Liza tried to smile. “Well. I agree with you that the opposite of unhappiness is not money. Money cannot buy happiness. But love isn’t a very reliable currency, either, you know. And I don’t think only of myself when I think of marriage. I think of Bosbrea. Of the hundreds of tenants who work the land, who rely on me for their support and livelihood.” She could sell the land—but the men with the money to buy it no longer looked to farming for their incomes. Men like Hollister looked beneath the ground to minerals for their fortunes, or to timber, or acres for factories . . . “My future is not only my own, darling.”
Such good sense she spoke. Would that she could listen to herself!
Mather was studying her. “Is it love, then?”
Her throat closed. “Oh, Mather,” she said with difficulty. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
Oh, Liza, she added silently. Please, please don’t be ridiculous.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Mr. Smith, the spirit writer, had insisted on particular scenery: dark, dimly lit, with high ceilings to allow for “circulation of the vapors” . . . whatever that meant. In conference with Mather, Liza had chosen to host his event in the portrait gallery, which she had filled with standing candelabra to aid the mood. He took a seat now beneath a portrait of her father and laid out his utensils—a pot of ink; a feathered quill; a stack of vellum—atop a small writing desk, which he’d brought with him all the way from York.
Mysterious glyphs had been carved down the desk’s polished wood legs. Liza might not have noticed them had she not been trying so intently to avoid Michael’s eyes. He stood two feet away, and he was making no effort to disguise his interest in her. She felt his steady look like a hot hand on her skin. He wanted her to look back at him. She couldn’t. The scene on the terrace seemed to have left her sensitized almost beyond her ability to bear. If she looked at him, she would go to him; if she went to him, she would take him by the arm and drag him out of this scene.
He’d lit a fire she did not know how to put out.
It’s not love. It’s not.
Desperate to distract herself, she leaned toward Lydia, who had walked in with her. “Those symbols on the desk.” Yes, very good, Liza. What of them? “Aren’t they remarkable? Do you recognize them?” Lydia was something of an expert in such things.
“Not in the least,” Lydia replied. “They’re vaguely reminiscent of hieroglyphs, but I suspect some artist had a very good time inventing them.”
“A fraud?” said James. “Denounce him, Lyd.”
This exchange made both the Sanburnes laugh loudly. For her part, Liza gathered it was a reference to how they’d first met—James had been taunting his father in public with some artifact that Lydia had decried as fake.
A vivid vision opened in her mind . She and Michael might trade such jokes—a sly allusion to the trustworthiness of mere country doctors. He would laugh, and so would she. And nobody else in this room would understand.
A shudder went through her, powerful and bittersweet. How had she ever imagined herself in love with Nello? The jokes between them had been malicious, and always at somebody else’s expense. He had excited her, of course—and angered and annoyed her; every moment with him had been tumultuous, and in the interludes between their meetings, she had fretted, parsing every moment of their past interactions. But that was not love. Love, she saw now, did not feel at all the same.
Love was more than passion. It was built on intimacy, a history woven of private moments, knowing looks, and silent smiles. She had known that as a girl. How had she grown so confused? She had seen such love between her mother and father—and now, for the first time, she had seen the prospect of it for herself. She saw in a single moment how it might go between her and Michael, if she . . . abandoned everything else of worth.
Her parents’ legacy.
Her own surety.
Her tenants’ futures, and the hopes of smart young boys like the Browards.
This was too cruel. Her very thoughts seemed to be gouging out her own heart. She could not stand to listen to James and Lydia murmur to each other a moment longer. She walked around them to join Tilney’s conversation with the Hawthornes. Their barbed tones suited her better.
“Ah, Mrs. Chudderley,” said Nigel in greeting. “I was just speculating on the unlikely idea that spirits might incline toward the written form of expression.”
“Nigel lacks imagination,” said Katherine. She was dressed head to toe in gunmetal gray satin that reflected the candlelight in strange ripples. “After all, letters are the natural medium for all manner of delicious and shocking tidings. If you know what I mean.” She lifted one thin, dark brow.
