Chapter 19

Bridey had decided that if Pascoe wished to use her like a wrench to tighten loose screws, then she would accomplish her own purposes as well. His little charade gave her the opportunity to turn the tables on dastardly Darrow. If the earl’s tyrant of a brother really thought she was a witch, working on his superstition should be amusing enough to almost make this scene worthwhile.

Fin shot her a reproving look for her smack to his head, but Bridey did not want their audience thinking they were working together. Which they weren’t, actually. Her brother and Pascoe seemed to have connived in their own male manner, essentially leaving her out of their plot. She knew ultimately, they had to discredit Darrow in Carstairs’ eyes, at least enough so Pascoe could look closer at the mine.

She hoped they had the banshee shut-off signal well planned because the unholy din was even scattering her wits. Having help was a new and interesting experience. She didn’t know if she could learn to rely on others for anything truly serious, but in this case, it was essential. She couldn’t bring the earl’s brother down on her own—without planting a knife in his back.

Oscar Darrow finally strode in, looking rumpled and annoyed and accompanied by several of the guests. “What the devil is the meaning of all this caterwauling?” he grumbled. “I’m trying to work. And why are these two miscreants here? No wonder we can’t have any peace.” He glared at Bridey and Fin.

“We’re here because I’m still the countess and have dower rights to the manor,” Bridey told him grandly. “That I haven’t sued for them is credit to my distaste for bullies and brats. And if you want your brother to heal, you need to stop this infernal cacophony at once.”

She used her best imperious manner, drawing herself up straight and glaring down her nose. Since they were of a height, Darrow could only intimidate with his bulk, and she was surrounded by protectors bigger than he.

“You are the witch stirring the ghosts,” he said with a dismissive gesture. “Leave, and we’ll have peace.”

That had been the final straw last time. It wouldn’t work now that she knew others believed her.

“The ghost was wailing even before Lady Carstairs arrived,” Lady Belinda boldly declared before Bridey could say anything.

Bridey wanted to cheer the young lady for standing up to the brute who might become her brother-in-law. There was a little more beneath Belinda’s blond curls than was otherwise visible.

The other guests moved in closer to hear the argument. They nodded agreement.

“Banshees are Irish, are they not?” Pascoe asked in his bored aristocratic drawl, barely concealing the wicked gleam in his eye.

Bridey sipped her sherry and let the superstitious and the intolerant display their ignorance as their audience exclaimed on Irish ghost stories and other flummery. In self-defense, she opened her inner eye to scan for stray spirits or troubled auras. She saw nothing particularly ominous in the muddied rainbows surrounding her. As expected, the more bigoted lived with heavier shades of gray. Those amused by the discussion sported lighter colors. Pascoe wore his usual intense reds. The man concentrated his entire attention on this foolish event. He needed to relax.

She took a cautious look around, finding the familiar pastel aura of a former countess hovering over the mantel. Bridey tried to send her soothing vibrations.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a flash of confused red and dark green shooting back and forth from a shadowy corner of the ceiling to the paneling over the chimney. Alarmed, Bridey shut down her inner eye. That spirit was new.

Even with her aura vision obscured, she could feel the frantic soul. If she couldn’t open her inner eye, that lessened her chances of making this experiment work. If she could placate the angry spirit—she tried to imagine which ancestor might have come to haunt Carstairs. It certainly wasn’t placid George. She had no idea what the spirit wanted.

The wail and clangor reached a level that made it nearly impossible to hear herself think. How in the name of heaven could anything human create that racket? Shaken, Bridey decided it was time to bring this absurdity to its end.

She raised her voice. “Do Irish banshees not predict death? Is it possible that Mr. Darrow brought one with him when he hired the newcomers?”

Fin eyed her with interest. Her brother knew she didn’t have a superstitious bone in her body, but she wasn’t playing the game the way Pascoe had probably explained it to him—because neither logical man would understand what she needed to do.

“That’s inane fol-de-rol!” Darrow blustered. “You are simply saying that because you don’t like my hiring outside the lazy sots in the village.”

A slow burn took root in her chest. Bridey narrowed her eyes. Pascoe stiffened as if a gauntlet had been thrown. Fin leaned against the mantel, thumping his hand against the stones. The wail transformed into a mournful, haunting howl that had Lady Belinda growing pale and sending anxious glances toward the stairs to the room of her beloved.

