Read Lessons After Dark Online
Authors: Isabel Cooper
Lessons After Dark
Copyright
Copyright © 2012 by Isabel Cooper
Cover and internal design © 2012 by Sourcebooks, Inc.
Cover illustration by Chris Cocozza
Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systemsâexcept in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviewsâwithout permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.
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To Abby Laughlin, who was there at the beginning. I can only hope that future generations of teenage girls will stay up late to giggle over this bookâand that they'll have as much fun as we did.
When Olivia Brightmore arrived at Englefield, there was nobody to meet her.
That wasn't absolutely true, she told herself as she stood staring at the house, bag weighing down one arm. There had been the carriage when she got off the train, and the elderly and taciturn coachman who was even now driving it back out of sight. Someone had sent him. Someone was expecting her, and it wasn't as though she could expect Mr. or Mrs. Grenville to come out and greet her. She was a new teacher, not a weekend guest. She'd just have to go inside, find someone appropriate, and give him the letter Mr. Grenville had sent when he'd hired her.
Very simple, really.
Olivia swallowed hard, smoothed her free hand down the side of her best skirt, and still couldn't make herself move for a minute or two.
Englefield was a pleasant country house, square and red brick and Georgian. She'd lived eighteen years in one much like it, before marriage and widowhood and London. There was nothing Gothic about it, but just for a minute it seemed to loom against the cloudy evening sky, full of unpleasant possibilities. If they hadn't sent for her at all and it had been some kind of horrible mistakeâif she was too young or too soft looking now that she was hereâif they'd changed their minds and that letter had reached her rooms too lateâ
She started forward with all the dignity of a rabbit bursting from cover. It took until the foot of the curved set of steps to bring her feet under some sort of control, and none of the meditation she'd learned managed to slow her heartbeat a jot. When she knocked, her hand looked very small, the gray leather of her good pair of gloves startlingly pale against the varnished wood of the doors.
You
absolutely
must
get
hold
of
yourself, my dear.
The voice was a memory: Lyddie, the woman who had taught Olivia most of what she knew, speaking before Olivia's first night performing on her own. Olivia's hands had been shaking so badly she'd spilled one glass of water already. Lyddie had gripped them in hers, her black eyes as calm and pitiless as a raven's.
You're not asking them for anything they don't want to give you. Remember that.
Olivia sent silent thanks to Lyddie, wherever she was in the Silent Land or beyond, and managed to put a proper and distant smile on her face just as the door opened.
It helped that the maid on the other side looked rather flustered herself. She was young too, perhaps eighteen at the most, and she started talking as soon as she saw Olivia. “You're the new teacher, aren't you? The one from London?” Before Olivia could reply, the girl put a hand to her mouth. “OhâI'm dreadfully sorry, ma'am!”
That phrase was certainly on the list of things Olivia hadn't wanted to hear. If she'd actually faced the icily composed butler or suspicious housekeeper she'd been expecting, she might have frozen again, but the maid's youth and confusion let her get the words past the sudden tightness in her throat. “Sorry?”
“Well, there's nobody at home, just about. Mr. Grenville's gone to see his sister off today, and he won't be back until nightfall at least. And that would've been fine, only Mrs. Grenville's just gone out to have a word with the builders, and Mrs. Edgar'sâ¦talkingâ¦with Cook.”
“And the butler?” Olivia asked, surprising herself with the laughter in her voice.
“Quit a week ago, ma'am. Said no decent man would put up withâwell, never mind.” The girl seemed to abruptly become conscious of her place, or that Olivia was still on the doorstep. She stepped back. “Why don't you come in, then? We can take your bagsâohâwell, we can put them somewhere until Mrs. Grenville and Mrs. Edgar can say which room you're to have.”
She looked at Olivia's bag dubiously and didn't ask where the others were. Olivia knew she was blushing and smiled quickly to cover it up. “I try to travel lightly,” she said.
Very lightly: two shirtwaists, a skirt, underthings, her other pair of gloves, two books, and a few magical tools. The rest of her clothes hadn't been worth seeing. In any case, the books lent some weight to the bag. Olivia thought the maid might have been truly shocked, otherwise, when she handed it over.
“What's your name?” Olivia asked once the girl had closed the door.
“Violet, ma'am.”
“I'm Mrs. Brightmore.”
Violet bobbed a curtsy, Olivia's bag tucked under one arm. “Iâ” She bit her lip and stopped. Olivia saw the question in her face and knew what it was. Even such a raw servant as Violet would know her place better than to ask, even of someone who'd been as informal with her as Olivia had. It was far too personal.
Besides, there really was no polite euphemism for
witch
, even for a woman who was coming to teach at a school of the occult.
