“As I have told you,” said Aldus, “the Vaughns are known to be honorable and true to their word. They carry a wide variety of titles, starting with the patriarch of the clan, the Duke of Elderwood. The family seat, Chantiloup Castle, is in Cheshire, but one step from Wales. The current duke is a young man named Modred, if you can believe that. Poor sod. Do not know anyone who has met the man. Sons, cousins, nephews, and the like all seem to stumble into titles of their own, from insignificant ones to quite impressive ones. Some come from the crown for services rendered, but many come through marriages, especially from women of titled families who lack sons to inherit everything. Not all titles pass only through the sons, and a little bribery can get many a will or entail changed. There is wealth there, too, enough to make such changes. If they were not so reclusive and rumored to be odd, that family could probably wield a great deal of power. So could the other branch of the family, the Wherlockes.”
“But why are they reclusive and deemed odd?” demanded Hartley.
“Well, ’tis said they can do and see things we mere mortals cannot. Such things as what got several of their ancestors tried and executed as witches, and had them all heavily persecuted for a time. That might be the cause of this lingering tendency to hide away from the world. Both sides of the family have a sad history of wives and husbands walking away never to return. The last one to do so was Lady Henrietta Vaughn, who was, I believe, Lady Alethea’s mother. She left her husband and four children about fourteen or fifteen years ago. Retired to a small estate in Sussex with an aging spinster aunt and refused to speak of her marriage.”
“She did occasionally let slip the opinion that her husband was in league with the devil,” said Gifford. “I recall her telling my aunt once that all the Vaughns are cursed, that that curse had stained her children with the devil’s mark so that she had to flee to save her own soul. My aunt said the woman was frighteningly pious. Still visits the woman from time to time when she goes to Sussex to visit her son, but claims the woman gets worse every year. Actually spoke of her children last spring, but my aunt Lily said it was all nonsense and she thinks the woman is losing her mind.”
“Did she tell you what that nonsense was?” asked Hartley.
“Some of it,” replied Gifford, “though Aunt Lily thinks it all delusions born of guilt over deserting her own children. The woman told my aunt that her daughter could foresee death, that at only six years of age the little girl had accurately described their closest neighbor’s death two full days before it happened. Aunt Lily said she might have believed that, but that then the woman told her that her eldest son could hurl things about without lifting a finger.”
“Nothing about seeing ghosts?”
“Er, no, although she has said a few things about her husband and spirits. Again, all this is according to Aunt Lily.” Gifford shrugged even as he watched Hartley closely. “It is the sort of thing one always hears about the Vaughns and the Wherlockes. They can do magic, read minds, see the future, talk to the dead, and so on. Always felt that it was how people explained the family’s avoidance of society.”
“Do you, either of you, believe in any of those things?”
“I do not disbelieve in them. Never seen anything to prove or disprove such things. Then again, look at Lord Iago. Young, handsome, titled, comfortably wealthy, and seems a good man. Why does he shun society so?” Gifford asked, and Aldus nodded his agreement.
“To avoid matchmaking mothers?”
“Possibly, but why does he not at least frequent any of the places bachelors do? He belongs to all the clubs, but one rarely sees him at any of them. He has a few close friends, true enough, but he is very reclusive, and I can find no reason why. No stutter, no disfigurement, no evil secret or even one of the sort the late Channing might have had, and no sign of a painful shyness, insanity, or even an unreasonable fear. All the Vaughns are like Lord Uppington to some extent. So, have you discovered their dark secret? Is that why we wait here to confront them, why you are so suddenly interested in them?”
“They know about Claudette.”
“Impossible,” said Aldus. “We have only just begun to suspect her ourselves. How could two recluses know about her?”
“My thoughts exactly,” said Hartley, “but they do. Supposedly, if I interpret what was said correctly, Lady Alethea has come to London to warn me about Madame Claudette, that I am in danger, possibly even for my life. They know about her lovers, are suspicious of her choices in men she takes to her bed, suspect she is not the frightened, innocent émigré she claims to be, and that she has a lot of blood on her hands.”
