Mesmerized (9 page)

“Now we will join hands to complete the circle of energy, and open our hearts and our minds to our visitors from the other world,” Irina explained in a quiet voice. “Then I will turn out the light.”

“Darkness is more conducive to the spirits,” Lady St. Leger explained in a whisper to Olivia, reaching out to take her right hand.

All around the table, they joined hands. Stephen’s firm hand slipped around Olivia’s, and she clasped it, hoping to hide the sudden quiver that had run through her flesh at his touch. Irina reached out and turned down the oil lamp until they were encased in velvety darkness. There was no sound except the soft susurrations of breath around the table. Olivia was vividly aware of the feel of Stephen’s skin against her own. Warm and firm, slightly callused, his hand engulfed hers. Her breath came shallowly in her throat; her hand felt hot and tingly, a feeling that was inexplicably spreading up her arm and down into her torso, twisting through her chest and abdomen.

So focused was she on their linked hands that she did not even think about Madame Valenskaya until the woman groaned at the other end of the table. Olivia flushed with embarrassment and was glad for the enveloping darkness that had hidden both her blush and her prior lack of attention to the job at hand.

She peered in the direction of the groan, and at that
moment a glowing hand appeared in the darkness above the medium’s head. Fingers slightly curled, it moved around for a bit, then slid down and out of sight.

“Spirit? Are you there?” This was Babington’s voice, beside Madame Valenskaya.

Olivia wondered why it was not the medium herself who was communicating with the spirits, but then Madame Valenskaya’s voice murmured, “Yes.”

“Welcome, spirits,” Babington said in greeting, enthusiastic but still keeping his voice hushed. Around Olivia, most of the others echoed his words.

“Are you Running Deer?” Lady St. Leger asked beside Olivia.

There was a pause, and then the same throaty voice said, “No.”

Olivia felt Lady St. Leger’s hand stiffen in surprise in her own. Across the table, Irina said, “Pray, spirit, tell us who you are, then.”

Again the voice came, low and halting. “Rod-dy. I am Roddy.”

S
tephen’s hand tightened convulsively around Olivia’s as he let out a soft oath, and on the other side of her, Lady St. Leger gasped, her hand jerking out of Olivia’s grasp to fly to her mouth.

“Roddy?” Lady St. Leger asked, her voice trembling and eager. “Roderick, is that really you?”

“Yes, Mother. I am here. Pamela, my love. You are looking very beautiful tonight.”

“Roderick!” Pamela said urgently. “Where are you? Let me see you!”

“You cannot,” he replied. “I am too new here.”

“Here? Where are you, Roddy?” Lady St. Leger asked, tears thickening her voice. “Are you happy?”

“I am among the shades,” the low voice continued in its odd, jerky way. “But I cannot rest. None of us can rest.”

“What?” Lady St. Leger’s voice registered alarm. “Why not? Darling, are you unhappy?”

“There are many lost souls here. This house—they
cannot rest.” The voice grew fainter and more whispery. “They cannot rest because of what was taken away from them. I cannot rest, Mother.”

“Roddy!” Lady St. Leger cried out, her voice full of distress. “No, please—”

“Bloody hell!” Beside Olivia, Stephen pulled his hand away from Olivia’s and crashed it down flat on the table. “What rubbish!”

“Stephen!” Lady St. Leger exclaimed reprovingly. “No! You must not interrupt.”

“He is gone!” Madame Valenskaya proclaimed with disgust. “Our spirits haff left us.”

Olivia reached out and pulled the oil lamp to her and lit it, turning it up. The faces of those around the table appeared again, blinking a little in the new light. Lady St. Leger’s cheeks, Olivia saw with a stab of pity, were streaked with tears.

“You haff frightened dem away,” the medium said accusingly, glaring at Stephen.

“Nonsense. As if there were any here to begin with.”

“Is Roderick utterly gone?” Lady St. Leger asked Madame Valenskaya, her voice trembling. “Can you not bring him back?”

“I haff no power over spirits,” Madame Valenskaya replied flatly. “He is gone now. Spirits do not stay with unbelievers.”

“I must say,” Stephen said coolly, “that Roderick’s voice sounded uncommonly like yours, Madame Valenskaya.”

“The spirits use Madame Valenskaya to communicate with us,” Mr. Babington explained. “She is the instrument through which they speak, so naturally the voice is Madame’s. However, the words are the spirits’.”

Stephen snorted. “As if Roderick would have said anything like that.”

“He was unhappy,” Stephen’s mother said miserably. She turned to the medium hopefully. “Can we not try again? We could do it over. Maybe Roderick would return.”

“No,” Madame Valenskaya said flatly. “Is too late. He will not come again tonight.”

