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Mesmerized
Candace Camp


Olivia Moreland has forever denied the possibility of clairvoyant abilities, working instead to discredit the mediums that flock to London. But when Lord Stephen St.Leger requests her help in investigating an alleged psychic’s claims, she can't deny the ominous presence she feels within the walls of his ancient estate—or the intimately familiar connection she feels to Stephen himself.The last time he'd called Blackhope Hall home, Stephen had watched as his elder brother claimed both the family title and the woman he loved. Now, in the wake of his brother’s murder, Stephen has reluctantly returned to find his family ensconced in scandal. Who is responsible for his brother's untimely death—a dark spirit or the psychic who claims to have channeled it? And what is it about psychic investigator Olivia Moreland that so thoroughly draws him in, reigniting a passion he hasn’t felt in years?As they search for answers, Stephen and Olivia discover that the only way to fight a powerful evil is with a powerful love.







Olivia Moreland has forever denied the possibility of clairvoyant abilities, working instead to discredit the mediums that flock to London. But when Lord Stephen St. Leger requests her help in investigating an alleged psychic’s claims, she can’t deny the ominous presence she feels within the walls of his ancient estate—or the intimately familiar connection she feels to Stephen himself.

The last time he’d called Blackhope Hall home, Stephen had watched as his elder brother claimed both the family title and the woman he loved. Now, in the wake of his brother’s murder, Stephen has reluctantly returned to find his family ensconced in scandal. Who is responsible for his brother’s untimely death—a dark spirit or the psychic who claims to have channeled it? And what is it about psychic investigator Olivia Moreland that so thoroughly draws him in, reigniting a passion he hasn’t felt in years?

As they search for answers, Stephen and Olivia discover that the only way to fight a powerful evil is with a powerful love.


Praise for the novels of New York Times bestselling author Candace Camp

“Camp’s newest Matchmaker novel features her usual vivid characterization, touches of subtle humor and plenty of misunderstandings, guilt and passion. You won’t want to miss this poignant and charming tale.”

—RT Book Reviews on The Courtship Dance

“Delightful…Camp is firmly at home here, enlivening the romantic quest between her engaging lovers with a set of believable and colorful secondaries.”

—Publishers Weekly on The Wedding Challenge

“A beautifully crafted, poignant love story.”

—RT Book Reviews on The Wedding Challenge

“Lively and energetic secondaries round out the formidable leads…assuring readers a surprise ending well worth waiting for.”

—Publishers Weekly on The Bridal Quest

“A clever mystery adds intrigue to this lively and gently humorous tale, which simmers with well-handled sexual tension.”

—Library Journal on A Dangerous Man

“The talented Camp has deftly mixed romance and intrigue to create another highly enjoyable Regency romance.”

—Booklist on An Independent Woman

“A smart, fun-filled romp.”

—Publishers Weekly on Impetuous


Mesmerized

Candace Camp






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


Contents

Chapter One (#u742b8bfa-c4fb-5e35-a6fc-010e9039b049)

Chapter Two (#ud176b429-c0a9-5898-ab0d-2346daff09a8)

Chapter Three (#uf26e2454-6ab0-5c33-b671-23cc519f96ed)

Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)


CHAPTER ONE

1876

THE OIL LAMP in the center of the long table was turned low, eerily lighting the faces of the people around it, throwing eyes and hair into deep shadows and dancing along the sharp lines of brow and cheekbone, making the silent attendees look gaunt and mysterious. All eyes turned toward the large wooden box a few feet from the table, dark and looming. There was no sound from inside it.

Then the lamp went out, and one of the women gasped. Blackness enveloped them. Hands turned cold, and pulses sped up. Everyone waited. There, in the dark hush, it was easy to imagine a ghostly finger trailing coldly across one’s shoulders, to think, with a heart-pounding combination of fear and anticipation, that someone might speak from across the black void of death.

Even Olivia Moreland, despite the fact that she was there for a far different purpose, could not help but feel a little thrill dart up her back. But it was not enough to keep her from her business. Slowly, carefully, using the tricks she had learned from the very people she intended to expose, she eased backward, shielded by the blackness surrounding her, and separated herself from the ring of people around the table.

She paused for a moment, giving her eyes a chance to adjust to the lack of light; then she started forward slowly. It was still difficult to see, as the only light in the room was the glow from the hallway creeping in around the door. She did not want to alert anyone to the fact that she was up and walking. It had to be a surprise to everyone when she reached the medium’s cabinet. All her attention was on the dark box before her; every nerve in her body seemed to quiver, tense with expectation. She was almost there....

A hand lashed out and wrapped around her arm, fingers digging painfully into her flesh.

Olivia shrieked and jumped. A deep masculine voice cried out, “There! I have you!”

All around the table, women echoed Olivia’s shriek, and there was the clatter of a chair overturning and a general hubbub of voices and movements.

Whatever instinctual, primitive fear had flooded Olivia at the sudden grasping of her arm, it subsided at the sound of a very real and human voice.

“Let go of me!” she snapped, trying to pull her arm away.

“I think not—until you have explained yourself.”

She continued to struggle, hissing, “Stop! You are ruining everything!”

“No doubt I am,” he replied in a faintly amused tone. “It is always so unpleasant to have one’s duplicity revealed.”

“Duplicity?”

As the two of them exchanged words, there was the sound of a thud, followed by a muttered curse, and at last a match flared into life at the table. A moment later, someone lit the oil lamp and there was light in the room. Olivia found herself staring down into the cool gray eyes of her captor.

A faint shock passed through her, a feeling almost of recognition, though she realized immediately that she had never seen this man before. She was certain that, if she had, she would have remembered him.

He was seated at the table, his chair pushed a little away from those on either side of him, and he was half-turned and leaning back in order to grasp Olivia’s arm. His shoulders were broad, and Olivia could well attest to the strength of his hands and arms. His face was lean, with high, wide cheekbones so sharp they looked as if they could have cut paper. It was a hard face, a look emphasized by the cold intensity of his eyes. Only his mouth—wide, with a full lower lip—would have softened his face, but it was at the moment pulled into a thin line. His hair, thick and dark, nearly black, was shaggily cut, as if someone had taken a pair of scissors to it—or, perhaps, a knife. The ungentlemanly appearance of his hair was echoed in his clothes—made of clearly fine materials, but just as clearly sewn by someone other than one of the well-known London tailors, as well as being a trifle out-of-date. She would have thought him foreign on an initial glance, except that his voice had been unmistakably that of an upper-class Englishman.

There was a moment of silence as everyone else in the room stared at the tableau.

“I don’t have to explain myself to you!” Olivia retorted, desperately searching for a good reason for her to have been walking about. She twitched at her skirts, which had managed to become twisted, showing an entirely inappropriate ruffle of her petticoat on one side. There was a lock of hair that had escaped from her neat bun, as well; she could feel it curling down beside her face. She realized that her appearance put her at a disadvantage, and she was made even more uncomfortable by that steady silver-gray gaze on her face. But she refused to let this man cow her. Olivia was quite aware that she was small and unremarkable in appearance—a little brown wren of a woman, she had more than once thought of herself, especially when compared to the other, more peacocklike members of her family. But she had learned to counter that impression with a steady and stubborn refusal to be intimidated.

She cast a disdainful look down at the stranger’s hand, curled around her upper arm. “I demand that you cease this bullying at once.”

“I think you have to explain yourself to the company in general,” he countered, but he relaxed his grip enough that it was no longer actually painful. “Exactly what were you doing sneaking about the room? Were you about to manifest yourself as a ‘visitor from beyond’?” His deep voice was laced with cynicism.

“Of course not!” Color flared in Olivia’s cheeks. She was painfully aware of the gazes of everyone else in the room fixed on her. “How dare you?”

“Sir, this is scarcely the behavior of a gentleman.” One of the other men in the room spoke up, a portly fellow with a great curling mustache and plentiful muttonchop sideburns—such hirsute magnificence grown, Olivia suspected, to compensate for the man’s shiny bald pate.

Olivia’s tormentor did not so much as even glance at the other man; he simply continued to look straight into Olivia’s face. “Well? Why were you tiptoeing about the room?”

Another guest chimed in. “It is odd, Miss...um...dreadfully sorry, but I am afraid that I cannot remember your name.”

Unfortunately, neither could Olivia, or, at least, she could not remember the name she had given these people tonight when she had arrived. It had not been her own, of course. She knew that what she called her nondescript appearance was a blessing in that regard, allowing her to pass unknown through these gatherings as long as she used an assumed name. It was sheer bad luck that the excitement of the past few minutes had driven her evening’s nom de guerre right out of her head.

“Comstock,” she blurted out, the name coming back to her suddenly, but she could see by the expressions on the others’ faces that her hesitation had been too long. They would not believe her now.

“How convincing,” the man who still held her arm drawled sarcastically. “Now, Miss ‘Comstock,’ why don’t you tell us about your plans to—what, put a sheet over your head? Or were you simply going to make piteous moans?”

“I say,” said one of the men thunderously, rising to his feet. “What the devil are you saying, man? Are you implying that I would allow some...some damnable chicanery in my house?” He turned immediately toward the woman at his side. “Pardon me, my dear. Ladies. I forgot myself in the heat of my indignation.”

“St. Leger...” the man who was sitting beside Olivia’s captor said with distress, “whatever are you doing?” He turned toward their host, who was standing and staring with grim dislike at the man holding Olivia’s arm. “Colonel, I beg your pardon, Lord St. Leger meant no disrespect, I’m sure.”

“Of course not,” Lord St. Leger said shortly, glancing toward the colonel. “No doubt you were being duped, as well.”

“Duped!” squawked the colonel’s wife, her eyes bulging.

From inside the large box there came a moan, rising in volume when no one responded. The colonel’s wife let out another noise, this one more a bleat, and jumped to her feet. “Mrs. Terhune! Mercy! How could we have forgotten about you?”

One of the men rushed to open the door of the medium’s cabinet. There sat the gray-haired Mrs. Terhune on a stool, hands and feet bound just as they had been minutes earlier when they had closed the medium inside the box. The colonel’s lady and the man who had opened the cabinet rushed to untie her. Olivia watched with a cynical eye as the ropes fell easily away. She felt sure that the medium had herself untied the ropes, then hastily retied them when she heard the hubbub break out in the room. But, of course, she could not prove that now.

“There! You see what you’ve done!” Olivia snapped at Lord St. Leger. He turned toward her, his eyebrows rising lazily.

“What I have done?” he repeated.

“Yes! You’ve ruined everything.”

He smiled then, and it was astonishing to see the change it wrought in the man’s face. Looking at him, Olivia felt as if her stomach had just fallen to her feet, and she drew an involuntary breath.

“No doubt I have,” he agreed. “I apologize for interrupting you, Miss...Comstock. I should have let you play out your masquerade before I exposed you.”

“You didn’t expose anything, you dolt!” Olivia bit back, too disappointed and angry to worry about manners. “I was about to prove—”

“Who are these people?” the medium asked in a die-away voice that somehow brought everyone’s attention back to her. “I feel...so strange. I was deep in a trance, then these angry voices pulled me back. It makes me feel quite tired. Did I speak? Did the spirits come?”

“No,” barked the colonel, casting a flashing look toward Olivia and Lord St. Leger. “There was no visitation, no words from beyond. Nothing but these two people disrupting the séance.”

“Disrupting—” St. Leger gaped at the man. “I caught these people about to perpetrate a fraud upon you and all of us here, and all you can say is that I disrupted this little farce?”

“Farce?” The colonel’s face turned an alarming shade of red.

“Oh, dear,” moaned the man beside St. Leger, hastening to say, “Colonel, please, forgive him. Lord St. Leger has been living in America for years. I’m afraid that he has forgotten his manners.” The man turned and cast Lord St. Leger a significant look. “I am sure that he meant no insult.”

“Of course I didn’t mean any insult,” St. Leger replied. “You have been hoodwinked by this so-called medium and her partner, Miss ‘Comstock.’”

“I am not her partner!” Olivia cried.

“Sir, I assure you, I have never seen this woman before in my life,” Mrs. Terhune said, looking at Olivia blankly.

“Then what was she doing walking about during the séance?” St. Leger asked.

“I have no idea,” Mrs. Terhune returned calmly. She fixed a stern gaze on Olivia. “Miss, I specifically told everyone not to leave the table. It is very important. Our friends from the other side are very particular about such things.”

“Yes, no doubt they are,” Olivia replied dryly. She wondered if there was any hope of somehow managing to pass this off as her having to get up because of an unmentionable emergency.

But at that moment, one of the other women at the table said suddenly, “Wait, I know you. You aren’t Miss Comstock at all. You are that woman who dislikes mediums. My brother was telling me all about some symposium he attended—”

“Good Gad!” the colonel exploded. “The two of you came here purposely to cause a disruption! How dare you enter my house under false pretenses? I’ve a good mind to thrash you, sir.”

St. Leger released Olivia’s arm and rose to face the other man, his height and the breadth of his shoulders rendering the colonel’s threat rather empty. “Don’t trouble yourself, sir,” he said coolly. “I will leave now. It is clear that everyone here would prefer to retain their delusions.”

He strode from the room, and, as the colonel started toward Olivia, she decided it was best to follow St. Leger rather than be forcibly escorted from the house. The host was on her heels, calling for his servants. A stone-faced footman handed them their coats and hats and swept the door open, closing it with a snap as soon as they were outside.

St. Leger stopped abruptly on the stoop, and Olivia bumped into his back, letting out an annoyed “Oof.”

He turned and met her glance. She glared at him, but she knew the look was rendered ineffective by the fact that she was struggling to hold her bonnet and put on her cloak at the same time.

