Evermore (Emily Chambers Spirit Medium Trilogy #3)(53)

"Emily," Celia said, crouching beside me. "Emily, are you all right?"

"Of course." I sat up. "George?"

He waved weakly from his chair. "I did it, Em. I delivered the counter curse."

I couldn't breathe. My chest felt tight. He'd done it, but... "In time?"

"We'll have to wait and see."

We all looked to the ceiling, as if the Waiting Area was up above. Nothing happened. No spirits came.

Jacob...

"Tell me everything," I said. "Talk. I need to be distracted." At least until I knew for sure if Jacob was all right, or that he'd crossed over. I would not try to summon him. I dared not. Anyway, if the Waiting Area had survived, he may have crossed upon Price's death. "Price killed Jacob, didn't he?"

Mrs. Stanley emitted a single loud sob.

"He was my husband, Leviticus Seymour," Mrs. White said. I still couldn't think of her as Mrs. Seymour, married to that monster. It didn't seem right somehow. "I stopped loving him long ago, and he me." She watched Mrs. Stanley as she spoke, her arm still around the other woman's shoulders. "I had moved out of our family home but remained in contact, for Fred's sake. All contact ceased when Fred died. He killed himself." She shifted her weight but remained on the floor. She did not cry, not even a single tear, but the faraway look on her face told me she had not put aside her son or his death, and probably never would.

"Because Jacob wouldn't be his friend?" I asked. "I don't understand. Did Frederick not have other friends? And if he didn't and that is what pushed him over the edge, how is that Jacob's fault? He cannot be held accountable."

"I don't," she said. "At least, not anymore. At first I blamed him a little, but not now. Because, you see, it wasn't Jacob Beaufort's friendship he craved. It was his love."

I blinked at her. My sister gasped. Even Mrs. Stanley stopped crying and stared at Mrs. White.

"You mean...he was in love with Jacob?" I asked. "A forbidden love?"

"Good lord," George said quietly. "He loved men."

"Not men," Mrs. White said. "Man. One. Jacob Beaufort. He was obsessed, but neither Leviticus nor I knew it at the time. Not until after his death and we read his diary. It was all laid out in there. His private thoughts and desires, his attempts to get Mr. Beaufort to notice him, and his agony when he failed. Then his final desperate days when all he could think about was ending it all."

"How sad," Celia muttered. "How very, very sad."

"You say you were angry only at first," Louis said. "But your husband's anger lingered, didn't it?"

Her gaze slid to Price's body. She showed no emotion whatsoever. "Leviticus continued to blame Jacob Beaufort. He wanted him to suffer the way Frederick had suffered. He took his life, but it wasn't enough. He was still angry, so he decided to take his revenge out on those Mr. Beaufort loved. His family, then later, you, Miss Chambers."

"The amulet?" Celia asked. "Did you sell it to me?"

"Not me." Mrs. White nodded at Mrs. Stanley, who did not look up.

"The disguise was excellent," Celia said. "Unfortunately." She picked up George's clothes and handed him his shirt.

"I didn't know anything about Leviticus's tactics until that night you came to the school and sent Mr. Blunt away. Indeed, I wasn't sure of his involvement until the next day when he came looking for Blunt and we spoke. I hadn't seen Leviticus for many months, since Fred's death. He'd gone mad in that time."

"He was not mad," Mrs. Stanley said, moving away from the comforting arm of Mrs. White. "He felt things deeply. The loss of his son hurt him. I understood that hurt. I lost a son too."

"I'm very sorry," Mrs. White said, but Mrs. Stanley turned her face away. I felt a rush of sympathy for her. She'd lost a son and now her lover too.

"If you weren't helping Price then, why help him now?" George asked. "Why do this to good, innocent people?"

"Innocents?" Mrs. White said. "You mean you and Miss Chambers."

"And the orphan who died after you injected him."

"That was a terrible tragedy." Mrs. White shook her head and tears welled in her eyes.

"What happened after that night Blunt left the school?" I asked. "You decided to leave too, but why not tell anyone where you were going?"

"I was afraid of Leviticus, of what he might do. My attempt to hide from him was for naught, however. He found me again last week and asked me to...kill him and bring him back to life." She screwed up her nose, as if the thought of what she'd done disgusted her. "He said he'd do it anyway and Mrs. Stanley here would bring him back. I couldn't let that happen. She has no medical training, but I at least have some. He already had the poisons and antidotes. He got the ingredients from the Society's storerooms but made the concoctions himself. He used to be a pharmacist. I believe he'd been experimenting for some time on rats."

"Hell," George said. "We do have medicines and poisons, for testing purposes. There are some members who believe they can cause hallucinations that bring one closer to experiencing supernatural phenomena, hysteria, that sort of thing. I had no idea they could be combined into such lethal substances, but I suspect others knew which is why these things are kept locked away. Price, as master, had a key. Damn."