The Thirteenth Earl (7 page)

Cassandra had never heard such a lot of hogwash. If she were a spirit, the last thing she would be doing would be hanging around waiting to talk to Lucy Macallister. An obstinate silence filled the air.

“We invite you to rap on the table if you are here.”

More silence, enough that Cassandra was ready to suggest that the experiment had been a failure. A loud rap startled her, and her eyes shot open. Lucy’s were shut, but everyone else’s eyes had also opened wide. They all exchanged looks.

“Did . . . you?” Spencer asked, addressing all of them at once.

“Lord Spencer, please,” Lucy said in a soothing tone. “It is a delicate time. I understand initial contact is rattling, but I know you can all resume concentration. The energy of this group is very powerful. Complete silence, please.”

Thaxton’s hand went still, no more wandering fingers. His eyes were already shut, and his face had gone tight—did he believe this? Cassandra, aghast, watched the rest of the table close their eyes again, their faces etched with apprehension and fright. Even Eliza had scooted closer to her husband, an arm’s length from Miles, who clutched her fingers in a frozen grip.

Cassandra’s eyebrows drew together.
They all believed it. What could have come over them?
Eliza, who had been so sure that there could not possibly be supernatural activity in her house, hung on to Percy, actually afraid. Lucy swayed back and forth a bit. Thaxton held the medium’s hand with two fingers, whereas he held hers so snugly that she felt his bones moving beneath.

“We sense you, honored spirit,” Lucy said, her voice melodramatic. “We thank you for being open to communicate. May we ask you some questions? Rap once for yes, and twice for no. Can you do this for us?”

One solid rap.

Cassandra looked all around the room. Where was it coming from? There was a dumbwaiter in the corner. Did Lucy have an accomplice hiding there? She could not see that far, but it was a strong prospect.

“Are you the spirit whom Miss Seton and Lord Thaxton heard a few nights ago?”

Another knock, a single for yes. Thaxton opened his eyes. Even in the midst of all the lunacy, his perfection took Cassandra aback. Not that he was unflawed, no, but he was everything she would have listed if asked to describe a handsome man. Now with a dreadfully fetching crease of confusion drawing his eyebrows into a straight line.

“Can this be true?” he asked under his breath.

“I sincerely doubt it,” she said, not loud enough for Lucy to hear. Miles did, though, and it earned her a harsh “shh.” Cassandra frowned. After the miserable past few days, she did not care if he disapproved. He could run off to Scotland with Lucy immediately if he wanted, for all she cared.

Lucy resumed.

“Honored spirit, are you a female, as Miss Seton and Lord Thaxton have indicated?”

Another yes. Thaxton’s hand entwined with Cassandra’s, holding hands in an affectionate way, not simply to create a circle. Miles remained unmoving and blind. Spencer had rearranged himself so that his arm curved around his wife, her hand tucked against him, the circle unbroken.

“Are you attached to this family?” Lucy asked.

Softly, but certainly, the bell on the table rang once.

“Impossible!” Cassandra exclaimed. She nearly dropped Thaxton’s hand.

“Miss Seton. Remain calm.”

No one’s eyes were closed anymore. She felt Thaxton’s knee hit hers under the table. He was fidgeting, like he wanted to dash. Eliza, too, appeared as if she would rather not be in the room.

“Calm,” Lucy repeated, her strange dark-green eyes opening slowly. “We are very close to the line between worlds.”

Miles’s hand felt too warm, and the room felt too quiet. Thaxton’s knuckles poked her through the glove; Cassandra worried (not for the first time) that he was not eating enough. She noticed that she thought a lot about his welfare lately.

“If I go into a trance,” Lucy said, her voice belabored, pulled out of her, “you must not break the circle. It would be very dangerous.”

Cassandra didn’t know much about Spiritualism and had never been to a séance before, but she could not believe a spirit actually rang the bell. She had never thought deeply about spirits, but now, she realized she did not believe it possible. She remembered what she had said to Miles earlier about Lucy being like an actress—that was it. The whole thing seemed polished, recited. Very well, yes, but more a play than a phenomenon.

