Page 23 of The Premonition at Withers Farm
“Mr. Bridgers.” Her voice was breathier than she’d intended.
The corner of his mouth turned up. A carved mouth. With a strong jawline, colored by shaved whiskers whose shadow refused to flee after the razor had done its work.
“I-I didn’t realize you were coming.” Bother. She was acting like a twitterpated schoolgirl, not a strong woman who was called upon for her medical expertise.
“My apologies.” He tipped his head. “I communicated with your mother.”
“You are now acquainted with the Withers family?” Perliett challenged. Giving his condolences at the funeral asa member of the community was one thing. Attending a private séance intimated a far closer relationship.
“I invited him.” Angelica’s voice quavered with a nervous energy that seeped into Perliett and made her uneasy herself.
“Oh.” Perliett accepted Angelica’s insertion, but she still had no conception of the relationship between the Withers family and Mr. Bridgers. It made little sense to her. That he was acquainted with her mother, and Maribeth seemed to welcome him...
Perliett shook her suspicions away and made sure her smile enveloped the Withers family, if not Jasper Bridgers. Maribeth had instructed her to show them to the study. She was preparing herself for the séance. Mustering the fortitude to beseech the dead and to commune with them took focused concentration.
“Please.” Perliett motioned. “Follow me.”
There was an oppressive darkness as they entered the study. Draperies were drawn over the windows. A lone candle in the middle of the table was lit, its flame flickering back and forth.
“Welcome.” Maribeth opened her arms. She dressed simply. Nothing exorbitant or showy. “Please, be seated.”
Mr. Withers cleared his throat nervously. He pulled out a chair and slid onto it, gripping the edges and hopping it forward so his knees were under the table. The black lace tablecloth covered his lap, and he pushed it away with callused hands.
Angelica and Errol also took chairs. Mr. Bridgers waited until they were seated before taking his own.
Perliett hesitated. Sometimes her mother preferred that she leave, other times that she stayed. They’d not discussed it, nor was she certain which was the preferred conduct tonight. Curiosity compelled her to hesitate longer.Ifher mother made a connection with Eunice...
“Perliett?” The question in Maribeth’s voice, as well asthe extension of her hand toward an empty chair beside Mr. Bridgers, brought the answer to Perliett. Grateful to be included, Perliett rounded the table and eased onto the chair, careful to hold her knees together so as not to brush against Mr. Bridgers. She could smell a spicy ginger wafting from his clothes. Warm. Intriguing.
“Have you brought the items I requested?” Maribeth kept her voice modulated.
Angelica nodded silently and opened the drawstrings of her handbag. She pulled out a yellow ribbon, a cameo, and a small photograph of Eunice.
Maribeth dipped her head in acknowledgment of the items, drawing them toward her. She laid them at the base of the flickering candle, which produced a macabre glow on the faces of those around the table. Maribeth ignored the atmosphere, instead drawing her fingertips over Eunice’s face in the photograph. It was hardly apparent in the depth of the room’s shadows, and because of that, Perliett was drawn back to the memory of George’s office when Eunice had lain on his table.
Perliett could almost hear the water as she wrung the towel over the tin bowl of pink-tinged water. Washing the blood from the abdomen’s wounds was gruesome. In death, Eunice had already lost much of her beauty, her eyes sunken by the trauma she’d endured, her jaw slack and mouth hanging open with no breath coming forth.
Eunice had been so still, so—sodead—as Perliett had washed the corpse’s arms, her hands, her chest. It was intimate, the washing of a dead body, and with the act brought the memories of the deceased in life. Eunice’s infectious smile, her laughter, her kindness, the way her eyes twinkled, how everyone was proud to know her, even if—as it was with Perliett—they weren’t close. But she had been flirtatious also. Perliett considered Kenneth Braun for the first time since that day he’d discovered Eunice’s body. He’d notattended the funeral. That was odd. Had Eunice and Kenneth’s relationship been a clandestine one? Perliett bit the inside of her bottom lip as she considered. Was she the only one who had suspicion that Kenneth and Eunice had been having a love affair?
The realization made Perliett lift her eyes. Maribeth was reciting a prayer, her lips moving with fervency as she breathed the words.
“Amen,” Maribeth finished.
The Witherses and Mr. Bridgers all appropriately echoed the amen with one of their own.
“We shall join hands,” Maribeth instructed.
Perliett tried to push the image of Kenneth’s distraught face from her mind so she could focus on the present. The outlines of the table members were apparent in the dim light. Perliett’s breath caught as she lowered her eyes to see Mr. Bridgers’s hand open, waiting to accept hers. It wasn’t particularly appropriate to take hands with the stranger, especially ungloved, but Perliett had no choice but to do her mother’s bidding or else risk causing a scene.
So she slipped her hand into Mr. Bridgers’s. Instantly, her skin became warm as their palms connected. Perliett closed her eyes, aware that no one was watching her, so consumed by the air that seemed to swirl around them. For a moment, Perliett was certain she could feel Mr. Bridgers’s pulse against the tender skin of her hand, telling her things she shouldn’t know about him. That he was calm. Unafraid. Terrifyingly real and terrifyingly male.
As if Mr. Bridgers knew Perliett’s instinct would be to withdraw, he tightened his grasp on her hand, his thumb giving her skin a delicious stroke meant to calm but succeeding only in sending shivers through her.
“Eunice?” Maribeth’s head was tilted back, her eyes closed, face directed upward. She continued to summon the dead woman. The air grew denser, thicker around them.
Perliett was accustomed to the weighted feeling that lowered onto her chest, suppressing her breaths as the darkness suppressed the group.
Angelica gasped softly. “Who was that?”
