Page 7 of A Gathering Storm
“So, milord, what would these volunteers ’ave to do?”
That was Jed again, the rich, round burr of his Cornish accent a stark contrast to Sir Edward’s upper-class rasp.
“Very little. Merely allow me to put them into an hypnotic trance, then open their minds to whatever messages might come to them from—” He faltered.
“From?” Jed prompted.
When Sir Edward spoke again, his voice sounded even harsher than before. More brusque. “From the spiritual plane—beyond the veil, if you will.”
“Beyond the veil?” Jed repeated, his words infused with real amusement now. There were some subdued chuckles from the other patrons too, and a few more backs turned on Sir Edward as some of them grew bored with the scene, preferring to buy themselves more beer. Jim took a flurry of orders while Martha began gathering in the empty tankards that were pushed forward.
“You want us to speak to spirits? What do you think we are?” the first voice from the back of the room called out. “Gypsies with crystal balls?”
More laughter greeted that, a little less subdued this time. Some ineffective shushing followed. Tense and angry, and still facing away from the excruciating scene between the toff and Jed Hammett, Nick gripped his tankard so hard his knuckles turned white. As though sensing his emotions, Snow rubbed his head against Nick’s leg, and Nick leaned down to give him a reassuring pat.
“Well now,” Jed chuckled behind Nick, “if it’s aGypsyyou’re looking for, milord, we’ve got someone right up your street.”
Nick stayed where he was, his back firmly to the room, but he knew from experience that more jibes would likely be coming, which probably meant that one of his regular half-joking, half-aggressive confrontations with Jed was inevitable. He really wasn’t in the mood for it today. Not in front of this comely young man with his devil’s bark of a voice who seemed to be oddly oblivious to being mocked.
But perhaps Sir Edward wasn’t as oblivious as Nick thought, for when he answered Jed, his voice was all icy anger. “Kindly do notpresumeto tell me what I’m looking for,” he snapped.
The impact of that was instantaneous. The muted chuckles died away, replaced by a newly respectful silence, and as pleased as he was to hear Jed being set down, Nick couldn’t stop his lip curling at that. This was typical, wasn’t it? The rich, titled gentleman presenting himself, uninvited, in the taproom of the local inn and expecting respect to be handed to him on a silver platter. Then reminding them all of his power when he didn’t get it.
Nick half expected Jed, a notorious hothead in his cups, to snap back. But perhaps the fisherman hadn’t yet had enough rum for that since, after a tense moment, he chuckled again and said, “I beg your pardon, milord, I didn’t mean to offend you. Why don’t you tell us what you’re looking for, and we’ll see if we can ’elp you.”
“As I said, I’m looking for volunteers,” Sir Edward replied stiffly. “I need subjects to work with me on my experiments—as many as I can get. I’ll take anyone who’s willing, but—and I apologise for the indelicacy of this—the recently bereaved would be especially welcome.”
Nick blinked at those succinct and coolly spoken words.
“The recently bereaved would be especially welcome.”
The toff said that as though it was an incidental thing. As though being recently bereaved was like having a particular colour of eyes.
“The bereaved?” Jed parroted, unconsciously reflecting Nick’s thoughts. “Why would they beespeciallywelcome?”
“It’s been theorised that the recently bereaved are more receptive to communications from . . . the other side,” Sir Edward explained stiffly.
“Oh, I see, it’s beentheorised, has it? Well I never!” Jed’s clumsy sarcasm mimicked the man’s upper-class intonation—so perhaps he’d had enough rum to be foolish after all. But this time no laughter greeted Jed’s mockery, only silence. An uncomfortable, difficult silence that stretched and waited for Sir Edward’s reaction.
“It seems,” Sir Edward said at last, his rasping voice pricking at Nick’s jagged nerves, “that I was mistaken in coming here. Furthermore, it seems—” and here he paused, before continuing in a louder voice that addressed everyone in the taproom, not only Jed “—that the men of Porthkennack don’t have nearly as much backbone as I’d thought they would. To be frank, I’m astonished to find that there is not one among you that isn’t too craven to take part in a few simple scientific experiments.”
The nature of the silence in the room shifted at that and the men slouching against the bar beside Nick began, slowly, to turn around to face Sir Edward again. With a muttered curse, Nick turned too, resenting his own foolish inability to mind his own business, while Snow circled Nick’s legs anxiously, butting his head against Nick’s calves.
The scientist stood in the middle of the taproom, his angry gaze travelling over the men gathered around him. His golden-brown eyes glittered with injured pride and his determined jaw was rigid—perhaps from biting back yet more ill-considered words. Again, Nick’s senses tingled in response to the man. He had a spark in him that called to Nick. Like the quickness of Godfrey’s new dappled-grey mare, or the glimmer of life he’d seen in Snow when he’d first laid eyes on the dog’s torn-up body in that alleyway in Truro. Why that should be, Nick had no idea. It made his brows draw together with displeasure till he was fairly glaring.
Jed said quietly but ominously, “Did I ’ear you right, milord? Did you just call the men in this taproom cowards? After what you did to Jago Jones?”
Jed was a big man. He topped Nick by at least three inches and Sir Edward by more like six. In bulk, he probably outweighed the scientist near enough two to one. Yet Sir Edward was uncowed. He glared at the big Cornishman with scorn in his eyes.
“Any man in this room who won’t accept my offer because of Mr. Jones isn’t just a coward, he’s a fool,” Sir Edward spat.
There were a few intakes of breath at that, and some uneasy murmuring.
“Now, now,” Jim said from behind the bar. “Let’s ease up ’ere, shall we?” He looked at Jed. “No more accusations from you, Jed.” Then he glanced warily at Sir Edward, adding, “He don’t mean nothing by it, sir. I’m sure none of us really know what happened to Jag—I mean, Mr. Jones.”
Sir Edward eyed the innkeeper. “Well,Iknow what happened,” he snapped. “Mr. Jones overturned his cart and broke his head open because he was drunk. The only part of it that I had anything to do with was that I gave him the money that he drank himself into a stupor with.”
Jed greeted that blunt statement with silence, but his expression was ugly. He eyed Sir Edward with blatant, naked dislike and a couple of the onlookers standing nearest to the scientist took a step away from him, as though to disassociate themselves from whatever Jed might do, or perhaps just to avoid Jed’s fists. Sir Edward’s servant was eyeing the crowd carefully, as though weighing up the situation, and all the while, Sir Edward kept glaring at his aggressor, not giving an inch.