Daniel descended from the landau behind Mortimer. “She’ll be asleep. Leave it for tomorrow.”
“Nonsense,” Mortimer said loudly, with drink in his voice. “She sees me anytime I call.”
He walked to a black painted front door and rapped on it with his stick. Above them a light appeared and a curtain was drawn back. Mortimer looked up at the window and tapped on the door again.
The curtain dropped, and the light faded. Mortimer waited with ill-concealed impatience, letting his stick continue to tap lightly on the wood.
Daniel folded his arms and leaned against the door frame, stopping himself from ripping the stick from Mortimer’s hands and breaking it over his knee. “Who lives here?”
“I do,” Mortimer said. “I mean—I own the house. At least my family does. We let it to Madame Bastien and her daughter. For a slight savings in rent, they agreed to entertain me and my friends anytime I asked it.”
“Including the middle of the bloody night?”
“Especially the middle of the night.”
Mortimer smiled—self-satisfied English prig. They had to be courtesans. He’d reduced the rent so he could obligate them to pay in kind, so he could rub their noses in his power anytime he wished.
Daniel turned back to the landau. “This isn’t worth two thousand, Mortimer.”
“Patience, patience. You’ll see.”
The rest of Mortimer’s friends had arrived and hemmed them in, blocking the way back to the landau. The bone-breaker was still in attendance, hovering in the shadows a little way down the street.
The door opened. A maid who’d obviously dressed hastily stepped behind the door as she opened it wide and let the stream of gentlemen inside. The drunker lads of the party wanted to pause to see what entertainment she might provide, but Daniel planted himself solidly beside the door, blocking their way to her. They moved past, forgetting about her the moment they turned away.
Mortimer led the way to double pocket doors at the end of the hall, and pushed them open. Daniel caught a flurry of movement behind them, but by the time Mortimer beckoned Daniel in, stillness had taken over.
A fire danced on the hearth behind a long, empty table, the walls covered with a pale blue, gold, and burnt orange striped wallpaper. The gas chandelier above the table hung dark, and one solitary candelabra with three candles sat on the table. A young woman was just touching a long match to the candlewicks.
When the third was lit, she blew out the match and straightened up. “So sorry to have kept you waiting, gentlemen,” she said pleasantly enough in a voice very faintly accented. “I’m afraid my mother is unable to rise. You will have to make do with me.”
She bathed them in a smile.
Whatever Mortimer and the other gentlemen said in response, Daniel didn’t hear. He couldn’t hear anything. He couldn’t see anything either, except the woman who stood poised behind the candelabra, the long match still in her hand, the smile of an angel on her face.
She wasn’t beautiful. Daniel had seen faces more beautiful in the Casino in Monte Carlo, at the Moulin Rouge in Paris. He’d known slimmer bodies in dancers, or in the butterflies that glided about the gaming hells in St. James’s and Monaco, smiling and enticing gentlemen to play.
This young woman had an angular face softened by a mass of dark hair dressed in a pompadour, with ringlets trickling down the sides of her face. Her nose was a little too long, her mouth too wide, her shoulders and arms too plump. Her eyes were her best feature, set in exact proportion in her face, dark blue in the glint of candlelight, and framed by lush black lashes.
They were eyes a man could gaze into all night and wake up to the next morning. He could contemplate her eyes across the breakfast table and then again at dinner while he made plans to look into them all through the night.
The young woman wasn’t a courtesan, however. Courtesans began charming from the moment the gentleman walked into the room. They leaned slightly forward, they gestured with graceful fingers, implying that those fingers would be equally as graceful traveling a man’s body. Courtesans drew in, they suggested without words, they used every movement and every expression to beguile.
This woman stood fixed in place, her body language not inviting the gentlemen into the room at all, despite her words and the smile she’d thrown at them. If her movements were graceful as she turned to toss the match into the fire, it was from nature, not practice.
