Chapter Thirteen

Harcastle House was the perfect venue for a séance. As servants bustled in and out of the Blue Room moving furniture and positioning oil lamps and candles, Evie tried to imagine what the finished effect would be.

As awed as she'd been on her first visit by the scale and faded magnificence of this place, she had still recognized that it was not a home. It was a mystery to her how the long line of Harcastles before hers—she winced at the possessive thought but otherwise chose to ignore it—had managed to build a veritable palace, fill it with expensive art and furnishings, yet the effect was still utterly bleak. The perfect playground for a few chain-rattling ghosts.

The Blue Room itself was a case in point. High ceilings, massive windows draped in royal blue velvet, an enormous fireplace flanked by leather armchairs. A long brocade sofa dominated the space, and an elegant writing desk stood by the window. The room might have been charming had it not also been paneled with the darkest wood she had ever seen. The shining black ebony was covered with grotesque ram's heads, a Harcastle emblem, leering like gargoyles.

The floor was uncarpeted and made of the same wood. Her feet echoed eerily as she walked but that was no good for a séance where she needed to move without being observed. When she'd mentioned this to Alex—that is, to Harcastle —he'd responded by sending an enormous Persian rug. Somehow its cheerful reds, greens, and tarnished golds were swallowed up by the general dreariness.

She knelt and opened the massive carpetbag she'd brought with her from her most recent visit to Brewer Street. Inside was her "spirit cabinet," in actuality a heavy pair of black velvet curtains. They would reach from floor to ceiling, and once hung in the appropriate place, would obscure a door that led into an adjoining room. They would also provide a small alcove where she could conceal herself or another.

The plan was simple. She was to pull out all the stops and perform the best full-manifestation she could muster, so that Captain couldn't say she hadn't tried. The spirit— Helen in disguise—was to manifest while Evie, bound and concealed beyond the curtain as was the custom at events such as this, provided the usual accompaniment of moaning, rattling, knocking and, inexplicably to her mind, even a few notes from a flute or trumpet. Harcastle would then break with every standard of conduct permissible at a séance and pull back the curtain to reveal Evie in the midst of this absurd behavior. Helen would flee the room before anyone could apprehend her.

Dr. Carter, along with Mr. Ellis, Harcastle's cousin, would be present as witnesses, rendering Evie's exposure lamentably public. Captain too would witness the calamity firsthand and would surely agree that she could not have prevented it. Having lost her wager, she would be forced to make whatever public admissions of guilt Harcastle required, in return for which she would receive five hundred pounds. Once she'd given Captain his share, she would leave for the continent.

Now, as she watched the servants hang the curtains according to her specifications, she wished she could take more pleasure in the thought that next week she might be taking her ease in the south of France. Actually, she felt nothing.

A fresh start meant leaving the few friends she had. She would miss Mags and Jack. Worst of all, she would miss him , and she was furious with herself. Stupid, stupid girl, she had no one but herself to blame.

It was one thing to miss him— of course she would miss him—but to allow these feelings to poison her joy in escaping Captain's ever-tightening grip? No, that was madness. This was why she shouldn't have permitted herself to soften toward Alex—closing her eyes, she sighed deeply— Harcastle . This was why she shouldn't have permitted herself to soften toward Harcastle. But it didn't matter anymore, did it? Falling asleep in his arms last night had been the last in a long line of fatal errors. What she called him was the least of it.

Swiping at a cobweb that clung to her skirt, she strode from the room and down the hall to the study which she entered without knocking.

Alex didn't rise but smiled faintly on seeing her. He was wearing his reading glasses, and words that oughtn't to apply to him, words like sweet and adorable , invaded her mind. If he was short-sighted, he was human after all, but then she'd known that for a long time. Since the carriage. Or perhaps since the night they'd met when she'd played him such a nasty trick. Tenderness welled in her and the urge to make it all up to him. To drown him in affection.

No. No more of that , she told herself sternly.

He hadn't stayed with her last night. Once Helen and Dr. Carter had retired, Bastet had been her only company. They'd spent the evening maintaining a respectful distance from each other, the cat purring softly on the chair while Evie lay on the saggy couch. This had proved strangely companionable, yet she'd rather have spent the night in Alex's arms.

