Page 2 of Mesmerized

“St. Leger...” the man who was sitting beside Olivia’s captor said with distress, “whatever are you doing?” He turned toward their host, who was standing and staring with grim dislike at the man holding Olivia’s arm. “Colonel, I beg your pardon, Lord St. Leger meant no disrespect, I’m sure.”

“Of course not,” Lord St. Leger said shortly, glancing toward the colonel. “No doubt you were being duped, as well.”

“Duped!” squawked the colonel’s wife, her eyes bulging.

From inside the large box there came a moan, rising in volume when no one responded. The colonel’s wife let out another noise, this one more a bleat, and jumped to her feet. “Mrs. Terhune! Mercy! How could we have forgotten about you?”

One of the men rushed to open the door of the medium’s cabinet. There sat the gray-haired Mrs. Terhune on a stool, hands and feet bound just as they had been minutes earlier when they had closed the medium inside the box. The colonel’s lady and the man who had opened the cabinet rushed to untie her. Olivia watched with a cynical eye as the ropes fell easily away. She felt sure that the medium had herself untied the ropes, then hastily retied them when she heard the hubbub break out in the room. But, of course, she could not prove that now.

“There! You see what you’ve done!” Olivia snapped at Lord St. Leger. He turned toward her, his eyebrows rising lazily.

“What I have done?” he repeated.

“Yes! You’ve ruined everything.”

He smiled then, and it was astonishing to see the change it wrought in the man’s face. Looking at him, Olivia felt as if her stomach had just fallen to her feet, and she drew an involuntary breath.

“No doubt I have,” he agreed. “I apologize for interrupting you, Miss...Comstock. I should have let you play out your masquerade before I exposed you.”

“You didn’t expose anything, you dolt!” Olivia bit back, too disappointed and angry to worry about manners. “I was about to prove—”

“Who are these people?” the medium asked in a die-away voice that somehow brought everyone’s attention back to her. “I feel...so strange. I was deep in a trance, then these angry voices pulled me back. It makes me feel quite tired. Did I speak? Did the spirits come?”

“No,” barked the colonel, casting a flashing look toward Olivia and Lord St. Leger. “There was no visitation, no words from beyond. Nothing but these two people disrupting the séance.”

“Disrupting—” St. Leger gaped at the man. “I caught these people about to perpetrate a fraud upon you and all of us here, and all you can say is that I disrupted this little farce?”

“Farce?” The colonel’s face turned an alarming shade of red.

“Oh, dear,” moaned the man beside St. Leger, hastening to say, “Colonel, please, forgive him. Lord St. Leger has been living in America for years. I’m afraid that he has forgotten his manners.” The man turned and cast Lord St. Leger a significant look. “I am sure that he meant no insult.”

“Of course I didn’t mean any insult,” St. Leger replied. “You have been hoodwinked by this so-called medium and her partner, Miss ‘Comstock.’”

“I am not her partner!” Olivia cried.

“Sir, I assure you, I have never seen this woman before in my life,” Mrs. Terhune said, looking at Olivia blankly.

“Then what was she doing walking about during the séance?” St. Leger asked.

“I have no idea,” Mrs. Terhune returned calmly. She fixed a stern gaze on Olivia. “Miss, I specifically told everyone not to leave the table. It is very important. Our friends from the other side are very particular about such things.”

“Yes, no doubt they are,” Olivia replied dryly. She wondered if there was any hope of somehow managing to pass this off as her having to get up because of an unmentionable emergency.

But at that moment, one of the other women at the table said suddenly, “Wait, I know you. You aren’t Miss Comstock at all. You are that woman who dislikes mediums. My brother was telling me all about some symposium he attended—”

“Good Gad!” the colonel exploded. “The two of you came here purposely to cause a disruption! How dare you enter my house under false pretenses? I’ve a good mind to thrash you, sir.”

St. Leger released Olivia’s arm and rose to face the other man, his height and the breadth of his shoulders rendering the colonel’s threat rather empty. “Don’t trouble yourself, sir,” he said coolly. “I will leave now. It is clear that everyone here would prefer to retain their delusions.”

He strode from the room, and, as the colonel started toward Olivia, she decided it was best to follow St. Leger rather than be forcibly escorted from the house. The host was on her heels, calling for his servants. A stone-faced footman handed them their coats and hats and swept the door open, closing it with a snap as soon as they were outside.

St. Leger stopped abruptly on the stoop, and Olivia bumped into his back, letting out an annoyed “Oof.”

He turned and met her glance. She glared at him, but she knew the look was rendered ineffective by the fact that she was struggling to hold her bonnet and put on her cloak at the same time.

St. Leger took in the struggle over her cloak, which had inexplicably gotten turned inside out, and a smile tugged briefly at the corners of his mouth. Naturally he had already popped on his top hat and shrugged into his light coat.

“Allow me,” he said, reaching out and taking the cloak from Olivia’s fingers. A quick shake straightened it out, and he placed it around her shoulders. His fingertips brushed over her shoulders, and even through the cloth of her cloak, the touch sent a shiver down Olivia’s spine.