“I am going to invite the spirit to speak through me. In this situation, I need someone else to ask questions. Lord Spencer, if you will?”

Spencer looked a bit surprised to hear his name.

“Certainly,” he said uncertainly.

“It is best to ask questions to lead the spirit, focusing on what it may want,” Lucy continued. “I implore no one to move in an abrupt manner or disturb the air with other noises.” She looked sharply to Cassandra.

“I will behave,” Cassandra promised.

“This may not work,” Lucy said, “but I think we have a good chance. I can feel the veil shimmering. Now, total concentration, please.”

Cassandra did not want to go on with the charade. It was not fun or lighthearted or whimsical. She tensed with all the things she wanted to say, such as
This is balderdash
and
Why don’t all of you think this is balderdash?
Lucy’s head lolled down, her face shadowed by the half-spent candles, her breathing slowly evening out as the room expanded in anticipation.

“Good evening,” Lucy said in a voice flat and unaccented.

“Spirit?” Spencer croaked, startled to hear the words, somewhere between skepticism and outright fear. “Is that what I should call you?”

“That is not important.”

Lucy smiled, but it was not friendly. Her eyes had glazed over; her face took on a reptilian cast. The smile itself brought to mind a snake.

“Can we help you in any way?” Spencer asked, as if to a visiting villager.

“I have a message,” Lucy said. She stared into the flame of a nearby candle as if it contained the answers of all life. “It is for the thirteenth earl.”

“Ah. I am the ninth,” Spencer said, sounding pleased that he was not the recipient of a message from the beyond.

“Me,” Thaxton said hoarsely. “She means me. I will be the thirteenth Earl Vane when my father passes. I am the thirteenth earl.”

Cassandra tightened her hand. Thaxton was faltering. He was as pale as . . . as a ghost, though that metaphor was fraught.

“This is silly,” she said, attempting to inject reason.

Miles, who fancied himself an expert on the process, tugged on her hand. “Cassandra. Please. Your belief is not necessary, but refrain from being insulting.” He tried to make eye contact with Lucy, but she stared stalwartly off into the air.

“Honored spirit,” Miles continued while Cassandra simmered at his behavior. “What is this message you have for Lord Thaxton?”

“Jonathan Aubrey Vane, Viscount Thaxton,” Lucy intoned, tilting her head toward the viscount. Cassandra felt coiled beside him. “Thirteenth Earl Vane. Heed me. Your father is mad, as his father before him, as you shall be, unless you break the curse. It rests on your head. You know your fate, Jonathan Aubrey; you have always known. Do what you must.”

“How?” Thaxton rasped. “How do I break it?”

“End your family line,” Lucy said in that hollow voice, turning Thaxton’s hand over and peeling off his glove. Cassandra felt an unfounded fury at the way Lucy was touching him. She placed two fingers on his palm, pausing for a painful moment before drawing a big breath. “Be the last Vane to hold the title.”

Thaxton was looking down at her hand like it was on fire, his blue-gray eyes huge, and shades darker than a moment before.

“Die,” Lucy finished, her voice a growl. “Die and break the curse.”

She began shuddering, and Thaxton snatched his hand away, breaking the circle. His white glove dropped from Lucy’s grip and floated to the floor. The medium wavered, near-faint, but not before Miles could catch her, cradling her to the ground. Her eyes rolled back in her head and then fluttered shut.

Thaxton was on his feet a second later, his arms out to his sides in a contained state of agitation. Cassandra caught him by the cuff.

“Stop,” she said. “Wait, wait. This is—”

“No,” he said. “No, no, good night.”

With that, he turned on his heel and left the room. Panic finally hit Cassandra, after seeing the look on Thaxton’s face when he fled the parlor. Seeing him scared made her scared. Lucy was in a full swoon, with Eliza waving smelling salts under her nose.