No, she must treat him as Bastet treated her. With coolness.

That was why she didn't greet him beyond a slight inclination of her head.

Another smaller bag awaited her near the fire. She sat down and rummaged through the contents. Inside, among other things, were camphor gum and storax. "Might I trouble you for a glass of whisky?" she asked him.

The decanter was right there on the sideboard. He must keep it for guests since she knew he never indulged. A polite host, he rose and poured the whisky for her.

"And some quicksilver?" she said, when he held the cutglass tumbler out to her.

His expression darkened. "What are you up to now? Whatever this is for, it had better not be flammable."

"Quite the reverse, I assure you."

He gazed at her for several seconds, searching for a lie. Considering their history, she didn't blame him. Whether or not he was satisfied with what he saw, he went to the mantle and depressed the head of a small golden lion that crouched there. This, she gathered, was how he rang for a servant. Presumably he was going to send out for quicksilver. Mercury wasn't the type of thing most people had to hand, unless they suffered from syphilis.

He didn't speak to her again until after the servant had been and gone. "I'd like your word you won't be using oil of phosphorous at any point this evening," he said then.

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him to mind his own business. After all, she didn't tell him how to duke. Then again, she was utilizing his house, not to mention his sister, for this séance. And he was right about the danger. She'd never liked using phosphorous in her act. Really it was Captain she needed to tell to bugger off, not Alex.

"I do so swear," she said, holding her hand high.

He smiled and shook his head before returning to whatever he was doing at his desk. It went straight to her heart, that smile. Her foolish, impossible-to-reason-with heart. What a flagellant it had turned out to be.

When the servant returned with the quicksilver a scant quarter of an hour later, she finished mixing her ingredients. Painted onto her hand and left to dry, this paste would come in very useful this evening.

That done, she reached further into the depths of her bag and produced several lengths of rope. Alex's head was down as he concentrated on whatever he was doing, apparently oblivious to her continued presence. She longed for the same insouciance but she was always, always aware of him, so close, yet completely untouchable.

"Hold out your hands, please," she said, crossing to his side.

He glanced up and stilled when he saw the rope. Oh, she had his full attention now all right. Dangerously so. His eyes took on a glazed expression, heavy-lidded yet somehow expectant.

Wasn't that what she wanted deep down? For him to look at her again the way he had when he'd begged her to reconsider her decision about becoming his mistress? Through simple honest lust, she could have his fixed attention without all the feelings and tenderness, the impossible longing and insurmountable obstacles. Through his lust, unobtainable though he was, she held him.

It got to her, the way he didn't say anything. The way he simply turned sideways in his chair and held his hands out. He trusted her in this though she'd done nothing to earn it.

He would let her do anything she wanted.

"Place your hands palm down on the arms of the chair." And he did.

She stepped closer. Close enough to detect the faint cedar scent of his cologne. "Tonight, I will be bound and you will have to bind me, since you are the person I'm supposed to be hoodwinking." She tried to keep her voice businesslike, looping the rope around first one wrist, then the other. "Can you get free?"

He relaxed his arms in response. That was good; she hadn't even been conscious that he'd tensed them. With relatively little difficulty and only a brief expression of discomfort, he used the slack he'd created with that slight resistance against the rope to wriggle free. The backs of his hands were a little scraped up but it had taken him only moments to escape.

"When Captain ties someone, assuming he doesn't wish them to escape, he pushes down to try and reduce the amount of slack. Do you think you can make it look like I'm tightly bound without actually constricting my movement too much?"

"Of course."

"It needs to look believable." She almost asked him to show her, but no. He might enjoy that a little too much and so might she. And then where would they be? "I'll carry a knife in case." She spoke with determined nonchalance, yet still his breaths were shallow, his gaze intent. A tremor went through her in response. "You mustn't look at me that way."

"What way?" But he knew. She could tell.

Despite herself she stepped even closer. It was like stepping into the light. "It's only our bodies, Harcastle." But her voice wasn't as brusque as she'd meant it to be. "Soon I'll be gone and you'll move on to the next obsession. You and I, we're from different worlds. One day, you'll look back on this and wonder what you were thinking."

