chapter 7
Xavier waited on the patio to lead me to a table in the corner of a deserted parlor. I repeated etiquette rules to myself as we crossed the wide expanse of the room, so that I wouldn’t replay Colin’s kiss in my head. I felt warm, too warm. Had Colin really just kissed me?
A lady does not cross her feet when seated.
And had I kissed him back, just as eagerly?
A lady does not shake hands at a ball.
“Mother, Father, allow me to introduce to you Miss Violet Willoughby,” Xavier said, stepping aside to present me as if I were a particularly shiny new toy. I had to force myself to pay attention.
“Miss Willoughby,” his father said pleasantly, lowering his newspaper. He wore gold rings and a gold pin through his elaborate cravat. “How do you do?”
I made a small curtsy, then immediately wondered if a short bow would have been more appropriate. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.”
Xavier beamed proudly. “Isn’t she just as beautiful as I said?”
I didn’t know what to say to that. Or where to look. My smile didn’t fit quite properly.
“Xavier, you’re embarrassing the young lady,” his mother admonished. “Do sit down, Miss Willoughby.”
“Thank you.” I tried not to flop onto the couch. Women always lowered themselves so gracefully. I had no idea how they managed it while wearing a corset. I nearly toppled over but caught myself by bracing my foot around the leg of the brocade chair. Xavier sat beside me, smiling.
“I think Miss Willoughby loves hot chocolate best of all, don’t you, darling?” he asked, nodding to the silver tray in front of us.
I wondered if he had me confused with another girl or if he just assumed all girls preferred chocolate. And if I had to drink chocolate now, I might be sick all over his mother’s very fine silk shoes with the embroidered buttons. My fingers ached at the sight of those buttons. I felt sorry for the poor seamstress who’d had to manage those stitches by gaslight.
I swallowed thickly. “Tea would be lovely.”
Blast.
Did a lady remove her gloves to take tea or only at the dinner table? I couldn’t remember.
“Milk or lemon?” Mrs. Trethewey’s dress was yellow and matched the gold curtains. Citrine stones dangled from her ears and hung heavy around her neck. Her gloves were folded primly next to her.
I hurried to pull mine off, nearly elbowing Xavier in the kidney. “Lemon, please.”
This was already the longest tea in the history of tea. The cup in my hand was painted with roses and doves.
“Xavier tells us you are from London, Miss Willoughby.”
“Yes, ma’am. Near Wimpole Street.”
“Is that near the park?”
“It’s not far,” I hedged, taking a hasty swallow of tea and burning my tongue. At home I’d have eaten a spoonful of sugar to soothe the burn. I could just imagine what Xavier and his parents’ reaction would be were I to dig into the sugar bowl. I nearly snorted a laugh right there at the painted table and shocked their elegant sensibilities.
“Your mother is very popular there, I understand,” Mr. Trethewey said. “In the Spiritualist circles?”
I nodded. “She is accounted a good medium, sir.”
“Better than good,” Xavier bragged lightly. “I heard tell if this sitting of Lord Jasper’s goes well, there’s a duke who’s interested!”
I’d hadn’t heard that rumor yet, and I sincerely hoped my mother never did.
“And you’re from a good family, aren’t you?” Mrs. Trethewey asked, stirring her tea carefully so that the spoon never made a whisper of sound against the cup. I couldn’t recall if my spoon had clattered. Probably. “Who are your people?”
The illustrious Willoughbys were confined to a series of portraits in the stairway at home, all lined up in a row to watch over us. Mother told people they were her husband’s ancestors, but the truth was, she’d found them behind a stall in Covent Garden one morning. My favorite was the old woman with her cocker spaniel, which was dressed ignominiously in a lacy white christening gown with a ridiculous pink bow on each floppy ear. I wasn’t sure Mrs. Trethewey would take to her.
“Yes, my father died when I was very young,” I replied, not quite answering either question. Telling someone your father had died usually ended that particular train of conversation.
“Oh dear, I’m very sorry,” Mrs. Trethewey said. “Have some more tea.”
“And what do you do for pleasure?” Xavier’s father asked. “Horseback riding? Collect seashells? You’re not one of those rarefied girls afraid of a little exertion, are you?”
