The Medium (Emily Chambers Spirit Medium Trilogy #1) (9 page)

George shrugged.
"Perhaps he's changed since his death. I hardly knew him but I do know
that his awareness of others did not extend to those outside his circle. How
did he die, by the way?"

"I was
hoping you could tell me. We haven't discussed it and I don’t want to
ask...just in case." I put my fork down, no longer hungry. It had just
struck me that I'd hit on the reason why Jacob was so solid, so real to me—perhaps
he'd taken his own life. I'd never met a ghost who had, so maybe solidness was
a characteristic of those spirits. I swallowed past the lump lodged in my
throat. The thought was so awful I didn't want to think about it let alone
voice it.

"You think
he...?" George shook his head so vigorously I worried it would roll off
his neck. "Even from my limited knowledge of him I can tell you Beaufort
wasn't the sort. I've never met anyone so full of life, so content with his
lot. Not to mention he had so much to live for."

Relief made me
feel momentarily light-headed so I picked up my fork and began to eat again to
give myself something to focus on.

"I didn't
speak out of turn in the drawing room earlier," George went on. "Beaufort
was
good at everything. Sport, school, politics. Everyone loved him—students,
teachers even the servants." He chuckled as he poked a potato with his
fork. "And the girls too."

"Girls! Oh."
Of course there would be girls. Jacob Beaufort was definitely the sort to
attract females.

Had he ever
looked at any of them the way he looked at me?

"Sorry,"
George said, "I forgot for a moment there was a lady present."

I pushed my
plate away, my hunger gone for good. "So you know nothing about his death?"

More head
shaking from George. "He simply vanished from his Oxford rooms one night
apparently. His body was never found."

"Never
found! Good lord, how awful." Perhaps
that
was why Jacob was so
solid and could wander where he pleased. His earthly body had not found a final
resting place where his family could honor and remember him properly. It made
quite a bit of sense to me.

"Terrible,"
George agreed. "My mother may be a lot of things, but she is certainly a
voracious collector of gossip. If she says Lady Preston is still grieving, then
most likely she is. And for Lady Preston to show her emotions in public, she
must be very distressed indeed."

Tears pricked
the backs of my eyes. Losing a child must be the worst thing that could happen
to a mother, but to not have found his body, to be left wondering if he was alive
somewhere but unable to contact his family...it was too awful to contemplate.

I forced the
tears away. There was no point in getting upset for Lady Preston because I
alone knew Jacob was not going to be found safe and sound. He was most
definitely dead.

"Tell me
about his family," I said. "His father is a lord?"

George nodded. "Viscount.
Beaufort is the family name, Preston the title. I don't know them well. As I
said, Jacob and I went to Eton together but our families have never mixed
socially even though they only live around the corner in Belgrave Square. My
father was considered a bit of an eccentric, you see, much to Mother's disappointment.
Despite her attempts to further our standing in Society, we were never really
accepted, particularly by a family like Jacob's."

"Oh? Are
they terribly upright?"

"Very. The
family is old, has buckets of money and owns a great deal of land in Essex. They
spend most of their time there except when Parliament is open in spring and
summer and they come to London together. Lord Preston has a lot of political
influence in the House of Lords but he's a Tory—very conservative. Could you
imagine a man who doesn't want to give farmers the right to vote associating
with a demonologist?"

He laughed and I
laughed too. But I couldn't imagine it. I wondered what Lord Preston would
think of his dead son communicating with a spirit medium.

"What's so
funny?" asked Jacob, suddenly appearing beside me.

I put a hand to
my rapidly pounding heart. "You scared me."

"My
apologies. If there was another way to come and go without alarming you I'd
employ it." He gave me that smile I'd become so used to, the crooked one
that made his lips curve in just the right way. It would seem he was no longer
upset by what Mrs. Culvert had said.

"Is he
here?" George asked, glancing around the room.

"He is,"
I said.

"Oh. Good."
He cleared his throat. "Hello, Beaufort, how are you?"

Jacob sighed and
shook his head in disbelief at the polite but inappropriate question. "I
see you told him about me. Was that wise?"

"He
guessed." To George I said, "He's well thank you, and asks how are
you?"

"Very well,"
George said. "Fit as a fiddle." He pushed his glasses up his nose and
grinned at me. He was enjoying this. I suppose he'd never had a conversation
with a ghost before. Although to be technically accurate, he wasn't having one
now, I was.

"Since he
knows about me, I want to ask him something," Jacob said.

"He wants
to ask you something," I said to George. "He's standing right beside
me."

George's gaze
settled on my right.

Jacob, on my
left side, sighed again and picked up a book. George's gaze shifted. "Ask
him to introduce us to the maid he suspects of stealing the book."

***

The girl, known
by her surname of Finch, said she was sixteen but she looked older. Dark
circles underscored eyes that drooped at the corners as if they were too tired
to open properly. Red blotches on her cheeks and chin marked her otherwise
sallow skin and she seemed to have far more teeth than could fit in her small
mouth.

"Finch,"
George said, towering over the girl, "this lady wants to ask you some
questions." He spoke to her with his hands clasped behind him and a deeper
voice than he used when addressing me. I suppose he was fulfilling his role as master
of the house by asserting his authority over her but, like most men, he didn't
realize the best way to get answers was with kindness, not by frightening the
poor girl.

"My name is
Emily Chambers," I said to her. "And you are?"

"Finch,"
she said, eyes downcast.

George looked at
me as if I had a memory like a sieve. Jacob, however, nodded his approval. He
at least seemed to know what I was doing.