“She is breathing,” Eliza said with relief.

Lucy, entirely wreathed in Miles’s embrace on the floor, opened her eyes. Spencer stood, crossing toward Cassandra through the chaos of the medium’s pronouncement.

“Go,” he said under his breath. “Go after him. We will sort things out here. He goes to the library when he is upset.”

“I couldn’t possibly,” she said, the words spilling out too quickly, devoid of truth. She wanted nothing more than to go after him.

“Before they realize you are gone, Miss Seton—go.”

Chapter Four

Thaxton barreled blindly down the hall, leaving the disarray of the séance behind him. He could hear some guests still on the balconies, their laughter filtering down. The merriment only served to drive home the point that he was doomed.

The library had a convenient stock of superior alcohol and a cocoon of utmost solitude—it was his favorite place in Spencer House. The walls, lined with bookshelves, spines of all colors below high windows, the moving ladder to reach the highest tomes, antique clocks under glass to keep out everyday dust, solid wooden furniture that had to be ancient—it all somehow added up to a feeling of security. He poured himself a drink and lay down on the settee, balancing the glass on his torso. He thought he might drink himself to death, if that was what the earldom wanted from him. His duty, as earl, would be to die. This was not news to him. It was exactly as his father and now the séance had prophesized—he would be the one to end it.

Spencer had always said there was no solid evidence of the Vane family curse. He thought the “curse,” which he only talked about in quotation marks, was a construct of coincidence and hallucination. Thaxton did not feel the same—he felt distinctly imperiled, waiting to go mad. It was no way to live a life.

And in that case, why bother? He put the glass on his forehead, the cool crystal making a halo. If this was his destiny, then so be it. It was not as if he had much to live for, anyway. Maybe he would swan-dive off a balcony. That would be fairly no-muss; it could even look like an accident.

“Lord Thaxton?”

“Go away, Cassandra,” he said, realizing too late that he had used her familiar name.

She stepped into the library and closed the door behind her.

“Spencer sent me,” she said. “To check on you.”

“Very manipulative of him,” Thaxton said, “but I do not want to talk. You can tell Spencer I am well, and you may go.”

She advanced to the settee until she loomed over him. He did not know what hurt worse, her loveliness or the actual concern in her eyes.

“No, Jonathan.” He should not have opened the door to Christian names, for his coming out of her mouth had an odd effect on him. She sounded breathless; she must have run. “Though the earl may have granted me leave, I am not here on his account, but by my own volition. That woman, Lucy, is lying. I just feel it, and we have to prove it. Do not tell me you believe this farce.”

“She knew things I have not told anyone but Spencer, things my father has said in the grip of madness. Think of me what you will, Miss Seton, but I leave on the morrow. It is time for me to go home.”

She sat on the edge of the settee, pushing his legs over.

“Cassandra,” she corrected. “Or Cassie. Whichever you prefer. I find that they both suit on different occasions.”

“Hmm,” Thaxton said, sitting up a bit more and taking a long drink, which he felt he deserved for his restraint. He hoped that reply invited no further conversation.

“I do not want you to go home,” she said bluntly.

“Being that you are engaged to another man, I do not think what you want is any of my business.”

“If you wish to pretend you do not care what I want, I will not shatter your illusion.”

“Please go to bed,” he said, placing the tumbler against his forehead again. “I have nothing to say, no witty banter, no assurances, no hope. And no energy to pretend otherwise.”

“No need to pretend anything. Thaxton, I am certain that woman is a fake. Please, stop and think about this. You said she echoed things your father has said—what do you mean exactly, and would he tell anyone else?”

He had noticed her eyes flickered with disapproval every time he drank. He took another sip before answering in order to irritate her.

“My father,” he said, pointing a finger out from the lip of the cup, “talks to me and his roses, and no one else. He did not even register Spencer the last time he was in town.”

He was not sure why he had told her that. It was too personal; Thaxton had not even discussed it with Spencer because they were both so shaken by it. Damn this woman and the strange need he had to confess to her.