St. Leger took in the struggle over her cloak, which had inexplicably gotten turned inside out, and a smile tugged briefly at the corners of his mouth. Naturally he had already popped on his top hat and shrugged into his light coat.

“Allow me,” he said, reaching out and taking the cloak from Olivia’s fingers. A quick shake straightened it out, and he placed it around her shoulders. His fingertips brushed over her shoulders, and even through the cloth of her cloak, the touch sent a shiver down Olivia’s spine.

When he reached for the ribbons of her cloak, as if to tie them, she grabbed them herself, saying, “I can do that myself. You have done quite enough already.”

He raised an eyebrow, then said, “Is it true what that woman said? You are an enemy of mediums?”

“I am an exposer of charlatans,” Olivia responded tartly. “I stand ready to believe anyone who can prove to my satisfaction that they have contacted the otherworld, but as I haven’t yet found a medium in London who can do that, I cannot label them as anything but frauds.”

“So you were not helping out Mrs. Terhune tonight?”

“Of course not!”

“Then why were you sneaking about in the dark?”

“I was not ‘sneaking.’ I was walking quietly and carefully,” Olivia corrected with a haughty look, “to the medium’s cabinet to expose Mrs. Terhune, untied and about to hold up this silly daguerrotype that she displays over the top of the cabinet door and pretends is a spirit. I had a sulfur match ready to strike.”

She sighed at the thought of the opportunity lost, and Lord St. Leger looked slightly abashed. “I beg your pardon. I thought I had caught a conspirator.”

“Yes, well...” She turned and gestured, and a carriage down the street began to roll forward.

Olivia started to descend the steps, and St. Leger followed her. “Tell me, do you do this sort of thing often?”

“Get into séances and try to expose their frauds?” Olivia sighed again. “No, unfortunately. If a medium knows me, they will not let me attend. My ‘lack of belief’ disturbs the spirits. And few people hire me,” she admitted candidly. “I find that almost no one wishes to ‘let go of their delusions,’ as you pointed out tonight.”

He stared at her. “Hire you? What do you mean?”

“I have a business,” Olivia told him, reaching into her reticule and pulling out one of her cards. She was rather proud of them, really, and never failed to hand one out, though the response she received was more often one of shocked disapproval than admiration.

St. Leger took the card and glanced down at the neat black script: “Miss O. Q. Moreland, Investigator of Psychic Phenomena.”

He looked back up at her in amazement, a hundred questions buzzing through his brain. But the first one that came out was, “Q?”

Olivia’s mouth tightened. “It is a family name,” she said, and reached out to snatch the card back, but he quickly pocketed it.

“And does your family not mind that you—”

“My family is quite open-minded,” Olivia told him tightly. The carriage had pulled up in front of the colonel’s house, and she went to it, waving the coachman to stay on his high seat.

St. Leger, following her, reached out to open the carriage door for her, but she grasped the handle before he could. Turning to him, she said significantly, “My family is not so archaic as some and see nothing wrong in a woman exercising her mind in pursuit of a career.”

“They see nothing wrong in your chasing ghosts?” St. Leger asked mildly, reaching toward her to help her up into her carriage.

Olivia narrowed her eyes and started to reply, but stopped as she saw realization dawning on St. Leger’s face. He looked at the carriage door, on which her father’s ducal crest was tastefully drawn, then pulled out her card to look at it again.

“Good God!” he exclaimed, with some amazement. “You’re not—you’re one of the ‘mad Morelands’?”

Olivia jerked the door open and stepped up into the carriage, shrugging off his helping hand. She turned and sat down, leaning forward and saying, “Yes! I am definitely one of the ‘mad Morelands.’ Indeed, I am probably the maddest of the lot. If I were you, I’d burn that card, lest some of it rub off on you.”

She slammed the door on his hurried words: “No, wait! I didn’t—I’m—”

Olivia rapped sharply on the carriage roof, and the driver started like a shot, cutting off the rest of her companion’s words.

* * *

“—SORRY,” Stephen St. Leger finished lamely. He looked down at his polished leather boots and elegant silk trousers, now splashed with dirty water from the carriage wheels. He suspected that the driver had been well aware of what he had been doing.

Of course, Stephen thought ruefully, he could scarcely blame the man. His words had been clumsy and boorish. His cousin Capshaw was right: he had spent too long in the United States, or, more accurately, he had spent too long in the lonely wilderness of the Rocky Mountains. He was no longer accustomed to being in polite society or, indeed, much of any kind of society at all.

He had not really meant anything bad about the woman’s family. He had merely been shocked when it registered on him that the young lady he had thought he caught red-handed aiding a medium had in fact been the daughter of a duke, a gently reared young woman of good lineage and a hefty fortune. He had simply blurted out the name by which her family was largely regarded in London society. The “mad Morelands”...they must be mad, indeed, he thought, if they found nothing wrong with letting one of their daughters traipse about London alone at night, attending séances and confronting charlatans. It seemed a risky business.

Her having a business surprised him less. He had seen enough wives and daughters helping to conduct family businesses—or widows left to run one on their own—in his time in the United States. It was, however, somewhat startling to find a young, unmarried lady in England doing so, especially one from one of the most noble families in the country. Her family, he would have thought, would have moved heaven and earth to keep her from doing so.

But, he supposed, the reason they had not lay in the very epithet that had slipped off his tongue. The Morelands, while not actually legally mad, were generally considered to be, well, off. The old duke, Miss Moreland’s grandfather, had been famous for his various bizarre and intense “health treatments,” which had ranged from mud baths to foul-smelling restorative drinks to being wrapped in wet sheets for hours at a time—the latter of which was generally considered to have been what sent the man at a relatively young age into his last, fatal bout of pneumonia. He had spent much of his life traveling in England and the Continent, consulting with quacks and chasing the latest fads. His wife, it was said, had a peculiar tendency to talk about her ancestors as if she had daily conversations with them. The duke’s younger brother, the present duke’s uncle, was reputed to spend much of his time playing with tin soldiers.

The present Duke of Broughton, Miss Moreland’s father, was obsessed with some sort of ancient subject—Stephen wasn’t sure what, though he had it vaguely in his mind that the man collected statues and broken bits of pots and things. And he had married a woman well-known for her unusual views on social reform, women, marriage and children. Even more horrifying to London society was the fact that the current duchess had not been born to the nobility, being merely the daughter of country gentry. There were several Moreland children, most of them younger than Stephen was, and he did not know much about them, having left the country before most of them were old enough to enter society, but from everything he had heard from his mother and friends, he had gotten the impression that they were an odd lot.

What he had seen of Miss O. Q. Moreland certainly had done nothing to change that impression. She was decidedly peculiar—going out alone in the evening to attend séances, sneaking through darkened rooms to pounce on a fraudulent medium and expose her practices, even carrying on a business of doing such things!

Stephen idly rubbed his thumb over the engraved letters of her card. Investigator of Psychic Phenomena. He couldn’t help but smile a little, thinking of her feisty stance, hands on hips, looking up at him with those big brown eyes that looked as though they should be soft and melting but were instead fierce. Small and dainty, yet looking as if she were ready to take on any opponent.

He remembered the odd feeling that had gone through him when the light had been turned on and he had first looked at her. He had thought her a part of the medium’s act, helping to hoodwink an innocent public. Yet when he looked at her, something had shot through him, some strange current of emotion and physical attraction that jarred and surprised him. It had been something like desire...and yet something more, as well, something he could not remember ever feeling before.

Frowning, he turned and started to walk away, but the man who had been beside him at the séance came out the front door at that moment and hurried down the steps toward him, saying, “St. Leger!”

Stephen turned, surprised. “Capshaw. I thought you must have decided to stay.”

The other man made a face. “I doubt that I would have been welcome, frankly, after the scene you made. But I had to do what I could to calm down Colonel Franklin. I told him that you were my cousin and a gentleman and would not spread scurrilous lies about him.”

“I don’t give a damn about that pompous colonel,” St. Leger said, grimacing.

“What were you doing, by the way?” Mr. Capshaw went on curiously. “Did you go there to expose the medium? I must say, I didn’t think it sounded like your sort of entertainment.”

“Hardly. But I wasn’t planning to do anything. It was just that when I heard her rustling about in the dark, I could not resist the opportunity to catch one of the charlatans red-handed.” He shrugged. “I went merely to—I don’t know, see what sort of thing they do. Try to understand what their hold is on otherwise rational people.”

“There are more than a few who believe in it,” Capshaw commented. “I’ve seen one medium who did things that, well, frankly left me wondering.” He glanced over at his friend. “Don’t you ever think that maybe it’s a possibility? That people can speak to us from the other side?”

“It strikes me as highly unlikely,” Stephen said shortly. “If they could, surely they would tell us something more important than the wretched pap these mediums put out. And why do they spend their time knocking on things? One would think that they would have better things to do with their time than play parlor tricks.”

Mr. Capshaw chuckled. “That sounds like you.”

“They are playing on people’s grief,” St. Leger went on grimly. “Using it to gain money.”

His friend glanced at him. He had heard that Lady St. Leger, Stephen’s mother, had been attending the séances of a popular Russian medium, and the anger in his friend’s voice confirmed his suspicion. Stephen’s older brother had died almost a year earlier, and their mother was said to be still mired in grief over his death.

“Sometimes,” Capshaw said carefully, “it helps a person get through it, thinking that they can contact their loved one.”

“It helps the damned medium acquire money,” St. Leger growled. “And how do you know it helps them? What if it just keeps them in that same painful place, constantly mourning their loss, never getting on with their lives?”

He stopped and looked at his companion. “I thought Mother was getting better, that she was not so wrapped up in sorrow as when I first came home. And when she wanted to take Belinda to London, it seemed a good sign. But then she fell in with this Valenskaya woman, and now she seems deeper in mourning than ever. I told myself the same things you said, that it didn’t matter if it wasn’t real, that it would help soothe her. What did it matter if she went to a few séances? But when Belinda wrote me and said that Mother had given this medium her emerald ring out of gratitude for all she’d done... Father gave her that ring! I have never seen it off her hand until now. Obviously this woman is exercising great power over her. That’s why I came to London. And it didn’t help my fears any when I saw Mother, either. She is forever talking about what this woman says, she and Belinda both, and it all sounds like the most blatant nonsense. Yet they seem to swallow it without a moment’s thought.”

Capshaw gave him a sympathetic glance, but, as Stephen knew, there was little he could say to help him.

“If only I could prove to her that the woman is a fraud!” Stephen went on. His thoughts went then to Miss Moreland of the snapping brown eyes and the business card, but he pushed her aside immediately. A man could hardly ask a woman to get rid of his problems for him, after all, and, besides, he could not expose his mother to the embarrassment. Besides, the woman was probably as peculiar as everyone said all her family were.

They continued for a moment in silence; then Stephen said, with studied casualness, “What do you know of the Morelands?”

“Morelands? Who do you—oh, you mean Broughton’s brood? The ‘mad Morelands’?”

“Yes.”

Capshaw shrugged. “I don’t know any of them personally. Although the eldest was at Eton at the same time I was—some damned peculiar name, I remember that. They’ve all got peculiar names. Roman or Greek or something. Broughton’s always been mad for antiquities, you know.”

“Yes, I remember that much.”

“He was a daredevil—the one at Eton when I was there. Always into some scrape or other. Not the sort of chap I was mates with. It was enough to make one tired just hearing all the things he’d done. Theo—that was what we called him. His real name was something longer, Theodosius or some such. He’s an explorer now, I’ve heard. Always off paddling up the Amazon or trekking through Arabia or something.”

“Ah. Even more peculiar than haring off to the U.S., I suppose.”

Capshaw glanced at him, then gave a rueful grin. “Well, yes, I guess he would be someone you might get along with. If you and I weren’t cousins, we probably wouldn’t be friends, either. He was a couple of years behind you at Eton, though.” He paused, then said, “There are several others, all younger, though. The girls, I think, tend to be bookish. Don’t go out in society—well, except for The Goddess.”

“The who?”

“Oh, some poetic sort gave her the name years ago when she came out, and it rather stuck. Suited her, you see. Lady Kyria Moreland. If ever anyone could carry off such an epithet, it is she. Tall, statuesque, flaming red hair...she’s a beauty, right enough. Odd, though—she could have married anyone, had suitors begging for her hand right and left, still does get plenty of offers, so I’ve heard, though she’s been out for eight years, at least.”

“She’s still unmarried?” St. Leger asked, surprised.

“Yes. That’s what I’m saying. All the women say she’s the maddest of the lot. She could have been a duchess, a countess... Even some prince or other asked for her hand—foreigner, of course, so no surprise she didn’t accept him. But still...she turned them all down, says she enjoys her life just as it is. Doesn’t plan to ever marry.”

“Definitely one of a kind,” St. Leger commented.

“Oh, and one of the daughters blows things up.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Burned down one of the outbuildings at Broughton Park a couple of years ago. Caused a bit of a stir.”

“I see. For any particular reason?”

His cousin frowned. “Not sure, really. Just heard it round at the club, that Broughton’s daughter burned it down, and it wasn’t the first time she’d blown something up. Oh, and that Broughton was in a flap about it—it was next to some shed full of his pots or something.”

“Interesting.” St. Leger wondered if it was another daughter or his own medium-chaser who had engaged in the pyrotechnics.

“Why are you so interested in the Morela—oh, wait!” Capshaw’s brow cleared. “Don’t tell. Is that your ‘ghost’? She was one of Broughton’s brood?”

“Apparently.” Stephen nodded.

