Evermore (Emily Chambers Spirit Medium Trilogy #3)(4)

I stopped and stared at her. She stopped too. "What is it?" she asked.

"You amaze me sometimes, Celia. That was quite an astute observation."

"You don't have the monopoly on cleverness in this family, you know."

I couldn't think of any response that wouldn't offend her so I continued walking. "I admit that I had assumed Lord Preston wouldn't care about Adelaide's wishes."

"On some things, perhaps not, but on this matter it seems he does. His wife's wishes too, of course."

That lulled me into a thoughtful silence. Perhaps Lord Preston wasn't the tyrant I'd originally pegged him to be.

"Did Lord Fulham's spirit say anything to you?" Celia asked, stopping at the intersection with busy Sloane Street. "From the look on your face, I'd say he did and that it wasn't something you liked hearing. He didn't insult you, did he?"

"No. He appeared much faded and very weak."

"As with Madame Friage yesterday."

I'd told Celia my concerns following our last séance, but both of us had dismissed Madame Friage's faintness at the time. We’d assumed she was about to crossover from the Waiting Area to the Otherworld, but now Lord Fulham had appeared just as faded, and he had said he was not going to cross. That he could not, and nor could the other spirits.

The steady stream of omnibuses and coaches meant we had to concentrate as we crossed Sloane Street and neither of us spoke until we reached the other side.

I rounded on Celia as she shook her skirt to dislodge some of the street grime that had dared cling to its hem. "I'm worried," I said. "Something is wrong in the Waiting Area."

"It would appear so."

"We must do something. I should summon J—"

"No! You will not summon him. We can work around this little problem without him."

Work around? Little problem? "Celia, what are you talking about? This is a potential disaster, not only for the poor spirits who can't cross, but for our business too. If word gets out that ghosts aren't co-operating, then our bookings will dry up. I can't conduct a séance without ghosts." If anything would propel Celia into action it would be the mention of our income dwindling.

"You could pretend the spirits are present."

"Celia!" I could no more act my way through an entire séance than I could perform on a stage in front of hundreds of people. The latter had been another of Celia's wild schemes only the week before, one I'd refused to participate in.

"It may be the only way." She clutched my hand and looked at me with an expression that hardened her pretty features and wrinkled her otherwise smooth brow. "Emily, we cannot afford to lose any customers."

A carriage rolled up and the window was pushed down by a hand clad in a brown leather glove. Lord Preston's hand, going by the family's coat of arms on the carriage door.

The first voice I heard was not Lord Preston's, however, but his wife's. "Please, leave her be, Reginald. There's no need to create a scene."

Celia took my arm. The sharp talons of her fingers pierced through the layers of my clothing. "Is there something we can do for you, my lord?" she asked coolly.

Lord Preston's face appeared through the window, his tall hat skimming the top of the frame. He was handsome, for an older man, but his prominent brow made him look angry all the time. Or perhaps being angry all of the time was what had made his brow so pronounced in the first place.

"Do not think I've given up," he snarled. "Do not think you've gotten away with anything, Miss Chambers. You are a fraud. Your tricks are heartless and cruel and I will discredit you."

Celia took a step back as if he'd pushed her, but I stood my ground, even as she tried to pull me away from the coach. I would not give into him. I was many things—a fatherless bastard of African descent, a woman of trade, and a magnet for trouble—but I was not a fraud.

"Is that all, my lord?" I asked with the sweetest voice I could muster through my seething anger. "Because I'm very busy and there's a ghost over there who wishes to speak to me." It was a lie, but it made him look in the direction of my nod, which I found perversely amusing.

"Reginald, please," came Lady Preston's pleading voice from within the carriage. "Let's go. For Adelaide's sake."

I thought I heard sniffing, but I could have been mistaken. The rumbling of dozens of wheels and clip clop of horses' hooves along Sloane Street was enough to drown out most small sounds.

"Cease your fraudulent act, Miss Chambers," Lord Preston said, his voice lowered enough that I could still hear it but probably not his wife and daughter behind him. "For their sakes, if not for your own." He withdrew into the cabin and pulled up the window with a violent shove. The coach rolled away and joined the traffic.

I stared after it. My heart kicked violently inside my chest as if it were restarting after having ceased. My hands began to shake and I clasped them tightly together so that Celia didn't notice.

"What a rude, horrid man," she said. "Pay him no mind. His words are just that, words. As long as he doesn't repeat them at the ball, all will be well, and I do believe he'll keep his opinions to himself that night."

I hoped she was right. He might be prepared to discredit me in front of his family, but he had refrained in public so far. That wasn't to say he wouldn't have a few private, quiet words with his friends over dinner. I wouldn't put anything past Lord Preston when it came to smearing my reputation.