Mesmerized

by Candace Camp

  “My mother is well-known for her many good causes, if that is what you mean,” Olivia said pleasantly, gazing back at Pamela with equally hard eyes.

  “She is very…forward thinking, is she not?”

  “Yes, she is.”

  “Pamela…” Lady St. Leger said, casting an anxious glance at Olivia.

  “What do you mean?” Belinda asked curiously.

  Lady St. Leger looked as if she had swallowed a bug. Pamela’s smile was like cut glass.

  “She means,” said Olivia coolly, “that my mother believes in such things as education for poor children and better treatment of workers in factories and women having the right to vote.”

  “Really?” Belinda’s eyes widened. “But isn’t that a good thing? That poor children get educated and that people are treated well?”

  “Yes, of course.” Olivia smiled and nodded. “My mother has a great deal of compassion, a trait that, I am afraid, is all too often missing in some women of the nobility.” She turned her eyes significantly back to Pamela.

  Stephen let out a short bark of laughter. “Pamela, if you persist in trying to engage Lady Olivia in a battle of wits, you are bound to lose, you know.”

  Fire flared in Pamela’s eyes, though she quickly hid it by lowering her eyes. “Why, Stephen, I am hurt that you should think I meant anything bad,” she said, and when she raised her cornflower-blue eyes again, they were swimming in tears. “I was merely interested in Lady Olivia’s family.”

  “Of course,” Olivia said briskly. “I am quite proud of my mother, so I never mind talking about her.”

  A small silence fell on the table after that. Olivia glanced at Lady St. Leger, who still looked a trifle uncomfortable. In an effort to assure Stephen’s mother that she had not been offended by Pamela’s remarks, Olivia said, “You have a lovely home, Lady St. Leger.”

  The older woman brightened and smiled at her gratefully. “Thank you, my lady. I am glad you think so. The house has been here for many, many years, of course, but I did do some redecorating. There were some places that were a trifle chilly—both literally and figuratively.”

  “I fear that is often so with stone houses,” Olivia commiserated.

  “Is a sad house.” Madame Valenskaya spoke up suddenly, and everyone’s eyes turned toward her. “Full of lost souls. I know. I hear dem crying out to me. Soon as I arrifed, I knew.”

  It was the first time Madame Valenskaya had spoken that evening, having been applying herself with some diligence to her food. But now she looked around the table at the rest of them, nodding her head for emphasis.

  Olivia glanced at the others. Stephen’s face was carefully blank; he was not going to get pulled into the same sort of mistake he had made the night before. Pamela looked cynical and faintly amused. Belinda was leaning forward, her eyes wide, clearly enjoying the drama of the moment. Lady St. Leger, however, was clasping her hands together at her breast, her expression worried, obviously hanging on to Madame Valenskaya’s every word.

  “I don’t know,” Olivia said calmly, keeping her face innocent. “It does not seem a sinister house to me at all. I find it quite spacious and lovely.”

  “Oh, Madame always knows,” Mr. Babington said earnestly, putting down his fork and leaning forward to look at Olivia. “She is very attuned to the spirit world. Whenever we enter a house, she knows if there are lost souls within it. There have been one or two she could not even bear to enter.”

  “Yes. Terrible places,” the medium agreed in her guttural voice. “Here is not bad. But I hear lost souls wailing.” She gave a dramatic shiver, adding, “Even de name oozes evil—Blackhope Hall.”

  “It has been named that forever,” Pamela commented. “It comes from some ancient time. I am sure it meant something innocuous at the time.”

  “I know about the name!” Belinda said, her eyes lighting. “My tutor told me last year. He had me research the history of the house as an exercise, you see. A long time ago, long before the St. Legers even owned it, the house was owned by some nobleman who shut himself up in his castle and spent all his time brooding over his dead wife. The book I read said that is how the house got its name.”

  “You see?” Madame Valenskaya exclaimed, eager to prove her point. “Another lost soul. There are many.”

  Olivia noticed that, in her excitement, the medium’s accent slipped a bit, her s’s losing their sibilance and her th’s clearly pronounced. Madame Valenskaya seemed to realize it, as well, for she added, “Is not good place. De spirits wail with pain.”