“Good Gad,” Capshaw said, much struck by the revelation. “Well, not really a surprise, I suppose.”

“No. But, you know, she didn’t seem that peculiar, really.” He paused, then added, “Well, maybe a bit odd, but quite sharp and—somehow appealing, for it all.”

“Appealing?” His friend narrowed his eyes in speculation.

“Yes. In a general way, you know.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

Stephen grimaced at his companion. “Don’t give me that look. I have no interest in Miss Moreland. Believe me, the last thing I am looking for is a woman, particularly a peculiar one. Between the estate and my mother falling into some charlatan’s clutches, I have enough on my plate.”

The two parted soon after that, Capshaw hailing a hansom to take him to his rooms and St. Leger turning to walk the last two blocks to his family’s home.

It was a pleasant town house, narrow and tall, built a hundred years earlier in the Georgian style by a St. Leger ancestor. Stephen stopped at the foot of the steps leading up to the elegant front door and looked at the house for a moment. This house held some of his sweetest and bitterest memories, for it had been here where he lived when he came to London as a young man. When he had fallen in love...and later lost her.

Shaking off the memory, he trotted up the steps and opened the door. A footman came forward promptly to take his light coat and hat.

“My lord. I hope you had a good evening.”

“Not as productive as I’d hoped.”

“Lady St. Leger is in the drawing room.”

“They didn’t go out?”

“I believe that she, Miss Belinda and Lady Pamela did go out earlier, sir, but they returned a few minutes ago. Her Ladyship asked me to tell you that she would like to see you if you came in early.”

“Yes, of course.” Stephen turned and went down the hall to the formal drawing room, a narrow elegant blue-and-white chamber. Pamela had redecorated it, of course, as she had the rest of the house, after Roderick had come into the title. Stephen preferred the warmer, darker colors of the room when he had lived here years ago.

His mother was sitting at the piano, playing a quiet air, when he came in. Belinda, his lively younger sister, was seated beside her, turning the pages of the music for her. Pamela, he was sorry to discover, was also there, sitting on a pale blue velvet love seat, a bored expression on her face. It changed when Stephen entered the room, turning into the slow, faintly mysterious smile that she was well-known for, a smile that promised a wealth of secret pleasures.

“Stephen,” Pamela said in her husky voice. “What a pleasant surprise.” She laid her hand in silent invitation on the seat beside her on the love seat.

“Pamela,” Stephen replied stiffly, giving her a brief nod, then going to his mother at the piano. He bent and kissed her lightly on the cheek. “Mother. I am surprised to find you home so early.”

Lady St. Leger gave him a sparkling smile. She was dressed, as always, in the complete black of mourning, although tonight a pair of diamonds dangled at her ears, catching the light. White hair curled softly around her face, gentle and still pretty despite the years and sorrow that had visited her.

“There were really no parties of any consequence,” his mother explained. “The season’s all but over, really. And Belinda was tired. So we just visited friends.”

Belinda jumped up from her seat, belying any indication of tiredness, and came around the piano bench to greet her brother. Her hair was dark, like his, arranged on her head in a cascade of curls, and her eyes were also gray, though softer than his silvery brightness. She was a pretty girl, with the light of intelligence and curiosity in her eyes, quick to smile and laugh.

“Stephen!” she cried now as she reached out to give him a hug. “Are you going riding with me in the park tomorrow? You said this morning you might. Mother won’t let me go without an escort.” She made a face, annoyance tempered with fondness.

“In the morning?”

“Of course. That’s when everyone goes.”

“Everyone meaning the Honorable Damian Hargrove?” Pamela asked in a tone of lazy amusement.

Belinda wrinkled her nose, saying, “No. Mr. Hargrove is simply a friend.” She looked up at her brother pleadingly, “Please, Stephen, say you’ll go?”

“Of course I will. If you can manage to get up early enough, of course.”

“Of course.” Belinda looked affronted at the idea that she could not.

Lady St. Leger arose from the piano, taking her son’s hand, and led him around to the sofa across from Pamela. She sat down beside him, beaming, her hand still tucked in his.

Stephen smiled back at his mother, then said in carefully neutral tones, “Whom did you visit this evening?” He had a pretty strong suspicion who it had been.

“Madame Valenskaya—and her daughter and Mr. Babington, of course.” Howard Babington, Stephen knew, was the gentleman who had opened his house to the Russian medium and her daughter during their stay in London. “It was such a pleasant evening,” his mother went on.

Her smile was enough to make Stephen wonder if perhaps Capshaw wasn’t right, after all. Maybe it was better for his mother to believe in this nonsense if it lightened her heart. She had been plunged into grief at his older brother’s death almost a year ago. It had taken Stephen some time to settle his affairs and return to England to take up the title and estate left to him by Roderick’s demise, so it had been four months after Roderick’s death before he reached their ancestral home. But his mother had still been in the depths of despair. He had wished many times over the months that he could lighten her sorrow somehow. Even if it took the ministrations of this Russian medium, perhaps it was worth it. They would, after all, be leaving in a few days to return to the family estate, leaving Madame Valenskaya in London. Hopefully, by the next season, his mother would be past this nonsense.

“The most wonderful thing happened,” Lady St. Leger went on, excitement tingeing her voice. “Madame made contact with Roddy.”

“What?” Stephen looked at her, then glanced over at Roderick’s widow, Pamela.

Pamela nodded. “The spirit rapped out ‘Roddy.’”

“His nickname!” Lady St. Leger went on excitedly. “You see? Not St. Leger, or even Roderick, that anyone might know. But the pet name I called him since he was a baby! It must mean it was really he, don’t you see?”

“But, Mother, you must have spoken of him as Roddy sometime when you were around this woman,” Stephen could not keep from pointing out.

Lady St. Leger made a disapproving noise. “Oh, Stephen, you are so suspicious. What does it matter if Madame Valenskaya knows his name is Roddy? It was the spirit who rapped it out.”

“Of course.” It was pointless, he thought, to try to reason with her. She thought the sun rose and set on Madame Valenskaya.

“It was the first time he’s actually spoken to us, although of course Chief Running Deer has told us that he knows Roderick is well and happy.” Lady St. Leger’s eyes welled with tears at the memory. “You can imagine how thrilled I was.”

“Yes.”

“But I couldn’t help but be sad, too, because we are leaving London soon. And it was so unlucky that Roddy should appear just now, when we are about to leave.”

“Yes, wasn’t it?” Stephen commented dryly.

“I said so to Madame, of course, and she agreed. She was very tired, as she always is after a visitation, but she is so kind. She stayed and talked to us for a long time afterward. Madame is certain that Roderick wants to speak with us again. She says she can feel his eagerness. It is just that when they are so new to the other side, as he is, it is a trifle difficult for them to communicate. But she knows it is coming soon.”

Stephen could well imagine that the woman would hate to lose such a generous client; no doubt that was why Roddy’s “spirit” had been trotted out. But Stephen kept his lips firmly shut against such words. His mother would not believe him, and it would only anger and hurt her.

“She suggested that we remain in London, but of course I told her we could not, what with you coming here to escort us back to Blackhope. You could not be away from the estate too long, I said. I could hardly ask you to twiddle your thumbs here in London when there is so much needing to be done. And, of course, the season is over. But it all turned out quite wonderfully! I realized that although we had to leave London, that didn’t mean I could not see Madame Valenskaya. She could come to Blackhope Hall to visit us!”

Lady St. Leger beamed. Stephen stared.

“What? You invited her home with us?”

His mother nodded happily. “Yes. And, of course, her daughter and Mr. Babington. I could scarcely leave them out, especially after Mr. Babington has so kindly opened his home to us time after time. I cannot believe I never thought of inviting them before.”

Stephen clenched and unclenched his jaw, at a loss for words. He wondered exactly who had come up with the idea for the visit—his mother or Madame Valenskaya.

“I am sure that Madame Valenskaya can communicate with the spirits just as well at Blackhope as she can here in London,” Lady St. Leger went on. “Indeed, when I told her about the house, she was ecstatic. She says she is sure that someplace as old and as full of history as it is must be very well suited to communications from the spirit world. I had never thought of it, but that does make sense.” She paused and looked at Stephen. “I know I should have asked you first, dear. It is, after all, your house now. But I was sure you would have told me to invite whomever I wanted.”

“Yes, of course. It is your house, always has been. I would not forbid you to invite whomever you wanted there.”

That was the problem, of course. Despite the fact that he was lord of Blackhope now, Stephen would not think of telling his mother who she could or could not invite to the home that had been hers from the day she married his father.

He glanced over at Pamela, who was watching him with a faint smile on her lips. There were times when he wondered if Pamela encouraged his mother on this foolish course just to arouse his ire. She talked about Valenskaya and her “spirits” as his mother did, but he had a little difficulty believing that Pamela really believed such things. She was a woman who was ruled by her head, not her heart; she had proved that much years ago when she married Roderick. Perhaps she was fond of Roddy in her fashion, but Stephen didn’t believe that she had ever been passionately in love with his brother, certainly not enough to be overwhelmed by the torrent of grief that had inundated his mother. He knew that Pamela’s heart had been more scored by the knowledge that she inherited nothing but a widow’s share at her husband’s death than by the death itself. He knew firsthand that hers was a cold and calculating heart, and he found it hard to believe that she wished so much to communicate with Roddy.

Lady St. Leger patted Stephen’s hand. “I know. You are such a dear son, just like Roddy. I knew you would not mind, and, anyway, you are always locked up in your office or out riding the estate or something. You’ll scarcely notice that we have guests.”

Stephen sincerely hoped so, but he said only, in a neutral voice, “How long are they staying?”

“Oh, I didn’t ask them for any specific time. I don’t know what will happen, you see, or how long it will take. And three guests will scarcely tax the resources of Blackhope.”

“No. Of course not.” He paused. He could think of nothing to say about the matter that would not upset his mother. Life had been easier, he thought, when all he had to worry about was locating silver ore and bringing it out of the ground.

He cleared his throat. “Well, then...I suppose we will be able to leave soon.”

“Yes, of course. The sooner the better, really. I must make sure that the house is ready for guests.”

Stephen left his mother happily making plans for her guests and started up to his room. He had reached the stairs when he heard the sound of light footsteps behind him.

“Stephen!” Pamela’s voice sounded behind him, and he turned reluctantly.

“What?” His voice was formally polite, his gaze devoid of warmth.

Age had changed Pamela little. Golden haired and blue eyed, she was still beautiful, her pale features a model of perfection. She walked toward him in her habitual slow way, as though certain that any man would willingly wait for her. It was the way she went through life, confident and cool, sure of getting her way. And, indeed, she had every reason to think so: she had rarely been thwarted.

“Must you run away so quickly?” she asked, her voice lowering huskily. “I only wanted to talk to you.”

“About what? This nonsense that you are encouraging in my mother?”

“Nonsense?” Pamela raised an eyebrow. “I am sure Lady Eleanor would be shocked to hear you call it such.”

“You are not, I see,” he retorted. “Why the devil do you go to these séances?”

“I am not shocked to hear what you think about them,” Pamela explained. “It is clear to anyone, even your mother, though she tries not to admit it. That does not mean that I agree with you.”

Stephen’s mouth twisted into a grimace, and he started to turned away.

“Why do you run from me?” Pamela asked again. She smiled, her eyes alight with knowledge. “Once you were quite happy to be near me.”

“That was a long time ago,” he replied shortly.

Pamela came closer, moving up onto the step below him. Leaning toward him, she placed a hand on his chest. Her cornflower-blue eyes gazed earnestly up into his. “I hate that things are so awkward between us now.”

“I see no other way for them to be.” Stephen wrapped his fingers around her wrist and removed her hand from his shirtfront. “You chose this. You are my brother’s wife.”

“I am your brother’s widow,” Pamela corrected huskily.

“It is the same thing.”

Stephen turned and went up the stairs, not looking back.

* * *

SLEEP DID NOT come easily that night, even though he drank a snifter of brandy as he paced the floor of his bedroom. His head was too full of thoughts of mediums and heartless chicanery—and a small wom-an with a compactly curved figure and huge brown eyes that seared right into a man.

It was a long wait in the dark, tossing and turning, eyes opening and shutting, before at last he drifted down into the blackness....

* * *

THERE WAS THE smell of smoke and blood in the air, and the castle rang with the clash of iron against iron, underlaid by the moans of the wounded and dying.

He blinked his eyes against the acrid smoke; sweat trickled down into his eyes and dampened the shirt on his back. He had had no time to do more than don his hauberk of chain mail and grab up his sword.

He was on the stairs, close to the bottom, making his slow retreat up the curving stone steps to the tower room above. It was, he knew, the only slim hope for her safety. The lady of the castle. His love.

She was behind him now, her body shielded by his, inching up the steps as he did. No coward she, she had not run up the stairs to the safety of the tower room with its heavy barred door; instead, she stuck with him, turned to face out to the side of the stairs, the dagger pulled from its sheath at her belt and held to the ready.

His heart hurt with love of her—and fear.

“Go!” he barked at her. “Get up to the room and lock yourself in.”

“I won’t leave you.” Her voice was calm, a silvery pool underlaid by iron.

He continued to swing his sword, holding off the rush of men who pushed up the staircase. There were two in front, for the staircase was no wider, and at the edge of the steps there was no rail, only empty space to the great hall below. Here, only a few steps above, some tried to climb up onto the steps or to grab at his legs to pull him down. One had managed to land a hit with his sword, but fortunately only the flat side had slammed into his calf, hurting even through the thick leather of his boots but not cutting him. He had taken care of each of them with a hearty kick that broke one man’s jaw or a swift downward slice of his sword that left another without a hand. Lady Alys, behind him, had dispatched another by hurling at him the poker she had carried. The man had fallen like an ox, but unfortunately, the poker was now lost to them.

