Possession (18 page)

Just as I
thought it, he appeared beside me. He slipped something hard and cool into my
hand and closed my fingers around it so no one, including me, could see it.

"We need to
find George," he said. "Can you get away now?"

If I told Celia
I was going shopping, she would want to come to make sure I didn't spend too
much money. If I told her I was going for a walk, she would also insist on
accompanying me. I had to choose something she would consider dull and since I
couldn't visit George's library without him home and she knew it, there was
only one other option.

"I'm going
into the museum this afternoon," I said. "There's an exhibition of
prehistoric artifacts. Do you mind? I'll be home for dinner."

"The
museum? Oh Emily, do you
have
to? Gentlemen don't like clever girls."

I unhooked my
arm from hers. "Then if any gentlemen come calling this afternoon, don't
tell them where I am."

Jacob gave a
short snort of either laughter or derision. It was hard to tell which.

Celia gave me a
withering look. "Very well, go to the museum. Be sure to be home before
dark and if that Beaufort boy wants you to send that awful spirit back..."
She sighed and waved a hand. "I suppose you'd better help him." Her
gaze wandered around, not really focusing on anything. "But tell him that
I will
not
be pleased if any harm comes to you. Not pleased at
all." Did she guess that he was nearby?

"Yes,
Celia." I pecked her cheek and we parted. I fell into step alongside Jacob.
We walked in silence down a narrow, quiet residential street with very similar
style houses as the Arbuthnots'—tall, slender and handsome in red and cream. It
felt like we were at the bottom of a steep chasm and even though the sun was
out, its warmth didn't reach us.

"Your
sister has strange notions about what gentlemen do and don't like in a woman,"
Jacob said after a while.

"That's
probably why she's still unwed. Jacob, what do you think of Frederick Seymour's
death?"

"One
problem at a time. First we send Mortlock back, then we worry about my
situation."

That was the end
of that. Silence stretched. I tried to think of something to say to break the
awkwardness. I didn't like the strangeness surrounding us. I wanted to return
to the easy banter we'd shared in the past. And the affection.

"Are you
angry with me?" I asked him.

He took a long
time to answer. "No. I can't be angry with you."

"Oh. Then...why
are you so cold to me lately?"

Another long
pause. He stopped and I stopped too. We faced each other. "Emily, I...I
just want you to be careful with that fellow."

"Theo? Why?"

He looked down
at his feet. "You're not going to like my answer."

"Tell me
anyway."

I expected him
to say he was jealous. No, I
hoped
he would say he was jealous. Admitting
he loved me and wanted me all to himself would be quite a pleasing response. My
heart leapt into my throat at the prospect.

"Theo is
not a rich man."

My heart
returned to its rightful position with a dull thud. "I know that."

He looked up at
me through his long lashes, his head still bowed. "Rich gentlemen can wed
whomever they want. Poor ones can't."

I blinked at
him. "Are you saying he won't make me an offer?"

He winced. "I
suppose I am. Whatever he feels for you..." He cleared his throat. "Whatever
he feels for you won't matter. He can't marry you and keep the life he enjoys as
an idle gentleman."

"But he
won't be idle! He's going to be a lawyer! His aunt told Celia so."

He looked at me.
Just looked. His blue eyes, usually so bright, dulled to slate gray. "Most
gentlemen have been bred into a life of idleness, even country ones. Becoming a
lawyer requires a lot of hard work. I don't know Theo well but—"

"Exactly,
you don't know him. And have you forgotten that you're a gentleman too?"

"Was,"
he said. "That's why I know him and his kind."

I had nothing to
say to that. Why was everyone discussing marriage—
my
marriage? Why was Jacob?

"You're
worse than Celia," I snapped. "And that surprises me."

He sighed. "It
surprises me too." He stormed ahead. "You need to catch an omnibus or
hire a hansom. It's too far to walk."

It seemed our
conversation had ended. I probably should have been glad, but I wished we'd
ended it on
my
terms.

***

The omnibus dropped
us in Shoreditch, a neighboring suburb of Mortlock's haunt of Whitechapel. The
suburbs shared more than a border, however. Like Whitechapel, "The Ditch"
squeezed as many of London's poor into its narrow, crumbling tenements that
would fit. Miserable faces peered out of grimy windows and dirty children tugged
the hem of my skirt as I passed them playing on the muddy cobbles. Most of the
able-bodied men must have been at work because the only ones I saw were either
drunk or elderly, their bodies bent from decades of hard labor.

"Stay near
me," Jacob said, scanning the street. I couldn't possibly get any closer. Our
hips almost touched. Our hands were linked but that was so he could quickly
access the knife I gripped. We'd decided I should hold the little weapon he'd
found in Wallace's room so as not to draw attention to a floating object. The
blade was an ingenious device that folded neatly into the handle and flicked
out when a button was pressed.

Being so close
to him tore me apart. On the one hand I enjoyed being with him, but on the
other, I was still angry. I wanted to tell him Theo wasn't the sort to give up
if he really wanted something, but I couldn't be sure if that were true. Or if
indeed he wanted me enough.

"Mortlock
was dead drunk when I found him," Jacob said. "So he's probably still
asleep on his bed."

His bed was in a
rented room located on the fifth floor of a long tenement building. Broken
lamps arched over the doorways of the shops occupying the ground floor. On the
higher floors, dozens of iron balconies stretched from one end to the other
like railway tracks. Two of the balconies had flowerpots, but all the flowers
were dead, and many had washing flung over railings. I didn't think the linen
would be particularly clean after spending the day in the sooty air.

We were about to
climb the stairs when a man half-ran and half-stumbled down them. He staggered
from side to side and would have bumped into me but Jacob pulled me out of the
way just in time. The man lurched out of the stairwell doorway onto the street,
his cloak billowing behind him.

