Page 8 of A Devil in Silk
He noticed a flaw in his logic. Miss Woodall fought him at every turn, yet never once left him hungry for more. Clara Dalton, with her fire and daring, was an intriguing distraction.
“I must admit, I’ve thought about little else since you mentioned the tickets,” she said, gasping suddenly as the vehicle lurched.
She pitched forward, and his hand shot out, steadying her by the arm. An instinct he’d sworn to resist.
Her shoulder grazed against him, the brief contact sparking like struck flint, heat racing through him before he could will it away.
Keen to put distance between them, she edged closer to the window. “Where is this private seance? I wasn’t aware Miss Nightshade owned a residence in Soho.”
“She’s currently under Lord Tarrington’s patronage,” Bentley said. He’d found that out while investigating mediums across the city, after learning a seance was on Miss Dalton’s list.
“Lord Tarrington?” she mused. “The man who owns the gallery of oddities?”
“Yes, and a lover of all things peculiar. He’s hosted Lavinia Nightshade for months now and claims she’s the only medium who’s ever convinced him there’s life after death.”
Bentley prayed Tarrington was right. Peace had eluded him in this life. Perhaps it awaited him in the next.
“Then he must have irrefutable proof,” Miss Dalton said, intrigued.
“Or Lavinia Nightshade is a fraud, and Tarrington is easy to manipulate. He has been grieving his wife’s death for years and clings to the slightest sign that life exists beyond the veil.”
Bentley’s own mother believed every white feather found in the garden was a visitation. For all he knew, she could be right.
“People in pain look for ways to seek comfort,” she agreed, her wistful sigh hinting at her own troubled past.
Was that not why they were both journeying across town in a shabby hackney, rattling like a costermonger’s cart overcobbles? Wasadventurenot another word for avoidance? Neither wished to face the real problem at hand.
“I’m told your father struggled greatly when your mother died,” he said. It was a sore subject, but something in him needed to ask. He couldn’t shake the feeling they had more in common than either cared to admit. “And grief made him impossible to live with.”
She went still. “Who told you that?”
The sharpness in her voice surprised him. He wasn’t sure which nerve he’d struck, only that he had. Perhaps her life had been as hard as his. Did she carry guilt for being the one who survived?
“Your brother.”
As if her spine had turned to steel, every line of her body went rigid in the seat. “Did he tell you anything else?”
“Only that he fought with your father often.” But it was clear there was more to the story. “That the man’s rage turned violent on occasion, usually when he drank too?—”
“Can we talk about something else?” Her tone was brittle, like ice cracking on a frozen pond. She cleared her throat three times. “This is supposed to be a night for daring escapades, not a conversation about memories I would sooner forget.”
She was right. He hadn’t meant to reopen old wounds, not hers or his own. Perhaps they should have gone swimming in the Serpentine beneath the stars, shedding their pasts with their clothes, letting cold water cleanse what words never could.
“Of course. But why add a seance to your list of tasks if you’re not hoping for a message?” he asked, promising himself this would be the last probing question tonight.
“Not everything on my list is meant to make sense,” she admitted after a moment’s reflection. “Some things are just impulses.”
“Impulses can be dangerous.”
“Perhaps that’s the point.”
“You want to live recklessly?”
He longed to cast off the shackles of duty and do things he’d always denied himself. There was something dangerously inspiring about Miss Dalton’s disdain for convention, something that made him wonder what it might feel like to be reckless with her.
“Is it reckless to crave freedom?” she said.
“Perhaps freedom is an illusion.”
