Evermore (Emily Chambers Spirit Medium Trilogy #3)(64)

"You were only sixteen," Louis said gently.

"Emily is only seventeen and look what she's had to contend with." She sighed. "Mama bore all the scandal with a smile on her face, and loved you like her own. She was a better mother than I could have been. I wasn't ready, certainly not in those early years."

"I never felt unloved," I said. After meeting that boy Dan, and Cara of course, I knew how lucky I was to have people who loved me. My family might be unconventional, but I never lacked anything. In a way I had two mothers, and now I had a father too.

"No wonder you were upset with Louis for not writing," I said.

"As she ought to be," he said. "If I'd known..."

"It must have been a shock when he returned suddenly." I was just beginning to realize how much of a shock. She'd thought he'd died or given up and found another woman in the colonies, but to find out he was alive and still in love with her must have been quite a tumultuous experience.

"I told you I loved your mother," Louis said. "That wasn't a lie. I loved her—Celia—but I became ashamed of my circumstances. I wanted to do better for her. I wanted to be better. A prisoner with no money to his name in a far off land is not a good prospect. I couldn't ask her to wait for me."

"I wouldn't have cared," she said.

"Perhaps. Either way, your mother wouldn't have let you come to me if she'd known how far I'd fallen. And I have my pride too. It's not just men like Lord Preston who want the best for their loved ones, it's us ordinary folk too."

"What you or Lord Preston thinks is best, is not always what is best," Celia said, huffily.

"So what now?" I asked. "Are you going back to Melbourne?"

"Soon," he said. "I can't stay here, Emily. I'm sorry. I know you won't come with me. Your life is here with Jacob. I wouldn't take you away now. But your mother...I hope she will return with me. And Cara too."

My mother. It sounded so strange. To think, yesterday I had a sister and no mother, and today I had no sister but a mother. Whatever would I discover next? "Do I have to call you Mama?" I asked her.

"Only when you're ready." She nudged me, an impish smile on her face. It wasn't at all like a mother should behave, but very much as an older sister would. I wondered if I could ever think of Celia as a daughter ought.

"So you're going to leave?" I asked her.

"I don't know." Her smile faded. Her fingers twisted in her lap. "We've talked it through, Louis and I, but I need time to think about it."

"So you care for him still?"

"I never stopped."

Well, she'd hidden her feelings well. I thought she hated him.

"I need to see you settled first," she said.

Settled with Jacob. "It's late," I said. "I want to see Jacob." I began to rise but Celia's firm hand on my arm stopped me. "Emily." She glanced past me to Louis.

I swiveled to face him. "What is it?"

Louis patted my hand but I could see something troubled him too. "Now that it's all over, and their lives are returning to normal, there's a chance you may not be welcome at the Beaufort household."

"But...why?"

"Jacob is nobility," Celia said. "Goodness, they don't even want their daughter to wed your friend Culvert and he's rich and comes from good stock. They'll want a grand match for Jacob, not..."

"Not a girl like me," I finished for her. Melancholy swept over me, and fierce longing too. Everything inside me ached. I had to see Jacob and hear from his own lips what he wanted. If I had to fight for him, I would.

***

I did not see Jacob upon arriving at his Belgrave Square house. We were shown into the drawing room by Polson and greeted by Mrs. Stanley and George.

"Emily!" George went to hug me but recalled his manners at the last moment and kissed the back of my hand instead. "I've just got here myself. Mrs. Stanley too."

She sat very still on a chair, her reticule in her lap, her dark gaze returning mine with defiance. "I have come for my payment," she said with a thrust of her long chin.

"Payment?"

"Yes," George whispered. "You recall what it was."

I went cold. I remembered. She wanted one of us to kill her. "I...I don't think...Mrs. Stanley, it's all over now. Please, do not ask us to follow through on the promise we made under such desperate circumstances."

"None of us wishes you the fate you wish upon yourself," Celia added.

"You promised!" She growled and bared her teeth, and all of a sudden she went from mild, middle-aged woman to a snapping, wild beast. "You said you understood." This she said to me. "You, of all people, should understand. I don't want to be here. Not without him."

"What does she mean, you should understand?" Celia asked me.

"Nothing," I mumbled.

"Tell them how it felt up there when you delivered the curse," Mrs. Stanley sneered. "Tell them how you wanted to stay with him, dead, and not come back here."

"But..." Celia dragged on my shoulder, spinning me round to face her. But I could not look her in the eyes. "You came back. She came back," she said to Mrs. Stanley.