The Victorian Gothic Collection: Volumes 1-3 Page 18

  Turning, she made her way back upstairs to her chamber. She would spend yet another night lying next to her drunkard of a husband wishing him and his entire family to the devil. They had so much at their disposal and would not use it. The power that flowed freely through Cysgod Lys, the entity that existed within its walls, was something that could have been harnessed and used for centuries to amass wealth and power. Instead they had bemoaned its presence and allowed madness and misery to take them. She would never be one of them. And as soon as the world was rid of the lot of them, she would be happier for it.

  CHAPTER TWO

  John Tremaine, Lord Mortimer, arrived by train with an entourage in tow. His valet was there, as well as Madame Leola, a mystic of some renown. She traveled with her ladies maid and an assistant. All of them descended on Machynlleth in the middle of the afternoon only days after he’d received the letter from Adelaide Llewellyn nee Hampton Parke, the new Countess of Montkeith.

  Madame Leola, in her intricately embroidered and somewhat eye catching garb in a rather shocking shade of crimson, created a stir wherever she went. Dark haired, lovely and with the manners of a fine lady, there was still something very much of the harlot about her. Not that it mattered to him. His interest in Madame Leola was strictly professional. He’d witnessed her ability to commune with spirits first hand. While she was far more theatrical about it than was strictly necessary, he found him convinced of her genuine gifts.

  Of course, Madame Leola wasn’t the only who was gifted. John’s own gift had always been his ability to sense such power in others, to differentiate the charlatans from the genuine article. It was what had made his meeting with Miss Hampton Parke so memorable. She was gifted, he was certain. He’d known her as a child, been friends with her father and her mother, as well as acquainted with her stepmother. But whatever strange abilities she possessed, they had not manifested in her yet, of that, he was certain. Of course, such abilities were to be nurtured if they were to reach their full potential and he doubted that her pragmatic mother and father, or her greedy stepmother, would have seen any purpose to that. The latter he had little regard for. In his estimation, Muriel Hampton Parke was the worst sort of woman, a fortune hunter with no regard for manners and decency.

  Their bags stowed in wagons and the servants riding along with them, he climbed into the hired carriage with Madame Leola. She was unusually quiet and he knew that was a matter of significance. When they were alone, he asked her rather pointedly, “What is it? Are you sensing something?”

  Her gaze turned toward him, connecting with the same jolt it always did. She was a beautiful woman. Had he been a different sort of man, that might have been the reason for it. But it wasn’t simply her appearance. There was something magnetic about Leola, about the power that seemed to eddy and swirl about her. Still, in that moment, she appeared troubled and vulnerable, something he was unused to seeing from her.

  “I am sensing many things, my lord,” she replied softly. “The dead linger here. Generation after generation, it seems. They are all around us and it is very difficult to make sense of it all with the lot of them whispering and shouting at me,” she said. “But there is something more. Something that feels infinitely older and much darker. It hides from me now. But I will soon discover the reasons for it.”

  “And Miss Hampton Parke… forgive me, Lady Montkeith. Can you sense her?”

  “There are two living beings here who possess great power. But my strongest gift has always been my ability to speak to the dead. The other questions I will only be able to answer after meeting them,” Madame Leola said.

  “Of course. Then let us proceed to Cysgod Lys and determine what manner of beings we are dealing with.”

  John stared straight ahead, but after a moment he became aware of a coldness beside him. The air was chilled beyond what the temperature of the day would allow for. Despite that, he did not feel alarmed. There was no sense of foreboding, only a sense of peace. Glancing at Madame Leola, he noted the sad smile that curved her lips.

  “She’s here isn’t she?”

  “She is always near you,” Madame Leola replied. “But yes, she is here. There is something about this place, the power of it, that allows her to come through more strongly. I can see her quite clearly.”

  And yet he saw nothing. He felt her presence. He knew that his dear Venetia was beside him. How many times had he felt her presence? The faint cold chill, the whiff of her perfume, the knowledge that he was not alone—and yet, as always, he was denied the vision of her face, the ability to look once more into her lovely blue eyes. It was maddening and frustrating beyond belief.

  He missed her, more than he’d ever thought it possible to miss a person. And yet despite that, the pain of grief was fading. He could picture her now with fondness and with a wistful sort of longing, but it was no longer accompanied by the vicious pang of regret and loneliness that had been his constant companion for so long. In many ways, the lessening of his grief was the hardest part of it all. It signified that his purpose in life, the thing that had driven him for nigh on a decade, to find some way of once more reaching her, was coming to an end. Not because he had succeeded, but because the need for it was fading.

  “Why can she not show herself to me?” he demanded. He had seen no spirits in his life. Never once had they appeared to him, but that had not swayed him from their existence. There were senses that he trusted more than something so easily manipulated and so fallible as vision.

  “Because it isn’t time,” Madame Leola replied. “You will see her when you need to see her.”

  “I need to see her now. I’ve needed to see her every day since she departed this world,” he snapped bitterly.

  “No, my lord. You did not. You wanted to see her. You longed to see her. But the need to see a spirit, when you are not cursed as I am, is not determined by you,” Madame Leola said sharply. “Have a care with your words. They upset her. And take comfort in her presence for she has remained a glimmer and shadow in this world when something far more beautiful awaits her beyond it.”