His arm was weary, yet still he swung. He would fight, he knew, till he was bleeding and on his knees, and even then he would fight. Even though he knew they were doomed, he would fight. It was all he had of hope.

* * *

STEPHEN’S EYES FLEW open, and he sat up, a gasp torn out of him. He was drenched in sweat, his hair lying wetly against his skull, and he still felt the heavy ache in his arm, the sting in his eyes from sweat and smoke.

“Bloody hell!” he said. “What the devil was that?”


CHAPTER TWO

OLIVIA MORELAND SAT back against the comfortably cushioned seat of the carriage. Her spine was ramrod-straight with irritation. The nerve of that man!

“Mad Morelands, indeed,” she muttered.

It was an epithet she had heard all her life, and it rankled. Her family was not mad in the least;

it was simply that all the rest of England’s upper crust were narrow-minded, set-in-their-ways snobs.

Well, perhaps her grandparents had been a little strange, Olivia acknowledged in the interest of fairness. Her grandfather had been somewhat obsessive about some rather bizarre medical cures, and Grandmama had insisted that she had “the second sight.” But her father was simply a scholar of antiquities, and her great-uncle Bellard was a shy, sweet man who loved history a great deal and stayed away from strangers with equal zeal. There was nothing odd in either of those things, she thought. Nor was there anything wrong with Aunt Penelope going off to France to sing opera, though everyone in society had reacted with as much horror as if she’d been transported to a penal colony.

The problem, she knew, was that her family thought differently and acted differently from the rest of society. Her mother’s greatest sin in society’s eyes, Olivia knew, had been to be born to minor country gentry instead of the nobility. Personally, Olivia suspected that this attitude was prompted simply by jealousy over the fact that she, a virtual nobody, had managed to snare the prize bachelor, the Duke of Broughton, when none of the titled debutantes had been able to. Olivia found her parents’ meeting and subsequent marriage a charming love story. One of her father’s many holdings upon his own father’s early demise had been a factory. Her mother, an ardent social reformer, had managed to burst in upon a meeting between him and the manager of the factory, somehow evading all the minor clerks outside, and she had passionately put forward to him the rampant injustices in the treatment of his workers. The manager had moved to toss her out, but the duke had refused to allow him to do so and had heard her out. By the end of the afternoon, he, too, was seething at the plight of the workers and even more passionately in love with the redheaded, shapely reformer. She had also grown to love him, moving past her strong dislike of the nobility, money and power. They had married two months later, much to the dismay of the dowager duchess and most of the British peerage.

Olivia’s mother, who held decided and innovative views on women’s place in society, held equally unusual views on the education of children, and all seven of her children had been educated by tutors under the duchess’s careful eye. The girls had received the same education as the boys, and all had been allowed to explore every manner of subject as their interests dictated, though their father had insisted on a basic grounding in Greek, Latin and ancient history. As a result, the entire brood was a well-educated lot, as well as an independent one. It was this combination of bookishness and independence that had caused most others in society to term them odd. Caring little for society’s strictures, each of them had gone his or her own way.

Theo, the heir to the duke, had followed his passion of exploring, whereas his twin sister, Thisbe, had pursued the area of science, conducting experiments and writing papers on them. It was true, Olivia had to admit, that a few of Thisbe’s experiments had gone awry. There had been a small shed on the country estate that had blown up during a study of explosives, and there had also been one or two fires, but, after all, it was in the interest of science and little damage had been done. It was excessively wrong, Olivia thought, to label Thisbe a pyromaniac, as some had done.

The younger twins, Alexander and Constantine, had gotten into a number of scrapes, but, really, what else could one expect from two lively, intellectually curious boys? It was a nuisance, of course, to find one’s clock did not run because they had taken it apart to find out how it worked, and even Mother had been a trifle upset when they had ruined the Carrara marble floor in the conservatory trying to build a steam engine. It was an endeavor, the duchess had pointed out, that was better suited to one of the outbuildings behind the house. But the hot-air balloon incident, in Olivia’s opinion, was entirely the fault of the owner of the balloon. Anyone with any sense would have known better than to leave two ten-year-old boys alone with one’s empty-basketed balloon. And, anyway, they had managed to bring the thing down with a minimum of damage, hadn’t they?

Kyria’s “madness” in the eyes of society was that she refused to marry. And Reed—well, Olivia could not imagine how anyone could find Reed odd. He was the most normal and down-to-earth of them all, always the one to whom one turned in trouble, the one who would step in and right things. He took care of the family’s finances and reined in their extravagances and kept the admittedly erratic path of the family ship somewhat straight.

Olivia knew that most would consider her profession a strange one. Indeed, most would consider it bizarre that a woman would have an occupation at all. But Olivia had been intrigued by the possibility of communication from the spirit world since she was a child and had listened with a combination of horror and fascination to her grandmother, the dowager duchess, tell her that she was possessed of second sight and suggest that Olivia was similarly inclined. Although Olivia was quite certain she possessed no such ability at all, she had wanted to study the subject. She saw no reason why one could not apply the tools of science, such as research, logic and experimentation, to the more nebulous world of spirits. Several scientists, indeed, were also exploring the claims of mediums and the possibility of communication with the dead, although it seemed to Olivia that they were all strangely inclined to ignore evidence of fraud and to seize upon any evidence that seemed to support the existence of spirits.

There was nothing wrong with any of the Morelands, Olivia thought staunchly as she got out of her carriage and marched up the front steps of the grand Broughton House. It was the rest of society who was wrong.

As she stepped inside the massive front door of the house, she was met by her twin brothers, who were taking turns jumping off the steps of the main staircase onto the black-and-white squared tile of the entry hall.

“Hallo!” Alexander called cheerfully, bending down to place a marker where his brother’s feet had landed, then hurrying up to the same step from which his brother had jumped.

Constantine gave her a cheerful wave as he bounced up from the floor and went over to get a silver candlestick to use to mark his twin’s progress.

“You might be careful,” Olivia told them mildly. “You could crack your heads on that marble.”

“We don’t land on our heads,” Con remarked scornfully.

Since her brothers had been jumping from the steps onto the marble since they were toddlers, Olivia had to admit that they were, in all likelihood, experts at it. “What are you marking?”

“How far we slide. You can’t accurately measure your jumps from the stairs because you always slide. We’ve tried factoring in the slide, but one really cannot.”

“Sometimes one slides a lot, and other times hardly at all,” Alex put in. “Here I go, Con.”

He jumped and slid, coming up short of Con’s marker. “Blast!”

“Language, Alex,” Olivia reproved automatically.

“So we thought, why not see who could slide the farthest?” Con finished the tale.

“I see.” Olivia was well used to her brothers’ competitions. Theo and Reed had been much the same, although to Reed’s disgust, Theo had nearly always won, being two years older. “But why are you up so late?” Though her mother believed in freedom, she also had definite views on health, and her children, when young, were bound by early bedtimes. “And where is Mr. Thorndike?”

“Oh, him.” Alex shrugged, dismissing their tutor. “He’s sound asleep.” The twins found sleep a boring and useless pastime and were seemingly able to run endlessly on sheer energy.

“I am sure he is exhausted after a day trying to keep up with you two,” Olivia noted. “But that doesn’t explain why you are up. Your bedtime was an hour ago.”

Con grinned. “We have permission. Thisbe is going to take us out back for an astronomy lesson. We’re just waiting for Desmond.” He named Thisbe’s husband, also a scientist. “He has an experiment running, and he won’t be through until ten o’clock.”

“Ah, there you are,” Thisbe said as she came into the entry from the back hall. “I thought you were working on your Latin upstairs.”

Con’s mouth twisted in a grimace. “It made me sleepy. I hate Latin.”

“Well, you can’t get out of it,” Thisbe said. “You know Papa insists on it. And, besides, you have to know Latin if you hope to be a biologist. Or a doctor,” she added, turning her gaze to Alexander.

“On a more immediate note...” said an amused voice from above them, and they all looked up to see Kyria, in an elegant emerald-green gown, her flaming red hair done in an intricate pattern of curls, descending the stairs. “If either of you hopes to live past ten and a half, you might want to retrieve your boa constrictor. It was traveling down the hall toward the back stairs when I stepped out of my room just now. You know what Cook will do if it enters her kitchen.”

The two boys, who had a healthy respect for Cook and the great metal cleaver she had threatened to use on the next “devilish serpent” that entered her domain, cast an alarmed glance at each other and started off at a run toward the kitchens.

“Hallo, Thisbe. Liv. Have you been out this evening?” Kyria cast a glance at Olivia’s hat.

“Yes. How did you—oh!” Olivia realized that she had not removed her cloak and bonnet. She glanced back at the footman, who was still hovering behind her. “I’m sorry, Chambers. I quite forgot.”

“Perfectly all right...miss.” The footman had to force out the last word. He had not been here long, and it was still difficult for him to address Olivia with the egalitarian “miss” that she preferred instead of the “my lady” to which she’d been born.

Olivia handed him her cloak and hat and turned back to her sisters. Kyria had sauntered down the last few steps to the bottom of the staircase, but she still towered over Olivia by several inches, as did the willowy, dark-haired Thisbe. Olivia was dishearteningly accustomed to it. She was the only one in her family who was not tall, except for her great-uncle Bellard.

“Where are you off to?” she asked Kyria, who carried an elegant satin evening cloak over her arm.

“Lady Westerfield’s soiree,” Kyria answered. “It will probably be quite dull, but it was the best of the offerings tonight.” She sighed. “The season is almost over.”

“Oh, my, and whatever will you do?” Thisbe said with a large dose of sarcasm.

Kyria raised a brow at her sister. “Really, Thisbe, one doesn’t have to mess about with chemicals to lead a worthwhile life.”

“Of course not. But with your abilities, one ought—”

It was a long-standing argument—or discussion, as their mother preferred to call it—between the sober-minded Thisbe and her flamboyant, fun-loving younger sister, and Olivia cut in quickly to ward it off. “Kyria?”

“Yes, dear?” Kyria turned back to Olivia. She never minded her little tussles with Thisbe; in fact, she rather enjoyed them. But she was well aware that Olivia hated to see anyone in her family quarrel.

“Do you know—have you ever met Lord St. Leger?”

“Do you mean the new one? Or Roderick?”

“I—the new one, I suppose. Who is Roderick?”

“He was Lord St. Leger, but he died, oh, about a year ago. A hunting accident, as I remember.”

“Well, no, this man was very much alive.”

“You met him? Tonight?” Kyria’s brows went up with interest. “Is he handsome?”

“Well, yes, I suppose one could say that. He has, well, rather devastating gray eyes, almost silver, one would say, if one were inclined to say things like that.”

“I see.” Kyria’s eyes turned speculative. “Well, I’m afraid I don’t know much about him. I have never met him. He came back to take over the title after his brother died, but he’s been living on the estate ever since he returned. There has been a great deal of speculation about him, of course, because he is unmarried and something of a catch. Apparently he has been living in the United States for the past few years and made a fortune there. I didn’t know he was even in London. How did you meet him?”

“He was at a séance that I went to tonight.”

“He’s one of those?” Thisbe asked with scorn.

“No. He doesn’t seem to believe in it at all. I’m not sure why he was there, really, but he mistook me for an accomplice of the medium!” Her voice rose in remembered indignation.

“No! Why?”

“I had gotten up to go to the medium’s cabinet and open it to show her untied and holding up those silly pictures she does—but then he grabbed me, and of course it was all ruined.”

“He grabbed you?”

“Yes, by the arm. You see, he thought I was going to put on a ghost act myself. And of course there was a tremendous hubbub about it, and they ejected us from the séance.”

Laughter bubbled up from Kyria’s throat. “Oh my. That must have been quite a scene.”

“Yes. But the thing is...” Olivia hesitated, and her sisters’ attention sharpened.

“The thing is?” Thisbe prodded, and Kyria took Olivia’s arm and guided her over to a bench against the wall of the entry. Gesturing for the footman, she handed him her cloak and motioned him away, then sat down on the bench with Olivia, Thisbe providing the opposite bookend.

“What is it?” Kyria questioned her in a low voice. “Are you—well, have you developed any feeling for this man?”

“Kyria!” Olivia gave her a horrified look. “No! How can you ask that? I just met him.”

“Sometimes it does not take long,” Thisbe, usually the most pragmatic and logical of the sisters, interjected.

“The thing is...well, when he grabbed my wrist, it jolted me. I actually screamed, I was so surprised. And scared.”

“Of course. Who wouldn’t be?” Kyria sympathized.

“But then they lit the lamp and I saw who my captor was, and the oddest thing happened. Even though I did not know him at all, and even though he was looking at me quite fiercely, I was no longer afraid.”

“Well, I suppose you saw that he was a gentleman and not a ghost or some such. It is what we cannot see that is the most fearsome, ofttimes,” Thisbe said.

“But it was more than that. I felt the oddest sensation. This sort of tingle ran up my arm, and for just an instant I felt—oh, I don’t know. This sounds mad, I know, but I felt as if I knew him. Yet at the same time I was sure that I had never seen him before. Of course then he made me quite irritated, and the feeling fled. But still...there was that instant. I don’t know what to make of it.”

For a moment both sisters looked at her. Then Thisbe said calmly, “It’s chemistry.”

“What?”

“That moment of attraction. It is all a chemical reaction. I’m convinced of it. I remember the moment I met Desmond. I have never been so startled in my life by the shiver that ran through me when he turned his eyes to mine. And when he reached out and touched my arm, I felt it all through me. Chemistry.”

