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CHAPTER 1

THE COAST OF CORNWALL, 1879

“You have one job, and you are utterly failing at it.”

Bridget prodded the rear end of the spider with her duster and was met with a fierce, multi-eyed glare.

At least she assumed the spider was glaring. She would be if she were getting poked in the backside.

Yet Bridget pressed on. “You receive lodging and all the insects you can eat in exchange for cobwebs. Big, sticky cobwebs that catch on hair and set the mood, but what do I get?” She threw her arms out to her sides, whipping the duster like a magic wand before pointing it accusingly. “Nothing. You are the cleanest spider I’ve ever met.”

“Are you arguing with the bugs again, Bridget?”

Her exhalation lifted the dust from the table. “Yes, Mrs. Keenan. But technically, it’s an arachnid.”

Despite standing on a footstool at the opposite end of Ashveil Manor’s great hall, she heard the housekeeper’s chuckle. Cleaning the medieval manor was a nuanced dance. Dust and gossamer webs added ambience, and a strategically placed smudge on a mirror could be a ghostly handprint if someone was primed to see the supernatural. And primed, they were.

Believers converged on Ashveil Manor on the jagged, inhospitable Cornish coast to witness such hauntings and paid good money for the experience. For the past two decades, she’d watched from its corners while Europe’s finest witnessed the world-famous mediums Monsieur et Madame Moreau communing with the dead. But with her grandfather deceased and her grandmother traveling as a personal medium to England’s wealthiest clients, Bridget was solely responsible for keeping the manor running, indolent arachnids notwithstanding.

She shoved a lock of perspiration-damp hair off her forehead. “Is it too much to ask for the spiders to earn their keep? We work too hard to tolerate freeloaders.”

“It’s a bug, love. You can’t expect it to pitch in on the chores.”

“It was worth a try,” Bridget mumbled as she continued removing precisely the right amount of accumulated dust. Later she’d write a message—vague enough to be open to interpretation—in the thin layer on the surface of a mirror or a credenza table. A message of warning or love, a scare or a consolation, depending on what her guests desired from the ghost of Ashveil Manor.

Because Bridget was the ghost.

Yes, she was very much alive—and spiteful of that fact every time she was tasked with the housekeeping.

As a girl, she’d crouched with her long, gangly adolescent limbs curled behind a shadowy curtain and practiced the movements of her hands over a crystal ball, perfecting the smooth intonation most likely to summon a spirit. The actions were part of the performance, choreographed and rehearsed like a play. It might be staged, but her grandparents gave closure to the desperate, peace to the frightened, and answers to the curious.

Provided, of course, they could pay the price.

Now, in their absence, Bridget had taken up the proverbial mantle, putting her practice to use. Unfortunately, since her grandparents’ departure, the spirits of Ashveil Manor had given her a wide berth. As though they recognized her for the imposter she was. Thus, her challenge shifted from communing with spirits to faking their presence until her grandmother returned.

“The guest chambers are ready.” Mrs. Keenan appeared at her shoulder and swiped a cloth over the credenza.

Bridget frowned. “You should have asked me to help make the beds,” she said. “I don’t want you to hurt your back again.”

“I was careful. Took me twice as long, but I managed. Besides, it’s a small group this time.” Mrs. Keenan pulled a folded paper from her apron and passed over her notes for the upcoming weekend, along with a stubby length of pencil. “A couple from Shepton Mallet, Mr. and Mrs. Bunton-Talmadge.”

“Do you have any more information on them?” She could work with just their names and what she gleaned from casual conversation, but she liked to be prepared.

The housekeeper made a pish sound. “I will. I have the vicar sending records from the family crypt. They should arrive by courier shortly.”

Bridget grinned. Mrs. Keenan may look like a cuddly granny, but she operated an intelligence network throughout England with the precision and secrecy of a spy for the Crown. “Who else?”

“A pair of sisters from America, Agnes and Pearl Whiting, already devoted spiritualists. They won’t be a bother. And your grandmother sent one of her regulars. The dowager Viscountess Croxton, along with her lady’s maid. The dowager’s daughter, Christina, passed away four years ago. No children.”

“An easy read, then.” Not that Bridget was without empathy for the dowager, but a wealthy woman mourning the loss of her adult child was a veritable gold mine for a medium. Particularly one who lacked actual powers. “Did Mr. Keenan look at the west wall yet? A seance in Grandfather’s study would be delightful.”

The housekeeper’s husband served as the groundskeeper, though the term was generous as the unkempt nature of the landscaping added to the forbidding ambience. “He did. The masonry beneath the turret cracked even more.” The woman’s lined face creased further as she gave Bridget a pitying look. “Seems like a good time to clean out Monsieur’s study, in case…”

She didn’t need to say anything more. A weight settled on Bridget’s shoulders like a lead cloak. The manor had loomed over the black slate cliffs for centuries, but the waves below were relentless, gradually reclaiming the land and sweeping it out to sea. And as the sea encroached, her grandfather’s study, the place where his spirit remained the strongest, would be taken away with it.

Not that Bridget had managed to commune with his spirit. But the scent of cigar smoke clung to the tufted leather chairs, and in the spines of his books and dog-eared copies of The Spiritualist Newspaper. His fingerprints in the dust on his crystal ball and spirit trumpet, his handwriting—a request for a ham sandwich with mustard—on his chalk slate. All untouched, a living monument to the man whose personality seemed too enduring to be snuffed out by something so mundane as a fever.

With his death two years ago, Bridget’s grandmother had abandoned her responsibilities at the manor, leaving Bridget alone with a house full of spirits, a list of guests desperate for spiritual guidance, and no means of satisfying either of them. She had her wits and a lifetime of watching her grandparents summon, and if she couldn’t deliver the real thing, she could fake a good enough approximation. As long as her conscience didn’t get in the way, she could continue the ruse…