The medium looked at Lord St. Leger significantly. “Spirits will not come if unbelievers are present.”

“A convenient excuse, I must say.” Stephen turned to Lady St. Leger. “Mother, can’t you see that it is all trickery and fakes? That was not Roderick speaking to you.”

“Stephen!” Lady St. Leger exclaimed angrily. “You are being impolite to our guests. I invited Madame Valenskaya here, and I won’t have you behaving rudely to her.”

Stephen’s brows rushed together, and he drew breath to speak, but Olivia quickly laid her hand on his arm. “Lady St. Leger, I am sure your son did not mean to be rude.” She turned to Stephen with a warning look as she continued. “Nor does he want to frighten away the spirits. He is merely concerned
about you. He can see how unhappy the spirit’s words made you.”

“Yes, of course,” Stephen agreed grudgingly. “I cannot believe that Roderick would say anything to make you unhappy.”

“Of course not. Poor boy. He must be dreadfully upset to have said anything like that.”

Olivia felt Stephen’s arm tense under her hand, but he clenched his jaw and kept quiet. Olivia turned back toward the medium, and as she did so, she saw Lady Pamela looking at Olivia’s hand on Stephen’s arm. Olivia realized belatedly that it was too intimate a gesture to make to a man she barely knew, and she pulled her hand back. Pamela’s eyes shifted to Olivia’s face, and Olivia saw there a flash of pure dislike before Pamela turned back toward the medium.

“Surely you will not deprive us of the chance to talk to dear Roddy again,” Pamela said pleadingly. “I am sure Roderick knows his brother well enough to ignore his bad temper.”

“Yes, say you will sit again tomorrow night,” Lady St. Leger pleaded. “Lord St. Leger will not interrupt again. Will you, my dear?”

“No. Of course not. I promise that I will be quiet,” Stephen replied.

“And keep an open mind.”

“So open the wind will rush through it.”

“There. You see?” Lady St. Leger smiled winningly at the Russian woman. “Please, say we can have another séance.”

“Well…for you, my lady,” Madame Valenskaya said. She pushed back her chair and rose. “But now, I rest. Irina?”

“Yes, Mama.” Irina popped up and stepped around the table to her mother, taking her by the arm.

Mr. Babington went around to the medium’s other side, giving her his arm, and Madame Valenskaya exited the room, leaning heavily on both her supporters. Olivia glanced at Stephen, who was watching the scene with a grim expression. He sighed and turned to Olivia.

“Would you care, perhaps, for a stroll around the conservatory before you turn in?”

“That sounds delightful.” Olivia felt sure that he wanted to talk about what had just happened. She turned and made her excuses to Lady St. Leger, who answered her somewhat abstractedly.

“I apologize again for my behavior, Mother,” Stephen said.

“I know, dear.” Lady St. Leger smiled at him. “I do wish that you would give Madame Valenskaya the benefit of the doubt. Such a dear woman.”

“You did not use to be so skeptical, Stephen,” Pamela said in a teasing tone.

St. Leger looked at her and said in dry tone, “That was before I learned what people were capable of.” He turned back to his mother. “I know how much you enjoy Madame Valenskaya’s company. I will do my best to, um, restrain my boorish tendencies.”

With a small bow to his mother, he offered Olivia
his arm. They strolled through the great hall and down the back hall to the conservatory, where wicker furniture, softened by flowered cushions, was scattered among the large number of green plants. It was dark inside, lit only by the sconces in the hall outside and by the moonlight coming in the many windows. Stephen paused to light a candelabra, then led Olivia into the conservatory, making his way to a wicker sofa in the center of the plant-filled room.

“I am sure you are going to tell me that I was foolish,” Stephen said. “I know I was. It was that woman’s trotting out Roddy like that. I couldn’t bear hearing her use his name to perpetrate her schemes. And to play on my mother’s grief in such a manner!”

It struck Olivia that he had made no mention of Roddy’s widow’s grief. She had also noticed the steel in his voice earlier when he spoke to Pamela. However, she had no intention of mentioning either of those things. She said only, “I know. It is despicable. But your mother wants so badly to believe that Madame Valenskaya can contact your brother that we will never be able to convince her simply with reason. We will have to catch the medium in the middle of her deception.”

“Yes. It is rather clever of her to have the spirits ‘speak through’ her. There’s no rapping at which one can be caught out. And it sounds like her because the spirit supposedly uses her voice. Pretty difficult to disprove that.”

“Yes. But she did the trick with the hand. I feel
sure that was a painted glove stuffed with paper or cloth and held up with a telescoping rod. She could easily hide the glove and rod in a large pocket. Her skirts are full. And you’ll remember that she went back to her room before she came to the séance, so she could have slipped the things into her pocket.”