His hand whipped out and grabbed her wrist. When he smiled, she wanted to kiss it right off his face. Instead, she made herself utterly still. He must never know how he affected her.

"Yes, we're from different worlds," he said. "Our lives couldn't be more different. But you and I…" He released her wrist and interlaced their fingers so they were palm to palm, holding hands like sweethearts. "You and I are the same. Devious and distrustful, we expect everyone to lie to us. Perhaps that's why your moods, your silences, everything you say and do, make perfect sense to me. When I'm with you, only when I'm with you, I'm not Harcastle. I'm not acting a part. And I think it's the same for you because you feel it too. That despite what's on the surface, you and I are made of the same stuff."

Oh, he was ruining her.

His palm rested warm against hers. As messy, sticky emotion rose within her, her heart seemed to swell until it must surely burst with the strength of her feelings. For the first time, she understood what it was to have a full heart.

"Alex," she whispered, a reproach and a plea. She could bear this so much better if all he wanted was to bed her, if she believed that the true attachment was one-sided. Why must he speak of the bond between them? Didn't he know that, by acknowledging it, he gave it life? "There's no point."

"Because you're leaving," he said. "Because I have all this." He waved his hand, the gesture encompassing not only the room or even the vast, gloomy entirety of Harcastle House, but everything—title, land, duties, dependents.

She shouldn't pity him for being bound to so much privilege, yet seeing the look on his face, she almost did.

"I have to marry an heiress." His grip on her hand tightened almost painfully. "If I don't, I might lose all of it, or at least so much that the title will become a joke. You see, the actual duke himself is nothing. Each one, each generation, is merely a link in the chain. None of this is truly mine. I'm its guardian, and so I must marry a suitable and suitably rich woman and make a little lord who will grow up and become another link in the chain."

"I don't understand." Who was it all for if not the duke?

"I'm not surprised." He laughed bitterly. "It may seem strange but that is how it's always been. I cannot be the man who breaks the chain and so I am bound by it." He eased her hand open and kissed the palm, his lips brushing her skin, barely touching. It was a curiously chivalrous gesture and one that was completely alien to her. "But you see, whatever the unspoken rules may be, I am still a man and, from the moment I first saw your face, I recognized something in you."

He rose from his seat and released her hand. He was about to leave the room and she must allow it. If she didn't let him go now, she would want to keep him forever. But he had more to say before he went and, whatever it turned out to be, she sensed it would devastate her.

Sure enough, he stopped before he reached the door, though he didn't turn to face her. "So, no, I won't forget you when you leave, I will never wonder what I was thinking, and I will always, always be sorry that we were not to be."

It was both a declaration and a renunciation. She closed her eyes against the pain of both. When she opened them again, he was gone.

∞∞∞

That night, Alex watched from across the séance room as his cousin and Nightingale made what was undoubtedly polite conversation. With Ellis, one rarely achieved anything else. The man was scrupulous in his social dealings, unlike Alex who usually couldn't be bothered.

Since giving up the demon drink, his focus on his work had been such that he'd allowed his social commitments to fall by the wayside. Ellis wasn't in on tonight's plan. As fond as Alex was of him, in many ways he remained an enigma. Alex doubted he could carry off a scene like this convincingly.

As Nightingale nodded at something Ellis had said, Alex couldn't help marveling a little that he'd actually invited his enemy into his home and given him claret. If this were a few hundred years ago, there might be poison lurking in its depths.

He couldn't muster the same animosity for the boy hovering at Nightingale's side. With his faded velvet suit, closely cropped bright red hair, and pale, prematurely wise elfin face, his presence as Nightingale's shadow saddened Alex. What chance did the boy have and what must his life have been?

Carter inclined his head in acknowledgment from his station by the fire. Like Alex, he was steering clear. He was perhaps the only man Alex knew who was incapable of polite dissembling. Gentle honesty, that was Carter's way, and Alex had always admired him for it. Helen had chosen well.

At last, Evie stepped from behind the drapes of her spirit cabinet. Her black hair, drawn severely back and neatly parted in the middle as always, shone in the candlelight. She wore the same black gown she'd worn the night of their first meeting. If he only had time, he would buy her dresses. Ruby red, emerald green, and sapphire blue. He wanted to see her hair unbound once before he lost her.

