Page 4 of Unforeseen Affairs (The Sedleys #6)

“It’s good, then,” Charlotte suggested, “that they’ve engaged you rather than someone else.”

“Perhaps,” sighed Mrs. Stone. “I only pray that the sitting will bring Mrs. Gearing what she needs.”

Charlotte looked out the carriage window at the dense traffic surrounding them.

The sun was setting, casting long shadows through a deep orange light.

The city felt stiflingly warm for the season.

She looked back to Mrs. Stone, who somehow remained perfectly still even as the carriage rocked and jumped.

“And perhaps,” she said cautiously, “it might bring you the testimony you’d need to rejoin—”

“Stockings… we ought to launder stockings,” Mrs. Stone interrupted, eyes still closed.

“Stockings?”

“Yes… the feeling is very urgent, I’m afraid.” Suddenly, she opened her eyes and pinned Charlotte with an eerie, ice-blue stare. “It’s coming from you, dear. Thoughts of washing… I see you, younger and smaller, seated before a basin filled with suds.”

Charlotte looked back at her mentor, holding her breath. Mrs. Stone almost never received any feelings or images from her presence. She’d always likened Charlotte to a forest pond: deep, dark, and still. Inscrutable.

The medium squeezed her eyes shut again, frowning with effort. “No…” she said, thinking harder. “Not stockings. Gloves. You’re washing gloves, dear.”

Charlotte’s heart clenched. She could not say how many evenings she had spent at the small table in their cramped quarters, silently washing the fingerless lace gloves her mother favored, listening as she ran her lines.

Charlotte would only agree to the tedious chore for that reason.

She’d loved listening to her mother’s voice, loved imagining the footlights, the costumes, all the trappings of the theater.

When she was a bit older, the stage manager would allow her to watch the performances from the wings.

But it wasn’t the same as when it was just her and her mother, dressed in their nightclothes with the lamps turned low, the tepid, soapy water sloshing as Charlotte scrubbed and her mother practiced.

But that was before. Before her mother’s clear, sonorous voice had become hoarse, punctuated by a wet, hacking cough. Before the delicate lace gloves were replaced with bloodied handkerchiefs.

Charlotte blinked. Mrs. Stone’s eyes were open again. Minutes passed as the two of them sat in silence.

Finally, Charlotte asked the only question that mattered, the one thing that had driven her for the past several years.

“Is my mother there?” she whispered.

Mrs. Stone shut her eyes. “No. She is not.” Her voice was sad.

Charlotte stared at the floor of the carriage, at the rich carpeting, the toes of her black boots.

She never was.

No medium, fraudulent or otherwise, had ever claimed to see or hear from her. Nancy Jutton, the charming and charismatic actress, ubiquitous upon the stages of London, had become elusive upon her death.

“The son, I believe, would be quite important to include in a sympathetic circle,” Mrs. Stone said, changing the subject after a long silence. “You might have done better to encourage him. I tapped your hand, did you not notice?”

Charlotte narrowed her gaze, irritated.

“I did notice,” she replied, and left it at that.

“He was handsome, was he not?” Mrs. Stone mused. “For a young pup, that is.”

“Yes,” replied Charlotte, not very much interested in this turn of the conversation. She wished to return to the image Mrs. Stone had seen, wanted to pry every tiny detail from her head.

“If he does attend, along with this young woman he fancies, that would be a good portent.”

“Oh?”

“You ought to have learned by now, dear. Love and affection strengthen the circle’s bond. They enhance the sympathetic vibrations.”

Charlotte tilted her head, curious.

“Love?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Stone sighed. “Is that not what I said?”

Charlotte looked out the window, unfazed by her mentor’s snappishness. The carriage slowed. After a long pause she spoke again.

“He doesn’t love her.”

“Oh? What makes you so certain?” Mrs. Stone opened her eyes, suddenly very interested. She sat up straighter. “Oh my! Did you have a premonition? Finally! It has been so long, I confess I had nearly given up all hope.”

“No,” Charlotte admitted. “A normal induction. He’s a young naval officer. A wife and children would only interfere with his prospects for career advancement. A man such as him would not allow himself to be so hindered.”

“Hindered?”

“Yes,” Charlotte said firmly.

“Miss Sedley,” Mrs. Stone chided, “Sir Colin Gearing is a national hero, recall. Nothing could impede his prospects… unless there is something else, something we cannot foresee.”

Charlotte thought of the myriad naval portraits she’d observed while wandering the Gearing family home.

Of the athletic trio of young men assembled in the small library.

Cunt and gunpowder, a sailor’s best friend.

She smiled to herself. She trusted her own observations.

Sir Colin Gearing was of the sea; he had been bred to don a bicorn hat and command a ship, not woo young women in society ballrooms.

Not yet, at least. Charlotte begrudgingly respected him for that.

Indeed, she felt a kinship in that regard, for while she may have been younger by a handful of years, she had no desire to be wooed by anyone.

The entire world lay before her—not one of open ocean and exotic ports, but of mysterious puzzles, a world filled with secrets and bewilderments.

She would not allow herself to be blinded by a handsome smile or a firm hand at the small of her back.

Life offered too many possibilities, too much to discover for that.

They came to a stop outside Mrs. Stone’s small shop.

To a layperson, The Black Candle might have seemed to offer only useless oddities, but to Charlotte and those who were metaphysically inclined, it carried all the necessary occupational equipment.

While the medium’s odd nature and nonsensical credos had made her a pariah among most of the city’s spiritualist societies, her care and discernment ensured her shop did a steady custom.

“Well, I shall bid you good evening, then,” Mrs. Stone said, taking a deep breath as she readied herself to reemerge into the outside world. “Please, give my regards to Mr. and Mrs. Sedley, and beg warn Mrs. Sedley to avoid rich foods for the present.”

“Why?”

Charlotte’s stepmother, Mrs. Susanna Sedley, was not someone to indulge in much of anything.

“Barley water, I should think, would do her well.”

She stepped down, refusing the groom’s proffered hand, and walked into the shop without a backward glance. Charlotte was left to puzzle over the bizarre counsel with no further explanation.

As the carriage took her back home, the memory of Sir Colin chasing her down the hall returned.

Charlotte placed her chin upon one hand and stared out into the gas lamp-illuminated night.

She said a silent prayer for the young man, asking that whoever this Miss Pearce was, she would not catch him in her hooks.

People ought to have the opportunity to live to their full potential.

It felt only sporting to offer him good wishes, after she’d teased him so.

Her conscience thus assuaged, she put him out of her mind altogether.