“In circumstances like these,” she said, “I like to reassure the person in pain that I know how they feel. But I will not lie to you, Jonathan. I have no idea what that must feel like. I doubt anyone does.”

“I would not expect you to,” he said, feeling a bit more charitable as the alcohol warmed him. “I do not want you to know what this feels like.”

“I know you do not want to talk,” she said, balancing her words as if they were spinning plates, “and I do not want to pry. But what happened in there upset all of us, and I cannot leave you to your devices.”

“‘Upset’ seems an understatement,” he said, motioning for her to hand him the whisky decanter. She did so, but with reservation. “I was told that I am a marked man. Although, to be frank, it is not the first time.”

“So. Your father also said that you had to die to break the curse.”

“Not exactly, but close enough.” Thaxton leaned over, spinning the stand-up globe slowly, not wanting to look at her. “He insists that I am chosen to put an end to the calamity that is our family line. Sometimes he cautions me to never marry and to remain childless. He never said I had to die, though. That is a new development.”

“Lies, I’m sure.” Cassandra seethed. She seemed certain that Lucy Macallister was a fraud. Thaxton knew it was not as simple as that. As he saw it, Lucy was a channel of confirmation. He poured himself another glass, since it did not matter what Miss Seton thought of him—he did not have anything to offer her. He felt condemned.

“What good would going home do?” she pressed on. “What would it accomplish? You would be alone, confused, terrified, and worrying around your father. Stay here, Jonathan, where we can make sense of it.”

He expelled a bitter laugh.

“You propose to make sense of a problem that had plagued me most of my adult life?”

“We will start with the séance. Certainly there have to be clues as to how Miss Macallister performs the ruse.”

“Lucy,” he said into his glass. “She hates formality; call her Lucy.”

“How long have you been tippled, Lord Thaxton?” Her look of censure returned. “And I do not mean tonight. I mean, how long have you been keeping this ludicrous amount of alcohol running through you daily?”

“This much?” He had to stop and think in order to answer honestly. “A few weeks. Since Spencer was last in London.”

“When your father did not recognize him.”

“Yes. I find it much easier to drink than to process the implications of that.”

Thaxton took another long pull, but this one was primarily to stop the words that wanted to come out of his mouth:
Because if he doesn’t remember Spencer, then how long before he forgets me? And then how long until I am the damned thirteenth Earl Vane?

“Consider staying,” she said with those irksome sympathetic eyes. “Do not make me investigate alone.”

“Miles should help you. I am quite busy dying, my lady.”

“Miles idolizes Lucy. I do not think I can count on him in this.”

Thaxton canted his head, ignoring the seasickness the sudden action caused. “Miles idolizes the medium?” The possibility was promising—if that were so, maybe he was in love with her and might leave Cassandra. The thought of their marriage sickened Thaxton.

“Truly. Lucy Macallister and Spiritualism are his topics of conversation, like an obsessed convert. I cannot marry him.”

“No,” Thaxton answered automatically, again into his glass. “Anyone but him. Or myself. You could not possibly marry me. Good lord, not me.”

Her charity for him vanished instantly. His mistake sounded so boorish in hindsight. The drink had loosened his tongue, and honestly, he felt so comfortable with her that he lost track of his thoughts, saying things aloud that he should keep to himself. He had not meant it the way she took it. That much was obvious as she rose from the settee.

“No, Cassandra—I did not mean I find you lacking,” he began, hauling himself unsteadily to his feet. “Or that I do not . . .”

“I understand, Lord Thaxton.”

“What I should say is that—what I mean is, I will never marry, not you especially. I cannot put—”

She raised her hand, the very one he had been holding earlier that evening. It had felt very nice during the séance, but now it was inches from his face in full censure. “I said I understand, my lord. It is very late; I should go to bed. You ought to retire as well, if you mean to leave on the morrow.”

