Scoundrel for Hire (Velvet Lies, Book 1) (33 page)

"When Cellie and I met him," Max crowed, "Fred here had just sunk a hefty little sum, close to fifteen thousand dollars, into his own plans to build a theater. Imagine us having so much in common. Had to be divine providence. So, I bought out Fred's investment, and now he's working for me. Whaddaya think, Chumley? Could Cellie's spirits have been any righter?"

Rafe smiled grimly. He didn't put much faith in spirits. Good old-fashioned chicanery was more likely to blame for the meeting of Max and Fred. After all, like Cellie, Fiona was ensconced at the Windsor Hotel. Fiona had probably convinced Cellie that "spirits" wanted Max to pay Fred's jail fines. The rest of the con had no doubt been inspired by gullible old Max himself, who'd rambled unabashedly about Cellie's wedding gift.

"I suspect, old chap," Rafe said evenly, "that some spirits are a bit 'righter' than others."

Fred shot him a narrow glare. "As you say, Your Grace. I've heard it said that
some
spirits tell
all,
'cause they can't abide secrets."

They locked smoldering stares. Max chuckled.

"There's not much room for secrets in a house full of spirits, that's for sure," he said amicably. "That's the first rule a man has to learn when contemplating marriage to a fortune-teller." Max winked expansively. "Good thing I can sneak my fill of pie at the Chloride Restaurant, eh?"

Rafe's smile was fleeting. He wondered how Fred thought he was going to get away with his scam once Silver walked into the dining room.

"Uh-oh." Max was gazing guiltily toward Buckholtz, who'd hustled the Union leaders into a corner and was gleefully inciting ethnic rivalries for his headlines. "Silver will have my head if she learns I let Brady out of my sight. Excuse me, gents."

Rafe didn't even bother with a facade. The moment Max had bustled out of earshot, he planted himself toe to toe with Fred. "So help me God," he growled, "if you and Fiona do anything, anything at all to hurt Max or Silver, I'll see you both pay."

Fred's jaw, with its fading row of bruises, jutted petulantly. "That's a helluva thing—a
helluva
thing—to say to me, since I'm the one who's actually playing square with the millionaire,
Your Grace."

Rafe stiffened. "What are you doing here, Fred?"

"The same as you. Wheeling, dealing, looking out for folks back home. Try a little forgiveness on for size. It won't kill you."

"Go to hell."

"Still sulking, eh?"

Rafe's neck heated. "You're a sorry sonuvabitch, Fred, and I rue the day I crossed your path."

Fred rolled his eyes and stuck his cigar back in his mouth. "Are you ever gonna grow up, preacher's boy, or do I have to spend the rest of my days working you over?"

Rafe scowled. He was sorely tempted to plow his fist through Fred's gut, but he knew better. He was being baited. And he wouldn't ruin this night for Max and Cellie.

"We'll finish this later," he ground out.

"Suit yourself," Fred shrugged, rolling his cigar to the other side of his mouth. "Say, did you know Chumley's an earl, not a duke?"

Rafe bit back his retort—and none too soon. Benson halted less than five feet away, a sterling bell gripped in his spotless white glove.

"Mrs. Trevelyan and gentlemen," the butler intoned with his habitual ennui, "the spirits have arrived. Madam Celestia invites the stouthearted among you to join her in the parlor. If you would be so bold as to follow me," he added dryly.

Fred winked at Rafe. "And so the curtain rises," he murmured, trailing after a trio of speculators, who were furtively crossing themselves.

Rafe shot his old cohort a warning look as he fell into step beside Max. The millionaire was tugging a grubby, well-wrinkled parchment from his breast pocket. He practically bounced with excitement as he rubbed the ridges between his palms. "Questions," he whispered eagerly. "About Cibola. Me and Cellie worked out a code."

No doubt,
Rafe thought wryly. He wondered what other shenanigans Cellie had planned for the night's entertainment, and how many of them even Max was privy to. As dear as the woman was, Rafe didn't honestly believe spirits talked to her.

