Chapter 11
Eleven
Fatigued from her afternoon of exploring London’s premier hothouses, Agnes retired early.
In the train car, she’d scribbled notes in her journal, speculating on various concoctions she could create with the ginkgo biloba she had found.
The ground still swayed below her as she made her way to her bed. She sunk deep under the covers.
A door slammed shut. The room was only dimly lit by the glow of the fire, and Agnes hadn’t observed if the adjoining door between hers and Richard’s rooms had been open. Kitty often aired out the house during the day. She likely had just forgotten to close the window.
But then she heard it—the creaking of a door handle. Turning quickly, she saw the round knob twist and snap back, unlatching the door from the frame. It opened slowly with a groan.
“Richard?” Her voice rasped against her throat.
Reminding herself of the last encounter, she tried to press down her fear. The spirit had felt familiar. She was not in danger, but that did not stop her heart from racing. The hairs on her arms stood on end.
She closed her eyes and counted to five. Five seconds was all the time she would allow herself to be afraid. Then she summoned her courage and flicked off her coverlet, when what she really wished to do was pull it over her head and hide.
Step by step, the floor cool beneath her feet, she made her way to Richard’s bedchamber. She pulled the mahogany door open wider, avoiding contact with the doorknob she had witnessed turning on its own. Holding her breath, she walked into the room.
Her eyes tried to focus, but the room was dark, too dark, as the curtains were drawn over the closed window. Something bumped her foot. She jumped back, feeling uncomfortably weightless as her insides twisted and jerked. On the floor was the paperweight, fallen again, unbroken.
“Richard? Please. I don’t understand the purpose of this.”
She waited for a response. Waited for anything to happen as she stilled her breathing to not miss even the faintest of whispers.
Nothing. The only sound was the thumping of her heart.
Words did not come to her. So many souls had been trapped in York over its centuries of bloody history. This might be the spirit of someone who had experienced something gruesome. What if Richard’s death in this room opened the door for another spirit to cross over? An angrier one?
Panic took over. Placing one foot behind the other, afraid to turn her back to the ghostly presence, she began her retreat.
Bam! The connecting door behind her slammed shut, and she leapt off the floor. Ice ran down her back in waves. The clock of the Minster struck twelve. Bram rubbed against her foot, his purrs growing louder than the sound of her uneven breaths.
She had desired a life of independence, so she needed to do this. If this was Richard, she wanted him to hear her. If it was another spirit, well, then it could listen to her as well. She had something to say.
“Richard . . .” she said aloud. “Richard, I am so lost. I thought we were companions, partners. You were my best friend, and after Edith died, you filled the hole she left behind. I know you cared, but you didn’t keep me safe.
Everything is about to be taken from me.
It was so incredibly . . .” Her voice trailed off.
Fury and hurt merged into something beastly, causing her words to catch and her eyes to sting with tears.
“It was incredibly naive of you, Richard. I’m angry. ”
She shut her eyes. The anger, disappointment, and betrayal consumed her.
A rush of air caressed her hand. A familiar sound made Agnes open her eyes. The snap of unseen fingers summoned Bram, and the cat ran across the room to leap onto Richard’s desk. He pawed at a small drawer behind where the paperweight normally sat.
Agnes walked over to stop the cat from scratching at the wood, but he hunkered down and made himself dead weight, emitting a low growl that intensified as she pushed. She gave up and shimmied open the drawer to see what he was after. It was stuck, as were many of the drawers in this age-worn hutch.
She wiggled it open far enough to see inside. Bram pushed his head past her hand to discover the contents first. Blindly, she shoved her hand into the back of the drawer and pulled out a key.
It was unlike anything she had seen in their home before.
She ran her fingers along the cold iron teeth.
She and Richard didn’t hide things from one another, but maybe the key was meant to hide something from someone else.
Feeling the weight of the object in her palm, she knew it carried some importance.
“Thank you, Richard. I will figure it out.”
The morning sun greeted Harry with a radiance uncharacteristic for a day this late in autumn. Harry walked the streets with a bounce in his step on the way to visit his family for luncheon. He knocked on the door of a respectable townhouse in Hampstead.
His eldest brother John had made a name for himself in the financial world by investing in profitable businesses, such as the shipping industry.
Although he had come from the same humble roots as Harry, people knew John Evans.
It was a name he had bestowed upon his wife and would pass onto his children.
Harry’s feelings for his brother were a healthy dose of envy and admiration.
A young man answered the door. Where other homes had stodgy, glowering butlers, Rohan greeted him with a charming smile. Harry had never understood why contempt seemed to be the most fashionable greeting of butlers in high society.
“Come in, Mr. Evans. It is a pleasure for you to visit again. Your brother and the missus will be so elated to see you.” Harry couldn’t help but return the smile. It had never been possible for Rohan’s sunny countenance to leave him unaffected, but also, he was much quicker to smile these days.
The dining room had been set up for a family meal with large plates of food at the center of the table, decorated with linens embroidered with cheerful florals. Mismatched chairs were crammed around the sides. Harry cleared his throat to announce his arrival.
The three women with their heads bowed in conversation looked up and squealed. His ears rang. Harry was not the baby brother, but he was often treated as such by his brothers’ wives. They adored him. Fawned over him.
Now, after more than a decade of having sisters by marriage, he was able to maintain eye contact with the familiar women for several seconds at a time.
He could eat and drink in their presence without embarrassing himself with shaking hands that caused him to clatter silverware against the plate or dribble his beverage down his chin.
Today, with Lady Skelton’s passionflower tincture tucked in his pocket, he felt more confident than ever before. Its contents would be helpful, but the weight of the vial in his pocket reminded him that someone, someone not related to him by blood or marriage, thought about him.