She wore a plain gown of blue satin that bared her shoulders, but the gown was no less respectable than what a lady in this neighborhood might wear for dinner or a night at the theatre. Her hair in the simple pompadour had no ribbons or jewels tucked into it—the unaffected style hinted that the dark masses of hair might come down at any time over the hands of the lucky gentleman who pulled out its pins. She wore no jewelry at all, in fact, except for one silver locket that nestled at her throat.
The young woman spread her hands at the now-silent men. “If you’ll sit, gentlemen, we can begin.”
Daniel couldn’t move. His feet had grown into the floor, disobedient to his will. They wanted him to stand in that place all night long and gaze upon this woman.
Mortimer leaned to Daniel, his eyes glittering. “You see? Did I not tell you she’d be worth it?” He cleared his throat, straightening up. “Daniel Mackenzie, may I introduce Mademoiselle Bastien. Violette is her Christian name, in the French way. Mademoiselle, this is Daniel Mackenzie, son of Lord Cameron Mackenzie and nephew to the Duke of Kilmorgan. You’ll give him a fine show, won’t you, mademoiselle? There’s a good girl.”
The man Mortimer called Daniel Mackenzie came around the table and boldly stopped right next to Violet.
Scottish, she thought rapidly, taking in his bright blue and green plaid kilt, fashionable black suit coat, and ivory waistcoat. Rich, went her assessment, noting the costly materials and the way in which the coat hugged his broad shoulders. Tailor-made, and not by any cheap or apprentice tailor. A master had designed and sewn those clothes. Used to having the very best.
The other word that came to her was dangerous. Violet didn’t know why she should think this, but every inch of her flesh itched with it, every breath threatened to choke her.
Mr. Mackenzie topped most of the other gentlemen here by at least a foot, had a hard face, a nose that would be large in any other man’s face, and eyes that made her stop. Violet couldn’t decide the color of them in this light—hazel? brown?—but they were arresting.
So arresting that she stood there staring at him, not taking the hand he held out to her to shake in greeting.
“Daniel Mackenzie, at your service, mademoiselle.”
He gave her a light, charming smile, his eyes pulling her in, keeping her where he wanted her.
Definitely danger here.
He kept a barrier in place behind his eyes, she saw when she risked a look into them, a closed door. This man gave up his secrets to very few. He would be hard to read, which could be a problem.
He did nothing but stand waiting with his hand out. Violet finally slid hers into his gloved one, making the movement slow and deliberate.
“How do you do,” she said formally, her English perfect. She’d discovered that speaking flawless English reinforced the fiction that she was entirely French.
Daniel closed his giant hand around hers and raised it to his lips.
The quick, hot brush of his mouth to the backs of her fingers ignited a spark to rival that on the match she’d tossed away. Her nerves tightened like wires, forcing the deep breath she’d been trying not to take.
The little gasp sounded loud to her, but Mortimer’s cronies were making much noise as they shed coats and debated where each would sit. Daniel’s gaze fixed on Violet over her hand, challenging, daring, knowing.
Show me who you are, that gaze said.
Violet was supposed to be thinking that about him. Whatever the world believed about the talents of Violette Bastien, medium and spiritualist, she knew that her true gift was read
ing people.
Within a few moments of studying a man, Violet understood what he loved and hated, what he wanted with all his heart and what he’d do to get it, what made him happy, and what hurt him. She’d learned these lessons painstakingly from Jacobi in the backstreets of Paris, had been his best pupil.
But not Mr. Mackenzie. He did not let anyone behind his barriers, not easily. But when he did…
When he did, worlds would unfold.
Violet snatched her hand from his grasp. “Please, gentlemen,” she said again, striving to maintain the cheerful note in her voice.
She moved to sit down and found Daniel Mackenzie’s hand on the back of her chair. She forced her gaze from him and seated herself, trying to ignore the warmth of his body at her side, the fold of open coat that brushed her shoulder. The breath went out of her again as Daniel eased her chair forward, his strength unnerving.
Violet laid her hands flat on the table, trying to use its cool surface to calm herself. She needed to appear utterly composed, sugar-sweet and ready to help.