“No! I’m not going to marry the man!” Olivia cried out in protest. “I told you, I scarcely know him. He was perfectly odious, too. Not only did he ruin my chance to expose that dreadful Mrs. Terhune, but then he had the audacity to call us the ‘mad Morelands.’ Right to my face!”

“No!” Kyria’s green eyes flamed with anger.

But Thisbe shrugged philosophically. “They all do. It’s their narrow minds. One really has to feel sorry for them.”

“Well, I don’t,” Kyria said. “I give them a piece of my mind. And if that is the sort of man Lord St. Leger is, then you are better not to feel anything for him.” She reached out and took Olivia’s hand. “Come with me to the soiree, Livvy. We’ll search for a gentleman good enough for you—well, that’s not possible, I suppose, but at least one who measures up as well as a man can.”

Olivia gave her a faint smile. “No. Really, Kyria. I’m not interested in Lord St. Leger or any other man. I am fine just as I am. I enjoy what I do, and a gentleman would only interfere.” She smiled over at Thisbe. “Men such as Desmond are few and far between, I’m afraid. To find a man who respects one’s mind and one’s career, even shares it—well, rare isn’t even the word for such a man.” She sighed unconsciously.

Beside her, Kyria echoed the sigh. Then she summoned up her usual glittering smile. “It is just as well that I decided never to marry, isn’t it? Still, there is fun to be had. Please, do come with me.”

But Olivia shook her head, saying, “No. I am a bit tired, I’m afraid. And I must work tomorrow. There is correspondence to be answered, and...” Her voice trailed off. “I fear I have forever lost the opportunity to expose that charlatan Mrs. Terhune. Still, there are other avenues to explore.”

“Of course.” Thisbe patted her youngest sister’s hand, and Kyria accepted Olivia’s refusal with a philosophical shrug. She was well aware that, despite Olivia’s fierceness if a loved one or a cause was threatened, she was a rather shy creature, not at home among crowds. Crushes such as Lady Westerfield’s tonight would at worst make her uneasy and nervous, and at best bore her.

Olivia watched as her beautiful sister let the footman help her on with her cloak, then swept out the door. She turned back to Thisbe, but at that moment the twins came in, accompanied this time by Desmond, a quietly good-looking man who usually wore a faint air of abstraction.

“We got the snake in time,” Con announced with satisfaction. “Cook never even saw it.”

“And we ran into Desmond in the kitchen,” Alex added, pulling Desmond forward. “We’re ready now, aren’t we, Thisbe?”

“Ready for what?” Desmond asked vaguely, and had to be reminded of his promise to star-watch with his wife and the twins. He seemed, however, quite pleased with the notion once he was told about it. “Jolly night for it. Not often you get such a clear sky in the city. Do you have your telescope?”

It seemed the boys did, tucked under the staircase, where it could come to no harm during their jumping from the stairs, and they had also brought a blanket, a lantern and a small sack of fruit for a midnight snack. They asked Olivia to join them, but although she normally would have done so, she demurred, pleading tiredness from her own adventure that evening.

In truth she was not tired so much as desirous of being alone. She wanted to think about the evening and go over what had happened and what had been said. The feeling she had experienced when she looked into Lord St. Leger’s eyes had been so odd...and though she was certain that it was nothing to do with being attracted to the man, either emotionally or chemically, as her sisters had suggested, she was not sure to what she could attribute that brief frisson of awareness that had run through her.

So she went upstairs and undressed, then sat by the window, wrapped in a brocade dressing gown, and brushed out her long hair. She typically did not require the attendance of a maid, for she wore her hair in a simple, practical style, low on her neck in a bun, that she was able to put up and take down without assistance. She also favored pragmatic clothes, with bodices that buttoned up the front and no whalebone corset that had to be yanked and tugged and tied into place to give her a minuscule waist. It was another of her mother’s dicta, adopted by her daughters, not to endanger one’s health with constricting corsets for the absurdity of an eighteen-inch waist. Therefore, she rarely needed help in getting undressed, either. Olivia deemed a personal maid an unnecessary luxury for herself, and besides, she usually preferred to be alone with her thoughts rather than listening to a maid’s chatter.

Brushing her hair normally relaxed her, but she found that this evening it did not, and her thoughts remained unaccustomedly scattered. She could not seem to concentrate, and she rose more than once to pace about the room. She could not figure out why she had felt as she did when she first saw Lord St. Leger, and it irritated her that she was so concerned with the subject. She kept thinking of things she should have said or done, witty remarks that would have put the man in his place. It was some time before she settled down enough to go to bed, and even then, it took her some time to fall asleep. It was another disagreeable problem to lay at Lord St. Leger’s door, she thought. She wished she could see him again, just to give him a piece of her mind.

She spent a rather restless night and arose early the next morning. The only person at breakfast was her great-uncle, Bellard, who smiled with pleasure at seeing her. He was a quiet man usually, but Olivia was his favorite relative, and today he was full of news about the arrival the day before of his latest acquisition, a full complement of French and English soldiers, made out of tin and perfectly replicated down to each tiny ribbon or epaulet the armies of Napoleon and Wellington at Waterloo. Her uncle was a history buff, and his particular pleasure was recreating famous battles in history. On the third floor in this huge house, not far from the nursery, was a huge room given over entirely to tables on which the terrain and participants of such epic clashes as Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar, in which glass painted blue carried replicas of the ships involved, and Churchill’s win at Blenheim were laid out with exactitude.

A thin man, somewhat hunched over from years of poring over books and tabletop armies, Bellard was often subject to chills, especially in the poorly heated upper reaches of the house, and he was given to wearing a soft cap over his wispy white hair. A beaked nose gave him a look somewhat reminiscent of a bird, but the smile beneath it was so gentle and sweet that no one who saw it ever thought of considering him odd. He was simply Great-uncle Bellard, and his great-nieces and -nephews loved him.

After breakfast, Olivia returned with him to his workroom to review the tin figures he had unpacked, and then she left the house, a plain brown bonnet on her head to match her plain brown dress, whose severe lines were softened only by a conservative bustle in back, below which the garment fell in rows of ruffles of the same material, its one touch of frivolity. Her only ornamentation was a sensible gold watch hanging from a brooch on her chest.

The ducal carriage took her, as it did every morning, and deposited her in front of the door of a modest building containing a few offices. Olivia climbed the stairs to her second-floor office, where the door sported the same discreet title as her business card.

“Hello, Tom,” she said as she reached the door, taking out her key to unlock it.

Tom Quick, her assistant, sat on the floor beside the door, his shaggy yellow head turned down to the book in his lap. He jumped up at her words, grinning, and closed the book. “Good morning, miss. ’Ow are you this fair day?”

“Well, I believe, Tom. No need to ask you. You are obviously in good spirits.”

“Not from any misdoin’,” he assured her quickly.

Tom had been one of her brother Reed’s projects, a pickpocket whom he had caught attempting to steal his wallet some years ago. Reed had recognized the bright mind behind the dirty face, and instead of turning the lad in to the authorities, he had provided for his schooling. At her brother’s suggestion, Olivia had hired him for her office assistant two years ago and had never regretted it. No one, including Tom, knew his actual age or name; Quick had been an appellation given him for the speed with which he could pick a pocket. He was, Olivia judged, somewhere between sixteen and eighteen, with a worldly-wise view of life far beyond his years. Slavishly devoted to both Reed and Olivia, Tom refused to leave her, though Olivia was sure that he could have earned more as a clerk for a larger firm. She also suspected, though she had never confronted him about it, that Tom and Reed considered his job more one of unobtrusively protecting Olivia than of actually clerking.

“‘Ow’d it go last night?” Tom asked as she unlocked the door and they went inside.

He went around raising the shades on the windows while Olivia walked over to her desk. “Not well at all, I’m afraid.” She described as briefly as she could the contretemps that had arisen at the séance the night before, spoiling her plans.

Tom reacted with appropriate shock and dismay. “That’s ‘orrible, miss. Wot are you goin’ to do now?”

“Forget Mrs. Terhune, I’m afraid. It wasn’t even a paying case. I am just so incensed at her foisting those obvious daguerrotypes off as ghosts. Anyone can see that they are flat.”

“Anyone except her followers,” Tom pointed out.

“I know. I suppose I should let them be deceived, if they are so foolish.” Olivia sighed.

“There’s some as are born marks, miss, and that’s the truth.” He came over and perched on the edge of her desk. “I guess we’ll ‘ave to start lookin’ into somethin’ else, wot do you say?”

“I’d love to,” Olivia admitted, glancing over her tidily arranged desk. “The only problem is, I haven’t any cases.”

The business, never robust, had trickled down to almost nothing in the past year. Olivia had spent much of her time conducting investigations on her own, compiling evidence of the tricks used by the mediums.

“You’re never thinkin’ of givin’ up, are you, miss?” Tom looked faintly horrified.

“No. I won’t give up. I cannot stand to think of these people fleecing the bereaved, taking advantage of people at their most vulnerable.... It is just that I am at something of a standstill. We have no new cases. I have done research until I’m not sure what to look into anymore. I cannot force my way into people’s homes and say, ‘Look here, let me prove to you that that man is lying when he says he can communicate with your dead mother or husband or whoever.’”

“Well, look on the bright side. We might get a new customer any time now. Until then, we’ll just make do.”

“Yes. Of course, you’re right.” She gave him a smile. “I shall get to work writing up my experiences last night, and we can close that file.”

She pulled out a sheet of paper and dipped her pen in the inkwell, then settled down to do as she had said. She found it rather difficult, however, to put into words what had happened the night before without it sounding completely foolish and unscientific. No matter how she couched it, she could not get around the fact that Lord St. Leger had grabbed her arm, and she had screamed, and they had wound up getting thrown out of the séance.

Olivia had finally finished sweating through the report and was tucking the file away in a cabinet marked Closed when there was the sound of footsteps on the stairs. She could not help glancing up expectantly, waiting for the steps to stop outside their door, even though she knew that there were two other offices on this floor and more above it, and the odds were the steps would not stop here. Indeed, hardly anyone ever came here, except members of her family now and then.

There was a sharp rap at the door, and Olivia jumped, startled. She glanced over at Tom, who nodded at her with a grin before he jumped up and walked over to open the door. He pulled it open to reveal a tall man standing in the hall. The man looked at Tom, somewhat surprised, then past him into the office, his gaze coming to rest on Olivia.

Olivia simply stared at him, stunned. She had never expected to see this man again. Excitement leaped in her stomach, even as the rest of her seemed frozen. Her reaction annoyed her. She swallowed and forced her legs to move, propelling her up and toward the door.

“Lord St. Leger,” she said, pleased that her voice came out cool and calm. “What a surprise. Please, do come in.”

St. Leger took off his hat and stepped past Tom, who was regarding him with great interest. He stopped and glanced around the office somewhat awkwardly. “I...um...”

“Are you in need of some investigating, sir?” Tom jumped in, reaching to take Lord St. Leger’s hat and hang it on the rack by the door. “You’ve come to the right place, then. There’s none better than us for tracking down those psychic phenomena.”

“Are there any others?” St. Leger asked, faintly surprised.

“Well, um...” Tom looked abashed, but quickly recovered. “No, you’re right. We’re not only the best at it, we’re the only.”

“Lord St. Leger, please, sit down.” Olivia gestured toward the chair beside her desk, ready for a customer to sit down and spill out his problem. She cast Tom a quelling look.

Her assistant cocked an eyebrow but hung back, sitting down at his desk and pretending to be busy sorting papers.

Lord St. Leger went to the chair Olivia had indicated, politely waiting for her to take her seat behind the desk before he sat down. Olivia looked at him, waiting. He looked at her, then away, then cleared his throat. An awkward silence stretched between them. Across the room, Tom moved restively in his seat.

Finally Olivia said, “Is there some way that I can be of assistance to you, my lord?”

“I—” He looked at her and sighed. “Frankly, I don’t know. Lady Ol—”

“I prefer Miss Moreland,” Olivia said. His eyes, she thought, were really a most extraordinary color, even brighter here in the well-lit room than they had been last night. Silver—or perhaps pewter was a closer color.

“Miss Moreland,” he repeated. “I—I am afraid that we got off on the wrong foot last night.”

“You might say that, if you consider seizing me and accusing me of being a charlatan and later calling me mad ‘getting off on the wrong foot.’”

Faint color stained his cheekbones, and he looked abashed. “I did not mean—I was simply surprised when I realized who you were, and the phrase popped out. It was something I had heard over the years, and, well, in my surprise, I didn’t think. I apologize sincerely, and I assure you that I do not think that you—or your family—is insane. I am sure no one does. It is merely a—a silly appellation.”

Olivia continued to gaze at him coolly, and finally he went on. “I apologize, too, for accusing you of being Mrs. Terhune’s assistant. However, you have to admit that there were circumstances that made it seem that you were.” His eyes flashed as he said, “The scene at the séance was not entirely my fault.”

When Olivia did not answer, he sighed and stood up. “I can see I am wasting my time here.”

“No! No, wait.” Olivia popped up, too, and extended a hand as if to detain him, then blushed and let it fall to her side. “I accept your apology. What is it that you want? What can we do for you?”

He hesitated, then sat back down. “I’m not sure—well, what exactly is it that you do here?”

“We investigate the occurrence of certain odd and inexplicable events.”

“Ghosts?” he asked with an ironic undertone.

“I have never been called upon to investigate ghosts, my lord. In general, it is the people who call themselves mediums and their practices which I have investigated.”