It was to her and Violet's mutual relief when a door on one side of the room opened and a head of neatly cut auburn hair poked out of the doorway, a little less than six feet up. The gentleman behind the door glanced around the hall, frowning, and then frowned more when he saw Violet and Olivia.
Violet, on the other hand, broke out in a smile. “Oh, I'd forgotten the doctor! Dr. St. John, sir,” she said with another curtsy in his direction, “this is Mrs. Brightmore, the new teacher. She's just come from London, andâ”
“Simon isn't back yet, I suppose? Or Mrs. Grenville, from wherever she's gone?”
“Just down to the new building, sir, and I'll send someone for her directly.” Violet looked from the new arrival back to Olivia. “I was just going to show you to the drawing room, ma'am.”
With, to some credit, only a very faint sigh, Dr. St. John stepped fully out of the room. “I'll escort the lady.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Olivia as Violet nodded and sped off. “You're very kind.”
Now that she could see him entirely, Dr. St. John proved to be on the thin side, perhaps more so than he should have been by nature. His features were strong but a touch drawn, and a fading tan didn't quite mask the faint shadows under his eyes. His eyes were a rather striking green, and while he was dressed for practicality rather than fashion, his clothing was neat and well cut. Handsome, in his way. Not that it particularly mattered, since this was a school and not a ballroom, but it was no bad thing to have an attractive man about the place.
“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Brightmore,” he said, looking down at her as they headed through another of the doorways. “I'd apologize for the improper introduction, but I wouldn't wish to raise your expectations for the school.”
“I had no impression this was a precisely regular establishment,” Olivia said, trying a hint of a smile on him and getting no response. She glanced around the drawing room. “Although it's certainly
looked
unexceptionable so far.”
It was a nice enough room: blue paper, dark wooden furniture with blue cushions, plenty of windows, and a small piano in one corner. It could have been a dozen others she'd seen. Olivia realized she was surprised, and inwardly shook her head.
“Doesn't look precisely like a school for magic, does it?” asked Dr. St. John, who
probably
couldn't read her thoughts.
Like
witch
,
magic
sounded more than faintly ridiculous. Olivia had never used the word in her previous profession. It put the customers in the wrong frame of mind. And Mr. Grenville's letter had thrown around lots of camouflage. “Talents of a certain nature” here, “a singular variety of human service” there: enough for any reasonable person to get the hint, but still never coming right out.
Still, there it was, and one could only dance around the subject for so long.
“No,” she said and glanced over to find Dr. St. John studying her face almost as intently, if somewhat less subtly, she hoped, than she'd been regarding him earlier. Curiosity about a colleague was natural. Nevertheless, Olivia could have wished he'd been less curious, or she'd had time beforehand to freshen up from the journey. “But then,” she said, “I suppose it wouldn't. Not the public rooms. One so rarely sees busts of Pallas in the best houses these days.”
She hadn't known Dr. St. John nearly long enough to expect anything from him. Even now, it was something of a surprise when he grinned. He looked surprised too, and Olivia wasn't sure that was any compliment to her. “Quite right,” he said, “and I suspect keeping eye of newt in the pantry would lead to a number of catastrophes.”
“You might encounterâ” Olivia was going to go on and talk about problems keeping servants but stopped as Dr. St. John suddenly turned back toward the door. It was a second or two before she heard footsteps running toward them, and only a little longer until a boy burst into the doorway.
He was perhaps fifteen or sixteen, dark haired and well dressed. He was also quite alarmed. At first, “Sirâ” And then the words nearly burst out of his mouth. “Sir, Dr. St. John, you've got to come upstairs. It's Elizabeth. She's⦔ Only then did he seem to notice Olivia, and his face turned red even as he went on. “She's on the ceiling, sir, and she can't get down.”
“You may as well come,” Gareth St. John said. “You might do more good than I will.”
He hadn't thought to say it. He hadn't, really, thought at all, other than to wonder if Fitzpatrick thought Gareth could do anything about the situation or had just come to the first authority figure he could find. Not that it mattered. He
was
the one at hand. Fitzpatrick was fifteen and terrified, and Gareth's body was headed for the door long before his mind snapped itself out of the shock.
Simon had hired the Brightmore woman for
some
skill with the occult, presumably. It wouldn't hurt to have her along. Gareth glanced over his shoulder to see how she'd taken the order.
She was nearly neck and neck with him. Either she moved with inhuman speedânot wholly impossible, given the circumstancesâor she hadn't been waiting on his invitation. Not one to sit on her hands in a crisis. Gareth had to give her that, just as he'd had to concede a few moments ago she had some measure of wit.
