CHAPTER NINE
Another “accident” has occurred at Wolverston Hall. We have it on good authority that the Earl of Wolverston’s valet took a tumble down the stairs just last night. But this isn’t clumsiness—the valet claims he was pushed down the stairs by a ghost! How many more supernatural occurrences must happen before the Forster family vacates this vortex of evil?
-Whispers from Lady X, February 1811
Wolverston Hall
Thirteen days after the death of the Earl of Wolverston
A fortnight ago, Jemma would have said that it was impossible to die from impatience. Now, after three agonizing days of waiting for news from Gabriel, she imagined her obituary in Whispers from Lady X would read something like: Jemma Forster, Countess of Wolverston, passed away yesterday morning when she spontaneously combusted. Her manners were only passable, her candor was not in agreement with polite tastes, and her temper was far too fierce for anyone to really mourn her.
“When I said I wanted to wait, I wasn’t talking about this case,” she muttered under her breath, glaring out the window in the old countess’s drawing room, which faced the street.
“What’s that, dear?” Claire asked from the sapphire brocade settee, where she sat with Felicity.
“Nothing,” Jemma replied, a bit too quickly, for when she turned around Claire regarded her suspiciously.
But to her credit, Claire did not request she repeat herself. Her friend’s tact was one of the many things Jemma loved about her. Instead, Claire waved at the ice blue armchair next to the settee. “Won’t you come sit with us? If for no other reason than to save your carpet, for I fear you will wear a hole in it soon.”
“You have walked the length of this room twenty-two times in the last quarter of an hour,” Felicity added, pouring a splash of cream into her teacup.
“It can’t have been that much,” Jemma objected half-heartedly, knowing that when it came to mathematics or science, Felicity’s reasoning was impeccable.
“I counted,” Felicity insisted. “I am never incorrect when it comes to counting.”
“I know.” Jemma sighed, coming over toward them. She didn’t take a seat—she couldn’t stay still for more than a few minutes at a time, even though she was exhausted from a restless night.
“Are you feeling all right?” Claire asked, concerned.
Jemma pursed her lips, debating if she should tell her friends what she was feeling. “I’m fine. Just tired. I did not sleep well last night.”
She’d awoken to an unexplained creaking, as though someone was on the stairs. Philip had always said that was the house settling, but this time, it didn’t sound right to her. With her candle in hand, she’d crept out to the staircase, but no one had been around. Still, she couldn’t shake the sensation that someone was in the house—someone who definitely shouldn’t be.
In the past, she’d dismissed the skitter down her spine as her overactive imagination remembering all the various stories about this house.
“That’s to be expected,” Claire said. “You’ve had a very trying two weeks.”
“After Elizabeth died, I didn’t sleep well for months,” Felicity said. “Of course, I was doing my experiments on reanimation well into the night, so none of the servants would know what I was up to.”
Jemma pushed the curtain shut, turning around to face them. As usual, Felicity had eased the way—her news couldn’t possibly be as strange as her friend’s past unsuccessful attempts to create a Sorcerer’s Stone. “I’ve been feeling like somebody is watching me.”
Felicity sat up straighter, her curiosity piqued. “How so? When?”
“Whenever I’m in my quarters alone, and sometimes when I’m in the dining hall or in the library.” She walked back over to them, but she didn’t sit down. “At first, when I found his letter in my trunk, I thought it was Philip’s ghost, trying to guide me. I know that probably sounds absurd. It’s just my mind playing tricks on me, right?”
“Jemma, a witch once cursed my family with madness. Nothing sounds too strange to be true to me,” Claire reminded her. “And I like to think my mother’s spirit is watching over me.”
Felicity shrugged. “I can’t find empirical evidence to support ghosts, but I’ve always thought the supernatural was just science we haven’t reasoned out yet.”
