Lara Temple - The Earl's Irresistible Challenge

‘I’m not. I am here to...oversee. I will be in the next room, listening as you do your occultist’s best to extract gold from Marcia Pendle, so keep that in mind as you delve. When you are done I want you to make it clear to her that her spectral friend will be taking an extended trip on the other side and will no longer be available to your summons. So have her make her tearful farewells and send her back to Catte Street. Permanently.’

‘I believe I told you I don’t enjoy being threatened, Lord Sinclair.’

‘I sympathise. I’m not fond of the feeling myself. So now we understand each other.’

‘I am not threatening you, I am merely trying to uncover—’

‘Yes, I understood you the first time, Miss Silverdale. You should consider it a serious concession that I am allowing even this meeting to take place. You take another step down this path without my knowledge and I move from threats to actions. Am I clear?’

‘To be fair, I did inform you of this step.’

‘Don’t split hairs.’

‘Out of curiosity, what actions are you contemplating?’

Some of the severity faded from his eyes.

‘You want me to show you my cards, Miss Silverdale? I’m insulted you think me such a soft touch.’

‘Not at all. I think you understand me well enough to know I am more likely to respond to a believable threat than to bombastic words.’

‘Very well then. My first action will be to send word to your brother, Guy Silverdale, as to your whereabouts and actions. As the head of your family he might object to his only sister leasing a house in a shabby-genteel part of London and arranging rendezvous with notorious rakes. Is that sufficient to start with?’

‘How did you know my brother’s name is Guy?’

‘I consulted my spectral spirit friends and they had a word with their Yorkshire connections by way of the ghost of Catherine the Great and Julius Caesar. Well, Olivia?’

Perhaps it was the way he said her name again, or perhaps it was merely his presence there and the fact he mentioned Guy’s name, as if knowing that would reach her above all else. She ought not to be worried; if he was completely serious about his threat he would have acted on it already. Which meant he was willing to make a concession, even if it was only out of curiosity. All she had to do was ensure he remained curious. It would mean coaxing him along, inch by inch.

She sat and extended her hand.

‘Very well, Lord Sinclair. After this evening dear departed George will take a long cruise down the River Styx until we agree otherwise.’

The hand might have been a mistake. Her nerve endings hadn’t calmed in the least from his scarf-toying and they leapt to attention as the warmth of his hand closed over hers, revelling in the contact. Her other hand twitched, as if envious, and she pulled away and hurried towards the door.

‘Marcia will be here soon so I must dress. I will be down directly.’

She didn’t wait for him to respond and, as she rushed upstairs, she didn’t know if she hoped he would still be there when she returned.

Marcia Pendle’s cloying perfume rose like smoke from under the door and Lucas resisted the urge to move away. He did not want to miss any of the entertainment in the other room. Miss Olivia Silverdale might not know what a Bulgarian madame sounded like, but her version of a spirit-possessed fortune-teller would do well in a Drury Lane farce.

He had begun his vigil of her little masquerade annoyed as hell, but after half an hour of her antics he was having a hard time resisting the urge to laugh out loud. He couldn’t believe Marcia Pendle was taking her so seriously.

To give Miss Silverdale her due she paced her theatrical nonsense well. Just when Marcia Pendle was on the verge of extracting a promise of eternal fidelity from the deceased, who sounded like fidelity had not been his strong point during his corporeal state, Miss Silverdale sent him scurrying at the interruption of a host of avenging angels accusing Marcia of assisting in the perpetration of a heinous sin.

‘You must reveal all!’ Madame Bulgari intoned, her voice quivering with baritone outrage. ‘Only then will the Lords of the Gates be appeased and allow you to unite with George! The wife of the man you maligned has powerful spirits working for her. They can bar your way for ever!’

‘No! Please, Madame Bulgari, I only did what this man told me. I swear! He said it was to help someone from ruin. He weren’t no flash cove, nor sharp—why, he was nervous as a virgin on her bridal night. I reckoned the lady who rode that fellow so hard was his relation and he didn’t want questions. He gave me five guineas just to tell the constable I was this Henry Payton’s particular friend these past six months and that I visited him veiled and all. I told him don’t you worry, it happens, don’t I know it? I didn’t mean trouble; I thought I was doing a good turn. Tell the spirits!’

‘Calm yourself. They know your heart is true. They will seek the malefactor, but you must name him.’

‘The mal-e-what?’

‘He who did evil. The man who bade you lie.’

‘But I don’t know him, I tell you. He shows up and asks for me particular—says he heard I used to be on the stage and offers me five guineas. Five! He shows them to me, too, right there in the middle of Catte Street which shows you he has less sense than a day-old kitten. Clear as anything he didn’t want to be seen with me, had me walk three steps behind him the whole way from where the hackney left us. I only know his name because a man he passed tipped his hat and said, “Evening, Eldritch, fancy seeing you south of the river.” Poor fellow almost wet himself, turned redder than a duke in a new corset. I’m not saying it’s right, lying about who this Payton was frolicking with behind his missus’s back, but it ain’t a shade on the evil I’ve seen elsewhere. It ain’t right to punish me and my George for trying to help. You tell them that, will you?’

‘They hear you, but still you must present him to their judgement. Tell them what manner of man is he. Close your eyes and give him the image you see in your mind, give it to them so they may take away his sin from your spirit. Describe him.’

‘I don’t know. He was...a man. Not tall. He were dressed like a clerk or one of them better shopkeepers, brown eyes, I think, or black. I see a dozen of those a day at Madame’s, they look alike in the end. I’d say by his clothes he’s got a wife or someone who sees to his housekeeping, but they ain’t too well-padded. There’s the darning, neat stitches, but enough to say he doesn’t have too many Sunday clothes, see? If he’d have come to Madame Bernieres you can be sure he’d have been palmed off on the country girls who don’t know the tricks yet. He looked serious, scared, but then he ought to, oughtn’t he? Are they still angry, the spirits?’

The silence that followed her agonised question was punctuated by her tearful sniffling and Lucas reined in his impatience. Surely even the irrepressible Miss Silverdale recognised there was nothing more to be extracted from Marcia Pendle, even under the threat of eternal damnation. Finally there was a rustling and a shuddering sigh.

‘Ah, there is much water, fog, they are going away.’

‘But they won’t keep me from George when my time comes?’

‘For now they are appeased. But they say I am not to communicate with them again on your behalf unless they send word first. I dare not defy them.’

Lucas pushed away from the door frame. Marcia Pendle’s tale was far more sensible than Miss Silverdale’s theories. Perhaps now this outrageous young woman would abandon her fantasies of conspiracies. He glanced at the lists decorating the wall behind him and sighed. Not likely. People believed what they wanted to believe and Olivia Silverdale wanted to believe Henry Payton a wronged man.