Lady Preston's face finally formed an expression. Shock. She clasped her long fingers in her lap and lifted her chin, revealing her slender white throat. She swallowed. "Know?" she whispered. The cool, bland woman changed before my eyes. Small, thin lines striped across her forehead and everything about her seemed to slacken, loosen, as if she'd had enough of holding herself together.
"Dear lord," Adelaide said on a gasp. She was about my age but seemed older. Perhaps it was because she was so tall and willowy or perhaps because she looked sophisticated perched as she was on the sofa, her soft pink skirts spread daintily around her. "You mean he's alive?"
"No, no, you misunderstand," I said quickly. Oh dear, I'd gone about this all wrong.
The two beautiful faces crumbled. "Then what...?" Adelaide pressed. Her mother straightened again and her expression tightened once more. She sat like an automaton waiting to be wound up, serene but lifeless.
"I'm a spirit medium," I said to Adelaide. I couldn't look at her mother. Something about her unnerved me. She was so still, so empty...it was unnatural. "Jacob's ghost visits me regularly."
Adelaide's jaw dropped. "Ghost," she whispered. She bit her lower lip and blinked rapidly.
There was an awful moment when no one spoke. Then, "Get out," Lady Preston snapped.
"Pardon?" I spluttered.
"Get out of my house." The venom in her voice was matched by the hatred in her eyes. At that moment, I think she genuinely despised me.
"But-."
"Mother," Adelaide said, placing her hand over both of her mother's, "I think we should listen to what Miss Chambers has to say."
"She's a fraud." Her face contorted into a sneer. I think I preferred the blandness. "She wants to make money from
our loss but I'll have none of it."
"No, I've heard of her." The knuckles of Adelaide's hand went white. "I wondered why her name sounded familiar and now I recall. She and her sister hold séances to communicate with the dead. They're very popular."
"That doesn't mean she's not a fraud."
"I am not a fraud," I said. "And I can prove it to you."
Adelaide shifted forward on the sofa without letting go of her mother's hands. "Please do," she whispered.
"She must be a fraud," Lady Preston said again as if neither I, nor her daughter, had spoken. "Because Jacob is not dead."
Shadows of pain passed over Adelaide's face. She momentarily closed her eyes, breathed deeply, then opened them again. "Mother, we've been through this. We don't know for sure-."
"I know. He's my son and he is not dead until I say he is." She shot to her feet and strode to the window, keeping her back to us. From the slight shake of her shoulders, I knew she was crying.