  “Madame, please tell us that you will conduct another séance tonight,” Lady St. Leger urged, her brow drawn into a frown. “You could help those spirits, perhaps.”

  “No. Not tonight. Is too soon.” Madame Valenskaya put a hand to her forehead dramatically. “I cannot try again. Is too painful.”

  “Mama suffers terribly sometimes,” Irina put in quietly. “Especially when the spirits are restless and tormented.”

  Watching the pain on Lady St. Leger’s face, Olivia had to press her lips together firmly to keep from saying anything. One glance at Lord St. Leger told her that he was having difficulty being quiet, also.

  “Perhaps tomorrow night,” Olivia said pacifically, hoping to forestall any words from Stephen, as well as ease his mother’s distress.

  “Yes, tomorrow night,” Lady St. Leger said, her words a plea.

  Madame Valenskaya nodded, her face that of a martyr. “I try.”

  “Thank you. You are so good.”

  After watching the medium’s manipulation of Lady St. Leger, Olivia found she had little appetite left. She was glad when the last course was brought in a moment later and they were able to finish the meal.

  Little happened the next day. There were country things to do, such as croquet on the front lawn or games in the drawing room, or piano playing and singing in the music room, and Olivia participated, but with a sense of passing time until the main event of the day, the next séance, could take place. Stephen spent most of the day in his office, working on estate matters, so Olivia saw him only at luncheon. She could not help but wonder if he was perhaps avoiding her because of the kiss between them the afternoon before. He had apologized, which was the gentlemanly thing to do. But now she began to wonder if perhaps he had meant his regrets, if he wished that it had not happened. Feeling a trifle blue, she picked out a book from the library late in the afternoon and went upstairs. After taking off her dress, she slipped on her dressing gown over her undergarments and settled down in a comfortable chair to read until time for supper.

  The afternoon sun was slipping below the horizon and dusk was falling outside when Joan came into the room, carrying Olivia’s freshly pressed evening gown. It was one of Kyria’s dresses that Joan had resewn for Olivia, a peacock-blue satin pulled tight across the front and gathered in a bustle at the back, with a spill of lace adorning the skirt from the bottom of the bustle down to the floor.

  Olivia went to look at the dress as Joan spread it out on the bed. She could not help but feel a prickle of excitement at the thought of wearing it in front of Stephen. Would his eyes light with pleasure as she had seen men’s eyes do when Kyria entered a room? She could not quite imagine it; she was not the sort of woman who lit a fire in men. Still, she could not forget that kiss.

  Joan picked up Olivia’s brush and comb, and Olivia sat down in front of the vanity mirror. Joan pulled the pins from Olivia’s hair and set about brushing it out in preparation for the more intricate style into which she intended to arrange it this evening. Suddenly a loud bang sounded from outside the windows, and Joan jumped, inadvertently hitting Olivia’s head with the brush.

  “I’m so sorry, my lady,” she began, but Olivia was already on her feet and crossing to the window, curious about the sound. The maid followed on her heels. When she reached the window and looked down into the garden Olivia came to a dead stop and stared at the tableau below. Joan, coming up beside her, sucked in her breath in a loud gasp.
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  Olivia leaned forward, closer to the glass of the window. In the garden, a figure walked along a path in the closing twilight. There was still enough light to see that the person pacing slowly wore not any common sort of attire but a long black, hooded robe of the sort worn by monks. His hands were crossed at his waist, the long sleeves covering them, and the cowl of his robe stood out from his face, concealing it.

  As Olivia watched, her skin prickling, the figure reached the end of the path, where it went down a series of steps to the lower garden. He turned and looked straight up at the windows of the house. Reaching up with one white hand, he pushed back the hood a little to reveal the stark white bony face of a skull.

  Joan made a sharp noise, clapping her hand over her mouth, and from down the hall there was a woman’s shriek. Olivia whirled and ran across the room, stopping to tell Joan, “Call Tom Quick!” before she bolted through the door. She ran down the hall to the stairs, heedless of the fact that she was wearing only a dressing gown and soft slippers and her hair was flowing loose down her back. All down the hall, other doors were opening and people emerging, exclaiming.