Naturally, he told himself as they followed Fitzpatrick into the hall, Mrs. Brightmore hadn't seen the case yet. Neither, in all fairness, had he.
“Has someone gone to get Mrs. Grenville?” he asked.
Fitzpatrick nodded. “Charlotte.”
Better
she
than
me
was all through his voice. Modern youth wasn't much for chivalry, it appeared. Not that Gareth could entirely blame the boy.
By the time they'd gotten halfway up the stairs, his leg had already begun to ache. He could slow down, but not in front of the Brightmore woman, and it probably wouldn't be a good idea even if she wasn't there. If Elizabeth's powers shut off suddenly, as they sometimes didâthen there
would
be something he could do. If he and Elizabeth were lucky.
One bit of fortune was on Gareth's side. Until the builders could finish the new dormitory that occupied so much of Mrs. Grenville's attention, the female students stayed on the second floor in a hastily refitted guest room. If climbing the stairs in a hurry was painful, dashing across the grounds would have been a study in agony. It was lucky too, they had been inside: here there
was
a ceiling.
A year or two ago, Gareth had never had time to think during a crisis. They'd always been right at hand. Half the time, he'd no sooner stumbled out of his bed than there'd been some broken and bleeding young man in front of him, and his mind had turned itself swiftly and wholly to the task. He'd never thought, then, he might actually miss those days.
When he reached the landing, Mrs. Brightmore by his side, he could hear Elizabeth sobbing. It was honestly something of a relief. The girl clearly hadn't damaged herself too badly. It took a certain amount of strength to cry, particularly at any volume, and it required that the person crying have lungs in relatively good condition. Death, in Gareth's experience, was quiet, more often than not.
Nonetheless, he covered the length of the hallway quickly, despite the pain in his leg. It didn't take long before he drew in sight of the open doorway and glimpsed the figures inside. Fitzpatrick had dashed ahead of him and now stood a little to the side. Waite and Fairley were nearby. All three had their heads tipped backward, the better to stare the six or so feet to the ceiling.
Elizabeth Donnell floated there. “Floating” gave the impression of serenity, though the girl was anything but serene. She twisted and shrieked, kicking her legs and clawing at the air as if she could find some purchase on emptiness. Her red hair had come loose from its plaits sometime in the struggle and tangled about her as if in an unseen wind. As Gareth came in, she looked down at him with red-rimmed eyes and, with some effort, made her crying coherent.
“Oh, Dr. St. John,” she said and gulped, “can you get me down from here?
Please?
”
Poor
little
thing.
Gareth's own talent had been quite bad enough at thirteen, but it had been far more subtle, and controllable, than this. He'd have been screaming too, in her circumstances.
Pity wouldn't get her down, though. Admitting he didn't know what would get her down would probably only make matters worse. The last thing the students needed was further panic. None of that meant he had the slightest idea how to begin. At a minimum, he could talk calmly to her until Mrs. Grenville returned, and be on hand in case the situation gotâ¦out of hand.
Gareth drew a breath to speak.
“I can.” It was Mrs. Brightmore. Her brown eyes were a little wide, but her face, although pale, showed no signs of panic.
It was a familiar face too. Gareth had thought so since a few moments after he'd met her and was more convinced now. He couldn't place the connection, and it didn't matter. If the woman thought she had the situation in handâit was more than he did. “This is Mrs. Brightmore,” he said by way of an introduction. “She's come to be your teacher.”
The boys turned briefly, but only briefly. A new teacher, even a young and pretty one, held no fascination beside the scene playing out above them. Gareth shot them a reproving lookâ
this
is
not
a
sideshow, gentlemenâ
and was glad to see a general embarrassed shuffling.
More to the point, Elizabeth turned a gaze to Mrs. Brightmore that was both surprised and hopeful. “You are? So you know aboutâ?” She gestured vaguely around her.
“Yes, of course.” A quick smile. “It won't be any problem at all, so long as you do what I say.”
“Yes, ma'am!”
Mrs. Brightmore took a few steps into the room until she was standing almost directly below Elizabethâjust enough off to look easily up at the girl. “First of all, I'd like you to shut your eyes. Good. Now take a very deep breath. Fill your lungs and hold it for a second.”
Elizabeth fell almost silent, but Gareth saw her lips moving and heard a very low mutter. Some of the words sounded a bit like Latin. None of them seemed quite to correspond with the short, neat woman in the brown checked wool. However, the lamplight casting a shadow across her face and darkening her chestnut hair made her look more suited to her role.
“When I say âgo,'” she went on, “open your eyes, look at me, and let your breath out. Slowly. Count to ten.”
The whole room was silent now, silent enough to hear the first puff of Elizabeth's breath, and attentive enough to notice when her body started to descend. It was only a few inches, but her nose no longer brushed the ceiling.