Before moving to the table, Harry leaned over his aging father. “Please, don’t stand up.” He planted a kiss on Papa’s head.
“Glad to see you, my boy.”
“Good to see you too, Papa. I’ve been meaning to call on you—”
“But things have been busy. I understand. And when I say I understand, I do. I don’t want to make your life more difficult. Happy to see you when I can.” His father reached up and took Harry’s hand, giving it a squeeze.
Harry’s bottom had almost made it into the chair when he was lifted up by both of his arms. On either side of him stood a six-year-old girl with light brown hair, one in piggy tails, the other in two braids.
“We saved you a seat next to us, Uncle Harry,” the two cherubs said in unison. Catherine, the one with braids, pulled his hand with more force than her sister Lorrie. He could barely keep on his feet as they tumbled him forward, plopping him onto a chair around the other side of the table.
“They have been awaiting your arrival all morning, Harry,” John’s wife, Sylvia, said with a warm smile. “It’s as if they hadn’t seen you just last weekend when you took them on that picnic in the country.”
Luncheon began as his family passed the large platters of food around the table with a flurry of weaving hands and excited chatter. The housekeeper and cook, Katriona, filled the glasses with wine for some and lemonade for Harry and the children.
He had tried alcohol a few times, suspecting that it might aid him in overcoming his nerves, but it never did. It made them worse. It caused him to overanalyze every word he spoke and every idea he thought, until he was left too flustered to speak or think at all.
“Harry, have you thought about any more business ideas, or are you finally content with your work?” Papa asked, cutting through the commotion to address his middle son.
“I’ve been looking into paper mills.”
“And do you have an interest in paper?”
“Not particularly.” Whenever Harry began investigations into a particular industry, Papa always asked the same question. And Harry’s answer was always the same. But did it matter? Did most businessmen find their work fascinating, or was the income fascinating enough?
Papa shook his head. “Being an accountant is good employment. Many men out there would love to have your career. Where did this idea that you need to have your own business come from?”
“It came from you, Papa. Your name hangs above your iron works, large enough for everyone to see.”
“And you’re welcome to come work there with Felix and me.
Think about it. We could easily add an s after Evans and Son.
Heck, we could even call it Evans, Evans, and Evans if the name really matters to you.
It would be great to have you with us, but I never wanted you to feel like you had to go into the family business. ”
Harry laughed, half in humor, half in embarrassment. His father had been the first entrepreneur in his family, finding success in the iron business. The earnings weren’t extravagant but impressive for the son of a dockworker.
The rest of Harry’s brothers had followed in the same spirit, creating their own businesses in a variety of industries, except Bert, the baby of the family according to his twin brother, Benjamin.
He’d become a poet, and even then, his name was on covers of books sold in London’s most prominent bookstores.
Feeling eyes on him, he checked each face around the table. Felix was staring.
“Yes? Do I have something on my face?” Harry lifted his napkin to dab his chin.
His second eldest brother returned a half smile. “No. I just noticed there is something different about you.”
Amelia, Felix’s wife, shouted with surprise and amusement. “Oh! Don’t tell me! I love guessing games.” She scrutinized Harry’s face with such fierce intensity that he felt as if it would burst into flames.
“Dear God, Amelia,” Sylvia said, “You’re frightening him.”
“Oh, Harry’s fine,” John chided. “Let her play her game.”
“It’s his hair!” Bert slammed the table with enthusiasm. The glassware clinked and the silverware rattled.
“No, it’s not his hair. He always has . . . that . . . going on.” Benjamin waved a hand over his own hair where Harry’s cowlick always swirled.
Benjamin’s wife Florence said softly, “It’s not his physical appearance.” Everyone paused and leaned toward the captivating woman. “Don’t you all see? He’s glowing. There must be a reason for this new happiness. Isn’t there, Harry?”
She winked, causing him to blush furiously at her observation. Florence could always see through people in ways that others could not.
“Who is she then, Harry?” blurted Felix. A collective gasp from the ladies around the table startled him.
“I knew you had it in you! You always were going to marry before me. Tell us about her.” Bert was the only one of Harry’s brothers who remained unmarried, but they all suspected that he had a secret paramour. It was only a matter of time.
“There’s no woman.” As Harry said this, he felt a stab of guilt. It was the truth, but Harry couldn’t help but feel as if he were being dishonest. Lady Skelton was not a woman to him. At least not yet.
Not yet? The thought surprised him. There was no future for them.
“I don’t believe you.” Benjamin pointed a green bean at him.
“Will Uncle Harry be getting married?” Lorrie clapped her hands. “I can’t wait to have another auntie.”
Under the rapid-fire interrogation, the nerves clawed their way up from his gut to his throat.
He could no longer feel the effects of the passionflower drops he had taken.
Lady Skelton wasn’t capable of witchcraft, after all.
No tincture could work magic with ten pairs of eyes staring through him while he was questioned about a mystery woman who didn’t actually exist, a mystery woman he couldn’t stop thinking about.
“Well, whoever she is, she is lucky to have your attentions, Harry. You’re a kind man and would make a fine husband. I don’t know why you haven’t allowed women to see how charming you are.” Florence said it like it would be an easy task for Harry to woo a woman.
Sylvia and Amelia nodded in agreement.
“Thank you, Florence.” What else he could say? He was a lucky man when it came to his family. At least they had complete faith in him, whether or not it was warranted.
“Ha!” Bert shouted, slapping the table once more. “So there is someone!”
Laughter erupted around the table, while Sylvia made a sharp request that Bert refrain from slamming the table again. “Please. These are my good plates. We are civilized people, even if some of you act as buffoons.”
Each person returned to their meal and conversations broke off, filling the room with a comfortable murmur. Papa caught Harry’s gaze from the end of the table and gave him a reassuring nod, the kind only a father could give.