Page 13 of Ghost Broker (Mercury Raine #1)

M ercury checked every place in Aventine Manor he could think of the next morning, but he couldn't find Miss Huddleston. His path crossed with Lord Garston and Mrs. Huddleston in the east sitting room, and he quickly ascertained why her daughter was playing least in sight.

“My daughter is, as you discovered, quite a graceful dancer,” Mrs. Huddleston said to her lordly conversational companion. “And the ladies of Society simply adore her.”

“If she has not yet formally been introduced to my mother, I would be honored to make that introduction.”

“How very gallant of you, Lord Garston.” A flash of embarrassed uncertainty entered her eyes. “I am certain my daughter is somewhere nearby.”

Mercury, listening unseen from the doorway, was increasingly certain she was intentionally not nearby. Where, then, was she?

He stepped away from the sitting room in search of the elusive young lady. Fate had seldom been kind to him but chose to be in that moment. He crossed paths with Zizzy .

“You haven’t happened to have seen Miss Huddleston, have you? I suspect she’s hiding from…” He simply raised a brow.

Zizzy responded with a look of absolute empathy. “I saw her on the grounds, keeping herself tucked behind walls and shrubbery.”

Hiding, and with good reason.

“Would you show me where on the grounds you saw her?”

She nodded and floated alongside him as he made his way outside. “I like Miss Huddleston. She is very kind to me.”

“That makes me like her a little as well.”

“Only a little?” Zizzy didn’t approve of that.

“I only know her a little ,” he reminded Zizzy.

She nodded. “And you don’t warm to people quickly.”

“With good reason.”

Zizzy motioned ahead to the small alcove in the walled garden. “She was in there when I last saw her.”

Mercury peeked inside, and sure enough, she was walking along the gravel path that wound through it.

“Will her mother make her unhappy again?” Zizzy asked, anxiety dripping from her.

“Not if we can help it.”

“I will place myself between here and the house,” Zizzy said. “I’ll hurry over should her mother or Lord Garston come in this direction.”

“An excellent plan.” Mercury stepped into the walled garden.

Miss Huddleston spotted him quickly. “Are you alone?”

He lowered his eyes, shaking his head as if humiliated. “Even Zizzy has abandoned me.”

“She is entirely devoted to you, Mercury Raine. She wouldn't abandon you. ”

“You have caught me out. She is actually standing guard to make certain your mother and your would-be suitor don’t bother you here.”

“I might actually be tempted to allow a Transferal if I could have Zizzy with me.”

If only she knew that Zizzy didn’t have any desire to leave, and Mercury was not going to press the matter when it was such a sensitive topic for the tender-hearted specter.

Miss Huddleston tossed him a pointed look. “I’m not actually considering undertaking a Transferal, you realize. It is too great a risk.”

“And what would you say if I told you I think there’s a chance you will change your mind about that?” Seeing worry creep into her expression, he quickly explained, “I have an idea that would allow you to make your first Transferal without your mother present.”

“I thought that was impossible.”

“In your current circumstances, it is. Immediate family members in your household have to be present and in approval. The why isn’t known, but centuries of documentation and failed attempts to circumvent it confirm that it is absolutely true.”

She was watching him closely as they walked on.

“But immediate family members who do not reside in the same household as the one undertaking a first Transferal have no say in the matter, and their presence is not required. If you do not share a household with your mother…” He let the rest of the realization dangle.

Miss Huddleston looked intrigued but also discouraged.

“I am an unmarried lady. We do not have most of the options that gentlemen do. Even if I had a house at my disposal, I do not have any income. And even if I had income, living alone without so much as a lady’s companion would cause an enormous scandal.

I am dependent upon my mother for my existence in every conceivable way, and that gives her control over most aspects of my life. ”

Mercury had pondered those exact difficulties for hours the night before.

“I had a client a couple of years ago who undertook a trade specifically because her ghost at the time was a child, and this client was in need of a companion so she could live on her own.”

“Society accepted her attachment as a reasonable lady’s companion?”

Mercury nodded. “I heard from other clients that the arrangement was working well. A ghost with the right demeanor seemed to satisfy expectations.”

“I would need to make certain I always traded for ghosts who could serve in that function, I suppose.”

They were getting somewhere. “Do you have any friends you could live with?”