“Good God!” Waite whispered.
Gareth knew he should reprove him, but he'd only barely controlled the urge to swear himself. “I suggest,” he said, “that the three of you go and explain the situation to Mrs. Grenville.”
“But Charlotteâ” Fairley said.
“Miss Woodwell won't know about this latest development, will she?” Gareth used the voice that had always worked on orderlies and assumed the sound of footsteps meant it had worked. For his part, he didn't take his eyes off the center of the room, where Elizabeth was slowly but surely drifting downward.
Now, as he hadn't had time to do earlier, he took a closer look at Mrs. Brightmore. Pretty, yes. Even now he wasn't blind to a pleasantly rounded figure or a cheerful, heart-shaped face. She hadn't dressed to play up either asset though, or to show off her wealth. Her clothing was plain and her hair pulled back in a simple knot. Necessary, perhaps, since she didn't travel with a maid. She was no schoolgirl, but she was no more than his age, if that, young to be so certain of herself under these circumstances.
Nothing in her appearance explained how she'd learned whatever she was doing. Nor did it account for the feeling Gareth had met her before. That was highly improbable. He hadn't been more than half a year in England, he'd been recovering for most of that, and she was no nurse.
Elizabeth continued her descent. Mrs. Brightmore didn't give her much time to realize it, from the way things looked. She kept talking, lengthening her words slowly, and her hands moved in slow patterns in the air. Her fingers were long and slim, nimble looking.
“Now in for another count of ten. Imagine letting out everything that makes you float, as if you're a great big balloon. Someone's untied the end, and the air's coming out. But it's not all at once. I am right here, and you are safe. Just breathe out now, slowlyâand holdâand then in again.”
There was a faint accent to her voice now, almost but not quite French. It was familiar, again, like the movements of her hands.
“In once againâholdâand outâand we're done!”
Gareth almost jumped when the heels of Elizabeth's boots touched the carpet. By the look on her face, though, he wasn't half as surprised as she was. “I-it worked!” the girl said.
“So it did. I'd go downstairs, if I were you, and see if I could get some bread and butter out of Cook. You'll be able to eat a horse soon.” Mrs. Brightmore smiled.
It was the smile that pulled all the other hints together. A dimple in one cheek made it look slightly lopsided, and suddenly Gareth knew he'd seen that precise smile before. In person, yes, but also on a poster. Not a very good print, but the girl had been pretty, the night had been quiet, and they'd all been flush with pay.
I've never been
, James had said.
Don't you think we should, before we leave? Don't have these in Egypt, I'll wager.
Gareth and Edward had been willing enough to go along. Wine had helped.
It
should
have
been
gin. Spirits to talk with spirits.
Gareth remembered Edward's voice. A month or so later, Edward had lain on a filthy cot in a hot country, sweating and bleeding and dying for nothing particularly right or true. Edward had been whole that night, though. Merry going in, melancholy after. He hadn't been able to say why.
Madame Marguerite, the woman had been called then. Medium Most Magnificent. Part of something called Hawkins's Wonder Show. She'd sounded more French, or more like her audience had expected French to sound. Her hair had been down in ringlets and her wrists clinking with cheap bangles. Her dress had been white and cut much lower. But she'd moved her hands the same way, and her voice had been just as coaxing when she spoke to “The Realms Beyond.”
Gareth had almost been able to see the wires.
He took a step back without thinking. He'd started to admire herâthat was the worst of it. The way she kept her head in a crisis, her quiet humor, her ability to calm a scared child. Downstairs, perhaps he'd even started to like her.
Nowâ
Gareth reminded herself he didn't know. He
couldn't
know for sure. It had been six years. Plenty had happened, plenty of faces had passed through his vision on the way, and women did look and even sound similar. And Mrs. Brightmore could do what she claimed. She just had.
Exceptâ¦she'd simply talked, for the most part. Any half-shilling fortune-teller could talk a decent game, and most of them could manage a few tricks of mesmerismâcertainly enough to work on a scared child. The invocation had been the only blatantly magical part of the process, and even that might have been for effect.
He didn't want to offend an innocent woman, nor did he want to offend a woman he would have to work with. Nevertheless, he had to know. More than that, he owed some information to the Grenvilles.
“I realize it's an unusual question,” he said abruptly. “But I think we've met before. May I ask your Christian name?”
Was it his imagination, or was her smile a touch fixed now? “Olivia,” she said. “But I don'tâ”
“Ah,” he said and watched her face. “I was almost certain it was Marguerite.”
She was very good. The recognition on her faceâand the guiltâwas there for only a minute. Just long enough to tell him what he needed to know.