Oscar Darrow deserved whatever happened next.

Bridey shrugged and handed her glass to a servant. “Very well. Let’s experiment. My leaving the house evidently did not improve the spirit’s. . . spirit. Did your Irishmen bring a priest with them by any chance?”

“Of course not. I’ll not have any of those papist heretics here.” Darrow shot her an ugly look.

“Oh, by no means allow the poor fellows the benefit of their own church,” she replied airily. “So, we cannot invite a priest to exorcise the ghost. Just in case this banshee means harm to Lord Carlisle, perhaps we could all pray that the ghost forsake Mr. Darrow and his Irishmen?”

Half the guests looked puzzled. Several frowned thoughtfully. Studying Bridey and Pascoe as if to read their intent, Lady Belinda reluctantly nodded. “Should we form a prayer circle around Mr. Darrow? We could each offer up our own prayer that the ghost depart?”

It seemed the lady had her own grudge against Darrow and was willing to make him a target. Well done. She wouldn’t have to make this all her own idea. “Excellent notion! Darrow, stand right there, and we’ll form around you. Let us drive off your malevolent spirit with good English prayer! Gentlemen, join us please.”

She directed the circle so that it included Fin, even though he continued to lean insolently against the mantel.

Darrow glanced at the doorway as if prepared to flee. Pascoe planted himself in his path, taking the hands of two matrons and creating a formidable obstacle. The younger ladies tittered but joined in. The men refused to hold hands unless they’d been smart enough to grab one of the ladies, but Bridey wasn’t much concerned about handholding. She simply wanted the pretend-ritual to direct any accusations away from herself.

Pascoe began a prayer in a sonorous chant. She was in awe that he’d even attended church long enough to memorize a prayer, although she supposed he might have learned one or two as a student. Recognizing the words, others tentatively joined in as if they were in church.

The banshee continued to howl mournfully, accompanied now by the solemn beat of a drum. Bridey really wanted to meet Fin’s ingenious minion. Darrow looked prepared to bolt, but with a little subtle pressure of the hands, the group closed tighter around him.

When the cacophony continued unabated, the prayer faltered. Darrow looked even more belligerent and the guests glanced at each other nervously, no doubt feeling foolish and looking for an excuse to quit. What the deuce was Fin waiting for?

Remembering an earlier conversation, Bridey grabbed Lady Belinda’s hand. “Wait a minute. Catholics speak Latin in their services, don’t they? Perhaps we’re using the wrong language!”

She didn’t dare look at Pascoe for fear he’d burst out laughing. He hadn’t seen a malevolent spirit hovering. She wasn’t certain this was a laughing matter any longer. What if Fin’s minion was one of the angry laborers and really meant harm? Alarm coursed through her at the possibility of Carlisle’s attacker hiding in the attic.

She focused on Darrow. There was enough fear in his expression that she assumed his superstition was winning over his usual blustering fury.

“Does anyone know Latin?” Bridey asked with all the sweetness of Lady Belinda and her mindless cohorts.

“Of course. Learned it at school. How about you, Darrow?” Pascoe asked with an edge of maliciousness.

“Papist flummery,” Darrow muttered. “This is going nowhere. I need to return to work.”

“One more try,” Bridey insisted, hiding her unease. She began reciting the Lord’s Prayer in her schoolgirl Latin.

Pascoe joined in, as did Fin, surprisingly. One or two of the other gentlemen stumbled along a beat or two later. They almost produced a solemn monk’s chant. The chant grew louder with excitement as the clangor began to fade and the wail diminished.

Bridey really needed to understand Darrow’s reaction. He was frozen in the center of the circle, not saying a word, pretending nonchalance but hiding something. Could he truly believe he had invited demon spirits? If he was guilty of ordering his own brother hurt. . . she needed to know it. But if the malevolent spirit lingered, she didn’t dare open her inner eye and invite possession.

Since the Lord’s Prayer was the only one she knew in Latin, Bridey repeated it. More voices joined in.

If she was meant to try her gift, she needed to do so now. What was the point of having a gift she couldn’t use? Feeling protected by the hands holding hers and the prayer filling the air, she focused on Darrow, opened her inner eye, and. . .