“Will you all give me a moment to prepare myself?” she asked, throwing out an appealing look.
The gentlemen readily agreed. Most had been here before, most often as Mortimer’s guests, but some returned alone for private consultations with Violet and her mother.
Only Mr. Mackenzie kept watching her, leaning on the table so he could look her in the eye. “Prepare yourself for what?” he asked.
Mortimer answered him from down the table, “To contact the other side, of course.”
Daniel kept his gaze on Violet. “The other side o’ what, mademoiselle? The room?”
“The ether,” one of the other men said in a superior tone. “She’s a spiritualist, man. Didn’t you know that? Madame and Mademoiselle Bastien are the most famous spiritualists in London.”
The flash of disappointment in Daniel’s eyes stung Violet. Stung her hard. Why she should care what this gentleman she’d never seen before should think of her she didn’t know, but she did.
Plenty of people didn’t believe in spiritualism and scoffed at what she did. They didn’t believe that a trained medium could contact the departed beyond the veil, to let the dear departed send comforting messages to the survivors, warn of impending danger, or just have a little chat with those who remained behind.
Just as well, Violet’s inner voice drawled. You don’t believe it either.
Violet had never felt the cold touch of the otherworld or the trembling ecstasy her mother found in her trances. She’d never seen a ghost or a spirit, and had never had one talk to her, or knock at her, or do any of those other useful things spirits could do.
But she’d become very, very good at pretending she had.
That Daniel Mackenzie didn’t believe shouldn’t bother her. Jacobi had told her never to argue with an unbeliever, but to move on to the next mark. She should close to him and concentrate on the other gentlemen, to make Mr. Mackenzie feel that he was somehow left out, to make him doubt his disbelief just a little bit.
So why couldn’t she turn away with her superior little smile, her amused disdain? Why did she keep wanting to look at him, to explain that she did this for survival, and beg him not to dislike her for it?
Daniel leaned his elbow on the table, stretching the fine cloth of his coat. “The other side of the ether, eh? I’d like to see that.”
Mortimer said, “You’re in for a show then. That’s why I said she’s worth more than a motorcar or a horse.”
Violet suddenly wished she did have the powers her mother claimed to, so that she could curse Mortimer into living out his life as a rabbit—or at least being a disappointment to any ladies he took to bed.
The room at last quieted, the gentlemen calming down to watch her prepare. Violet knew why they liked to watch her—when she closed her eyes and drew long breaths to calm herself for her trance, her breasts rose to press tightly against her décolletage. Distracted the clients wonderfully.
This time, however, when she opened her eyes again, she found Mr. Mackenzie not distracted in the slightest. Instead of letting his gaze drop to her chest, as the gazes of the other gentlemen had, Mr. Mackenzie smiled straight into her eyes.
Never let a skeptic make you nervous, Jacobi had said. Give them a show in spite of their disbelief. Make them doubt their own doubts.
Violet drew on the techniques the middle-aged man had painstakingly taught her. A glance around the table, ignoring Daniel. A small smile, the look of inner serenity, soft movements of her hands as she spoke.
“All is calm tonight, and very clear. Mr. Ellingham, I believe we were very near reaching your father the last time. Shall we try again?”
Before eager Mr. Ellingham—who was trying to find out where his now-deceased father had hidden away about ten thousand pounds of the family money—could answer, Mortimer broke in.
“Contact someone for Mackenzie. He’s my guest tonight. His dear old mum, perhaps.”
Violet turned without hurry back to Daniel. She didn’t miss the flicker of disgust at the mention of his mother, disgust aimed at both Mortimer and the mother in question.
“Perhaps that would not be for the best,” she suggested gently.
Mr. Mackenzie gave her a guileless look that masked his growing anger. “Let me mum rest in peace,” he said. “Why don’t you contact me dad, instead?”
Too transparent. Violet gave him a sweet smile. “You are trying to trip me, Mr. Mackenzie. If you wish me to contact your father, I suggest a telegram, because that gentleman is very much still living.”
