Chapter 4
Chapter Four
“Well, that went well,” Edwina muttered as Sterling escorted her down the stairs of the manor.
Lady Willoughby had been gracious, but told them little. It was almost as if she didn’t want to remember.
And then Lord Willoughby had insisted she needed her rest.
He’d practically thrown them out of the house.
“He’s older,” Sterling mused. “And if Willoughby knows my father, then it’s likely he’s not too keen on sorcery.
I’d hesitate to call him someone who’d be swayed by that ridiculous Vigilance Against Sorcery committee that’s picketing in London, but I suspect he sympathizes with their cause.
Willoughby’s power is tied to the land and to his ancestry.
He no doubt sees magic as a freakish mutation that dares to impinge upon the old way of things.
He can’t control it, and so he fears it. ”
“There is a creature,” she said, “and then there’s not. It’s just her imagination. It’s just a fright—”
“All perfectly reasonable answers.”
“True,” she pointed out. “If one doesn’t consider the fact that she clearly described a shadow with malevolent golden eyes and two hands reaching out to lock around her throat. That’s a very particular description for something that doesn’t exist.”
“I wondered if you’d noticed that.”
She gave him a very direct look.
Sterling grinned and held his hands up in surrender. “What else?”
It had always been like this between them as if he liked to talk through his thoughts on a case. She’d never realized how much he’d always treated her as if she was part of the investigation, and not merely a scribe.
“They haven’t left Bletsoe, so it’s nothing they’ve contracted from abroad and brought home with them.
Lord Willoughby denied owning any artefacts that might have a spirit riding them.
He cannot think of any similarities between his wife and grandmother, and the grandmother appears to have led a happy and healthy life following her own experience—despite the early death of her husband.
I examined Lady Willoughby’s aura while she talked, and while it is a muted, she appears whole.
But that could also be Lord Willoughby. There’s a connection between them and even though he’s psychically inert, his aura is inadvertently strengthening hers.
He’s so protective of her that it’s bleeding all over her. ”
“What a romantic statement.”
“You’re the one with the silver tongue.”
“True love.” Sterling bumped his shoulder against hers. “More powerful than any demon spirit.”
She bit her lip. “It is a little sweet.”
“To see a man who loves his wife so dearly?” The words were mild. But there was a hint of tension about his tone.
“Well, it’s rare,” she pointed out. “Particularly among the upper classes.”
“True. My mother despised my father and vice versa.” Sterling stared at the road as he strolled beside her. “I sometimes wonder how they ever managed to produce two children.”
This time, it was her turn to bump her shoulder against his. “The usual way I’d imagine.”
“And what do you know about the ‘usual way?’”
He wasn’t going to trap her again. Not that easily. “Well, I imagine your father visited the duchess’s chambers once or—”
He clapped his hands over his ears. “Edwina Marie Sheffield. That was absolutely uncalled for. I do not want to even imagine such a thing. It had to be the under-butler, wearing my father’s robe.”
She burst into laughter. “I’m sorry, Sterling. But you look too much like your father.”
“Now you’re simply being unkind.”
“The duke is extremely handsome,” she pointed out, “and age has done him no unkindness.”
“Pray tell me you haven’t been staring at my father’s forearms the way you do mine.”
That was one step too far. She grimaced. And then blushed.
“Aha,” he murmured, turning to walk backward in front of her so he could see her face. “It is the forearms. I shall have to thank Bishop for all that boxing he invites me to do.”
“Oh, stop it.” She moved to playfully push him, but he captured her hand.
And then he lifted it to his lips and brushed a kiss against the back.
Her breath stalled. They were barely through the gate. Anyone might be able to see them.
“I’m learning your weaknesses, Edie.” His voice was soft and rough and utterly dangerous. “Do you want to know mine?”
Her heart skipped a beat. Yes.
But her mouth said, “A lady’s undergarments, judging by the amount of garters and stockings you receive in the mail.”
He cocked his head and let her go with a smile. “Only one pair of stockings, if truth be told. White silk. Red ribbons.”
She pushed past him in exasperation. He could never be serious. “Grey serge?”
“Only if I can burn it.”
Edwina plucked at her skirts. “Well, we can’t all afford pretty cottons and silk.”
“If you could afford it, would you wear it?”
Edwina’s steps slowed as he caught up to her. She didn’t know why this line of questioning was getting to her. “Sterling, this is ridiculous. We have a case to solve, and here you are, questioning me about something that’s never going to happen. We need to focus on—”
“Would you wear silk?” he demanded. “If you could afford it?”
