Chapter 8
Eight
“I am gratified that you accepted my invitation, my lord.”
I bet you are.
Owen kept his expression bland as he looked around the narrow entry hall. Despite the bright afternoon, it was as dark as the previous occasion. The only notable difference was that Seraphina had received him personally; her assistants were nowhere to be seen.
“It’s Owen,” he reminded her. “And how could I resist such a challenge?”
“A challenge?”
Seraphina’s attempt at innocence was the worst he’d ever seen. In fact, he was certain she wasn’t even trying. The sparkle in her topaz eyes told him she was enjoying her little game.
“You mistake my intentions, Owen. I requested an opportunity to demonstrate my talents.”
“I am aware of your talents,” he said dryly.
He was—just as he was aware that coming here had been a mistake. He’d rationalized that he was protecting his family, but he had less honorable impulses as well.
I shall have to remain on guard. I know what my weaknesses are, and I won’t let her manipulate them. Flirting is one thing—falling for her tricks another.
“In that case, follow me.”
She lit a candle and glided off. He followed her along the gloomy path toward the back of the house.
This time, he realized that screens of black fabric had been set up throughout the connecting rooms to create the illusion of a labyrinth.
Yet recognizing the trick did not diminish its effectiveness.
His skin prickled as the winding passageway seemed to close around him.
Last time, he’d been distracted by his duty to protect his womenfolk, but now he felt tension grip his shoulders, his heartbeat accelerating.
With his senses smothered by the quiet dark, he had only Seraphina to orient him, and that was hazardous.
To break the suffocating silence, he said, “This is an elaborate maze you’ve set up.”
“The spirit world is labyrinthine. While I am accustomed to its twists and turns, I must prepare the uninitiated for what they will soon encounter.” Her voice drifted back to him as did her tantalizing scent of lemons and herbs. “We must begin as we mean to go on.”
“Do you have an answer for everything?”
She looked over her shoulder, brows arched. “Only for the important questions.”
Cheeky miss.
They arrived at the séance room. The muted glow of the chandelier and candles on the mantel cast undulating shadows.
Seats had been removed from the round table, leaving four chairs.
The spirit bowl rested on the table; like the last time, it was filled with water, the surface as smooth as a blank slate.
The air was smoky with incense, the scent one of spiced decay.
He had to admit the stage was perfectly, and eerily, set.
These are mere parlor tricks. Do not let them get to you.
“Where is your entourage?” he asked.
“I promised you a private audience.” When she went to her chair, he pulled it out for her. She sat, gesturing regally to the seat to her right. “I hope you do not mind conducting our activities alone.”
The activities he’d imagined conducting with her flitted through his mind’s eye.
“Not at all.” He leaned back in the hard chair, his feet firmly planted and posture deliberately nonchalant. “I am curious about the spectacle you have planned.”
“It is no spectacle but a journey into the unknown.”
“Having attended your prior performance, I have an idea of what to expect.”
In fact, he thought her assistants must be nearby, pulling strings unseen. He recalled the flickering lights and swaying chandelier from the last séance and wondered what else Seraphina and her little troublemakers had up their sleeves.
“Ah, but this experience will be different. You will not be a spectator but a participant.”
He forced his tensed shoulders to relax. Seraphina was a gifted actress, but she could not summon spirits. His ghosts were private, and they would stay that way.
“I have no desire to commune with spirits,” he said.
“You will not be doing the communing. I will. Unless”—she lifted a brow—“you have reason to fear what the spirits choose to share with me about your past?”
Memories splattered like blood on snow. Ruthlessly, he shoved them aside. His past had nothing to do with what was happening here. This was a ruse, a sham—and he was here to prove it.
He flicked a piece of lint from the sleeve of his frock coat. “It takes more than theatrics to frighten me.”
“If you wish, you may give me the name of a spirit you wish to contact. You saw my success with Mrs. Elmwood’s husband. All I would require is a personal item—”
“Let us drop the pretense, shall we? You and I both know that you can no more converse with the dead than I can sprout wings and fly.”
“My, such certainty. Conviction is the province of cynics, you know.”
“Call me what you will.” He crossed his arms. “I do not carry sentimental tokens. If you wish to convince me of your ‘talent,’ you will have to do so in some other fashion.”