  Stephen was out of his door and to the head of the stairs a step ahead of Olivia, and they pounded down the stairs together. Aware that he was more knowledgeable about the house and gardens, she followed his lead, bunching up the long skirts of her dressing gown to give her legs better room to run.

  He tore through the downstairs hall and out the rear door to the garden, Olivia on his heels. Taking the steps down to the garden two at a time, he headed toward the path the cowled figure had walked. Olivia hastened after him along the flagstones, wincing when she stepped on the edge of a slab of rock in her thin house slippers. But she did not stop, only hurried doggedly after him as he reached the path leading down to the lower garden, where the “monk” had paced.

  There was, not surprisingly, no sign of the robed figure. Dusk had fallen fast, the poor light in which they had witnessed the “monk” now having turned to almost complete darkness. They walked quickly along the path to where they had last seen the figure and stopped at the top of the stairs leading down into the lower garden.

  “Bloody hell!” Stephen exclaimed. “We’ll never catch him in this light. He could have gone anywhere.”

  He turned and really looked at Olivia for the first time, taking in her disheveled state. Olivia realized that her sash had slipped loose during her mad dash, so that the sides of her dressing gown hung loosely, a gap down the center at the top exposing the white lace of her chemise. She straightened, raising her chin, and belted the robe more tightly.

  “I was about to dress for dinner,” she explained with all the dignity she could muster and pushed back her hair with her hands.

  Stephen’s eyes went to her hair, tumbling down to her hips, thick and brown, and it was a moment before he said, tight-lipped, “Yes, of course.”

  “Miss Olivia!” They turned, startled, and saw Tom Quick trotting toward them, holding a lantern in each hand.

  “Tom!” Olivia said gratefully. “Thank heavens you thought to bring a light.”

  “It were lookin’ that dark, I thought,” he agreed, handing one of the lanterns to St. Leger.

  “Good,” Stephen said. “Let’s see if we can catch some sign of him.”

  They went down the shallow steps into the lower garden. Tom, holding his lantern up to cast as much light as possible, turned to the right. Stephen and Olivia went the other way. Olivia, holding the long skirts of her dressing gown up to her ankles to keep them from brushing the ground, peered carefully to each side of her for any glimpse of their visitor. They wound through the west half of the garden, taking every path they found. Now and again they ran into Tom, searching from his side of the garden, and at last they came together at the very bottom of the garden, at the end of the path. Beyond lay only dark trees and, after that, a meadow. Not surprisingly, they had found no sign of their quarry.

  “It’s hopeless,” Stephen said with some bitterness. “Chasing someone dressed in black through the darkness…”

  “Especially given the fact that he had all that time to get away while we were running down the stairs and out to the garden,” Olivia added.

  “I know.” Stephen sighed. “We might as well return to the house. We can search tomorrow in the daylight. Perhaps we’ll find some trace of him.”

  They returned to the house to find the rest of the occupants in turmoil. Lady St. Leger, Pamela, Belinda and their guests were all milling about at the foot of the stairs, waiting for them.

  “Stephen!” Lady St. Leger pounced on him. “What was it? Did you see him again?”

  “I’ve never been so scared in my life!” Belinda exclaimed, grabbing her brother’s arm. Her white face attested to her words, though there was also the irrepressible excitement of a nineteen-year-old shining in her gray eyes. “What was it?”

  “I imagine it was someone dressed up in a robe,” Stephen replied flatly. “But he was gone by the time we got there.”

  Lady St. Leger was also still in her dressing gown, but Belinda and Pamela were dressed for dinner. Pamela, icily beautiful, as always, in gray silk and lace, cast a disparaging eye over Olivia’s attire. Olivia glanced down at her dressing gown, seeing that she had not managed to keep the hem of it entirely from the dirt; she had also, she realized, stepped on one of the ruffles of her petticoat and pulled it loose, so that it dragged on the ground, dangling and dirty.

  “Was there really someone outside in the garden, Stephen?” Pamela asked, her tone faintly derisive. “My chamber is on the wrong side, so I was not able to see this ‘ghost.”’

