Conversations shifted and retreated as guests took their seats. Because of the size of the crowd, only a dozen or so had chairs to sit on. The rest stood in a semicircle by the fireplace. I already felt warm and stifled, the air heavy with perfumes and colognes and the sharp sweetness of brandy. There was a chair with a curtain pulled around it for Mother’s more spectacular spirit-conversations. It was well known that a medium’s gifts were best accessed in private.

Mother still had her eyes closed, breathing deeply. “My daughter will see to the lights.”

I made a circle of the room, extinguishing the gas lights. Thick twilight eased slowly into the room. When I reached the last light, I looked up into the face of the man standing near it, our faces the last features glowing in a dark corner.

It was like looking into a mirror.

There was no denying that the man in the black suit, with his dark, curly hair and wide mouth, was a relation. A very close relation. The pause lengthened as we stared, startled, at each other. Voices swelled in fevered whispers, rose and fell, as if we were at the seaside listening to the waves. There was a gasp, a titter.

I wasn’t sure what to do.

Mother opened her eyes and turned toward us. Her face went waxy. Her lips trembled. “You.” She hardly made a sound, but I could read the movement of her mouth.

“That’s not Mr. Willoughby,” someone murmured with the thrill of gossip. “That’s Nigel St. Clair, the Earl of Thornwood.”

The Earl of Thornwood from Wiltshire. Mother really had been seduced by a lord’s son in Wiltshire.

Because this man was clearly my father.

There was simply no arguing with the blue-violet eyes, the shape of his brows, the color of his hair. I felt as if my every limb was filled with air; I was light, floating, disoriented. Mother’s cultivated and genteel widowhood was crumbling, our entire livelihood was in very real danger of disintegrating. And I could only stand and gape, wondering if my father recognized me, if he realized what was happening. If he remembered my mother even a little bit.

His gaze flicked from Mother to me and back again. I knew the whispers were growing louder, edged with palpable shock, but I couldn’t concentrate enough to make out the words.

“Lord Thornwood,” Mother said.

“Mar—”

She cut him off with an abrupt turn and clap of her hands. “The spirits will not wait. Violet, the light.”

I hastily put it out even though I was reluctant to look at anyone else but this man, my father.

“Violet, sit.”

I shook my head to clear it and threw myself into a chair. I knew as well as she did that the only way we might salvage this affair was by truly bewildering the chattering audience with Mother’s powers.

The only other option was ruin and disgrace.

CHAPTER 15

We begin with a prayer,” Mother murmured. I couldn’t look at Elizabeth, who was trying to meet my gaze, or Colin by the door, or Xavier, sitting all concerned across from me. Tabitha was no doubt in the throes of glee at my imminent downfall. I took a deep breath. I had to focus myself.

The sitters bent their heads for a moment. There was no one else, not a single spirit or ghost. Not even Rowena. We were truly on our own tonight.

“If everyone will take hands? It helps to conduct the flow of energy.”

Everyone joined hands. Mother’s grip was tight, grinding my finger bones together. The whispering hadn’t entirely died down. I had to fight the urge to turn and stare at Lord Thornwood, standing behind us. The back of my neck was all tingles and prickles. What was he doing here? Was he truly who I thought he was? And what did that mean for me, exactly?

“Do you feel that?” someone murmured.

There was a cold breath of air, one I knew had nothing to do with spirits. This one was too rhythmic, too predictable. I wasn’t sure where the bellows were or who was manning them, but I recognized the stale air. The table shivered.

“Henry!” A woman gasped, huddling closer to her husband. Henry didn’t look any more inclined to bravery.

The shiver turned to a shudder.

“Are the spirits here?”

Three distinct taps.

“Yes,” Mother translated. “Three for yes, two for maybe, one for no.”

“Grandfather?” a man asked tentatively. “I can smell your cologne.”

Three more taps. The young man flushed happily. His eyes were very bright.

“We are indeed blessed here tonight,” Mother declared.

The séance was following the same standards they all did; there were just no ghosts to take part. The metal plate discreetly attached to the bottom of Mother’s left shoe was the reason for the resounding taps. Whispers again, but this time about ancestors and cold hands on the shoulder. Not about the startling resemblance between Lord Thornwood and me.

Mother’s grip tightened painfully on mine. I felt under the table leg with the toe of my boot, slowly inching across the wood until I found the vial I’d secured there. I tilted it so that the liquid pooled onto the carpet, easily absorbed before the end of the night. A waft of heavy perfume, lilac, enveloped us. A woman sniffed delicately.

“Lilac perfume! My mother’s favorite!”

No one recalled that twenty years ago there had been quite a craze for lilac perfume. There were few drawing room sitters of a certain age who didn’t have an olfactory memory similar to this one. The woman wept openly. I felt horrid.

“Maman always promised she would send me a sign.”