Page 58 of Her Scandalous Pursuit

“Where? Thisbe, what are you going to do?”

“We’re going to visit my grandmother.”

With a sigh of resignation, he followed her. Desmond didn’t try to speak as she marched down the stairs, though as they waited for their coats from the butler, he said tentatively, “Um, shouldn’t we tell Carson you’re leaving?”

“I’m sure he will figure it out.” Thisbe wasn’t pleased with Carson, either, though it was nothing compared to the roiling feelings she held for Desmond at the moment.

It was an inconvenience that her carriage was not there since she had come with Carson, but it wasn’t far from Wallace’s house to her own. And a brisk walk in the cold night air made awkward conversation less likely. Desmond didn’t try to talk to her, and she was glad, though her own mind was occupied with all the things she would say to him if he should once more try to persuade her that he had done nothing wrong.

He didn’t know. He didn’t mean. He didn’t intend. Well, what he had done was lie to her. Deceive her. Pretend feelings he didn’t have. Once he met the dowager duchess, he must have realized that using Thisbe to get to her was a lost cause. But at least the dowager duchess’s premonition had given him a handy excuse to remove himself from Thisbe’s life after that.

It gave Thisbe some small sense of satisfaction to see the expression of uneasiness on Desmond’s face when they reached the house. The dowager duchess, they were told, had already retired, but Thisbe didn’t hesitate to head up the stairs to her grandmother’s rooms.

She knocked on the door. “Grandmother, I need to talk to you. It’s important.”

A moment later, the duchess’s maid opened the door and curtsied to Thisbe before slipping out the door. Her grandmother stalked into her sitting room. She had taken off her usual load of jewelry and changed her clothes, but she was no less formidable in her heavy brocade dressing gown and the turban she often wore as a nightcap.

“What is it, Thisbe?” The duchess narrowed her eyes at Desmond. “What is he doing here? This is scarcely the time for visitors.”

“Desmond has come to ask you something. Rather, I have come to ask you something for him. He felt it too forward to do it himself.” Thisbe caught the surprised look on Desmond’s face at her words. No doubt he had expected her to lay out all his sins for the dowager duchess. It was probably the sort of thing he would do. “As you know, he is a scientist, and he is conducting an experiment that I think would interest you.”

“I find that unlikely.”

“He and his colleagues are trying to prove the existence of spirits in the world around us.”

“Well, of course they exist. Sounds like a waste of time to me.”

“I agree, but they think the matter worth studying. His professor believes that you are in possession of an artifact that would help them in this study. It’s called ‘Annie Blue’s Eye,’ I believe.”

“The Eye. Of course!” Cornelia turned to Desmond, her voice dropping into the low, dramatic voice that usually accompanied her mystical ramblings. “I should have known you would want my Eye. With that miasma of death that surrounds you, it’s clear you would be drawn to it...and to my granddaughter.”

Thisbe ignored her grandmother’s theatrics. “The important thing, Grandmother, is that his group would like to study the Eye.”

“Nonsense,” the duchess scoffed. “One cannot make sense of the Eye—there is no rational explanation. It is of the spirit. Beyond our limited comprehension.”

“But wouldn’t you want to prove to everyone that you have been right all these years? That you can speak to the dead?”

“Of course I can speak to the dead. I don’t need proof—I’ve done it for years.”

“But to make it common knowledge would be important. To show the rest of the world.”

“Why would I care what the rest of the world thought?” Cornelia countered unanswerably.

“But, Grandmother—”

“No.” The dowager duchess cut her off decisively. “It’s no use to try to wheedle me out of it. Anne Ballew’s Eye belongs to me. To us. It has been handed down for generations. I have a sacred duty to protect it. I can’t lend it to strangers.”

“I could oversee the experiment if you wished. I could carry it back and forth to their laboratory. I would be there all the time to make sure no harm came to it.”

“Simply being in other people’s hands would bring harm to it. It passes down through the maternal line, mother to daughter to granddaughter. She was our ancestor, you see. Anne Ballew was not the commoner most people believe.”

Trust her grandmother to have come up with this dramatic notion. Skeptically, Thisbe said, “I have never seen her name on the family tree.”

“They wouldn’t have made it public!” Cornelia opened her eyes in horror. “She was burned at the stake, dear, not exactly what one wants to tell everyone.”

“Then how do you know—”

“I just know,” the duchess said with finality.