in danger of unraveling.

He did his best not to think on that too much, though it was always there, niggling at the back of his mind.

One word whispered in the wrong ear, and his entire world would crumble.

Safeguarding himself and his twenty ghosts against that possibility informed everything he did.

It kept him away from London, hidden behind a name he’d given himself, hiding the actual number of ghosts he had.

So many half-truths. So many hidden secrets.

In the midst of it all, he was training his neighbor, Tacey Wilde, to be a ghost broker like he was, all while guarding her dangerous secrets. It was quite a web he’d found himself entangled in.

“I am proving to be a very poor pupil.” Tacey had said variations on that exact theme many times over the weeks they’d been undertaking her training.

“Detaching a ghost is not a straightforward undertaking.” Mercury had managed to sort it out the first time fairly quickly. But conversations with other ghost brokers and his work with Tacey had convinced him that he was very much the exception to the rule.

They were in the sitting room at her house, Larissa Lodge, attempting another brokering lesson.

She paced past him for what must have been the tenth time in only a couple of minutes.

The room wasn’t large, so her pacing required weaving around a chair and a sofa before turning tightly in the nearby corner.

Mercury kept near the windowed wall, intending to both keep out of her way and afford himself a view of the very pleasant back garden.

Despite his love of gardens, he had found himself far more interested in watching her.

“I have tried searching for a memory, or a feeling I have when I think about my ghosts. I’ve tried picturing them in my mind and imagining where that image resides.

” She pushed out a frustrated but not overwhelmed breath.

She was discouraged, but had shown herself remarkably resilient.

“I have tried every suggestion you’ve made, but I can’t find the connection. ”

“Your ghosts must sit on your soul in an odd way or an odd place.”

Tacey’s mouth twisted to one side. “I never know if being called ‘odd’ is a compliment or an insult.”

He leaned against the nearby window frame, eyeing her with what he knew was a teasing expression. “Do you often get called ‘odd’?”

“My entire childhood.” She turned back to him, a smile in her expressive eyes. “And the years since.”

Mercury shook his head as he stepped away from the window. “If I’d known this about you, Miss Tacey Wilde, I would never have asked you to be my neighbor.”

“What about being your colleague in your brokerage business?”

He shrugged. “Brokers actually benefit from being a bit odd. It gives clients something to talk about.”

“Is that the goal?” she asked with a smile. “To be talked about?”

“The goal is to be memorable,” he said.

Her expression dimmed a little. “Do you really think I will get the knack of this? It’s beginning to feel impossible.”

“I absolutely think you will.” He did, in fact.

No one who was as determined as she was would give up easily. Of course, it was likely very motivating that her ability to continue living independently depended on her learning ghost brokering.

Twelve years earlier, that very situation had thoroughly motivated him. He’d been on his own and on the run, hungry and without a roof over his head. Ghost brokering had saved him. If only he could teach Tacey the trade, then she could save herself as well.

“At the moment,” he continued, “I think you need a bit of a break from the effort. And, perhaps, a change of scenery.”

“I do enjoy visiting Aventine Manor,” she said.

But he shook his head. “You are there every day. I was going to suggest a walk down to the village. I don’t think you’ve visited it yet.”

“I haven’t.”

“Would you like to?”

She hooked an eyebrow upward, the look just the tiniest bit saucy. “Are you offering to accompany me?”

“I am.” He dipped his head. “Of course, I come with a very significant number of ghosts.”

Ghosts couldn’t be more than five hundred feet from the person to whom they were attached.

While Larissa Lodge was within the five-hundred-foot limit of most of Mercury’s home, the village was not.

His entire household of ghosts would be pulled that way as well.

They had a five-hundred-foot radius in which to hover, so they wouldn’t all be seen during the journey.

That a good number of his ghosts always kept at a distance of five hundred feet when he was away from Aventine Manor had proven a saving grace.

No one seeing them would know they were attached to him.

It meant he could leave home without revealing all his attachments.

He still didn’t leave often, and he never went to London.

