Page 9 of A Devil in Silk
“You mean everyone is trapped to some degree?”
“Yes, we just learn to live within the walls.”
To call this the most interesting conversation he’d ever had with a woman was no exaggeration. When she wasn’t avoiding him or snapping without cause, Miss Dalton proved an intelligent and captivating companion.
They fell silent as the hackney cab drew alongside The Arcane Emporium on Rupert Street, Soho. The oddities displayed in the bow window would give anyone pause: a large tusk from a prehistoric animal, a two-headed bird with cold glass eyes, a stuffed spider the size of a man’s hand.
Miss Dalton sat forward, studying the eerie facade. “You didn’t say the seance was at Lord Tarrington’s gallery.”
“Where better to commune with spirits than a room with a mummified python and a chandelier made of bones?” he mocked.
They were merely members of an audience in a supernatural play. Doubtless, Tarrington had paid a guest to swoon or sob while confirming their Aunt Mabel did have a hairy mole above her lip. Bentley would lay odds there was mention of buried treasure and forgiveness from beyond the grave.
He alighted and paid the jarvey.
Miss Dalton was out of the cab before he could assist her and stood on the pavement, a strained smile on her perfect lips. “I must confess to being a little apprehensive.”
“You can always hold my hand when the spirits make an appearance,” he teased, though it failed to raise a smile. “Expect lots of strange moans and incessant knocking.”
“No. What if someone should recognise us here?”
“I’ll say I’m acting in your brother’s stead, since he was called away to Chippenham.” He wouldn’t admit to finding something oddly compelling about his friend’s sister. “Everyone in town knows Dalton and I are as close as brothers.”
She faced him fully for the first time this evening, the black feathered eye patch fitting for a woman who seemed to carry secrets as dark as its design. “It’s plausible. You’ve always seen me as a younger sister.”
“Sister?” The word jarred, wrong in his ears. He hesitated, forcing a neutral smile. “More of a … friend.”
Her weak nod confirmed what he already knew: he was the friend she didn’t want, the one she humoured out of obligation, the one she ignored at parties.
Yet something about her held his attention and it wasn’t her blind eye or dreadful scar. Questions about her accident haunted his dreams. What had happened during her ride that day? Her brother refused to say.
“Some memories are best left buried,” was all Dalton offered before swiftly changing the subject.
Forever keen for new experiences, Miss Dalton approached the black door though she hesitated, her fingers frozen mid-air as she stared at the devil-faced knocker.
Bentley smiled to himself. “The beast won’t bite. Remember, everything you see is to rattle your nerves. Fear makes you more susceptible to manipulation.”
She cast him a look of reproach. “What if you’re wrong and Miss Nightshade can hear voices from the nether realm?”
He started to scoff but stopped himself. “If that’s true, I’ll ask for a message that makes my mother’s suffering easier to endure.”
Miss Dalton inhaled sharply. “Forgive me. I didn’t know she was ill.”
“She’s not. It’s a long, complicated story.”
One he had no desire to discuss tonight. Not when this might be his last chance to forget his obligations. He reached to knock on the emporium door, but it creaked open slowly as if carried by the wind.
The hair on his nape prickled.
No one stood in the hall to greet them.
Miss Dalton caught his arm suddenly, fingers gripping before she seemed to realise what she’d done. She released him at once, though the heat of her touch lingered like a brand.
“If Miss Nightshade wishes to frighten us, my lord, she’s doing an excellent job.”
He glanced at her, more intrigued than alarmed. “I doubt the door was closed,” he said, offering the logical explanation she clearly sought.
She hesitated on the threshold. “Why do I get the sense our lives won’t be the same when we leave here?”