Still, his skin did prickle as his eyes grew accustomed to the dim, admittedly eerie flicker of the wax-dripping tapers. Reflections of tiny flames materialized in sterling knickknacks, only to disappear when one looked too closely. They reminded Rafe of the old wives' tales Fred used to tell the troupe's children, yarns of pixies and fairies and the elf fires that used to lure unwitting mortals into the clutches of mischievous wee folk.

The entire parlor had been transformed. Most of the furniture had been removed; those pieces that remained were shrouded in ticking and had become mysterious oblong shapes against the walls. A round table dominated the space that remained.

On the linen that draped it, geometric designs and arcane symbols radiated outward in twelve directions from the main triangle, which contained a spookily lifelike illustration of a human eye. To Rafe's fascination, this eye seemed to follow him as he walked around the table. He told himself the phenomenon was nothing more than a trick of two white pillar candles, which in turn framed a pedestal positioned before Cellie's vacant chair. Sitting atop the ivory pyramid was a jet black pillow, and nesting at its center was the much-anticipated crystal ball.

From Rafe's perspective, the sphere, which was a good five inches in diameter, didn't look entirely clear. In fact, it appeared cloudy, glowing a pale, iridescent blue at its center. He wondered how Cellie had achieved that feat, considering that nothing in the vicinity was that peculiar shade of aqua. Then he was struck by the unpleasant scent wafting from the censer near Cellie's place setting. He swayed, momentarily dizzy, and suspected he'd just discovered the use for the mugwort and wormwood Cellie had insisted on hunting that morning.

Grimacing, he hastened to the opposite side of the table, where he found Silver, negotiating plates of half-eaten crab puffs away from the guests who'd smuggled them past Benson. She rolled her eyes for Rafe's benefit, and he smirked, helping her stack plates on a shrouded armchair.

"Why is Fred here?" she whispered anxiously.

"Max invited him."

"Papa?" She quailed. "Papa knows Fred?"

Rafe was careful to keep his own concerns about the budding association to himself. "Max hired Fred. To be Cellie's impresario."

Silver muttered a decidedly unladylike oath. "Next he'll be buying circus elephants and housing them in our stables."

Rafe chuckled, and she shot him a withering glance.

"Will Fred keep your secret?"

Rafe's humor ebbed, and he glared over his shoulder at the man who had so recently made him a cat's-paw. Notorious for upstaging the principle player, Fred was already taking a strategic position beside Cellie's chair.

"I think so," Rafe answered grimly. "For now."

Max strode briskly to his own chair. "Ladies and gentlemen," he boomed in a rousing, ringmaster's voice, "the time has come to take your seats. Madam Celestia has made contact with the spirits, and she says they are close at hand."

Buckholtz sneered, tossing his notebook down and pulling back a chair. "So where
is
Mrs. Cooper? Is she planning on joining us, or are you going to tell us she was abducted by ghosts?"

Max blinked at the newspaperman as if he were daft. "You need some spectacles, Brady? Madam Celestia's sitting right across from you."

Every person in the room gasped. Where there had been no sign of Cellie a moment ago, now she could be seen quite clearly, plumped up on red velvet cushions in her favorite fan-backed chair. Even Buckholtz looked unsettled to see her materialize so dramatically.

"How'd she do that?" Edward Trevelyan demanded in a wavering voice.

"She returned from the world of spirit!" Daisy volunteered.

"Poppycock," Buckholtz muttered, peering suspiciously under the tablecloth.

Fred chuckled. But Silver looked a shade paler.

"Mirrors," Rafe whispered in answer to her silent question. He hoped he looked more confident than he sounded. "It's an old theater trick." And it was. But damn. Cellie had done it unnervingly well.

Max rubbed his hands together. "That's it, that's it. Take your seats, folks," he boomed as Rafe seated Silver and then sat beside her. Max jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "You can see I've put a spiritkeeper behind each one of your chairs. There are twelve of us in all. One for each sign of the zodiac. That was my idea," he added, beaming with pride.

Then he reddened, seeming to remember his role. He cleared his throat.

"Spiritkeepers are sacred to Injuns like Nahele," he continued solemnly. "They're kind of an offering, 'cause we wanted him to feel at home here. Plus, the spiritkeepers will keep our circle safe. We wouldn't want any of you folks going home tonight possessed by demons or such."