"That was
him!" Jacob said.

"George?"
The man had the same build as George and his chin had the beginnings of a
scraggly beard. I hadn't seen the rest of his face so it
could
have been
him.

Jacob ran. I
followed, clutching the knife tighter, and almost slammed into the shopkeeper
coming out of his broker's shop.

"Watch it!"
He hefted a box down from a cart parked out the front. I looked past it, left
and right, but Jacob and George had disappeared.

"You
lookin' for that ghost what went past?"

I spun around. A
woman stood there in a nightdress that might have once been white but was now
gray and red. The gray was from age and grime. The red was blood. It covered
her from waist to knees.

She was dead. If
the blood wasn't enough of an indicator, her fuzzy edges gave it away. She
looked like a piece of fabric that had been washed too many times.

I glanced up and
down the street. There were quite a few people around. Too many for me to want
to fall into conversation with a ghost. They already regarded me strangely, as
if I didn't belong there. They might run me out of Shoreditch if they saw me
talking to myself.

The ghost smiled,
revealing a lone tooth on her bottom gum and another on her top. She tossed her
greasy hair over her shoulder and leaned forward, conspiratorial.

"I'd chase
'im too if I were ten years younger." She cackled but stopped when the broker
came out of his shop again. He dragged another box off the back of the cart and
returned to the shop. "Me old man," she said with a jerk of her head.
"Did this to me."

I gasped. "He
killed you?" So much for keeping quiet.

"No. Well,
not exactly, but 'e might as well 'ave. Got me with child, 'e did, but I lost
it. Lost it real bad, did all this." She spread out her nightdress. The
blood formed a gruesome pattern. I glanced away, moved off. I didn't have time to
chat to ghosts. Jacob needed me. "Then I died too," she went on. "But
I can't leave. Not yet, not while 'e's prigging me sister. Scum, 'e is, but she
don't know it."

Right. Very
well. Not my business. "The other ghost," I whispered. "Did you
see where he went?"

She pointed to a
street opposite. "Chased that drunk down Bright Lane."

I nodded thanks
and crossed the road to Bright Lane. I hesitated at the corner. Bright Lane was
a misnomer. The street was barely a cart-width wide. It looked like it had been
gouged out of the tenements that occupied either side of it. I doubted sunlight
had touched the cobbles in the last century.

"Jacob?"
I called softly.

He appeared at
my side. "Give me the knife," he said. "When I call you, come
in."

"Don't hurt
George." But he'd already disappeared.

I was debating
how long I should wait for his call when someone shouted. It sounded like
George, swearing.

Then Jacob
called. "Now!"

I ran into the
gloom. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, but when they
did, I almost smiled in relief. Jacob had George backed up against the brick
wall, the knife to his throat. George—Mortlock—looked more annoyed than afraid,
however, and a little drunk. He swayed and his eyelids sagged heavily.

"You,"
he said in disgust when he saw me. "Bloody freak." He pushed at the
knife, but it cut his palm and he grunted. He flailed his arms wildly, trying
to bat away Jacob's hand, but his fist went straight through the ghostly body.

"Come
closer," Jacob urged me.

I did. Mortlock's
gaze followed me. He licked his lips. "I'm going to have you." His
grin was twisted until Jacob wiped it off by shoving the knife harder against
his throat.

Mortlock cried
out and tried to get away from the knife, but that only made the blade sink in
further. Blood dripped into his cravat.

"Jacob,
don't hurt him!"

"Then do it
now, Em," he snarled, "because I'm so very tempted."

"
Return
to the Otherworld where you belong,"
I began, trying to keep my voice
steady.

Mortlock's eyes
widened. Jacob gave a short, gruff laugh of satisfaction.

I breathed in but
paused as a putrid smell assaulted my nose.
Concentrate, Emily!
I began
again. "
Return to—
"

A click of metal
on metal came from behind me, loud in the tight, close space of Bright Lane.

Jacob looked
past me. His gaze filled with dread.

I spun round. Someone
dressed in a long, hooded cloak stood there, holding a gun. It was pointed at
my chest.

"Put the
knife down," the cloaked figure said in a whisper. "Or I'll shoot
her."

CHAPTER 11

It was
impossible to tell if the figure was male or female, thin or fat. The long
cloak hid everything but the booted feet. The hood covered the eyes and the
cloak's collar was pulled over the chin and mouth, muffling the whispered
words. The horrible smell seemed to be coming from him, or her.

"Back
away," he or she said. "Or I will shoot her."

I wanted to turn
around and see if Jacob complied, but I didn't dare move. Not with the gun
pointing at my pounding chest.

"Maybe I'll
shoot anyway. Teach you a lesson about life."

Jacob gave a
small strangled sound. He must have lowered the knife because the whisperer
nodded in approval and I could hear Mortlock let out a breath. He shuffled
past, giving me a wide berth.

I felt Jacob
move up behind me. His body seethed with barely contained anger. "Who are
you?" he growled.

Of course the
whisperer didn't respond. He or she couldn't see Jacob, only the knife. "Why
are you doing this?" I asked.

The whisperer
said nothing.

Mortlock
squinted at the hooded figure. He'd lost George's glasses. "I'd buy you an
ale, but I ain't got a penny." He chuckled and headed toward the main
street. "I'll be off. Got me some business to 'tend to."

The figure
turned the gun on him. "Stop, or I'll shoot."

"No!"
I shouted. "George!"

Jacob's arm
snaked around my waist and he pressed himself into my back, reassuring. "Shhh,
Em," he murmured into my hair. "Don't draw attention to
yourself."