“Damnation—how?”
“Therein lies the problem. To hear them talk, all this knowledge it took us months to collect was given to them through her visions and his ghosts. Whatever I think or believe about all else I heard in that garden, one fact stands clear.”
“They know too much.”
“Exactly.” Hartley heard someone at the front door and tensed. “And now they might explain themselves. ’Tis to be hoped that they will do so without talk of spiritual visitations.”
Alethea clutched her sketchbook tightly against her chest as she and Iago were ushered into an elegant parlor to face Hartley and his two friends. The greetings and introductions were exchanged, and all the while she studied Lord Redgrave’s two friends. Aldus Covington was a minor baron with a very good chance of becoming a viscount. He was about Iago’s height and almost too slim, yet she suspected he had a limber strength. He was also handsome in a blue-eyed, blond, and classical way. Gifford Banning was an marquis, of an age and height with Lord Covington but broader in the shoulders, more obviously muscled, and quite startlingly handsome with his dark auburn hair and sharp green eyes.
All in all, she was standing amidst a veritable plethora of masculine beauty, wealth, and good breeding, she mused with an inner smile as she sat down on the settee Lord Redgrave led her to. The matchmaking mothers of society would tear her to pieces if they found out. She tensed slightly when Lord Redgrave sprawled on the settee at her side, leaving Iago to take the chair next to her side of the settee.
“At least there are no burly men with chains, ropes, or restraints of some sort,” she said quietly to Iago as the butler and a footman set out tea and cakes, refreshment that had obviously been readied for their arrival.
“They could be lurking in another room,” replied Iago in an equally quiet tone.
“We are the only ones here,” said Hartley the moment the servants left. “Would you care for something stronger than tea? Either of you?” When Alethea shook her head, he looked at Iago.
“No, thank you. Too soon after the drink I downed in the gardens.” He nodded when Alethea silently offered to pour him a cup of tea, and then smiled at the identical quizzical looks the other three men wore. “If you heard our entire conversation in the garden, Redgrave, then you will understand why I am cautious in my consumption of drink. It would not do at all for me to lose my, er, reticence.”
“Because you might begin to speak to the spirits you claim to see, and do so in public?” Hartley asked, inwardly cursing himself for mouthing the question, one formed from his curiosity, doubt, and, worse, a strange urge to be convinced.
“My lord, I never insist anyone believe as I do, only that they give the leave to do so,” Iago said.
Hartley nodded in appreciative response to that very polite set-down. It was very similar to the one Alethea had given him. He began to think they had to do it a lot.
“You truly see the dead?” asked Aldus, blithely ignoring Hartley’s glare. “Even speak to them?”
“I have since I was a very small child,” replied Iago. “I may have seen them from the moment I was born, but who can say? I would not be confessing such things except that it is quite obvious my secret is out, at least amongst the ones in this room.”
“Are there any here? In Redgrave’s home?”
“Yes, but not in this room, and none of them are malevolent.
”
“Can you make them show themselves or reveal themselves in some way?”
“No.”
“Curse it, Aldus, we have not brought them here so that you can request parlor tricks,” snapped Hartley. “I have always been curious about such things,” said Aldus, “yet I have never seen any proof.”
“If you saw proof, you would soon come to regret your curiosity,” Iago said in a quiet, somber voice and then turned his attention to his tea. “In fact, we would not even be having this discussion at all if the conversation between Alethea and me had not been overheard. I was too overset to take the usual precautions. I believe you can understand why we keep such things as secret as possible. History has taught us all the value of secrecy.”
