Page 109 of Unforeseen Affairs
She resisted the urge to place a protective hand over her middle. To do something like that would give everything away.
Colin smiled sheepishly.
“Charlotte, dearest, Mrs. Stone was just about to tell us something you might be interested in,” Mrs. Gearing said brightly, completely unfazed by the medium’s eccentricities.
“Yes,” Colin interjected. “Of what she saw—or thought she saw—at that first spirit circle.”
“What Ididsee,” Mrs. Stone corrected, her high-pitched voice rather indignant.
“At Mrs. Gearing’s house?” Charlotte said.
“Yes, the one that Mr. Bass conducted,” Colin’s mother confirmed.
“Please do not speak that name,” said Mrs. Stone, recoiling visibly at the mention of it.
Charlotte glanced at Colin, recalling the old newspaper they’d chanced upon in the back of The Black Candle. The one that had suggested a far closer association between the two mediums than they had previously guessed.
“At any rate,” Mrs. Stone said, “what Mr. Bass had said was true.”
Charlotte and Colin looked at each other, then back to Mrs. Stone again.
“He is a humbug of the highest order,” Mrs. Stone declared with a sniff, “but yes. The information he conveyed during that circle… was correct.”
Colin furrowed his brow in that charmingly frazzled way that always set Charlotte’s stomach aflutter. “What do you mean?”
“About your friend,” Mrs. Stone replied. “He did, in fact, father a child in Italy, outside the bounds of marriage.”
Charlotte watched as Colin winced, his expression a mix of confusion and pain. She felt a stab of betrayal in her own heart.
Mrs. Gearing looked triumphant. “I knew it! Something about that claim always rang true to me.” She looked sheepishly at Mrs. Stone, no doubt feeling some degree of guilt at having turned that fateful circle over to Mr. Bass. “Er, despite the falseness of the messenger. Anyway, thank goodness that… business was all sorted.” She shook her head. “All’s well that ends well, I say.”
The sound of rustling skirts, shuffling feet, and chairs scraping against the floor indicated that it was nearly time for Mrs. Stone to take her place at the table.
Mrs. Gearing, now buzzing with the kind of excitement that can only come from hearing the most tantalizing gossip, gave a nod and turned away to find her own seat.
“Mrs. Stone,” Charlotte prodded, “how could that be?”
The medium pursed her lips, thinking.
Charlotte glanced back at Colin, concerned. He looked pale, and his jaw was sharp as he clenched it shut.
“It is not unheard of,” Mrs. Stone said slowly, “for one to sometimes… project their own thoughts and feelings onto another. To one who…” She stood up and smoothed her skirts. “To one with whom a connection is shared. I am sure that Mr. Bass, unscrupulous as he is, plucked the image of the poor woman in Italy from my mind and passed it off as his own.”
Then, rather abruptly, she left them and went to sit at the table without another word.
Charlotte felt her heart thumping in her chest. She reached for Colin’s hand. He took it.
“I am not surprised,” she said quietly.
He scoffed. “Of courseyouaren’t,” he said as he rubbed a hand over his face. “What a foolIwas, though, believing Beaky.”
“Did he ever actually deny it, when you asked?”
Colin frowned, thinking.
The sound of Cousin Bess blowing her nose cut through the murmur of chatter about the table behind them.
“Come to think of it… no, I don’t believe he did. Not directly. The cagey devil.”