The words were clearly pointed, and invited a leading reply. “How intriguing,” Liza said. “That sounds like the view of a woman with tremendously interesting correspondents.”
“So it does,” said Tilney with a sly laugh. “If only Katherine were tasked to read her letters tonight! That would be true entertainment.”
Katherine tilted up her chin, striking a supremely satisfied pose. “I would never betray my correspondents’ trust. I will say, though, that I received the most fascinating letter in today’s post.” She lifted a brow at Liza. “I don’t suppose you also heard from Mr. Nelson?”
How predictable. “Darling. Had you not gathered that my interest in Mr. Nelson has diminished considerably? Why, I’ve not thought of him in weeks.”
“I see.” Katherine exchanged a charged look with Tilney. “What a pity. I suppose we mustn’t mention his name, then.”
What on earth had happened to Nello? Oh, she did not care. The memory of him felt like a fading itch, mildly annoying but not worth her notice.
Mr. Smith clapped his hands, calling the group’s attention to his little desk, where a single candle burned next to a slim stack of vellum. “If you please,” he said. “I will require full silence for my labors here.”
Conversation collapsed into whispers—and then died entirely, as Mr. Smith lifted his candle to his face to display his strenuous frown. For the unsteady light painted a strange and fearsome mask on his bulldog face, which was hatched by deep lines, and sagged at the jowls and brow. His eyes were beady and dark and glimmered strangely.
A very good effect. Liza cast a smile over her friends—holding it brightly as her survey passed over Michael, letting it linger as she met Hollister’s regard.
Any stranger would judge him handsomer than Michael.
But how wrong that stranger would be! For a single glance could not uncover the skill in Michael’s hands, whether to caress or save a life—and the wry humor lurking behind his easy smiles, or the way, when he looked at a woman, she felt seen in all ways, exposed to him, yet so utterly safe . . .
“I will now take up my quill,” said Smith, “and I will wait for divine instruction. Should the silence be broken, so, too, shall my trance, and then we must begin anew. Thus, for your own patience and satisfaction, my lords and ladies, I will beg your brief indulgence.”
She was not paying attention to Michael. Yet somehow she was sharply aware when he retreated a stealthy pace from the circle; when his attention focused on the painting to the right of the spirit writer. Her heartbeat quickened. He was looking at her as a young girl, her face still round with puppy fat, innocence personified in that ridiculous white gown that her mother had insisted she wear, tied at the waist with a blue silken sash. A girl whose expression was shy and hopeful, nothing like the professional beauty whom Mr. Readey had captured with his photographs.
Did Michael recognize that girl? Did he wonder what she had been like? For Liza wanted him to wonder. She wanted to be known by him.
What a curious thing. A woman’s charms were premised in mystery. But to him, she wished to be transparent as glass.
“Here,” said Mr. Smith suddenly. “Here . . . here.”
His quill began to move.
Very old-fashioned, to write with a quill. But Liza understood his motive, for the scratching sound
made a dramatic accompaniment to his frenzied grimace as he wrote, and wrote, and wrote. Now and then he would gasp and snatch his quill from the page, as though what he spied there was too, too awful for words; and then, his mouth twisting open as though in a silent scream, he would jab his quill violently into the ink pot and begin anew.
Despite herself, she was overwhelmed with the urge to laugh. She bit down hard on her cheek, for it was very poor form to spoil her own entertainment.
At long last—five minutes, or thirty; forbidden to find it hilarious, Liza instead found it very boring—Mr. Smith gasped and threw down his quill, causing the ladies closest to him to shriek and stumble backward, lest the ink splash their hems. Then, evidently oblivious of the scowls aimed at him, Smith stood and waved the paper in the air, perhaps to dry the ink, perhaps to lend to his overall effect as a deranged lunatic with very bad penmanship.