“Like Mrs. Terhune last night.”

“Precisely.”

“Why?”

“Because I dislike fraud, my lord, and I find it reprehensible that someone deceives people, often those grieving for a dead loved one, by pretending that he or she can communicate with the dead, in particular those departed loved ones.”

“Then you don’t believe they can communicate with the spirits from beyond?”

“I have never found one yet who did,” Olivia returned crisply. “None of them have offered proof that satisfied me.”

“Do you know a woman named Madame Valenskaya?”

“I have heard of her,” Olivia replied. “I have not met the woman myself.”

“Do you think that she can communicate with spirits?”

“I have not investigated her, but based on my experience with other mediums, I would say that it is highly unlikely. In general, Lord St. Leger, mediums employ a number of tricks to make it appear that so-called spirits are in the room with them. They insist on having the right atmosphere in the room, which generally means the room must be in darkness or very low light. Then the ‘spirits’ visit them in the form of rappings or sometimes as luminous things floating in the air, or even ghostly looking people. They will offer ‘proof’ that they are not themselves causing these things to occur. This ‘proof’ usually comes in the form of their having everyone hold hands around a circle, so that someone on either side is holding the medium’s hand. They even have the people on either side place their foot upon each of the medium’s feet under the table. Then when the rapping comes, the people on either side can vouch that the medium did not use her hands or feet.”

“So how do they accomplish the rappings?”

“Some, like the Fox sisters, said that they were able to crack their toes inside their shoes and even their knees, as well, to produce the rapping. They will wear shoes that are too big for their feet, so that they can pull their foot down inside the shoe and crack the toes or even pull their feet out of the shoe altogether. Then they can crack their toes or raise their knee and knock against the underside of the table. Another common ruse is to have an accomplice in the group, and that person sits on one side of the medium. He will say that he held the medium’s hand throughout the course of the séance, but in reality, one of her hands is free. Also, under cover of darkness, the medium can arrange it so that the innocent person on the other side of her is actually taking hold of her accomplice’s hand and foot instead of her own. Then she is free to flit around the room doing whatever she pleases.”

Olivia, warming to her subject, stood up and went to a nearby cabinet, opening it to reveal a number of items inside. “This bottle contains phosphorescent paint. They can paint it on whatever object they wish to hang in the air in a ghostly glowing way—a popular one is a trumpet. They can put it on a piece of thin cloth, such as gauze, and when they are free of the table, they-or an accomplice who was not even in the room to begin with—can drape this gauze over themselves, and in the dark they give off the appearance of a ghost. I have known intelligent, even scientific, gentleman to be completely won over by the appearance of one of these ‘ghosts.’”

St. Leger came over to the cabinet and stood beside her. Olivia was tinglingly aware of his presence, the heat of his large body, the faint smell of shaving soap that clung to his skin. St. Leger looked down dubiously at the length of gauze and the tin toy trumpet and harp that had all been painted with phosphorescent paint. At length he said, “It’s absurd. Why would anyone believe these things?”

“Well, they are more impressive viewed in the dark, glowing and seeming suspended in air,” Olivia pointed out. “There is heightened tension. People are waiting for the unknown, hoping, and probably a little fearful. And if one believes, as these people do, that the medium is still firmly planted in her chair, then it must seem that these things appear freely, just hanging magically in the air. Even I, I confess, have felt a little shiver down my spine when one has appeared. And I know how the tricks are done.”

“What is that?” He pointed to a short black rod, narrow in diameter, with a clamp on one end.

“A telescoping rod,” Olivia explained, taking the rod out and pulling it out to its full length of four feet. “They can hold the objects up quite high with this, but then it can be pushed back down to a foot and easily concealed, like the other things in their capacious pockets. You will notice that the mediums always wear rather full garments, with plenty of room for deep pockets inside, where they do not show. Few people will insist on searching a medium’s body that closely. It would be considered impolite.”

He nodded. “What about this cabinet thing that Mrs. Terhune was locked in?”

“Oh, that is another ‘proof’ that the medium is not the person committing the acts those in attendance see. The medium sits down on a chair inside the cabinet, and she is tied up as Mrs. Terhune was. In these instances, the medium is skilled at getting out of knots or she has an accomplice who makes sure that the knots are loosely tied, or a combination of both. Then the door is closed and even sometimes locked. The lamp is turned out, so that no one can see, and sometimes the group is encouraged to sing to welcome the spirits. The singing helps to cover any noises the medium makes getting out of her ropes inside the box. Then she’ll put on the phosphorescent gauze and leave the box, or even just stand inside it and let her head show over the door, or hold up a painted glove or trumpet or such. Mrs. Terhune holds up pictures of people’s heads. It is quite ludicrous to see, except that most of the people there believe they are ghosts. Then the medium ties herself back up, and when the guests open the door again, she pretends to come out of her trance and wants to know what happened.”

St. Leger frowned. “It all seems so simple. So obvious.”

“It is. But most people don’t look at what they see critically or logically. They want the medium to be genuine. They want to believe their loved one can still see them and talk to them. They want to believe that life goes on after one dies. It is easy to believe when one wants to so much.”

“I suppose.” St. Leger looked at her thoughtfully. “If you were to go to a medium’s séance, could you spot the tricks? Could you expose her?”

“I think so. It might take a few times. Spotting what she does is not as difficult as proving it. I can explain what tricks I think she uses, but usually the victim is so eager to believe the medium is real that I would have to catch her in the act to make the victim believe that it’s a trick.”

He nodded. Olivia watched him. She could almost see the thoughts turning in his head. She wondered who it was who was being deceived by a medium—presumably Madame Valenskaya, since he had mentioned her—and what relation the victim was to Lord St. Leger.

“What is it you would like me to do?” she asked finally.

He looked at her. “I want you to come to my home in the country for a few weeks.”


CHAPTER THREE

FOR A LONG moment Olivia simply stared at him. Across the room, Tom made a noise, quickly covered by a cough.

Finally she said, “I beg your pardon?”

St. Leger colored faintly, realizing how his words had sounded. Stephen did not understand why everything he said to this woman seemed to come out wrong. As soon as he had stepped inside the door and seen her again, he had been touched by that strange, elusive feeling he had experienced when he first looked at her. Then, for some reason, the dream he had had last night had come back to him, making him feel even stranger. It had been a peculiar dream, more vivid and real than any he could ever remember having, and having absolutely nothing to do with anything in his life. It was even more peculiar for his mind to keep returning to it during the day. The whole time he had been here, he thought, he had been extraordinarily inarticulate. It must be, he thought, that he was embarrassed to reveal his family’s vagaries to a stranger.

“I am sorry,” he said. “I know I must sound...odd. I have not told you what the problem is. The thing is—” He paused. “I trust you are discreet, as you say on your card?”

“Yes, of course. Neither Tom, my assistant, nor I would ever reveal anything of which you spoke to us.”

“It is not for myself that I worry. But my mother—my mother has been very distraught with grief for the past year. My older brother died, and she took it very hard, of course. This summer she brought my sister to London. And since she has been here, she has taken up with Madame Valenskaya. She thinks that the woman can communicate with the dead. I was not too worried at first. I assumed it was harmless enough. But I found out that she has been giving the woman quite valuable possessions. I fear Madame Valenskaya is taking advantage of her. She manipulates her. I’m certain of it. Somehow she worked Lady St. Leger around to inviting her to our estate in the country, now that the season is over—and Madame’s daughter and her patron, as well, a chap named Howard Babington.”

“Oh. I see.”

“I am not a tyrant. I could scarcely tell her that she could not invite them. She is completely enamored of this woman....”

Olivia nodded sympathetically. “It makes it difficult.”

“It occurred to me that perhaps you could investigate Madame Valenskaya. But of course, since she is going to be at Blackhope with us, you would have to come there. However, that might be easier if you could come as a guest, also. She wouldn’t have to know that you are investigating her. Is she likely to know what you do?”

“I wouldn’t think so. I’m not that famous. Few enough people have taken advantage of my services.”

“Then I would be most grateful if you could come. If, of course, you are willing to do so.”

“Yes, of course.” Olivia saw no point in telling him that the prospect of spending a good deal of time with him in the same house made her heart speed up and her throat turn dry. She was not accustomed to being a guest at country house parties. She was not a social person, as was Kyria, and she certainly wasn’t used to spending time in such close proximity to any male who was not a member of her family or Tom.

“It, ah, might actually be easier to catch her out in a house with which she is not familiar,” Olivia went on. “When the séances are held in the medium’s own home or that of her accomplice, they can rig up various things in the room—wires that let down the objects that appear in midair, trapdoors in the floor through which something or someone can rise up, that sort of thing. The easiest to do in one’s own home is to have an accomplice hidden in the next room to do the rappings on the wall between the rooms. But in your house, there would be no access to any of those things.”

“Then you’ll do it?”

“Yes. But Tom must come with me. My assistant.”

He glanced at Tom, who was grinning from ear to ear at the prospect of an adventure. “Yes, of course, if you wish.”

“He can be one of my servants, you know, for helping with the bags and such.” Tom looked less pleased at this idea, and Olivia told him, “That way you can investigate through the servants, listen to the gossip. And people talk much more freely in front of servants than others, and they don’t question your being in a guest’s room, generally.”

Tom brightened. “That’s right. Mayhap this Madame will have a servant, too, and I can get ’em to talk.”

“Yes. That would be wonderful.” Excitement was growing in Olivia. She had never had such a splendid opportunity to investigate a medium before—a long period of time and the host’s permission. Her eyes shone as she looked up at Stephen. “Lord St. Leger, I appreciate this sincerely.”

“Stephen,” he said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“My name is Stephen. Surely if we know each other well enough for me to invite you to a house party, you should call me by my given name.”

“Oh!” Olivia felt a flush start on her cheeks, and she was embarrassed that such a simple thing should discombobulate her so. “Stephen. Of course. And my name is Olivia.”

“Olivia.” He reached out and took her hand, bending a little and brushing his lips against it in a courtly fashion. “Thank you. I shall look forward to your arrival. My mother will write you an invitation posthaste.”

Olivia firmly squelched the little flutter in her insides that his words caused. He wanted her help, that was all. “What—who are you going to tell her that I am?”

“A friend,” he replied, and his mouth crooked up into a grin. “Mother will be so delighted that a duke’s daughter is coming that I am sure she will not inquire too deeply into it.”

Olivia said nothing, but she had her doubts. Mothers, in her experience, rarely required so little elaboration as that.

Her own family, predictably, reacted to her announcement of her intended journey with a plethora of questions. She told them at the supper table, feeling that it was easiest to get it over with all at once.

Her mother, naturally, narrowed her sharp green eyes and said, “St. Leger? Who is he? How does he feel about the women’s vote?”

“I don’t know, Mother. I haven’t actually asked him.”

“Well, what could be more important to know about a man?” her mother countered. Tall, with flaming red hair now somewhat tempered by streaks of gray, she was a commanding woman, and Olivia generally felt inadequate when talking to her.

“Some would say the condition of his pockets,” Kyria put in lightly.

The duchess favored her red-haired daughter, so much an image of her in looks, with a grimace. “Honestly, Kyria, one would think you were frivolous, the way you talk.”

“Yes, Mama, I am afraid so.”

“Who is this chap?” the duke put in mildly. “Lord St. Leger? Do I know him?”

“He’s back from the United States.” Olivia’s brother Reed spoke up. “Younger brother. Inherited his title from Roderick St. Leger. He died some time back in a hunting accident.”

“Didn’t know the fellow,” the duke said dismissively.

“I knew Roderick somewhat,” Reed added. “He went to my club.” He shrugged. “An ordinary sort, I would have said. I don’t know the present earl.” He looked at Olivia. “What I am wondering is how you know him. I heard he’d been at his estate ever since he came back to England.”

“He is here now,” Olivia replied, adding, “I met him at a social gathering a few days ago.”

“Social gathering?” Thisbe’s husband Desmond asked, looking surprised. “You went to a par—ow!” He broke off and cast a wounded look at his wife, reaching down surreptitiously to rub his leg.

“Yes, Olivia told Kyria and me about him the other night,” Thisbe said airily. “We were discussing the, um, party where she met him.”

“You mean you barely know the man?” Reed asked, frowning.

“Oh, don’t turn big brother on us,” Kyria said, shooting him a loving but teasing glance. “As if Olivia doesn’t know what she’s doing! If Olivia feels that it is all right to attend this house party, then that is all we need to know, isn’t it, Mama?”

“Quite right, Kyria.” The duchess leveled a stern look at her son. “Reed, dear, Olivia is a grown woman and quite capable of deciding what she should or should not do without having to answer to the men of the family.”

“Yes, of course, Mother.” Reed sent Kyria a disgruntled glance. “If it were Kyria, of course, I would not say anything.”

“Liar,” Kyria stuck in.

“Kyria, don’t be disrespectful,” the duchess told her.

“But Olivia is not as sophisticated as Kyria,” Reed said.

“Yes, but I’m not stupid, either,” Olivia flared. “I think I can tell whether a man is a villain or not.”

She would have liked to tell them that she was going in a professional capacity, not attending a social function, but, mindful of her promise to St. Leger to keep the matter quiet, she felt she could not. She could trust Reed, of course, not to tell anyone, but she wasn’t as sure about the rest of them. They were not gossips, but such social matters held little interest for her mother, and her father was rather vague; there was no surety that they would remember that they were supposed to keep the matter quiet. They would all be likely to talk about it among themselves, too, and servants soaked up the gossip. It would soon be all over town. So she kept quiet. Besides, it was, she thought, rather pleasant to have them think that she was actually the object of a man’s interest.

