Page 94 of Dukes All Night Long

After a minute, Jo’s expectations lagged.

She’d had no confidence in Anne learning anything remotely helpful this night; however, she’d been ready for a show.

These witches and mediums understood that they were selling hope above all else, and most of them knew that to keep customers happy, they had to make the visit worthwhile.

Mrs. Devine had to see how desperate Anne and Matthew were.

Jo needed the woman to have mercy and offer a few uplifting words and send them on their way—help relieve the burden and stress that came from those empty, endless months of nothing but heartache.

But Mrs. Devine’s face maintained its indifference, remaining placid and blank. Her eyes stayed shut; she did not even attempt to act out an otherworldly sensation.

Luckily, Jo had come prepared for such nonsense.

She dipped her hand into her reticule and pulled out three pounds.

Anne and Matthrew were so intent on the witch that they didn’t hear the coins scratching together in her hand as Jo shifted her arm to her side.

Under the table she reached for the witch, patting the coins against the woman’s skirts.

One. Twice.

No reaction.

Jo scowled. Was the witch truly ignoring her? Or—better question—was the charlatan truly ignoring money ?

“Wait!”

Jo’s back snapped straight. Her arm fell away from the witch. She exchanged a look with Anne as Mrs. Devine’s childlike face shriveled up in… annoyance ?

“Stop!” she said. Lines branched out from the outside corners of her eyes like a sunburst. “It’s not your turn. You have to wait.”

A shiver slithered up Jo’s spine. Whom was the witch speaking to? The air felt colder. Fear must be playing tricks on her, because she could have sworn that the candle flames began to flicker.

Mrs. Devine stretched her neck side to side, her long, heavy tresses reminding Jo of a church bell ringing back and forth. She made a sucking noise between her teeth and tongue, parting her lips to show the little, pale tip sticking out like a snake ready to strike.

The witch’s eyes popped open. Her head shook back and forth in what Jo could only describe as irritation. She tried to shoot Anne another comforting smile, but her friend was too engrossed in the scene. She was transfixed on the witch, imploring her to grant her good news.

Jo sensed the witch’s gaze. Like cold water trickling down her shoulder blades, it made Jo squirm in her seat.

Mrs. Devine’s tone was bland, bored, maybe even a little frustrated. “He’s insistent,” she told Jo. “I told him that he has to wait, and he refuses.”

Jo peered at her brother. His normally stalwart face was leached of color and his unsettled countenance rocked Jo from her axis. “Who?” she asked. “I don’t understand. I didn’t ask you anything. We’re not here for me.”

“It doesn’t matter,” the witch huffed. “They come whether I call them or not. He came.”

“Who?”

The witch glowered. “I can’t make out his name.”

Anne gasped. “Francis!”

“What?” Jo scoffed. She swiped her tongue against her front teeth as she attempted to control herself. “Stop this. I’m not here for you. I don’t want this.”

Mrs. Devine shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. He is here and he wants to listen.”

Blood rushed in between Jo’s ears. Panic clogged her throat.

She straightened the veil over her face and twirled the strands of her reticule tightly around her hand, causing the skin to whiten.

“I’m not going to listen because this is ridiculous.

I shouldn’t have come.” She angled her body to her sister-in-law and brother.

“I’m sorry, but I told you this was a waste of time. I’ll find my own way home.”

Jo was almost out of her seat when Mrs. Devine’s voice sliced across the table. “He says you’ve waited long enough,” she remarked plainly. “He says you’ve done your duty by him, but now it’s time to look forward.”

Jo unfroze enough to fall back in her chair.

She studied the witch, searching for any clue that this was all some ruse, some awful joke being played on her.

Alarm kept her in her seat like a knife at her throat.

Had she seen this woman before? Did this woman know her?

But Jo couldn’t find an invisible thread between them, nothing to answer for this intimacy.

Mrs. Devine tilted her head, watching the emotions play out on Jo’s face. “Do you want to know the rest?”

“Yes, yes, please!” Anne exclaimed. Jo widened her eyes at her friend, but Anne only shrugged. “Your husband is trying to tell you something—you have to listen!”

Her dead husband. Her dead husband who’d gone to his grave five years ago. The same dead husband who hadn’t shown any inclination to reach out beyond the spectral firmament once in all that time. Not even in her dreams.

“Go ahead, then,” Jo answered quietly.

Mrs. Devine curled her top lip away from her teeth, not appreciating the suspicious tone. Nevertheless, she faced Jo, her hands still clutching Anne’s. “He says you were a good wife. More than a husband could ever ask for. But he wants more for you.”