"Good evening, gentlemen," she said. "My preparations are almost complete." Without raising her voice, she commanded the room. She was what they'd all been waiting for. Especially Alex .

All of my life .

He pushed the thought away. "Next to me, Mr. Nightingale, if you please," he said, taking one of the seats that formed a semi-circle in front of the curtains. "And the boy on my other side."

"You heard His Grace, Jack," Nightingale muttered.

Carter and Ellis took the chairs on each end.

"Before I re-enter the cabinet, I will ask one of you to bind me so that everyone may feel confident no chicanery is possible. I will allow His Grace and Mr. Nightingale to decide between them who is to do the honors."

Alex allowed his amusement to show as he turned to the other man. "Any thoughts, Nightingale?"

"I am content for His Grace to secure your bonds. And to supply the rope if he prefers."

The gall of the man when he must know she kept a blade on her person.

"Would you consent to be searched, madam?" Alex asked.

"Not by you, sir," was Evie's tart rejoinder.

Alex laughed outright. "By Mr. Ellis then? Or perhaps

Dr. Carter is more to your taste?"

Ellis looked absolutely mortified, Carter impassive.

She heaved an exasperated sigh. "Have you no trusted female retainer? I am a respectable girl, no matter what you think."

"No one doubts that, Miss Jones," Ellis said, because someone had to.

Another sigh. "Very well. Come and search me then, Your Grace. I see you won't be satisfied with anything less. His Grace only, though, if you please." She fixed Alex with a steely glare. "You are, after all, the skeptic I'm here to enlighten."

He rose and followed her into the cabinet. Carter was to keep an eye on Nightingale and his boy while they were gone. No one waited behind the curtain. Helen was still in the adjoining room.

"Well?" Evie said loudly and not for his benefit.

"Extend your arms to the side, please," he said at a similar volume, and waited to see what she would do.

Her arms came up, palms parallel to the floor. Her eyes were lit with challenge.

He felt along each sleeve. The outline of a small blade was plain through the fabric of both forearms. He shook his head but naturally said nothing.

"Is that all?" she said and smiled. Rare as diamonds, those smiles.

He couldn't help himself. "Not quite."

Her eyebrows rose in amusement as he sank down onto his knees before her. First he ran his hands up and down her bodice, pressing lightly. His touch was nothing or almost nothing.

Now it was her turn to shake her head. "Where else, sir?" she whispered.

He stopped smiling as the moment hung between them.

They were safe. Nothing could happen with four people on the other side of the curtain. He gazed steadily into her eyes as he gathered her skirts together in one hand. Still fixated on her face, he took hold of her ankle. Her breath hitched as he trailed his fingers up and up. He didn't allow himself to dwell on her faltering breaths, on the smooth glide of his hand against her stockings or the sudden shocking feel of soft bare thigh.

The dazed look in her eyes shattered his good intentions. He leaned in as he clasped the other ankle. The sweet lavender smell of her was more than he could bear. His fingers traced circles on her calves as he leaned in for a kiss. She was wet and warm and tasted like claret.

But as always there was no possibility of more. No time and nowhere to go. He pulled free.

"I'm satisfied," he announced.

He was anything but.

As he stepped back into the main room, he was grateful for the flickering gaslights. A steadier light source would not have hidden the signs of arousal that were surely otherwise evident in his face and person. At least if Nightingale noticed anything he would think she'd been following his orders, trying to hook a duke.

She emerged a moment later, looking entirely untouched. Inviolable as ever. His will-o'-the-wisp, always drawing him from the safe path. Always vanishing before he could reach her. He wanted her pinned beneath him, her responses undeniable. It was the only way he would ever be sure of her.

"I'm going to turn down the lights." She moved from lamp to lamp, turning them off completely. By the time she'd finished, the fire was their only source of light.

"Is this not a little much?" he said, because it would seem strange if he didn't.

"My apologies." Her shadowy form—she was the only person not seated—moved to the fire. Kneeling, she plucked a glowing coal direct from the grate and held it up between two fingers.

"Christ," Carter muttered.

