Page 4 of Grave Expectations
He reached across the table and took both my shaking hands in his. The gentle rubbing of his thumbs over my knuckles soothed my jangling nerves, but not my thumping heart. "Do you require a strong drink?"
I smiled. "No, thank you. Your presence is fortifying enough."
"I assume that's a compliment."
I squeezed his hands. "Most certainly." We stayed like that for an age, as I thought through the contents of the letter. I only let him go to inspect the pendant again.
"May I have it?" he said. "To keep it safe."
I closed my fist around it. "My mother wanted me to wear it for protection."
"I'mhere to protect you now, you don't need a device." He nodded at the pendant. "Its power is unknown, perhaps dangerous itself if unleashed. Until we learn more about it, it should be locked away."
I studied the orb. It felt warm, as if it had been sitting by the fire. Then it throbbed.
I gasped and quickly unclasped the necklace. I thrust it toward him. "I think…I think it's alive."
Lincoln held it up to the light. "Amber sometimes has dead insects trapped inside from when it was a sticky tree resin. This one appears to have something very small in the center, but I can't make it out with the naked eye."
"I felt it beat, like a heart."
He tucked it into his inside jacket pocket. "We'll see what we can learn about it when we return home."
I stared out the window at the street below, where the lamp lighter climbed his ladder to light the nearest streetlamp. My mother's words tumbled through my mind, and while it was wonderful to have that connection with her, I wanted more. I couldn't hear her voice; I wanted so desperately to know its timbre and to see what she looked like. I had only matron's description of her. It wasn't enough.
Lincoln's hand on my cheek startled me. He'd not displayed much tenderness toward me since the kiss in his room back at Lichfield, so his gesture was a surprise, though not an unwelcome one.
But instead of kissing me, or stroking my cheek, he withdrew. He began to pace the small room, his hands at his back.
"I know what you're thinking," I said, also rising.
He stopped and looked at me. "You do?"
"You think I'll raise my mother's spirit. And since she's a necromancer, she might know the same spell that Estelle Pearson knew and override my power. You're worried she'll escape and I won't be able to send her back."
The memory of Estelle Pearson's decaying body getting away from me in Highgate Cemetery still haunted me. I'd gone against Lincoln's wishes and summoned her, but she'd been a witch and spoken a spell to override my commands. Knowing that she could have caused great harm to others still sickened me. I wouldn't summon a spirit again unless I knew they had been powerless in life.
"No," he said quietly. "That is not what I was thinking."
"Then what is it?" I touched his face as he had touched mine. He'd shaved that morning, but dark stubble already shadowed his jaw and roughed my palm. I stroked the smooth skin above it with my thumb. "What troubles you?"
He placed his hand over mine and drew it away. He kissed my wrist, but not passionately, and let me go. "Now is not the time. You're tired and your mind is occupied with thoughts of your mother. I'll have some supper sent up for you. Goodnight, Charlie. Tomorrow we will talk."
"But we're meeting Monsieur Fernesse, the decorator, tomorrow."
"After that." He kissed my forehead. "I will not be far away."
"Will you come to me if I have bad dreams?"
"Of course."
I smiled. I thought he'd be more concerned about someone seeing us. It was one thing to come to my room at night at Lichfield, where it was only us and our three friends, but now we were in public at an exclusive hotel. Perhaps being in a strange city, surrounded by strangers, eased his conscience. I was glad of it. I liked that he didn't care about propriety. Liked it very much.
Monsieur Fernesse occupieda gallery sandwiched between a wine shop and a cabaret on a sloping Montmartre street. Seth had told me all about the artists’ corner of Paris before we left, describing its freedom, creativity and madness as if those three things could not be separated. On a frosty November morning, however, there was no sign of the previous night's revelries. Aside from a few souls braving the icy wind that swept down the hill, we were the only ones about.
"I hope he's in," I said to Lincoln as we waited for his knock to be answered.
He knocked again, and this time a man dressed in a long purple and gold smoking jacket unlocked the door. He barked out a string of French words I suspected weren't terribly welcoming, from the way Lincoln went very still beside me. He spoke back to the man in that quiet yet commanding tone he used when he was angry, then handed him Seth's letter of introduction.