“Tell him I want for nothing. Tell him I am perfectly content because of his precautions. He has nothing to worry about.”

“But he does worry,” Mrs. Devine snapped. “Because you’re not happy. He says you weren’t happy even with him, though you hid it well enough.”

“All right, that’s enough now,” Jo stated. She slammed her feet into the ground and stood, pushing the chair into the table. “Goodnight.”

“Please, wait, Jo! Just listen,” Anne said.

Jo clutched the back of the chair, her hold so tight that she thought the cheap wood could snap. “I’ve listened enough. Thank you. This woman doesn’t know me and—”

“But he does,” Mrs. Devine said evenly, as if customers threatened to walk out on her all the time. “He says he’s known you for most of your life. Almost all of his life. He says there’s only a few that know you better.”

Jo’s legs wobbled. She felt like she were on a boat in the middle of a storm with an unrelenting number of waves crashing over her.

She stared at the witch, begging her to stop.

“I can’t stop,” Mrs. Devine said, again as if she’d read Jo’s mind. “He won’t leave me until I say this. It’s better just to get it out.”

“Then get it out!” Jo spat.

The witch’s face fell, and somewhere far away from the panic, Jo thought that the exhaustion that consumed the witch wasn’t from sleepless nights but from what—or whom—she had to contend with during the day.

“He says you have to move on. He wants you to marry again.”

A bolt of lightning to the head couldn’t have shocked Jo more. “I’m sorry?”

The witch shrugged. “That’s all he says. Move on.”

“But…” Jo shook her head. “How? Why?”

The witch’s head ripped to the side as if an imaginary hand had just slapped her. “He’s gone,” she whispered.

Gone? Gone?

In the blink of an eye, Mrs. Devine smiled at Anne, astonishingly chipper. “Now, I can finally focus on you,” she said, chuckling.

Jo’s mouth gaped open. It was like she’d been running at full speed for hours and suddenly had slammed right into a brick wall. Sweat pooled under her armpits; the hair on the back of her neck was as straight as a flagpole.

The change in topic—the dissonance—was freakish.

Conversation swirled around her. Her sister-in-law was receiving good news. She had to be. Why else would she be crying and laughing at the same time?

Jo’s vision blurred. She could only handle what was right in front of her. She told herself to focus on the rough wood between her hands, grounding herself in the here and now. With the living.

But it didn’t work. Her heart pumped; her thoughts raced. Sweat dripped from her temples. This dark, cloying room was closing in on her. She had to escape.

She looked at her brother, but he only had eyes for his wife. His face had color again as he kissed Anne’s cheek, overjoyed and overwhelmed by the promise of good news.

Jo wobbled toward the door, stumbling as she pushed it open and went back into the alley. She leaned against the wood, trying to compose herself. Only once she had did she lurch forward, trying to remember the way back to the carriage.

Was it her imagination, or were the walls closer than before? They seemed to pulse around her like they were her own heart and she was stuck inside her body. Her lonely body. Her childless, cavernous body.

Jo stretched her arms out to her sides, holding the damp stone as she weaved her way through. It wasn’t quiet anymore. Voices slid around and over her like tentacles of a kraken, just strengthening its grip until it finally pulled her under.

Finally, Jo forced herself to stop. She twirled in a circle, trying to make heads or tails of where she was.

A flicker of light caught her attention. A group of people congregated near an establishment to Jo’s right, a hole-in-the-wall pub, she assumed. Maybe she could ask them how to get out of there, back to the carriage and safety. And sanity.

She pointed her feet in their direction, smoothing her skirts and her emotions.

She’d had the sensation of crying, but when she wiped her cheeks, her hands came away dry.

As she came closer, she noticed the men in the group weren’t the most respectable.

Their complexions were gray, their clothes rumpled and unkept.

They all spoke in a lazy, dreamlike manner.

One looked up and caught her eye; his smile was slow and toothless, his intentions anything but honorable.

Jo drew herself back, immediately identifying the plan for what it was—terrible. She was ready to spin away just as the man broke from the group, coming toward her. She could smell the garlic and onions and sweat, the bad decisions and drunken nights, oozing from his pores.

Jo found her courage and finally turned. She put her head down and picked up her pace, putting space between them. A few more steps and she’d round the corner. She could hear him chuckle behind her. Jo reached for the corner, her nails scoring the stone as she veered left.

But all she found was a dead end. A wall.

No. A chest.

Arms wrapped around Jo, holding her upright even as she struggled. Her chin shot up when she heard his deep voice, and she gasped.

Because this time, Jo was the one hearing ghosts.