“I sense a certain degree of hostility.”
“And I sense a certain degree of deceit.”
“Very well.” She smiled thinly. “I shall proceed without a personal token.”
She sat with her slender shoulders straight, her eyes resting upon the spirit bowl.
She said nothing, her lace-covered hands folded on the table in front of her.
Her absolute focus made it seem as if the rest of the room, including him, ceased to exist for her.
As the silence stretched, he became aware of his heart thumping against his ribs.
Then the chandelier dimmed, so slowly that he questioned his own senses.
But no, it was getting darker in the room, the shadows seeming to swirl.
This is not real. This is a trick—a sham.
Suddenly, her hand shot over the table toward him.
“Take my hand,” she said.
Her voice was deeper and sultrier, with a commanding resonance.
Anyone could alter their voice, he told himself.
Her gaze remained fixed on the spirit bowl, but it was unfocused as if she were looking beyond it.
She held out a gloved hand. Reluctantly, he uncrossed his arms and took it.
When she linked her fingers with his, he felt a strange leap in his gut.
That leap turned into a jolt when ripples started spreading over the surface of the spirit bowl. He squinted, trying to discern what was causing the disturbance. It had to be a hidden mechanism of some kind—
“An image is coming to me—a gift from the spirit world.” Her voice was tinny and hollow, like it was coming from a distance. “I see you now. I have a sense of…coldness. Swirling around you.”
He stilled, feeling the lash of the winter wind against his cheek, the crunch of ice beneath the thin soles of his boots. A chill ran through him.
She cannot talk to spirits. She is making this up.
“Yes, I have taken a stroll through the London fog,” he said mockingly. “That is a good guess, Seraphina.”
“The spirits are not showing me London but a different place. Somewhere foreign and inhospitable…”
Bleak mountain passes swept through his mind, the cliffs bare as weathered bones.
The feeling of exposure clenched his gut: the wind and the cold, nowhere to take shelter.
Unlike the English countryside where he’d grown up, there were no trees or hedges, not even a fold in the earth in which a man could hide—
“Yes, I see it more clearly now. This cold, unwelcoming place. You are there for a purpose.”
He shivered, feeling the frigid air against his cheek. Through his clothes. The cold was as dangerous as gunfire, chipping away at the regiment, taking down the bravest soldiers one by one.
“Keep going, fellows. Don’t stop. We will make it to the garrison in Jalalabad—to safety.”
“I see you standing in this hostile land. There is fear around you.”
His skin felt too tight, his breath stabbing his throat. He felt the weight of command—command that was not supposed to be his. But there was no one else left to lead. Over sixteen thousand had started on this disastrous march, and now there were fewer than a hundred.
“We’re trapped here. No place to hide. We’re penned like sheep in this stone coffin—”
“I see a color. Red.” She hissed the word. “You are covered in red.”
Shouts rang in his head. Screams of panic as bullets rained from the open sky.
I have him now.
Feeling Owen’s ice-cold fingers, Finn knew her aim had been true.
From their first meeting, she’d observed that he dressed like a man unafraid of the elements.
He hadn’t worn a greatcoat on that chilly London evening or during their recent graveyard rendezvous.
She attributed this partly to his natural hot-bloodedness (a condition to which she could personally attest) and partly to his prior experiences.
Knowing his military past, she deduced that he’d learned to adapt to harsh climes from his time in the army.
Feeling him shiver from remembered cold, she suppressed a triumphant grin.
While she didn’t know where he’d been stationed, her best guess would be Ireland.
Somewhere not too foreign or far away. The Marquess of Blackwood would have seen to it that his youngest son had a plush assignment.
Something routine where Owen could climb the ranks with honor—and without undue risk or discomfort.
Finn was pleased with her logic. From an early age, she’d learned to read others, even their subtlest cues, to survive.
At the orphanage, the tick of a certain attendant’s jaw had warned of impending violence.
The gleam in a porter’s eyes had foreshadowed assault of a different nature.
Finn’s observational abilities had saved her—and made her powerful as Madame Seraphina.
Observing Owen’s stillness and frozen expression, she knew she’d pierced a hole in his righteous armor.
Not so sure of yourself now, are you?