The Spiritualist (43 page)

I touched his arm, and when he stiffened, I stroked up his sleeve to his shoulder. I felt his tension radiate into my fingertips. “I didn’t tell you about the jewel because I was afraid you’d be angry. It’s worth a great deal, Dorothy said, and I felt guilty. After all, if the adoption goes through, it would’ve been yours. And I need it so very much.”

“Very pretty,
chère
. And Rampling?”

“After the circle last night, Benjamin and I argued. I wanted to reassure him.”

“About what?”

“That we were still friends.” I eased my fingers between the buttons on his vest. “And yes, that I still regard him as possibly more than that.”

“Do you really think he’ll marry you? Even if you aren’t found guilty, you’ll be an accused murderess. Do you think your upper ten’ll forget it? Do you think he’ll sacrifice everything he’s gained to keep you?”

My fingers stilled on the buttons. “He’s already taken on the upper ten for me. He’s taken on the Athertons.”

“That isn’t the same as marrying you.” He made a sound of disbelief. “Why don’t you see that you don’t need him? You could make them all dance to your tune, if you wanted. Look at how well you managed Dorothy! The game belongs to you, Evie. Why the hell do you want Rampling? He doesn’t understand you.”

I struggled to steady my breath, to remember my task. “You’re at Dorothy’s beck and call. Not only must I share you with her, but your former lover keeps her constant presence in my head. Do you think I’ve no cause to be jealous myself?”

“Dorothy’s a task, you know that. And as for Adele, there’s no reason for jealousy.”

“She says differently.”

“We parted badly. She would lie to you.”

“You claim to understand people so well.” I slipped one button of his vest loose, and then another. “But how well can you understand a woman, truly? You said it yourself. We’ve sensitive nerves; we feel things men don’t.” The buttons were all undone. I pressed my hand against his shirt, and then I trailed down to his trousers. “I think she meant something to you. After all, you kept the things she left behind.”

“For the police.” He sounded strangled.

“Ah, but how can I believe that, knowing you as I do? You were working on Dorothy Bennett even then, weren’t you? How could you want the police anywhere around? I think you kept those things because you cared for her—”

He caught my wrist, stilling it. “How little you know of it,
chère
.” He jerked me against him, kissing me with such violence that his teeth ground against mine, and when I tried to pull away, he wouldn’t let me. When I managed to say, “The door—” he glanced up, and then without a word he grabbed my arm, pausing only a moment to be sure the hall was clear before he propelled me from the library and down the hallway toward his bedroom. Once we were there, he fished in his pocket for the key and then he hauled me inside impatiently.

He didn’t loose his hold on my arm as he relocked the door, but I felt the way the simple turn of the key restored him. When he turned back to me, it was with a slow thoughtfulness, but I knew how hard had been his struggle to curb his violence and his temper. He was breathing as heavily as I was.

T
HE BRONZE CLOCK
on the mantel of the fireplace read midnight. We had gone without supper, and he’d left me long enough to retrieve some bread and cheese from the kitchen, which we’d eaten by the low-wicked light of the oil lamp on the bedside table. My legs were tangled with his beneath the sheets, my body pressed into the lean hardness of his side. He was playing with my hair where it spread across his chest, spinning strands of it around his finger and then letting it fall loose only to spin it again; the gentle, rhythmic tugging lulled me into a half sleep.

Then he said, “What does she say to you?”

The question roused me. I heard his uncertainty, and I turned my head into his chest, smiling against his skin. I knew who he meant; I didn’t bother to pretend otherwise.

“It’s not what she says, it’s what she shows me. How cruel you were.”

“I was never cruel to her”—a pause—“or perhaps I was. We weren’t a good match.”

“So when you could no longer use her, you sent her away?”

“Oui.”
His finger spun my hair. I felt the little sting at my scalp as he pulled too tight. “I don’t doubt she hates me. Or that she wants vengeance. You mustn’t trust her,
chère
. She’d lie to hurt me.”

“Why?”

He was silent.

“Let me see what she left behind,” I whispered.

He made a sound of frustration and pulled away, dislodging me as he climbed from the bed and went naked to the armoire in the corner. His movements were tight and angry as he opened the door, as he rummaged through it. Then, finally, he turned, holding a small carpetbag—the same one she’d been carrying in my vision?

