Quicksilver - Amanda Quick [58]
“I’m not sure your mother would approve,” Virginia said gently.
Helen arrived at the table. She looked at Virginia.
“Thank you for sending me word that Elizabeth was safe,” Helen said in a very low voice.
“Certainly,” Virginia said, keeping her own voice just as soft.
Helen looked at Elizabeth. “You gave me a terrible fright.”
“I am so sorry, Mama.” Elizabeth blinked back tears and hastily jumped to her feet.
“Come,” Helen said. “We must go home now.”
“Yes, Mama.”
Helen inclined her head at Virginia. “I am in your debt, Miss Dean.”
“No,” Virginia said. “You’re not. I would have done the same for anyone in your situation.”
“Yes, I believe you would have. Good day, Miss Dean.”
“Lady Mansfield,” Virginia said.
Elizabeth smiled at her. “Good-bye, Miss Dean. I am sorry that I frightened Mama, but I am so happy we got to meet.”
“Good-bye,” Virginia said.
She drank her tea and watched Helen and Elizabeth walk out of the tearoom. Neither of them looked back.
After a while she got up from the table and went upstairs to her small office. She unlocked the door, went inside and sat down behind the desk. She looked around, taking in the client chairs, the filing cabinet and the most recent issues of the Institute’s Journal of Paranormal Investigations.
This was her world, she thought. This was where she belonged. She had a career that was important to her, and she had friends. She did not need her father’s other family.
But it would have been nice to have had a family of her own.
TWENTY-ONE
This was the first time you met your sister?” Owen asked.
“Yes,” Virginia said. “I knew of her, of course. My father told me about Elizabeth when she was born. But I had never even seen her. To be honest, I was shocked today when Lady Mansfield showed up on my doorstep, asking if Elizabeth was with me.”
They were in a carriage headed toward the scene of the second glass-reader murder. It was late enough to allow Virginia to read glasslight accurately.
Owen was not certain what to make of Virginia’s mood. She was composed, but he had the impression that her thoughts were focused on something other than the case.
“Lady Mansfield obviously realized that it was only logical that her daughter would turn to you for answers about her talent,” he said.
“Helen will have to confront the fact that Elizabeth cannot simply pretend she does not see auras. Elizabeth may be able to conceal her talent from her friends and acquaintances, but she can’t deny her ability to herself.”
“No, it is as much a part of her as her other senses. She needs guidance.”
“I suggested to Elizabeth that she consider joining the Arcane Society.”
“Good advice,” he said.
“She wanted to start attending lectures at the Institute. I explained that Arcane did not approve of the organization, due to the high percentage of charlatans associated with it.”
He watched her face in the shadows. “What was it like for you when you came into your talents?”
“I was thirteen. My parents had been killed a few months earlier. I was living at Mrs. Peabody’s School for Young Ladies. I had been seeing shadows off and on in mirrors for some time, but nothing distinct. I will never forget the first time I saw a true afterimage burned into a mirror. My mother had explained to me how her talent worked so I understood what I was perceiving, but it was still a great shock. The images really do look like ghosts and spirits.”
“Where was the mirror?”
“In the school library. The school was housed in a mansion that had been the property of a wealthy family for several generations. Some of the mirrors were very old.”
“You saw something terrible in one of them?”
“Yes. The mirror was at the far end of the library. I had not been comfortable in that room, but until that day I hadn’t understood why. That afternoon I walked past the mirror and felt that sensation of awareness that one sometimes