“My mother has always kept me very isolated. I have never had the opportunity for acquaintances to become true friends.”

That had, no doubt, helped her keep her Invisible a secret. But it was still a cruel thing for a mother to do.

“I think the issue of income is likely the one that will have to be solved first,” Miss Huddleston said. “Income would allow me to both place a roof over my head and eat while under that roof. I am not ashamed to admit that I prefer being able to do both.”

Her dry tone brought a smile to his face. He’d been in the position of being unsure how to obtain a home and not starve. If not for his ability to broker—

Blazes. The ability to broker. That might be the answer.

He took a quick glance around, needing to be absolutely certain they were alone. He dropped his voice low. “You have more than one attachment. That means you could be a ghost broker, which would give you an income.”

She pondered it, brow pulling. “But wouldn't that at least hint at the fact that I have an Invisible attachment? I can’t risk people sorting that out.”

“That is a difficulty,” he acknowledged.

“I don’t think anyone has ever seen all of my ghosts at one time, but no one has ever assumed any of them are Invisibles.

If you operated in the countryside rather than London, where you’d be under more scrutiny, people might simply assume that your other attachment is bashful or misanthropic. ”

“Perhaps.” Miss Huddleston’s mouth twisted and pulled as they continued their circuit. Her gaze lingered a moment on Larissa Lodge as they passed it. She stopped, her mouth twisting in that adorable look of pondering he’d come to like. “Is Larissa Lodge within five hundred feet of Aventine Manor?”

He nodded. “Yes, though only just.”

“And you own it?”

He nodded again. “It is, technically, no longer part of the Aventine Manor estate, but it does belong to me.” That had been reason for hesitancy when The Scholar had suggested it as a possible residence for Miss Huddleston. It was connected to an unattached gentleman who wasn’t family to her.

“Have you ever considered renting it?” She held his gaze. “My ghost could mingle with yours, and no one would know that I was involved in the brokering at all. That would nearly eliminate the risk of people guessing at my situation.”

Renting it would help the situation be less scandalous. Having a tenant was not the same as “keeping” a woman .

Mercury rubbed at his mouth as he thought it through.

“It would make transfers a little more complicated but not impossible. And having a lady to take tea with or walk about the grounds with would help put some of my more uncertain female clients a little more at ease, which would help my brokerage business. And making certain it is known that you are renting the lodge would help squelch any unfavorable whispers.”

“You realize what you are describing sounds almost like a partnership.”

It did. And that wasn’t quite what he’d bargained for. Yet, it would allow him to have Granny Grey at Aventine Manor, which was crucial.

“I also feel I have to remind you,” she said, “that I have no idea how to facilitate a Transferal. I would need to be trained.”

She would be a neighbor. A business partner. A protégée. For one person to be connected to him in all three of those ways required that he take a risk and that he trust her, and trust was, as The Scholar had rightly pointed out, not his specialty.

Granny Grey’s late-night confession, combined with Pearl’s late-night warning, pushed him forward. He couldn’t afford to let Granny slip away. Far too much was at stake.

A partnership. One that would save his business, his ghosts, and himself.

“I can train you,” he said. “And we can sort out a way of making this partnership work.”

“Which leaves us with one last difficulty.” She sighed, sounding exceptionally tired. “The law gives my mother the ability to make things deeply difficult for me if I simply attempt to walk away or leave home. I don’t know how to convince her to allow me to do so.”

“Perhaps ‘allow’ isn’t the right approach.”

“You’re suggesting I run away from home?” she asked with a laugh .

Run away. The past twelve hours had been filled with unexpected moments of budding brilliance and half-formed ideas. It seemed his mind was not yet done formulating them. Another thought tickled at the back of his brain. “Hmmm.”

She looked back at him again. “That was a very intriguing ‘hmmm.’”

“I have the beginnings of what is likely to prove an utterly odd but potentially brilliant idea.”

“It would allow me to set up house at Larissa Lodge?” she asked.

He nodded.

“And my mother couldn’t prevent it or drag me back to her home?”

“She cannot snatch hold of you if she doesn’t know where you are,” he said.

Miss Huddleston stopped their slow circuit of the garden and looked directly at him. “Are you suggesting I spend my life in hiding?”

He shook his head. “What I am about to suggest is far more complicated.”