“Here,” he said, throwing it so it landed with a soft thump on the bed. “Do what you want with it. Burn it if you like.”

I grabbed it and pulled it close. When I touched it, I smelled her perfume. Citrusy, woodsy. “What’s inside?”

He shrugged. “Some clothes. A brush.”

I sat up, pulling the sheet up to cover my breasts, and took the bag into my lap. Michel came and sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing his face in his hands, his back to me.

I felt the tension of his waiting, and my own curiosity, my certainty that Adele held the answers to my questions, made me undo the clasp; it clicked softly, and then I pulled it open.

Her scent wafted so powerfully I found myself lurching back, as if her spirit came with it. Then I reached inside. My fingers encountered softness—fabric, fine and thin—and I drew it out. A dressing gown, decorated with ribbons and lace, of a lawn so sheer it would be almost indecent to wear it. I ran it through my fingers, searching it for some clue, though I hardly knew what I was looking for. Bloodstains, perhaps? A rip in the fabric to show how she’d died? But then I remembered the vision, and I knew she’d been wearing a dress when she died. Not this. I would have recognized this.

“A pretty thing,” I said softly.

He looked over his shoulder. “A gift I bought her. She wore it at the circles.”

“This? But it’s indecent.”

“You’ve so much to learn. She wore a chemise under it. It was for the men, eh? When they wanted to contact a spirit. It made them more willing to believe.”

“I imagine,” I said dryly.

“For the women, it was different. She pretended to be my wife.”

“Yes. She would need to be respectable for them.”

“I may make a charlatan of you yet.”

I pushed the dressing gown aside and reached in again, bringing out a silver-backed hand mirror, a brush that still held strands of her brown hair. It was a beautiful set, and old. I held the mirror in my hand, fingering the tooled silver. “She meant to come back. No woman leaves something like this.”

He said nothing. The next thing I drew out was a scarf—a beautiful paisley in greens and blues. I set it aside.

There was nothing more. In disappointment, I shoved the bag away. But then I heard something slide within it, and with a frown, I drew it back again and felt all over the bottom, into the pocket that lined the inside. And there in the corner, I felt it. A fine chain gathered in a little pile. I pulled it out.

It was a silver chain, very lovely and delicate, and swinging from it was a locket, a silver oval, delicate as well. I placed it in my palm, letting the chain fall between my fingers.

“A locket.” Carefully, I pried it open. Inside was a lock of hair, very like the lock of Peter’s hair I kept in mine, but this was dark, and it was a little curl, tied with a tiny cream-colored ribbon. On the other side, there was an engraving. I leaned close to read it.
To my Addy
—It was hard to see. I tilted the locket closer to the lamplight, and when I did, the curl of hair fell out, revealing more writing beneath, the continuation of the sentiment.
Your husband, Ben
.

I glanced up at Michel, who was watching me closely. “What was her surname?”

“LaFleur, when I met her. After a while, she used mine.”

“Was that her married name?”

“I never asked her. I assumed so.”

I shoved the curl of hair back inside and closed the locket. “Did you meet her husband?”

“
Non
. I try to avoid duels if I can,
chère
.”

I looked back down at the necklace.

Benjamin was a common enough name. No doubt there were hundreds of men named Benjamin with dark hair. And LaFleur was… what kind of name was that? It didn’t seem common at all, but neither did it seem quite real. Michel had said she was a medium when he’d met her. Many mediums took assumed names. Perhaps even Michel’s was one. And I knew from my visions that this medium was hiding from her husband. Suddenly my thought that she might have been Peter’s mistress seemed wrong. But Peter had never said anything to me about Benjamin having had a wife. Benjamin himself had never alluded to it. It could not be the same Ben. Of course it was not.

“What is it, Evie?” Michel asked.

I glanced up at him. His face was gaunt in the shadows cast by the lamp.

“Nothing,” I said, curling my hand around the locket. “The necklace is from her husband, that’s all. Odd that she would keep it after she’d run away from him.”

“Women do many odd things,” he said. He motioned to Adele’s things, spread as they were on the bed. “Did you learn what you expected?”

“She didn’t want to leave you. She loved you.”