"Is that possible?" one green-complected investor asked.

Kilkarney, the leader of the Irish faction, winked at the nervous easterner. "Oh, not to worry, lad. Ye've got more devils here than demons."

Daisy whimpered. Silver tossed her miners a quelling look.

Meanwhile, Max had settled in his chair. "Everybody hold hands, now. You're not allowed to break the spirit circle."

"That's right," Buckholtz said cynically. "We wouldn't want to confuse Madam Celestia. Only the spirits are allowed to rap their answers on, or under, the table."

Kilkarney demonstrated with a stomping boot and a wiseacre's grin. A few nervous giggles circled the table. Cellie at last opened her eyes and stared at the man. Rafe wished he could have seen the look that slowly turned the robust Irishman white. Unfortunately, all Rafe could see was the back of Cellie's purple turban.

With Kilkarney thoroughly cowed, Cellie faced the crystal once more, her gaze focused on its blue glow. Rafe noticed her eyelids glittered with some strange, silvery powder.
The queen of flamboyance,
he thought affectionately, shaking his head at the obscenely large, crescent-shaped moonstone adorning her headdress.

Cellie began rocking. Bracelets jangled as she raised her arms, spreading her hands in a caressing motion over the ball. When she began to mumble, she intoned syllables that, to Rafe's mind, sounded like a bastardized version of the witches' chant from
Macbeth.
He glanced at Fred. Fred winked back in understanding. Rafe tensed. He wasn't entirely sure he liked the Brit's assumption that they were conspirators once more.

Cellie called out in a ringing voice:

Oh shadows biding in the night,

Sweep clear the veil that dulls my sight!

Reveal the secrets yet to be,

Lost wisdom, ancient mysteries!

The mist inside the ball began to spiral, deepening in hue,
shooting flecks of pink and orange into inner space. Impressed, Rafe shot another speculative glance at Cellie. Just how did she do that?

Spirit from the tribes of man

Your presence here I now demand!

Nahele! Come forth and speak!

A tendril of black materialized in the center of the ball, gobbling up the blues and pinks. Lengthening, fanning outward, it rotated clockwise until it slowly righted itself again in the shape of a feather—a
buzzard
feather. Rafe's heart tripped. He knew he wasn't imagining the phenomenon because Silver sat white-lipped and wide-eyed, her fingernails practically drawing blood from his palm. Fred was frowning. Buckholtz was sneering. And Max was wriggling in his seat like an eager five-year-old.

Cellie's brow puckered. The luminescence that crackled inside the sphere was changing color. No longer blue, and far from pink, it swallowed the feather in a whirlpool of muddy hues. Rafe had a sense that the colors were undergoing some kind of struggle, vying for dominance.

"Something's not right here," Cellie muttered.

"Do tell," Buckholtz drawled.

But Cellie ignored him. Frowning in earnest now, she leaned toward the sphere, her features awash in a goose-pimpling crimson. The sides of the ball seemed to ooze with that crimson, and misty droplets whirled in the center. Every blue, brown, orange, pink, and black speck was sucked into that vortex until finally, only blood red remained.

"Much evil plagues a soul here," Cellie intoned, sounding more like doom than a crackpot.

"Who's evil?" Max demanded. "Nahele?"

"I speak not of the Spirit Warrior, but of a flesh-and-blood mortal who would do others wrong."

Guilt burned its way up Rafe's neck.

"Is... is this mortal a danger?" Daisy ventured to ask.

"Only if you believe her," Buckholtz muttered, his gaze fixed accusingly on Cellie.

The newsman's cynicism helped to ease Rafe's dread. Perhaps Cellie really hadn't divined his identity—or worse, the corruption in his soul. In the rounder arena, he supposed he
did
have some competition for a change. Fred was present, after all.

Rafe gazed narrowly at his former partner-in-crime.

Meanwhile, Silver was also wrestling with issues of conscience—mostly, her appalling lack of one. Ever since she'd witnessed firsthand Rafe's devastation at Fred's and Fiona's hands, she'd been wondering how to call off her own scam. She couldn't bear to cause Papa the kind of pain Rafe had felt. And, surprisingly, she couldn't bear to hurt Celestia, either.