“True. But I can hardly stop her leaving the room and demand to search her pockets.”

“No. We will have to observe what she does, and when, and then, at just the right moment, light a match and reveal her actually doing the trick.”

“Sometimes I wonder if Mother would believe it even if she was confronted with the evidence.” He paused, looking thoughtful, then asked, “But why that talk of unhappy shades, these souls that can’t rest? That’s not the normal thing, is it?”

“No,” Olivia admitted. “That was odd. Usually they talk about the peace and beauty of the other side. After all, that is what everyone wants to hear—that their loved one is happy in the afterlife, that there is no more pain and suffering, and that whenever they, too, die, they will join them in that blissful place.”

“But for some reason she wants Mother to believe that Roderick is unhappy, that his soul is uneasy. What do you want to bet that it will take some certain amount of money to cause his soul to be at peace?”

“No doubt you are right.” Olivia sighed. “I am afraid that Lady St. Leger would be willing to pay almost anything if she thought it would help her son.”

“And completely aside from the money they are
going to swindle out of her, there is also the fact that they are causing her pain right now. She is distressed because she thinks that Roderick is unhappy. That he ‘cannot rest.’ The woman is making her miserable, and she will make her even more so before she’s done. She has to make sure that Mother will be eager to pay whatever she asks.”

“You’re right. I’m so sorry.” Olivia laid her hand on his arm in a gesture of sympathy.

He looked over at her, and Olivia could not move, could scarcely breathe. Why did every nerve in her body seem to suddenly come to tingling life?

His other hand came up and covered hers where it lay on his arm. His skin was warm and faintly rough. Olivia felt suddenly hot and melting inside, quivering with sensations she had never experienced before. She thought that she could lose herself in those cool silver eyes, and she was not even sure whether she found the prospect frightening…or alluring.

“Olivia…” Her name was soft on his tongue.

Olivia looked at him, not trusting herself to speak. He leaned toward her fractionally, then stopped. A muscle jumped in his jaw, and he pulled his hand away, then rose to his feet. Olivia sagged slightly with disappointment, then stood up, telling herself not to be a fool. What had she thought was going to happen, anyway? Whatever fancy hairstyle Joan might give her, she would remain the sort of woman a man did not desire.

“Would you care to go riding with me tomorrow
morning?” Stephen asked, his voice neutral, his gaze turned slightly away from Olivia. “I can show you around the estate a bit, if you’d like.”

“Yes. That would be very nice.” She was not a good rider, and as a result, she rarely went, but she could not bring herself to turn down the invitation.

“Very good, then. After breakfast?”

Olivia nodded. His invitation meant nothing, she told herself. He had to pretend to be friendly with her; he had invited her, after all, and no doubt his family would consider it odd if he did not spend some private time with her.

Stephen picked up the candelabra to light their way, and they left the room. The warm glow of the candles lit a small circle around them, leaving the rest of the large room in shadows. Neither of them glanced around into the dark recesses of the conservatory, and so they did not see the still, dark form standing silently in the corner of the room, hidden by the fronds of a palm tree.

Olivia and Stephen rode out the next morning about an hour after breakfast. She was happy to see that he had had a docile mare saddled up for her, and that he seemed content to amble along talking and pointing out various landmarks on the way. Their path curved around the stand of trees at the end of the garden, then into the meadow beyond. They rode past farms, and Stephen greeted by name everyone they met in the fields.

When Olivia remarked on it, he shrugged and said, “Well, they are my tenants, after all.”

“Still, I would lay you odds that there are those who know the names of scarcely any of their tenants.”

“Hardly behavior to emulate, I would say,” Stephen replied. He glanced at her. “I am afraid you’ll find I am not your typical aristocrat. Perhaps it comes from being in America for ten years. But I find I care less and less about one’s class. And an estate seems to me more a business venture than some divine right passed down to me.”

“Careful,” Olivia said with a chuckle, “or people will start to label
you
‘mad,’ as well. What you just said sounds very much like my brother Reed who, by the way, I have cast as your friend.”

Stephen turned to her with a puzzled look, and she explained. “Belinda wanted to know how we had met, and I felt it best not to say we had created a commotion at a séance, so I said that you came to call on my brother Reed, and I met you there.”

“Ah, I see. Very wise, I’m sure. And how is it that I know your brother?”

Olivia shrugged. “I shall let you decide that. Perhaps he belongs to your club. Or maybe you met him through some kind of business. He oversees all our family’s finances. He is quite good at it, which is fortunate, for I am afraid that none of the rest of us are. Papa is devoted only to antiquities, and Mama is
more concerned about the women’s vote and factory workers’ wages.”