by C. J. Archer
"Actually, you've already met," I told him. "This is Quin St. Clair, a…friend."
Nathaniel's brows rose. I wasn't sure if he was questioning my use of the term friend, or whether he was surprised to learn they'd already met. "I'm sorry, I don't remember." He looked back at the door. "I can't remember much of the past few weeks. Ever since arriving back in London, as it happens." He rubbed his forehead. "It's damned frustrating."
"Samuel Gladstone told us you were a bit confused," I said. "We're friends of his. He told me you'd come looking for him after he left his card here."
"Confused is one thing, but this is quite another. I…I can't seem to recall a single thing. Do you suppose I've been ill?"
"It's possible." I glanced at Quin.
Nathaniel's frown deepened. "What is it, Cara? I know you well enough to recognize when you're hiding something."
I smiled and my face heated. His warm familiarity surprised me. It had been missing from our recent encounters.
"She's not hiding something in order to keep secrets," Quin said evenly. "She's deciding how much you ought to be made aware of."
"Quin," I whispered.
But he ignored me and continued to glare at Nathaniel. Nathaniel put his hands up in surrender. "Of course. And I couldn't possibly know her as well as you do, could I, Mr. St. Clair. Tell me, how do you know Cara? I don't recall her mentioning your name in all the time we spent together on the S.S. Bombay."
Quin scowled and opened his mouth to say something.
"Our friendship began more recently," I said quickly. "Nathaniel, I think we need to tell you everything we know about your missing memories."
"Cara," Quin warned. "'Everything' may be too much."
"He may be able to help us."
"Or mislead us."
"Of course I'll help in any way I can," Nathaniel said. "If there's anything I can do for you, Cara, you need only ask. I hope you know that." His voice lowered a notch and I felt as if he were speaking only to me, focused entirely on me, despite Quin's presence. I wasn't sure what to make of it.
"The thing is, you may have been hypnotized," I said.
"Hypnotized!" He straightened, blinked, then laughed. "Cara, hypnosis is impossible."
Quin made a sound in the back of his throat that could have been a laugh or a grunt. He crossed his arms and arched a brow at me.
I turned my shoulder to him. "I know it's difficult to comprehend," I said to Nathaniel. "But hypnosis is very real, and we have reason to believe that Myer hypnotized you."
"Who's Myer?"
I sighed. This was going to take longer than I thought. I told him about Myer, his ability to hypnotize, and his interest in the paranormal.
"Paranormal?" Nathaniel smirked. His gaze flicked between us, and the smirk vanished. "Cara, what is all this about?"
"If you'll let her continue, you'll find out," Quin said pointedly.
Nathaniel apologized and rubbed his temples again.
"Myer had been searching for a particular book for some time," I went on. "It's a very old book that had been lost some time ago."
"Gladstone mentioned a book. He asked if I'd taken it. I had no idea what he was talking about. What was the subject matter?"
I flattened my palms across my skirts, bracing myself for more scoffing. "It contained some spells and information about the different realms that he wanted to study. He employed you to help him find it."
Nathaniel dragged his hand down his face. "Cara, I…I don't understand. You talk of spells and realms and hypnosis as if they're all real. I will admit that hypnosis may be possible, but the supernatural things…" He shook his head. The disappointed look in his eyes troubled me more than the fact he didn't believe me.
"It's real," I told him gently.
Quin leaned forward, the movement only small, but somehow he made it seem threatening. "If you knew Cara as well as you say you do, you would know she doesn't lie about such things."
"Not lie, no." Nathaniel pressed his lips together. "Cara, is it possible that you've been duped?"
Quin muttered something under his breath in French and appealed to the ceiling for patience.
"No, Nathaniel." I sighed. "Please, let me continue. This is what we think happened. You were hypnotized by Myer when you arrived back in London. He commissioned you to help him search for the book. Once he got his hands on it, he broke the hypnosis and wiped all memory of the last few weeks." I thought mentioning Myer's disappearance and the portal would be too much for him to take in, so I did not continue. Poor Nathaniel seemed at the end of his wits already.
