Possession (6 page)

I rose and
curtsied. "Good afternoon, Mrs. Culvert."

Her smile
flattened, her eyes hardened like two colorless diamonds. Clearly she wasn't
sure whether to welcome me or ask me to leave. I was known to Lady Preston and
her daughter, and therefore someone to be cultivated and exploited so that
George could be thrown into Adelaide's circle. On the other hand, if George
spent too much time with me, he might become enamored of a middle-class girl of
dubious parentage instead, and that simply would not do for the ambitious Mrs.
Culvert.

"Mother, would
you mind ordering luncheon to be served for us in here?" George asked.
"Emily and I have—"

"Oh,
Miss
Chambers
is staying awhile longer?" There was no doubt she'd
emphasized my name to draw attention to the informal way in which George had
addressed me.

He bristled. "She
is," he said, quite forcefully. It was almost defiance on his part. Good
for George.

Her eyes
narrowed to slits. Such a hostile expression would usually see small lines
appear, but Mrs. Culvert's skin remained smooth, as if wrinkles didn't dare reside
on her face. "But George dear," she said, frostily, "don't you
think Miss Chambers would be more comfortable if she were chaperoned? I would
offer to remain myself of course, but there is so much to do. I cannot linger
here all afternoon."

"The door
has always been open," George said, "and shall continue to be. Unless
Miss Chambers feels uncomfortable...?" He looked to me, brows raised.

"I am
perfectly comfortable." I was hardly a good enough catch that my
reputation would be sullied by being with George in his library with the door
open. The sort of man I was expected to marry did not move in the Culverts'
circle and would never even hear about it. A woman of Adelaide's station lived
by a different set of rules. Even the scent of a scandal was enough to ruin
her
chances of an advantageous marriage.

But I don't
think Mrs. Culvert had my reputation in her thoughts at all. More like it was
George's heart she was worried about. She shouldn't have worried. I did not
want George to develop a fondness for me any more than she did.

"Perhaps I
should go," I said.

"Not yet."
George indicated the book. "We have much to discuss. I would not have you
leave without...obtaining your opinion."

My opinion or my
state of mind after all I had read in
Beyond the Grave
?

Jacob suddenly
appeared near my chair and my heart almost burst out of my chest in fright. Fortunately
I managed to suppress a squeal. "I agree with Culvert," he said. "Stay."

"Very
well," I said to both Jacob and George. It didn't matter which. "Mrs.
Culvert, thank you for your concern, but I am quite at ease here."

She sniffed and
gave me that tight smile again, the one that thinned her lips and didn't reach
her eyes. She moved to the door, her wide hem skimming the floor, giving the impression
she was floating over the rug. The light filtering through the tall arched
windows caught the dark green silk of her gown, adding depth and luster. The
fabric would have been magnificent on a more fashionable dress, but Mrs.
Culvert preferred the excessively puffed sleeves, low necklines, and voluminous
skirts of years past.

"Oh Miss
Chambers, I almost forgot." She paused in the doorway, the too-friendly
smile back on her handsome face. "I believe Lady Preston is having a ball
for her daughter. Is that not so?"

I glanced at Jacob.
He stood unmoved nearby, his gaze not on Mrs. Culvert but on the book still
open on the desk in front of me. "She mentioned it."

"Good,
good." She cleared her throat daintily. Her smile didn't waver. "I'm
sure Miss Beaufort will be guided by you, her friend, in this matter."

"Guided by
me?"

"Yes, in
the little things, as young ladies like to do. Things such as decorations,
dresses...guests."

George groaned
and sank into his chair.

Part of me
wanted to laugh. It would seem Mrs. Culvert knew nothing about me at all. "I
am not as close with Miss Beaufort as that."

It was as if I'd
slapped her smile off. "Oh." She turned on her heel and stalked out
the door.

None of us spoke
until the
tap tap
of her heels on the tiles faded into the distance.

"Emily, I
am terribly sorry," George said. "I do apologize. Mother can be
rather caustic. She feels her lack of contact with Society keenly, you
see."

"It's all
right, George, I understand."

"If only she
didn't care so much about forming the right connections for me. I don't."

According to
George, Mrs. Culvert had the misfortune of marrying George's father, a man much
like his son—devoted to his studies in the supernatural. The socially
inappropriate pastime had seen Mr. Culvert's influence slip away and Mrs.
Culvert ostracized by all who mattered to her. No wonder she was putting her
hopes in someone with only a tenuous connection to Lady Preston. But to think I
would be invited to Adelaide's ball was laughable.

"What's
this about?" Jacob asked, indicating the book. If he'd been listening to
the conversation with Mrs. Culvert, he made no comment.

"Spirits
and the people who can see them," I said.

"Pardon?"
George asked.

"Jacob is
here," I told him.

George stood,
puffed out his chest and squared his shoulders. "Good afternoon,
Beaufort," he said, his voice a shade deeper than usual. I rolled my eyes.
He was trying to impress Jacob, something that seemed to have carried over from
Jacob's lifetime. When he was a student at Eton and then Oxford, many of his
classmates had tried to gain his attention one way or another, so Adelaide claimed.
Unfortunately, he'd rarely noticed them.

Jacob glanced at
George. "Tell him I greeted him," he said. He picked up a quill pen
from the brass inkstand so that George could locate him. "I want him to
know I've acknowledged him."

I did as asked and
gave Jacob a smile even though he wasn't looking at me. At least he was making
an effort to rectify the shortcomings he'd possessed in life.

George puffed
out his chest even further and pushed his glasses up his nose. "Have you
learned something about possession, Beaufort?"