“Hark!” he cried. “Messages from the beyond!” He lifted the page to conceal his face and began to read—his voice dropping to such an indistinct mutter that the group was forced closer to hear him.
“The sylph with the sunlit hair will emerge from the shadow triumphant,” he said very rapidly. “From grief she rises, the Phoenix born anew.”
“Mrs. Hull,” said Weston excitedly. “That must be you, Mrs. Hull!”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Jane had mastered bashfulness; Liza predicted a wedding before Christmas. “I shouldn’t like to think—”
“But it’s a fine message,” Weston assured her. “You will triumph!”
He was, Liza thought with distaste, a bit too enthusiastic for all this charlatanry.
Mr. Smith switched to a growl now. “When the mirror shatters, twin images will be split. A new vision will rise between them, to their peril! Beware the shattering!”
Now everybody turned to look at the Hawthornes, who came as close to twin images as anybody in the group. Katherine rolled her eyes. “Oh, bollocks,” said Nigel.
“The warring crowns will topple,” Mr. Smith cried. “Struck down by an asp that emerges from underground! Only one shall live to retrieve the princely crown, but to him all the spoils shall redound!”
“That makes no sense whatsoever,” Tilney complained. “Unless we’ve a secret pair of princes among us? No, I didn’t think so.”
“Lord Forbes is distantly related to a Hapsburg prince,” Lady Forbes said brightly. “But I assure you, he quarrels only with his hunting dogs.”
The baron harrumphed. “I could handle myself in a fight.”
“Of course you could, dear,” the baroness said comfortably.
Mr. Smith cleared his throat. “Shall I continue?”
Liza idly wondered if in a past life he’d been somebody’s butler. His stony air of authority put her very much in mind of Ronson.
“By all means,” Hollister said. “Our breath is bated, good sir.”
And what a pity Hollister had rushed his fences. She’d always admired a dry wit. She might have brought herself around to him if only he’d displayed more subtlety.
She bit her lip. What a liar she was! Why did she bother pretending? She needn’t fall in love to marry. And she needn’t marry for her heart to break. She was breaking it herself, with every look she stole toward Michael.
“The dark-haired enchantress will silence the voice by naming its true origin,” said Mr. Smith. “A new life, herself the ally.”
She felt an unpleasant start of recognition.
“Is that you?” Katherine asked her.
“Only the spirits know,” she said lightly, but could not prevent herself from discreetly rubbing the chill from her nape. Gibberish from an accomplished performer. Silly to let it give her even a moment’s unease. She did not truly hear her mother’s voice. It was a figment of her imagination, no more.
Smith grew pompous. “The king’s brother will see his history repeated,” he intoned. “Wanton for mother, and so wanton for wife, and he becomes the fool, the jester whom all the court ridicule.”
She caught her breath. Nobody needed to ask to whom this message pertained. There was only one man in the room whose brother had ever been described in kingly terms.
Michael’s reaction was lost in the dimness. But not by the smallest movement of his body did he seem to react. The silence felt edged with glass—and her own dawning anger.
She stepped forward. “Go on,” she said sharply. “What is your next prediction?”
Mr. Smith huffed. “They are not predictions, madam, but messages from the vaporous realms.”
Insufferable pomp. “Your next message, then.”
He looked back to his sheet. “False royalty for an unsound mind: the king himself will wither in the prison of his own making—”
“Enough of kings,” she said, but some movement on the periphery of her vision drew her notice, and she saw once again the Hawthornes exchanging a significant smirk. A self-congratulatory smirk, in fact.
So perhaps she knew, after all, what tidings Nello’s letter had brought them. Michael’s brother’s strangeness had grown public. And it seemed she was not the only one who had thought to bribe a spiritualist.
“Another message,” she said in a warning voice. “Something more—”
She stopped as Michael stepped into the dim circle of light. “In fact, I find it quite interesting,” he said to her. “By all means, Mr. Smith—continue.”