"Why did he choose me? I don't know him and I doubt he would have known me. Why not hypnotize someone more knowledgeable? One of the historians at any of the universities perhaps, or even from the museum. My knowledge of antique books is limited, I'm afraid. My interest lies in the history of architecture."
"He wanted a paranormal historian." The problem with my statement struck me as soon as it was out of my mouth. I gasped. "You're not a paranormal historian, are you?"
"I think I'd be more accepting of realms and spells if I were." He grimaced. "Do you have another theory?"
I slumped back in the chair. "Quin? Can you think of an explanation? None of this is making sense."
Quin suddenly stood and strode to the window. He didn't stop to look out, but strode straight back again. He stopped in front of me, his eyes bright. "We're wrong. Myer didn't hypnotize Faraday. He was possessed."
CHAPTER 11
"Possessed!" Nathaniel blurted out. He alternated between laughing and staring at us with a straight face. "Cara, are you mad?"
"It would explain a lot," I said to Quin.
"You being mad?" he asked, amused.
I rolled my eyes. "Possession. When did you become aware again, Nathaniel?"
"Yesterday morning."
"Myer was already gone by then, so there's no way he could have broken a hypnosis." I wagged my finger at Nathaniel as a smile crept over my lips. More pieces of the puzzle suddenly fell into place. Quin was right. Nathaniel must have been possessed. "It explains why you didn't recognize me at King's Cross Station, that day. Even if you had been hypnotized, you still should have remembered me."
"We need to find that third medium," Quin said.
I nodded, thoughtful. "If we work out who possessed him, it could lead us to her. She must have orchestrated it."
"It's a place to begin, if nothing else."
"Whoever possessed you was clever," I said to Nathaniel. "He played along remarkably well when we first met him in your body, at the Myers' house." I tried to think back to that day a few weeks ago. Nathaniel had called me Miss Moreau, not Cara, and only after Myer had mentioned me by name. He'd also seemed different to the Nathaniel Faraday I'd met on the ship. The man I'd wanted to get to know better had been charming and witty, self-deprecating and interesting. Later, he'd changed. His gazes unnerved me rather than thrilled me. Conversations were endured rather than savored. I'd wanted to get away from him.
"He might not even be male at all," I said.
Nathaniel made a choking sound and his face flushed.
"He was a man," Quin said darkly. "I'm sure of it."
"How can you be sure?"
"From the way he looked at you."
"Oh. I see." I cleared my throat. "He must have also been a paranormal historian. One that Myer knew."
"From the society."
"He did seem familiar with the library's layout and cataloguing system even though he claimed to have never been in it."
Quin and I smiled at one another, pleased with our progress. I'd forgotten Nathaniel was there until he coughed.
"Cara, I hope you'll forgive me, but…what you're implying…it's beyond belief. Please don't think that I'm disparaging you personally—"
"What are you doing then?" Quin asked idly. "Cara is telling the truth."
I glared at him until he looked away. What had gotten into him? "I know it's a lot to take in, N
athaniel. And I'm sorry we had to dump so much new and strange information on you all at once, but I'm afraid it's all true, and more besides."
"I'm not sure I can accept any of it without proof."
"I'm afraid I don't have any." I got up and crouched beside his chair. I placed a hand on his arm. "Your involvement ends here, anyhow. There's nothing more you can do to help us. If you like, you may chalk this up to a bad dream and forget we even had this conversation."
He smiled gently. "Thank you. But I don't want to forget any conversation I have with you. Even strange ones."
My face grew hot and my stomach did a little flip. Yet I was all too aware of Quin behind me. I could feel his intense gaze boring into my back and hear the deep breath he expelled.
I rose. "Thank you, Nathaniel. We must go. Once again, I'm very sorry."
He caught my hand. "You can't stay?"
I shook my head. Quin strode for the door, his steps long and purposeful. "Good day, Faraday," he tossed over his shoulder.
"What if I need to speak to you about any of this?" Nathaniel asked me.
"I'm staying at Claridge’s for a few days."
He lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it without taking his gaze off mine.
Quin coughed so hard I thought he was choking. I withdrew my hand and followed him to the hansom waiting for us outside. We climbed into the cabin and gave orders to the driver to take us back to Claridges.
"Why were you so rude to him?" I asked as the coach jerked forward.
Quin stared out the window. "I was not."
"You were." I smiled. "I believe you're jealous."
A muscle in his throat throbbed and his lips tightened ever so slightly. I thought he wasn't going to answer me, until he eventually turned away from the window and met my gaze. "My apologies, Cara. But I didn't like the familiar way he spoke to you and touched you. Beaufort wouldn't have liked it."
"Jacob is not here. And I disagree. I think Nathaniel showed every politeness toward me. Jacob wouldn't have minded at all."
He turned back to the window. "I was trying to protect you."
"Oh, that's right, it's your duty. Well, Quin, I don't want you to be protective. I want—" I wanted his jealousy. I wanted him to fight for me. I wanted him to kiss me, and frighten away any potential suitors. I wanted him to claim me.
But what I wanted was impossible.
I stared out the opposite window, but saw none of the scenery through the tears pooling in my eyes. "You don't need to protect me from Nathaniel," I mumbled.
He didn't respond immediately, and I thought he hadn't heard me over the rumble of wheels. Then after a moment, he sighed. "I know. He is, mayhap, a better man than I first thought. If you were my kin, I wouldn't object to him courting you."
But he wasn't my kin, and I wanted him to object.
We traveled the remainder of the distance to the hotel in taut silence, but by the time we arrived, it had dissolved somewhat. I simply couldn't stay mad at Quin, and I hated not speaking to him. Besides, what we'd been arguing about wasn't really worth arguing over at all. I wouldn't waste the precious time we had together in petulant silence.
"I hope Jack has made reservations for dinner tonight," I said, taking his arm to walk inside. "Somewhere nice."
"Somewhere I'll need to restrain myself?"
I grinned, relieved he had decided to put our argument behind him too. "Somewhere there is so much food that you won't need to restrain yourself."
Jack hadn't made reservations because a dinner invitation arrived from the Culverts. He and Hannah greeted us in the small private parlor off the hotel foyer, where we relayed the events of our afternoon over glasses of sherry and brandy.
"It’s fortuitous that we're going to see George tonight," I said when I'd finished speaking.
Jack raised both eyebrows. "Oh?" He and Hannah hadn't removed their gazes from me as I relayed the story, particularly when I expressed our thoughts on the possession of Nathaniel. "Why is that?"
"Because George is a well-known demonologist and it's possible that he knows most, if not all, of the paranormal scholars in London."
"The ghost is almost certainly a paranormal scholar," he said. "The London part is less certain."
"How did Mr. Faraday seem?" Hannah asked.
"Confused," I said.
"I'm not surprised. It would be an unsettling thing to learn that one has been possessed."
"Wait." Jack leaned forward. "You told him?"
"Of course," I said.
"Was that wise?"
"I thought he deserved to know the truth."
"And did he believe the truth?"
I was about to admit that Nathaniel had found it difficult without being presented with solid evidence, when Quin spoke. "Cara did the right thing. Faraday will come to see the truth in her words, if not soon, then one day. She's right. He deserved to know what happened to him."
Jack gave a small shrug. "It seems you two have decided to present a united front on the matter. I only hope that telling him doesn't come back to haunt you. Pardon the pun."
"Cara has good judgment of character," Hannah said, setting her empty glass on the table beside her. "Now, we'd all better dress for dinner or we'll be late."
They walked ahead of us out of the parlor, giving me a chance to speak to Quin alone. "Do you believe what you said in there? That I was right to tell Nathaniel the truth?"
He put out his elbow for me, as Jack did for his wife. "You doubt yourself?"
I looped my arm through his, relishing the chance to be so close to him. "He seemed so disinclined to believe me."
"Most level-headed people need proof before they believe. I suspect he will spend some time searching for that proof, and when he inevitably finds it he'll change his stance. I hope to see him apologize to you, tail between his legs, before I go."