"A little,"
Jacob said. "The Administrators say only a medium can send a spirit into a
live body."

I gasped. "
Only
a medium? You mean..."

"Someone
like you, yes."

"But...but
there
are
no others." Even as I said it, I knew it was wrong. If
one such as me could be born then so could another. Aside from the little girl,
how many others were there in the world?

"Emily?"
George prompted.

I explained
everything Jacob had said as well as our suspicions about the girl. George pursed
his lips, grim. "This is terrible. Terrible."

I could not
agree with him. The possibility of there being someone else out there like me
made me giddy. I wanted to meet her. Talk to her. "She must surely be too
young to know what she's doing." But I wasn't completely convinced. A ten
year-old child was perfectly capable of mischief, and even malice, if she had
the power and the will. Or there was the possibility someone was directing her.

"Do you
know how to send a spirit into a person's body, Emily?" George asked.

I shook my head.

"It involves
the medium uttering specific words," Jacob said.

I repeated this
for George's sake. "But how did the medium transfer the spirit from
Adelaide's body to Wallace Arbuthnot's? We were on the first floor of his
house. No one could peer in through the windows."

"That was
entirely the spirit's doing, not the medium's. The ghost apparently preferred
Arbuthnot's body to Adelaide's. Thank God. But he wasn't able to transfer himself
until they were touching. When that occurred, he simply jumped across. It's likely
the medium doesn't know the spirit has moved on."

I finished
repeating it all to George, then said, "How can the ghost be sent
back?"

"If he
won't go of his own accord, he can be forced. A medium must do it, but she needs
to be within a certain proximity, just as she had to be nearby to force the
spirit into my sister's body."

I swallowed. "Can
a different medium do it to the one who summoned the spirit in the first place?"

He hesitated and
failed to meet my gaze. That was nothing new. He'd not been looking me directly
in the eyes ever since he arrived, but the small hesitation was telling.

"I can,
can't I?" I said.

"You
won't."

"Why
not?"

"This isn't
your business."

"It is. And
you cannot order me about." I crossed my arms.

He crossed his. He
met my gaze. His eyes were midnight blue and as endless as a starless night
sky. "I can talk to the other medium as easily as I can talk to you. If I
can convince her to reverse the damage she's done—"

"You have
to find her first."

"I
will."

I sighed. "Jacob,
she is a little girl. You might frighten her. Besides, someone else may be directing
her."

"That is
precisely why I don't want you involved, Em." He spoke quietly and it was
impossible to be angry with him. He cared for me, cared for my safety. Did that
mean he no longer wanted me to die to be with him as he used to?

"I will
find her on my own," he said. He waved his hand over the page in front of
me. "Is this true?"

I looked down at
the book, specifically at the illustration of a dark-skinned woman with wild
black hair and large, knowing eyes. She wore what appeared to be a sack covering
her body, but her feet were bare. The faint outline of a man dressed in the wide
lace collar and broad brimmed hat of the seventeenth-century Englishman was
sketched beside her. They appeared to be having a conversation. A medium and
the ghost she'd summoned.

"I don't
see why not," I said. I tried to gauge Jacob's reaction, but his face was
schooled and not a hint of his thoughts could be determined.

What did he
think of me now that he knew I was descended from a tribe of mystics that originated
in the deepest jungles of Africa? What did I think of it myself?

CHAPTER 4

After a brief
luncheon and more research, I left George's house with Jacob at my side. I had
a séance to conduct with Celia at three. Following that would be an intense
interrogation of my sister. I had a thousand questions to ask her. She might
not answer any, but I had to try.

"I'll
search for Arbuthnot overnight," Jacob said. I suspected he was shortening
his strides so I could keep up. He kept his gaze firmly on the footpath ahead,
only disappearing once when a Royal Mail box was in his way. He simply
reappeared on the other side of it. Passersby were a different matter. He could
walk straight through them.

It was busy on Sloane
Street. Carts and carriages of all sizes rumbled past, and fast drivers shouted
at the slow ones to move aside or hurry along. Shoppers laden with parcels
wandered in and out of shops and errand boys darted nimbly between the pedestrians
and traffic. The cool air was thick with the scent of horse and soot. No
sunshine broke through the gray miasma and if I didn't know it was spring, I
couldn't have guessed at the season.

"The spirit
didn't seem to see you at the Arbuthnots' house," I said quietly to avoid being
noticed by strangers. "Why not, when you could see him?"

"His sight
was limited to what the body he possessed could see. If he possessed you, he
could see ghosts, but by occupying Adelaide and Arbuthnot, he could not. All
the spirit's actions are now governed by what Wallace Arbuthnot can and cannot
do."

"I suspect Wallace
can't run up a flight of stairs."

"Or beat
someone."

"Except in
a pie eating contest."

He threw his
head back and laughed. The sound was so good I joined in. "You're a wicked
girl, Emily Chambers. Wallace Arbuthnot is a good man."

"Yes. He's
very...solid."

We laughed until
tears ran down my cheeks and a man behind me said, "Young lady, are you
all right?"

My laughter died.
My face burned and I couldn't meet his gaze. "Yes. Thank you. I was
just...er..."

"Very
strange," the man muttered, moving past me. "Talking to yourself like
that. Very odd indeed."

"Never mind
him." Jacob took my arm and escorted me across the road to where a young
crossing sweeper pushed the horse muck aside with his broom. I thanked him and
fished out a penny from my reticule to pay him.

Jacob let go of
my arm. "All right?" he asked, without looking directly at me.

"Yes. Thank
you," I whispered lest I be overheard again.

"Don't let
them worry you.
You
know you're not mad."