He dared not. So large a city came with too high a risk of crossing paths with anyone who had known him at the orphanage where he’d grown up.

“Do you need to warn your ghosts before embarking on your jaunt to the village?” Tacey asked.

“I probably should, though they would sort it out rather quickly.”

She smiled at him. He’d come to very much like her smile.

An elderly ghost, Granny Grey—one of Tacey’s ghosts—floated into the room. She and Mercury had come to know each other well. Granny Grey was, in fact, helping him protect the closely guarded secret of his past.

“How would you like to help me start a rumor at Aventine Manor?” he asked her.

“That would depend on the rumor.” She’d shown herself to be entertainingly clever during the weeks she and Tacey had lived at Larissa Lodge.

“Tacey and I are going to walk down to the village, since she has not yet visited. But it is more than five hundred feet from here.”

“Ah.” Granny Grey nodded her ghostly head. “I’ll go tell the ghosts I can find.” And on that, she floated off once more.

“She won’t be able to find all of them,” Mercury said. “She hasn’t even met all of them.”

“I don’t think I have met all of them yet,” Tacey said.

“You haven’t.” No one had ever met all of them except for Mercury.

No one other than Mercury himself even knew how many there were.

It was crucial to keeping the secret of his true identity.

“I’ll go help spread the word. Shall I meet you in about thirty minutes where the drive to Aventine meets the road? ”

“I will be there.”

Again, she smiled. For someone who had spent so much of his life alone, he had very quickly come to depend on the buoying effect of that smile.

As they approached the village, Tacey continually glanced behind them.

Five of his twenty ghosts were making the journey in a little clump.

Baby Blue and Zizzy walked hand in hand—Mercury hadn’t the first idea if they could actually feel each other’s ghostly hands.

Gary the Green, Captain Capitate, and Testy Tolver were just behind them.

Granny Grey was walking on Tacey’s other side.

“Do you ever grow accustomed to having so many ghosts around?” Tacey asked Mercury.

“I’ve never known what it is like to not have so many around,” he said.

“You must never be lonely.” There was a sigh in her declaration.

“Have you been lonely?”

If she noticed how quickly he dodged her question, she didn’t let on.

“You met my mother,” she said. “What confidence does she give you that mine was an affectionate and friend-filled childhood?”

None. None at all. “Well, you now have a house next door filled with ghosts who will happily keep you company.”

She watched him for a moment, a hint of a question in her eyes, but one he couldn’t identify. Had he said something wrong? He knew she liked spending time at his house and with his ghosts. Was she growing weary of them? Of him?

For someone who had spent more than a decade intentionally isolated, it was an odd experience to feel disappointed at the possibility of someone not caring for his company. Yet, that was precisely what he felt.

Strange.

“What is the name of the village?” Tacey’s attention was focused once more ahead of them on the very quaint collection of buildings and houses.

“It is Palatine Knoll. I have always thought it a rather grand name for so small and unassuming a place.”

She nodded her agreement as she studied the quaint village.

A few people waved as they passed the outlying cottages.

Mercury was known in the village even though he didn’t venture there often.

Many of the tradespeople brought supplies to Aventine Manor, and nearly all of them had spent time inside, awed and amazed by the sheer number of ghosts they saw there.

“Do many of the villagers have ghosts?” Tacey sounded a little nervous. Perhaps she thought the village would think her odd. She had said that was a descriptor that had often been applied to her in childhood, and she hadn’t revealed it as a point of pride.

“Likely about half of them do. They are as accustomed to ghosts as Londoners are.”

“There are a tremendous number of ghosts in London,” Tacey said. “I was fascinated by it when I first visited. No one in my home had a ghost except for me. Not even the servants.”

“Had you not ever seen another ghost before going to London?” he asked.

“A few of the neighbors had ghosts. I saw them now and then, and I knew that plenty of people had attachments, but I wasn’t used to seeing so many in the same place at the same time.”

They passed the blacksmith and watermill, the mercantile and alehouse. There wasn’t much more to Palatine Knoll. Everything else was cottages and farms.