I was the best pickpocket this side of London Bridge, I made an excellent plum pudding, and I knew how to string flowers on thread so they looked as if they were floating. And, apparently, I now saw ghosts and heard voices.
I didn’t think those would count as pleasurable pursuits.
“I am very fond of reading,” I said.
Mrs. Trethewey set her cup down. “Reading.”
Xavier winced.
“And seashells,” I hastened to add. “I love making seashell lamps.” I’d never made a seashell lamp in my life, but I’d read all about them in a ladies’ periodical. They’d been touted as a dignified pastime. “And I assist my mother,” I said, hating myself a little for playing the game. “She did a reading for Lady Charleston just recently.” Lady Charleston was considered a very fine lady and arbiter of all things fashionable.
Mrs. Trethewey’s eyes lit up, my suspicious reading habits instantly forgotten. “You don’t say!”
Xavier nodded, and the two of them proceeded to discuss the new fashion for silk flowers, calling cards with silk borders, and a new shop on Bond Street I’d never heard of. I drank tea and smiled and nodded and drank more tea. Finally, Xavier stood.
“I ought to return Miss Willoughby to her mother, I suppose, so they may change for the picnic.”
“I suppose so,” I agreed, rising reluctantly. I had every intention of slipping into some dark corner with a book and no intention whatsoever of spending the afternoon with my mother. Plus, I didn’t have an extra dress to change into. “Thank you for the tea.”
“I am very much looking forward to your mother’s demonstrations,” Mrs. Trethewey said. “She is quite famous. Quite famous indeed, if she has sat for Lady Charleston.”
“You really are uncommonly pretty,” Mr. Trethewey said, smiling jovially. “I understand what my son sees in you.”
I smiled weakly.
The picnic was chaperoned by Lord Jasper’s more amiable sister Lady Octavia. Some of the neighboring families attended and so Tabitha was there as well. I refused to let her glower ruin the afternoon. My mother elected to stay behind, not being fond of the outdoors, and I felt very nearly free despite my precarious position and imminent ghost-madness. The sky was as blue and delicate as a porcelain teacup, and the hills rolled gently in all directions, intersected occasionally with the silver ribbon of a river. Robins sang in the beech trees.
Tables waited for us on a hilltop, set with white cloths and ceramic pitchers filled with lemonade. There was cold ham and pigeon pie and bowls of blackberries and custard. I wondered if Colin had been pressed into helping the footmen move all of the food and if he’d noticed the very fine cutlery. It would have been so easy to slip one of those silver spoons into the slit in the hem of my skirt. I might have sold it back in London and got enough money to buy food for the week. We might even have been able to afford beef. I clasped my hands behind my back to avoid the temptation.
“Violet, you simply must try one of these tartlets!” Elizabeth brushed crumbs off her hands. There were pearl beads on her gloves. “On second thought, perhaps you should stick to the sweets. It wouldn’t do to eat leek tarts now when Xavier might kiss you!”
I glanced about. “Elizabeth!”
She just laughed. “No one’s near enough to hear us. So how did it go with his mother? She loves you already, of course.” Sometimes Elizabeth’s optimism still took me by surprise. She had no doubt that Xavier loved me and that we’d be married and everything would turn out swimmingly. But she didn’t really know my mother, or how close I had come to stealing the silverware.
Still, it had gone better than I’d thought. Xavier’s mother seemed disposed to think well of me. And apparently his father still wouldn’t stop telling Xavier how pretty I was.
I couldn’t help but wonder if Colin was thinking about our kiss at all.
I ate a slice of pineapple before answering her and then lost my train of thought completely. I’d never eaten pineapple before. It was even better than strawberry ice cream.
“This is the best food I have ever eaten,” I said reverently, taking another bite. “I would marry this pineapple, if I could.”
“Well, have at it then, before Lord Furlinghew creaks his way up here. He’s notorious for eating it all and leaving none for anyone else.”
I ate two more slices so fast I nearly choked.
Elizabeth grinned and slipped a handful of sugared almonds into her reticule for later. “They’ve set up a croquet field on the other side of the hill. Let’s see if a match has started yet.”