Hartley frowned at the Vaughns and then at his companions, who did not look as doubtful as he thought they ought to. He would never have suspected the two intelligent, well-schooled men would have a superstitious bone in their bodies. Then again, he mused, perhaps they did not, for they showed no unease at all, not as he did. They both looked simply intrigued. Hartley hated the thought that he might be the only one with a newly discovered superstitious side. He inwardly shook his head and turned his attention back to the Vaughns.
“For the moment let us say that we all accept your, er, gifts as fact,” Hartley said, irritated by the glint of amusement he could see in the eyes of the Vaughns. “Just tell us how and when you came to know so much about Madame Claudette des Rouches.”
“I shall begin,” said Alethea, “for it was I who started it all, dragging Iago along with me, m’lord.”
“One quick suggestion. We will undoubtedly have a long discussion. Shall we set aside the proprieties a little and leave off the titles? There are four m’lords here. I believe using our Christian names will help to make things a little less confusing.”
“As you wish,” Alethea said after a quick nod of agreement from Iago and the others. “I had a vision four days ago.” She noticed Hartley looked annoyed, but his companions simply looked curious. “In it I saw you step out of a fine house. It had rather poorly carved griffins upon the posts at the base of the front steps. I could smell roses, and you looked, well, smug.” Hartley looked even more irritated, but his friends briefly grinned. “Then you were accosted and dragged into a large black carriage. What followed was somewhat alarming. Swift, intense images and emotions. There was a lot of pain. Torture, I believe. Five men tried to get you to tell them your secrets. Then a sudden urgency rose amongst them, followed by your death. Your throat was cut,” she whispered and then took a deep breath to steady herself. “I could not, at first, understand why they would kill you when you had yet to tell them what they wanted, but I now believe that urgency I sensed meant that they feared discovery.”
“That would make sense,” said Aldus.
“None of this makes much sense,” snapped Hartley. “How could you have visions about me, Alethea? We have never met before tonight.”
“True, but I do know you in a peculiar sort of way.”
“Why does that not surprise me?”
She ignored that remark and handed him her sketchbook, the one she kept on hand to record her visions of him. There were a few other drawings in there, for she had, on occasion, grabbed the wrong book while still caught in the grip of the confusion and agitation that often followed one of her visions. It was, however, all she could think of to show him, holding the slim hope that it would be enough to make him take her warning seriously.
“I have been having visions of you for some time, since I was five years old.” She watched Hartley’s two friends move quickly to look at her sketches when Hartley cursed softly and grew pale. “’Tis why I gave you your own book. Well, mostly your own. A few times I grasped the wrong book whilst confused after a vision. I did not see you all the time, but at least once a year for the last fifteen years. Sometimes it was a vision, a strong one or just a fleeting glimpse. Occasionally I would have a dream. There were even times when I just, well, sensed things. I did not intentionally intrude upon your privacy, Hartley. Truly, I did not. It occurred to me that, perhaps, all these previous glimpses of you were leading to this very specific warning.” She waited for his reaction, so tense that she was surprised she did not hear a bone or two crack beneath the strain.
Hartley stared at the drawings as he leafed through the book, reading the notations she had made on each page. She had a true skill: her sketches were clear, precise, and full of emotion. It was easy to see how her skill had improved over time. Her notes revealed that she had a keen, precise mind. He suspected that later he would be able to appreciate that. At the moment, however, his blood had grown cold.
He could easily recall each incident depicted in her drawings. There he stood at the graves of his mother, his father, his brother, his sister, and his dearest friend. There was the duel he had fought over that faithless jade, Cynthia. Alethea had peeked into so many of the most important moments of his life, he did not know whether to feel violated or terrified. After he went through the whole collection, he returned to the one that had briefly cut through his numb shock and studied it. When he realized why the simple drawing of him staring into the fire had so firmly grasped his interest, he abruptly shut the book and looked at her.
“Your eyes,” he whispered, feeling so unsettled that he briefly feared he might swoon like some maiden.
“Pardon?” she asked, wishing that he did not look so ill. That did not bode well for her chances of getting him to listen to her.
