The Spiritualist Read Online Free PDF Page A

method.”
    I couldn’t resist the urge to bait him. “The spirits just flit down from heaven to possess you? I wonder that you’re not frightened of visitations from those less elevated. Or does no one make his way up from hell?”
    “Evelyn,” Peter called from the doorway, and I glanced up to see him waiting there, my cloak draped over his arm.
    “I must go,” I said. “Thank you, Mr. Jourdain. It’s been an enlightening evening.”
    Michel took my hand. “Delighted to meet you, Madame Atherton. I hope to see you again, eh?” He pressed my fingers to his lips—my hand was still bare, my fine kid gloves still upon the table, and his mouth was warm and moist against my skin. It was too intimate. I drew back quickly enough that his gaze flicked to mine.
    Firmly, I said, “You will take care?”
    “I treasure my skin above all others, Madame ,” he said with a small smile. “Good night.”
    I hurried away from him, grabbing my gloves before I went to my husband, who waited, frowning, in the doorway. As he put my cloak about my shoulders, he said, “What were you talking with him about?”
    “Nothing,” I said. “The spirits.”
    We went downstairs and out of the house, and into the fog, which had grown heavier. Now it was almost a soft, chill rain. I could barely see Cullen as he waited at the open door to the brougham. I pressed my skirts to maneuver them inside, and edged my thin-booted feet close to the brazier. When Peter sat down, and the door was shut, I said, “Dear God, to think that you might have been killed by a misfire… .”
    Peter was silent. Then he said, “I’m going to leave you at the house tonight. I must go out.”
    “Tonight?” I asked in dismay. “So late?”
    “When is the Reid soiree?”
    “Saturday night.”
    “I’ll meet you there.”
    “But that’s two days away! And you’ve been gone so much lately—”
    “The bullet wasn’t a misfire,” he said curtly.
    I stared at him in surprise. “What?”
    “It wasn’t a misfire,” he said. “It was meant for Michel. And I intend to find out why.”

2

    _

    A N I NVITATION TO M ELODRAMA

    T WO D AYS A FTER THE S PIRIT C IRCLE
    T he first time I’d laid eyes on Peter Atherton, it had been four years ago, on a February so cold that the single window in my father’s office was covered with a thin sheet of ice. The tiny coal stove in the corner barely broached the chill, no matter how much fuel I piled on, and my fingers were numb as I tried to write the figures in the ledger book.
    When I’d seen Peter’s shadow against the wavery glass window of the office door, I thought he was one of the young men Papa often employed to help him, and I hoped it was not Clancy Owen, who fancied himself in love with me, and who exhausted me daily with his protestations of undying servitude.
    But then the door opened, and Peter walked into the office, and I was struck dumb. This was not one of Papa’s callow boys. This was a man, and a rich one at that. He wore a greatcoat and a top hat, but what pale blond hair peeked from beneath it seemed to be possessed of some ethereal shine. He was handsome in that way wealthy men always are, well groomed, expensively clad, cologned, and smooth skinned. He seemed a terrible aberration in the office, though my father had appointed it as well as we could afford, and we were respectable enough. But the brilliance of Peter Atherton made the silk-upholstered settee look frayed and and the side tables seem coarsely stained and lathed. I was suddenly aware of the soot on the ceiling from the gaslight, and the fact that the carpet on the floor was one of A. T. Stewart’s more inexpensive rugs—and a popular enough pattern that no one could fail to notice it.
    I felt myself flush as I put down the pencil and straightened and asked, “May I help you, sir?”
    He glanced at me, and then—I noticed with satisfaction—glanced again, before he smiled and said, “Are you the new girl?”
    “Both old