His tone was pleasant, his expression utterly neutral. But as he spoke to Smith, his eyes switched from Liza to the Hawthornes, and the smile he gave them put Liza in mind of a wolf spotting his dinner.
The siblings’ smirks faded. Even the spiritualist looked suddenly uncertain of his material. Glancing between Michael and the page, he fumbled a little. “Ah—the, ah—” He turned the page over. “The Midas who paid in good coin for his rank will learn the—”
“Oh, I do believe that’s enough,” Hollister drawled. The wits whispered that he had purchased his barony. He did not look amused. “Who wants a drink?”
“Sounds lovely,” said Lady Forbes.
“A fine idea,” Liza said quickly. “To the terrace, then.” She waved broadly down the hall, then wasted no time in leaping forward to snatch the page from Smith’s hands. “I will speak with you later,” she said in an undertone. Her employees, temporary or no, did not take bribes from anybody but her.
• • •
With the company reassembled on the terrace for a hastily arranged round of champagne and charades, it dawned on Liza that she had lost a guest. Michael was nowhere to be seen. Making some excuse to Jane and Weston, who stood nearest her, she walked back into the house. A maid, scurrying past with fresh pitchers of water for the bedrooms, said that yes, she had seen Lord Michael—entering the library a few minutes ago.
It was there that Liza found him. He had turned up all the lamps and was browsing a shelf full of Shakespeare, and the smile he threw her as she entered looked disconcertingly cheerful. “You’ve a fine library. I hope you don’t mind?”
She waved this off. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I take full responsibility for Mr. Smith’s rubbish. I should have made certain beforehand that he would not get up to tricks.”
He did not immediately reply, but the thoughtful, measuring look he gave her communicated some message that bypassed her brain entirely. Her next breath came shorter, and she reached back to lay one hand on the doorknob. Perhaps coming here, alone, to find him had not been wise.
He noted her movement with a slight smile, then looked back to the bookshelf. With the tips of his fingers, he traced the length of a volume’s spine. The gesture seemed oddly graceful . . . sensuous, somehow. His hands were magical. Their capacity never failed to fascinate her.
“Did you apologize to Hollister as well?” he murmured.
Her fingers moved nervously over the brass knob. “Should I? What Mr. Smith said of him was true.”
He shrugged. “And so were his remarks to me.”
She did not like that. “W
hat rubbish! You know somebody fed him those lines to—”
“Goad me?” He turned away from the bookshelf, prowling to a long sofa where he dropped into a seat. “I’m not goaded,” he said. “If you come out of concern . . . I assure you, I didn’t steal off to sulk. It’s only that I lack interest in charades.” He laughed. “Which is rather ironic, when you think on it. For what is this between us, if not one great charade?”
Go. Go now. They had already danced around this matter once today, and it had left her bruised and full of horrible, impotent yearnings.
But the strange edge in his voice arrested her. She found herself gripped by a suspicion that overrode her concern for herself. Letting go of the door, she took a step toward him. “You can’t think it’s true,” she said. “That you will end up as your father did. That your . . . wife will follow your mother’s path.”
“My mother did no wrong,” he said flatly.
But that did not answer her question. “Forgive me,” she said. “I don’t know much of your family’s history.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
She winced. Of course she knew the bare outlines: a scandalous divorce, a trial filled with shocking tales of infidelity and violent quarrels. But she’d been a girl when the newspapers had advertised the de Greys’ troubles, and old gossip rarely found new circulation. “I can’t claim to know the truth,” she said. “I, of all people, know how rumormongers might twist facts to their liking.”
“Oh, but most of the rumors were true,” he said with a one-shouldered shrug. “At least in regard to my father. He was every inch the abusive, violent philanderer. And if my mother made . . . ill choices, then one cannot blame her for it. With my father as her husband, what choice did she have? He brought out the worst in every person he encountered.”
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. She hovered awkwardly a moment, then folded her arms over her chest. She could not imagine what it would be like to know such things about one’s parents. “That’s awful.”