“I did not mean that, Livvy,” Reed protested.

“I’ve never heard they were villains,” Great-uncle Bellard piped up suddenly, surprising them all. They all turned to look at him as he continued. “Old family. Title goes back to Elizabeth, or maybe it was Henry VIII. Unbroken line, I believe. There are a few legends surrounding them. I’m not sure offhand...I think one of them hid King Charles I from the Roundheads. I’ll have to look them up.” He smiled at the prospect of doing some research. “Their ancestral home is something oddly named. Bleak—no, Blackhope! That’s it. Blackhope Hall.”

“Ooh,” Kyria said, wiggling her eyebrows. “That sounds ominous.”

“Really, Kyria, you read far too many gothic novels,” the duchess said disapprovingly. “I am sure there is nothing ominous about the place. Old houses frequently acquire the most peculiar names. Isn’t that right, Uncle Bellard?”

“Oh, yes, indeed,” the old man agreed, nodding happily.

“Well, I think it sounds romantic,” Kyria said decisively. “You know, the sort of place where one might get swept off one’s feet.”

“I should hope not!” the duchess exclaimed, and turned to give her youngest daughter a worried look.

“I am not going to get swept off my feet,” Olivia retorted firmly, casting her sister a dark look. “I promise.”

“I suppose not,” Kyria admitted with a sigh. “Still, there’s nothing to say you can’t make a conquest. Let’s go to your room after supper and look through your wardrobe. Surely we can find something that Joan can give some spark to.”

“My wardrobe!” Olivia squeaked. “But why? I don’t want a spark.”

“Nonsense. Whether you want one or not, you deserve one,” Kyria retorted firmly.

Olivia suppressed a groan. She had no desire to have Kyria exclaiming in horror over her clothes all evening, but she knew that she hadn’t a hope of stopping her strong-minded sister. She gave in with ill grace, trailing up the stairs after Kyria when the evening meal was over.

“I don’t see why I can’t wear what I always do,” Olivia complained, even though she knew it was useless.

Kyria turned and cast an expressive look at Olivia’s plain brown skirt and bodice. “Olivia, this is a party. You can’t go looking as though you are the family governess.”

“I am not trying to ‘catch’ Lord St. Leger,” Olivia retorted huffily.

“Then why are you going?”

Olivia looked into her sister’s clear green gaze, and her own eyes fell. “I—well, that is, Lord St. Leger and I are friends. That is all.”

“Then it is up to you to change that.” Kyria yanked on the bellpull and, when one of the maids popped in a moment later, sent the girl to fetch Joan, Kyria’s personal maid.

“I don’t understand why you are always trying to set me up with someone when you yourself are so set against marriage,” Olivia said feelingly.

“I am not set against marriage,” Kyria told her. For a flickering moment, sadness seemed to shadow her face, then was gone as she said, “It simply isn’t for me, you see.” She went to Olivia’s wardrobe closet and threw open the door, continuing, “But for others, it’s exactly right. Look at Thisbe, for instance. She’s happy as can be with her scientist.”

“I can’t imagine why you think that I am right for marriage. I have never had the slightest success with men.”

Kyria looked at her. “Being an accomplished flirt and being a good wife are entirely different things. Trust me. You are exactly the kind of person who makes an excellent wife, someone whose life is completed by having a husband and children. You are sweet and kind and generous, utterly loyal and enormously loving.”

“But so are you,” Olivia protested.

Kyria let out a light laugh. “That you think so, my love, is an indication of your sweetness, not mine.”

Kyria went through Olivia’s clothes, sighing now and then or shaking her head. “Honestly, Livvy, must you always choose such plain things? Where is that shawl I gave you last year?”

Olivia opened a drawer and pulled it out, caressing it as she handed it to Kyria. It was a beautiful silk shawl, patterned in golds and browns, with brown tassels hanging from it.

“Now, this will dress up your brown silk,” Kyria told her, draping it over the aforesaid gown.

“But, Kyria, I won’t be needing anything so—so fancy.”

“Why not? You will need nicer than this, my dear.”

“But it will not be a—a festive gathering,” Olivia said. “I—he—we merely have common interests. And it is a small group. His brother, you know, died not long ago.”

“A year. They are out of mourning by now. I’ve seen the girl at parties—small ones, of course. I suspect there will be a party or two, at least. There always is. And there is supper every evening. You have to dress for that, after all.”

“Well, yes, I suppose....” Olivia cast a look at the gown and shawl. It warmed her a little to think of wearing them, of looking, well, if not beautiful, at least not drab. After all, this was an occasion where she really did not have to look professional. They were hiding what she was doing under the guise of a house party. She was supposed to look like nothing other than a woman enjoying a social occasion.

“This gown will do, as well, I think,” Kyria went on, taking out an emerald-green evening gown, “though Joan will have to pull out all this lace in the bodice.”

“But the neckline will be far too low!” Olivia protested.

“The neckline will be fashionable,” Kyria countered. “And you have a very nice bosom. It’s time you showed it off a little.”

Kyria’s maid, Joan, a thin, plain girl with a haughty manner, came into the room. She was, according to Kyria, a jewel, having an excellent sense of color and style and being handy with a needle, as well as possessing a deft hand when it came to arranging one’s hair, and Kyria was much envied by other young women and matrons for having her. However, there was little chance of any of them being able to entice her away from Kyria, since Kyria had plucked her out of an orphanage at the age of thirteen, recognizing her artistic bent, and had taken Joan’s younger and rather slow-witted sister, as well, when Joan had pleaded that she could not leave without her. Joan was intensely loyal to her mistress and quite proud of her position as personal maid to the daughter of a duke, a far higher rung up the ladder of employment than she had ever hoped to reach.

With Joan’s help, Kyria went ruthlessly through Olivia’s clothes, pulling out the pieces she thought would do and deciding how to give them the desired “spark”—a smattering of lace at throat and cuffs to soften too severe a line, or a brooch or necklace to brighten a dull color, or a bit of embroidery to color a pale gray bodice. But nothing that Olivia owned satisfied either Kyria or Joan as a gown to wear to a dance or party, and they at last brought in two of Kyria’s own gowns—a peacock-blue satin and a dark gold silk that were both so beautiful that Olivia could not imagine them on herself—and Joan set to shortening and tucking and taking in here and there to fit Olivia’s shorter, slighter frame. Joan, Kyria assured her, was a marvel and would have the dresses done in time for her trip.

“Or she can finish one of them while you are there, of course,” she added casually.

“What?” Olivia stared at her. “What do you mean, while I am there? Joan will not be with me.”

“But of course she will. You must have someone to do your hair, after all, and since you haven’t a maid of your own, this will be the perfect solution. She’s an absolute wizard with hair. You’ll see.”

“But I don’t need a maid. That is precisely why I haven’t one. I can do my own hair, and all my gowns are made so I can fasten them without help.”

“Yes, I know you are very independent and self-sufficient,” Kyria said. “But you simply cannot go to a house party without even one servant. How would it look to Lady St. Leger?”

“As though I am sensible?” Olivia retorted. “No one needs the full-time services of a maid, least of all me.”

“Yes, yes, I know your views on the subject. But just this one time? For me?” Kyria smiled persuasively at her. “And think of Joan—she would love a trip, wouldn’t you, Joan?”

Joan looked faintly surprised but quickly agreed. “Oh, yes, my lady, a trip would be lovely.”

Olivia sighed and, after a few more token protests, gave up. A maid was unnecessary, and she did not, after all, need to appear any lovelier than she really was, but...she could not help but think with pleasure of how she would look in the made-over dresses and wonder what Lord St. Leger would think of the changes.

So it was that when she set off the next week for her trip to Lord St. Leger’s estate, she carried in her trunks two stunning gowns made over from Kyria’s stock and a number of her own clothes remade into far prettier frocks, and was accompanied on the train ride by two supposed servants. It was pure vanity, she knew, that she could not help but admire the new look of her travel-durable plain brown gown, now softened by a collar that framed her throat gracefully and decorated at the shoulder with a jaunty bit of gold braid. Joan had insisted on doing Olivia’s hair this morning, and though she had kept the general style of a bun at the nape of her neck to which Olivia was accustomed, she had somehow made the hair around her face softer and fuller instead of pulled back tightly into a knot. It was strange, Olivia thought, how she could look so much the same and yet so much prettier. She was unaware of how her own inner excitement had added a glow to her cheeks and a sparkle to her brown eyes.

Her little party was met at the train station in the village by St. Leger’s carriage and coachman. Tom helped the coachman stow their bags, then climbed up to the high seat to ride with him, while Olivia and Joan got inside. The plush seats were comfortable and the carriage well sprung, and Joan soon nodded off as the coach swayed rhythmically along, but Olivia was far too tense and excited to rest. She pushed back the curtain nearest her and looked out at the countryside that rolled by, eager to catch her first glimpse of Blackhope.

Finally she saw it, its light stone walls glowing almost golden in the rays of the setting sun—a sturdy Norman keep with steep blank outer walls, castellated at the top, and behind them the taller upthrust of the round tower, its stone walls broken only by narrow archer slits in the traditional shape of a cross. She drew in her breath sharply, some deep emotion stabbing into her chest.

For a moment the image shimmered before her, and then, as she blinked, it was gone.

Olivia stared in amazement, her heart picking up its beat. The house that lay on the hill in the distance was no ancient castle built for warfare but a sprawling stone mansion of differing levels, obviously added onto and enlarged, its only resemblance to the keep she had seen a moment before the fact that it was built of the same sort of light stone warmed by the dying light of the sun.

She leaned closer to the window, scarcely able to believe her eyes. She closed her eyes and reopened them slowly. Still the more modern house lay there. There was no ancient Norman keep.

Olivia sat back, clasping her hands together in her lap. She was glad that Kyria’s maid was not awake to see the doubtless stunned expression on her face. What had she just seen?

She could picture the castle in her mind’s eye—flags fluttering from the top of the battlements, the drawbridge down and huge gates open. It had been so clear, so real! Olivia leaned over and once again looked out the window. Still no castle sat on the horizon, only the graceful house.

As they drew nearer the house, she stared at it intently, trying to determine how her eye had somehow been tricked into thinking that she had seen an early Norman castle. She had spent too many years around her great-uncle Bellard not to recognize the type of castle she thought she had seen. It had been typical of the sort of structure erected seven or eight hundred years earlier, during the period after the Conquest—a castle built in times of war and unrest, the main purpose of which had been the defense of the lord of the castle, his family and men and the local villagers. Raised over the course of many years on a hill or some other easily defensible land, they were made of stone, with thick, strong walls and sturdy wooden gates, an outer wall surrounding the house itself, which was made of the same thick stone, a single tower rising higher than the rest.

The ancestral home of the St. Legers was clearly not such a castle. There was no outer wall, only the walls of the mansion, one end of it a blocky, almost castlelike structure with a squarish short tower on one end, with another wing added on to it in a style Olivia recognized as Elizabethan, and yet another wing running perpendicular to that one. It was a mixture of at least three different periods and styles, and yet somehow it blended into an attractive whole. Ivy covered one side wall, cut away from the windows and extended its tendrils partly across the front of the house, and despite its size, Blackhope Hall exuded a sense of warmth and hominess quite at odds with its sinister name.

As soon as the carriage pulled up in front of the house, a footman hurried out to open the carriage door for Olivia and help her down. “Welcome to Blackhope, my lady.”

He escorted her inside, while the carriage pulled around to the kitchen entrance to unload their trunks and let out Joan and Tom. Olivia walked through the front door into a large high-ceilinged room, which she recognized as having once been the great hall of the original medieval house. A more recent addition of a wide staircase rose to a landing, then split and gracefully arched in opposite directions up to the second floor. Lord St. Leger was coming down the stairs toward her, a smile on his face.

A thrill ran through Olivia, and she realized with some astonishment just how much she had been looking forward to this moment. She wasn’t sure why. She had met other men as attractive as Lord St. Leger—certainly others with smoother personalities—but she had never felt this excitement upon seeing any of them. She thought about her travel-stained appearance—crushed skirts and stray soft hairs no doubt escaping from the softer hairstyle into which Joan had fashioned it—and she wished she had been able to freshen up before facing Lord St. Leger.

“Miss Moreland, welcome to Blackhope.” He extended his hand to her as he came forward, taking the hand she held out to him. The same sort of jolt ran through her as it had the first time he had taken her hand, a sense of heat and something more, a sort of recognition.

Olivia didn’t understand it any more than she had the first time it happened, but she could not deny that she liked the feeling. “Lord St. Leger. Thank you for inviting me. You have a beautiful home.”

She did not mention the flash of vision she had had of the old castle; that was exactly the sort of thing that had given her family its common epithet. The sort of thing her grandmother had talked about that had always frightened Olivia as a child.

“I’m deuced glad you came,” Stephen confided in a lower voice, his hand still curled around hers, his gray eyes gazing into hers. “I was afraid you might decide not to.”

“Nonsense. Of course I came,” Olivia replied quickly. It occurred to her that her voice sounded much too eager, and she continued pragmatically, “I am looking forward to this investigation. It isn’t often that I have such an opportunity.”

“Yes. Naturally. I am fortunate you feel that way.” He sounded more formal now, and Olivia regretted her words. Why was she always at such a loss socially?

“Allow me to introduce you to my family. They are quite looking forward to meeting you.”

He offered her his arm and led her up the stairs and along a gallery to the double doors of a formal drawing room. There were several people in the room, and all turned toward them with an air of eager curiosity as Stephen and Olivia entered. For a moment, in Olivia’s natural shyness, there seemed to be a crowd, blurred and overwhelming, but as Stephen introduced her, they resolved themselves into individuals.

