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She shoved the list into her skirt pocket. “Was there any other correspondence?”

Mrs. Keenan rolled her eyes. “The usual. More noise about the business in Parliament.”

Bridget’s stomach lurched. “Toss it in the bin.”

“Already did,” Mrs. Keenan spat. “Doesn’t Parliament have better things to do with its time?”

Neither woman needed to read another request for her grandmother’s position on the legislation making its way through the House of Lords. Holding mediums criminally responsible for fraudulent claims meant death for Ashveil Manor, and not the sort of death they could turn into an attraction for the mourning.

Bridget could endure leaving her work at the manor, but being tossed in jail presented an entirely novel worry. “Of course not,” she said, “Men hate nothing more than being outsmarted by a woman.” She brushed the dust from her apron before taking it off. “I’m riding into town for more candles. Do you need anything?”

“Nothing, my dear.” Her pale eyes narrowed. “Are you stopping anywhere else? It’s getting dark earlier now that the solstice has passed.”

Bridget waved away her concern and focused her attention on clearing the remaining dust. How could she explain the lump that formed in her gut every time she took money from true believers?

But whenever she considered admitting the truth, she remembered the hope on their faces. Yes, she lied for a living, but was giving a grieving widow the chance to express her love for the departed one last time truly a sin? Or was she gifting them closure?

Bridget shook her head, forcing herself from the thoughts that kept her up at night, staring at the cracks in the ceiling above her bed. “I won’t be gone long. We have too much to do here.”

“You’d best get to it,” Mrs. Keenan said. “There’s a storm brewing. You never know what it might bring.”

CHAPTER 2

Phineas Cavendish, the seventh Earl of Valebrook, had a headache.

Were he able to identify a single source for the persistent throbbing behind his left eye, he could set about eliminating it. It could be the lack of sleep, or the relentless grinding of his teeth when he managed to drift off.

Or perhaps his head pounded after reading the most recent letter from his mother-in-law—no, his former mother-in-law. In the four years since his wife passed, he’d been unable to determine the proper way to reference the Dowager Viscountess Croxton.

But the most immediate cause was the incessant bumping and rattling from the poorly sprung carriage as it barrelled roughshod along the most inadequately maintained road in Cornwall.

“Good heavens,” muttered Benedict Waverly, the Viscount Redbourne and Phineas’s dearest friend, as they bounced over an especially vicious rut. “Should we ask the coachman to slow down?”

“I doubt he’d listen. He seems as determined to be done with this trip as I am.”

The coachman had collected Phineas and Benedict, bleary-eyed and exhausted from travel, at the train station in Truro earlier that day, promising to deposit them at their destination before night fell. When Phineas insisted they weren’t in a rush, the man had shuddered.

“No good comes from being in Ashveil after dark,” the coachman had mumbled before tossing the men’s valises unceremoniously onto the carriage roof.

Phineas shivered at the memory of the ominous statement. “I appreciate your accompanying me this far,” he said.

“The moment you’re out of this carriage, I’ll be on my way back to Truro. Though I admit, I’m sorry I won’t see this Ashveil Manor, after all I’ve seen written.”

“Don’t tell me you believe in this spiritualist nonsense.”

Benedict shook his head. “Of course not. It’s famous, that’s all, though it had better be spectacular to warrant this assault on my skeletal system.”

As much as Phineas hated to admit it, he too was curious about the manor, but not for the same reason as most people.

“You’re kind to do this for the viscountess,” Benedict said. “Three days in a haunted manor is beyond what I’d do for my wife’s family.”

“The voyage would have been grueling for her.” Phineas shifted in his seat, guilt pressing at his sternum. He’d made that excuse when the viscountess explained her plan to travel to the famed Ashveil Manor, and Phineas had been so frustrated he’d nearly given himself an apoplexy. “She thinks I may commune with Christina’s spirit there.” At Benedict’s questioning look, Phineas shook his head. “It won’t happen. She’s well and truly gone and has been for four years. Besides, I have nothing to say to her.”

Benedict’s nose wrinkled as though perplexed by Phineas’ lack of desire to speak with his deceased spouse. The man was an anomaly, however, madly in love with his wife and gaggle of children. “Why does the viscountess think you’ll have more success in Ashveil?”

“Something about the spirit world being more accessible at the manor.” Phineas delivered this statement with as much disdain as he could manage.

Benedict snorted. “Is it worth traveling all the way from Yorkshire to visit a haunted estate?”