Screamed.

Horrified, Pascoe dropped the sweaty hands of two matrons and dashed to Bridey’s side. She was swaying badly enough to topple, and her cheeks had paled to ghostly. He tried to catch what she muttered while Fin shouted at everyone to keep their hands together and continue praying. Pascoe took Bridey’s hand, and she seemed to steady. He prayed this was a performance.

He had a horrid feeling that it was not.

“Traitor,” she shouted. “Thief! Usurper!”

Usurper? What the deuce was she accusing Darrow of? And why?

Darrow seemed to wilt inside himself, looking stunned. He stepped backward, away from Bridey.

“The demon has left Darrow and is possessing my sister,” Fin cried desperately, sounding sincere and not like he was playacting. He grabbed Bridey’s free hand. “Keep praying!”

What the deuce did her brother know that he didn’t? Pascoe would shake the truth out of both of them later. Responding to Fin’s panic, Pascoe squeezed Bridey’s right hand, and raised his voice in the Latin prayer. The others followed, with even some of the women hesitantly picking up a few words—

Because the prayer was working. Bridey stopped swaying and muttering. She clasped his hand tighter and returned to repeating the prayer. More voices rose in excitement.

And the banshee wail faded into nothingness.

A loud pop followed the end of the fourth repetition of the prayer. Silence ensued.

Bridey nearly collapsed into Pascoe’s arms. As if that was the signal to rejoice, the guests cheered and hugged each other. Fin crossed his arms and tried not to look smug. Darrow had turned a paler shade of gray and seemed unable to move.

Pascoe wanted to tell them all to go to hell so he could carry Bridey out of this snake pit. But he needed to redirect attention to his target before people began wondering about the countess again. He let Bridey lean on his arm while he reached over to whack Darrow on his shoulder, nearly toppling the stunned steward on his face. “Irish, old man. The ghost was definitely Irish and attached to you. How do you feel now that the lady has imperiled her own soul to exorcise you?”

And because he was too superstitious and stupid to summon any argument to Pascoe’s authoritative declaration, the bully merely glared, and shoulders bent, stomped from the room—leaving Bridey heroine of the hour as silence blessed the room.

“We need to talk,” Pascoe whispered in her ear with enough threat to prevent her protest as he dragged her from the salon.

Pascoe dropped her into a chair in the library, shut the door, and headed for the brandy decanter. Bridey objected as he handed her a snifter, but too shaken to argue, she sipped and let the alcohol burn all the way down. It wasn’t much of a restorative.

“What just happened out there?” he demanded, dragging a wing chair across from her. “This was supposed to be a comic farce, not a dramatic presentation that nearly stopped my heart!”

“Why ask when you won’t believe me?” Not that she believed herself either. But it had happened before. She closed her eyes, as if that would shut out the experience.

Emanating too much masculine energy for her weakened state, Pascoe muttered an obscenity and took a deep drink of his brandy. Before she was aware of his intention, he set his glass aside, lifted her from the chair, sat down, and dragged her into his lap.

Being enveloped in his very human strength and warmth felt so good, she cradled the brandy snifter and leaned against his shoulder. The linen of his neckcloth cushioned her cheek. His strong arms embraced her, and she felt safe. No spirit would dare attack her when this man was there to shield her. Foolish notion, but she needed the reassurance right now.

“I like the way you smell,” she murmured, keeping her eyes closed and just enjoying this brief moment when she felt protected as she hadn’t since she’d been a small child.

“I usually love your scent of gardenias, but they smell blighted right now,” he answered with coldness. “Let me decide what I want to believe.”

“Blighted?” She smacked his broad shoulder but didn’t lift her head. “I don’t wear perfumes. They make some people sneeze.”

“Don’t distract me with argument. You shouted in a voice that wasn’t your own. What happened?”

She sighed and sipped the brandy. Layers of skirt and petticoat came between them, but she could still feel his hard thighs beneath hers, and the memory of the night in his bed provided the courage to share what she could not with anyone else.

“If I open my inner eye to see auras, I open myself to spirits,” she said, then waited for him to laugh, argue, or drop her in disgust.