  “He was there!” Belinda snapped, whirling toward Lady Pamela fiercely. “Just because you didn’t see—”

  “It’s all right, Belinda.” Stephen laid a calming hand on her shoulder. He looked at Pamela. “Yes, I saw him, too. There was someone cavorting about in the garden, though I am sure it—”

  “Cavorting!” Lady St. Leger exclaimed. “How can you be so lighthearted about it? It was a horrible, hideous monk, with the face of a skeleton, and he was walking with such a slow, ponderous tread—a walk like doom. Like death!”

  Olivia went quickly over to the older woman and put her arm around her comfortingly. “It’s all right, Lady St. Leger. I’m sure. Please don’t distress yourself. Tomorrow, when it is light, we will make a better search. No doubt it will turn out to be something not very ominous.”

  Madame Valenskaya spoke up, saying portentously, “Spirits leaf no traces. Can you not see? It was a lost soul. It cried out to me. To you!” She pointed dramatically at Stephen. “How can you ignore it?”

  “Bloody hell!” Stephen burst out. “It was nothing but a man dressed up in a fake monk’s robe! But I am sure you already know—”

  “Lord St. Leger,” Olivia stuck in quickly, “your mother is very distressed. Perhaps you should take her up to her room.”

  “Yes. Of course.” He shot Olivia a grateful look and took his mother’s arm. “Let us go upstairs. You should lie down and rest. You will feel better.”

  “I won’t,” Lady St. Leger protested. “I’m much too frightened to close my eyes, let alone sleep. I have heard people talk about ghosts, but I never actually saw one before. It was ghastly.”

  “I’m sure you still have not seen one,” Stephen growled.

  “It was ghastly,” Olivia agreed. “Whatever it was.”

  “When it turned its face up, and I saw that skull—” Belinda shivered “—it nearly frightened me out of my wits.”

  “You were right to say that this place was full of lost souls, Madame.” Mr. Babington spoke up, his quiet voice firmer than normal. “Obviously that was one of the poor shades Lady St. Leger’s son spoke about.”

  “Yes. Of course. Is true.” Madame Valenskaya spoke slowly, nodding and looking downcast. “I am sorry, my lady. Blackhope is a dark place, full of unhappy souls.”

  “Madame, will you sit again tonight?” Lady St. Leger aske
d, leaving her son’s side and going over to the medium and looking hopefully into her face. “Please? I am sure it would be of great help in this matter.”

  The medium inclined her head regally. “Of course, my lady. I must help you. I will call on de spirits tonight.”

  Olivia cast a glance at Stephen, who gave her an ironic look in return but said nothing. She felt sure that he realized, as she did, that the only way they could discover Valenskaya’s scheme was to let the woman play out her act tonight.

  So, after the evening meal, which had been delayed almost to the point of ruination by the “ghostly appearance” and the subsequent turmoil, the household gathered once again around the table in the smaller dining room. They sat as they had before, with the medium at one end of the table, her cohorts on either side and Lord St. Leger as far from her as he could be placed. Once again Olivia sat between Lady St. Leger and Stephen, and even though she was prepared tonight for the sensation that ran through her when his hand folded around hers, the power of it was no less intense. She could not help but wonder what he felt when he took her hand and whether it shook him as much as it did her. Olivia thought of the kiss he had given her the day before; she hoped he could not read on her face where her thoughts lay.

  The lamps were turned out, and minutes passed silently as they waited for something to happen. At last Madame groaned quietly, and a moment later, the high tinkling sounds of music began to play on the air. It took Olivia a few moments to recognize it as “Fur Elise.”

  Apparently Lady St. Leger recognized it, too, for she clutched Olivia’s hand more tightly and gasped, “That song! That was one of Roddy’s favorites. Wasn’t it, Pamela?”

  From across the table, Pamela said in a hollow voice, “Yes. Yes, it was.”

  Stephen’s grip tightened around Olivia’s hand, and she knew that he was struggling to keep from once again interrupting the séance with a loud oath. She squeezed his hand in silent communication, and he returned the gesture, letting her know that he was in control of his emotions.