I smiled. "That is rather sweet of you, if somewhat vindictive."
"I have medieval views, remember?"
"Which you see through a lens that is becoming more and more modern with each day."
"I would take that as a compliment if I knew what a lens was."
***
George Culvert dismissed his servants after they served dinner so that we could talk in private, but he did not touch a single thing on his plate while I recounted recent events. While his wife was horrified to hear about the disappearance of Myer and the book, George was fascinated, particularly on the topic of Nathaniel's possession.
Adelaide shuddered. "It's not a pleasant feeling when one realizes one has been possessed."
Hannah and Jack frowned at her, but I nodded in sympathy. I remembered when she'd been possessed many years earlier. I also remembered my role in that possession. I set my knife and fork down, my appetite suddenly disappearing, yet I couldn't tear my eyes from my food. Or, rather, I didn't want to meet anyone's gaze.
Quin, sitting beside me, closed his hand over mine beneath the table. He knew what I'd done, and he didn't blame me for it. It was the reassurance I needed to face the others again.
"We need to ask you some questions," I said to George. "The dead fellow who possessed Nathaniel must have been a paranormal expert. We hoped you might have known him."
"I may."
"George," his wife whispered. "Your food is going cold."
George picked up his knife and fork without taking his gaze off me. "He would have died recently, correct?"
"Not necessarily," I said. "He could have haunted this realm for years if he was unwilling to crossover."
"Well then, I can think of two—no, three—who died in the last ten years, all of them members of the Society for Supernatural Activity." He cut into his potato, but did not put any into his mouth. Adelaide gave him an exasperated glare that he didn't notice.
"Tell us what they were like," Quin said.
"Mathewson was elderly when he died, about nine years ago. Eighty or more, I think he was. Good friend of my father's too. He had an interesting collecti
on of paranormal artifacts he'd brought back from his travels, as I recall. Most of them were bequeathed to the society."
"But what was he like?" Hannah asked.
"Yes, George," Adelaide added. "You haven't described the man, only the known facts."
George pushed his glasses up his nose. "I see. You're right. Well, he was somewhat stuffy, pompous. Thought I was an upstart with my modern ideas and suggestions. More than once he told Father that I ought to keep my foolish opinions to myself. He never addressed me directly. For all that, he liked to do things the right way. His research had method and order, and he never deviated from it."
"It wasn't him," Quin said. "Faraday's ghost wasn't pompous."
I agreed. "I have a theory about him. He tried to be flirtatious, but I suspect it wasn't something he was very good at. His attempts at flattery often fell flat. It was almost as if possessing Nathaniel boosted his confidence, but he couldn't quite pull off the air of a charming young bachelor."
"So perhaps he wasn't all that handsome in real life," Adelaide said, picking up her glass of wine. When everyone looked at her, she added, "Handsome men are aware of their good looks and have built up their confidence over many years because of it. Look at Samuel Gladstone and Jacob. Not to mention yourself, Jack."
"What about me?" George asked.
"You, Husband, are as charmingly oblivious to your handsomeness as you ever were."
He chuckled and began eating as if he'd just noticed his food for the first time.
"So we're looking for a dead member of the society who wasn't particularly handsome and was somewhat lacking in confidence around women," I said.
"He was also a coward," Quin added. "He kept his distance from me."
"To be fair, you were rather terrifying at times. As I recall, you were in a particularly bad mood at Hatchard's bookstore that day we went looking for the book of spells there."
His gaze slid to me. "You think I was terrifying that day?" He humphed. "I didn't even have my sword."
"Your sword is not what makes you scary."
He concentrated on his food just as George stopped eating again. "It wasn't Bevan then. He was young and reasonably handsome, according to my mother who tried to, er, get his attention on more than one occasion. That leaves Holloway. Felix Holloway. He was around forty when he died, six months or so ago, of heart failure. He wasn't married and had few friends outside a small circle with similar interests in the paranormal. He was a short fellow and very round. I don't think anyone would call him handsome."
