Severine glanced at Lisette, who nodded slightly. She was fine, and they would divide and conquer. Clive led her to an older woman.
“Grandmère, it’s Sevie.”
“Severine,” Severine said easily though she had to hide her surprise to meet her grandmother so soon. She had thought by the way Clive had spoken that the old woman was at the big house. She stepped forward and kissed the air next to Grandmère’s face.
“Child,” Grandmère replied. Their gazes met, and Severine was again surprised to see that they had the same color. They both had very dark brown eyes. Oh, Severine realized, they both had the same large cheekbones and the same fox’s jawline. They both had those arching brows.
Severine realized that she may well look like this woman someday. She didn’t quite know what to say. She hadn’t missed Grandmère. For a while, she’d hoped for letters and updates, but what she’d received was a letter probably written by a servant on her birthday and Christmas. Each letter arrived with money that Severine couldn’t spend at the convent.
Severine cleared her throat, pushing away that old frustration, and said, “Grandmère, you look well.”
“Yes, well.” She glanced to the side, and Severine realized her grandmother had been speaking with someone. “Meet Grayson Thorne.”
“How do you do,” Severine said easily. Her gaze moved to the man as he responded politely. She hadn’t been listening beyond his name—he was too young to know about her father—until she heard his voice, or rather, his British accent. It was so entirely unsuspected that she returned her gaze back to him.
There was a question in her eyes and she could see a corresponding one in his as well.
“Mr. Thorne has recently arrived from London. His mother was from near here.”
Severine murmured politely as her grandmother added, “Severine has recently left Austria to come home. She’ll be joining us at the big house.”
Severine kept herself from lifting a brow at that. It was as much a command as it was explanation.
Mr. Thorne’s reply was all that would have been expected of someone with manners and conveyed nothing of his thoughts. Severine smiled slightly and began to survey the room.
“I wasn’t aware,” Severine said easily, “that you shared my parents’ interest in the supernatural.”
The comment was directed to Grandmère and she scoffed. “What did you know? You were a child. Still are.”
Severine didn’t object. She had been raised to respect her elders and though every person who had been in the house was a suspect to Severine, her grandmother was barely on the list. She was the mother of Flora, not Lukas. She had little to expect from the death of her child and her child’s husband, and Severine would like to believe that the cold woman wasn’t quite so gone as to murder her own child.
“Whereabout in Austria did you live?” Mr. Thorne asked.
Severine explained the nunnery that was remote and unheard of. Far up the side of a mountain, surrounded by untouched forests where little had changed in centuries despite the evolution of the world around it.
“Oh, ah,” Mr. Thorne said, struggling and Severine laughed easily.
“Sister Mary Chastity would have something sharp to say about a reaction to being raised by nuns, but it was probably as you expected.”
“Fresh air, long walks, many prayers, and much silence?”
“Good deeds and learning a fair amount of odd little things.”
“I suppose if unusual, it doesn’t sound too awful.”
“I considered staying,” Severine told him simply, conveying the information to her grandmother at the same time. “There is much to be said for such a life.”
“Posh,” Grandmère snapped. “There is far more to be said for family, friends, associations, and what your parents have left you.”
Severine lifted her glass at that and sipped the wine with relish. It was well-made, and Severine had missed it in the last few days. She wasn’t one to drink alone and though the cellars at the New Orleans mansion weren’t empty, she hadn’t imbibed.
“Sevie, how do you feel about seances?” Clive asked. “We intend to have one tonight.”
Severine met the gaze of everyone that watched her carefully, taking her time to answer. “I certainly believe in spirits and the next life.”
It was all the answer that was necessary, which was good because Severine certainly had thoughts upon whether a few worldly scraps arranged with the alphabet and a ‘yes’ and ‘no’ were necessary for the dead to reach out to the living.
Grandmère rearranged their little group as they moved to another room, so that Clive DuNoir was nudged away from Severine’s side. A round table with a red velvet tablecloth stood in the center of the room, which was lit only by candles. A spirit board was placed on the center of the table, a richly made one of dark wood with brass letters.
Severine sat in the chair her grandmother chose for her. It seemed most of the group would only be observing, for there were only enough chairs for a quarter of the attendees. On one side of Severine was Grandmère. On the other was Grayson Thorne. They both knew it had been deliberate, but Mr. Thorne’s only reaction was the slight crinkling of a smile at the corner of his eyes.
She took the time to look at him more fully. His black hair was smoothed back like so many of the men in the room, but it didn’t seem to be as glued to his head as Clive’s was. Mr. Thorne had dark green eyes and the commanding air of someone who was used to his own way and the awareness of someone who was clearly intelligent.
That intelligence animated his features from his eyes, his hands, the cock of his head. All said, he was noticing the world around him and considering it more fully. When she went for another sip of her drink, he whispered low, “There’s more than wine in that glass.”
Severine wished she could be surprised. She only pretended to sip and when she lowered her
