Mesmerized

Subdued by the other woman’s blond beauty, it took Olivia some time to notice that the widow’s flirtatious comments seemed to fall on deaf ears where Lord St. Leger was concerned. He looked, if anything, bored, and for much of the rest of the dinner, Pamela directed most of her words and glances at Mr. Babington.

Halfway through dinner, the Dowager Countess St. Leger said, smiling, “Madame Valenskaya, I hope we can persuade you to honor us tonight with a sitting.”

Lord St. Leger stiffened and shot a glance at Olivia. She turned interestedly to the Russian woman, who had spent most of the meal silently plowing her way through her food.

Madame Valenskaya paused now and looked at Lady St. Leger. “Da,” she returned in her guttural accent. “It is you who honors me, my lady. But, as you know, spirits are not always, how you say, ready.”

“Of course,” Lady St. Leger agreed eagerly, her face alight with enthusiasm. “But it would be so good of you to try.”

“Da, da. I will try. For you, my lady.”

Lady St. Leger turned to Olivia. “Madame Valenskaya is a gifted medium, my lady. I do not know if you have any experience in such things....”

“I have long been interested in matters of the spiritual world,” Olivia told her pleasantly. “If you are about to hold a séance, I would very much like to join you.”

Lady St. Leger beamed. “That is so good of you, Lady Olivia. It is just splendid. Stephen? I hope you, too, will join us.”

“Of course.” Stephen nodded shortly. “If you wish.”

So it was that, after the meal, the group gathered in the smaller, less formal dining room, grouped around the table. There was an empty chair at the head of the table for Madame Valenskaya, who had excused herself to go to her room to “attune” herself to the spiritual vibrations of “the other side.” Irina, so far so quiet that one would hardly know she was in the room, spoke up to arrange the rest of the seating. She put herself on one side of her mother, Olivia noticed, with Mr. Babington on the other. She put Stephen’s mother next to Babington and Pamela next to herself, with Belinda beyond her and Stephen at the opposite end of the table from Madame Valenskaya. Olivia had little doubt but that Lord St. Leger’s position farthest from the medium was quite deliberate, buffering the medium from him with her followers. Olivia herself was placed opposite Belinda, and between Stephen and his mother.

Madame Valenskaya swept into the room and crossed to the head of the table, hands clasped at her waist and eyes turned downward as if in deep thought. At a look from Lady St. Leger, the attending footman left the room, closing the door after him.

The room was quiet as Valenskaya took her seat. A kerosene lamp sat in the middle of the table, casting a soft circle of light around them. Olivia cast a quick glance around the room. Stephen’s features might have been set in stone, his gray eyes cool and watchful. Lady St. Leger’s face, unlike her son’s, was filled with anticipation. Belinda, too, looked excited, but Pamela’s expression was more bored than anything else. Irina’s face, at the opposite corner from Olivia, was partially in shadows and difficult to read. Babington’s countenance, however, shone with something close to adoration as he gazed at the medium beside him.