“I don’t know how to play,” I said apologetically.
“Oh, I don’t actually want to play.” She waved her hand dismissively. “I just want to see if it gets warm enough that Lord Fitzwilliam has to remove his coat. He has the nicest shoulders.”
The thwack of mallets led us around a copse of ash saplings to a meadow bordered with cowslips and daisies. Dress flounces and hair ribbons fluttered and polished boots gleamed as guests laughed and attempted to knock the striped wooden balls clear out of the allotted playing field. The long grass fluttered around our calves. The pond between Rosefield and Whitestone Manor gleamed like a silver coin dropped into the palm of summer.
If Xavier and I really did marry, we might have many afternoons like this one. Lazy and content, full of pineapple and elegant friends. Never mind that Elizabeth was the only person here I was really comfortable with—it was still a nice daydream. I tilted my head up to the sky, letting the dapple of sunlight make the insides of my closed eyelids dance with colors.
“I knew he’d have to take off his coat eventually!” Elizabeth giggled. The sound pierced the quiet moment, jolting me back. “And his cravat. I may swoon. Violet! You have to look.”
I opened my eyes lazily. “Mmm?”
“Fitzwilliam over there. The handsome one.” She sounded fluttery.
I obediently followed her gave and also went fluttery.
Only I wasn’t looking at Lord Fitzwilliam but Rowena Wentworth.
She came toward me, stepping out of the ash saplings, trailing a soaked hem that left water in the grass like dew. No one else saw her. Elizabeth continued her excited, hushed chatter, a mallet cracked against a ball, a red-winged blackbird cried as it dove toward the pond. Rowena stared at me, hard.
I blinked but the blasted girl remained.
I shook my head once at her and tried to ignore her. She should have the decency to stay dead. Not to mention she’d nearly drowned me in my own bedroom. I counted to ten under my breath before looking back.
She was still there, water dripping from her tangled hair, wearing a crown of lilies and grass, bruises on her arms, her fine dress ragged.
Elizabeth paused, sniffed. “Do you smell lilies?”
I looked at her sharply. “Do you?”
She took another breath and shrugged. “Not anymore. Must have been the wind off the pond.” She went back to her enamored fluttering over Lord Fitzwilliam’s shoulders.
Rowena’s pale face turned toward me pleadingly.
“Please, not here,” I muttered under my breath. “Go away. Just go away.”
She opened her mouth but only water came out, falling over blue lips. I shuddered, feeling water soak into my boots. I clenched my hands into fists, digging my nails into my palms, willing the queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach to go away. I felt odd all over, as if I were standing on a ship in the middle of a storm. My vision wavered. I blinked frantically, but there was no stopping it. I felt as if I were falling. I wondered if I was swooning, but Elizabeth didn’t cry out and I didn’t feel the impact of the ground.
In fact, I couldn’t see the grassy field at all.
Instead, I was standing on broken flagstones overgrown with white lilies that glowed blue in the strange twilight. There was grass all around and apple trees raining pale pink petals everywhere. There was a huge stone staircase, the kind that belonged to a crumbling castle, only this one just stopped, leading to nowhere in particular.
Rowena stood on the third step near a branch of candles. A light at the top of the stairs grew bright as the moon, bright as a thousand candles. I could feel the warmth even as far away as I was. Rowena was shivering in her wet dress, her lips faintly blue. I couldn’t imagine why she didn’t want to get closer.
“Please, sweetheart,” a woman begged from the top step. She was in silhouette against the light, but I caught glimpses of long blond hair and diamonds. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
I knew without any logical sense that this was Rowena’s mother, who’d died years before. I felt it.
Rowena wouldn’t go to her. She covered her eyes as if the light was too bright, as if it hurt her to look at it. She was crying and shaking her head violently.
“Tabitha.” I saw Rowena mouth her sister’s name but couldn’t hear her over the sudden rain that beat down around us, flattening the grass and tearing petals from the apple branches. The light dimmed. Rowena was still weeping, and I was too, though I couldn’t have said why.
“Tabitha.”
The rain blurred my vision and between one blink and the next, I was back in the field. The crack of the croquet balls seemed too loud. There were tears on my cheeks. Rowena was gone.