“The drawing in which I stand staring into the fireplace, a drink in my hand. I now understand why I felt as if I should know you when we were introduced, or I think I understand. I saw your eyes that night. I decided I had had too much to drink.” He handed her book back to her. “I wish I could use that excuse now. I consider myself a man of logic and science. This sort of thing is not logical. Ghosts are not logical.”
“No? Do you not believe in the soul, the spirit, which leaves the body to go to heaven or hell when a person dies?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“So, if there is a soul or spirit, why can it not linger awhile when death comes unexpectedly, too soon or too violently? Why can it not be confused or in need of finishing some task or be seeking justice for a wrong done to it? And, once one accepts that there is a soul or a spirit, why would it be so illogical for some people to be able to see it?”
“You have argued this many times.”
“Many, many times.”
“But how do you make visions sound logical?”
“Intuition that is simply more finely honed than that possessed by others.” She almost smiled at the sardonic look he gave her. “I have no wonderfully logical or scientific explanation for my gift. It just is. It has been with me for my whole life. I cannot rid myself of it and, sometimes, cannot even control it. I prefer to see it as a gift, inconvenient, sometimes annoying, and occasionally terrifying, but still a gift. Since it was given to me, I feel it is my duty to heed it. It told me that you were going to be kidnapped, tortured, and murdered. From what little I have learned this night, I still believe in what I saw. Since, I suspect, you know more than we do, I would think you would at least consider the possibility that I am right. If you will not, it does not signify. If you will do nothing, it is still my responsibility to try to ensure that my vision does not prove to be an accurate prophecy.”
“Makes sense to me,” said Aldus as he and Gifford retook their seats.
“You believe in all of this?” asked Hartley, astonished at the ease with which his friends accepted the idea of visions.
“Yes. And, even if I doubted, she is right. Everything we know adds weight to her warning, no matter how she came by the knowledge of the threat.”
“And the ghosts?”
“Ah, I do…but I do not. Truth is, I do not want to believe. Then again, I have to agree with what Alethea said about souls and spirits. There are many things we believe in that we have no proof of, th
ings that might even defy logic. God, Satan, angels, the soul, heaven, and hell. I have seen no proof of any of that, but I do believe. And, as was said by Shakespeare in Hamlet, ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ Aldus frowned at Iago. “I had heard that ghosts tended to stay where they died, however.”
Iago nodded. “Quite true for the most part, hence so many haunted castles and dungeons. Some, however, can become attached to a person instead of a place. Some seem to just come round for a visit, the bonds of affection too strong for death to break completely.”
Although Hartley did not want to have this discussion, he could not resist saying, “You did not see loved ones around Claudette, did you?”
“No. I saw fury, hatred, and a need for justice,” replied Iago. “In truth, I heard the whispers demanding retribution. I did wonder if she had simply been very close at hand when the people had died, but, no, she had blood on her hands. Their blood.”
“You think her guilty of murder?”
“Not by her own hand, perhaps, but she had a large part in the deed. She may even have been close at hand when the deed was done.” Iago looked at Alethea. “Although you did not mention seeing a woman in your vision.”
“No, I saw no woman,” replied Alethea, “but in the end I could smell roses.”
“But you did not see her get into the carriage, did you?” asked Hartley, a part of him astounded that he was speaking with her as if her talk of visions was perfectly acceptable, dependable, even reasonable.
“No, but that does not mean that she did not come to the place where you were taken,” Alethea replied. “I was not shown that she was there, did not hear her voice, but there was that strong scent of roses. That could mean any number of things. I took it to mean she was part of the crime done against you, and, after what Iago saw, I truly believe that she is. However, it could mean only that there are roses near the place you were taken to, or it is a repetition of the warning that your presence at her house leads you into danger. Or it could even be that the first scent of roses was so strong it lingered in the air throughout the vision.” She looked at each of the three men. “But you all believe her capable of murder, I think.”
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