"Your first
name?" I persisted.

"Maree, miss."
Her hands, reddened and chapped, twisted and stretched her apron to the point
where I thought she might tear it.

"Well then,
Maree, Mr. Culvert tells me you started working here only a month ago."

"On the
twenty-fifth, miss." Still she did not look at me.

"Ask her if
she stole the book," Jacob said.

I refrained from
rolling my eyes. Just. "Do you know the book Mr. Culvert claims was stolen
from this library, Maree?" I asked instead.

Maree's gaze
flicked up to mine then lowered again. "I don't know nothin' 'bout no
books, miss. I can't read." Her hands twisted faster and faster and she
shifted her weight from foot to foot as if she would bolt at any moment.

"Don't
fret, Maree," I said, touching her shoulder. "No one's going to hurt
you. You're not in trouble. I believe you."

She looked at
me, her eyes not quite trusting. "You do?"

"I do."
I smiled at her. "You must not have any need for books or the time to
learn to read them."

"I don't, miss.
Them words and stuff all looked funny to me. And the pictures in that book scared
me, they did. I wanted nothin' to do wiv it."

George shook his
head. "And yet—"

"Of course
you didn’t," I said, cutting him off.

George cleared
his throat and thrust out his chin. Jacob chuckled beside me. "He thinks
your methods aren't getting results."

I had a feeling George
wasn't the only one. I gave Jacob a pointed glare. If he had a better way of
doing this, then he was welcome to feed me questions to ask the maid.

"So if you
wanted nothing to do with the book," I said to her, "who did you give
it to?"

Maree's gaze
remained downcast. After a moment her shoulders slumped and began to shake. She
was crying. Oh dear, I was going about this all wrong. I put my arm around her
but she stepped away and I let my arm fall to my side.

George frowned
at the girl. "Answer Miss Chambers, Finch. Who did you give the book to?"

"No one."
She wiped away her tears with her apron but still they came. And still she kept
looking at the rug. If she'd only meet my gaze I might believe her.

"She's
lying," Jacob said.

"I know,"
I said on a sigh.

"Answer me,
Finch," George said. I was struck by the change in him. When it had been
just the two of us, he'd been gentle and kind, but now there was a commanding
note in his tone that would make an army general proud. I wouldn't want to be
in Finch's shoes. "Have you fallen in with a bad lot, is that it?"
George asked. "I was told by the school's administrators that your brother
was thrown out for thievery. Is he behind this?"

"No! It's
nothin' to do wiv 'im, sir! Please, sir."

"Was it one
of your friends from that school? Have they put you up to this?"

"Sir, please,
sir, can I go? It weren't my fault! I don't know nothin' 'bout no book! Please,
sir."

I caught
George's gaze and nodded. He dismissed the maid and she ran from the room. Her
footsteps and sobs finally grew distant and I sat down, defeated.

"Good try,"
Jacob said, perching on the desk near me. He gave me a sad smile. "Are you
all right?"

I blew out a
breath. "That was awful." I rubbed my temples where a headache threatened.

"But you
see what I mean when I say she was lying," George said.

I nodded. "I
know she was lying, but I wonder if we could have handled that interview
better. It's likely she stole the book for someone else."

"Perhaps
she had no choice in the matter," Jacob said.

"You think
someone threatened her and if she refused to take the book then..." I
couldn't finish the sentence. It was too horrible to contemplate the things
that could befall a poor girl like Maree if she fell into the clutches of an
unscrupulous player.

"I suppose,"
George said. He pursed his lips together in thought then shrugged one shoulder.
"But she's not likely to tell us anything now."

"Probably
not. George, you mentioned a school to Maree just now. Are you referring to the
North London School for Domestic Service?"

He nodded. "Many
of our junior staff come from there. Why?"

"No
particular reason. My sister is going there to find a maid today, that's all."

"It has a
good reputation and we've never had a problem with any of the servants from
there. Until now," he added with a grunt of disgust.

Jacob narrowed
his eyes at George. "Emily, what's say you and I continue the interview
without our friend here?"

My thoughts
exactly. "I think it's time we leave," I said to George. "I have
another séance to conduct this afternoon with my sister." It was the truth.
Celia and I did have an appointment to keep, but not for another hour if my
pocket watch was anything to go by.

George rang for
his footman who showed me out. Jacob disappeared then reappeared when I reached
the street corner.

"I'll watch
the main door while you go down to the basement," he said. There was a
lightness about his step that hadn't been there before, and although he wasn't
smiling, I suspected he was controlling it.

"You're
enjoying this, aren't you?"

"George
Culvert deserves us going behind his back to speak to his servants."

"That's not
fair, Jacob. I quite like him. Most of the time." Although a gentleman
couldn't be expected to treat his servants the way he treated his guests, it
had come as something of a shock to see him turn from meek to master when the
interrogation began. I'd not have expected it from him. Jacob on the other hand
seemed like exactly the sort to order people about, no matter their station.

Jacob regarded
me with a raised eyebrow. "You can't possibly like him. He's strange. Who
chooses to study demonology for pity's sake?"

"Who
chooses to see ghosts?"

Two finely
dressed women I hadn't seen approaching quickened their steps as they passed by
and lowered their parasols to avoid making eye contact. They must have heard me
speaking to Jacob, or rather, to myself. At least they were too scared to give
me odd looks.

I checked that
no one else was within earshot then muttered, "Let's go. And don’t say
anything to me unless it's vitally important to my conversation with Maree. You're
very off-putting at times."