But Tabitha stood in front of me, her smiled barbed. She trailed several young gentlemen in white cravats and windswept hair.
“What’s the matter with her?” she asked Elizabeth disdainfully. I had no idea how long I’d been standing there, unresponsive. I shifted, embarrassed.
“Are you ill?” Elizabeth asked me.
I shook my head. “I felt faint is all. Too much sun.”
“Allow me.” One of Tabitha’s beaus offered me his arm gallantly. Tabitha’s eyes narrowed as I placed my hand on his wrist.
“Violet, weren’t you wearing that same dress this morning?” She smiled at Xavier, who was talking to one of her gallants about cricket. “Mr. Trethewey, I do hope Miss Willoughby didn’t ruin your coat with her clumsiness.”
“Not at all, I assure you.” He bowed in my direction. I smiled and tried not to flush red. He’d think I was embarrassed when really it was my temper boiling under my skin. I was in no position to vent it here. I swallowed hard; it was like I had one of Elizabeth’s candied almonds stuck in my throat.
Tabitha smirked. She was an earl’s daughter and knew exactly what she could get away with.
“Oh, Tabitha.” Elizabeth sighed. She also was an earl’s daughter and therefore unimpressed. “Stop being such a flibbertigibbet.”
Tabitha sniffed. “Well, if you’re going to be like that,” she said, “I’ll take my new friends elsewhere.” They circled her, offering to fetch lemonade or clear a spot free of leaves under the branches so she might have some shade. The sun flashed off a cravat pin. I recognized the young man from the gardens who’d been spying on Caroline. And he’d been pacing the halls when Colin and I had hid in the ferns. He wasn’t smiling and flirting with Tabitha like the others. In fact, he looked quite desperate. And I couldn’t help but notice that his suit, though neatly pressed, was not nearly of the same quality as the others. He stood out against the lounging aristocrats, especially near Frederic, who was drinking from a silver flask he pulled out of his pocket, an emerald ring gleaming on his finger.
Elizabeth stood up straighter. “Hello, Frederic.”
He toasted her absently. Tabitha fluttered her eyelashes at Xavier, who blinked, ears red. “Mr. Trethewey, I should love to sketch those pink lady’s slippers we saw growing near that little cave. Perhaps you might fetch some for me? I’d be ever so grateful.”
He glanced at me helplessly. He was no match for her. “Of course, Miss Wentworth.”
She flashed me a look of pure smug triumph and then flounced away, the gentlemen eagerly placing bets as to who would pick the most flowers for her. Elizabeth and I were left alone, watching miserably as Xavier and Frederic disappeared to do her bidding.
“She’ll be unbearable for the rest of the week now,” Elizabeth said apologetically. “She never gets to flirt anymore, and each of those gentlemen are single and wealthy. Well, except for the one on the end. I’m not sure who he is.” She shook her head. “Her uncle won’t like it one bit when he sees that lot. And she’ll be staying overnight in one of Jasper’s guest rooms as often as she can now.” She swung her arm through mine. “Come on, let’s see if there’s any pineapple left.”
There was a scratching at my door that night, followed by what sounded like a hedgehog choking.
When I swung the door open, Elizabeth stopped mid-cough. “Quickly, before someone sees me.” She darted inside, a shawl draped over her nightdress and something tucked under her arm. “My mother took forever to fall asleep. I couldn’t risk creeping past her room when she was still awake. No matter how quiet I think I am, it’s like she has some occult sense when it comes to the possibility of me having any fun.” She sailed past me and took up residence on the carpet in front of the open window where the crickets sang in the rose gardens. The flame of my candle flickered in the draft.
I joined her on the carpet, eyeing the lump under her arm suspiciously. “What have you got there?”
“I found it in Uncle Jasper’s library. In the cabinet on the balcony.”
“The locked cabinet?”
“Naturally. There’s nothing to picking a lock—anyone with a hairpin can manage. It’s a spirit-board,” she explained before I could come up with a plausible reason why a Spiritualist medium’s daughter wanted nothing to do with spirits. The moon afforded us just enough milky blue light that the white of our nightclothes glowed faintly and I could make out the figures on the board in front of us if I squinted. “Uncle Jasper has access to the best things. He says this will be all the rage as soon as they perfect it, but he doesn’t approve of its parlor use just yet.”
