Page 14 of Ghost Broker (Mercury Raine #1)

“ T hat frustrating daughter of mine had best agree to a Transferal quickly,” Mrs. Huddleston muttered, watching Lord Garston’s carriage roll away from Aventine Manor. “This fish won’t stay on the hook long.”

Mercury was well-versed in the art of not laughing when doing so wouldn’t serve his purpose, no matter how entertaining a situation was.

He sat casually in a chair in the drawing room, hiding the fact that he was watching the lady closely.

He needed to make certain she saw what he and Miss Huddleston needed her to see.

“Mr. Raine.” Smythe floated in through the doorway.

“Yes, Smythe.” Mercury suspected he knew what he was about to be told.

“Zizzy has expressed concern that Miss Huddleston did not meet her on the grounds for a walk they had arranged to undertake together this morning.”

“Perhaps Miss Huddleston is simply getting a late start,” Mercury suggested.

“Mawky peeked into Miss Huddleston’s room, and it is empty, sir.” Smythe was not at all required to refer to Mercury as “sir,” but had insisted on doing so from the moment he had excitedly assumed the role of butler.

“Empty?” Mrs. Huddleston’s forehead creased, and her mouth turned down sharply.

“Miss Huddleston was not inside?” Mercury asked.

“She was not, and neither were any of her belongings.”

“ All her belongings are gone?” Mrs. Huddleston’s confusion didn’t bode overly well for the plot he’d hatched with her daughter.

For it to work, Mrs. Huddleston needed to come to the conclusion they were nudging her toward without realizing they were doing so.

“We have not decided on a departure date. Why would she have packed her belongings already?”

“Not merely packed, but removed from the premises.” Mercury pretended to be intrigued and confused. “Would she have sent her things onward without her?”

Mrs. Huddleston made a ponderous noise and walked with purposeful steps from the drawing room. Mercury followed behind at a distance. Baby joined him halfway to their destination.

“Is Miss Huddleston in danger?” Baby asked.

“I’m certain she is perfectly fine.” He and Miss Huddleston had decided it was best not to share the plan with all the ghosts until after it proved successful. Only Smythe knew.

Mrs. Huddleston stopped a few steps inside her daughter’s guest chamber and looked around in confused horror. “She truly is gone.”

“As is Lord Garston,” Smythe said with a pointed look. “One must wonder at the coincidence.”

“If you are suggesting that my daughter would elope with—” She didn’t finish. Her brow furrowed. Confusion warred with realization, which, in turn, swirled into a hint of avarice. “Elope with—” Satisfaction was the emotion she eventually settled on.

“Has Miss Huddleston run off with Lord Garston after all?” Mercury watched her with ill-disguised, and entirely feigned, shock.

“Certainly not.” But Mrs. Huddleston looked hopeful.

“We will leave you to do your packing, Mrs. Huddleston,” Smythe said, floating back out of the room.

“Do tell me if you need anything,” Mercury said.

“‘Packing’? ‘Need anything’?” Was Mrs. Huddleston going to have to be led all the way to the needed conclusion when it had already been laid out in front of her? Good heavens.

Baby, despite not knowing what was happening under the surface, came to the rescue. “To go after your daughter, of course. She’s run off with a man!”

“Of course. Of course.” Though Mrs. Huddleston made the acknowledgment with every indication that she intended to follow through, she left the room so slowly one would think she was a Society matron hoping to linger long enough to hear a particularly scandalous bit of gossip.

Mercury didn’t have to think long to sort out why.

If she waited long enough, Mrs. Huddleston could insist that the lord marry her daughter, which would make all her wildest dreams come true.

It was a helpful development: if she pursued slowly, she wouldn’t catch up for some time, which would hide the real situation.

“Again, do send word if you find yourself in need of anything.” Mercury gave a bow and made absolutely certain his expression contained just the right amount of nonchalance and a willingness to be scandalized at what might come next .

They had reached the critical juncture at which the plan he’d hatched with Miss Huddleston would either work brilliantly or fall to bits.

Mrs. Huddleston’s willingness to delay her departure a little to ensure Lord Garston remained far enough ahead of her for a marriage with her daughter to be all but guaranteed bought some needed time, but it also meant an increased risk of her realizing what was actually happening at Aventine Manor.

Smythe would reveal nothing. If Mercury weren’t near to hand, Mrs. Huddleston couldn’t ask questions of him. And his pointed absence would only further convince the meddling mother that she had a scandal to see to.

Excellent.

Mercury casually made his way from the house, grateful Mrs. Huddleston had been placed in a room facing the front grounds.

She wouldn’t spy him making his way across the back lawn and around the walled garden.

And she wouldn’t see him knock on the door of Larissa Lodge.

Neither would she spy who it was that opened the door.