“Thank you both for understanding,” Jemma said, their easy acceptance one of the many things she loved about them. They often trusted her judgment more than she did. “But this time, it doesn’t feel like it’s Philip. It feels…malevolent, somehow. Like somebody’s watching my every move.”
“Has there been any sign of entry?” Felicity asked.
“No. I checked the rooms, and nothing was astray.” No matter how many times she confirmed that all was well within the house, the feeling remained—a tingle at the back of her neck, as though an intruder’s eyes were brushing against her skin, tracking her every movement.
“Then perhaps it’s nothing.” Claire took a sip of tea, considering. “But still, let’s have Teddy change the locks later.”
“That would be good,” Jemma agreed. Even now, safe with Claire and Felicity, that eerie sensation remained. Her mind was too raw; her body, coursing with too much nervous energy.
“Would you like some tea?” Claire asked.
Jemma shook her head. She wanted to keep moving, for at least then she felt like she was doing something productive. The chair Claire had indicated held too many memories, for it was there Jemma had sat the first night she met Gabriel. In her mind’s eye, she saw the room as it had been then—a large assortment of cheese set up on the pier tables by the front of the room and a translucent French jelly next to that platter, the golden candlelight reflecting off it merrily. The flip top card tables had been pulled down from the walls and set up in the center of the room for the guests to try their hand at vingt-et-un, whist, and loo. To clear space, the settee and armchair were pushed off to the corners of the room.
She’d sat in the armchair, idly observing the players. None of the dowager countess’s party-goers wanted to associate with her. All throughout dinner, she’d heard them whisper, watched them point at her.
“Did you hear about her sister?”
“What was Lady Wolverston thinking, inviting her?”
“Blood will out, you know. If one sister is a harlot, the other will be too.”
She ran her palm across the arm of the chair. There, so scant no one else would have noticed it, were the divots in the fabric she’d made that night. She’d dug her nails in, funneling her rage into the thin fabric until the tips of her fingers ached.
The marriage settlement hadn’t been worked out yet, so she couldn’t publicly announce her engagement to Philip. She’d born the ton’s scorn silently, swallowing down the harsh replies that bubbled up in her throat, threatening to choke her.
She’d been alone. Adrift. Angry.
Until Gabriel started talking to her, and soon they were laughing together over hands of piquet. He didn’t care about her sister’s scandal. Hell, he didn’t even think Rosie had done anything wrong.
Claire’s voice broke into her thoughts, returning her to the present. “Let me see that letter again.”
Claire had already read the letter three times, so Jemma suspected her friend’s request was more to give her something productive to do than any interest in the text. Jemma gave her a grateful smile before heading over to the pier table. She plucked up the letter and brought it back, her nerves settling somewhat at being able to move freely.
Claire took the letter from her. “And you said a patrolman brought it?”
“Wilcox,” Felicity supplied helpfully, looking up from the alchemical journal she’d spread out across her lap. Jemma had glanced at it when she’d first arrived, but all the various symbols and notations made no sense to her.
Jemma nodded. “Patrolman Wilcox said Gabriel asked him to bring me the letter.”
“Hmm,” was all Claire said in response, as she read the letter again. It was not a long letter. Gabriel said he’d been called in on a big case, and might not get to see her for a few days, but he’d arranged a meeting with his superiors to discuss the new evidence.
Jemma crossed to the window again, turning to watch both women on the settee. Felicity with her bright red hair, tall and lanky, her movements always rigid and precise, reminding Jemma of one of Henri Maillardet’s automatons. Claire, with the sunlight highlighting her blonde locks, her vibrant blue eyes sparkling as she turned around to say something.
“What does this last line here mean? When he says he hates not seeing you, but ‘good things take time?’”
“Ah, well.” Warmth splayed across Jemma’s cheeks, as both women looked at her expectantly. She knew she might as well confess now, as neither of them would allow her to keep a secret. “The other night, after we went to Jacob’s Island, Gabriel and I kissed again.”
“What!” Claire exclaimed.