Daniel gave her a look of new assessment, then he burst out laughing. His laugh was deep and true, a man who knew how to laugh for the joy of it. “Fancy you knowing that. You are right, Mortimer. She has the gift.”
“I don’t need the gift to read the newspapers,” Violet said. “Your father appears in many of them, especially the sporting news. Now if he’d like me to tell him which of his racehorses will do the best this year, he is welcome to join us.”
Daniel wound down to a chuckle. “I’m starting to like you, mademoiselle.”
She let her eyes go wide. “I am pleased to hear it, Mr. Mackenzie. However, if you have come tonight only to mock me and my work, I will have to ask you to depart. Or at least wait in the hall.”
“Why?” His eyes took on an impish twinkle. “Does my mockery disturb th’ spirits?”
“Indeed, no. Those on the other side can be quite forgiving. But I find it a bit distracting.”
Daniel’s laughter rang out again, and he raised his hands in surrender. “Forgive me, lass. I’ll be the model of goodness from now on. Promise.”
Violet knew better than to believe him, but she returned her attention to the others. “Shall we simply see what spirits are close tonight?”
The other men, laughing along with Mr. Mackenzie, or perhaps at him, agreed enthusiastically. They liked the show.
“Then, as you know, I must ask for silence.”
Violet closed her eyes again, and thankfully, the gentlemen quieted down, their guffaws finally dying off.
She went into the movements she’d rehearsed so many times. She let her breathing become slow and deep, spread her hands on the table, and rocked her head from fully bent forward to all the way back, her face to the ceiling. Violet kept her eyes closed as she let her breathing become more rapid, faster, faster, twisting her face as though something pained her.
Soft noises escaped her mouth, and she moved her head the slightest bit from side to side, making sure she didn’t overdo it. Too much gyration looked fake. A little bit was far more frightening, a person in the grip of some force she didn’t quite understand.
Violet also knew bloody well that a woman moaning, perspiring, and letting her breasts move with her panting breath froze a gentleman in place.
A large, warm hand landed on hers, and Mr. Mackenzie said in a quiet voice, “You all right, lass?”
Violet froze. For a moment, her rapid breat
hs choked her, and she couldn’t find air.
His voice was filled with concern. That concern sent a shock through her. No one had ever spoken to her like this—not her mother, not even Jacobi, who’d been closer to her than a father. Daniel Mackenzie, a stranger, a man of warmth by her side, touched her in worry, and asked after her with a kind of protectiveness she’d never experienced before.
It nearly broke her. A moment ago, Violet was priding herself on being able to handle a roomful of half-drunk, unruly gentlemen who’d come upon them so rudely in the middle of the night. Her mother had been too upset by their arrival to rise from the bed, and Violet had said she’d take care of everything.
The moment Mr. Mackenzie voiced concern, Violet felt herself shattering, the façade she strove to maintain crumbling to reveal the lonely and weary young woman behind it—nearly thirty years old, unmarried and unlikely to be, taking care of an ill mother, living by her wits and her skill in hiding her lies.
She found it easy to keep the barrier between Mortimer and his ilk, but she recognized that Daniel Mackenzie could rip her to shreds with one touch.
She tried to catch her breath, tried to keep her persona in place, but for a moment, she was only a frightened young woman angry at a man for exposing her.
Mr. Ellingham, oblivious, broke the tension. “Damn it, Mackenzie. We’ll never get a contact if you interfere with the medium’s trance. Everyone knows that.”
Daniel kept his gaze on Violet. “You sure you’re all right, love?”
Violet moved her hands to the table again, pressing them down to stop their trembling. “Yes. Yes, I am fine, thank you.”
“You’re an ass, Mackenzie,” Mortimer said, his voice tinged with brutal anger. “Now we’ll have to start all over again.”
“No, we won’t,” Daniel said, still looking at Violet. “We’ll go and leave Mademoiselle Bastien to her sleep.”
“The hell we will,” Mortimer said, standing up. “We’re not leaving this house. Not until we have satisfaction.”
Jennifer Ashley, The Seduction of Elliot McBride