“Perfect it how?”
She wrinkled her nose. “It’s apparently not as safe as it could be.”
I looked dubiously at the painted wooden board on the carpet between us. “Looks safe enough to me. It’s only a piece of oak.”
“Exactly! I knew you wouldn’t come over all missish.”
It seemed a simple enough object, painted with the alphabet in black and roman numerals from one to nine. YES and NO were in each corner and GOOD-BYE on the bottom. A curious triangle piece with little legs stood off to the side. “How does this piece work?”
“I’m not sure exactly. It’s called a planchette.”
“You don’t know? How are we meant to make any use of it?”
“I am sure we can figure it out. I do know we’re meant to use the planchette.” She lifted the triangle piece and set it on the board. “And from what I can gather, the spirits push it to letters in succession and spell out messages from the afterworld.” She shivered dramatically. “Perhaps we can convince Boadicea or Anne Boleyn to speak to us. Or Aphrodite might tell me if Frederic will fall in love with me?” I didn’t think even the goddess of love herself would dare say no to Elizabeth. “Ooh, perhaps she’ll tell you exactly when Xavier will propose. I do hope he bends on one knee and recites a sonnet to your beauty.”
I wondered if it said something unsavory about my character that the image of Xavier reciting love poems made me want to laugh. That was hardly romantic of me. I didn’t mention it out loud; instead I pulled my shawl tighter around my shoulders and made myself more comfortable. “Let’s get started, shall we? I’m all shivers.”
“I know, isn’t it deliciously frightening? We might speak to Napoleon—or Catherine Bathory, who bathed in the blood of virgin girls.”
“I meant that I’m getting cold, you goose.”
“Oh.” She pushed her hair back off her shoulders and met my eyes. “Ready?”
I swallowed. It was silly to be nervous about a parlor game. But what I was really nervous about was being forced to admit, rather sooner than later, that there really were spirits and that, yes, they liked to talk to me.
One could deny the obvious for only so long.
A little longer might be nice though.
“Spirits,” Elizabeth whispered. “Speak to us through this talking board. We are listening.”
We waited expectantly. I stared so hard at the planchette, waiting for it to move, that my eyes burned.
Elizabeth’s shoulders sagged. “Nothing’s happening.”
I wiped my palms on my knees. “Perhaps we’re doing it wrong. Are we meant to sing, like at a séance?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t very well ask Uncle Jasper, now, could I? Perhaps it’s broken?” She crouched down, her nose practically touching the planchette. “Hello?”
She looked so ridiculous, I couldn’t suppress a giggle. It came out more like a snort and the sound startled Elizabeth so that she squeaked and leaped away, as if the planchette had turned into a spider. I laughed harder.
She glowered, thumping her chest as if her heart had stammered to a stop. “Don’t do that!”
“Sorry!” I couldn’t stop giggling. She tried to hold on to her glare, but after a moment she was chortling as well. She wiped her eyes.
“Perhaps we can ask your mother?” she asked, once she’d gotten her composure back. “Surely she has experience with such things?”
“No!” I answered, perhaps too quickly. Elizabeth blinked at my severity. I tried to smile, to soften my tone. “I happen to know she’s never had any experience with spirit-boards.” I cast about for something else to say, to break the moment before she began to wonder at my discomfort.
I might have told her the truth then.
I didn’t. Instead, I turned my attention back to the planchette.
“I saw a drawing once, in one of the Spiritualist papers,” I said, remembering the sketch of sitters around a table, hands resting on the wooden triangle. “Everyone was touching the planchette, the way sitters hold hands. Perhaps to join us together with the energies?”
“Brilliant!” Elizabeth said. “Perhaps you really are a medium, just like your mother.”
I couldn’t explain to her why the notion depressed me so.
We leaned forward to try again. The crickets stopped singing the moment our fingertips rested on the planchette. I tried not to take it as an omen. Elizabeth smiled nervously.
“Ready?” she whispered. When I nodded, she raised her voice a touch higher. “Spirits, we are listening.”