Now Alex understood the purpose of that potion she'd been brewing earlier; she'd made at least one of her hands heat-resistant. She carried the coal across the room to a small table that stood to one side of the curtain and used it to light a single candle. It was a good trick and Carter at least was suitably impressed.

"The tongs were right beside you," Alex said drily.

"We have no need of tongs." Her voice was a strange, high stage-whisper. It did indeed sound almost like two people speaking at once. A clever bit of ventriloquism.

"Your Grace." Nightingale sounded oddly hesitant. If Alex hadn't known better, he would have thought he was scared. The man knew how to work a room. "Have you any rope? I think the time may have come to restrain Miss Jones."

Oh, very good. The subtle implication of danger. Alex had to hand it to him; it was an admirable performance. He rose and fetched the cord set aside for this moment from the writing desk drawer. No mean feat given how dark it was. It was good, strong rope but not so thick that she wouldn't be able to cut through it if she had to. She wouldn't even need to retie herself since he intended to "expose" her before they reached that stage.

He led her into the spirit cabinet, and without closing the curtain behind them, he sat her on the chair he found there. First he tied her wrists to the arms, then her ankles to the legs. All this in near total darkness. Only a single candle burned on this side of the curtain and that a stub. He was fairly certain she was going to need a knife, so allowing the curtain to obscure them again, he withdrew the blade from her sleeve and eased it into her fingers.

"Cheating," she whispered.

He placed a quick kiss on her forehead and withdrew.

Only when he was back in his seat waiting—it could take as long as twenty minutes for the "materialization" to begin—did he realize how natural that last casual, affectionate gesture had felt, and this despite what a prickly cactus of a woman she was. Actually, he rather enjoyed her spikes.

Nightingale hadn't requested that Alex be bound too, something Alex had half expected. He wouldn't be the first skeptic to sweep aside the curtain in an attempt to expose a spiritualist. It was always claimed that interrupting the trance endangered the medium's life. He had never needed to stoop to such desperate measures before. And it was a stoop. Perhaps that was why Nightingale hadn't bothered. He credited Alex with better taste. Or perhaps he was confident he could simply restrain him.

It was a shame it had come to this, but a curtain dive was the most dramatic way to expose Evie. Carter would spread the news far and wide.

They waited in silence, the only sounds coals shifting and logs crackling. Even the clock on the mantle had been allowed to run silent, its pendulum halted for lack of a winding. It had been ticking his whole life. His father would have dismissed the servant who failed to keep it going. When this was over, Alex would sell it as he would sell every stick of furniture the duke had so much as brushed past. In Harcastle House, that meant everything that wasn't nailed down and some things that were if it could be managed.

A moan sounded from beyond the curtain and set his skin prickling. Ah, the spirits stirred. A short silence followed, then as the tension was fading, another low keening, the sound undoubtedly eerie but undeniably arousing. The moaning continued, slow and measured but so like those pleasure-pain sounds a woman made in bed.

Ellis shifted uncomfortably. Embarrassed, no doubt.

Carter remained absolutely motionless, probably for the same reason. Only the boy looked bored, the only person here too inexperienced to think what Alex was thinking.

Nightingale gave nothing away. Like Alex, he managed to appear at ease, neither unnaturally still nor restive. Both watched with sober, professional interest. They might have been attending a simple tea party.

Inside, Alex was burning, his mind teeming with thoughts of what had almost happened behind the curtain, of her slim, shapely legs and how badly he'd wanted to trail his fingers higher, how sure he'd been that she'd be wet and aching for him. As perhaps she still was.

He wanted to kneel between her delicately parted thighs and kiss and suck. Make love to her with his fingers and his tongue. He'd never done such a thing to a woman in all his well-mannered affairs. There was nothing polite about his feelings for Evie or the things he longed to do to and with her. His arousal grew painful as he listened to the sounds she made. Did she know? Was she doing this to him on purpose?

So distracted was he that he might not have seen the glimmer of light there on the floor if not for Carter and Ellis's simultaneous gasps. A tiny spot on the floor in front of the cabinet, but growing, growing all the time.

Abruptly, Evie's moans ceased. Throttled mid-cry. The silence seemed loud in their absence as the pool of light slowly expanded outward and upward. Not bright and clean like daylight. This emanation possessed a sickly green tinge, unwholesome and disquieting. A tinny, not quite musical sound started up, discordant and jangling. For several moments he remained disoriented, unable to pinpoint precisely what he was seeing.