His expression was veiled. “I’m irresistible, eh? But you knew that already.”

“Yes. I knew that.”

He swept aside the dressing gown, the scarf, the brush set, and crawled across the bed toward me. “So she meant to return and didn’t. Perhaps she changed her mind.”

“Or she couldn’t. You said she was killed.”

“Months after.”

“Was it so long?”

“It was a long time ago. She doesn’t matter to me. She never did.” He kissed my shoulder. “Enough questions. Don’t be jealous,
chère
. She isn’t here. Don’t let her come between us. Please, Evie. Control her.”

His whisper was lulling, but I knew he had other reasons for wanting me to keep her out. I knew he was afraid. I felt it in the way he clutched me, as if his sheer possession was enough to command me, and I let him believe it. And as my body leaped to his touch, as I twisted beneath him, I felt her just beyond my consciousness, watching. She waited patiently, and she pushed inside. When I reached my release, she took it all, she filled my head, and I knew—though Michel did not—that it was not me with whom he’d just made love, but Adele.

I
WOKE JUST
before dawn. Michel was asleep beside me, and carefully I lifted his arm from where it curled about my body and moved from beneath it. He made a sound of protest, but he didn’t wake. The carpetbag, Adele’s things, had fallen to the floor, and I left them there—except for the locket, which I saw glimmering in the faint blue light in a wrinkle of the bedspread. I picked it up and climbed carefully from the bed, slipping into my chemise, which was piled upon the floor, and bundling my other clothes in my arms.

I heard no noise yet, and I crept down the hallway and into my bedroom. My clothes I hung carefully, but I kept the necklace tight in my hand as I went into my own bed. I lay there against the pillows, letting the chain swing from my fingers, watching the back and forth pendulum of the locket. I needed to know more about her, and I could not trust Michel for the answers.

I must have stared at that necklace for hours. Finally, I rose and went to the armoire. I had already tucked away the brooch Dorothy had given me in the pocket of one of my gowns, and now I did the same thing with the locket, and hung two other gowns over it. Michel had proved how easy it was for him to come into my room, locked or not; I did not think he would take the time to search through all my clothes, and any other hiding place was too obvious.

When Kitty came, I bade her dress me quickly and call me a carriage. I did not tell anyone I was going, and no one was around to question me as I left. As I boarded the carriage, I saw the police watchman start to attention. The morning was cold, the sky overcast with clouds that signaled icy rain. Though I’d seen the new shoots of daffodils and snowdrops in the yard, spring still felt very far away.

“Pearl Street. Atherton and Rampling,” I told the driver, and we were speedily off.

It was nearing eleven as I climbed the steps to Peter’s office, and the halls were swarming with businessmen. The handsome clerk at the desk looked up owlishly from behind his glasses as I opened the office door and stepped inside.

“Mrs. Atherton,” he said, rising so quickly he knocked a pen off the desk. “How can I help you this morning?”

“I’m here to see Mr. Rampling,” I told him.

At that moment, one of the doors beyond opened, and Benjamin came striding out as if I’d beckoned him. His hair was smooth and shining, his beard neatly trimmed, his frock coat brushed. He was the perfect example of a prosperous lawyer. He was conservative and well bred, and it was surprising that such a man had not taken a wife. Why had I not thought that before now?

Foolish
, I told myself. There were a hundred Benjamins. What made me think he had anything to do with Adele? Why could I not dismiss the thought?

He frowned when he saw me. “Evie?”

I stepped past the young man. “Have you a moment?”

“I was on my way to the prosecutor’s office, but I suppose he can wait.” He turned to the clerk. “Wood, will you send a man over there to say I’ll be late?”

“Absolutely, sir. I’ll go myself.”

Benjamin waited until the young man had disappeared through the door, and then he gestured for me to follow him into his office. When I was inside, he closed the door behind me.

“Did he move the cuff link?”

I had forgotten all about it. “I’m afraid I haven’t had the chance to look again. He’s been about, you see—” I took on the mien of distress, and though I felt guilty for the lie, my need to reassure myself about Benjamin was greater. “I’ve been… well, I know you told me Adele was an illusion. And I think I must believe you. But even knowing that, I still see her. Michel is quite insistent that she’s real—”