Which was shortly followed by Felicity saying, in a very proud tone, “I actually predicted that, so I must be getting better at understanding people.”
Felicity’s glee made both Jemma and Claire laugh, putting Jemma more at ease than she’d been these last three days. Standing here in the room where she’d met Gabriel, surrounded by the friends who never judged her and loved her for who she really was, she couldn’t help but feel that maybe the sorrow of the last two weeks would fade into a brighter future.
She missed Philip fiercely, but she was starting to think that mourning him and happiness were not mutually exclusive. She could still remember him while finding joy in life.
Philip’s last letter to her had told her to pass on his regards to Gabriel, and he’d left it in her box of clippings. She couldn’t help but feel that was Philip’s way of giving his approval.
“We agreed to wait. To explore our relationship slowly,” Jemma said. “Philip and I may not have had the marriage of love you both have, but he was still my husband and Gabriel’s childhood best friend.”
“I think that is wise,” Claire said. “It’s best not to rush into things. Just don’t wait seven years, all right?”
Claire and Teddy had spent seven seasons as dear friends, both too scared to tell the other how they felt. It was only when they went to Castle Keyvnor for a will reading, and were able to break the curse of madness on Claire’s family, that they’d been able to commit to each other without fear.
“Full mourning lasts a year.” Felicity tapped her chin thoughtfully. “That seems like an adequate time to me.”
“Agreed.” Jemma made one more loop around the room, her pace more leisurely this time, her mind finally starting to calm. She was glad she’d asked Felicity and Claire to have breakfast with her. They always made her feel better.
The conversation turned to the dinner party Georgina was hosting next week. Because Georgina was her sister-in-law, Felicity had to go, much to her discontent. Begrudgingly, Georgina had extended an invitation to Claire, not daring to cut the Countess of Ashbrooke because her husband was one of Marlburg’s political allies.
Funny how people’s opinions changed when one married into good ton.
Before she’d become the Duchess of Wycliffe, no one had wanted to talk to Felicity, regarding her as peculiar. The Upper Ten Thousand still thought her scientific pursuits were unfeminine, but they tolerated her because of her connection to the respected Harding family. As for Claire, the same people who slammed doors in her face when Whispers from Lady X dubbed her the Mad Daughter now clamored to have her at their soirees.
Jemma stopped by the window, rubbing her sore neck muscles. She envied how self-assured Claire and Felicity were, so content with their place in the world that they didn’t care how society regarded them. While being at Philip’s side had been easy for Jemma, due to their many years of friendship, she’d never felt comfortable as Lady Wolverston.
But with Gabriel’s arm around her in Mrs. Jennings’s pawn shop, she’d felt at peace.
She finally knew why Wolverston Hall had never felt like home to her. It was neither the creepy atmosphere nor the many horrific legends attached to the house.
It was because home was not a place, but a person: Gabriel.
She turned back from the window. Her friends had moved on from discussing Georgina’s dinner party to Felicity’s latest experiments. Jemma started to walk back to them.
Then she heard a scraping noise coming from the outside wall of the drawing room. She stopped, straining to listen. The sound repeated once more, but that was it.
“Did you hear that?”
Both ladies swiveled to face her, neither one knowing what she was referring to.
Jemma frowned. “My mind must be playing tricks on me.”
“It’s this house,” Claire supplied.
“I like it here,” Felicity said. “It reminds me of Tetbery Estate.”
“That’s not a good thing,” Claire responded teasingly. They’d all spent last Christmas in Cornwall, at the gloomy estate where Felicity had grown up.
If only she’d known then that it would be Philip’s last Christmas, she would have focused on making as many memories as possible with him.
She would have tried to save him.
Jemma smoothed a hand down her black morning dress, stifling a sigh. She knew she couldn’t change the past—but that didn’t make it any easier to accept Philip’s death. Only time could lessen the ache of grief.
Time, and justice.