The same silence stretched between us.
“We await your presence.” She sounded sharp, like a governess.
A tingle skittered across my brow, like a beetle. But there were no spirit voices or faces peering back at me.
“How rude.” Annoyed, Elizabeth huffed out a breath. “As I’m not the medium’s daughter, they clearly won’t speak to me. You try.”
I worked to relax my fingers so they wouldn’t cramp. “Spirits.”
“You could ask to speak to your father,” Elizabeth whispered.
I shook my head. I knew there would be no answer; we would call out until our tongues turned blue.
“Spirits,” I repeated more forcefully, suddenly just wanting this to be over so I could crawl back under my blankets. If I hadn’t had to keep my fingers so still, I would have scratched at my forehead. It felt tight, tingling as if my skin was burned with too much sun. At first I wasn’t convinced anything was actually happening. The planchette moved infinitesimally, but it might have been the way we were hunched over the board.
“Is anything happening?” Elizabeth asked in hushed undertones.
“I’m not sure. Maybe?” I leaned slightly so that the moonlight fell past my shoulder onto the spirit-board. “Please, speak to us!”
“It moved!” She grabbed my arm, startling me. The planchette stuttered, as if it had slid from a waxed floor to a carpet.
“Put your hand back!”
She scratched me in her haste to grip the planchette again. I kept very still. It moved again, just a little.
“Did you see that?” Elizabeth breathed.
I nodded, not trusting my voice. The triangle moved so slowly, sweat beaded under my arms as I strained not to shift my hands or influence it in any way. Across from me, Elizabeth was similarly flushed. It seemed to take an age for it to travel just a few inches, toward the first letter, R.
“R,” Elizabeth breathed. “For what? Rheumatism? Retinue? Richard the Third?”
The planchette continued to move, toward the O.
“Romantic? It’s going to tell us our husband’s name! Or else … rotund?” She paused. “Is it calling us fat?”
W.
“Someone’s going to have a row?” She blinked, inhaling sharply. “Oh.” She met my eyes. I nodded, not looking up from the movement of the planchette.
The rest of the name was painstakingly spelled out.
Rowena.
I felt odd, light-headed and short of breath, and the spot between my eyes burned.
Elizabeth was trembling, her eyes glistening. “Truly? Rowena?”
I’d forgotten that, to Elizabeth, this was an old friend who had tragically died last summer, not just some ghost tormenting her. The planchette was moving much more quickly, like a beetle on the surface of a pond.
“N-o-t s-a-f-e.”
Elizabeth and I stared at the board.
“What’s not safe?” she whispered, looking at me with wide eyes.
The planchette continued its eerie journey.
“N-o-t a-l-o-n-e.”
Both of us looked over our shoulders. My breath felt thick in my throat. I could very easily imagine someone sneaking up behind us even though there was nothing but a painted clothes cabinet behind me. Rowena must have meant herself. There was someone else with her, trying to control the board. Or else there was someone else searching out her murderer, and we weren’t alone in the investigation. Or there was someone in the hallway listening to our conversation. There were so many interpretations, I felt as if we now knew less than when we’d started.
The pointer stalled. I could feel the connection wavering; the burning on my brow became a distracting pain.
“Rowena, don’t go!” Elizabeth cried. “You have to tell us what’s going on!”
The planchette spelled out M-r and then T-r-a.
And then it went suddenly fast as a top. It spun and spun in place and then stopped abruptly and would not move again no matter how much we concentrated or pleaded. Elizabeth looked nearly as flabbergasted as I felt.
“Bollocks,” she whispered.
I nodded mutely. But at least we knew something we hadn’t known previously. There was a person of interest whose name started with “Tra,” perhaps the spirit clinging to the board with Rowena? Perhaps someone else altogether.
It wasn’t much. But at least it was something.