He stopped short of reaching out for her, which she definitely would not have welcomed. “Cassandra—”

She turned back, as if it were an effort to do so. “Please, do not apologize. I should be begging your forgiveness. It was too bold of me to try to help you. If you want to believe in nonsense, it is your prerogative. I bid you a safe trip back to London.”

Miss Cassandra Seton had the best flounce Thaxton had ever witnessed, a sharp turn out of the room with a hint of haughtiness. His first instinct was to go after her and pull her into his arms. Instead, he sank back onto the settee, his drink sloshing all over it.

He had offended her, he knew. But she had misunderstood—he could not marry anyone, as he had tried to clarify. The thought of sentencing another person, especially her, to a life with him was deplorable. He had no future; why would he drag Cassandra, full of anima and vibrancy, into that?

But he wanted her. She deserved far better, yet he wanted her. He sank deeper into the cushions, allowing his tired eyes to close. The complicated world could fall into oblivion for a few blessed hours, but it would all still be there tomorrow—the family curse, the talking spirits, the beautiful but inconvenient woman.

It would all be there tomorrow.

Cassandra opened her eyes the next morning, and nothing had changed. She still did not want to marry Miles, still felt Lucy was running some kind of game, still felt drawn to Thaxton although it was now evident that he did not feel the same.

A letter from her father lay on her desk, sending his regards and the news that the banns would be read in their parish in preparation for the marriage of one Miss Cassandra Seton to one Mr. Miles Markwick. Seeing their names linked together thusly turned her stomach. She tore the letter into little pieces as she drank her tea, swaddled again in a robe. Would it be better to run away or to face this head-on? She considered replying to her father with a heartfelt plea to be released from the obligation, but only for a moment. That would never work. To her parents, her marriage to Miles honored a business arrangement.

Her entire future, to fulfill a debt to Miles’s deceased father.

She needed to talk out her confusion, so she sought out Eliza before breakfast.

“Good morning, dear,” the countess said, fluttering around while arranging the last details of the special morning meal. Lucy, having recovered, had agreed to speak on Spiritualism to the assembled ladies, who were buzzing with interest, having learned of her background.

Cassandra tried not to look dejected.

“So?” Eliza folded her hands.

“So . . .”

“Spencer told me he sent you to comfort Thaxton.”

“That was what he sent me to do? Then I was unsuccessful.”

“Not as I understand it. Spencer fully expected the viscount to flee back to London, but instead he arrived early for breakfast. Downstairs, even. He was terribly bedraggled, though.”

“Oh?” she said noncommittally. “I am glad he is well, then. What of Lucy? How does she fare?”

“Lucy is fine. She does not remember anything, and she remains very shaken. I have asked her to stay on for the rest of the party. Do not give me that look, Cassandra; it would have been impolite to send her away.”

“You are right. Besides, I would rather her be near, as it will make it easier for me to figure out exactly what happened last night. I do not think she is as innocent as she appears.”

“Do as you must, but try not to ruin my house party. Have mercy on me, darling. Spencer’s whole family is here, and I am the unsure new countess.”

“I will be the very picture of discretion,” Cassandra swore.

“What are you going to do about Miles?” Eliza asked, pulling on her loose braid. She was trying to be casual, Cassandra noted, which was sweet of her, but unnecessary. She did not feel the least bit slighted at Miles’s disinterest in her. They were so poorly matched that it was laughable.

“I do not know. I was too distracted to think, due to Thaxton’s breakdown.”

“He had a breakdown?”

“He is currently having one, and I suspect it has been going on for some time. Even if he seems well this morning.”

“Cassie,” Eliza said, suspicion coloring her words, “you seem far more concerned with Lord Thaxton than Miles.”

“It is nothing,” she said quickly.

“I knew it!” Eliza exclaimed. “I knew there was something going on with you two. Spencer said he did not know, but he had this mischievous twinkle in his eye. Tell me.”

“There was . . . there was a small, inconsequential kiss.”

“I
knew
it,” the countess said triumphantly.