“Has the plan worked?” Miss Huddleston asked.

“Thus far.”

She motioned him inside.

“Your mother will be in pursuit of Lord Garston in another hour or two, I imagine,” he said. “And I get the impression she doesn’t intend to catch him quickly.”

“How touchingly maternal of her,” Miss Huddleston said dryly.

“We’ll keep your presence hidden until after she inevitably returns looking for you,” he said, “but you would still do well to think of a different name to use when you begin taking part in this brokerage partnership.”

“I already have,” she said. “Tacey Wilde. ”

An interesting choice. “Why that name?”

She shook her head. “We are all entitled to our secrets.”

“You say that to me a lot, Miss Tacey Wilde,” he said.

She simply shrugged.

His gaze happened upon Granny Grey in that moment, hovering in a doorway on the other side of the room. “Are you unhappy with this arrangement?” he asked the specter.

“No,” she said. “Provided Miss H—Miss Wilde continues to be happy here.” There was a warning in the declaration.

“I never require anyone, be they person or ghost, to participate in things that will make them unhappy nor be part of anything dangerous if they aren’t both aware of the risks and fully willing to take them.

” He offered the reassurance to both Granny and the newly christened Miss Wilde at the same time.

“This arrangement is rife with pitfalls.”

“I know,” Miss Wilde said. “But ones I am willing to navigate.”

“Settle yourself in as best you can without drawing notice,” Mercury said. “Once your mother has left Aventine Manor for good, we can begin the work of establishing your new identity.”

“And my instruction in brokering ghosts?” she pressed.

He nodded. That bit would be both tricky and interesting. Above all, it would be a challenge. And he loved a challenge.

As predicted, Mrs. Huddleston returned to Aventine Manor the next day.

She very pointedly didn’t admit that she hadn’t found her daughter in company with Lord Garston.

Her less-than-expert efforts to discover, without being obvious about it, if Miss Huddleston remained in the area left her noticeably disappointed. Her departure disappointed no one .

The newly christened Miss Wilde would need to undertake a change in appearance in addition to her change in name.

That would have to be part of her training period.

She would learn the mechanics of Transferals as well as the business of it.

Granny Grey would be in proximity, and Mercury might learn a little more about the mystery of Invisibles.

And the mystery of himself.

Late in the evening, the day after Mrs. Huddleston had taken herself off for good, Mercury crossed paths with Granny Grey. “How is Miss Wilde faring at Larissa Lodge?” he asked.

“I think she’s overwhelmed but also beside herself with excitement. You’ve offered her freedom.”

“You sound surprised.”

“I am.” She, unsurprisingly, looked immediately anxious. “It’s more than I expected you to manage.”

Mercury just smiled. He wasn’t bothered by doubts or criticisms.

“I didn’t think you’d be able to find a way for me to remain at Aventine Manor if Miss Hudd—Miss Wilde didn’t agree to a Transferal,” Granny Grey admitted.

“I was extremely motivated to keep you here,” he said.

“Because you are afraid of what I know?”

“A little.” His secrets were dangerous things, and not merely for himself. “But also because I have been told that difficulties are coming my way, and that you, Granny Grey, are essential to my ability to navigate them.”

“More than mere difficulties,” Granny Grey said. “It is a storm, a collision of past and future, with you caught in the eye.”

“You said you knew my name isn’t Mercury Raine. Do you know, then, what it originally was?”

She smiled knowingly. “Even you don’t know that. ”

And with that, he had one piece of his puzzle, something he hadn’t known before. All his life he’d wondered if the name he’d had at the orphanage had been chosen by his parents or by the head of that miserable institution. No one there would tell him.

But Granny Grey knew, and she had just told him.

He didn’t know his true name. A clue to his identity. A part of himself he wouldn’t have known otherwise.

Mercury likely ought to have felt threatened by Granny’s knowledge of such a dangerous secret. But, to his surprise, he didn’t.

“You told me that first night that there are other ghosts who know things about me.”

“Bits and pieces, yes,” Granny said. “Snippets stretched out between us all.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.” There was no doubting her sincerity. She truly didn’t know how she knew what she did. “And I can’t explain how I am aware that the others exist or that their paths are destined to bring them here. But it is true.”

Destined to arrive at Aventine. Keys to his past. Threats to his future. “They are looking for me?”

She nodded. “And now you can be looking for them. Gather them, and all those scattered pieces will be together for the first time in your life.”

“The answer to who I am.” The realization spilled almost breathlessly from him.

“An answer that will change things.”

“For me? ”

“For your ghosts. For Miss Wilde. For those who are looking for you—and the ghosts are not the only ones. Revealing the secrets of your past will change the direction of your future.”

Mercury set his shoulders. “A future I am willing to fight for.”

“Then fight you shall.”