The next morning I tried to ask if Mother knew anyone with a name starting with “T-r-a,” but she told me not to bother her while she was preparing for the ball. Without any new sightings, I managed to forget about the voices and the spirit-board for a little while. A ball is a most wonderful distraction when one concentrates hard enough. Elizabeth spent hours preparing, which mostly consisted of arguing with her mother about corset stays versus the physical need to breathe. Neither she nor I were debutantes just yet (and I never would be), but we were allowed to wear our best gowns and put our hair up with pearl-tipped pins. Should anyone ask, we were even allowed to dance. It was considered perfect practice for when we officially came out. If I felt a little like a show pony, I was proud enough of my off-the-shoulder periwinkle blue gown not to mind it terribly.
The ballroom was spectacular, as expected, lit with beeswax candles and oil lamps. Giant ferns and orange trees had been brought from the conservatory and placed in all the corners, creating shadowy and secret jungles. And, of course, there were roses everywhere—white ones hanging from the ceiling, red petals scattered over every surface: floor, table, and punch bowl. Even the orchestra was hidden behind rose-draped screens so that the music seemed to float from nowhere at all. In the room adjacent, the buffet table was piled high with cucumber sandwiches, plum cake, and soda creams. Footmen circulated with trays of lemonade and champagne. There were easily a hundred guests, as Lord Jasper had invited most of his neighbors alongside his friends and family. Couples waltzed in a large circle in the center of the room. It was beautiful.
But something wasn’t right.
The ballroom was far more crowded than the guests alone could account for. Next to or behind each of them was an extra person: misty, cold, thin as glass and just as transparent.
I rubbed my eyes but the spirits remained, waltzing, walking, and singing. A few were dressed as the rest of us, some were in chitons, and one woman was in a full Renaissance gown.
A man waltzed by in the striped waistcoat of a dandy, another in a doublet and hose.
A lady in a dress such as Marie-Antoinette might have worn, with her hair piled high around a small, gilded cage complete with singing bird; a girl in a gypsy skirt; and a man who looked decidedly like a pirate. His ear hoop gleamed and he moved like smoke.
Some wept, some laughed. One appeared to be screaming into an old man’s ear but he didn’t so much as blink. Indeed, none of the other guests could see them, judging from the lack of fainting and shrieks.
I could see them perfectly.
And they could see me.
I’d never felt the way I did in that moment, when they all turned in unison to clap their phosphorescent eyes on me. I felt light and yet heavy as stone. My stomach turned upside down, as if I was riding far too fast in a broken carriage. I felt somehow far away from my body and yet utterly trapped in it through fear and awe.
Rowena, on the other hand, barely acknowledged me, which seemed odd. She was usually far too eager to insinuate herself into my company. Instead, tonight she hovered protectively by Tabitha’s side, water pooling under her feet. She wore a crown of white lilies. She looked at me, at last, as she tried to place herself between her sister and a man whose back was turned to me. I couldn’t recognize him; he wore the same dark suit as every other man here, with indistinguishable brown hair cut in the current style. He could have been anyone.
And I didn’t have time to wait for him to turn around.
Because the other ghosts abandoned their posts, no longer dancing with unknowing partners, watching over wallflowers, or pressing close to widowed dowagers.
They rushed at me, all at once, as if some beacon only they could see had been lit above me. Their expressions registered countless emotions: relief, excitement, anger, fear, longing.
The force of it crashed over me like icy water.
Their mouths moved but I heard no words: only something like thunder and a high-pitched screech, like metal on metal, which had me clapping my hands over my ears. The ribbons on my dress fluttered.
The rest of the party carried on, sipping lemonade, gossiping, smoking cigars outside in the still garden. I barely heard the sweeping music or the scuff of silk shoes on the floor. There was nothing but those ghostly faces, those misty bodies.
Hands reached toward me, dozens of spirit hands touching me with all the weight of winter. I’d never felt such cold in my entire life, not even the day I’d fallen into the river in February.
“Stop it!” I stumbled back a step, trying to bat them away. A prim-mouthed guest looked at me disapprovingly. I didn’t know how long I’d been standing there, frozen at first and then pushing at imaginary hands.
I moaned once before a warm hand, palm comfortingly callused, closed around my upper arm and yanked me back out into the hallway. He dragged me or I stumbled after him, until he stopped in a shadowy alcove. I pressed my back against the solid wall and slid down to the floor, heedless of my new gown and the pale silk flowers sewn along the hem and trims.