  Chastened by that reprimand, John turned to look out the carriage window to his right, but he allowed his left hand to linger near that cold. It lingered there until his fingertips were blue from it. It wasn’t a touch, it wasn’t the soft resilience of flesh, but it was the closest he had come to any tactile proof that his late wife was still present in his life. He meant to savor it.

  * * *

  Adelaide smoothed her hair as the carriage wheels crunched on the gravel drive outside. It had been three days since they’d received the initial telegram from Lord Mortimer that he was on his way to visit them. Another had arrived just that morning that Lord Mortimer was en route to Cysgod Lys with Madame Leola and her servants. She’d made accommodations ready for all of them, but she was still impossibly nervous. It was to be her first foray into any social situation as the Countess of Montkeith, saving their dinner with the Elams and that obviously did not really count. She worried that she would do something wrong and be an embarrassment to Eldren as she was clearly unprepared to be the wife of a nobleman. How exactly did one welcome a renowned expert in the occult and a mystic into one’s very, very haunted house?

  “It will be fine.”

  Adelaide started, her hand flying to her throat and a soft gasp escaping her. She hadn’t heard Eldren approach. She’d been so intent upon her appearance and smoothing the hair that he had mussed only moments earlier that she hadn’t even seen him walk up in the reflection of the hallway mirror. Things were not quite perfect between them, but they were better. Significantly better.

  “Do not sneak up on me that way!” she admonished.

  “I didn't mean to,” he said with a grin. “Now, relax. You look lovely.”

  “I look like I was just doing very wicked things in the library,” she protested. And it was true. The way he’d touched her, the scandalous things he’d whispered against her ear as he touched her so intimately brought her to blush
with the memory.

  “And you were. Very wicked. Very naughty. And very abbreviated. We shall rectify the latter when we take to our bed tonight.”

  Adelaide’s heart thumped in her chest. He still had not made love to her in the truest sense of the word. She was, she thought somewhat amused at the notion, the most thoroughly debauched virgin in all of the British Isles. There was a hint of sadness in her too, however. He had warned her that experiencing desire and physical pleasure would only make her yearn for more. On that score he had been correct. Every night when he touched her, when he brought her to glorious release, she had to bite her tongue on the urge to beg him to take her, to finally make them one. It was not what they had agreed upon. Their agreement that he would obtain the devices she’d read about, devices that would allow them to explore their passion more fully without risking a child, had not been spoken of again. But she knew that he had gone to Chester just the day before. But she wouldn’t ask. She had promised him she would not. That she would not ask such things of him until they were both free of whatever dark curse held Cysgod Lys firmly in its grasp. And that was why it was so terribly important to make a good impression on Lord Mortimer and his guest.

  Tromley appeared from whatever nook or cranny he occupied near the doors whenever guests were expected and opened them promptly at the first knock.

  Lord Mortimer stepped inside, a striking woman with coal black hair and vivid green eyes at his side. She wore a traveling costume of the deepest and most vibrant crimson that Adelaide had ever seen. There was a faint sheen to the fabric so that it almost appeared liquid, like blood, as the light played off it.

  “Lord Montkeith, Lady Montkeith,” Lord Mortimer said in greeting. “It is a pleasure to see you again, my lady. Please accept my condolences on the loss of your father. He was a great friend and a truly fine man.”

  Adelaide nodded in acknowledgement. “Thank you, Lord Mortimer. I believe you and my husband have met?”

  “We’ve never been formally introduced though we are both devotees of the sport of fighting. I think we shared an instructor in the pugilistic arts,” Lord Mortimer said.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mortimer,” Eldren said.

  “And my companion,” Lord Mortimer said, “Is the incomparable Madame Leola. She does not use nor does she require a surname.”

  “How do you do?” Adelaide said, uncertain of exactly how to address the woman.

  “This house has many layers, my lady,” Madame Leola said, stepping past Adelaide to run her hands lightly over the walls, over the furnishings. “There are so many things present here, some wicked, some protective, and others still that are completely neutral or who exist to cause chaos. I have never been in a place quite like it.”

  “You see the ghosts so clearly?” Eldren asked her, his skepticism obvious.

  “I do see spirits very clearly, Lord Montkeith,” Madame Leola offered with an enigmatic smile, “But that was only in reference to the living. The dead will tell me what they seek soon enough.”

  Adelaide shivered. “Let me have Tromley escort you to your chambers. I’m sure you require a rest after such an arduous journey. Dinner is promptly at seven and perhaps we can discuss your perceptions of the house more freely then?”

  “I shall look forward to it, Lady Montkeith,” Madame Leola said. “Until dinner.”

  When Lord Mortimer and Madame Leola had gone, servants and bags in tow, Eldren wasted no time in expressing his opinion of her. “She’s a damned charlatan.”

  “We don’t know that,” Adelaide said. For her part, she believed Madame Leola had a gift. The woman had walked past her to casually touch the walls and furnishings of the entryway. When she had, their arms had brushed and the experience had been rather like an electric shock. But there was more than that and she could not hope to explain it to her husband. There was simply a knowing there. She believed Madame Leola and, more to the point, she believed that Madame Leola could help them.

