Page 22
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and the hook in her core pulled again. “It’ll do.”
She eyed him warily. “You were helping the Keenans?”
“And the Bunton-Talmadges.” He snagged a piece of cheddar from the platter. “Is that a problem?”
“You shouldn’t pretend you care for this place and its people when you’re trying to destroy us.”
His mouth crimped at the edges. “That’s not what I’m doing.”
“You could have fooled me.”
He propped his elbows on the table and frowned. The light from the dangling lanterns caught on the silver streaks at his temples and shadowed the crevices around his mouth and eyes. “If you’re not doing anything wrong, you shouldn’t worry.”
Hence why I am very worried. “If I’m not harming you, you shouldn’t be concerned with my business.”
“You’re hurting people I care about.”
“I’m not keeping anyone prisoner here. If someone wants my services, why should I deny them?”
He appeared to ruminate on that, and they sat in silence for several long moments, picking at the platter while the rain and wind howled outside.
“What happened with the talking board?” he asked, startling her. “You said it was different, that it was real.”
“It’s always real.” She straightened her spine. “That reading was simply unusual.”
“In what way?” There was no derision in his question, but a curiosity she hadn’t heard from him before. It unnerved her.
She chose her words carefully. “A medium is a vessel for spirits to communicate. I’m merely the mediator between the spirit world and the living. Messages are for others, never for…” She swallowed, her throat thick.
“Never for you?” he finished.
She didn’t answer. She didn’t want to answer, to confirm what he suspected, what she knew to be true.
Her absent mother and father had always remained painfully, regrettably silent. She’d spent hours of her childhood poring through books and letters in her grandfather’s study, hoping to find something that would bridge the gap between her earthly self and the family she’d lost. But she’d never heard so much as a whisper from them or any other spirit. Why had today been so drastically different?
He shifted on his stool, propping one elbow on the table as he examined her. “Why didn’t your mother take you in after your father died?”
She recoiled. “Not holding back, are you?”
He had the decency to blush. “I simply wondered—” Cutting himself off, he shook his head. “Nevermind, I shouldn’t have asked.”
“I shouldn’t serve a guest cooking wine in the kitchen,” she gestured toward the spread between them, “but here we are. We can give up propriety for now.”
The corner of his lip lifted the barest amount, and she decided to quench at least this part of his curiosity. Perhaps if she gave him something else to focus on, she could survive the night with her reputation intact.
“My mother met Cadogan when he was doing business in Cornwall, and she ran off when she was seventeen to be his mistress.”
“Your grandparents must have been furious.”
She shrugged. “I would assume. They never spoke of her. But they took me in after my parents’ carriage overturned and killed them.”
“How old were you?”
“When they died?” She nibbled on the biscuit but didn’t taste it. “Seven.”
His brows rose. “So young.”
Young enough that her mother and father were ghosts in her memories, flashes of light and murmured whispers, always secret and hushed. Her grandfather’s memory was far more vivid, far more real. And yet, he remained as distant to her as he had the moment they lowered him into his grave.