Edwina threw up her hands in exasperation. “Of course I’d wear silk. What woman wouldn’t? But unless there is a demon here in Bletsoe, and the capture fee is ten times what it usually is, I think the point is moot.”
“Hmm.” He looked like he was plotting something.
“There isn’t a demon here,” she said swiftly, because she didn’t want to manifest such a possibility. “There absolutely isn’t.”
“No. Not a demon.”
Edwina ran through all the possibilities. “Some sort of shadow-creature perhaps? One that can physically manifest if what Lady Willoughby was saying about its eyes and hands is to be believed? Though I’ve never heard of its like.”
He hesitated. “Shadow… no. But… something that can manifest at will? Within a locked vault? And then vanish into nothingness?”
Her good mood slipped off her like a shroud from Lady Willoughby. “I don’t like those possibilities very much.”
“Ghost? Phantom? Grey Lady?”
“The problem is that none of the above could perform such a feat in a church,” she pointed out.
“Hallowed ground and all that. There’s power in prayer, and I honestly don’t know what sort of creature could cross a churchyard and not be stripped of etheric force.
And it would be a very powerful, very dangerous ghost if Lady Willoughby could actually feel its touch. ”
“Mmm.” Sterling stared at the crossroads ahead. “Whatever it is, it has to have its own form of protection, or you’re quite right. It would have been stripped of power.”
“Could it be riding Lady Willoughby? Her aura might be strong enough to protect some sort of foreign entity from the effects of hallowed ground.”
Another troubling thought.
“A possession? You said you didn’t sense anything,” he said.
“No, but then, I never got a chance to get near to her. And as I said, there was too much of Willoughby bleeding through.”
“You would have sensed it.” Sterling sighed. “Whatever this is, it’s quite perplexing.”
“So where next?”
“Where else?” He set a hand in the small of her back as they reached the crossroads and then nudged her gently toward the town. “The scene of the crime.”
The next stop was the vault.
The priest very kindly unlocked it, answered all of their questions, and then hesitated at the edge of the vault’s door, his face paling.
“We should be fine to continue our investigation ourselves,” Edwina said kindly.
“Ah, yes, yes.” The priest’s smile was fleeting. “I do have to prepare for congregation. You’ll call me when you need me to lock the door?”
“Of course.”
And then he was gone.
“I think he just set a new world record for covering one hundred feet in half a second,” Sterling mused.
“He’s frightened. Lady Willoughby woke from the dead last week and now all he can see is ghosts. And this is a dark vault.”
“It’s not bothering me.”
“Yes, but you’ve spent half your life battling shadow demons and succubae…. Any nerves you once owned are long gone.”
He prowled into the darkness, his square shoulders disappearing into shadows. “I’ve never been afraid of the dark. Not like my brother, Hart. The dark is where mischief happens. And I like mischief.”
Edwina rolled her eyes. “I think nearly every lady in London knows that.”
He spun on her quickly. “What?”
She repeated herself, using her magic to summon a mage globe that burned a pale, phosphorescent white. The vault loomed, a marble angel rearing out of nowhere. Edwina’s heart skipped a beat.
She hated the dark.
And Sterling was… strangely quiet.
“Why are you staring at me?” she asked, turning to find his eyes upon her.
He muttered something under his breath and moved past her.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
Edwina drew back, startled at the bite of acid in his voice. He never spoke to her like that. It reminded her a little of his encounters with the duke.
“Sense anything?” he called, running a hand over the vault walls.
Edwina’s breath fogged in the chilly air.
Stilling her senses, she opened her mind to her clairvoyance.
“Nothing,” she replied, circling the crypt. “There’s no psychic residue of anything foul or sinister.”
“It’s been a week.”
“If some foul creature was squatting on Lady Willoughby’s chest, I’d feel the echoes of its resonance.”
“A creature, yes. A ghost or phantom? No. They’re not strong enough to leave a psychic impression that would last a week.”
Edwina sighed and glanced toward him.
Instantly, she was overcome by an image of Sterling with a knife through his heart, blood dripping down his chest as he pressed on as if unaware of it.
A startled inhalation and then the image was gone.
“What is it?” he demanded, clearly hearing her gasp.
“Are you all right?” she whispered.
Sometimes her clairvoyance gave her insight into a person’s heart and soul, and Sterling—as stoic as ever—was clearly battling some inner wound.
“What did you see?”