  “I know!” His tone was insistent and his expression one of supreme irritation. “It’s glaringly apparent, Adelaide. How she’s managed to pull the wool over Lord Mortimer’s eyes is a mystery, but I’ll not play the fool for her!”

  “Keep an open mind, Eldren. You said you would. Please? For me?”

  He looked back at her as he’d begun stalking towards the sanctity of his library. “I will be civil. I will play along. But I cannot believe for your sake or anyone else’s. I can only offer lip service.”

  “That is enough… for now,” Adelaide said. “I think in time you will believe her. I think we all will.”

  He frowned, his expression dark and troubled. “I fear that you will pin your hopes on this woman only to have them dashed. I do not want to see you disappointed, my dear.”

  “Disappointment I can live with. Constant fear and terror—that, Eldren, must be eliminated if at all possible. You do understand, don’t you?” Adelaide reached out and covered his hand with hers, savoring the strength in him, the warmth of his skin and that point of connection that made her feel as if they could truly face anything so long as they did it together.

  She knew, of course, that she was painfully in love with her husband. Infatuation and desire had mingled with the unspeakable intimacy they shared in the darkness of their bedchamber and she knew that her heart, if not fully engaged, was well on its way to being lost to him forever. He had not and likely would not return that sentiment. It was a terrible thought, one that made her heart ache, but it was better to face it.

  “I do. And if it means parading a dozen charlatans through that doorway, then I will bear it happily… well, I will bear it,” he relented.

  Adelaide smiled at that. He would. It was in moments such as that one she believed he might love her or come to do so, even if he would never feel free to admit it.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Dinner was a strained affair. Madame Leola was in rare form, Eldren thought. The woman wore an elaborate scarlet gown, similar in shade to the traveling costume she had worn upon arrival, her dark hair dressed in a fashion that looked as if she’d tumbled from her lover’s bed to attend the evening meal. It was clear to him immediately that the woman had less than platonic feelings for her employer, Lord Mortimer. It was also quite clear to him that Lord Mortimer’s interest in Madame Leola was limited quite strictly to her abilities.

  But it wasn’t the charlatan and her employer who were the primary source of tension that evening. Warren was drinking and wretched with it. Frances was—well, she was Frances. Cold, cutting, her words biting and sharp and her eyes sparkling with a sadistic glee whenever she managed to wound someone to the quick or make them uncomfortable. It was all a game to her, he thought, the thrust and parry of it as she tried to establish her own brand of dominance over the occupants of the room.

  “Tell me, Madame Leola, can you discern the gender of yet unborn children?” Frances asked. “I find myself so overwhelmed with curiosity that I cannot help but ask!”

  Madame Leola raised her eyebrows. “I can and I often do, Mrs. Llewellyn, but I fear it is too soon for you to have such information yet. It is best to wait until closer to the time of your confinement.”

  Frances made a face. “I had hoped to be able to reassure my brother-in-law that there would be an heir to Cysgod Lys and the earldom, regardless of what might occur within his own marriage.”

  Adelaide’s slight gasp was all the indication she gave that the barb had found its mark. But he didn’t need to defend her. Madame Leola was quick to the rescue.

  “I rarely make predictions regarding the unborn, Mrs. Llewellyn, but in this instance, I feel quite secure in stating unequivocally that you need not worry about the heir to the earldom. Your child will never bear such a burden,” Madame Leola said. Her lips were curved in a slight smile and her tone was all that was kindness, but there was a spark in her eyes. She’d hit her target as surely as the most excellent of marksmen.

  Frances face fell slightly. “Well,�
� she began after recovering, “Thank you for your kind reassurances, Madame Leola.”

  “You are most welcome, my dear Mrs. Llewellyn. I know how distressing it can be to plan for the future of a child. That small bit of reassurance is the very least I can offer you.”

  For his part, Eldren was done with it. “In lieu of the typical division of the sexes following dinner, Adelaide and I have a great deal to discuss with Lord Mortimer and Madame Leola. If you’ll excuse us, Frances, Warren… we’ll adjourn to the library and leave you to enjoy your dessert in peace. If that is acceptable?” Eldren lobbed the question at Lord Mortimer who clearly seized upon it as an escape.

  “Quite right, Montkeith.”

  * * *

  Adelaide rose and Madame Leola followed suit, as did Eldren and Mortimer. Together they walked out of the formal dining room and made their way to the library with Frances still sputtering behind them. Eldren’s tone and his words had made it more than clear that neither his brother nor his sister in law were welcomed to join them. If Madame Leola thought it odd that the other couple should be excluded from such discussions she managed to conceal the response rather well.

  As they entered the small drawing room, Adelaide felt inclined to speak and to defend Eldren’s behavior as some might think him ungracious. “You must forgive my husband’s apparent rudeness, Madame Leola. Frances can be… well, difficult, I suppose one could say.” She didn’t acknowledge Warren’s drinking. It wasn’t really necessary as no one in attendance could have missed it.