“Mother, allow me to introduce you to the Lady Olivia Moreland. Olivia, this is my mother, the Dowager Countess St. Leger.”

His mother, Olivia saw, was a pretty middle-aged woman, her dark hair having turned almost entirely white. Pleasant and plump, she wore the black clothes of mourning, including a black cap, its severity relieved a little by a row of black lace. Lady St. Leger greeted Olivia with a smile, her blue eyes lively with interest. It occurred to Olivia that St. Leger’s family must have the same sort of suspicions about his inviting her to this house party that her own family had, and she blushed a little as she returned the countess’s greeting.

“My brother’s widow, Lady Pamela, the Countess St. Leger,” Stephen went on flatly, indicating the woman sitting on a chair just beyond Lady St. Leger. She was a marked contrast to Lady St. Leger, her dress cut in smart lines and of the pale gray color indicative of reduced mourning, decorated with bands of black lace, and her face coolly beautiful and unlined with pain or sorrow. She was a blond-haired, blue-eyed beauty, the sort of woman who made Olivia feel clumsy and plain, and Olivia could not help but wonder why Lord St. Leger had not mentioned this woman before. She did not seem the kind of woman who would slip one’s mind.

“Lady Olivia.” Lady Pamela’s voice was cool, and there was a look of amused disdain in her eyes. Olivia colored faintly under her gaze, acutely aware of her own travel-stained state.

“And this child jumping out of her skin in eagerness is my sister, the Lady Belinda St. Leger.”

“I am not a child,” Belinda protested, directing a look of mock anger at her brother. Dark haired like her brother, she had bright eyes of a dark gray-blue, and she smiled merrily, fairly vibrating with youth and high spirits. She turned to Olivia, taking her hand and saying candidly, “I am so happy to meet you. We’ve all been dying to see you.”

“Belinda!” her mother said reprovingly. “Lady Olivia will think you have no manners.” But the doting smile she turned on her daughter took any sting out of her words.

“You know it’s the truth,” Belinda responded irrepressibly.

“Allow me to introduce my dear friend Madame Valenskaya to you,” Lady St. Leger said, turning toward the woman who sat beside her on the couch.

“I am ferry happy to meet you,” Madame Valenskaya said, inclining her head regally to Olivia, her voice surprisingly deep for such a small woman, and thickly accented.

Olivia responded, her eyes taking in the woman with interest. Madame Valenskaya was short and stocky. Sharp, button-black eyes, small inside the fleshy face, peered out at Olivia, and Olivia had the impression that Madame Valenskaya was sizing her up just as much as Olivia was analyzing her.

“And this is Irina, Madame’s daughter.” Lady St. Leger indicated a small, colorless young woman sitting in a chair somewhat removed from the others.

The girl gave Olivia a brief nod and an unaccented “Hello,” then glanced away. Olivia was unsure whether Irina was shy or simply rude.

“And Mr. Howard Babington,” Lady St. Leger said, smiling toward the man standing beside the window.

He had turned toward Olivia as she entered the room, and he gave her a polite smile and greeting now. This, Olivia knew, was Madame Valenskaya’s sponsor into society. Olivia did not know him, which was not unusual, as she did not go out much, but when she had asked Kyria about him, her sister had not heard his name, either, which meant that he was certainly not a member of the upper echelons of London society, if he was even a gentleman at all and not just a pretender like Valenskaya herself.

Mediums commonly had such sponsors, people who invited them into their homes and introduced them to their friends, who allowed them to conduct their séances in their houses and under the aegis of their good name. Some such sponsors were merely dupes, as fooled by the mediums as their other victims. Others, Olivia knew, were accomplices of the mediums, aiding them in perpetrating their frauds. She had no idea which Mr. Babington was.

A slight man of medium height, he had a pale, narrow face made even thinner by a pointed goatee. His hair was a light brown, as was his beard, and his eyes were hazel. He was, in general, a rather nondescript-looking fellow, neither handsome nor plain, and when he spoke, his voice was as nondescript as the rest of him. He was the kind of man, who, whether through intent or simply by nature, was easy to ignore and even easier to forget mere moments after one saw him.

“Such an honor,” he murmured, taking Olivia’s hand limply and letting go almost immediately.

“I am sure you must be tired after that long ride from London,” Lady St. Leger said kindly. “No doubt you would like to go to your room.”

“Thank you, my lady.” Olivia accepted the offer gratefully.

“I’ll show her to her room,” Belinda said cheerfully, popping up from her seat. She led Olivia out of the drawing room, then along the gallery and down another hall.

Belinda linked her arm companionably with one of Olivia’s and, leaning in, confided, “We were all agog to meet you. I hope you won’t take offense at our curiosity. You see, it is the first time that Stephen has asked a woman to the house. Well, I mean, since—well, since he’s been home this time.”

Olivia felt her cheeks flush hotly. “Oh, no, you mustn’t think—I mean, Lord St. Leger and I are merely friends. There is nothing to—well, to warrant any particular interest in me.”

She felt embarrassed by the St. Leger women’s assumption that Stephen was interested in her as a female and guilty that she was lying to them, or at least hiding knowledge from them. Yet she could tell them the truth about why she was here even less than she could have told her own family. Lady St. Leger would be horrified and insulted by Olivia’s real reason for visiting.

“Of course, Stephen has scarcely left the estate since he returned. He says he has too much to do, learning all the estate affairs.” She grimaced. “I don’t know. Sometimes I think he’s a little uncomfortable here. He was in America for almost ten years. But, then, no doubt you know that. How did you meet him? We’ve all been wondering like mad. It must have been when he was in London to fetch us, I suppose. But I didn’t think he went to any parties. He positively refused to go with us. It must have been romantic.”

“Oh! Oh, no, it wasn’t—we are merely friends,” Olivia repeated lamely. “We—uh, I met your brother through my brother, Reed. Lord St. Leger came to call on him, and I happened to be there.”

Olivia thought to herself that she would have to remember to tell Lord St. Leger about their chance meeting. It had been foolish of them not to have dreamed up a story in advance. Naturally his family would be curious—and would not be distracted so easily, as her own family had been, by a diversion into the issue of equality for women. There were definitely advantages to having a liberal-thinking—and vague—group of relatives.

“So you see,” Olivia went on, “it was more prosaic than romantic. Lord St. Leger invited us both, but Reed could not come.”

Belinda looked at her assessingly, and Olivia thought that she was not completely dissuaded from her romantic notions by Olivia’s story, but then she shrugged and said, “Oh, well. At least it put Pamela’s nose out of joint.” She smiled a little at the thought.

“Lady St. Leger?” It was Olivia’s turn to look at her companion curiously. “What do you mean?”

“Oh! Well...” Belinda hesitated, then finished, “I mean, just that she’s used to being the lady of the house. You know, the most important female. And you’re the daughter of a duke, so of course you outrank her.”

Olivia, looking at the young woman’s guileless countenance, had the definite suspicion that Belinda’s explanation had not been her original thought. However, she could scarcely press her about it, so she merely smiled.

Belinda stopped at an open door. “Here is your room, my lady.”

“Oh, please—I do so dislike titles. I usually go by Miss Moreland,” Olivia protested uncomfortably.

The girl’s eyes widened, “Oh, but I could not call you that! Mama would be furious with me if I were so rude.”

“Well, then, perhaps just Olivia?” Olivia suggested.

Belinda goggled even more. “Truly?”

“Yes, of course. To tell you the truth, I do not feel much like the daughter of a duke.”

Belinda’s smile flashed across her face. “You are not high in the instep at all. I knew I would like you. I just felt it!”

Olivia chuckled. “The feeling is mutual.” It would be, in truth, hard not to like the girl’s fresh and candid manner.

If possible, Belinda grew even sunnier, and she gave Olivia’s hand a quick squeeze. “This is your room. I hope everything is satisfactory. If not, Mama would be happy to change you around.”

“Oh, no. It is a lovely room.” It was indeed a pretty place, spacious and elegant, with a set of windows on either side of the bed looking out on the rear garden.

Belinda left soon afterward, closing the door behind her, and Olivia sank down with relief onto a chaise longue. It was more tiring to play a part than she would have imagined, she realized. Nor could she completely stifle a twinge of guilt over the fact that Stephen’s mother and sister assumed her to be a woman for whom Stephen had feelings. Well, she had done her best to set Belinda straight about that, she reminded herself. She could not make them believe differently.

There was a knock at the door, and Joan bustled into the room, followed by Tom with her trunk. Joan set about unpacking the trunk and putting away Olivia’s clothes, while Tom and Olivia held a low-voiced conference. He was, he assured her, settled into the servants quarters, and he had great hopes of soon being in the know of all the gossip. He had already heard that neither Madame Valenskaya nor her daughter had brought a maid nor Mr. Babington a valet, which caused St. Leger’s servants to hold them in disdain.

“I’m not sure that the lack of a maid is something we can hold against them,” Olivia commented.

“Aye, well, the maids as are ‘avin’ to do double duty hold it against ‘em.”

“Oh. I see.”

“Yeah. Two of the upstairs girls were arguin’ somethin’ fierce over which one of ’em had to go help the Valenskayas dress for dinner.” He sighed. “Makes my job harder, too. I was ‘opin’ to get some gossip from their maid.”

“Well, perhaps it’s an opportunity. What if you were to volunteer to act as Mr. Babington’s valet?”

Tom looked none too pleased at the idea at first, but as he thought about it, his expression brightened. “Aye, that’s a cunning thought, miss. He might let somethin’ slip to me, and it’ll set me up right with the lot downstairs, too.”

Tom went off with renewed eagerness, and Olivia turned back to help Joan unpack. Joan, however, looked clearly affronted by Olivia’s offer. “It’s resting you should be, my lady. Dinner is at eight, so we shall have to do your hair and dress in another hour or so. You lie down while I get the wrinkles out of your dress.”

Olivia gave in, too tired not to, and she awoke thirty minutes later feeling much refreshed. She arose and washed up just in time for Joan’s entrance with her dinner gown, freshly pressed. It was her own emerald-green satin gown on which Kyria had lowered the neckline to what seemed to Olivia a scandalous degree by ripping out the lace trim above it. Still, she had to admit, when she was in the dress, her hair artfully arranged into curls by Joan’s nimble fingers, that she did look, well—rather pretty.

Her pride in her appearance lasted only until Lady Pamela St. Leger swept into the dining room after all the rest of them had gathered there. There was no way she herself could compete, Olivia knew, with the woman’s narrow waist and the smooth expanse of white chest and bosom revealed by the low-cut black gown. Why, she wondered, looking at Pamela, had she ever worried that her own gown revealed too much bosom?

Subdued by the other woman’s blond beauty, it took Olivia some time to notice that the widow’s flirtatious comments seemed to fall on deaf ears where Lord St. Leger was concerned. He looked, if anything, bored, and for much of the rest of the dinner, Pamela directed most of her words and glances at Mr. Babington.

Halfway through dinner, the Dowager Countess St. Leger said, smiling, “Madame Valenskaya, I hope we can persuade you to honor us tonight with a sitting.”

Lord St. Leger stiffened and shot a glance at Olivia. She turned interestedly to the Russian woman, who had spent most of the meal silently plowing her way through her food.

Madame Valenskaya paused now and looked at Lady St. Leger. “Da,” she returned in her guttural accent. “It is you who honors me, my lady. But, as you know, spirits are not always, how you say, ready.”

“Of course,” Lady St. Leger agreed eagerly, her face alight with enthusiasm. “But it would be so good of you to try.”

“Da, da. I will try. For you, my lady.”

Lady St. Leger turned to Olivia. “Madame Valenskaya is a gifted medium, my lady. I do not know if you have any experience in such things....”

“I have long been interested in matters of the spiritual world,” Olivia told her pleasantly. “If you are about to hold a séance, I would very much like to join you.”

Lady St. Leger beamed. “That is so good of you, Lady Olivia. It is just splendid. Stephen? I hope you, too, will join us.”

“Of course.” Stephen nodded shortly. “If you wish.”

So it was that, after the meal, the group gathered in the smaller, less formal dining room, grouped around the table. There was an empty chair at the head of the table for Madame Valenskaya, who had excused herself to go to her room to “attune” herself to the spiritual vibrations of “the other side.” Irina, so far so quiet that one would hardly know she was in the room, spoke up to arrange the rest of the seating. She put herself on one side of her mother, Olivia noticed, with Mr. Babington on the other. She put Stephen’s mother next to Babington and Pamela next to herself, with Belinda beyond her and Stephen at the opposite end of the table from Madame Valenskaya. Olivia had little doubt but that Lord St. Leger’s position farthest from the medium was quite deliberate, buffering the medium from him with her followers. Olivia herself was placed opposite Belinda, and between Stephen and his mother.

Madame Valenskaya swept into the room and crossed to the head of the table, hands clasped at her waist and eyes turned downward as if in deep thought. At a look from Lady St. Leger, the attending footman left the room, closing the door after him.

The room was quiet as Valenskaya took her seat. A kerosene lamp sat in the middle of the table, casting a soft circle of light around them. Olivia cast a quick glance around the room. Stephen’s features might have been set in stone, his gray eyes cool and watchful. Lady St. Leger’s face, unlike her son’s, was filled with anticipation. Belinda, too, looked excited, but Pamela’s expression was more bored than anything else. Irina’s face, at the opposite corner from Olivia, was partially in shadows and difficult to read. Babington’s countenance, however, shone with something close to adoration as he gazed at the medium beside him.




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