Evermore (Emily Chambers Spirit Medium Trilogy #3)(10)
"You can visit in the middle of the night if it's important." He opened the front door and a footman sailed across the tiles to meet us. "Library?" George said to me as the footman took our coats and hats.
"Most definitely."
"Greggs, have tea sent up to the library and lunch in an hour. Is Mother at home?"
"Mrs. Culvert is preparing to go out, sir," Greggs said in his deadpan voice.
"Preparing, eh? That could take hours." George hooked his arm through mine. "There's no need to tell her that I have a guest in the library. Unless she asks of course, then I suppose you must answer truthfully."
"Very good, sir."
"You could order him to lie to her," I whispered as we walked arm in arm into the library adjoining the entrance hall. "He is your servant after all, not your mother's."
"Mother has Greggs wrapped around her little finger. Besides, she would sniff out the presence of a visitor, particularly one connected to Lady Preston, regardless of what I tell her. Mother's senses function all too well when hunting prey that could help her in certain circles. You, my dear, are a tasty morsel indeed."
I stopped at the massive central table with its leather inlay and squat, solid legs, and set my reticule on the surface. "I'm not connected to Lady Preston at all. We are merely acquaintances."
"But you are friends with Adelaide, aren't you? I mean, Miss Beaufort." From the way he leaned forward, I sensed he was interested in the answer for his own sake, not his mother's.
"We are friends of sorts, although I'm not sure how close we are considering she is the daughter of an earl and I am the illegitimate daughter of a—" I realized I didn't know what my father did for a living. Perhaps he was a grocer like his father. "A nobody."
He winced. "Friendship knows no boundaries, Emily. Nor does love."
"You are sounding positively egalitarian, George." I scanned one of the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that occupied three entire walls of the cavernous room. George's library was very impressive, with many of the books being old and rare. His library was a reader's dream, as long as that reader had an interest in the paranormal. "What's happened to make you so fair-minded? When we first met, you thought my friendship with Adelaide quite shocking."
"You happened, as a matter of fact."
"Me?" I paused, my hand on a book spine, and looked at him over my shoulder.
"Yes, you. Your friendship has enriched me beyond anything these dusty books ever taught me." He swept his arms wide to indicate the library with its thousands upon thousands of volumes.
"Why George, you're being very sweet all of a sudden." I narrowed my eyes. "Do you want something from me?" His cheeks reddened and I laughed. "I knew it!"
"No, no. Oh very well, yes." He gave me a crooked smile and pushed his glasses up his nose. "I simply want to ask you some questions about Miss Beaufort. What sort of dances she likes best, her hobbies, that sort of thing."
Meaning he wanted to charm her at the ball. Dear George got sweeter and sweeter with every moment. "What I could teach you about women in general, and Adelaide in particular, would take the rest of the day, and that's only because you know so little. I'm sorry, George, we don't have the luxury today."
He sighed. "Of course. You did say it was important. Something's happened in the Waiting Area?"
I told him about the fading spirits and everything Jacob had said. "He's going to find out what he can from the Administrators, but it's chaotic up there apparently."
"And he thinks a living person is causing the chaos?"
"He does. But how can that be? How can someone from here influence what happens there?"
"A curse perhaps." He moved one of the ladders fixed to the bookshelf railing and positioned it near the fireplace. That corner of the library seemed gloomier than the rest, being furthest away from the large arched windows that looked out upon Wilton Crescent.
"It seems likely since our recent problems with demons and possessions have mostly come about from curses in one form or another."
Some curses, or incantations, could only be spoken by a medium for them to work, and some needed a talisman or object, but others could be uttered by anyone. Learning the words, however, was another issue entirely.
"George," I hedged, "you may not like what I'm going to suggest, but do you think someone from the Society For Supernatural Activity would have the know-how to do something like this?"
He looked down at me from halfway up the ladder. "Someone like Price you mean?"
"Yes." Leviticus Price was an eccentric scholar connected to the man who'd released the shape-shifting demon. He'd also proved evasive when we tried to ask him about possession. I didn't like him. He made feel like I was little better than something he'd scraped off the bottom of his shoe. Perhaps I was biased by my dislike and forming unfair conclusions, but so be it. We had to start somewhere.
"It's possible." George tilted his head to the side to read the book spines. "But I have the most extensive library of all the members and he hasn't been here. Nor has anyone else of late and I doubt our villain would find a text on ways to disrupt the Otherworld anywhere else in London."