“You must explain as if I’m an infant,” he insisted. “I do not even understand what ‘spirit’ means in the sense of the word I assume you’re using.”

“I can’t say that I do either. I just know I see colors that reflect people who have passed on from the earthly plane. First, you need to understand auras.”

“I have time. Talk.” He relaxed a fraction, enough to rub a reassuring hand down her spine.

At least he wasn’t laughing at her or calling her witch. Talking was almost all she could do at the moment. She felt boneless. “Understand that much of what I say, I have gathered from family journals,” she warned. “Without those histories, I would be utterly lost. Never laugh at our Malcolm library, please. It prevents us from making the same mistakes over and over.”

“History, I understand. I read political history to learn how government and people work. I would never laugh at your journals. Reading is what separates us from the apes.”

She felt the warmth of the brandy spreading. “Auras are the colors of our spirits, our souls, our personalities, the life force of who we are, take your choice of terms. Over the years, we have compiled lists describing personalities related to these colors, although it’s not all personality. Sometimes, we can see illness, for instance.”

“See me confused, but continue.”

She inhaled the male scent of his neck and kissed his bristled jaw for his attempt at understanding. “You are a particularly intense set of reds that no doubt means you are exceptionally grounded in the real world and a survivor at any cost. You are energetic and competitive and have an extremely strong sense of self. You have a few darker bands, shades of blue that might indicate good intuition or some type of clairvoyance. All of this comes together because of who you are and makes you what you are, if that makes sense.”

“Infinity, chicken and egg, that sort of thing. I am strong, therefore I react strongly. Because of who I am, I cannot behave differently.”

“Yes, thank you, that comes close, although everyone is capable of change, so even that’s not complete. Having so much of one color is good in some ways, bad in others. You really need to broaden your spectrum.” She said that with a hint of amusement. Weariness was overtaking her.

“Talking of me is not explaining usurper,” he reminded her.

“Is that what I said? It tends to be hazy, rather like having an epileptic fit, I should think. That was the spirit talking. I’m trying to explain that whatever this essence is that makes us who we are—spirit, soul, character—sometimes lingers after we’ve left our bodies. People call them ghosts, but mostly, I like to think that it’s just a remnant of their personal energies. I’ve detected the traces of a former countess and earl in the house, and the meek colors of an unhappy maid, and so forth, nothing particularly malevolent.”

“I don’t think whatever shouted traitor was meek or simply unhappy and it was certainly not just a color.”

“Therein lies the problem.” She sighed. “I don’t think it happens often, but some of our journals report that stronger spirits may linger for a purpose. A former duchess of Sommersville found a treasure protected by a prior vicar, if I remember correctly. The vicar wanted his consecrated chapel uncovered, and he hung around for centuries until he found someone with whom he could connect.”

“Presumably spirits have no sense of time and just hang about waiting for an open mind,” he said with his irrepressible humor.

“Since I haven’t conversed with one, I cannot say,” she said stiffly. “I just know that once before, when I opened myself to a patient to see if I could discern the source of their problem, I was possessed by the spirit of the patient’s mother. She was a bit of a harridan, and she—as me—began scolding the entire family for not keeping the well clean as she’d specified. I had no power to shut her up. I was only twelve and terrified.”

He kissed her forehead and her nose and held her closer. “Explain more, please.”

She shrugged. “I knew I’d gone out of my head, but I couldn’t stop the shouting. Once the spirit had me, she had a lifetime of rants to spew. Luckily, my grandfather and Fin were with me. They instinctively grabbed my hands, which brought me back to normal. Well, I fainted for a bit, I think. It’s a dreadful drain.”

“So Fin grabbing your hand today helped bring you back before the spirit could do more than vent insults?”

“And you,” she reminded him. “You are very grounded, as is Fin. I thank you for your quick action.”

“And the spirit shouting about the well—was she correct? Had they not kept their well clean?” His voice was studious and careful.

“She was correct. And the patient had become ill because they’d been careless with their water.” Bridey buried her nose deeper in his neckcloth. “I have no notion who the spirit was today. I’ve never seen her. But she wanted to kill Darrow.”

“And maybe she wishes to kill Carstairs too?” he asked, understanding what she feared to say.

Did she want to believe that spirits could kill? That might explain the incompetent battleax.