It looked almost like… Was that a face?

Yes, a face on the floor but obscured by gauze. Or lace? And glowing steadily, its light rising and expanding until it was the width of a woman's shoulders. Before his eyes he was witnessing a woman rising through the floor. Yet he knew there were no trapdoors in this room. Evie had hung curtains and ordered carpet installed, but had called for no carpenter, no plasterer. The ceiling downstairs remained intact. How then?

The answer would be simple. They always were. The tricks were minor. The cracking of an ankle joint could be mistaken for ghostly communication. The observer's imagination did the real work. But now, with this ghostly apparition forming before his eyes, he couldn't think how it was done.

"Is that fabric?" Carter sounded equally fascinated, his physician's mind groping for sense in the madness.

Yes, Alex saw it too. The movement of gently swaying fabric. Something light, like a nightgown. Or a shroud. Up, up the thing came until she stood as tall as he. As tall as Helen. Soon he must rise and pull back the curtain. There he would find Evie, her bonds cut through, playing with wind chimes or a xylophone. But he almost didn't want to. There was magic in this performance. Not magic as the world understood it and not the magic he'd been searching for, but magic nonetheless. Artistry. For the first time in his life, he hesitated to shatter an illusion.

Nightingale muttered an oath. He was fiddling with something on the floor. A gas lamp, Alex realized, as the other man held the now lit lamp aloft. He must have taken it from the mantelshelf before sitting down.

What was he about?

With the extra light, the vague outline of Helen's facial features showed more clearly through the layers of her veil. Alex tensed but she was not so visible that he would have been able to identify her, his own sister, if he hadn't known it was her.

Nightingale cried out and stumbled backward, overturning his chair. "You!" he cried, his voice filled with pain and horror. He dropped the lamp and sprang forward, clearly intending to grab Helen, perhaps rip away her veil.

Fortunately, Carter was there. He lunged, and before Nightingale could take more than a step, pulled the man's left arm back so sharply it was a wonder it didn't break. He kept it there, pulled at that unnatural angle. He didn't speak, didn't say anything to give Helen away. He was simply a gentleman defending a lady.

"How?" Nightingale gasped. "How did you know?"

Alex had wanted to ask the same thing after his father's words had appeared on the slate at that first séance.

Nightingale's reaction was equally anguished and a great deal angrier. "Evie, you little bitch, get out here now!"

Evie appeared, a shadowy figure in the weak light. Small. Vulnerable in a way Alex hadn't thought possible. "What's the matter?" The voice of someone who'd admitted defeat.

Helen, apparently the only person with enough presence of mind to adhere to the original plan, fled the room. Carter watched her go, clearly wanting to follow, but he kept his head, not to mention his tight grip on Nightingale's arm.

"You can let him go now, Dr. Carter," Evie said, once Helen had gone.

But the moment he was free, Nightingale flew at Evie. Alex stepped between them without a thought. Without regard to logic or the plan. Nightingale's gaze darted to Alex's face and his eyes were sharp. God knows what he saw. Too much, judging by his sneer. "I will gut her like a fish while you watch," he snarled.

It was too late for Alex to pretend he didn't care. His enemy had seen everything.

Nightingale smiled and that was the most chilling thing of all. "Come on," he said to the boy, who'd watched the entire debacle, his mouth round with shock. "Jack!" Nightingale snapped when the boy didn't move.

"You don't have to go with him, Jack," Evie said.

"The boy is loyal," Nightingale said, pulling Jack close. The two moved toward the door.

"Alex, don't," Evie whispered, when Alex took a step toward them. "Please."

He nodded because this wasn't the middle ages and he couldn't throw the man in a dungeon. "I will be speaking with the police about this," he said. "No doubt you will receive a visit from them tomorrow."

Nightingale didn't answer, and Alex watched them leave with a sense of unreality. After what had taken place, he ought to dash Nightingale's brains against the wall. Evie placed a hand on his shoulder, soothing and restraining.

Even as he allowed himself to be swayed, he knew he would live to regret it.